Author's Notes:

Edited on 10 May 2015
Final edit on 07 Sep 2015

Trixie begrudgingly follows Minty Sprinkles down the sidewalk that lines the towering, concrete walls of Singsong Prison. With the afternoon sun beating down on her and no clouds to cover the massive ball of burning gas, Trixie feels like she is roasting alive, but Minty Sprinkles looks just peachy. The candy looking mare does not have a bead of sweat on her, and not even the slight limp she has stops her from a light skip. It aggravates Trixie that her parole officer is so damn happy for no reason.

The two round the corner, and much to Trixie's surprise the parking lot looks dead, with only a few motor wagons placed in random spots. There is one large vehicle that is close to them, though, and at first she ignores it, but when Minty stops and points at the behemoth, Trixie stops, like her heart, and quietly begs Celestia not to make her fear a reality.

Naturally she is ignored.

“And here's Joe!” says Minty proudly.

Trixie's eye twitches and her knees quiver as she stares at the desecrated mini-train before them. The king of road vehicles still has its scaled down train engine and cow-catcher with the exhaust pipe directed towards the back, but it is all painted yellow and blue. With the pipe yellow and the body blue. Positioned behind the engine is the rectangular, polished wooden cabin with slanted windows, and hanging down from the roof are the window wipers and large headlights, and behind the driver carriage is a truck bed that is six feet long. Also, the tires are fat, very fat, and the windows have pink curtains on the inside. To make the puke of colors more terrible for Trixie's eyes, there is décor hanging down in the cabin of fuzzy dice, as well as a disco ball with a bumblebee hanging from it. Truly, it is a sin to all vehicles.

“You can't be serious,” says Trixie, dumbfounded.

“You don't like Joe?” says Minty, her smile fading to disappointment.

“No! Look what you did to it! You-you made it look gay!”

“Well, duh! How else am I supposed to start off on a happy note if my vehicle looks like it wants to kill somepony?”

In a flash, Trixie's ears are splayed against her skull and her eyes are slits and aimed at Minty, and Minty, realizing her blunder, smiles sheepishly and backs away, giggling awkwardly.

“Oops. Sorry about that. That was a tongue slip.”

Trixie scoffs and sulks towards the abused mini-train, dreading what she will see inside. “Whatever.”

Minty shakes her head and walks after Trixie. “You got a really bad attitude. Like, rotten egg kind of bad. I mean, you just got out of prison! And not just any prison. Singsong Prison! Seriously, that is like the second worst place to be, next to that Snowflake place. And you're all prude-y about it.”

Trixie frowns at Minty, unimpressed. “What did you want me to be like? A singing filly that pole dances on lamp posts?”

“Well... yes.”

Trixie face-hoofs. “I hate you, already.”

“Well, that sucks, because I love you already”- Minty grabs Trixie's cheeks and pushes them together, puckering her lips like a fish and ignoring the ex-inmate's glare -“my cute little unicorn soistra.”

Trixie exposes her grinding teeth with a rabid growl, and her horn sparks as her whole trembling body becomes coiled like a trapped badged. “Get your hooves off of me.”

Thankfully Minty is smart enough to retract her hooves in a blur of motion, and Trixie can care less about the wide eyed, sealed lip look her parole office has. She meets the obnoxious pony's shock with a glare, and without taking her eyes off of Trixie, Minty unlocks and opens the door, and waves her in.

“After you, Miss Lulamoon,” says Minty.

Trixie looks inside, expecting it to be either be covered in glitter puke or cramped like when she was with the League, but it is surprisingly spacious. The fluffy chairs are professionally tailored to that of a pony, and the spot free dashboard is made of wood and has a very basic assortment of tools in front of the driver seat. Tools such as the steering, the speed lever, and gauges measuring the speed, fuel level, and engine systems in between the two. On the other side of the steering orb is a giant keyhole and a button for a horn, which Trixie is certain will blare polka music instead of honk like a normal horn.

