The next time Trixie saw the sheriff, it was together with matron Night Tide. Trixie hadn't yet known to hate her, and everything she stood for. The matron just seemed like another pony, maybe even a nice pony, even if she held herself straight with a sort of stiff detachment. Trixie would remember that teal coat very well in coming years. To say Trixie's problems originated entirely from this mare alone would be giving this mare far too much credit, but if only Trixie had known what she was, and what she represented, maybe Trixie's life could have been more bright.
Or at least shorter.
"This is matron Night Tide," the sheriff explained, "She's from the orphanage."
"The what?" Trixie asked honestly. When the sheriff didn't understand, Trixie added, "What's an orphanage?"
That got a laugh from the mare next to the sheriff. A very hearty laugh that would only surface unexpectedly, then plunge deep again as if it were never there.
"An orphanage is a place that takes care of little colts and fillies," sheriff Strong explained, "They can even find you a family again!"
"I told you they're dead," Trixie said irritably. Was this sheriff being mean, or simply entirely lacking in all tact?
"No I mean a new I mean uh," the sheriff stuttered, finally chomping out "Horsefeathers. I'll let matron Night explain."
"Foals most prosper," matron Tide said evenly, "When they are raised by a nuclear family. We provide a transition point from the state of runaway and vagrant, to a productive member of society."
Trixie blinked. Then she mumbled, "I didn't understood all those words."
"She can take care of you and feed you," Strong Light cut in, "You'll have your own bedroom and a lot of other foals to play with."
"I wasn't aware this affair was up for negotiation," Night said drolly.
"It's not— it—," now Strong was stammering at Night instead of Trixie. "It's better if she agrees to it, right?” the sheriff pleaded with an impassive Night, “If she knows it's a good thing, she'll be... I mean, you'll be," now the sheriff was looking at Trixie again. "Believe me when I'm saying this because it's the honest truth,” the sheriff told Trixie, “You'll love it there. And even if you don't, you'll find someone some day to love and take care of you."
"It sounds... nice?" Trixie said, trying to appease the worried mare who was ostensibly the toughest mare in town if she was the sheriff.
"Enough of this foolishness," Night Tide cut in, "I expect her at the carriage station this afternoon. If I may, I am a busy mare and I will take my leave."
"This afternoon?" the sheriff asked skeptically, "You sure she's up for the trip just yet?"
"She won't be any more well tomorrow, than she is today," was Night's answer, and with that she took her leave.
Trixie would agree that Sheriff Strong was being pretty foolish, though perhaps not for the same reasons as Ms. Night Tide. After the matron left, Strong herself hurried out, and then the doctor whatsisface was doting upon Trixie, trying to make sure she was well enough to check out. The IV long since removed, Trixie's diet had been normal for the past few days, even if the wooden hospital's food was a bit plain and unappealing. Trixie was a little unsteady standing on her hooves at first, but determined not to disappoint, Trixie persevered until she was quite capable of carrying herself.
Trixie did get exhausted easily and had to rest often, but the doctor assured her that would get better on its own as long as she remembered to eat her vegetables. He was probably as eager as any of them to free up her hospital bed for other sick ponies, but he made a good show of making sure that Trixie checked out before she... checked out.
Weakness aside, Trixie felt ready to take on anything this afternoon. She felt pretty good actually. Nopony had figured it out. That she had killed her parents. Everypony thought they just died, like many ponies do in these swamps. Trixie had escaped. She was going to live somewhere now, a place that no one would ever think that she was a monster or a demon in pony form. Anyone who knew, they probably thought Trixie was dea—still out in the woods. If Trixie could just be quiet and blend in, then ponies would like her again, and she’d never have to do anything like that ever again.
Trixie was surprised to see two other fillies at the station, when she arrived. “I’m Daisy Dust,” one said, and the other didn’t speak so Daisy added “And she’s Willowsweet.”
“I’m T-Trixie,” Trixie said reluctantly, breathing hard from even that little exertion. “Are you waiting for the um... carriage?”
“Suppose so,” Daisy said resentfully. “They said they have a place we can stay, so we’re staying.”
“Did your parents die too?” Trixie asked almost immediately backpedalling with, “No n-no—no, I didn’t—mean, no never mind, I didn’t mean to ask you it’s okay you don’t have to” but Willowsweet was already on the way to crying.
“Smooth move, idiot,” Daisy said, glaring at Trixie and hugging her... sister it might have been. Trixie couldn’t approach or hug them, because she just had to stand there, scared and miserable at how she’d said the exact wrong thing. These foals didn’t kill their parents. Somepony else did, somepony like... a monster... or Trixie. And now they could never have them back. They deserved their parents back, but Trixie should have been happy to get what she got, even if she didn’t get her parents back. At least the orphanage would be a place to sleep, but T-Trixie really missed her parents too, and her happy life.
