A short time after departing from the zebra caregiver, Trixie was escorted onto a cart with a group of other mares to begin her day of work. The cart wasn’t going very far, but the trip felt like it was taking forever. Plenty of the girls were cautiously keeping an eye on the two stallion guards pulling them to their destination, unable to get over the fact that not too long ago, said guards were part of the tyrannical regime that enslaved and tortured them. Mind-controlled or not, it was difficult to simply forgive someone who might have been one of the innumerable men who raped them.

Others tried to keep their minds off of things by looking at the buildings they passed by, but in this early stage of rebuilding Equestria after the fall, there were plenty of them in a state of disrepair. The caribou cared little about the maintenance of the kingdom they annexed, having far too many other matters that they felt were more important, and over the year let many structures decay. In some cases, they burned down buildings simply for being owned by a mare, and in others, they let them stand abandoned as their occupant was shipped off to some unspeakable facility to be beaten and raped into submission. It was unfortunate, but everywhere one looked, they could find something that had been tainted by the evil, domineering deer men.

Trixie, in her own state of constant depression, didn’t care to look at anything that would demoralize her further than she already was, and instead hugged her legs while gluing her eyes to the cart’s floor. The work she had volunteered for, if through the means of peer pressure, was supposed to be a hopeful endeavor. Every mare, no… everypony that would be at the work site would be there to help fix all the things the caribou destroyed with their brutality and gross negligence. It would be one step on the path of getting things back to what they once were, back to normal, and if everything could go back to normal then everything would be ok.

But as much as Trixie wanted to ignore all the bad in the world, it was like an ever present taint that cloaked the world in a sense of despair. She could feel the things wrong with the road she was traveling. It was bumpy, cracked, and in desperate need of attention from somepony who could make it right. Trixie thought that what she felt in no way accurately represented what she would see if she took a moment to look at it. No doubt in her mind, the road she traveled on would look much worse than she believed if she actually peered over the side of the cart and take in the damage that had been done. In her experience, that was the way it always turned out to be.

It only took a matter of minutes for the cart to reach its destination, a mostly cleared-out area on the outskirts of town. There, the acting government of Equestria had shipped lots of construction materials. Long planks of wood, cement bags, buckets full of nails, roof shingles, carpeting… pretty much anything one would need to build a home, which was exactly what the party of volunteer workers would be doing.

The cart came to an abrupt stop, and when it did, the Wonderbolt that had rounded up the occupants of it from the halfway home swooped down from above. “This is the place,” she said, getting straight to the point. “Everypony line up next to the cart to receive your assignments.”

One by one, the cart was vacated, with Trixie being the last to muster up the energy to leave it. This was what she had left the shelter for, and there was little reason to dally now that she was here. Taking a place on one end of the line, Trixie did her best to stand in attention as the Wonderbolt representative landed. The pegasus gave a cursory glance over those she would be supervising that day, and with a heavy sigh, she addressed them.

“Thank you all for coming,” she started, “My name is Fleetfoot, and I know that all of you didn’t have to be here, and that it might still be hard for a lot of you to work in the same area as stallions.” She said pointing to a portion of the construction site where dozens of stallions were hard at work erecting several houses. “Because of that, I want to let you all know that any help you give is greatly appreciated. For those of you new to this, we are here to aid in the reconstruction of homes the caribou destroyed. These homes are going to be occupied by mares like yourself, and some of you know that the houses we are working on today will be your own.”

Upon leaving Fleetfoot’s lips, the words struck Trixie’s ears hard. Images flashed across her eyes in rapid succession. Visions of rain, night, and fire. Visions of a home that she could never truly replace, vanishing in a swath of destruction. Memories of crawling in mud, struggling to get away from a sinister figure looming over her, and failing to do so.

The thought forced itself to the forefront of her mind, no matter how much she wanted to repress it. Phantoms such as these plagued her constantly, brought upon by the simplest of phrases or association. The images of what she lost wouldn’t go away, nor would those of the things she had gained in her time as the caribou’s pain puppet. Her home, her freedom, her self-esteem, all of it taken away in the moment it took to drop a torch. The once prideful mare easily became lost in these thoughts, mesmerized by the shadows of misery that made residence in her memories.

“Hey,” Trixie heard, accompanied by the sound of snapping, “Are you listening?”

Trixie hadn’t realized that she had spaced out long enough for Fleetfoot to finish explaining the jobs they would all be doing. The pegasus noticed though, and brought her back to reality. “Sorry, I… just have a lot on my mind.”

“We all have a lot on our minds,” Fleetfoot said directly, “But if you’re going to help today, I need you to be focused. Equestria is depending on each of you to do your jobs.”

The words were clearly supposed to be motivational and meant for everypony, but the way she presented them made Trixie self-conscious and embarrassed. It felt like Fleetfoot was condemning her for a minor mistake, instead of encouraging all the volunteers to do their best.

“Ok, everypony has their assignments. Head to your stations and do your best.”

The line of mares dispersed, but Trixie stood there unsure of what she was suppose to do. She hesitantly tried going in one direction and then the other, but ending up stopping right back where she started. It didn’t take long for the Wonderbolt to notice and address this distressed unicorn directly.

“Is there a problem?” she asked, not knowing why it was this mare was having a hard time.

“I, uh… I didn’t hear what my job was supposed to be…” Trixie admitted, having little other choice.

Fleetfoot shook her head, but got that whatever distracted her before made her miss her assignment. “You and the other unicorns are to help the builders by holding up the planks and putting nails in place.”