After Trixie climbs inside the first thing she notices, besides how comfortable the seat is, is that there is a hole for her tail to go through. Trixie looks over her shoulder to make sure her tail is not going somewhere that it shouldn’t, and finds a lot of empty food containers, bottles, a book titled “How To Speak Peltish In Three Months”, lottery tickets and a notebook with a pen clamped to it stuffed in the back. While she does get some relief that Minty does not have a gun and ski mask with her, Trixie still finds the language book odd and the notebook just as strange.

Using her magic, Trixie grabs the notebook and is about to open it, but a mint green hoof slams down on the item, yanks it away from her and then an equally green butt sits right on top of it.

“Nope! Not for you!” says Minty.

“What's in the book?” asks Trixie.

“Its not for you, so don't worry about it.”

“But-”

“Private, Trixie. Its private.”

“...Is it your diary?”

Minty opens her mouth with her hoof raised, then closes it with a scrunched brow and looks straight ahead, hoof still raised slightly. She and Trixie remain silent for a strange three seconds before Minty nods.

“Yes. Yes it is my diary, so don't read it or I will be really, really, really, really angry with you, okay?” says the earth pony, casting a warning look at Trixie.

Trixie nods her head quickly, her stomach growling again.

“Good.” Minty grins straight ahead and shoves her key in the ignition slot and presses it down with a click. “Now let's get you something to eat.”

The vehicle rumbles and belches thick black smoke out the back, and then it moves forward, slowly at first, but it gradually picks up speed. In seconds, they are zooming away from Singsong Prison at speeds that rival a professional racer, but for Trixie, is not fast enough.

Trixie frowns at the door mirror, watching the prison shrink in the distance with hot tears stinging her reddening eyes and her throat clogging with a wet lump. As the distance grows between her and the prison, the memories of her stay latch on to the front of her mind like a tick. From the needles being injected into her, to the prison fights, getting dragged around like a dog and subjected to psychological treatment as if she were a bratty child. She knows she will never be able to get rid of these tumors in her memory. No matter how many pills she takes, no matter how many times she tells herself it is over, she knows the truth. They killed a part of her in that forsaken place and left her corpse there to rot, and it will never end for her.

“Good riddance,” mutters Trixie.

She then slouches in her seat and stares ahead at the snow capped Canterlot mountains, sniffling and blinking the tears out of her eyes. Minty looks at her for a moment before offering a sympathetic smile and gently patting her on the shoulder. Trixie flinches and glares at her parole officer, and, in turn, she quickly retracts her hoof and keeps her eyes on the road.

Trixie's eyes drift back to the road, as well, and barely notices the flat landscape passing them by, but she does take note of the sign that alerts them of Canterlot being fifty five miles away. Seeing that sign, Trixie groans inwardly and slumps further in her seat, knowing she is in for a long ride for her sort-of freedom.

Trixie has her head resting on her hoof, lips curled to a frown and tired eyes staring ahead at the long line of blocky motor-wagons going bumper to bumper, honking and revving their engines as they trudge through the smoggy streets of Canterlot.

She remembers when Canterlot was the cleanest city in all of Equestria. The white walls and gold roofs of the buildings always made things bright, even at night when the polished lampposts would take over, but now all she sees is a very strange sight of metal monoliths sprouting from the dirty walls, like snakes shedding skin.

To Trixie's great disappointment, the cobblestones are nearly completely replaced with a substance called asphalt, supposedly invented at a Flim Flam Corporation lab a few years back. All it looks like to her is ground up black rocks glued together, though. It is not nearly as pretty as the old cobblestone, and all she can really describe it as is tacky. Icky comes to mind, too, since it looks like it is bleeding black in some parts.

Another thing that bugs Trixie is how crowded Canterlot has become. The capital of Equestria has always been one of the more populated cities, but back then Trixie knew the good from the bad, and even then the bad had not really been that bad. The government homes looked nice, the wealthy had nicer homes, the public schools looked great, the royal academies looked better.

Now?

Now all Trixie sees is a big slum with graffiti and worn posters of events plastered on the decaying walls and rusting lampposts. Everywhere she looks there is dirt, grime, bumper to bumper traffic and various races too reluctant to pass each other for their own good. Especially in regards to the griffins.

