Trixie needed some time to get back from her emotional outburst, and I also found myself riding the coattails of my adrenaline rush, so we both sat in silence beside the road.
I watched my guardian as she rubbed her cheeks dry and tried to compose herself again, casting the occasional glance either up or down the road to see if anypony might come down it who could see her in that state.
I didn't much care about what I looked like at the moment. I was more worried about whether Trixie would keep to her promise.
Trixie finally righted herself up where she sat and looked down past her muzzle at me.
"So, what did the princess tell you to get you to rise up against Trixie anyway?" she demanded.
I stared straight at her eyes and lowered my eyebrows a little to a frown.
"You promised you would be nicer," I reminded her.
Trixie snorted at my reaction, but her expression softened nonetheless.
She tilted her head forward a bit more so she was looking straight at me rather than past her nose, then seemed to study me.
I just sat watching her, trying to not give in to the feeling of nervousness rising up now my adrenaline was slipping away.
"What Trixie means is... what happened, Fuu? Why did you feel like challenging Trixie now? Why not in the beginning when she took you here in the first place?" she expanded her question.
I felt my left ear flop down while my right remained upright.
"You silenced me when I tried, remember?" I pointed out.
"Oh, right," Trixie realised. "Trixie might have overdone it a little."
"A little? You were out of control yesterday; I was afraid you would kill me if I tried to speak my mind, so I just curled up in a ball after you threw me into the side of the bed," I exclaimed.
Trixie looked aghast at my renewed outburst, and looked away to the cart for a moment as if it had suddenly become the most interesting item in the world.
"Trixie could never do that. You're right that she..." she protested, but then her voice trailed off.
The blue unicorn turned her head to look at me again as a deep sigh escaped her.
"No, you're right. I did lose control," she spoke in a rare moment of her forgetting her normal speech patterns.
"Yeah, I know; I have the bruises to prove it," I grumbled.
"I'm sorry, Fuu... I've been so tired, so preoccupied with that stupid spell," she explained quietly.
"What spell?" I wondered, my left ear perking up again.
"That spell which took Trixie to your world and returned us both to Equestria after," Trixie answered simply.
I was confused; she told me before that there was no way for me to return home. I had just about given up hope on it because she had said as much to me.
"What do you mean? You said you didn't know how to return me to Earth, didn't you? That you didn't know how to turn me back into a human?" I recalled.
"That doesn't mean Trixie hasn't tried," my guardian grumbled. "Oh, how she has tried. Every day, all day, attempting to recall that dumb spell from memory."
I stared at her without comprehending.
"I don't get it. Why is it giving you such trouble if you've used it before?" I wondered.
"Because Trixie used an ancient scroll when she teleported to your realm, Fuu. The scroll disintegrated upon use and only kept the doorway open for a short time period, it was almost a one-way trip thanks to your backing into me," she explained. "If Trixie had woken up even a minute after she did she would have been stuck on Earth with you instead."
There was too much left unsaid in that explanation. Too much about magic that I couldn't comprehend yet.
I just sat dumbfounded before Trixie, not knowing what to say.
Finally, then, I remembered where I was and what the show had taught me.
"But, I mean, why not ask Twilight Sparkle for help with it? She's studied magic in Canterlot after all?" I blurted out.
Trixie's face darkened and she let out an angry snort.
"That fool of a foal Twilight Sparkle? No! Trixie will not lower herself to that pony's level," she fumed.
"But," I tried, only for Trixie to thunder on.
"Studied at Canterlot, you say? So did Trixie! At the same School for Gifted Unicorns which Twilight Sparkle attended," she revealed as if this was of great import.
The reference escaped me, and my head somewhat sagged sideways to my right shoulder in confusion, my ears drooping down slightly.
"Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns?" Trixie tried, as if that would explain it all.
When there was no immediate response from me, she rolled her eyes at me.
"Didn't you say you saw some show back on Earth which showed you Trixie's life? Didn't they explain how prestigious a school that was?" she decried.
I shook my head at her frustrated exclamation.
"No, sorry," I answered her in a flat tone, while trying to recall what schools I had seen come by in the show back on Earth.
There had been the school in Ponyville which I was now attending together with the other Cutiemark Crusaders, the flight school in Cloudsdale which Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had been enrolled in, but...
And then it hit me; The very first episode of the show had Twilight Sparkle located in Canterlot, talking with friends, reading about the return of Nightmare Moon in the books in Canterlot's library.
Was that what Trixie was hinting at?