“The unicorns are setting things up?” Trixie questioned.

“The committee decided that able-bodied unicorns would have an easier time doing this because of levitation magic. No straining muscles or hitting fingers.”

Trixie felt her mouth go a little dry, and unconsciously she directed her eyes to the ground. “About that… My horn doesn’t exactly… work... at the moment…”

“It… what?” Fleetfoot was taken aback at this new information.

She knew there were unicorns like this, just as there were pegasi with perfectly functional wings that couldn’t fly. Despite the zebra being able to fix any of the physical damage done to the mares, the damage the caribou did were deeper than the flesh. This was all understandable to Fleetfoot, but she never expected a handicapped pony to volunteer for this kind of work.

The Wonderbolt almost wanted to tell the impotent unicorn that she shouldn’t force herself to do this, but truth was that Equestria needed as much help as it could get from all of its citizens.

“Ok… Well that’s good to know. How about this, then?” Fleetfoot rubbed her chin, and looked to see what Trixie could do to help. Without her horn, setting up the materials wasn’t really an option. Anything she did with that would be less efficient and more dangerous than if a capable unicorn did the work. There was something else that she could do though, seeing that she was only limited by her horn, and not her hands. “Why don’t you help with nailing things together? You won’t need to do any magic, just work as hard as you can.”

“I… suppose I could do that.” Trixie replied, certain that she was at least that capable. It wouldn’t be the first time she did hands-on labor, as she once worked on a rock farm with a strict no-magic policy. She believed she could handle this. No, she knew that something this menial was something she could do. “Right, I can do it. Just point the way.”

Seeing that she had spent far too much of her time on this mare, and needing to get to her own duties for the reconstruction, the pegasus pointed to a bunch of earth ponies grouped up together, talking with one another, ready to work as soon as they got the word.

Trixie half-heartedly thanked Fleetfoot, not for the directions per say, but for not dismissing her on the spot. The look in the Wonderbolt’s eyes and the tone of her voice gave off a sense of mistrust in the blue mare’s abilities, but she was willing to give her a shot regardless. That in itself was a better reaction than Trixie had expected to receive. It felt weird, but encouraging. That anypony could have any faith in her was a good thing, and and deep down it sparked a bit of the pride she once had. With this joyous feeling inside her, Trixie went to join the mares she would be working with. Fleetfoot followed after, knowing the confusion that would be caused if she didn’t explain things.

Fleetfoot quickly introduced Trixie to the earth mares, explaining the reason she had to swap her to the group. It was a bit uncomfortable for Trixie, but she found that she was welcomed to the building team by most of her soon to be co-workers. Several of the mares in the group were from the same shelter as her though, and they had reservations on how well this usually mopey and disheartened unicorn would fair doing physical labor.

“I’m not sure she’ll do well with us,” One said bluntly, not caring if she hurt the unicorn’s feelings by doing so, “She’ll probably just get in our way.”

“I won’t get in the way,” she rebutted, her pride dimming a bit with the poor assumption of her capabilities. “But if that’s how you feel, I can just go back to the cart. It’s not like I wanted to be here to begin with.”

This was the attitude the shelter mares had come to associate with the blue unicorn: one of a defeatist that gave way whenever any form of opposition reared its head. At the drop of a hat, Trixie would abandon whatever she was doing to instead retreat to her room and sulk. They had put up with the behavior for a while, knowing that every mare in Equestria had endured a terrible experience, but after months of trying to respect her feelings and providing emotional support it was clear that attitude wasn’t changing at all.

Over time, they all moved onto other things, and eventually began to resent this pony who was becoming more and more a burden to everyone else as the days went by. Trixie wasn’t the only one suffering from prolonged emotional trauma from their time of enslavement, but she was the only one who seemed to not make any effort in getting past it. A shut-in who wouldn’t do anything unless forced to, who was a waste of food and hogged the bathroom for who knew what.

“Come on, girls, just let her try.” Fleetfoot said, not wanting to push away even a single helper, believing the more there were to work, the faster the restoration efforts would go. “How bad could she possibly be?”

“Ok…” said one of the earth mares form the shelter, “But if something goes wrong, we’re not taking the blame.”

“Nopony is going to get blamed for anything.” Fleetfoot reassured, “We’re not here to throw around accusations or point fingers. All the work is going to be inspected after it’s done, and if something happens, it can be easily fixed. So if that’s settled, I’m sure we’d all like to get this started.”

There was nothing more the earth mare could say, but that didn’t stop her from rolling her eyes in annoyance. Trixie had only been trouble in her experience, and many had already formed solid opinions that she wasn’t going to be of any use.

“Hey, why don’t you come with me?” said a white-maned, dark-ish pastel yellow-coated earth mare who stepped out of the group to take Trixie by the hand, “I’ve done this a few times before and I know a simple job that will suit you nicely.”

Trixie was taken away from the group so fast that nary another word could be exchanged by anyone to or about her. Even Fleetfoot didn’t say another thing, just happy that the situation seemed to resolve itself in the end. Whatever task Trixie would be set to, it would allow her to be involved with the volunteer efforts, and it appeared that was all that mattered to the unicorn.

With that settled, she flew up above everyone and yelled loudly “Alright everypony, let’s get to work!”

The white-maned mare, who had identified herself to Trixie as Ambrosia once they had gotten away from the others, lead Trixie to a bunch of planks and a pair of other unicorns standing near them. A few minutes later, Trixie was on her knees atop one of the planks, pounding on nails that the unicorns held in place for her. Ambrosia was right beside her, likewise hitting nails through the wood, keeping an eye on Trixie’s work to make sure she wasn’t going too far off the mark or driving in the nails the wrong way.

