A New Beginning for Derpy Hooves

The light gray Pegasus mare lied on the couch, shifting from time to time to make herself more comfortable as she glared solemnly out the window, rain noisily battering the glass from the outside. The sound of the rainstorm only seemed to worsen the immense emotional pain she was feeling right now.

Both eyes were red and puffy from her earlier sobbing, but for the time being, she finally managed to stop the tears for a little while, forcing herself not to think about the recent tragedy.

Amethyst Star trotted from the kitchen that was connected to the living room where she laid, a tray of steaming muffins lit up with a reddish pink aura. She set the muffins down on the coffee table beside Derpy, one eye seeming to follow it, the other seeming to stay put on its gaze out the window.

"Careful, they're still hot. I know you probably won't like them since you didn't make them, but it was the least I could do." Derpy forced a smile through her emotional distress, "Heh, th-thanks, Sparkler. You….You're always there for me, aren't you?"

Amethyst scoffed. "Well, yeah! If I wasn't, you probably would've gotten half of Ponyville blown up and then some by now!" She then leaned down and gently kissed her mother on the cheek before turning tail and trotting in the direction of the door. "Alright, see ya tomorrow?"

"What? Where are you going?"

"Home, duh! I have a filly to take care of myself, I can't be here all the time!"

"Oh, yeah, I-I forgot." Derpy then laid back down, resting her head on the armrest, both hooves rested against her cheeks. "S-See ya." Amethyst cast her a sympathetic glance, abruptly realizing how broken her mother really was.

"Okay then, um…s-see ya."

She then opened the door and trotted out, lighting up the door with her magic aura and pulling it shut behind her with an audible click, leaving Derpy and her memories alone. But before she even seemed to notice, she was asleep.

To her surprise, she had a somewhat happy dream, reliving her moments with Carrot Top back when they were fillies. The grey foal swinging on the swingset only to leap out, hoping to fly, only to crash to the ground again.

Sitting up, the little filly studied a broken tooth painfully, a few tears sparkling in her eyes, that was until a yellow Earth filly trotted up, a slight smirk playing on her lips before she took Derpy's hoof in her own and pulled back to her hooves.

Next, she saw them together on an old camping trip when they were pre-teens, Derpy offering her friend a muffin, to which the mare uneasily refused. With a slight laugh, Derpy disregarded her protest and forced it into her mouth anyway, much to Carrot's dismay, not exactly preferring muffins unless they were carrot ones.

But the last thing she saw wasn't exactly something she expected, they both stood at the top of a large cliff. She recognized this, Derpy decided to fly them both to Cloudsdale for a day after Twi did a cloud-walking spell on Carrot. But while flying, the grey mare crash landed and they ended up in the Everfree Forest, eventually coming upon this area while searching for a way out.

There was a massive, grassy plain and a few mountains in the distance at the bottom of the cliff, even a rushing river that they both stared at in amazement. But shortly afterwards, something Derpy didn't expect or remember abruptly happened.

Carrot turned to Derpy, a sad look on her face, confusing the Pegasus. "What's wrong, CT?"

She let out a sad sigh. "I-I don't know, it's just that…"

She stopped, turning away and trotting to the edge of the grassy, rocky cliff, staring down it sadly as a tiny pebble fell from where she put a hoof nearly off of the edge mistakenly, falling and making a barely audible plick as it struck the ground far below.

"I—I think I have to…go."

Derpy was abruptly taken aback. "Go? Whaddya mean 'go'?"

Carrot cast her a glance out the corner of her eye that Derpy couldn't quite read, "I—I think you might already know, Derpy." Again, Derpy wasn't entirely sure what she was going on abut, opening her mouth to question her again, only for the realization to abruptly hit her like a train.

"No…n-no! You-You can't, CT, n-not…." She stopped in her tracks as Carrot abruptly rushed towards her and pulled her into a loving embrace.

"I-I know, Derpy, I-I don't wanna go either."—to Derpy's shock, and somewhat fear, Carrot's body abruptly begin to shimmer and fade slightly—"I-I don't want to say good-bye, n-not yet a-anyway. B-But I have no control over this, I—I have to."