"Wait, you grew up in Canterlot as well?" I suddenly realised.
Trixie stared at me as if my facial expressions had been enough of a show in and of themselves to watch carefully.
"That is what Trixie said, yes," she grumbled.
"I'm sorry, I don't... I'm not sure I know enough about life in Canterlot other than what little the show taught me, and I can't remember a school there," I explained with some embarrassment.
Trixie sighed and motioned her right hoof in a random direction as if to point at where Canterlot might be located.
"Let Trixie explain it to you then; Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns is the princess' very own school which only very few unicorns are allowed to enroll into," she started.
"Obviously Trixie wanted to go there from when she was as young a foal as yourself, since it would allow Trixie to visit the palace and be closer to the princess and the high society of Canterlot," Trixie pointed out.
I could see how that was a thing for ponies from Canterlot since Rarity had been trying to buddy up to the hoity-toity elites in the capital in one of the show's episodes.
"Trixie's parents enrolled her in the school and she was waiting in the hallway for her entrance exam when the sound of thunder shook the building," Trixie continued unabated.
"She was rushed out by the palace guards, and went home without being able to partake in the entrance exams for that year," the magician summarised. "When her parents inquired as to whether she could do the exams another day, they were told all available slots for the year were already filled up and Trixie would have to try again the next year."
A thunderclap which shook the building a school was in? Why did that feel like something I should know?
It didn't connect to anything just yet, so I simply sat and listened to Trixie orating.
"Trixie spent a year working at the Canterlot Royal Theater, working her way up from usher to stagehand, then eventually as an assistant to the magicians performing there," she detailed.
"That is when Trixie's cutiemark appeared," Trixie pointed out, looking back at her flank for a moment.
"So it's a lot like a prestigious college or university back on Earth then," I realised.
"If you say so," Trixie agreed.
"When Trixie did her entrance exam the next year, her future was already set in stone thanks to her time working at the theater," the blue unicorn pointed out. "Trixie tried to learn what magic she could, but it was quickly apparent she could do no more than stage magic, the odd illusion, and so on."
"Her classmates made fun of Trixie's lack of any useful magic. Everything Trixie does is smoke and mirrors," Trixie sighed with a sad undertone as she recalled those days of her youth. "Eventually Trixie just dropped out of school."
I considered what she said, but then raised my right forehoof to her.
"Didn't you teleport us around earlier? That's not stage magic, is it?" I suggested.
"It is; Trixie has a homing stone stored under her bed and simply recalls herself to it," she explained to me. "As long as the stone is given time to recharge its energy between uses, Trixie can teleport back to it any time she wants."
"Trixie can't use it to teleport anywhere else," she pointed out. "It's about as old a stage magician's tool as you can find in Equestria. It's all smoke and mirrors, Fuu."
I thought back to when Trixie had teleported us around; Every time I could remember it had been back to the wagon, never away from it.
I fell back on my butt, only now noticing I had subconsciously been leaning forward, my tail flicking over the grass behind me.
"So that's how you did it," I breathed out, as much in surprise as in admiration.
Knowing how a trick worked was one thing, but the showmanship of magicians was what made the trick work even if you knew how they did it.
Trixie had simply teleported us around without explaining the trick, and boy did it have enough of an effect to bewilder me each time.
"Do you think less of Trixie now that you know how the magic trick works, Fuu?" Trixie wondered.
I shook my head at her as she studied my reaction.
"No, no. Not at all. I had been wondering how you did it, actually," I replied. "I don't even know how to properly control my own magic, so you're still miles ahead of me on that."
"Yes, Trixie is better at magic compared to you," Trixie agreed. "But not compared to that Twilight Sparkle. She was a year ahead of Trixie and Celestia's favourite pupil. If Trixie had been given a chance to show her abilities that day, she might have been instead."
"Oh, I'm sure of it," I agreed with her.
It was probably better to let Trixie dream like that than to snuff the dream out by pointing out how much Twilight Sparkle had done for Equestria in just the first season of the show alone.
"Right?" Trixie continued, emboldened by me agreeing with her after my earlier rebellion. "But the Great and Powerful Trixie will have her moment yet; just you wait and see, Fuu. Once she teaches you enough about magic that you may assist her, Trixie's popularity will rise to new heights."
"You'll be the talk of the town, for sure," I suggested, feeling oddly drawn into her excitement.
Having said that, a thought occured to me and I peered down the road.
"On that note, miss Trixie; where were we going?" I wondered. "Nothing here looks familiar to me?"