The two were putting together the floor of one of the homes, nailing it into a frame underneath them that would be part of the foundation for the entire house, while other mares constructed a frame atop the flooring that would eventually form the outer walls of the structure. It was a very important task, but one that was fairly simple. Even a foal could do it with supervision, and Ambrosia could see that Trixie was doing fine without too much guidance.

“Argh!” Trixie yelled suddenly, dropping her hammer down in frustration, “I keep getting them in crooked!” The nail she had just nailed in had its head at a slight angle, one side tilted upwards slightly while the other side dug into the plank it was now holding down. Several of her nails had ended up like that, and with each one she put in unaligned she lost a bit of that small amount of pride she had regained until there was near none of it left. Instead, she was feeling a great deal of personal failure when she couldn’t even drive a nail into a plank properly.

Ambrosia gave the nail a good look, but didn’t see anything worth getting upset about. “It’s really not that bad.” she said, “I think they’re going to carpet the floor anyways, so nopony will notice it.”

“I noticed it,” Trixie replied, grabbing her hammer before scooting forward to another nail waiting for her up ahead, suspended in levitation by one of the unicorns assisting her and Ambrosia. With eight hits of the hammer, the nail was firmly in place, but once more it was a little off. “ARRRRGGGG!!! Why can you do this perfectly and I keep getting it wrong?!”

All along the boards, the nails the earth mare had been working on laid flat against the wood. There was not a single one that missed the mark, or was the slightest bit tilted. “To be fair,” Ambrosia said, going to her next nail so she could slam it in with a mere three strikes, “Building is my special talent.”

“Oh, well that makes sense…” Trixie said, a little discouraged hearing that. If they had ponies whose skill set was in making homes, it felt like she really was slowing things down, like those other earth mares said she would. Then a thought came to mind that justified her being there a little more. “I guess after the Fall, you and the other builder mares are a bit rusty.”

“Why do you say that?” Ambrosia wondered aloud as they both moved to the next nails in their path.

“Well I don’t think the caribou had mares building houses for them.”

Many a mare around them flinched at the sound of the word ‘caribou’, the very word able to ignite terrible memories of a life that was still not too far gone. Ambrosia gave a moment of pause herself mid swing of her hammer, forced to think back to her own year as a slave.

“Not houses, no.” she said, her expression turning disgruntled as she recalled what it was her former captors made her do, “They had me making a bunch of wooden contraptions for their sick torture. Stockades, wedges, pegging benches… lots of other things.”

What Trixie heard from Ambrosia stunned her, as she wouldn’t have believed that somepony would admit so openly that they did anything to help the caribou. “You made things for them?!” she said in an excited whisper, thinking this sort of thing wasn’t something that anyone should know if they didn’t have to.

“It’s not like I wanted to.” Ambrosia said, directing the unicorn with her nails to put another one down, “They learned I was able to make things, and they forced me to do it. If I didn’t, they’d put me in their own poorly crafted devices while they beat and raped me. It’s not like they rewarded me for doing it. Most of the time they’d test out everything I made on me to make sure it worked right.”

“Didn't you try to sabotage them?” Trixie asked, returning to her own nails, assuming that was why they needed to be tested.

“There was no reason to try. If I made something designed to fail or break, they’d be found out as soon as one of those monsters got too rough. Had that happened, they would have punished me for making shoddy equipment, and the mare it was suppose to hold for breaking it. Not to mention how dangerous it would have been to place a mare in faulty equipment. It was better to just do it the right way than to risk hurting somepony in some misguided attempt to do right.”

Trixie honestly didn’t accept that answer. It was easy these days for ponies to say they were just doing what they had to in order to survive, and to give an excuse to justify why they complied with caribou orders. How often these stories attempted to exonerate the tellers of them of all blame and responsibility, when they were in a position to do… something. Trixie had heard such excuses from others at the shelter, and from ponies who she had expected more of than simple surrender. It was a horrible mantra repeated by those who had decided to give up rather than do what they could to fight.

Never did those with skills that benefited the caribou stop to think how the slight relief they got for their compliance paled in comparison to the suffering of those who didn’t have anything to offer their tormentors. Saying that they never had a choice, or that it was better they did what they were told made it seem like they weren’t taking in consideration what was happening. Like that one less paddling they received added up to the punishment another mare their stead. When look at in that perspective, any act of compliance would seem like a deplorable act, especially when you were the receiver of said punishment.

Having been a mare tortured to the brink of breaking completely, it turned Trixie’s stomach every time she heard any mare say they helped their enslavers in the slightest, when a mare such as herself was never even given the choice not to be hurt and humiliated on a daily basis. Perhaps that was an exaggerated perception of what they were saying, but with said violation having happened so recently, the mental scars it created were still fresh and the slightest touch upon the subject caused them to ache.

“By the way, thank you.” Ambrosia said as she carefully tapped another nail into the floor, notably taking more taps on it than the previous nail.

“Thank you?” Trixie asked, caught off guard by the show of unwarranted gratitude. “Why are you thanking me?”

Ambrosia gave her nail some final taps, and then looked Trixie dead on in her eyes. “It’s not easy to talk about what happened while we were enslaved. It brings up terrible memories of what those bastards did to us and made us do. I’m sure it’s the same for you, just like it is for every mare. Sometimes I can’t even focus on what I was born to do without looking back at how they took that and made it into something awful. But every once in a while, we need to talk about this stuff, or else it just ends up eating us up inside. I’m sure you get that.”

