A unicorn waded into the outskirt of Ponyville. Her tattered cape billowed in the cool night wind, and she tiredly tried to pull her wagon into the town. Her steps were uncertain, as if she was not quite sure if she was supposed to be there.
She looked back to the wagon, momentarily sporting a worried and doubtful look. Then she cautiously touched her painful forehead. A gaping wound still occasionally damped her head with pink, but she had washed it clean in a forest stream, then roughly bandaged it with a roll of white cloth she found on the wagon. There were also wounds on her limps, and her tail was chipped and messy, much like her mane.
The sun was just down the horizons, and the moon and stars showered their brilliance onto the earth. She could not0 help by gaze back on her own Cutie Mark, a magical wand on top of stars and crescent.
She briefly wondered if the night sky held the answer to the most pertinent question in her mind, but she sighed and shook her head.
Ponies streamed around the streets seemed to have one single goal in their minds: to go back to their homes as soon as possible. They mostly ignored the blue unicorn mare, but she noticed that quite a few of them gave evil eyes to her.
She did not understand why. Did she wrong them before? She thought. But her thoughts then quickly turned cheerful: If the townsponies knew her, then they should know the thing she direly wanted to know as well.
“You!”
A raspy voice shouted, seemingly at the blue mare. She turned with a bemused look.
The rainbow-maned pegasus yelled again. Her tone was non-too-pleased. “Yeah you! You’ve got guts to be back so quickly, after making that big a mess, huh?”
The blue mare winced. The pegasus spoke way too loud for her liking, and already some passers-by stopped to look at the scene.
“Uh… Do I know you? And do you know me?”
“Hah? What? Don’t you try to pull another trick on me, you little cheat! Everyone here in Ponyville knows that you’re a fraud!”
The blue mare flinched, her resolve was gone in the face of blunt hostility. “I- I’m sorry I asked. I’ll be going now.”
The rainbow-maned pony was stunned. She did not expect the unicorn to be so compromising and reserved. As she saw the blue mare off to the darkness of the night, only then she realized something strange.
“Wait a second. How come she hasn’t been referring to herself in third-person?”
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The blue mare felt even more dejected than when she came into this town. Apparently no one here liked her, and she seemed to have done something to make them quite crossed at her.
At least I get to know the name of this town, courtesy to that pegasus… right?
With a sad sigh, she decided to pull her wagon into an alleyway and go to sleep for the night. The wagon was filled with gadgets and assorted trick items, and it was not quite nearly as comfortable as a bed in a home. But the blue mare shrugged and thought that it would do.
Yeah, this might be an uncomfortable place to sleep in. But at least it is my very own uncomfortable place to sleep in… I hope. I would be screwed if this isn’t mine and the owner decides to show up and bust me out.
Heart filled with doubt and fear, she could not sleep until late in the night, when tiredness finally took her into the realm of dreams.
Her sleep was cut short when she felt cold wetness on her face, and heard some strange rumbling sounds. She abruptly opened her eyes, and was shocked to see that the ceiling to her wagon, as well as one of the wall, was completely gone.
There was a cold drizzle, and her belongings were becoming waterlogged. She hurriedly tried to find a canvas or other things to cover them, but she could not find any. Moreover, she was aghast to find that some of her things were gone, in particular, her wallet.
Her face turned green, and she felt a bit sick in the stomach. She stepped out of the wagon weakly, and noticed that a few big red letters were spray-painted onto the remaining walls of her wagon. The words they formed were not at all nice, to say the least.
Biting back the urge to cry, she shakily tried to cheer herself up. “H- Heh, at least somepony would be richer and less mad at me tonight, right?”
She shook her head and looked around. She had to sleep somewhere, but she could not do it when raindrops kept hitting her face. Reluctantly, she pulled out a sweep and a mat. After cleaning up the muddy ground below the wagon, she crawled under it and knelt, trying to get her night of sleep again.
“Missus, you can’t sleep in here.”
The blue mare opened her eyes fearfully again. A gruff-looking earth pony, maybe a policepony, in black raincoat was shining his oil lamp at her.
“This alley way is privately owned, and its owner had complained to us before about trespassers. Moreover, squatting is illegal in the town of Ponyville. If you don’t comply at once, I’d have to do something, hmm?”
The blue mare drew in a breath sharply. She hurriedly climbed out of the bottom of the wagon and said. “I- I’m sorry, mister! Please don’t drag me off the prison! I- I will be leaving now, b- bye!”
The blue mare immediately hooked herself to the yoke of the wagon and galloped away. She was weak and hungry, but she was eminently scared of being shut off in some cold dark cell, so she used all her remaining strength to trot away.
The policepony stood with a stunned look. He opened his mouth, and closed it again. Eventually he shook his head. “Yikes, prison? I just wanna ask if she wants to stay in the community shelter for the night. Every Ponyville resident should know we don’t let ponies sleep outside in the rain! Strange mare, that was… And she looks a little bit familiar, doesn’t she?”
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The blue mare was exhausted. She searched the wagon again and found some hay tacks on her wagon. They were soggy, even a bit moldy, but she ate them whole regardless. She needed that bit of energy after running around when she was supposed to rest.
But after a while, her belly rumbled. This time she literally felt sick in the stomach. Just after she pulled the wagon across a small bridge on a stream just outside the town, her legs buckled. Her vision swam in front of her eyes, and she was too weak to go on anymore.
The moon was almost down, and the first aura of the sun had lit up the distant hills. The rain had stopped, but she had no mind to notice. She simply collapsed at the side of the road, and with her the wagon overturned onto the wet grass nearby as well.