It didn't take long for Carrot's appearance to be almost invisible to Derpy's eyes, the sensation of her hug hardly there anymore as well. "I-I'll miss you, Derpy." And then she was going, her voice no more than a slight echo against the Pegasus's ears.

"No…no! N-Not here too! C-C'mon….c'mon, Carrot, you-you've gotta come back! N- Nothing's the same here, not here, not Ponyville, not anything! I-If I could bring you back, I would, b-but I just…"

She hit the ground a few times with a hoof, tears pouring from her eyes like a waterfall, but out of her control. Somewhat, she knew it was a dream, but then again, she felt it wasn't. It felt all to real, that was until a disembodied voice began speaking to her. It was Carrot Top's voice.

Ditzy…. Ditzy Doo….

"C-Carrot? Carrot, a-are you there?!"

Wake up, Ditzy Doo…. Wake up….

"H-Huh? B-But, I'm not…."

Wake up!

Derpy's eyes snapped open with a start, her body soaked in a cold sweat and her eyes slightly wet and red. To her surprise, Amethyst stood at her bed...er, couchside, staring her down, looking somewhat agitated. But the sight of the unicorn startled here and she barely avoided falling from the couch where she laid.

"Wh-What's going on? What time is it?"

"It's morning." Derpy flipped onto her hooves, stretching and giving her somewhat numb wings a few flaps. She glanced out the window, noticing the Sun was already becoming quite high in the sky, implying it was probably almost noon.

Amethyst trotted into the kitchen, grabbing a couple slices of bread and placing them in the nearby toaster, pushing the lever down halfway. Derpy stared after her silently, before hesitantly speaking up.

"So, uh, h-how's Tootsie Flute?"

"She's doing as fine as usual…mostly."

"Mostly? What're you…?"

"She's just…all worried and stressed out now, about Dinky I guess. She's one of Tootsie's best friends at school, she can't help but fear for how Dinky's doing, especially after what happened to Carrot Top and all."

Derpy shuddered slightly at the thought as the pieces of bread popped up, only partially toasted as she wanted. She levitated them out and placed them in front of her, pulling out a few daisies and daffodils and beginning to top them onto both pieces of bread, the daisies on one, daffodils on the other.

"Well, I'm…sure Dinky'll be…fine. I guess…."

Finishing off topping the pieces of bread, Amethyst levitated a jar of peanut butter from the cupboard and began visibly struggling to open it. "I-I don't think so. Ugh, darn peanut butter…" Derpy couldn't help but smirk slightly as she continued her struggle.

"Uh, need any help?"

"Nope, I got this!"

She continued to strain in attempt to pull the lid off, her aura eventually blinking out with a flash and a pained yelp, allowing the jar to fall to the floor and roll over to Derpy's hooves. Raising an eye brow, she picked it up and hoverd over to the coffee table where the uneaten muffins still laid.

Hitting the jar's lid against a corner a few times, she then lifted it up and twisted the lid off with little to no struggle, a matter-of-fact grin etched across her face as Amethyst levitated it back over to her.

"Eh, I loosened it up for ya. Anyway, I don't think Dinky's taking it very well. I always see Dinky, usually with Carrot Top or Written Script, waiting at the bus stop when I walk her down there."—she grabbed a butter knife and began spreading the PB on her sandwich—"She wasn't there today and the thought she may've moved to a new one is an unlikely guess.

"She must be taking it hard, she's almost gotta be. I mean, seriously, it was her mother, y'know? She probably won't attend school today, I'll ask Tootsie Flute when she comes home this afternoon."

Derpy couldn't help but feel somewhat sad for the depressed filly; she use to frequently foalsit for Carrot Top when they couldn't always be there to watch Dinky. They'd eventually grown a strong bond, and by now, she felt as if the filly were her own.

"No filly her age should have to deal with loss like this, especially not her mother."

Amethyst trotted towards the couch, levitating her sandwich with her, lying down, Derpy trotting towards her to do the same. "I know, I mean, if Dinky were my age, she'd probably be able to take it a whole lot better. Sure, I'd be absolutely devastated if you were to die, mom. I mean, you may not be my biological mother and we may've only known each other for six years, but you practically saved my life back then."

