//------------------------------//
// Rough Times Ahead 
// Story: Inner Demons: To Rise Again 
// by Lenora Goff 
//------------------------------//

A few moments later, as one would expect, the lights went out. The show couldn’t start without it, of course. That didn’t stop it from causing Trixie to almost jump, as if she hadn’t realized what was going to happen. It had to be her nerves. She was a mare who saw a lot of things, including an Ursa Minor recently, which probably shocked her recent employer if she could really see what had happened. There was actually a hope that she wouldn’t have seen it, the showmare didn’t like looking like this.

It was visible enough to the employer, though.

The reason why she had been startled was obvious to anypony who knew Trixie. She saw many things that she had known were coming, she always made sure that she wasn’t caught off guard. This entire scenario was something that didn’t make any sense to her. That, by itself, was enough to put her on edge. There was also something about this mare, something that azure mare had to fight down to keep her from just calling this job off and retreating with what seemed to be all due haste.

Finally, the moment that the two of them had been waiting for, the show.

The show opened up to a stage, a very elegant looking one. It was large, made of treated oak. Everything looked set up to where there would be some sort of great show. At the point when the film started to show, though, it was empty.

It seemed strangely familiar. This wasn’t the one that she had, it seemed as if the pony who had put this together spent much more money than she had for any of the shows that were outside. Trixie hadn’t been poor, not by any stretch of the imagination, but there wasn’t much of a need for a grand stage when she was going to make sure that the focus was on her. A shake of her head, she knew she had to focus on what was going to happen.

This was her job, after all.

But why was an empty stage being shown?

The video cut out, after showing the beautiful stage. When it came back, it was once again showing that same beautiful stage. This time, though, the stage wasn’t empty. There were all sorts of amazing things on it. There was a showmare, who looked amazingly like her employer. The only difference was that she looked younger, easily ten years younger.

Okay, it was getting weird.

There were a lot of showmares out there, right? Trixie took a deep breath in, let it out, and tried to focus all of her attention on the show that was coming next. This looked as though it was going to be nothing more than the azure mare being shown an act. Perhaps it was even an attempt to show that she wanted the Great and Powerful Trixie to perform for a crowd. It would be a great way for her old career to bloom again, to have the patronage of one of the rich ponies of Canterlot. That didn’t make any sense, though, given the fact that there was already a mare on stage.

Did she want Trixie to help some other pony shine?

Along with the showmare, there were some props. There was a box, the type that helped with the basic trick of sawing a pony in half. Off to the side, nearly completely behind the curtain, there was a glass tank. It was clear, filled with water.

It was starting to seem like this wasn’t just any show. Trixie wasn’t an idiot, there was a reason why she stuck with what she did. These were the efforts of somepony who knew what she was doing, who was sure enough to put her own life on the line. If something went wrong with one of these tricks, there wouldn’t be a repeat performance. There were some tricks that she would never do. This fact alone made the job less obvious than it had been a few moments prior. She had thought that she was finally coming up with something that it could have been.

Now she was back to the first step of the puzzle.

The crowd that formed around the stage was rather large, easily fifty ponies from what seemed to be a small town. It seemed as though they had come to see somepony who had made a name for themselves.

It had to be the last trick.

Trixie had seen several attempts to make it seem as though you were sawing a pony in half. It was actually one of the most simple tricks. When you started to saw, the pony would pull their hind legs back into the first section. Afterwards, a pair of fake legs would be poking out of the other one. It would look as though you sawed them in half. 

Afterward, it was even more simple. You put the two halves, the pieces of the prop. The small piece that helped hide the whole pony moved, the real pony moved their legs back. Everypony would cheer, they were amused by the fact that it looked as though the pony had accomplished something spectacular. It wasn’t anything amazing, though it did always get cheers because it looked amazing. That was something that she could admire, encourage even. This was the type of thing that had gotten her so many cheers in the past.

When the first trick was done, it wasn’t anything spectacular. It had been the most simple thing, cutting a mare in half. It worked perfectly, not a single thing going wrong. The trick was made for the easy crowd. This didn’t stop the applause that came from when it was completed, though. It was almost as if the ponies didn’t care about the sort of tricks that were done they just needed something mindless to keep their minds occupied.

