//------------------------------// // Prologue: Embark, Trixie // Story: Birds of a Feather // by Kishin //------------------------------// Trixie Lulamoon had been labeled many things in her lifetime. A talentless hack. An egotistical megalomaniac. A monster... But the title that really made her heart bleed, her breathing instinctively freeze, make every mental process halt, was not based on the opinions of others, but on the personal opinion of herself. And a promise she made...to her first true friend. 'The Great and Apologetic Trixie?' 'The most magnificent humble pony', huh? What a load of horseapples. You'll never be what you promise to be, Trixie. Don't lie to yourself. Don't lie to your....friends. Let's just say that reactions she experience of her arrivals while traveling across Equestria have been incredibly more penitent than anything she's experienced before, and far from her expectations of optimistic success. The thing about all living beings, no matter how much they spout about 'forgive and forget', or how 'the past doesn't matter, but your actions do', that they can never truly believe they're own words. Their mental hardware just can't connect "acceptance" with "forgiveness". And it didn't help she had attempted to enslave the Elements of Harmony to do her bidding a couple of days earlier, even if she was possessed by a magic amulet beyond her control. Trixie couldn't blame them for thinking badly of her. She wouldn't even forgive herself. So she had a plan, that if she couldn't make things right, she would at least disappear. Live a quiet life in a distant land where "The Great and Powerful Trixie" is nothing more than a stranger, with a ridiculously narcissistic title. Some place that she can escape from the persecution of it all from her past actions. And Trottingham, a virtual industrial city on an island, was nearly perfect. It was secluded, and she had heard rumors that they needed plenty of unicorns to operate machinery, or perform in the entertainment industry....no, not THAT sort of entertainment. The plan was nearly perfect. And it was also a plan that she had almost regretted spending some of her last bits on. As Trottingham was basically secluded by thousands of miles of the Pollcific Ocean, boat travel would have to be the easiest and cheapest form of transportation available, as the new 'airship' (she believed they were called) imports from Gryphia were quite...on the pricey side. Here was the main problem she had. She hated boats, and became sea-sick very easily, to the point even sleeping was difficult. The constant rocking back-and-forth drove her insane, and the food was horrid. Pinecones and raw potatoes? Blegh! It didn't matter anyway. All the food Trixie ate would almost always end up as ballast off the ship's bow from the agitated digestive system of a green-faced, sick-to-the-stomach former magician. Trixie hoped that things got better. They had to. Weren't there such things as second chances in the world? Three days. The Celestia-forsaken boat ride had finally reached land after a trio of miserable, nausea-plagued days of barely any exposure to sun-rises and moon-exposure. Trixie missed staring at the beauty of the stars. They reminded her that even the most neglected and unobserved objects in the universe could redeem themselves. After Trixie had rushed onto the docks with a sheer emotional joy of being given the chance to walk on land and the dirt she had grown to depend and love (well...not exactly), she gathered her luggage, and quickly escaped the torture establishment that was the Trottingham Dockyards. Soon she was overwhelmed by the utter size and industrial development that was the island behemoth of Trottingham. The boundaries of Trottingham's urban sprawl, or lack there of, started at the farthest road and unraveled into the epicenter of the business and leisure districts. The lights, the sounds of thousands of carriages on the roads and boulevards, the skyscrapers, and the billowing smoke from the nearby industry radiated around Trixie, who could only stand and gawk at such a sight. Nothing she had seen before, not even the medieval grandeur could compare to the sight of the 'big city'. Her grumbling stomach, however, interrupted her near-hypnotized trance. It ridiculed her that she was, in laypony's terms, she was homeless, jobless, and isolated from everypony around her. Isn't there a hotel around here? An apartment complex maybe? Or maybe even pub, if the price is right, Trixie desperately thought. She proceeded to heave her luggage and her hurt pride away from the alien world of skyscrapers and industry, towards the more modest structures and districts. Where all the normal ponies existed in their pitiful realm. Trixie found it funny that she used to think like that. As if everypony around her was absolutely below her. As if she would never hit rock bottom, like all the others. And look at her now. Eventually, after a wasted evening of comparing prices, Trixie had finally found an moderate sized apartment complex above a bar. A five by five hooflength room could have constituted within the boundaries of her standards for moderate sized, so this was quite luxurious for her. She looked around the empty space. There was a kitchen/dining room, bathroom, and the living room would have to be adapted as a bedroom also. Pragmatic. Functional. Dirt-poor. Blandly colored. Abused to the point the brick walling was exposed behind the thin layer of plaster and paint on the walls. Trixie couldn't take the sight any longer. She left her luggage, the last remainders of who she used to be, and who she never wanted to become again, in the room and exited the apartment. She locked the door behind her, magically lifting her incredibly light bit-bag, and trussed down the hall and down the fire escape. She found it silly that she had to clumsily use, and fall off, the ladder on her floor into the dumpster below, but she was horribly lost and couldn't find the stairs that she had used to get up to the apartment. All signs that pointed to the form of arriving at certain floors, an 'elevator' she believed the sign called them, only directed her to large indents in the wall, covered by metal grating with a panel of buttons and levers next to them. Infuriated that she couldn't operate the machinery, she adapted cleverly and arrived where she was now: The dumpster. Feeling depressed and quite parched (landing in a giant metal bin full of otherpony's waste and being pierced by awkward stares by the local hobos was quite exhausting), Trixie trotted into the bar below the apartment complex (she believed it was called the "Dead End") smelling like trash, and asked for a shot of Applejack Daniels. Trixie laughed dourly that the title of the bar actually fit the type of customers that it got! Oh Celestia this is going to be a long night. She steadily plopped onto a bar stool, and rose the received glass, filled with golden ambrosia harvested from fermented apples, with her magic. Here's to new beginnings. She downed in a quick swig. She felt a tear course down her face. It wasn't from the stinging of the distilled alcohol. She was sure of it. She realized that it was only a result of a few stray emotions escaping from her conscience. It was preparation for the days to come, and sorrow in realization that her new life was probably never going to meet up to her old expectations ever again. But maybe, she thought, things will be different. There was always that gleaming light of hope at the end of the dark tunnel, a flash during the darkest of days, that things will be alright. Yeah. Right. "Bartender!" Trixie coughed, as she slapped down two bits on the counter. "Another, please!"