Trixie reared her head back and closed her eyes as another mouthful of alcohol was chugged, her poison's taste expired and days old. Not that she cared. As far as Trixie was concerned, the awful taste complimented her sorry state pretty well. It was a pathetic match made in the hell her life had become.
The drink hit her harder than she thought it would, Trixie learned as she attempted to move from her kitchen to the couch in the living room, a journey of about twenty steps if she remembered correctly from that one day when she was bored and decided to see how many steps it took to reach some of the furniture in the house from different rooms. Lacking any line of work often makes ponies do the strangest of things to stimulate their minds and keep themselves somewhat active and, dare Trixie say, away from the brink of complete insanity. Trixie managed to walk the first five steps without difficulty, but suddenly the vision blur kicked in, and she staggered sideways and collided with the kitchen table, making a chair fall over and knocking a filthy plate off which smashed as it hit the ground.
Picking herself up and trying again to walk, Trixie was able to take five more steps, miraculously avoiding the sharp plate fragments on the floor, before she felt her front left leg go weak, and she fell against the wall between the two rooms. She propped herself against the wall for a minute, allowing herself to rest and let her head clear itself of the drunken fog that had enveloped it. When she felt read for a third attempt, Trixie steadily put one hoof out, and followed it up with her other hoof. With baby steps, Trixie slowly managed to cover the last ten steps to her couch, an olive green color with week old beverage stains and little patches of bile stuck to the fabric. She clambered up upon it and laid her head down on a flower-patterned cushion.
She stared blankly ahead, her face expressing pure boredom and depression, her eyes dull and dark as if the very essence of light had been drained from them. Her corpse-like eyes trailed slowly over to her small coffee table, upon which there lay a pile of opened envelopes and unfolded letters, their contents the demands of angry ponies to whom she owed money, and threats of relinquishing her assets and properties away from her if they were not paid. Trixie let out an eerie chuckle, sarcastic and hollow in tone, the thought of losing her pride and now possibly her home sounding like a cruel sick joke, played by some wicked higher deity or even Discord himself.
Part of a picture frame poked out from beneath the pile. Trixie reached out a hoof and swatted away some of the papers, revealing an image of the old Trixie of days past, when she was a happier and livelier mare, a pale comparison to the shadow of her former self. Just looking at the mare that used to be the Great and Powerful Trixie unleashed a flood of memories in her mind, and Trixie found herself reminiscing over the past, to a time when things had been better days for her.
It was five years ago. She had just turned the age of sixteen when she had decided to leave home and travel the world to perform and make a name for herself. Her family had wanted her to pursue other things, but Trixie knew what she wanted to do in life - entertain.
Her first week on the road brought her to a little town called Trottingham, where she performed her very first ever magic show. Being a small town, her audience was a small one that gathered to see her display of card tricks and magically conjured fireworks. Despite how small her first public audience was, it was her first successful show, and she reaped a nice collection of shiny golden bits for her work. Looking back on that day, Trixie wondered if her first show was successful because of her magic, or because Trottingham was populated mostly by Earth ponies who likely did not see many unicorn passing through their quiet little home, and perhaps did not see much displays of magic in action.
After her first successful show, Trixie went on to other neighboring settlements, where she would search for a nice spot from which she'd be seen by other ponies as she performed her tricks and magic acts. The ponies would gather around her and with smiles and excitement be entertained by her for hours, applauding her performance and adding a few bits to her collection bucket. The nights after her shows, Trixie would use some of the money she earned to treat herself to a lovely feast at the local inn, along with a bed to rest her tired body. The next day, she'd sometimes be approached by little colts and fillies who had come to see her show the other day, and she'd perform a quick little magic trick for them just to see them smile. She would then leave the children with happy smiles as she went to buy provisions and supplies to see hero her way to the next town to resume the cycle again.
But the succession of successful magic shows came to an end after a year, as Trixie found herself struggling to compete with other performers who attracted attention away from her through their own talents. The serenades of musicians, the masterpieces of artists, and the rhythm of dancers, their skills stole Trixie's audiences away from her, and she found herself struggling to keep other ponies interested in her rather than the competition carrying out their performances nearby. Her diminishing audience meant a decrease in funds, and she soon found herself having to resort to cheap food and shelter just to get by and conserve what bits were left.
Things did only got much worse when she performed what would be her last magic act of her career. It happened so suddenly one day, as Trixie was touring Manehatten, hoping she might find profit from performing there. Her funds were seriously low by this time and she hadn't enough to cover the cost of a room for a single night, not at the prices Manehatten hotels and motels charged. In the central park area, she was able to attract a few ponies over to her to watch her pull a rabbit out of her hat, until their attention turned away from her and trotted over to the mint green mare playing her harp by the park fountain, adding their number to the already large gathering she had around her listening to the sweet melody she played.
Inside of Trixie, something snapped, and months of restrained rage and jealousy was released in a single explosive tantrum. Trixie marched over to the other unicorn, and used her magic to pry the harp from the other's magical grasp, tearing off the strings and smashing the instrument on the dirty floor. But she was not yet finished with the mare. Trixie continued her tantrum as she assaulted the unicorn with a barrage of insults and cruel comments. It did not take long for Trixie to reduce the poor thing to tears, watching her run away carrying what was left of her harp along with her.
And that was it. Her name went into the papers the next day. The headlines title hit her hard and deep. 'RISING MAGICIAN STAR ATTACKS POOR MUSICIAN'. Trixie had not believed that other ponies had cared about her, that her audience had abandoned her for favor of other entertainers instead. But the papers suggested otherwise. The media could have called her a crazy mare, or a thug, but that they thought of her as somepony better than that, until she went ahead and ruined that reputation. Nopony had forgotten her, nor had they lost interest in her. They were giving everypony some attention, a chance to show what they could do.
And what Trixie had done was show jealousy and disrespect for other ponies who wanted to be like her, to have a moment, if just that, in the spotlight for a change. Wherever Trixie went, ponies looked at her and shook their heads sadly. Some would whisper behind her back, talking about how great a shame it was that she allowed jealousy to take hold and ruin things. It all hurt Trixie very much. Few venues would let her set up her stage in the hot spots, often telling her that the other performers didn't want to be disturbed or attacked either, before sending the poor showmare away with her head hung low.
And so here she was now, a year later after she blew it all. Stuck in the house that doubled as a prison. The lack of work drove Trixie to boredom, and the many bills that came through her door drove her to the brink of madness. She tried to find work in other areas and fields, but she either lack the necessary skill sets needed to fulfill them, or her employer realized who she was and brought up the incident that set her magic show career spiraling down, thinking her to be anti-social towards others, something that contrasted with the 'working together' attitude of the workers in their work place.
It was then that Trixie had decided to just give up. and so she lay upon the couch, her little coffee table by her side stacked high with bills, her alcohol by her side. Her eyes stared up at the dull ceiling, near lifeless and bland. She soon closed her eyes and wept, as her hopes and dreams festered and decayed away in the pits of the trashcan of life.
