Trixie quickly learned that she did not want to eke her life out in the woods. That terrifying encounter with a slugamander had been only the first, of very many terrible things that would happen to a filly, out alone in the woods. Granted, Trixie ran away screaming without a scratch, while it earned a smoking hole through its head for its trouble, but Trixie didn't want to think about what she did. She didn’t want to think about it, no more than she wanted to think about what terrible things the other—the monsters in the swamp did to survive. There was little to eat out here, little that was palatable at least. If Trixie ever has to eat watercress again, it will be too soon. Everything was cold and wet, and miserable, and muddy. So much mud. Trixie had a talent it seems for happening upon it unexpectedly.
Trixie cried on that note, when she discovered her special talent. As unimaginable as that may be, Trixie had been lost, blind and confused for days on end. Once her sight finally cleared enough to see, the first thing she saw was the mark on her flank. A mark that had not been there the last time she could see it. The mark that bore a very strong resemblance... to a star. There was only one thing it could mean. It was a talent that served her well in later years, but... it also was a talent that had cost her everything she loved. Trixie knew then more than ever that it wasn’t just something that happened to her. It was something that she was.
The carniverous rock toads ensured that Trixie would grow very good at bringing up that shield spell at a moment's notice. They didn't attack you with their tongue, thank Celestia, but leaping for her flesh, the shadow of one would cover her small figure far too often for her liking. The tangle vines would scratch her terribly when she stumbled upon them, usually after she slid through the mud they grew near, while running away from the rock toads, and Trixie had no means to treat her wounds. When Trixie began feeling ill, she tried to use magic to cure herself, but she couldn't figure out how to do more than reduce the swelling and keep her temperature down. It became a constant struggle for Trixie, and she knew she was in trouble. Big trouble.
When she headed for the nearest pony settlement to her own, it was not with the idea to procure help. She was too afraid that they would know who she was, and what she had done. Instead, she crept towards it in the middle of the night, feverish and weak but determined and desperate. It was a simple task to undo the lock on their medicine chest and purloin their curatives before sneaking back into the night. There she was, a young filly with no knowledge of medicine or brewing, yet one tincture labeled propanoia she found that combatted the ill symptoms far better than the continuous drain on her magic could manage. Among ...other, less helpful tinctures.
Emboldened by her success, and perhaps by the enticing smells of their cooking, and perhaps by the hallucinations she was having from combining unknown medicines, Trixie remained near the border of the settlement. So Trixie made a home, a relatively permanent shelter hidden outside of town. It was troublesome, but far easier to defend a shelter built out of trees woven together by raw sorcery, and steal her food from the ponies—from the other ponies, than it was for Trixie to live a life continuously ranging around looking for edible scrub, right through the territory of so many monsters and predators. The bog rats whose territory she co-opted for her little shelter gave her trouble at first, but they quickly decided otherwise, when a filly half their size proceeded to beat one of them to death, using a tree limb twice their size.
She would creep into town during the cover of night, and wash herself with water from the public basin, or make away from their storehouses with a loaf of hay bread or a tin of butter. The ponies were not expecting a thief in this bleak landscape, so it was trivial to get in there. A lock wiggled apart from the inside, an illusion cast to make noise or a vision to draw ponies the other way, and Trixie’s wish granted of soundless hoofsteps, thanks to that versatile horn on her head. It was still a terrible way to live, though Trixie might have gotten good at it eventually. Trixie didn't exactly have much chance to become accustomed to this lifestyle of foalhood skulduggery, for she only had a few weeks until something went wrong.
Her meals weren't cooked, or fresh, but they gave her enough energy to heal, after the luck of the gods enabled her to overcome or at least ignore the infections. Trixie was too young to understand that she was missing out on vital vitamins that—say for instance—watercress could have provided, but the effect such a diet had was to draw her nose inexorably to the smell of cooking soup. She may not have known what was good to eat in her clumsy theft attempts, but her nose sure did, and when a nose speaks, a little filly finds it very hard not to listen.