“Uh… Sure…” Trixie said, really not getting it - perhaps not wanting to get it, seeing the source.

Not that what Ambrosia said didn’t make some bit of sense, but it felt like advice that was more for something less serious, like a bad breakup or a stressful day of work. This was much more personal though. Trixie never wanted to share what had happened to her with anyone, because by doing so, she’d just be reliving the whole thing over again in the worst way imaginable, next to literally being forced on her back with her legs bound apart so a male could plunge himself into her body again.

At least Ambrosia seemed to feel better after getting it out of her system, as shortly after thanking Trixie for just being there, the earth mare gave a little smirk that Trixie spotted as they both continued nailing down floor boards. During the rest of the time they spent on the floor, their conversations stuck to being professional, with them both only talking if they needed more nails or a bit of help with a tricky spot. Through it all though, the smile never faded. The fact that something so little could make such a big difference in the earth mare’s attitude confused Trixie even more, especially when it was completely unintentional on her end.

Eventually, Ambrosia, Trixie, and their two unicorn assistants made their way all over the flooring, together managing to get everything properly put into place in preparation for the next parts of construction. Having done a respectable amount of work, they all decided to take a break. The other unicorns chose to go take a seat and rest their horns a little bit before their help would be needed again. Trixie was going to do the same, but Ambrosia had other plans for the two of them.

Grabbing the hand of her co-worker once more, she dragged Trixie to a table placed at the edge of the site. Upon said table sat an assortment of foods, all of which had been prepared by a small group of ponies on the other side, working hard at a bunch of portable stoves and ovens so they could create lots of delicious food for those who sacrificed their time and effort to help put some poor mare’s life back together.

“Go ahead and grab whatever looks good.” Ambrosia said, plucking a jelly-filled donut off a plate. “They get some of the best cooks in Equestria to come to these things, just so us volunteers can have some tasty treats to munch on as we work.”

Trixie looked over the bounty of delectables spread out among the table. There were a lot of confectionaries, like donuts and pies, as well as more nutritious foods like salads and cut fruits. At one end of the table sat plates full of hay burgers and fries, and another had a punch bowl half filled with juice and ice. It was the kind of buffet that few organized events like this had, but the unicorn could not find any of the foods particularly appealing or appetizing.

Yet another issue steaming from the caribou’s treatment, the very act of eating was one other thing that Trixie had difficulty doing. During her enslavement, every meal was composed of some kind of slop made of a mixture of cum and partially rotten vegetable matter. On occasion, they had forgone the addition of vegetation altogether and made her consume pure semen, either by force-feeding her through a tube they would shove into her throat, or by leaving it in a bowl for her with promises that she would get nothing else until the container was licked clean. When she thought about eating, the sensation of the salty substance sticking to the walls of her esophagus often arose, making her lose her appetite. For a while after being freed, she had to force herself to eat, lest her stomach start to ache and her energy drain.

Her reluctance to food wasn’t that bad at the shelter, where she had a good idea where it had come from, but there was an issue here that dissuaded her from putting anything in her muzzle. Several issues, all standing behind the table making the food before her eyes. It seemed that the Equestrian Committee had decided that the cooks should be comprised of part mares and part stallons, and of course it was the stallion part of it that made Trixie wary. It was probably a decision those in charge of this operation believed would help promote mare and stallion interactions, but for Trixie, it just made her wonder if any of them mixed in any disgusting secret ingredients into any of the baked goods.

Being as paranoid as she was, Trixie stuck to only the freshly cut fruit and vegetables. She also did her best to avert eye contact with any of the stallions as she quickly snatched a piece of apple or celery stalk off a serving tray, knowing to some degree that her assumptions of the stallions were just that, as she was well aware that it was the enchantment on the Crystal Heart that had made them do all the terrible things they had done to mares. She had been at a major event when said mind control had been lifted, and the results of it had been clear as day to any who witnessed it. Even still, it was not a simple task to dismiss the suffering inflicted to her by males on the whole. Maintaining a prejudice against them was silly, but near impossible to overcome, much to her own embarrassment and shame.

Despite the awkwardness of the situation, Trixie stayed near the refreshment table as she ate, as she didn’t wish to stray too far from Ambrosia, who, unlike herself was freely partaking of anything that caught her interest. Trixie might have had thought ill of her earlier, but the truth of the matter was that the earth mare was the closest thing she had to a friend here. Those that knew her didn’t want to work with her, and no doubt that poor attitude had been spread to anyone who asked why that was. Ambrosia at least gave her a chance, and because of that, Trixie thought it best to stay close to her, like the mare radiated a small area of safety she could hide within.

“Hey,” Ambrosia said, after downing what must have been her third hay burger, “What brings a mare like yourself to something like this anyways? No offense, but you seem like the type who’d be happier going to support groups.”

“Support groups?” Trixie asked, “Are you calling me a druggie?” She might have been drugged several times by the caribou, but to her luck she had never gained a dependency to the things they’d put inside her.

“An emotional support group,” Ambrosia clarified, “There are lots of them around now, since a lot of us mares need help coping with all we’ve gone through. I’m surprised the place you’re staying doesn’t have one.”

The shelter did have that kind of program, but Trixie didn’t like the idea of being in a room with a bunch of ponies who acted like they hated her. If there were other support groups in town, she didn’t know of them, as this was the first time she had left the shelter since moving into it.

“I use to be part of one myself, until I got back on my hooves. Then I started doing this so I could give back to mares who have it worse than me.”