The part where Minty and Trixie had ground to a near halt is next to a block of a building made of wood with peeling red paint and a purple flag with a red stone surrounded by a gold flame as the symbol. Above the heavy wooden door is a sign surrounded by tubes of light with Alázatos Roost written in fancy calligraphy, and guarding the said door is a pair of griffins watching every passer carefully. Unless said passer is a griffin, then they smile and shake talons and let their fellow cat-bird thing in.

“Looks like the griffin population grew,” says Trixie.

Minty nods and looks at the Roost with a cautious eye. “Yep. Altai is a mess right now, so we got a lot of griffins coming here to get away from all that junk in their homeland. Their population actually got big enough to where Celestia is allowing meat into the city.”

Trixie closes her eyes and shudders at the disturbing thought of skinned and sliced up animals being delivered to Canterlot. All those poor bunnies and pigs and squirrels, all having their skin sliced off and their guts torn out and drained of all their blood in a cold, cramped room full of hooks. How anyone can eat meat is beyond her.

“And since we're talking about griffins, I am going to tell you right now to avoid them at all costs,” says Minty sternly.

“I planned on it,” replies Trixie dryly.

“I'm serious. The griffins got a monopoly on Canterlot's criminal underworld, so you don't know who is really good and who is really bad. So, play safe, and if you just happen to run into one, be polite, smile and get out of their way. Don't give them a reason to stab you in the face with their fingers.”

“I get it! Jeez!” Trixie bangs her head against the passenger window, growing more agitated by the minute and really wishing she can run out of the vehicle without getting in any trouble. “Is there a short cut we can use to get out of this mess?”

“Nope.”

Trixie groans and slams her head against the window. Again.

“--And Steve Tackleloski tackles Swing Stick in a spectacular cougar pounce and has his head pressed against the ground and is keeping his hindquarters- Keeping Stick locked in place with his hindquarters! Stick is wrestling, he's wiggling, he looks like he's almost free and-”

BZZZZT!

The sudden buzz is like a vibrating pen being stabbed in Trixie's ears, which jolts her eyes open from the unpleasant noise. She could feel herself drifting to sleep, but even though her eyes were closed, she still heard everything, but the terrible buzzer really ruined her chance for a nap.

In a weak attempt to comfort her ears, Trixie folds them down and tenderly rubs them. She looks at Minty, expecting to see some discomfort, as well, but what she sees instead is her parole munching on the popcorn she found, looking intently at the radio and barely paying any mind to the road.

“The buzzer has spoken and Swing Stick is now the tagger,” says the stallion over the radio.

Another stallion pipes in. “Yes, and Steve Tackleloski still leads the match by three points, and if Swing Stick wants to have any hopes of getting at least third place he'll have to step up his game.”

“True, but it looks like we'll have to wait and see how the next round goes. The rest signal was just put on, so we're going to go to commercial break while our athletes take a breather. Stay tuned.”

Another stallion goes on air, but his voice sounds like an odd jock trying his hoof at advertising with a little too much enthusiasm and not enough talent. “Equestrian Tackle Tag League is brought to you by Flim Flam Corporation. Building the world together!”

An advertisement starts playing with whimsical music and a narrator starts speaking about advanced science that Trixie does not care about.

“What was that?” asks Trixie.

“What was what?” asks Minty, looking out the window in search of the mysterious thing Trixie asked about.

Seeing the mare react like that really compels Trixie's hoof to find a crash course on the earth pony's nose, but she settles with a sigh and facehoof. “What was on the radio?”

“Oh, that was tackle tag.”

“Tackle tag?”

“Tackle tag.”

Trixie rolls her eyes and looks out the window again, somewhat relieved to see that they are not in such a dirty spot. It looks like they have entered a middle class neighborhood, at this point. “Sounds stupid.”

Minty gasps way too loud to be serious about her reaction. “Tackle tag is not stupid, Trixie Lulamoon!”

Trixie sneers at Minty. “Did you just use my full name?”

“I would ground you for saying something so stupid, but I won't. You are obviously ignorant and in need of guidance.”

Trixie's jaw drops. “Ignorant? Ignorant!? Trixie is not ignorant! Trixie should let you know that Trixie has traveled all over Equestria, far and wide, east and west, north and south, performing and telling great tales and enjoying the local cultures!”

