//------------------------------//
// Chapter One: The Offer 
// Story: A Pony To Show The Way 
// by HyperPegasister 
//------------------------------//

	As the sun grew heavy and begun to fall under the horizon, a certain azure unicorn stood at the door of Twilight Sparkle’s home. Ever since Twilight accepted her apology for what she did to  Ponyville, she had become friends with Trixie Lulamoon. Twilight was helping her earn her reputation back, and had invited her over to the library for “business reasons”. 
At first Trixie was hesitant to knock the library door, but thought, Oh come on Trixie, what is there to be afraid of? Twilight will not do anything bad to you, this will probably only take a few minutes. Confidence assured, she reached out and knocked. 			  
After a few moments of silence, Twilight opened the door, with two alicorn mares at her side.
“Hi Trixie, this is Princess Luna and Princess Celestia. Come in and get acquainted.”
This was going to be a long night, wasn’t it?
*    *    *    *    * 
Okay, don’t panic, Trixie thought as she walked inside. Sure, the RULERS OF EQUESTRIA are here, possibly to banish me for using the black magic of the Alicorn Amulet, but panicking will only make them more suspicious.
“You see Trixie, my mentor, Princess Celestia, has helped me develop much of my magic abilities, as well as showed me ways to put them to good use.”
Even now that the two ponies were friends, this fact still provoked a pang of jealousy inside of Trixie. Even though her magic was fairly impressive for somepony who taught herself, a personal mentor would be a dream come true. Someone to pave a pathway to success for her. Someone to show her the little tricks that made life easier. And possibly most importantly, someone to correct her if she began to take the wrong direction. Trial and error can only do so much with that.
“That’s why when Luna heard about what happened with you and the Alicorn Amulet, she wanted to help you.”
Trixie couldn’t help it, this pushed her into full panic mode. “Help me? By what, banishing me? Throwing me in a dungeon? Throwing me in a dungeon to the place she banished me to?!”
The princess of the night chuckled at this. “No child, what Twilight was going to say was I wanted to become your mentor.”
The silver maned unicorn’s eyes grew wide, then her vision became cloudy and she began to feel lightheaded.
“Princess....Luna.....magic...mentor....” PLOP
“Uh, Princess, I think we pushed her a bit too far off the edge,” Twilight said.
*    *    *    *    * 

“Huh? Where am I?” Trixie asked, her voice echoing around her. She seemed to be somehow floating over all of Equestria, the moon shining above her. This was almost...peaceful.
With a flash a silhouette of a pony appeared on the moon. “Oh, prisoners always get a last look at Equestria before being banished.”
“Banished? To where?”
Suddenly, with a boom a giant white hoof stood in front of Trixie. She looked up to see the majestic figure of Princess Celestia. “Well, my sister and I were thinking the moon, but we decided a more personal punishment for your misdeeds. You will be banished to your original home in Hoofington.”
“What?” With a poof, the unicorn was teleported to a cage in the town square of Hoofington, where the entire town surrounded her, armed with garbage and rotten fruit. Her childhood bullies, her neighbors, even her family erupted in cackling laughter. Trixie was showered with the garbage, her past looking her straight in the eye.
“What a failure!”
“She’ll never amount to anything!”
“I’m ashamed to even be related to her!”

HA HA HA HA HA!

“No....no! NOO!”
ZAP!
The crowd was gone. Trixie was no longer trapped, or covered in garbage. Princess Luna floated over to the azure unicorn.
“My my! I sometimes look into ponies’ minds to see their greatest fear, but yours is quite terrifying. Irrational, yes, but terrifying. Poor child, you must have a deeper past than I thought. Come, wake up and tell me everything.”
“Tell you? No way, the Great and Powerful Trixie does not need anypony’s pity,” the mare had gained enough confidence to remain talking in third person. “Wait, wake up?”
The world around her began to distort into nothing, and finally Trixie opened her eyes.


"Ah, you're awake!" Twilight Sparkle exclaimed. "Spike has a nice dinner for us. It will be ready any minute now. It's his first time cooking."
With the statement of dinner, Trixie impulsively looked out the window. When she arrived it has been early evening, now the sun was fully under the horizon and Luna's moon shone high in the sky. Trixie herself was on the second floor of the library, in the guest bed.
"Normally we have dinner earlier, but I wanted to wait for you," Twilight continued. "It's too bad you couldn't see Luna raise the moon. Oh well, if you decide to become her apprentice you'll be seeing that a lot. I'll go tell her you're up."
Halfway down the stairs the lavender unicorn heard an anxious cry for help: "Twilight! HELP!!" She raced into the smoke filled kitchen to find a certain baby dragon and a somehow flaming pot of burnt pasta.
"Ugh, I'll just make some daffodil sandwiches..."
By now Trixie, Luna and Celestia had entered the room to see what the commotion was about, and took a seat outside on the library floor while Twilight went to make dinner herself.
Trixie found it hard to make eye contact with the moon princess. Was she really in her dream, or was it a figment of her imagination?
Luna broke her train of thought by asking, "Ready to tell me about it?"
Trixie gasped. Luna really DID do it!
After a few moments of shock Trixie spoke up, "Why do you care? I used the Alicorn Amulet to terrorize all of Ponyville! I deserve to be punished, not rewarded!"
"Because I know how it feels to be under the control of the Alicorn Amulet."

END OF CHAPTER ONE