When Amethyst was still a little filly, a number of weeks after running away from her high-class home back in Canterlot, she lucked out as Derpy happened to be on the weather team that night. Upon spotting the filly, who was only about two or three years younger than herself, she took her into her own home.

Lucky enough for Derpy, Amethyst had been just old enough to do a few things here and there for herself, just in case Derpy may've been unable to do it due to her disability. Two years ago, Amethyst graduated from high school and left home, starting a family with a young stallion and a little filly herself, but still never failed to visit Derpy at least once every day for as long as she could.

"Yeah," Derpy responded, staring at her hooves. "I remember that."

"Yeah, I'd be pretty upset, but it wouldn't take me as long to get past it. I love you, mom, and I always will, but the older a pony is, the easier they'd be able to understand it and all. Right?" She then glanced out the window, the rain having cleared out.

"Poor little Dinky, I can't imagine how horrible it must feel." She then turned to a sad looking Derpy. "What happened to Carrot Top anyway?" Derpy was abruptly taken aback by Amethyst's question, reluctant to relive it again.

"I-I don't wanna talk about it."

"C'mon, mom, don't be afraid to face it head-on. Sometimes, sometimes talking about it tends to help a lot more than pushing it to the back of your mind and caging in your emotions like some old shelter animal."

Amethyst was surprisingly wise, despite being the younger of the two, it sometimes seemed that the unicorn would be the one taking care of Derpy.

"A-Are you sure? W-Well, I don't e-exactly know.I don't think I'll ever understand it entirely. All I know is, a couple months ago, Carrot Top got sick. Really sick. She was always tired and never really wanted to eat. And when she did, she almost always tended to throw it back up again. She could eat tiny little portions one at a time, but that was about it.

"She—She eventually began losing a lot of weight to the point you could see her ribs through her thin yellow coat. Dinky was all upset and concerning her, so Written Script finally decided for her to go to the hospital, as they thought it was the flu or something before. She stayed there for a lot of days, they ran a few tests, and shortly after being released, they got the results back.

"I don't know what they were or what they said, but I don't think it was good. In a few weeks, Carrot became mostly fine again. She was somewhat getting back to eating, taking it a little at a time until she finally managed to gain some of her weight back. But after a while, she started feeling awful all the time and never wanted to get out of bed or anything. Just sleep.

"From time to time, she felt a lot worse, like how she was the first few times. One time, when I went to the local bowling alley with her and Berry Punch, she told me she felt kinda dizzy and 'weird', but Berry shrugged it off as nothing, so I did too. Shortly afterwards though, Carrot passed out and somepony, I don't know who, called an ambulance.

"She stayed there for a week or two, becoming worse and worse everyday and—and eventually, she insisted she leave and go home until…"—Derpy sniffed and took a deep breath before speaking again—"well, she was bed-ridden for days after that. She only time she ever got up was to go to the bathroom from time to time, and even then, she needed a lot of help.

"She couldn't eat, couldn't really drink, and she slept almost 24 hours a day unless Dinky decided to keep her company every now and then. Eventually, I decided to visit her and her house and—a-and sh-she looked so f-frail, s-so weak. I—I don't know, i-it's just…her skin was all cold and sticky with sweat, it was so, s-so awful….

"Sh-She could hardly s-sit up w-without draining out all her energy, e-even with the help of another p-pony. Finally, she chose to explain to me what was going on…."

"D-Derpy… I-I need to tell you something, s-something I should've told a l-long time ago…"

"What is it, Carrot?"

"I went to the hospital a while ago, right? Well….well, I have leukemia. It's a rare, but deadly illness that…doesn't have a cure."

""What? Wh-Whaddya mean?"

"Well, it doesn't take long to take over your body and—and Equestria, they just don't have the technology to cure it, they're nowhere close."

"B-But…no, Carrot, wh-what're you…? You're—You're going to be alright! T-Tell me you'll be alright, Carrot, c-come on!" Due to Derpy's desperate pleas to hear that she'd be okay, Carrot Top turned away briefly, she didn't want to say it, but if she wanted the truth, she had to.