“And yet you never heard of tackle tag.”

“What the hell is tackle tag!?” yells Trixie, her voice cracking to a high pitched whine.

Minty jabs at the radio, getting visibly annoyed, now. “The thing you just asked about on the radio.”

“No shit, Starswirl! But what is it?”

“Its exactly what it is. Tagging with tackling. Ponies run around on a field, one is the tagger, and the tagger has to tackle somepony and keep them pinned for ten seconds. Once the tagger successfully tags another pony, they get a point and the first one to five points wins the round and however many rounds there are depends on whoever is in charge of the game or through vote or whatever. Most points win. Unlike golf. Which is boring and stupid.”

Trixie scoffs. “Oh, so something as uncouth as ponies wrestling in grass for points is entertainment, but golf is not?”

Minty's eyes narrow and Trixie's sour look fades to one of concern, and an audible gulp runs down her throat when she sees her parole officer's eyes narrow and darken and her muscles tense with a creepy frown.

“You are starting to remind of an unpleasant pony I once knew,” says Minty, her voice low, dangerous and laced with a wolfish growl. She stops at a red light and gives Trixie her full, undivided attention, and the ex-inmate shrinks in her seat, pupils tiny like dots and body scrunching at the vicious glare she is receiving. “Do you really want to get on my bad side on your first day out, Trixie?”

Her body now as scrunched as tight as it can go without imploding, Trixie quietly shakes her head hard enough to wave her mane, and Minty's mood suddenly brightens with a big grin as she looks ahead.

“Glad to hear. Now, let's get some lunch,” says the parole officer.

The light turns green and Minty speeds on, leaving Trixie dumbfounded at what just happened.

Minutes later, Minty pulls into the parking lot of a quaint restaurant called Donut Joe's Donut Shop. It holds a classic, Nifty Fifties design with glass blocks for a wall, shiny, stainless steel doors and gem powered tubes of light snaking on the roof.

“--And speaking of hoofball, that is where tackle tag came from. You know, I still remember how I used to play tackle tag with my sisters all the time, nearly every week when we were young,” says Minty over the radio, which is still be broadcasting the obscure game.

Trixie groans and pulls her ears down with her hooves and shuts her eyes. Ever since their conversation at the red light, Minty has not been able to keep her mouth shut about the strange subject. It is like she is on nostalgic overload and does not know how to stay quiet. Trixie is certain she did not talk this much when she had a life, and she briefly wonders how oblivious Minty must be to talk so much that she does not even realize that her passenger is getting red faced and about ready to shatter her teeth from how hard she is grinding them.

“Though, my little sister hated it because she was so small and we always pinned her down easily, so she started messing around with instruments instead of playing with us. She really loved those string instruments, like violins and cellos and harps and banjos and basically anything with a string. She could play a mean fiddle, too, and could knock the colors off of you with her mad skills with a violin and cello. She was -and actually still is- really good with banjos, which her first banjo was actually a gift from some family up from Ponyville that was given to my oldest sister and she gave it to her as a hoofydown Hearth's Warming Eve gift,” continues Minty.

Trixie presses her hooves harder against her ears and shuts her eyes tighter. 'Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.'

“Speaking of my oldest sister, she's all... She's all wow.” Minty's eyes pop wide for reasons mysterious to Trixie as she pulls into a parking spot. “I mean, with tackle tag or hoofball or wrestling you could not keep her down for anything! You'd tackle her and BAM!” Minty bangs her hooves together and giggles, ignoring Trixie's rapidly intensifying glare. “You were on your back and she was gone like the wind! She even benched two three hundred pound, rock hard muscle stallions at the same time ten times. Ten reps! Ten!”

'Please, Celestia, have her choke on a bug or something!'

Minty taps her chin in thought. “Maybe that's why all the colts wanted her on their sports teams, but she actually hated sports and only played tackle tag with us to make us happy. She was actually a bookworm. A really, freakishly strong bookworm that loved hitting the gyms. And she was a big health nut, too. Like a coconut kind of big nut, and those are big, big nuts, too. Have you ever seen a coconut, before? I mean, they get-”

“SHUT UP!” screams Trixie. She grabs Minty's shoulders and starts shaking her as hard as she can, whipping the officer's head back and forth like a dysfunctional bobble-head, screaming at the top of her lungs with wild eyes and a face as red as a red hot chili pepper. “JUST SHUT UP! SHUT! UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! SHUT! UUUUUP! Goddess damn.” Trixie shoves Minty into the door and turns away, panting and twitching. “I mean, shit. Do you even hear yourself? I mean... holy shit.”

