Pinkie Pie gets taken by Surprise

Surprise hated to admit it, but Ponyville was a nice town, with its cosy cottages and friendly neighbours, but it was hard to enjoy it, the memories of her last visit all those years ago were still fresh in her mind. Descending through the cloud cover she touched down on the dry dirt road and looked over her shoulder. There were ponies passing by, but none she recognised or more importantly, who recognised her. Sparing no time to bask in the early morning sun she began her trot through the main street, praying she was headed in the right direction.

After roughly ten minutes of travelling in one wrong direction after another and backtracking, she finally found herself standing before the door of a narrow house overlooking the town square and fountain. Bracing herself and taking one last gulp of air she raised a white forehoof and knocked three times. The square felt utterly silent even though it was dense with ponies going about their morning tasks, she looked over her shoulder again for good measure only to hear the creaking of the door.

Turning her head back around, her pink eyes came to rest on a very familiar face.

“Derpy,” she exclaimed, sounding falsely cheery, “it’s been too long.”

“I’ll say,” the grey Pegasus replied reaching out to embrace Surprise, “I was so happy to get your letter, come on in.”

As Derpy lead the way, Surprise suppressed a grimace, she remembered the letter, it hurt to lie a friend, especially her only friend.

The two pegasi entered the kitchen and Surprise was taken aback to see a small unicorn filly sitting at the table nibbling on toast.

“Dinky, we have a visitor,” Derpy announced. Dinky looked up and gave a broad smile; she hopped of her seat and rushed over to the pair.

“Hello, I’m Dinky, what’s your name?”

“I’m Surprise,” she replied. Dinky eh? I forgot Derpy had a kid now.

A pang of guilt struck Surprise as she remembered this; she hated to admit that she had merely scanned the letters Derpy had sent her over the years. Shaking this thought away she looked back up at Derpy who was watching her… and Dinky, she clearly hadn’t got her eyes treated in all these years.

“Your house is lovely,” Surprise said sincerely, it really was, small and cramped admittedly, but felt homely nonetheless, “thanks again for letting me stay here, Derpy.”

At this Dinky looked up curiously and Derpy slapped herself in the head as if remembering something.

“Oh yeah Surprise I should have mentioned, I changed my name a while back,” she explained, Surprise raised an eyebrow at this, “it’s now Ditzy Doo.”

“Oh? Why did you change it?” Surprise asked looking back and forth between Dinky and Derp… I mean, Ditzy.

“It’s a long story,” she answered simply, brushing the question aside, “strange; I could have sworn I’d mentioned that in my letters.”

Another pang of guilt hit Surprise, she probably had told her about it.

“Oh well, I must have just been confused,” she said at last shrugging it off, “so what about you, I’m not saying I’m not happy to see you, but what about your work?”

“Don’t worry about that, I had a lot of rest days saved up.” And there was the lie, Surprise hadn’t used her rest days in order to take a vacation as she had claimed in her letter, after her run in with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy at Cloudsdale, she had lain in bed for a whole week, refusing to leave her apartment. The natural side effect of this was her being let go from the weather factory. Ditzy nodded and went about making tea while Dinky resumed eating her breakfast.

“You know, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy’ll be glad to see you,” Ditzy called out over the bubbling kettle. Surprise didn’t respond, just looked down at her hooves resting on the table. She then noticed Dinky was eyeing her curiously; she was just about to ask the filly what was on her mind before Ditzy came over and set a steaming cup of tea down in front of her.

“We’re out of milk, so I’m gonna hop down the street a minute, could you watch Dinky while I’m out?” Ditzy asked.

“Of course,” Surprise assured her taking a gulp of her tea, forgetting it was just out of the pot. After she was done coughing and spluttering, Ditzy left and Surprise was left sitting alone at the kitchen table with the filly who was once again eyeing her curiously.

“Something on your mind?” Surprise asked giving the filly little grin.

“You look a lot like somepony I know,” Dinky replied. Surprise stopped smiling immediately and looked down at her cup.

Ponies are going comment on the similarities, I may as well start getting used to it.

Looking up again Surprise addressed the filly, “would you like to hear a story?”Dinky nodded enthusiastically, “once upon a time, there was a Pegasus who lived in Cloudsdale. She was destined for great things, because from an early age she had dreams. She saw herself, and she saw her friends, friends she had and friends she would make, together they stood against all manner of evils which threatened Equestria.

“She knew her destiny and lived her life preparing for it. But there was another, one who was like the Pegasus, who took her place. She stole her friends, she stole her future, and she stole her destiny.”

Dinky stared up at Surprise with wide, horrified eyes. Up until this point Surprise voice had been bitter, her expression dark, but now she smiled.

“Don’t worry Dinky,” she said with a wink, “this story has a happy ending. Because one day, the Pegasus returned, she took back everything the other had stolen from her. She reclaimed her friends and took her place as the true element, of laughter.”