That was the state the matron found them in, the mare stepping quietly out of the carriage that pulled up, with Willowsweet wailing and Trixie trying not to cry, while Daisy just glared at the isolated blue filly with an expression of contempt. Nopony else was there to help them, because the pickup location chosen had been one where other ponies didn’t often come. A run-down neighborhood, where crying children would be expected, rather than cause for alarm. As matron Tide stepped down from the carriage she immediately took stock of the situation.
“Welcome fillies, to your new lives,” she said evenly, seemingly not even noticing how one of them was too distraught to hear her. “There is one rule you should familiarize yourself with now,” she explained. Then she kicked Willowsweet hard enough to bowl her over and knock her shoulder against the cobblestones. The filly was so shocked she stopped crying, which gave the matron ample opportunity to say, “There will be no crying at this orphanage. You will maintain a pleasant, deferential demeanor at all times, if you ever want to be adopted.”
“H-how dare you?” Daisy spat out, helping Willowsweet to her hooves, the smaller filly immediately falling back into wailing again. Daisy stomped up to the older mare saying angrily, “She—” but was the last word Daisy managed to get out, before a precisely aimed bolt of magic flew over Daisy and struck Willowsweet in the head. Her cry died in her throat, and she just... crumpled to the floor, like a broken puppet.
“That,” the matron said, “Is what happens to those who disregard their betters. Now must I do the same to the rest of you forsaken fillies, or are you going to come along quietly?”
Trixie didn’t know what to do. She had never seen something so... the magic, it didn’t kill the foal, it just forced Willowsweet to a really bad sleep. That was all Trixie could tell, from what little she could see in that rapid flash. Daisy too then, when she tried to run, she tried to carry Willowsweet with her, and then both of them were on the ground like they weren’t even—Trixie didn’t like looking at it; it felt so indescribably wrong. Trixie herself was too weak, exhausted and terrified to run or even cry at that point, so... the matron didn’t cast it on her. Yet.
The ponies pulling the carriage didn’t so much as flinch at what was going on, as if they were very familiar with this sort of thing. Levitating the two limp fillies into the carriage, matron Tide pushed Trixie ahead of her, up the steps and into its dark confines. With the way they approached it, Trixie felt like she was being pushed into some cavernous black maw just waiting to swallow her up.
As it turns out, it was just the inside of a carriage, but there were two rooms in the carriage. Well, one of them was generous to call it a room, more like a baggage compartment. And, it turns out foals, whether conscious or not, counted as baggage. Trixie wanted to sit in the seat, but the matron made her sit in the little...box, with the others piled against her unresponsively, and Night closed the compartment on them, too.
Trixie later learned that matron Tide often had to deal with crying children; so many orphans have just recently lost their family after all and are prone to crying, so she found a simple and efficient way to deal with it. Cruel, but fair, the matron would say, but Trixie would say just cruel. Still, if that was the only transgression she and the orphanage would commit, Trixie could have forgiven them. Sadly it was just the beginning of a very, very miserable life.
It was an eerie experience there in total darkness, feeling the two fillies slowly begin to revive. Their motions were so confused and sluggish at first. Willowsweet didn’t cry again, not one peep, but soon she couldn’t stop shaking. It wasn’t cold in the carriage. She was just so very scared. Trixie would soon know it was nothing that terrified these fillies, but for now there was no talking about it, only hiding in the box in the darkness. Trixie regretted being placed in between them when Daisy came to, and brutally shoved her aside to get to Willowsweet. They... they just held each other then, and Trixie was once again, even in this cramped space, alone.
These three foals were so claustrophobic by the time they got there, that when it opened they all just about climbed over each other to get out of that compartment and into the cool air outside of the carriage. The orphanage was walled on all sides in thick, durable stone. Stone made most of its construction in fact. The only access to the outside was the front gate, which was ponied at all times by orphanage staff. It wouldn’t do to have the foals run away again, obviously. That would defeat the purpose! There was a plain, well mowed grassy expanse, presumably for play of some sort, but there certainly weren’t any play structures, or swing sets, or even balls. The residences were in a building together, with narrow little hallways leading to thin little dormitories; 3, 4 foals to a room. Beyond that, there was a cafeteria building, the only source of food in the orphanage, barred access outside of scheduled meals even if you were really hungry.
Then there were the... classrooms.
These were not classrooms in the strictest definition of the term. Perhaps once they had been intended to be used for education, but with the beds at the orphanage overflowing, and the staff pushed to the limits of their sanity reigning in all these foals, there was simply no time to spend teaching you how to read and write. Foals distrusted and hated the staff, so no lesson would have been respected or upheld. It was an arms race of hatred, and there never had been room on the payroll for a schoolteacher anyway.
