Out here, the ground stretched cold and flat for miles.
Distant peaks rose in front of her, illuminated by the sun setting behind them. Behind her lay Ponyville, Canterlot, and the growing darkness as the sun left the sky.
Trixie wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking. Weeks? Months? Out here, the days were a continuous stream, with nothing to differentiate one from the other. Her aching hips, the cold, and the vast loneliness were all constants. The only things that grounded her as her mind wandered.
She rarely stopped. Usually just once a day to stop for the night and warm herself by the fire. To gaze up at the endless stars in the cloudless sky and sleep long and dreamlessly. As soon as she woke, she was back on her hooves, briefly grazing on grass before setting out again to spend the whole day walking.
This was a journey to discover truth about herself, and there was no time to waste.
She hadn’t been able to stay in Equestria. Not after all the things Twilight Sparkle had told her. Trixie had been bested, and yet her opponent hadn’t used a single drop of magic, just friendship. Friendship. The word still sounded foreign and strange to her.
Trixie had never needed friendship. She had worked her way up in the world without friendship. Fought tooth and horn for everything she had, and she had done it all without a single pony by her side. Her strength alone had brought success and a following to her.
Friendship. Such a ridiculous concept. Surely a gifted mare like Twilight Sparke didn’t need friends. All Equestria was her oyster, all things within reach, so why did she have to waste her accomplishments by sharing them with others?
Trixie had been born with few opportunities. Trottingham was a cold and dark city full of cold and dark ponies. She had been born without money and privilege. She had worked her flank off learning magic, saving to buy her carriage, practicing her acts endlessly in front of the mirror until they were perfect.
Her cutie mark had been a chance, and once she had gotten it she had done everything within her power to chase that dream, become a magician, get out, get anywhere but Trottingham.
Other ponies, especially her family, had done nothing to help her, instead only holding her back, confining her in that no good city. She hadn’t wanted to settle for a no good job and a no good life. She had brought success to herself by escaping other ponies, these so called friends.
Everything Trixie had thought she knew about the world was shattered in that duel. Friendship beat her hard work, it beat the unfathomable power of the alicorn amulet, and it made Twilight Sparkle happy, a mare to whom friendship was totally unnecessary. She shone bright enough on her own.
Trixie shone bright enough on her own.
After that last talk with Twilight, Trixie had started walking. Out of town, through Whitetail Woods, past Appleloosa. Over mountains and streams, through forests and valleys.
Never stopping, always thinking.
Why should she return to her solitary, traveling life as a showmare when her belief in that lifestyle had been shattered? Why go back to being alone when she wasn’t sure that was really for the best?
Night continued to darken, and a cool breeze blew past her, sharp as the edge of a knife. Out here on the plains, there was nothing to stop the wind, and it often traveled at incredible speeds.
Maybe I should stop here for the night, Trixie thought, as her hooves stopped for the first time in many hours.
It was flat, just like the rest of the world as far as she could see. Flat plains of grass. This place was certainly as good as any other.
Her horn illuminated the night as she looked around for twigs with which to start a fire. When she had found enough, she placed them in a stack and ignited the bunch with her horn, blowing the small flame to provide it ample oxygen.
Sitting down provided her tremendous relief, taking the load off of her aching hoove. Some nights, she might have expended the energy to find some shrubs or berries, but she just lacked the energy.
Using her magic, she pulled clumps of tall green grass and lowered them into her mouth. She lay on her back, comforted by the warmth of the fire to her side, and watched the stars come out.
It had always seemed impossible to Trixie that ponies had ignored Luna’s beautiful nights, twisting her into Nightmare Moon. The midday sun was bright and lit the day, but it was not beautiful to look at. Luna’s stars, on the other hoof, were a masterpiece.
A thousand pinpricks. Holes through the sky that revealed some great cosmic unknown on the other side. Trixie knew of nothing else that could simultaneously make her feel so big and yet so small.
“Wow…”
Her own voice sounded so foreign and strange, the only thing she had heard for days other than long grass blowing in the wind. It sounded so small compared to the vastness above her.
Her eyes wandered to the north star. A shining constant, bright and unmoving.
There had been a time when she would compare herself to that star, say that she shone more brilliantly than any other pony, that she stood on her own as the most great and powerful magician in Equestria.
There was even a time when she would believe it.
But going weeks without hearing your own voice can change your perspective. It can really make you feel small, no longer the bright north star, but instead one of the million smaller ones that shone alongside it. And was there anything really wrong with that?
Besides, one star on its own isn’t much of a view, but a whole sky full of them twinkling together is something incredible.