Minty stares at Trixie, mouth sealed shut, ears drooped and eyes too big for her head, and Trixie remains staring straight ahead. She quickly notices a couple of passing ponies staring at her, though, but all she has to do to get them to stop is roll down her window and yell at them.

“You wanna go!” shouts Trixie with half her body out the window. The two ponies pale and gallop away and Trixie shakes her hoof at them. “Yeah, you better run!”

“You know, I could technically arrest you for assaulting an officer of the law and threatening harm on two individuals,” says Minty deadpanned.

Trixie scoffs and slumps back in her seat, not bothering to look at her parole officer. “You? An officer of the law? Please, don't make Trixie laugh. You have candy on your ass. That's not guardian material.”

Minty frowns. “Okay, that's it. I'm getting sick of your crap, already. You got one strike, Trixie. Two more and I'm cuffing you and tossing your tail back in Singsong for another year.”

“Oh, I'm sure you will,” counters Trixie with a roll of her eyes as she folds her hooves across her chest.

Then her ears perk with the sounds of metal clanking together, and she looks out of the corner of her eye, still frowning, and sees Minty holding up a set of horn and hoof cuffs. Trixie's eyes bulge and she turns all the way to see Minty's eyes are narrowed and ready for a challenge, and her frown has gotten more intense, whereas Trixie's has faded to pure fear, and she flinches and inches back when Minty shakes them again.

“Test me. I dare you,” says Minty darkly.

The earth pony gives the cuffs another shake and Trixie whines quietly and pushes herself into the door, heart racing and sweat sucking her dry as ghostly cuffs press on her neck, limbs and horn to remind her of Hell.

“You don't want to test me?” says Minty.

Trixie shakes her head.

“Are you sure? I love being tested.”

Trixie shakes her head again.

“So you aren't sure if you want to test me or not?”

Trixie is in the middle of shaking her head again when she suddenly stops, tries nodding, but stops again and looks at Minty with big eyes glowing with the purest form of confusion. “What?”

Minty sighs and drops her eyelids halfway with her drooping ears and opens up her door, keeping the cuffs hung around her neck. “Never mind. Come on, Trixie, lets get something to eat.”

“Can't you bring me something and I'll just eat it here?” asks Trixie meekly.

Minty walks to Trixie's side and opens her door, giving her a stern stare. “No, you’re my responsibility and I have to keep my eye on you at all times. Besides, you'll probably run off. Now get out and help me eat some donuts!”

“But you're mean to me!”

“What are you, five? I'm a candy colored messiah compared to who you had to deal with, and as your messiah I am ordering you to get out and eat donuts with me!”

Trixie shakes her head and slides further back, and Minty sighs, grabs the unicorn's hoof and pulls her out, despite the weak protests, both verbal and physical. Trixie tugs away from Minty and tries grabbing on to the seat of the mini-train, but her hooves paw useless at it and she almost gets a face full of cushion when her parole officer bites down on her tail and starts pulling. Both mares grunt and pull against each other, with Trixie resorting to wrapping her hooves on the seat belt and Minty digging her hooves into the pavement.

“Minty, I will buck you in the face if you don't let go!” yells Trixie, her stomach instantly growling angrily at its lack of needed nutrients and her reluctance to get some.

“You buck me and its ten strikes!” says Minty, her voice muffled by the mouth full of tail. “You need to eat, so get inside and help me eat donuts!”

“But I don't wanna go inside!”

“You're doing a great job of testing me!”

“I promise I won't run away if you get me a little bag to munch on!”

“Let go of the seat belt!”

“No!”

Minty spits out the tail, growling. “That does it.”