“Huh…” Trixie was surprised.

It was only common sense to want to restore Equestria to its former glory, but the two mares had very differentiating motivations to do so. For Trixie, it was a return to normalcy for herself. A mostly self-centered objective that only looked altruistic from an external view. Ambrosia seemed to be here solely to help others, with little care about personal desire. At least that was the impression the earth mare was giving off, as it seemed like she was much better off than most other ponies Trixie had encountered after liberation.

“If you want, I could take you to one of my group meetings sometime. It’s in another town, but not too far aw-”

“Hey Ambrosia!”

The earth mare was cut short by the call of her name, drawing her attention and causing
her to put down the food she was about to shovel into her gullet. Cupping her now empty hands to her mouth, she yelled back to the mare who called for her, a pegasus in Wonderbolts attire, “What?!”.

“We’re ready to put up the outside walls over here!” the other mare replied, “You wanna come help us?!”

“Yeah, give me a minute!” Lowering her hands, Ambrosia sent a glance in Trixie’s direction. “Wanna come help?”

“Putting up the walls?” Trixie asked, not sure if Ambrosia was being serious. “I don’t think…”

“It’s not hard,” Ambrosia reassured, “We’re just going to hoist the walls up so the pegasi can nail it into the frame. After that, they’ll put the roof on top, and then all the remaining work is done inside. Putting in insulation, putting up drywall, making a few rooms. Nothing too hard.”

“Says you,” Trixie argued, “But I’m not a carpentry pony, I’m…”

The unicorn paused, making Ambrosia lift an eyebrow in confusion.

“I’m something else.”

“Ok, I get ya. But the quicker we get this up, the quicker we can get back to all this food.”

Trixie still didn’t care much for the food, but she was starting to believe that wasn’t the point. Ambrosia was trying hard to get Trixie involved.

“Fine, I’ll help.” Trixie relented, “Show me what I have to do.”

Ambrosia gestured her hand for Trixie to follow her, and the two made their way back to the building they had made the floor for. In the time it took them to take their extended break, the others had set up four completed outer walls made of wooden planks around the four sides of the soon to be building. Female pegasi were flying about, weaving ropes connected to the walls around the frame, so they could use the leverage it would provide. Once done, they tossed the untied ends of the ropes to a bunch of awaiting mares, who straightened them out and took a position gripping tightly to their lengths.

Ambrosia took an open spot on rope, having no problem just picking a place and becoming part of the pull line, but Trixie hesitated to do the same. She wasn’t as familiar with the action, and didn’t know if there were any specifics she had to follow.

“Go and take the spot in front of me.” Ambrosia said, noticing the mare’s wariness, “Grip the rope as tightly as possible, and when everypony starts pulling, just follow their lead.”

“Right.” said the unicorn, taking hold of a small section of rope left void. “I can do this…”

“Of course you can.” said Ambrosia in reply to Trixie’s rhetorical mutterings. “Don’t think for a minute that there is anything you can’t do.”

Trixie didn’t intend for Ambrosia to hear that, but she did appreciate the motivational vote of confidence - the first purely positive words she heard in reference of herself in a while. It bought back a bit of Trixie’s self-confidence, and gave her just enough determination to not back out of the task. Tightening her grip, she was ready to start.

Seconds later, the Wonderbolt from before hovered overhead. With a cursory look at the site, she saw that everything was in order and ready to proceed.

“Okay everypony!” she called out as she hovered above, “Get ready to pull on my mark!”

All the mare’s readied their grips and stood at attention, watching the pegasus raise her hand up high.

“And... Go!” the Wonderbolt said aloud as she sent her hand downwards.

All at once, four separate groups of mares pulled on the ropes, raising their pre-constructed walls up bit by bit to an upright angle. With as many mares as there were on them, each wall was brought up with only a moderate struggle. Hoisting it up required effort, but not so much to be taxing on any of the participants. Before long, the first wall touched against the frame snugly, and once it did, the pegasus squad went to work. They started by nailing in the four corners to the frame, then moved along to tap in more nails in key points, to ensure that no part of the wooden construction would come loose.

The professionalism of this group showed, as it took roughly five minutes to get everything together. By the time they finished the first one, the others were already up. All they had to do from there was move onto the next ones and go from there. To the misfortune of Trixie’s group, the nailing team decided to go clockwise from there, which ended them up on the side opposite from them. In retrospect, it might have been a better idea to have the teams pull up their designated wall when there nailers were ready for them, but they were here now, and putting it back down would have been a terrible waste of effort.

So for several minutes, all of the mares had to keep the heavy wooden structure upright, with the sun bearing down from above. Sweat begun to form on their bodies, and some had to reposition themselves from time to time just to maintain a steady hold. Trixie herself, being a unicorn, was having some trouble keeping hold. Nonetheless, she managed to do her part despite herself. She had to shift on sport a few times, but no more than any of the others in her position.

All was going well, and even Trixie felt that she was doing a pretty good job so far. There was little she could do to screw up holding a rope, and it looked like the nailing squad was just about to get to her section of wall. She gave a quick look to the earth mare behind her, and Ambrosia, catching this, gave her a smile back.

“How ya holding on?” Ambrosia asked, struggling much less than Trixie was.

“I’m doing fine.” Trixie answered, shifting her body once more in attempt to relieve stress. When she did though, Ambrosia’s eyes widened and she took a sharp breath, for reasons that the unicorn learned of shortly after.