This looked like a crowd that Trixie would have gone after. It wasn’t a crowd with a lot of magical ponies, not a single unicorn was seen from the audience. She assumed, despite the hat, that the person who was doing the tricks had to be a unicorn. There wasn’t much that an earth pony could do when it came to this, much like she knew that she wasn’t going to go out and start harvesting fruits or vegetables anytime soon.

Next came a fan-pleaser, or more accurately another one.

The performer called out to the audience, beckoning forth a seemingly unknown pony. When they got up to the stage, a pack of cards were pulled out. This was obviously one of the many tricks that the average unicorn frowned upon.

“Go ahead, pick a card.” She beckoned to the mare.

When a card was picked, observing eyes looked at the back. It was placed into the deck again, and the cards were shuffled. Not just once, actually, the cards seemed to be shuffled a few times until she put the deck down on the table. Eyes looked into that of her temporary assistant, the intense stare as she stared the other mare’s eyes. A hoof moved, and then a card was shown to everyone.

“Wow, how’d ya know?” It sounded as though the mare in question didn’t know what had just happened, clear shock from the trick.

“A good magician never reveals her secrets.”

It was pretty obvious to Trixie what had happened.

When a pony wants to find a card, they generally make every one different. This could be a subtle feeling, literally removing a small piece of a card, or something more visible. A dot on each card wouldn’t be noticed by any other pony, but simply studying it yourself was enough to make sure that you knew. Trixie had learned that when she had gone around making sure that everyone knew who the truly Great and Powerful pony was.

That was something she really wanted to forget.

When her assistant went back, standing back outside, the third trick finally began. It was a small show, obviously, but the finale was going to be one of the things that kept her name going. This was the type of thing that was going to make sure that everypony knew her name, that they wanted to come to her next show and the one after that.

This was the type of thing that made everything completely fun.

A couple of ponies came, and helped her into restraints. It didn’t make much sense, until she cleared her throat to explain what she was going to do. Everypony suddenly quieted, as if these next few words were going to be some great wisdom that would help them figure out the meaning of life.

“You might wonder why these ponies restrained me, and why they are bringing out the tank of water.” A smile was on her face, as if this little speech had happened a thousand times before. Whether it had or not, that was something that would never be known. “I am going to be submerged into this tank. I will get out of the restraints. Afterwards, I will get up to the top and I will get out.”

The cheering was amazingly loud, even with the size of the crowd. This was a performance to see, it was something that wasn’t done by the average performer. None of them had seen anything like it before.

There was, at least to Trixie, no way that she could die. The mare wouldn’t show a presentation of somepony dying, unless they expected for her to do something along the lines of that trick. Of course, she would have to turn down that sort of trick. She did a lot of things for money, but actually putting her life on the line was something that was above and beyond anything that could be considered reasonable. The only way that she knew she could do that was with unicorn magic, and there wouldn’t be any spectacle from actually using unicorn magic. 

Perhaps that was why very few unicorns actually did this sort of trick.

Within a minute of the cheering dying down, the restrained mare was dropped into tank. Anypony who had been watching would see that she had taken a breath, but that was expected from a pony that was going to be going underwater. Nopony even murmured about it, they knew that even a breath would only be able to get her so far. The clock was ticking, she only had so much time before she would likely let out the breath and try to get another.

If she wasn’t out by then, she would have to be pulled out.

Thirty seconds rolled by, there wasn’t much sign that she would get out. When she had been put in there, the total number of restraints was five. One of them had restrained her fore legs together, and one had restrained her hind legs together. The third restrained those two restraints together, something that seemed to be almost overkill to everypony who was watching. The final restraints were one for each of her hind legs to the tank itself.

After thirty seconds, only one of them was gone.

The amazing thing happened within the next thirty seconds, though. A second, third, and fourth one had dropped. Ten seconds after that, the fifth had dropped and she was swimming to the top of the tank. She forced it open, which hadn’t been hard as that hadn’t been locked, and jumped out of it. It had only taken her a little over a minute to do something that some ponies couldn’t do into two.