Trixie snapped out of her dream and her face darkened again.
"Oh, well... Trixie hadn't considered where we would end up at, to be honest. As far from Ponyville and Canterlot as she could take us in a day's time, to start off with," she replied honestly.
"Trixie was mostly upset with how you seem to draw all the ponies around you while she is still regarded as a pariah by those who were there for her disastrous performance," Trixie sighed. "We should have left sooner, but Trixie thought she could send you back before you settled in properly."
"When princess Luna took an interest in you, Trixie realised that there was no use in trying to do that any more," she explained. "If Trixie sends you back home now, she is sure the princess will haunt her dreams over it."
"You're probably right on that," I considered. "Princess Luna did say she was going to watch me and my progress here."
Trixie huffed at that.
"Yes, this is what Trixie meant with undermining her authority, although she can see she might have taken it a bit farther than she should. The headaches from trying to piece together the transportation spell to Earth have been taking a toll on her," Trixie Lulamoon revealed.
"What headaches?" I queried in surprise. "You didn't tell me you had headaches?"
Trixie frowned at me. "Trixie did say to be quiet in the wagon, to make Trixie some tea and keep to yourself. How could she have made it more clear?"
"By saying you had a headache?" I pointed out. "Just being direct about it helps more than beating about the bush."
Trixie looked away to the road and shrugged.
"Like you could have done anything about the headaches. You had far worse ones than Trixie has experienced these past few days," she remarked. "It honestly worried Trixie. She doesn't know if you might respond to our magic different because you were formerly human."
I studied her and how she was supposedly looking away from me, but noticed I could probably still be seen in her peripheral vision.
"Sweetie Belle thinks it's normal for me to have the headaches I've been having," I revealed to her. "It doesn't seem so bad now; even if I felt worse for wear while having them."
Trixie smiled subconsciously at hearing that, and I realised she truly had been worried in her own weird way.
"Thank you for caring about me like that, miss Trixie," I beamed at her, my own mouth curling into a smile.
Trixie huffed, but her cheeks started to flush under her fur.
"Bah, here you were accusing the Great and Powerful Trixie of mistreating you, and now you're calling her 'miss'? Just forget it, Fuu. Just call Trixie Trixie from now on," she decided.
"Well, you did mistreat me," I stated matter-of-factly, "but I told you I'd stay with you as long as you keep your promise to not do it again."
Trixie turned to face me again and lifted her right hoof up.
"How was that dumb rhyme again... Cross my heart and hope to cry, stick a cupcake in my eye?" she recited, trying her best to mimic Pinkie Pie's Pinkie-promise I recalled from the show's first season.
"Cross my heart and hope to fly, I think," I corrected her. "You know you can't ever break a Pinkie Promise, right? Because she will know. That's something even I am aware of; she'll hunt you do and remind you of your promise any time you come even close to breaking it."
Trixie grumbled at my correction; "Yes, Fuu, that is why Trixie thought it would convince you she is genuine about it."
She then did the whole motion again.
"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," she spoke, emphasizing the corrected word.
A pink fluffy mane popped up from behind our wagon, Ponyville's premier pink party pony popping out a moment after.
"Oh, hi Fuu. Whatcha doing out here?" Pinkie wondered.
Trixie stared dumbfounded at the sudden appearance of Pinkie Pie, and I honestly felt a shiver run down my spine as I had not expected her either.
"Er, well, Trixie is taking us on the road to do a show somewhere else," I tried, knowing it was far from the truth.
Trixie was quick to use my excuse and hook in on it however.
"Yes, exactly," she agreed. "The Great and Powerful Trixie wants Fuu to see how amazing her magic shows are. She was ill received last time she performed in Ponyville, so we are on our way to Los Pegasus."
Pinkie Pie tilted her head and looked as if she didn't believe either of us.
"Okey-dokey-lokey," she finally exclaimed in a merry tone of voice. "Wouldn't it be easier to take the train there though?"
Trixie coughed and motioned at the wagon Pinkie was standing beside.
"Have you ever seen anypony take a wagon like this on the Friendship Express?" she posited.
Pinkie turned to face in the direction Trixie was pointing, and jumped back in surprise as if she had not expected to find our cart there.
"Oh! Wow, that's a biiiig wagon!" Pinkie marveled. "I'm sure it's full of amazing stuff for shows, isn't it?"
"Yes," Trixie agreed with rising frustration.
"Does it have a..." Pinkie started, then grabbed at the air behind her and pulled a cannon out from nowhere, "party cannon?"