While shifting her stance, Trixie moved one of her legs forward, a split second before the mare in front of her took a step back. Next thing Trixie knew was the sting of a hoof colliding into her leg shot through her nerves. She screamed out in pain, drawing her leg back quickly. The removal of the appendage caught the mare in front of her off guard, and losing the thing she was about to stand on made her lose her balance. She fell backwards, right on top of Trixie, and with the recoiling of her leg and the added weight on her body, the blue unicorn ended up falling backwards as well. Seeing this unfold, Ambrosia instinctively went to prevent the two from hitting the ground.

She only realized after she was in the midst of reaching for Trixie’s falling form that this had been a mistake. With three mares now no longer holding up the wall, there was now a huge difference in the weight that the remaining mares on the rope had to hold up. The already tired ponies couldn’t maintain their hold with this sudden lack of pull on the rope, with the weaker ones having to let go when the force became too much, while the stronger ones were trying to keep a hold regardless, being pulled forward as their section of the wall started to come down.

The shifting weight distribution on the wall ignited a chain reaction, and other rope lines had to make up for the change. Being no less exhausted than the others, they too found themselves being pulled forward. Bit by bit, the wall started to fall back down to the ground, with several of those hanging on crying out as they desperately tried to keep it up.

Had they just tried to ease it back to the ground, nothing might have come of this, but they were doing all they could to prevent it from leaving too far from the frame. Their efforts didn’t go unnoticed, and others came over to help. That only made matters worse though, as the ones who did were the males stationed at the other side of the work site. While well-intended in their want to help, they neglected to realize that some of the mares were still very much afraid of males, and a bunch of them running in their direction caused several of them to let go, flee, and even shriek in fear of the males coming their way.

This reaction startled and confused the stallions, causing them to freeze in response of the terrified females. They were trying to help, but couldn’t come within several arms’ reaches without scaring them. This delay and the absence of even more mares from the rope caused the inevitable to happen, and the wall fell heavily to the ground. Seeing it as being unavoidable at this point, all those who had held on for this long finally gave up and released the rope, letting gravity take control and bring the wooden structure crashing down in a huge cloud of dust.

“What the hay is going on over here?!” Fleetfoot yelled as she dashed over as fast as her wings would allow her.

The whole scene was a disaster, with confused and freaked-out ponies all about. It had happened so fast that she didn’t notice what was going on until the sound of wood hitting dirt hit her ears. Now that the dust was settling, she could tell that part of one of the houses got dropped, and that it had probably been damaged in the process. Touching down to the site of the accident, the Wonderbolt joined with many others there who were starting to crowd around it. One quick once-over let her discover that one of the beams holding the wood planks together had snapped in the impact. They would have to replace it, along with any other boards that were damaged in ways she couldn’t yet see.

With a heavy sigh, Fleetfoot looked up at the other Wonderbolt flying over the house, the one that was supposed to be managing everything in this part of the site. “Misty! Front and center!”

The other Wonderbolt came down immediately, and gave a salute to her superior.

“What happened here? How did this get this way?” Fleetfoot asked, needing answers.

Misty was about to explain that she wasn’t very sure, and that she was busy instructing the nailing crew to see what had happened. However, someone else spoke up before she could try to explain herself.

“I’ll tell you what happened!” said an earth mare, fastly approaching the two pegasi. “This whole thing is the fault of that unicorn!” The earth mare pointed her finger to the one she felt was to blame, and it landed in the direction of Trixie.

Trixie was off to the side of the accident, knelt down with Ambrosia crouched right next to her, checking a small cut that was on her leg. They were both so focused that neither one was immediately aware of the mare pointing in their direction, but that changed when a crowd of ponies walked over to them.

“She tripped me while I was holding the rope,” the earth mare accused, “I was doing my part, and all of a of a sudden my legs were swept out from under me.”

Fleetfoot didn’t like what she was hearing, as she recognized this unicorn as the one she spoke to earlier in the day and let help despite knowing her horn was handicapped. “Misty, is that true?”

Misty honestly didn’t know, but she had no reason to disbelieve what the earth pony was saying. “I guess so… But the whole thing was a blur to me.” she said as she scratched the back of her mane, unable to remember anything that might have suggested that the blue unicorn was the cause.

“Now wait a minute!” Ambrosia said, standing up on her hooves so she could go face to face with the mare accusing Trixie. “Are you trying to pin all this on her? I saw everything that happened, and if you want to pin this on somepony, then it’s your fault!”

“Me?!” The earth mare shouted, outraged, “Your friend tripped me!”

Fleetfoot was now all kinds of confused, as this was rapidly turning into a ‘he said, she said’ argument. Nonetheless, she had to hear Ambrosia out. “Can you tell me what happened then?”

“Gladly,” said Ambrosia, “Trixie was just trying to adjust herself on the rope at the same time as her. One stepped forward, the other stepped back, and Trixie ended up getting kicked because of it.” The earth mare turned her head to the one who accused Trixie, and continued with, “Had you looked back, none of this would’ve have happened.”

“And what was she doing that she put her leg in my way? Looking at the dirt?” the other mare asked, “You just said that we both moved at the same time, so she should have been looking forward and noticed what was going on!”

Fleetfoot had heard enough. The two testimonies confirmed only one thing; that neither mare was really at fault. It was truly an accident, and one where no one got badly hurt. The only thing to do from here was settle things and move on. “Ok, can we just-”

“That’s it!” Everypony stopped as the loud, clearly frustrated voice of Trixie rose up over every other sound around them. “I didn’t even want to come here today, but you all had to go and do something useful!” she yelled, directing it to the mare who had kicked her, who happened to be another mare from her shelter. “If I had just stayed home, none of this would have happened in the first place!”