Then again, two minutes was the high point of some pony’s ability to actually hold their breath.

This was something astounding.

It had been obvious that she wouldn’t die, but even Trixie hadn’t thought it would be that good. She didn't think that anypony could perform that so quickly, so easily. Throughout the recording, the showmare had been trying to get any view of something wrong. Had there been a key that flashed? Had the locks looked as though they hadn’t been secured? Was there something that made them unlock at a certain time? She was sure she would have seen something like that.

None of those had been seen.

Okay, so perhaps Trixie didn’t need to help this mare out. It would have been great to be some help, but it didn’t look as though this mare needed any help. Of course, that still begged the question as to why she was watching this. Another question that was showing up in her mind, more and more, was the question of who this was. With each of the tricks, even though there had been only three, this performer seemed to be a lot more recognizable. There was something about her that made the azure showmare think that she might have seen her somewhere before.

Where, though, was a question that would likely elude her until it was pointed out. Trixie normally had such a fine memory, but names of her fellow performers sometimes ended up being dropped.

The movie moved from that show, though not before showing that there had been plenty of applause from an audience that loved her work. It also showed a grateful smile, as if part of her joy came from making sure that the ponies enjoyed the presentation that had been put on. 

The next stage was the same, everything from the size to the color.

This town looked as though it was larger, and more ponies had shown up. There could easily have been a hundred ponies there. It actually looked a lot like Trottingham, the houses had the particular style that gave away the city’s quant charm.

Now it was getting frustrating.

The audience size was one that Trixie would have given some other pony’s left hind leg for. Why another pony’s? She needed her own for her shows, she could hardly give up something that brought so much joy to everypony. There was something else about this that was frustrating, though, in the fact that it looked so familiar. She couldn’t quite place her hoof on it, but there was something about this that struck her as something she should know about.

The stage, the mare, the town, everything about it looked familiar enough that she was wanting to know more details. Part of her assumed that it was just a simple mistake. Trixie had gone from town to town, had seen so many performers. She had actually ruined a few careers in her day, fakes who couldn’t hold a candle to the Great and Powerful Trixie. That wasn’t as important today, though, when the show that was going on was one on a projector.

And it wasn’t about her in the slightest.

All of the expected props were there, even the tank.

With so few tricks, Trixie would normally yawn right here. She had seen them all be done before. The only thing that really captivated her attention was the tank full of water. That was the only thing that really had any value to it.

The rest was cheap trickery.

First came the cards, something that hadn’t been done first last time. A person was called from the audience, one of them that hadn’t had her hoof raised. This wasn’t some earth pony, or pegasus, this was a unicorn. This wasn’t just any unicorn, this was an azure unicorn with a cape and a hat.

At this point, Trixie’s mouth went wide.

That looked so much like her, yet she hadn’t been able to remember. Was it an illusion? Of course it likely wasn’t, that would have taken a lot of effort to do. There wasn’t any reason for it to be done, either. Trixie had been famous, but that fame would have likely taken away from what was being done on stage. At that point, her extreme confidence would have likely done something to upset the show.

Trixie would not say that she was focused too much on herself.

The first trick was always the easiest. 

Trixie picked up a card, using her hoof instead of magic, and a slight glow beneath her hat was barely visible.

Okay, this was getting weird.

If she didn’t know what to look for with the horn, something she had been looking for the entire time with the other performer, she wouldn’t have known that this had happened. The amazing thing was that Trixie hadn’t seen a single glow of a horn from the performer, nor had she seen the hat come off. It had even stayed glued to her head, with any luck that was metaphorical, when she had gone underwater. Of course, there could have been a strap that she didn’t see, a small thing that kept it from moving.

Even then, there would be something to see from a display of magic.

The card was put back into place, and the deck was shuffled. It wasn’t just shuffled once, just like the other time it had been shuffled a few times. It was expected that it would happen a few more times, and she would pull out the right card. A look of surprise went onto her face, though, as the performer kept shuffling the cards. The shock changed to a fear, almost as if she had just lost her place. Four minutes went by, before there was something that came from the crowd.