"I-I'm…I'm going to d-die, Derpy." Those four words instantly spiked fear into the Pegasus pony's heart, causing her to fall down onto her knees at the bedside.

"No, n-n-no! You—You won't die, Carrot, y-you won't! C'mon!" She thoughtlessly took hold of her hoof in attempt to pull her onto her hooves, but stopped in her tracks as Carrot let it an audible, pained groan.

"C-Come on, Carrot Top, you…w-we can do something about this! We-We can, s-so you won't have to go! M-Maybe T-Twilight can cast a spell that'll heal you, or-or maybe we can beg Princess Celestia for you to stay or—or—o-or…."

"Derpy, there—there's nothing they can do. Do you know why healing magic is never used in hospitals? Not even ones in Canterlot? Because it's far too dangerous. It was outlawed all througout Equestria because all it did was make the ailment worse and sometimes straight-up kill the injured or sick pony."

She took Derpy's trembling hoof in her own, meeting her gaze with glassy green eyes, forcing a smile through her pain. "Everything'll be alright, I promise." But Derpy immediately shook her head in strong disagreement.

"N-No….it-it won't. I-If you die, n-nothing….n-nothing'll ever, ever be the same!"

"I-I know, Derpy, and when I was younger, I used to be afraid of death, mortified of it. But—But now, even though I'm on the brink of death, I-I'm not afraid anymore. I—I know it'll be alright. A-A mare spoke to me, I-I even see her and—and hear her in my-my dreams. It-It's not Celestia or-or Luna, it's a tall white mare with a b-beautiful dark red mane.

"She speaks to me in a comforting voice, she tells me it'll be alright, and...and I believe her. I don't recognize her, b-but I know what she says is true, Derpy,"—her voice changed tone slightly as tears began to fall from her own eyes—"I—I-I know it'll be alright…." She turned her attention back to Derpy and smiled at her.

"An-And y-you be alright too…."

"But…wh-what'll happen to Dinky? And Written Script?"

"Written'll take care of her, he's a strong stallion, he'll get past this. But…Dinky, she does't know yet, I didn't wanna tell her 'cause…'cause she's too young to understand. But when it does happen, and I know it will, even though Written's there, I want you to protect Dinky with your life, as if she were your own, alright?

"You're not her mother, but you'll be the closest thing to. You—You cared for Amethyst Star when she was a filly. Not exactly as young as Dinky, but you made it, Amethyst's still alive, isn't she? Dinky will have Written Script there, but she needs a mother too, every little filly does, and I hate to leave her at such a young age.

"Derpy, you promise me you'll make sure Dinky stays safe and give her my, and your share of love. A sensitive little filly like her will need it. And you can't let this get to you, Derpy, you can't make it where life means nothing to you at all after I'm gone. I know you're young yourself and you can't exactly learn and understand things as well as everypony else, but pleaase, I need you to do this, for me. Don't let go."

Derpy sniffed, staring tearfully at Carrot. She tried to force a smile at her, to no avail. "Al-Alright, Carrot Top, I-I'll make sure, I will, I—I promise." Carrot, now lying on her back again, tried to force a smile again, but failed, only slowly blinking her eyes shut as she glared blindly at the ceiling.

Derpy rose to her hooves, and headed towards the door, staring tearfully at the sleeping mare, before stepping out, only to be stopped in her tracks, "D-Derpy, could you….turn out the lights?"

"Sure, Carrot, sure."

She flicked it off with a wing and closed the door behind her, walking down the short corridor, only for a sobbing noise to alert her. A young sobbing noise. 'Dinky!' her thoughts told her. She rushed into the living room, where she was sure the noise came from, and the pale lavender filly sat curled on the couch, sobbing openly.

The sight and the sound of her crying pained Derpy even more as she rushed to her aid, quickly sitting down and pulling her in close with a wing. "Aw, Dinky, wh-what's wrong? Why're you so upset?" The words that the little filly said next caused her heart to shatter into a million pieces.

"I—I don't want mommy to die!"