Trixie's mouth dropped open a little in surprise, and I honestly had the same reaction.
I was sitting on the ground not four feet away from Pinkie Pie and there was no way that she had been able to hide a heavy cannon like that in the area around us, but here it suddenly was!
"No, but, how?" I stammered.
Trixie recovered quicker, and snorted at my bafflement.
"Trixie is sure that is just a hidden pocket," she decided. "Anypony can do those with enough training."
"But with something as heavy as a cannon?" I questioned her, looking away from Pinkie.
"It's probably a balloon," Trixie huffed. "Inflated behind the wagon while our attention was elsewhere."
"Are you saying you like balloons?" Pinkie Pie wondered, resting on her back on the grass between Trixie and myself.
Both of us looked down at her as Pinkamena Diane Pie started inflating a long blue balloon and then promptly folded it in on itself until it looked like a balloon dog.
"What... are you trying to accomplish here?" Trixie demanded, ignoring the balloon altogether.
Pinkie offered the blue balloon dog to me, smiling up innocently.
I was too dazed by her antics to do much else but grab hold of it with my forehooves.
"Well, I care about my friends, and anypony in Ponyville is my friend, and when my friends are not having a great time, I try to make their day just a little itty-bitty tiny bit better by cheering them up again," Pinkie Pie rattled off.
"Or cheering them down again, or sideways, or diagonalways, or anyways, do either of you want a cupcake?" Pinkie wondered in one breath.
She then quickly sat up and produced a box of cupcakes from Sugarcube Corner from out of nowhere, opening it up, and holding it out between us three so we could both look into it.
There were a rough dozen cupcakes in the box, all topped with a different colour of icing swirled on top of it.
I was still holding on to the balloon dog, but the sweet smell of the cupcakes overpowered the smell of rubber from the balloon and caused my mouth to fill up with saliva.
"How did you even find us?" Trixie wondered, trying to follow what was going on just the same as I was.
"There's only so many roads leading out of Ponyville, duh," Pinkie Pie declared. "I only needed to find out which one you took."
She offered the box with cupcakes up to Trixie again.
"Seriously, take a cupcake. They're delicious! I baked them myself this morning before following after you two," the pink one proclaimed.
Trixie rolled her eyes at Pinkie's insistence and took hold of a cupcake with green icing on it with her magic.
"Trixie presumes this is mint-flavoured?" she wondered, sniffing the thing as she brought it closer to herself.
"Ooh, close, but it's actually lime," Pinkie answered.
She turned the box in my direction.
"How about you, Fuu?" the earthpony mare wondered with a warm smile.
I glanced between the cupcakes and the balloon I was holding.
"Magic, Fuu," Trixie mumbled.
"Yes, I... I'm just a bit out of it, sorry," I apologised.
Reaching out with my magic, I took one of the cupcakes with pink icing out of the box and brought it closer to myself.
I carefully sniffed the thing, trying to figure out what flavour it was from the smell alone.
"Raspberry?" I wondered.
"Oooooooh, so close," Pinkie Pie answered in an overly dramatic tone of voice. "It's actually strawberry surprise!"
I raised an eyebrow at that.
"What's the surprise?" I had to ask.
Pinkie Pie leaned in and held one of her forehooves in front of her mouth, whispering to me in a conspiratorial tone of voice.
"The surprise is sugar frosting mixed in with the strawberry," she confided in me, then pulled away with a happy sigh. "Hmmmmm, sugary sweet frosting..."
Trixie half-closed her eyes and sighed out a deep sigh.
"Trixie guesses she should thank you for the cupcakes," she considered. "But we are fine beyond that."
My guardian took a bite out of her cupcake after speaking, and her eyes opened up fully as the taste hit her.
She seemed to genuinely like it if I could judge her involuntary response, but then she quickly took control over her outward emotions again and kept eating the cupcake in a more stoic manner.
I moved my own cupcake to my lips and carefully nibbled on the frosting covering it to test how hard it was.
My teeth sank into the topping as if it was a soft whipped cream, but there were clearly some sugar crystals in the mixture as I could feel their rough edges on my tongue.
The taste was a very very sweet strawberry, like one of those badly mixed milkshakes I had at fastfood restaurants back at home, but for some reason it just worked for this cupcake.
I found myself taking another bite before I had good and well swallowed the first, now taking part of the spongy cake into my mouth as well.
It had a rich but fluffy texture to it, barely any harder to bite through than the topping on it.