A few ponies yawned.

This was the type of thing that she knew could break a performance. If the audience was bored, they might leave. They might demand a refund, then leave. They might make sure that no ponies ever go to a show again. An unhappy audience won’t be an audience for long, and a bored audience will become unhappy rather quick. 

The look of fear was replaced by panic, and quickly a card was pulled.

“Actually, the Great and Powerful Trixie had grabbed this one.” Another small glow, and a hoof moved behind the performer’s ear. The card was pulled out from behind her head, much to the dismay of everyone involved.

“My lovely assistant, everyone. Proving that, sometimes, tricks don’t always go as expected...”

A good performer could always cover up these things, or at least try. The audience seemed to buy the idea that this had been expected, nay planned, and just started to applaud. The look of disgust on Trixie’s face was clear, but she walked back into the crowd and let the performer have her day. Of course, the performer would likely never call on that unicorn again.

The second trick was the easy one, sawing a pony in half.

Another assistant came on stage, this time it was one of her own, and got ready for the display. This wasn’t actually going to be amazing, but it was certainly going to get some cheers. This assistant looked to be the same one from the last one, which made perfect sense. One pair of fake hind legs would always look like her own. The audience seemed to be wowed by her last time, anyway.

This time, they would be wowed a little less so.

From the edge of the shot, a small glow was seen. This was likely some sort of problem with the projector. Magic was being perfected, but the technology didn’t seem to have that same focus. The show was going perfectly, though, until the performer started to saw the box in half. This was, of course, just fake. There was no real danger in the mare getting cut in half. Yet there was a shrill scream, almost as if she had been cut with the saw.

A couple of drops of blood were seen on the saw as it was lifted up.

A look of sheer horror was on her face. The performer hadn’t seen this coming, neither had the assistant. None of the audience knew that this wasn’t staged, at least not until the reaction from the performer made it obvious. A few of them started to try to get onstage, trying to do anything they could do to help. 

Smoke soon covered the stage, and when it dissipated the woman was gone. The final act was on the stage.

It was obvious that she wanted to save her show.

“Worry not, my lovely audience, t-that was just buildup to my final trick. After all..” It was obvious that she couldn’t spin the truth to make her look better. She was starting to panic. “Okay, so I’m not perfect. But worry not, this is the thing that will show you all everything that I can do.” 

This time, there were an additional two restraints that were thrown on for good measure. Both of her fore legs were actually restrained to their corresponding hind leg. It was almost as if she was making up for the previous failures with the most spectacular show.

Trixie was almost ready to cry.

What had happened? To her knowledge, that should have been the most simply of tricks. This last one, though, was going to make or break the show. This last one might make or break the mare that was trying to salvage the rest of her career. Was that something that made the two of them similar? Another question came to mind, and it came in the form of wondering if this was the reason why Trixie had been called in at all.

If a reputation was ruined, then she might actually be the one to help.

Then again, it was coming back to her that she might not be the right pony for that particular job. Trixie was starting to remember this day, and it didn’t seem like it was going to be one of them that ended very well. If she remembered right, this show would have one of the worst endings that a show could possibly have.

With all of the restraints, the mare was dropped into the tank. 

This time, the top was locked from the inside.

A whole minute passed, very quickly, with only a single lock being removed. There was something different about this trick, as if it wasn’t quite as planned as the others. Anypony who saw her expression would see a small look of panic. The show continued, though, with her continuing to try to find a way out of it. With only one getting taken off in a minute, things weren’t looking good.

But nopony would go into something they weren’t sure of.

Two minutes passed by, and now there were three that had been removed. This was almost the halfway point, though the fact that it had taken two minutes was something that definitely wasn’t planned. Why would she had done the first in only a minute and then this long to take off fewer restraints? The fact that there were more overall didn’t bode well for her, though the audience was sure that she would be able to do something about all of them.

This had to be for show.