Having spoken her mind, Trixie turned and stomped off away. Those who knew the unicorn were stunned, as they had never heard her voice go above a grumble before this. Others begun mumbling to themselves, talking to one another about the spectacle that just unfolded before them; of her outburst, the accident, and among the stallions, the topic of the mares fleeing in fear as they tried to help. It was an upsetting event for everypony to say the least.

“Wait a minute.” Fleetfoot said, flying after Trixie, “You don’t have to be upset. I don’t think this is your fault.”

“I don’t care!” Trixie shouted, stopping for a second before proceeding to stomp off. “They made it clear from the start they don’t want me here, and I don’t want to be here, so I’m leaving!

“Ok, I get it. I’ll get the cart set up for you.”

“Don’t bother,” Trixie said, “I’ll walk. Thanks for dragging me out here.”

With that, not another word was said by Fleetfoot, not until Trixie was far down the road leading into town. As she watched the unicorn turn into a dot in the distance, Ambrosia came to the Wonderbolt’s side. With a heavy sigh, the earth pony said “Come on, there’s a mess we need to clean up.”

While they both knew that there was nothing else they could do when it came to Trixie, they felt bad that it had ended up like this over something as simple as a misplaced hoof. If Trixie didn’t want to be here though, they had no reason to stop her from leaving. So, a little more depressed than when they started, they returned to the construction efforts.

Once Trixie left the work site, she didn’t head straight back to the shelter. Why would she? The only thing waiting for her there were more mares who couldn’t stand her. Ones who would ridicule her for ditching her ‘responsibility to Equestria’. Ones that never understood what she was going through, what she had been through. Besides, even if she wanted to go back for the sole purpose of hiding herself in her room, she just couldn’t let any of her sheltermates see her looking like she did.

Raising an arm to her face, she wiped away a sizable stream of tears with her fur - the same stream she had hid from the other volunteers when she hurried away. A twin stream of them had started forming when the fight over whether she caused the accident started, created by the feelings it caused in her. Feelings of insecurity, mistreatment, resentment, and above all else… guilt.

She couldn’t help but believe that this whole thing was preventable, that the other mare was right, and that had she been paying attention it all could have been avoided. Then she looked at it another way, and thought that had she just stayed at the shelter, this wouldn’t have happened either. If she had just bore the pain she felt, or if she had just declined from helping on the rope line. There were many ways this could have been avoided, and it all came back to her.

These thoughts kept growing, and soon Trixie found them so heavy she had to sit down. Feeling as she did, she didn’t care where she did, so she ended up planting herself on a nearby curve. There in that spot, she was able to sob and cry all she wanted, completely isolated by her own sorrow as it slowly enveloped and consumed her.

Trixie wasn’t alone though, she was in a public area with several other ponies around, some busy going about their daily schedules, or living normal lives in spite of the terrible things that had befallen Equestria. Not everypony was forced to live in the wake of the damage caused by the caribou regime, as ponies were often surprisingly resilient to tragic events. So there were plenty around to witness the distraught mare parked by the street, crying her eyes out. One such stallion even approached Trixie, just to make sure she was okay.

“Hey,” he said meekly, the upset mare being more than a little off putting, “Is something wrong?”

Trixie didn’t respond, she was too lot in her own sadness to hear him.

The stallion went to touch her, just to make sure she was aware he was there, but as he reached out a hand another wrapped around her wrist. “I wouldn’t do that.” said the mare who had grabbed him, “You don’t know if she’s traumatized by males, and you might frighten her if you touch her without permission.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” the stallion apologized, “I wasn't trying to scare her.”

“I know. You look like a nice boy who only wants to help, but this might be the job of another mare. Let me handle this, okay?” The stallion nodded, and returned to his own business. Once out of the way, the mare went on to do what he would have done had she stepped in, placing her hand on the crying unicorn’s shoulder. “There, there, it’s ok. Just cry it out and I’ll be right here by your side when you’re done.”

Trixie did as she was told, not that she needed permission to do what she was already set towards. The comforting voice and reassuring touch helped her through it though, enough that she managed to regain some composure a little faster than she would have had she been left alone. It still took minutes, but the mare never left her side, and when she was finally able to lift her head, she saw the blurred outline of the one who decided to come to her aid.

“Oh dear,” the mare said, “You look a fright. Let me get you cleaned up.” Trixie’s face was moist from all the tears she shed, and some snot was leaking from her nostrils, she had been crying so hard.

The mare took the hand on Trixie’s shoulder away, and reached into a basket she had set on the ground before stopping the stallion from before. It held a few items, including a black cloth that the mare pulled out and placed over her hand as she returned to the blue unicorn. Using the cloth, she rubbed Trixie’s face and eyes until all the gross substances were removed, discarding it immediately afterwards.

With her face cleaned, Trixie could finally see the pony caring for her. It was another unicorn. A pink one, with purple eyes and a purple main with a light blue streak going through it. She was wearing a green dress with puffball shoulders that had white cuffs at their ends, and a skirt on it that was well above the knees, an odd choice of attire in the aftermath of the caribou’s reign. The last thing Trixie noticed about the mare was another piece of cloth around her neck, a piece of black cloth tied around her throat like an ascot.

“There we go, good as new.” said the pink mare, “Now what seems to be troubling you so much?”

