It has been decided. The operation will be done tomorrow.
Nighttime had descended over Ponyville, the clouds covering up the stars and the moon. On a bed inside the hospital, a grey and blonde pegasus by the name of Derpy Hooves lay waiting for tomorrow. She was all alone in the room, the bed next to her having been emptied prior to her arrival. She was lonely. There was no light filtering into the room through the window and the lamp was broken. It was so dark she couldn't even see her hoof in front of her face. As Derpy lay in the bed with a heavy heart, she had thought about how it had all come to this...
It all started about a month ago, it seemed like a normal day to her: the sun was shining, no clouds in the sky, flowers blooming, wind rushing through her mane, but the strange thing was everypony hid whenever she flew by. Weird. Derpy was on her normal mail route, next stop: the Carousel Boutique.
Derpy flew up to the fancy blue and pink, almost castle-like building in as straight a pattern as she could manage, and knocked on the door yelling, "Delivery!"
From inside the building, a familiar voice said, "Uh, just slip it through the mail slot and leave, please."
"But I have a package for you Rarity."
"Uh, j-just leave it there please." Rarity stuttered in a worried voice.
"Everything okay in there?" Derpy asked, curious as to why Rarity wouldn't come to the door.
"Come on sis," another voice whispered, "It's just Derpy."
"Exactly," Rarity replied, "Yes! Just, leave it and go, please."
"Well... okay." Derpy, looking confused, complied and left the package on the doorstep as she took off haphazardly to her last stop: Sugarcube Corner. As she flew by, she could have sworn she had heard somepony say, "Don't go near that thing. You might catch the Derp." She didn't think anything of it as she was focused on reaching the pastry covered building known as Sugarcube Corner. Derpy walked up to the door and knocked, yelling, "Delivery!"
After a few seconds of silence, Derpy heard hoofsteps inside and the top half of the door barely opened as Mr. Cake stuck his face out. "Uh, hey there Derpy."
Derpy grabbed a couple letters and gave them to Mr. Cake. "Got something for you." she said with her teeth clamped to the letters.
Mr. Cake replied, "Oh, uh, thanks. Well, have a good day." as he grabbed them and brought them inside rather hurriedly and closed the door.
"Mr. Cake's acting weird too. What's going on?" she said out loud to herself.
Derpy went back to the Post Office to return her mailbag for the day. Before she walked out the door, she heard a voice from behind her. "Derpy, we need to talk." Derpy turned around and saw an orange head with a brown mane sticking out of a door. It was the Ponyville Postmaster. Derpy walked into his office and sat down in the chair, which broke. "Derpy," the postmaster said, "I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go."
"Go where? Canterlot?" Derpy asked innocently.
"No, I mean we can't have you working here anymore. You're fired."
"What?! Why?!"
"Since you joined, we've been getting multiple complaints about lost, misplaced, and misdelivered mail, all of them along your route."
"But where am I going to work?"
"I don't know but not here. I'm sorry."
Derpy sighed as she walked out of the office. She needed a job badly. She had a filly to take care of. Soon, she walked in the door and was greeted with a hug by a small purple unicorn filly with a blonde mane. "Hi mom!"
"Hi, my little muffin. You ready for your playdate today?" Derpy asked.
"Not really," Dinky replied, feeling a little down.
"Why not?"
"Nopony wants to play with me anymore... I don't know why?"
"Well, we can still play... Where's your dad?"
"He went to Manehattan. Said something about some doll-thingies."
A couple weeks later, Derpy had gone out looking for a job when she noticed a mob of ponies carrying signs gathered around Town Hall, which was still being repaired. Curious as to what all the commotion was about. She flew behind the town hall and looked down to examine the mob. Her heart sank. It was her they were upset about. The signs all had some kind of anti-Derpy message written on them. "Down with Derpy", "Ditch Derpy", one sign had a picture of Derpy with a no sign over it. She even heard yells of "Get rid of Derpy", "She's infecting our children," "She's a threat to everypony."
Her eyes began to water as she thought "What?! Why me?! What did I do?!"
"Calm down everypony!" the Mayor said, taking the stage, "Look, I understand your concerns about Derpy, and they will be dealt with swiftly."
"You too Mayor?" Derpy thought as she flew home, tears streaming down her face. Everypony hated her.
A couple weeks later, Derpy went in to see the doctor to find out what was wrong with her. After several expensive tests, they had come to the conclusion that her eyes had been misaligned and that her vocal chords were deteriorating. The best solution was to do an operation to align her eyes and give her vocal chord transplants. It would have to be done soon so they had her stay in the hospital.
Derpy gasped, thinking "How am I going to pay for this?"
The doctor left the room and closed the door. "It's about time something happened to that pony. Those eyes give me the creeps." he said out loud.
A nearby nurse added in, "Yeah, and that horrid voice. Ugh."
Derpy, hearing all of that, laid down in the bed and cried for a good two hours. Nopony liked her. "Why me? How come everypony hates my eyes? My voice?"
Another week passed by and the day of the operation came. Derpy had fallen into depression. Soon, Derpy would be a "proper" pony. No weird eyes and a different voice. She would be "normal." Before the nurses came in, Derpy rushed through the doors and yelled, "Mommy!" Not far behind her was a brown earth stallion with a brown mane and an hourglass cutie mark, wearing a green tie. The filly ran up to Derpy and gave her a big hug, tears straming down her cheeks, practically screaming, "Don't do it, mommy! Don't do it! You're my mommy. I love you just the way you are!"
The stallion walked up to her and said, "Sweetheart, please. You don't have to do this. I can use the TARDIS to take you and Dinky somewhere else. We can start a new life."
The nurses came in to get Derpy. Derpy began to cry and said, "No. I have to do this. Don't worry it'll still be me, Derpy." The three embraced each other, bawling their eyes out.
The nurses waited until they let go and brought Derpy down to surgery.
The operation went sucessfully and Derpy would recover in a few days. Her family, despite being asked by the staff, stayed with her every second until the bandages came off. The first thing Derpy saw in front of her was her beloved family. They embraced for a good few minutes, as if the power of love would change her back to normal.
A couple more weeks had passed, but things were never the same. For starters, everypony started calling her Ditzy. It kept going for a while and Derpy soon began to get tired of being called Ditzy, so she went to the Town Hall in order to talk to the mayor...
"Well, Mrs. Whooves." the Mayor said, pulling out a form, "an application was filed to legally change your first name and the process went rather quick."
"You changed my name?" Derpy asked.
"Yes, Mrs. Whooves. Your name is now Ditzy."
"But... That's not fair..."
"I'm afraid it's the way things are... Please forgive me but I have a lunch appointment." The Mayor explained as she got up and left.
Derpy left the Town Hall crying heading for home. Her eyes, her voice, even her name had been changed. Was she still Derpy anymore?
For days afterwards, Derpy almost never ate, she grew thin, wasting away to nothing. She almost never talked to Dinky or Doctor, and spent most of her time in bed, bawling her eyes out. One day, she walked in the door and saw Dinky in a corner, crying, saying, "Mommy."
"Dinky, what's wrong?"
"I want my mommy back."
"I'm right here."
"No, I want my real mommy back..."