Three minutes passed, and the moves had been panicking for the last minute. Her attempts to remove the others seemed to be quick, but at the same time less focused. Another couple of them got removed, however, mostly seeming to be removed by sheer force. The finesse seemed to have left somewhere around two and half minutes. 

Everything was becoming sluggish as time when on. When four minutes came, and passed, there were still two more to go. The precise became the imprecise, the elegant became the brutish. She was trying to get out of there. Even if she got the last two off, there was still the final lock that would have to be removed from the top.

Still, the audience assumed the best.

It was five minutes when she had finally gotten the last removed.

It was also five minutes when she floated to the top, her movements ceasing.

Three ponies, earth ponies, quickly came running on stage. Even with their combined strength, it took another thirty seconds to actually get the tank to break completely. All of the water went rushing out, as did the unconscious mare. With that, the show turned black. The final scene was one of panic, where everypony was doing their best to try to save their fallen idol. Everypony seemed to think that she might have died.

“She didn’t make it, you know.”

The lights came back on, and another pony was standing behind her. The employer had turned on the lights. Who was this?

“Don’t bother turning around, he will kill you.” The mare continued on, a smile on her face. It seemed as though this was going to be her death. Trixie hadn’t expected it to end this way, a crazed mare killing her for no reason. “I’d love to have him stab you in the back, to end your miserable life, but that isn’t how we’re going to play this game. I’m going to have you die in the same way that you killed my little girl...”

Then it clicked.

“I didn’t k-”

“SHUT UP! If it hadn’t been for you, meek and powerless Trixie, she wouldn’t have gotten flustered.” The mare motioned with her fore leg, and the azure showmare could feel that the knife had been stabbed a few centimeters into her right fore leg. “What was it? You couldn’t stand another pony getting any recognition? Do you just love making sure that everypony around you feels worse about themselves? She did this for fun, and you had to ruin her to the point that she messed up and died.”

That time, it hurt.

Trixie knew that she couldn’t do the same trick that the mare in the video had failed at. Not only was this not her type of trick, but normally a pony would practice the trick. Then you got into the wound on her right fore leg. All of those added up to the one thing that was certainly not on the list of pleasant things.

Trixie would die.

At the very least, I have some time to think of something. There isn’t a tank in this room, which means I have to be taken into another. 

Eyes scanned for anything that could be used to help facilitate her escape. There were books, there was a projector, there was an angry mare that wanted her to die by drowning, and there was a pony with a knife.

Wait, there were books.

A couple of books went flying to hit the pony, though the knife stabbed at her as soon as they landed a blow. This time, the stab didn’t connect fully, it was merely a cut that was starting to drop blood. Trixie would have to rush out of there, though, with the two wounds. Mouth moved to grab the bag, this whole thing would have been worthless if she didn’t get out of there with something other than her life, and then she charged at the exit.

Surprisingly enough, a unicorn horn is indeed sharp enough to hurt somepony.

It would have been so bad, and warranted, if the cut had been into the crazed mare. Trixie was the one who felt it stab into her side as she passed the mare, though that didn’t really stop her either. There was no time to be in pain, adrenaline was pushing her to rush out the door and toward the nearest hospital. A moderate wound on one fore leg, a small one on another, and the stab into her side. It was almost as if the mare had given up on the elaborate revenge, merely going for something more direct.

Luckily for Trixie, that had failed.

Perhaps failed had been a little too grand of a term. Trixie was bleeding, which was definitely not a good thing, and she was still rushing to try to get out of the mansion. The only thing that gave her any comfort, a feeling that was in short supply, was that there shouldn’t be anything that would be able to stop her from leaving. If there was even a single thing, that might be the difference between her escape and the insane mare’s revenge being fulfilled.

Luckily, she got out.

Unluckily for her, she had been bleeding the entire time. One fifth of a mile, full force galloping, and then she dropped like a rock. Trixie hadn’t even noticed that she had been splashing more blood with each passing moment. Perhaps it had been the fact that she had been charging, and that had led to the muscles contracting and more blood spurting out. Either way, her vision left her as she began to wonder about one final thing.

