Trixie could not believe what a fool she had made of herself. She had done such a great job of appearing humble to Twilight before her departure from Ponyville for the second time. Only to trip over that accursed wagon wheel embedded in the dirt path and fall flat on her face for her to see. As she plodded ahead along the road she thought back to their last conversation.

Twilight had just finished up her magic performance for the princess. Trixie felt it needed an added flare with some of her trademark fireworks. The spectacle certainly left an impression on the crowd, the princess, and her guests. Twilight looked for the source of the pyrotechnics behind her.

"Trixie?" Twilight asked the blue mare.

"It's the least I could do." Trixie answered, "I treated your friends so horribly when I was wearing that Alicorn amulet. I just couldn't control myself." She looked down at her hooves in shame, before looking back up at Twilight with the saddest doe eyes she could muster, "You can forgive me, can't you?"

Twilight thought a moment. What would the princess do? "Hmm, sure."

"Oh good." Trixie breathed a sigh of relief, before returning to her usual charismatic self, "Don't you think the Great and Apologetic Trixie is the most magnificent, humble pony you've ever seen?"

Twilight rolled her eyes and shook her head, dismayed. She realized that there were limits to how much the blue show mare could change in one afternoon. It went unnoticed to the reinvigorated show mare as she cast a smoke screen spell and galloped off into the night.

"And tripped over that damn wheel!" Trixie thought out loud to herself, trotting along, down the road away from Ponyville. Always on the move. That was her. She had never settled down in one place longer than was absolutely necessarily for her to make a few bits and move on. Why was that? She wondered to herself. Did she like life on the run? No, life on the move, not run. She meant move. Trixie runs from nothing.

You've been running away your whole life

That creeping doubt wormed its way back into her thoughts.

Never staying in once place because everypony ends up hating you in the end

Trixie's pace quickened. She disliked these thoughts. No no, she was a positive pony. Onward and upwards she was. Just keep moving forward to something better. Just keep trotting down the road to... well, now that she thought of it, she wasn't sure where exactly she was going. Fillydelphia? Trottingham? She hadn't seen any signs on her way out of town either.

The road looked old and overgrown. It looked as though nopony had used it in some time. She stopped and looked around herself. The forest had grown up around her and closed in above her. There were only small holes in the canopy where she could still see Luna's night sky. Trixie began to feel very claustrophobic. Her hooves had stopped trotting, her mind stopped reeling about tripping over obstacles, and she stopped talking to herself.

In her silence, she became very aware of the noises around her in the woods. Little noises, distant noises. Bugs chirping, birds roosting, the odd bat squeak. It was just little animals. The woods are full of them. Little mice and squirrels and...

"TIMBERWOLVES!" Trixie cried out as several pairs of glowing eyes leaped from the underbrush onto the path in front of her. Trixie did an immediate one eighty, and ran just as fast as her little hooves could carry her. Behind her, the wolves gave chase to the azure pony. It was unnerving, Trixie could hear them running behind her. The wood of their limbs bending and creaking like and old rocking chair. But more rapidly, and getting closer with each step. She had gotten a good start running. But a pony couldn't outrun a Timberwolf for long, much less a pack of them. She had to think of something.

The first thing you will learn in magic school, is that a Unicorn is never alone. Magic is their greatest ally, and they are therefore, never powerless.

Trixie thought of the only spell she could in her panic. She couldn't aim her magic focus in the rush, but her boosted adrenalin fueled her raw power.

This was going to be messy.

Her horn glowed brightly and in an instant she released the spell. The whole road was bathed in bright multi-colored light as a barrage of fireworks and screaming rockets flew in all directions. Shooting up into the foliage, whistling off sideways into the woods, and down, ricocheting off the dirt into erratic spirals, all exploding with deafening bangs and booms so near the ground, showering everything in colorful sparks and burning embers.

Trixie screamed as loud as she ever had and just ran faster in a sudden burst of speed away from the mayhem, never looking back. She could no longer hear them following her. But then she couldn't hear her own hooves or hear herself think either. The explosions had deafened her temporarily. All there was was her heart pounding in her head. Seconds passed. She sprinted on. Running for her life each second felt like an hour. In each mid stride of her gallop, all her hooves left the ground. In that dilation of time it felt like she was flying. It was wonderful and terrible all at the same time. It was sublime.

She felt like she had been running forever. But she could see the lights of Ponyville again in the distance. She tried to keep running but her legs were on fire, each gasp made her lungs burn, her head was pounding, both from her pounding heart and her magical overload. She hazarded a glance over her shoulder. Upon seeing the coast was clear, she collapsed onto the road. If the wolves caught up and killed her, she didn't think she would mind very much with the state she was in now. Her vision blurred and the world became dull and fuzzy. She felt her eyelids getting heavy, and then she felt nothing, slipping unconscious.

Trixie dreamed. She dreamed of her father. She dreamed of her loving father carrying her to bed for the night, safe and sound.

Safe and sound and no more running.