I could taste some of the oats in the dough which I had come to find was a staple part of most any meal here in Equestria, but there were some spices mixed through which I had a hard time identifying in the mixture assaulting my taste buds.
Pinkie Pie just sat in between the both of us, grinning like a maniac as she saw how well her cupcakes were received.
She waited patiently until we had finished our first cupcake, and then just wordlessly moved the box with the remaining cupcakes in them up and down a little between us.
I didn't wait for Trixie to take a cupcake first; I just took a blue one out of the box and stuffed it into my mouth.
As the taste of blueberry and the cake proper fought over which one should have control over my taste buds, I wondered if I had even had breakfast today.
What even was the time?
I dared to look up at the sky to try and find Celestia's sun without looking directly at it.
It sat high up in the sky, almost directly above us. So, roughly noon then. Time for lunch.
I had been too preoccupied getting my point across to Trixie to even consider getting breakfast first.
"They're good, aren't they?" Pinkie Pie cooed to me in particular, clearly proud of her baked goods.
Trixie swallowed down the remains of her cupcake, a yellow one from the looks of icing spread around her mouth, and then addressed Pinkie Pie.
"Yes, Trixie must confess they are very good. How do you keep them from burning up?" she wondered.
"Burning up?" Pinkie repeated like a parrot. "Why, unless I make flaming-hot rainbow-flavoured flapjacks, nothing should be doing any burning of any sort?"
I licked my mouth clean and leaned in to Pinkie Pie much in the same way she had done to me earlier, holding my left forehoof in front of my face while whispering in her ear.
"Trixie has the habit of burning our food when she tries to cook," I confided in the pink earthpony. "But don't tell anypony else."
Pinkie Pie blinked at hearing me say that, then gave me a very serious nod.
"I won't tell anypony. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," she recited her own Pinkie-promise, but finished it up by grabbing one of the cupcakes with purple icing from the box she was still holding onto and smashing it into her right eye.
Trixie looked startled at the sudden splash of purple icing now covering the other mare's face, but I just couldn't hold it anymore.
I let go of my balloon dog as I fell over laughing at Pinkie's antics, the sight of her face with frosting and cake drooping off of it setting me off in an uncontrollable gigglefit.
While I was rolling on the ground holding my forelegs to myself in an effort to gain some control back, Pinkie mumbled something I couldn't quite understand over the sound of my own voice escaping my mouth in short breaths and gasps.
I tried to focus on what Trixie said in response, but to no avail; I heard they were speaking words, but I couldn't get the gist of them.
I focused on the pair of them, but Pinkie just sat there with a serious face with bits of smashed cupcake still lazily drooping down her furry cheeks.
The juxtaposition of this pink pony who always tried to make merriment happen around her looking oh-so-serious for once, but also being smeared with purple frosting and cake bits set me off again.
I just couldn't stop laughing, couldn't focus on what the pair of older mares were talking about in semi-hushed voices.
If they were talking about me, then so be it. If they were talking about the world's events, just the same.
I was just having a rush of dopamine my poor little filly brain hadn't had this way yet.
What reason did I have to laugh my little pony head off before now?
Trixie had treated me like I had been a burden, I had barely come to terms with living in this world now, and there were so many things I had to try and figure out about life as a pony that I had been unable to give my emotions a proper place.
My giggling turned sour as the reality of my life hit me again, and I was soon curled up in the grass crying instead.
A pink hoof moved to gently rummage through my mane, and Pinkie Pie looked down on me with concern in her bright blue eyes.
"See, I told you I knew my friend wasn't having a good time," she offered in a soft, soothing voice.
Trixie took a step toward me and then sat down again, but instantly scooped me up from the ground and pulled me into a tight embrace.
"Damn it, Fuu," she grumbled into my mane as I was held to her. "You're making Trixie look bad again. And here she thought she started to get what it was you needed from her."
I couldn't help it; my emotions were going all over the place all of a sudden.
All I could do was cry, leaning into Trixie's warm body, looking out through wet eyes at Pinkie Pie peering back at both of us with clear concern on her face.
I finally, after so many days in Equestria, could let my emotions out like this.
I finally, after so many days here in this world, felt like Trixie genuinely cared for me and wasn't just making up excuses for her bad behaviour.
I finally, after so many days, felt like I was being seen and heard instead of dragged from one event to the next without a say in things.
If Trixie's promise and the way she held onto me right now were any indication, she might finally turn a new leaf.
I had no words for how desperately I needed her to.