Was this what she wanted to leave behind? Nopony cared about her these days, nopony cared whether she lived or died. Perhaps it was karma, payback for everything that she had done in her own life. Perhaps this was it, a deserving death for one who had actually caused the death of another pony. It hadn’t been her intent, but it had happened regardless. 

With that, she was out.

”Is this heaven?”

Eyes looked around, the entire landscape was beautiful. There were trees, beautiful and perfect. The grass was waving in the wind. All of this was just plain perfect. She saw apples, growing on the trees around her. Her horn lit up, one of them coming down to be caught by her hoof. When she took a bite, it might have been the most wonderful thing she had ever eaten. It was certainly the greatest apple she had ever eaten.

It wasn’t as if that was a low bar, either.

If that was the only thing that was good about this place, though, it would have been alright. Everything seemed to be coming together. The slight breeze, the sunset that made the entire skyline a gorgeous orange. When she finally looked away from the trees, she saw a stage. It was a mix of both her own and the one of the other mare, though for the moment she was merely thinking of the fact that she could enjoy herself while maybe doing a few shows.

There might not be many out here at that point, but there might be more eventually.

A smile was on her face, she slowly trotted up to the stage. 

Almost an hour passed with her doing basic tricks. There was a glow of a horn, and flowers appeared in a poof of smoke. When she wanted to pull a rabbit out of a hat, both the rabbit and the hat just seemed to be there. It seemed strange at first, but that thought was soon cast aside. These weren’t the most spectacular tricks, they weren’t likely to get her standing ovations. Nopony would likely care about these things, regardless of how flashy she made it.

At the same time, though, she didn’t care. Trixie was having fun, and nopony could stop her.

Another hour passed, and another soon left afterward. It must have seemed strange to see her just performing these small tricks, at least if there was anypony there. That was another thing that was strange. Trixie didn’t even notice that there wasn’t anypony there, or was actively ignoring the fact. It was almost as if she was trapped in her own little world, as if her own fun was far more important than what anypony else thought.

After about three hours, though, Trixie just stretched and went to sleep.

“Get off the stage! We didn’t come here to watch somepony sleep!” 

It was strange to awaken to this. Trixie couldn’t remember the last time something like this had happened. Had it happened before? She looked at the crowd, there were twenty or more ponies waiting for something to happen. They hadn’t been there when she had gone to sleep, she would have noticed them. If there were ponies there now, though, then that meant that she had to do something.

They would enjoy her tricks, she just knew it.

Trixie started off with something basic. The audience didn’t seem to notice, just as she hadn’t, that the things she needed to do her tricks were just there. They weren’t there before, but that wasn’t important. First, there was the simple trick with a hat. This time, though, a rabbit wasn’t pulled out. That would have been a little more mundane than she was going to show the audience. A hoof reached into the hat, and when she pulled it out there was an animal that nopony expected.

Who expected a lion to pop out of a hat?

Everypony started to cheer. 

Trixie bowed, loving every moment of what was happening. This wasn’t the last thing she did, however. An audience member was called up next, and a pack of cards was used to perform another basic trick. When she guessed the card right, which wasn’t actually much of a guess, everypony cheered again. It was almost as if they didn’t care about what was done, as long as she was enthusiastic about doing it. There was probably a lesson to be learned from all of this, but she was too busy having the time of her life. It was certainly better than the previous month had been, anyway.

After an hour passed by, something changed.

It started off with a normal trick, sawing a mare in half. When she looked out into the crowd, they seemed to be waiting for what they probably knew would happen. Trixie had an assistant, who once again appeared from nowhere, and started the trick. It was beautiful, everything was going perfectly. When she was about to make the cut, however, something changed.

There was a glow of a horn in the audience, and there was a scream of pain as she cut into her assistant.

A look of complete shock appeared on her face. Trixie knew this trick, there shouldn’t have been any trouble with it. She had no clue how she could have gotten this wrong. Did she stop quick enough to prevent this mistake from being fatal? It would be absolutely horrible, bordering on the worst thing she had ever done, if this was going to turn into her killing somepony. Eyes scanned the crowd, trying to find a doctor.

When she looked back at the assistant, she was gone.

“Well, well, well.” 