No, these classrooms were used to teach discipline. To teach foals how to act, and what their limits were. To tarnish their spirits so that they stopped being so rambunctious and hard to deal with. These were in fact the classrooms where twice a week, Trixie was taught never to speak of herself in first person. They would try to trick you into saying I, and the punishment for doing so most severe. You were a scornful, arrogant bully then, who thought themselves above the other foals, and even the staff, because of the way you carried yourself, and the words you said.
Be compassionate to others was the lesson, but what they taught was never to speak your mind, and never consider your self worth. You are not a person, but a thing, who may not be an I, but must rather be an it, your name as much of a label as a chair is called a chair, or a rock is called a rock. You quickly became accustomed to pretending it was someone else in the room who had to go through this, while you were far away dancing in verdant green meadows. No, I’m not here, and I’m not making a laughingstock of myself, it’s just stupid little Trixie. Some nobody unicorn who surely deserves everyfoal laughing at her while the instructor lays into her for yet another slip of the tongue.
Foals as a general rule did not ever refer to themselves, except directly by name. They enforced it in the classrooms, but it was expected both inside and out, and as much as Trixie wishes to deny it, she grew very accustomed to being just another pony in the room, accustomed to feeling the same way when Trixie was talking about Daisy over there, as when Trixie was talking about Trixie over here. There was no pony where you were anymore, just a slight adjustment in geographic location from Daisy to yourself. Trixie didn’t want to be here, and Trixie didn’t want to be at all.
Trixie had no idea of the classrooms when she first arrived at the orphanage. She was not kept with Daisy and Willowsweet, but instead herded with a number of other strange foals from other carriages, into what looked like a school classroom. There were letters on the wall, that Trixie was pretty sure she even might have recognized at one point, but no pictures of animals, or smiling things. It was all very gray and drab. That wasn’t what bothered Trixie though. What bothered her was a different pony, a brusque green and white maned stallion if she recalls, who ruled that classroom with even less tolerance than matron Tide, if not her particular brand of cruelty.
“You will take the text on the desk before you,” he said curtly, “And balance it on your head.”
“What—” a foal said in confusion, swiftly interrupted with a smack of the ...teacher’s? ruler on the desk and he said,
“You will learn the requirements for living in our establishment, and the first thing is that you obey your betters, immediately, without question.”
A pause, and he added, “Whoever wants to be punished first, will leave their book on the table.”
Every foal very hurriedly put their book on their head.
Trixie wouldn’t have even minded this; she had an advantage after all. Her horn was a great support to her, and after she tired of using magic, it was a great support to brace the book against. But it went on for so long! He just stood there at the front of the classroom, staring... and it was only a matter of time before a clumsy foal slipped and dropped their book.
“Excuse me?!” the teacher or...whatever this pony was supposed to be exclaimed. He strode forward staring down the increasingly fearful foal saying, “Are you incapable of following even a simple command? Do you think you’re better than me? Do you think anypony will ever adopt a foal who cannot respect her elders? Turn around!”
When the foal just whimpered he repeated, “Turn around,” shoving her roughly to face the other direction. “Raise your tail,” he commanded next. When again she merely quivered and didn’t reply he said more evenly, “You will obey me, or you will go to bed without any dinner. It’s your decision. Raise your tail.”
Trixie was suddenly reminded of how she had been picked up before lunch, and hadn’t been fed yet.
The other foal raised her tail, and then immediately squealed in pain as he brought his... oh that’s why his ankle brace was reinforced steel. It wasn’t so much a spanking as it was a beating, because he didn’t stop hitting her with that ruler until well after she was unable to cry about it. One thing they took very seriously at this orphanage was that foals were to have a pleasant adoptable demeanor, and should never, ever cry.
The first beating was the most vicious, frightening everypony when he lifted his head from checking on her unconscious form and said calmly, “Has anypony else dropped their books?” It soon became obvious that nopony was going to leave this room without a beating though. One by one the roughly half dozen foals dropped their book and he patiently waited for them to do so. But his righteous rage erupted every time, with a mechanical precision, deliberate Trixie realizes in hindsight.
Trixie did not have hindsight that afternoon though. Trixie lasted... she didn’t know how long, but the sunlight had faded from the window, when she finally just felt her book slip, and collapsed on the spot, rather than correcting its position. Not to say she didn’t feel the meter stick drag wooden cuts on her stinging flesh, but Trixie didn’t even have enough energy to protest at this point. Maybe it was her fault, she may have thought, before being welcomed into unconsciousness.