“It’s… not important…” Trixie said, retreating back into herself. If she told this mare what had caused her to cry, she would only see how much trouble she was to everypony around her, “Thanks for sticking by me, but I’d rather be alone now.”

The pink unicorn’s brow furrowed from behind a set of bangs that surrounded her horn. “Now I don’t believe that. You were crying so much that it’s clear you needed help. Someone to listen to your problems, and work to make them better.”

“I’m sorry… umm…”

“Call me Starlight,” The pink mare said, offering her name freely.

“Sorry, Starlight, but I don’t think there’s anything anypony can do to make my problems ‘better’, unless you mean to make them more problematic than they already are.”

“Hmmm… Well, maybe not. Maybe I can’t help you, at least not alone. But maybe…” Starlight went back to her basket, and pulled out a sheet of paper from a large stack of them. “This might be able to help?”

Trixie took the sheet, and looked over it. It was a flyer, featuring a drawing of a black piece of cloth knotted together at its ends, like the one Starlight was wearing, and words at the top of it that said ‘Mares for a Better Equestria’.

“You see, I’m part of a group that helps out mares like yourself through troubled times, and is working to bring back the spirit of Equestria that we all used to have before the caribou.” Starlight explained.

A support group... Trixie thought to herself, looking over the flyer more to see an address for the location of where this group met up, and what times they did so.

“Our end goal is to bring back gender equality to Equestria, not only in our laws, but in our general mindset as well. As you have probably noticed, even though the caribou are gone, mares and females of other species are all terrified and skeptical of males. Males have also been on edge, unable to interact with the opposite gender in fear that they might upset them, or even worse, do something to them that they would regret later. Our group exists to get ponies to push past those mental barriers, and return us all to a state of happiness.”

The way Starlight was pitching this group of hers, it was like she was reading Trixie’s mind. Not everything correlated with what the blue unicorn wanted, but enough of the points stuck with her that she became intrigued. “But.. this group couldn’t have had much success so far.” she said, remembering the state of the world she lived in. “I mean I’ve never even heard of you.”

“On the contrary,” Starlight insisted, “You’ve only never heard of us because we only recently ended up in this town, because it’s a little further out from our headquarters in Canterlot. We’ve had plenty of breakthroughs with mares and stallions alike, and together, we have helped out the communities of several cities throughout Equestria.”

Trixie looked at the flyer again, still not really sure about it. Starlight picked up on her doubt though, and decided to finish her pitch by saying “You could always come to a meeting and see if it’s right for you. If it’s not, then no pony will pressure you to stay. We promote mares making their own decisions, and living their own lives. So just give it some thought. We’re even having a meeting later this evening if you feel up to it.”

“I’ll… think about it.” Trixie said with reluctance.

“Great, then I hope to see you there… I’m sorry, I haven’t even asked for your name.”

“It’s Trixie.” the blue unicorn replied, blurting it out without thinking.

“Well Trixie, there is always a open seat in the group. Just remember that.”

With that said, Starlight grabbed her basket and went on her merry way. Trixie kept an eye on the unicorn as she left, finding something a bit off about her. She was happy, a little too happy all things considered. As a showpony, Trixie knew well what it looked like to play a part, but then again even as an act it felt off. Could it be that Starlight really was happy? Did this group help her to get that way?

A part of Trixie wanted to believe that it was fake, that no mare could really be happy after what the caribou regime did to them… but another part of her kind of wanted it to be true. What if they could help her? What if they could take this pain she was feeling away? What if they were the fix that she needed in her life?

Looking over the flyer again and again, Trixie weighed her options. Did she really have anything more to lose after all she had endured and lost? Was the promise of happiness worth the risk of disappointment?

Author's Notes:

So after a long hiatus, I am finally getting back to this story. Sorry that the wait was so long, but I was working on other things, as well as been having a few RL issues with my own life. Ones that I think correlate with this chapter quiet nicely.

As those who read this chapter might have been able, Trixie is having a big issue with maintaining motivation. She seems to want to do something, but the moment that something negative comes her way, she recedes back into herself and tries to find excuses to not to work, or tries to get others to excuse her for whatever reason she can find. This, of course, is tied to her personal depression in this story, as Trixie in MLP is a fairly active pony who isn't against doing things for the things that she wants to accomplish. Heck, she worked at a rock farm just to get a mythical amulet of power, which I assume she had to do research on to discover on top of. Not exactly a task for a lazy person.

I too have hit a level of depression to some degree, though I would more call it being melancholy. You know those commercials that push their pills by asking if your favorite things have suddenly become less pleasurable to you? Well I certainly have that, but I don't think at all that it's caused by some chemical imbalance. If anything, it's over stimulation. I fear that I might have developed a bit of a media addiction, as I seem to be living on video games and youtube vids as of late. Not that I let it completely get in the way of my other hobbies, but they have certain;y been distracting. What I use to do in a week has been taking a month, and it's been putting me far behind my scheduling. unfortunately the only way to get over this is to push past it, but the siren call of media keeps trying to pull me back, and when i do give in and fall further behind, it just upsets me more.

I call it "the depression loop". I get unhappy, do something with the intent of it making me happier, and the become even less happy because by falling for distractions I fall behind on something I want to do, so then I repeat the process again. I think that Trixie, and perhaps everyone suffering of depression, encounters something like this, and sometimes the loop can be really hard to break. We can only keep trying though, and hope that we find a way out of it, though in many cases that path isn't very clear.

Anyways, I hope you all like the chapter. Feel free to leave comment on what you thought and such, as they do help motivate me a bit to writing more often. (maybe I'm just an attention horse, but whateva )