She hadn't risked going into a pony's house yet, where they often left large pots of soup to simmer overnight, but she started watching a house on the border to see when in the night the pony retired, and when they emerged in the morning. With her heart in her throat, she crept past their sleeping forms to where, true to her nose, a cauldron of soup was bubbling over low coals. As silently as she could, Trixie stole a ladle and a small wooden bowl, and proceeded to levitate a ladle's worth of soup into her newly acquired bowl. She wanted to eat it right away, instead of fleeing with it into the night where it would get all cold and maybe spill. It was quite possibly the best soup Trixie had ever had in her life. She didn't care how hot it made her throat; the contents of the bowl vanished in seconds. Lowering the ladle back into the cauldron she went for seconds and then thirds.
Full to bursting, Trixie dropped the ladle back into the cauldron with a satisfied sigh. The ladle clanged when it struck the bottom of the cauldron like a ringing bell, and the ponies in the bed across the hut immediately sat up looking her way. This combined with the fact that, in Trixie's eagerness she had failed to notice the moonlight creeping in through the window to fully illuminate her, she was caught in plain sight there before the ponies still in their bed.
"Thief!" came the frightened, yet uncertain cry from a mare who really was not sure how to deal with what she was seeing in front of her. That was more than enough to set the already panicking Trixie into full overdrive. It was at that moment of surety, that the worst possible thing had happened, that Trixie learned how to wink. The next thing she knew, she was safely back in her shelter, well out of town. Literally, the next thing she knew. One moment she was hyperventilating at the unmistakable gaze of the awakened ponies. The next she was staring out from her improvised thicket of magically distorted tree trunks. Still hyperventilating.
Now, this is not to say Trixie was a master of winking at such a young age. Far from it, winking is a notoriously fickle and difficult to perform technique. Fortunately, it becomes easier when your destination is the place you are so familiar with to call home. Fortunately, Trixie was not from a long line of unicorns who had failed to wink out upon being attacked by leopards, as that line of unicorns had died out due to being eaten by leopards, so Trixie just did what came naturally. Fortunately the unpredictable fluctuations in a filly's magic rose precipitously at that particular moment that she needed to cast it. Less than fortunately, Trixie spent the next few days trying to repeat what she had done, without success. It wasn't until years later that Trixie finally learned to get winking down pat. But perhaps Trixie is getting ahead of herself.
The town was on high alert for a while, but the fairy tale of a thieving filly from nowhere appearing in the middle of the night, then vanishing the moment you wake up, that was one that even magic ponies would have trouble swallowing. Trixie found herself in trouble however, as they did start putting a guard out in front of the storehouse. Try as she might, Trixie couldn't conceal herself in invisibilty without glowing like a purple glowworm, and teleportation was right out. She wasn't going to risk going into any homes again, either. Fortunately ponies often threw perfectly edible food onto the refuse heap. Granted, digging through it made Trixie smell like death, and she had terrible stomach aches to lull her to sleep, but... actually no, granted nothing. It was a shitty experience that drove Trixie back to eating watercress.
It might have been that Trixie was careless that one night, or foolhardy in her desperation, or just tired of fighting to live anymore, but when the night watch pony heard something rooting around in the trash she had paid him no mind until he had crept up behind her and captured her beneath a wicker clothes basket. She cried out at that point and tried to throw the basket off so she could escape, but it was stubbornly heavy she soon realized, because he was sitting on top of it. Trixie was more than capable of lifting something five times as heavy as her own body weight, such as an adult male earth pony, but only very...slowly, and he fought her the entire way as he realized she was actually managing to do it. Then he called out for help, and help arrived. It took three ponies to hold her down, and finally somepony managed to smack her upside the head with something heavy, send Trixie spiralling into a dreamless blackness.
Trixie was under for far more than a few hours, perhaps even days. The ponies discovering her abhorred state of malnutrition, and the stubbornly lingering effects of sickness and infection had her in the town's hospital immediately: a squat wooden building only somewhat more permanent than the other buildings. Once she was finally in a stable condition, they brought her back to the waking realm, so that's what she awoke to. The doctor was there, a pleasantly purple pony with a banana colored mane. The mare to his right had a more traditional green and blue coloring. She was the local sheriff, it turns out, and also the one who had ultimately subdued Trixie, it turns out.