Trixie relaxes for just a second when she feel her tail slide free from the spit soaked cavern of Minty's mouth. However, Trixie is not quick enough for her to get back on guard, for within a blink of an eye Minty's full body weight comes crashing down on her back, pressing her into the seat, and next thing she knows-

She and Minty walk right into the donut shop, manes and tails ruffled and tangled, fresh shiners on their eyes, both fuming and Minty's frock a little ripped around the collar with cuffs on Trixie's limbs, neck and horn with the chain leash in Minty's mouth. That gets the attention of everyone in the shop, but both mares ignore the stares as they limp towards the counter, where a stocky, light amber unicorn stallion with a brown mane is standing, waiting to take their order.

“So, is this strike two?” asks Trixie sourly, her head lowered and her hate filled eyes drifting over the patrons.

“I'm upping it to five. Be grateful,” grumbles Minty, now coming to a stop in front of the counter.

“Then why am I in cuffs?”

“Just in case you strike out in the next five minutes.” Minty then flashes a bloody smile at the unicorn, whose name tag says “Joe”, props half of her body on the counter and with a fail of a flirtatious look and in a sweet, polar opposite of annoyed voice with an odd giggle to go with it, she says: “Hey there, stud muffin. How you doing?”

That gets a brow raise from Trixie, and Joe shifts uncomfortably in his spot and leans back a little when Minty bats her lashes a little too quickly at him.

“Uh... I'm fine,” says Joe. He looks between the two mares, getting a little bit more concerned when Trixie coolly approaches the counter and uses fancy hoof work to shove a napkin up her bloody nose. “Shouldn't you two be in the hospital? Or taking her to jail or something?”

Minty takes the chain out of her mouth and clumsily wraps it around her hoof. “Nah, we're fine. We just had a minor disagreement about how we should eat out.”

Minty giggles awkwardly and starts trembling a little bit with a twitch in her eye, and Joe looks at Trixie, getting more concerned as the seconds tick by. But it is ambiguous as to whether or not the concern is for his safety or the patrons. Noting his uneasy expression, Trixie sighs, steps back with her head down and hoof up.

“I don't know her,” says Trixie.

“Not yet you don't!” blurts Minty. She quickly pulls Trixie into a one hoof hug, tugging the unicorn off balance and snapping their bodies together, smiling brightly and giggling more madly with a slightly twitching eye as Trixie tries to wrestle away from her and Joe takes a step back. “But soon we're gonna be fridge magnets and we're gonna eat donuts together and can we have a lot of donuts, handsome man!?”

A few minutes later, Trixie is sitting at a table near the exit with Minty across from her. The earth pony still has Trixie's chain wrapped around her hoof, but her gaze is on the platter of a dozen donuts, consisting of four chocolate glaze, four regular glaze, four with sprinkles on one side and four with mint frosting. However, those four mint donuts quickly drops to three since as soon as the two mares get comfortable, Trixie's hoof snaps out like a cobra and pulls the pastry to her. She squishes half of it in the process and leaves crumbs splattered all over the table and platter, but she is not in the least bit concerned since when she bites off half of it it tastes just as good as she thought it would. Minty, meanwhile, calmly takes her chocolate and sprinkle donuts without making a mess.

“So, what was that back there?” says Trixie suddenly, her mouth full of slobber covered, half chewed, yummy goodness.

“What was what?” asks Minty.

Trixie swallows. “That flirting. Or screaming. Or meltdown. Or whatever it was that you did.”

“I wasn't flirting. I was talking to him.”

“So, leaning up on the counter, batting your lashes and giggling like a retarded filly and then having a meltdown is how you talk to all stallions?” Trixie shoves the other half of her mint donut in her mouth. “You really suck at flirting.”

Minty balks and Trixie smiles smugly at her parole officer while swallowing the delicious pastry she has graced her tongue and stomach with.

“I do not!” whines Minty.

“Uh, yeah, actually you do,” remarks Trixie.

“Well, I, uh, I... um... uh... Do you like sports?”

Trixie scrunches her brows with her hoof extended to grab another donut. “What?”

“Sports. Do you like sports?”

Trixie stares Minty suspiciously, her hoof still extended. “Are you trying to change the subject?”

Minty turns slightly and coolly inspects her hoof, smiling just as smug as a successful jock. “I like sports. Especially tackle tag and those martial arts competitions.”