A familiar voice pierced the audience. The look of shock didn’t leave Trixie’s face as the mare walked up. How could Trixie be standing on stage and be walking up to the stage? Was this double merely an illusion? That made perfect sense, as everypony seemed to have the act as though this was normal.

This most certainly wasn’t heaven.

“It looks as though we have another phony.”

What? But how? Why? There had been a time when that had been her way, when pointing out that others were fake was something she did. Those times were behind her now, right? Was this her punishment for everything that had been caused by her actions? Trixie had to stop herself from looking afraid. Why was this dopple-ganger calling her a phony?

“You can’t even perform a simple trick. That, truly, is pathetic.”

Each word hurt, more than she would have thought words could hurt. Perhaps it was the fact that everypony else was starting to join in. She could hear them, mocking her. Ponies who had, mere minutes before cheered her, were now laughing. That word, phony, started to be repeated again and again. Each time, it started to sound as though there was another Trixie there.

It didn’t take long before it was a chorus of Trixies.

The laughter, the taunting, it kept getting louder. What had she done to make them so mad? It was worse than Ponyville, and that had been something that could have been considered the low point up until now. Hadn’t Trixie suffered enough there? Hadn’t Hoofington been enough of a double-dose of horrid things?

Apparently not, even her afterlife seemed to be filled with these sorts of things.

“You really are an idiot.” 

This voice wasn’t the voice of the crowd, it was another familiar voice. This voice was that of a mare who had died before, the mare whose death could be laid at her hooves. Trixie cowered, both away from the crowd and from the newest pony who had joined them. She didn’t want to have to deal with any of this. Part of her wanted to close her eyes, to hope that something as simple as that would cause everyone to disappear.

Everything had to go back to where it could be.

“What are you doing here?”

Why was that mare asking Trixie why she was there? She didn’t make the choice to be there, she simply was. Eyes looked up, questioningly, at the mare. What could she possibly mean by that? When she looked, though, she noticed that the mare was almost crying.

“I should hate you, but I can’t.”

What did she mean?

“I forgive you.”

Forgive her? That didn’t make any sense at all. Trixie knew what she had done, and her punishment wasn’t being forgiven. Her punishment had actually been death. 

Forgiveness was slightly worthless, actually.

“It isn’t your time to be here. Wake up.”

Eyes fluttered open, and Trixie was laying in a hospital bed. 

That didn’t make any sense, she knew that she had died. She had to have died. How could she have survived? Trixie could remember the wounds, the pain, passing out in the middle of Canterlot. She remembered every vivid detail, and she remembered what she could only assume was something of an afterlife.

Or not, she was still trying to piece that one together.

A stallion peeked into the door, and then practically fell in. 

“Well, well, that was unexpected.” The doctor started, walking toward her bed. A chart floated up, and the stallion started to glance at it. “You lost a lot of blood there.  Nopony here knew if you’d survive, though a few minutes later would have definitely sealed your fate.” But how had she gotten there? There was, really, only one way to find out.

“And how did I get here?”

“Don’t you remember?” The doctor then facehoofed, as if he had just realized how stupid that question just sounded. “Fancy Pants apparently found you, and had you brought here.” Eyes looked at the surprised mare, then he chuckled. “It’s a good thing it was him, too. After the time you spent here, it’s isn’t going to be cheap.”

She was alive, she wasn’t in massively paralyzing debt. There was a feeling that she had to get out of there, though. That mare had almost killed her, and she was rich enough to try again. Nopony would likely care if Trixie died. There was something else, though. She had determined that it had to be some sort of dream, now that she knew she was alive, but her mind had obviously been trying to tell her something. Her mind was obviously trying to make sure that she did something, and that something would likely not involve Canterlot.

It all went back to that thought, right before she thought she was going to die.

Was this what she was going to leave behind?

“So, how long do I have to be in here, Doc?”

“By tomorrow, you should be able to leave.”

That day couldn’t end quick enough, she wanted to take the slim amount of money that she had left and find a way to get out of there. There was no destination planned, not yet, but that didn’t matter. Trixie had to take that first step.