When Trixie's pale eyes immediately contracted, the sheriff said hastily, "Please, don't run! You're safe now." That was enough to give Trixie pause. Did they know of the ponies who were trying to hurt her? Did they not know what she'd done? She sat there quietly, not knowing what to say. "Doctor Gentle has been supervising your recovery," the sheriff added, directing Trixie's attention to the doctor.
"It's not every day a pony emerges from the bog alive," the doctor said gesturing at Trixie's arm. Trixie noticed for the first time that a tube was taped to her fetlock, leading to a bag dangling from a string overhead. "You were suffering from malnutrition and several infections... that is, I mean," at Trixie's confused look he stammered a bit, "You were really hungry and hurt, but we gave you special food to make you better." At last, somepony who made sense in this world!
"Am I better now?" she asked brightly, albeit not with a smile.
"You're on the road to recovery," the doctor said. "You should be up and about in a few days. You're a very lucky filly, you know that?" Trixie shook her head, and the doctor just got a soft eyed smile. He cleared his throat, "Anyhoo, sheriff Strong here needs to ask you some questions. Can you be a good little filly and help her out?" Trixie was hesitant so he added, "There might be a lolly for you if you do a good job."
A normal filly would have immediately agreed to just about anything with that reward hanging over her head. Trixie was not abnormal in the sense that she didn't like lollipops. She loved them. But it had been so long since she'd had one. Half a year is a long time for a nine year old filly. ...probably nine. Trixie only had eight birthdays she could remember before then. Like those, thinking of lollipops had Trixie struggling with the flood of fond memories the memory of their taste dragged forth, fond and very painful memories right now.
The doctor seemed concerned with her response or, non-response as it were, stammered a half apology and quickly deferred to the sheriff, backing off.
"So you're the Ghost in the Moonlight," the sheriff started still looking at Trixie appraisingly.
"The what?" Trixie asked confusedly.
"Ponies around here have been making up stories about you," the sheriff slowly explained. "Just catching sight of a pony only to find there never was anyone there. Hearing some sniffle or some noise and just when you go to look a pony has run past behind you. Food stores mysteriously going missing, as if there was no lock at all." She laughed then, a hearty sound, "I didn't believe Silver when he said it wasn't a ghost of a filly tipping over our trash cans and that he was going to catch it. You know, your colors are very pale in the moonlight."
Trixie almost laughed at the sheriff's story. Did she really seem that spooky? "I just used my magic to throw my voice," she answered, "Or make it look like there was a pony somewhere else so I wouldn't be seen."
"You can perform illusions?" the sheriff asked surprisedly. "That's a very advanced magic for a little filly!"
"It comes naturally," she shrugged, trying to look casual about it. "It's my special talent."
The sheriff seemed to buy it, leaning over to look at Trixie's cutie mark, a stream of magic floating around a five pointed star. A mark Trixie will always have mixed feelings about. It didn't really indicate a talent in illusions, but it didn't really indicate much of anything, so whatever validation the sheriff hoped to get was stymied. She straightened up and said,
"I'm sheriff Strong Light, and this is the community of South Fork." None of those names sounded familiar to Trixie, which worked in Trixie's favor as she wasn't exactly on good terms with anything that did sound familiar. How far had she wandered through the wilderness? Far enough, hopefully.
"We're a few leagues south of Star City."
Not far enough. Trixie had heard of Star City, even as a filly. It was where her mother travelled to put on her most famous regular show. Trixie didn't know where it was exactly, as her father took care of her at home while her mother was away, and the one time she went to see it all she remembered was a long horseback ride. It was a big city, full of glitz and glamor, with some of the best and the worst flocking there trying to make a name for themselves.
The sheriff paused for a moment, shuffling her hooves as if pondering what she was going to say. "You have been living out in the wild for a while...?" she said in a suggestive tone.
"A while," was all Trixie would say to that matter.
"You're in a safe place now," Strong Light said, attempting to coo but being far too gruff sounding for that. Furthermore the words she said were very chilling to Trixie. "Were you... driven to live out there?"
She knows.