Trixie groans and presses her face into her hooves. “Please don't start on tackle tag again.”

“So, martial arts it is! One time when I was at a petting zoo-”

“Minty, please don't talk.”

Minty snorts disapprovingly. “Okay, fine, I'll stop. But what about you? What sports did you like?”

Trixie lowers her hooves to give the officer sour look. “I was a magician.”

“And I was a health inspector for candy factories, so what's your point?”

“I never got into it. I was busy with my shows.”

“Ohhhhh, okay. What was your favorite trick?”

Trixie shrugs and looks down at the table, ears drooped and a slow, sad exhale leaving her. “I don't know. I guess I liked making light shows. You know, like making animals and ponies out of lights and setting off fireworks.”

Minty hums and rubs her chin, nodding slowly. “Okay, I gotcha. But did you ever, you know, lure anypony into your cart for some fun after doing some tricks? Or do any after show specials for the VIPs?”

Trixie scrunches her nose. “No.”

“You mean to tell me that as long as you had been on the road, you never tried bedding a stallion? Not even once? Or twice? Or two at once?”

Trixie's face starts heating up and sweat rolls down her, and she shifts uncomfortably in her spot, watching the patrons and hoping that they are not hearing the conversation. Some quickly turn their heads when they see her looking, and she whimpers quietly, despite a choking lump in her throat and looks back at Minty with burning, wet eyes.

“N-No, I never... No, I didn't...” stammers Trixie.

“How about mares?” asks Minty

Trixie's eyes bulge. “No!”

Minty holds up her hooves defensively. “Hey, relax, I don't judge if you go that way. I thought my best friend was a lesbian for the longest time, but, wow-ee, talk about an awkward surprise when walking in on her and that stud. On my bed. When she was supposed to be babysitting. It was messy. They must've been pent up for quite some time.”

Trixie throws down her donut and shields her averted, blushing face with her hoof. “Oh, ew! Come on, Minty, I barely know you and you're doing this to me, already!”

Minty looks down at her donut plate with a small frown and a distant look in her eyes. “It really is awkward coming home early from a trip and hearing the kiddos say: 'Auntie, our babysitter is making funny noises in your bedroom'.”

Trixie slams her hooves down and glares at her parole officer. “Minty!”

Minty looks up, confused. “What?”

“Stop that!”

Minty looks down again, sighing sadly and poking at her plate. “I'm sorry. I just wanted to get to know you, but I guess got a little distracted.”

Trixie scoffs with tears sliding down her cheeks. “A little?”

Minty nods. “Yeah, a little. But, I mean, these criminal profiles are very impersonal and most of the time they only tell you what they want without the whole story. Kinda like modern journalism.”

Trixie averts her eyes and sniffles and wipes her nose, and in turn, Minty flashes a toothless, easygoing smile at her.

“But I know you aren't all that bad, Trixie,” she says, prompting the ex-inmate to look at her reluctantly. “You got a little rough streak that made you a bit moody, but its nothing a nice spa trip or a sleepover with some friends can't handle. You know, loosen you up and all that?”

“I don't want to loosen up,” says Trixie, her eyes narrowing, teeth grinding and more tears flowing down her cheeks. “I don't want any friends. I don't want sleepovers. I don't want spas. I don't want to be touched by anypony for any reason. I just want to be left alone! Got it?”

Minty hums and pulls out her notebook, leans back so Trixie cannot see what is inside, and props it on her hoof and uses her mouth to guide the pen. “Well, that's not gonna happen since you made some horrible errors which means we can't leave you alone, but luckily I'm here to help you get back on track. It'll be tough, and you and I got a lot of work to do, but-”

Trixie suddenly slams her hooves on the table, and with tears pouring down from her bloodshot eyes and soaking her fur she screams at Minty: “TRIXIE DOESN'T NEED YOUR HELP!”

Instantly, the establishment goes dead silent, and Trixie looks around, seeing the various looks of confusion, concern and fear in the eyes of adults and children alike. When she sees Minty's shocked expression, she slumps in her seat, folds her hooves on the table and buries her head in them, whimpering and sniffling.

“Trixie's fine.”