"It's alright if you want to tell me. Did you run away after you were ...abused?"
Sheknowssheknowssheknowssheknows
Trixie's panicked stare seemed to confirm what the sheriff was thinking, and she smiled gently saying "If your parents have been abusing you, you don't have to go back to them. Just tell me who they are and we can make things right."
Shekn- she doesn't know.
"They're dead," Trixie said bluntly. The sheriff's face fell so dramatically it was almost comical.
"D-did they," she stammered trying to keep the filly from noticing her distress, "Oh I, I didn't know it... of course that's why you—"
"It's O.K." why was she comforting her? Why did Trixie feel so good to say what she said? She didn’t want her parents to be dead! She didn’t want to be a bad pony. That the sheriff didn't know what she'd done, shouldn't that make Trixie feel like a bad pony? Trixie couldn't wrap her head around the immense relief at being off the hook, coming at the same time as the memory of her parent's death. It's a very new emotion for a little filly, that autoschadenfreude when it feels so good to be so bad. Unable to deal with it, she just went with it.
"How did they die?" came the next question. Trixie answered without hesitation, and honestly for the last time.
"A monster killed them."
"Was it... what town are you from?"
"We lived far away from any other ponies," she said, not even caring if she got figured out by now. It was just so much fun thinking up how she could fool the sheriff. "We were surbibleists mommy told me."
"Survivalists then..." the sheriff nodded grimly. Trixie cursed herself inwardly for not knowing about the sur...whatever that word was for those strange ponies townsponies liked to whisper about, many months ago in another life. The sheriff didn't mind she got the word wrong though, so Trixie continued.
"The monster she—it blew up our house, and then it killed them and I ran away and I've been hiding ever since."
"But why didn't you come right to us?" Strong Light protested, "Why did you hide from everypony in town for so long?"
Trixie's gears turned furiously but she was stuck at that. Why didn't she pretend she was a lost filly in the first place? She was just trying to be careful, but doing so practically announced she was suspicious, and hiding from ponies because of something bad that she did. Now she was going to have to say what really happened, and then bad ...things would happen again.
"Your parents were called 'survivalists,'" sheriff Strong said in an explanatory tone, "Those ponies will tell you to stay away from other ponies when they shouldn't. Did they try to tell you about something called the 'night times?'"
Trixie nodded dumbly. Was the sheriff really fixing Trixie's story for her?
The older pony shook her head, "Damn shame, crazy ponies like that dragging little fillies into it. Well don't worry little one, there is nothing to worry about, and you can be friends with other ponies again."
"O.K." Trixie said, afraid to say anything else.
"It's really important that you do so," the sheriff urged, "Ponies don't last very long out here all by themselves. We have to stick together."
"O.K." Trixie parrotted, at scarcely a whisper.
"I'm... I'm really sorry about your parents..." Strong Light said, her eyes gleaming with sadness.
"It... it's O.K." Trixie said, turning away from the sheriff's gaze. It wasn't O.K. Nothing was O.K.
"I think I don't need to ask you any more questions," the sheriff said, "Can you rest there in your bed for me, while we figure out what to do with you?"
In fact now that Trixie thought about it, this simple conversation had worn her to the bone. She was even having trouble holding her head up. Trixie must have been really sick if she was like this, and the whole time she didn't even know how sick she was. That could have been bad. She answered by laying back in the bed, staring at the sheriff with wide unblinking eyes.
The sheriff walked up to her with an almost matronly smile, laying a hoof on Trixie's mane and stroking her in a calming manner. Trixie was not comfortable with this friendly gesture but she dared not show it. She tried her best not to flinch, and just pretend like it was normal. Like she was normal. That's when the sheriff started to sing.
If you had been outside Trixie's hospital room that night, you might have heard a discordant, tone deaf mangling of a lullaby, followed by the town sheriff trotting hastily out of the room at the command of a harsh filly's voice shouting "Get out!" followed by various flying articles you might find at hoof next to a hospital bed.
The sheriff winced as she walked past the doctor at his desk. "Smooth," the doctor purred at her with a smirk. Snorting, she just tossed her gaze away from him and just galloped briskly out the door.