Author's Note
When I strive for improvement, I am often reminded that I am forever doomed to fall short of perfection.
This story and its comparison to its counterpart stand as testament to how far I have come in spite of this.
A mile through her eyes
Coming down from practice Lightning Dust lands in front of the inn.
"That was a whole lot better than when I first saw you kid. You really are something up there. I'd expect no less from a soon to be Wonderbolt." her boss Wayside calls from the bench.
"Yay Rainbow Dash! WooHoo!" Lightning Dust hears the gray pegasus mare next to him cheer.
When she heard herself being mistaken for her rival, She got pretty steamed. She comes right up to the pony that mistook her for Rainbow Dash and got a good look at her. It was one of the strangest ponies she had ever met. She had wall eyes and spoke with something of a lisp. Her body movement seemed to show she was extremely clumsy. She must be the village idiot.
Lightning Dust decided to correct the freak. "Hey! I am NOT Rainbow Dash! The name's Lightning Dust! Learn it, you idiot!"
"I-I... I'm sorry..." she says, her voice squeaking at the end.
Lightning Dust wasn't finished with her. "Is that all you can do? Mess up and apologize for every thing? You look like you can't seem to do any thing right with those eyes of yours."
The gray pegasus was on the verge of tears already but when she heard this she ran off pouting, stumbling and tripping over a few things in her haste.
"Lightning Dust! It was an honest mistake!" She hears Wayside say. "I expected better from one of my workers." Looking at her boss she sees him scowling like he meant business. "If you were on the clock, I would have already fired you for that. You had better learn to control that mouth of yours. You're even ruder than Rainbow Dash."
"I'll work on that." She says insincerely as she flies off again to work off some steam. She knew talking to her boss while he was upset would pretty much guarantee her losing her job.
In the bushes two ponies witnessed the whole thing. "Looks like I do have some work for you after all Lyra. Go break out my advanced prank kit." Pinkie Pie says to her companion, her eyes distant and unfocused from the events that just transpired.
"O, the green one? I like that one!" Lyra asks exited about getting some money for rent.
Speaking plainly with the same distant stare, Pinkie Pie answers her. "No Lyra, the black and yellow one, and grab the red one while your at it."
Realizing what kits she was talking about, Lyra asks her "Pinkie! are you sure? Those kits-"
"Yes I'm sure Lyra. She won't learn with laughing or parties. We have to do it the hard way. Nopony hurts our Derpy like that."
Ditzy Doo was running to see the Doctor in the TARDIS. She couldn't let Dinky to see her like this. Dinky would get upset if she found out somepony teased her. She had to stop crying before she went home. The Doctor was always able to cheer her up.
After managing to explain what happened the doctor spoke up. "Right, I know just what you need my companion. Let's go take a visit to one of my favorite places, besides London. Since I can't seem to get the TARDIS to go back there, this other place will have to do."
And so the Doctor and his companion were on another adventure.
Lightning Dust was landing after her extended workout, exhausted. She is suddenly attacked by a pink blur from behind and a wet cloth placed over her mouth and nose. She tries to fight back but she soon loses consciousness.
* * *
Ditzy Doo is waking up in the middle of a front yard somewhere. Her bad eye seems irritated from something and she had a small throbbing in her head. She stands up shakily, trying to get her balance.
Sparkler comes outside and sees her. "OH! Ditzy, your home, good. Dinner's ready. Come on inside sis."
"Right, coming sis." Ditzy says in a lisp with a fat tongue, a tone of confusion in her voice. She had a sister... right?
Watching from a distance, Pinkie Pie cackles softly. "Enjoy your little vacation Lightning Dust. Enjoy it as best you can through another's ey... hooves."
"Dinky!" Sparkler called "Are you finished with your story book?" Sparkler calls out as Ditzy comes inside.
"Almost, but I can finish it later." A filly called from what seemed to be the living room.
'Dinky, That's my little sister isn't it? Sparkler was my elder by a year, Dinky was our little sister. Or was I the eldest?'
"Good, I'm starved. I'll fetch dinner from the kitchen and we can eat."
"Hey Ditzy, are you alright? You're more distracted than usual." Dinky asked in a concerned tone as she comes in from the living room.
"My eye hurts, and I have a headache." Ditzy explains.
"Oh, why haven't you closed it yet?" Her little sister asks innocently.
"Close it?"
"Ya. Whenever your bad eye starts hurting. You let it rest for a while. After that it's usually better by the next day."
"R-right." She closes her left eye and some of the headache seems to fade, but other parts linger. "Seems to be helping."
"Great! let's go eat!"
Ditzy follows Dinky to the dinning room table and sits down.
"Hey. Help me up." Dinky calls beside her, lightly scraping her hoof on a raised chair she couldn't quite climb into.
"Oh, Right." Ditzy helps her little sister into her high seat and returns to her own. Sparkler serves dinner, sits down and starts up a conversation.
"Hey Ditzy, did you forget to get the stuff for muffin night tonight? You were gone longer than normal and when you came home you didn't have your saddle bag with you."
"I, I guess I did forget."
"Somepony tease you again?" Dinky asks starting to get upset.
"... Not that I can remember." 'Actually, I can't even remember doing my route today.'
"I am sick and tired of all the foals at school teasing us!" Dinky calls from her booster chair.
"Doesn't anypony have something more important to do than tease my big sister?" She calls out. "Or are they just jealous of us having the best sister in the world and have to make her feel bad so they don't?"
"Dinky." Sparkler calls to her, trying to get her to settle down.
"And they should be jealous! Who else has a big sister that reads you bed time stories and sings lullabies? Who else has a big sister that wants to help with your home work? Who else has a big sister that can make the best-est kinds of muffins in the world... "she pauses for a moment and continues sheepishly, correcting herself. "aside from maybe the cake twins. Who else-"
"Who else has a sister that loves family game night as much as they do?" Sparkler asks, interrupting her little sister, finally managing to get her under control.
"Game night!?" Dinky asks excited.
"Well muffin night is obviously canceled. But we're all still here, so why not? Lets just forget all those bad things and finish dinner first."
'Helping with home work? I do that?' Ditzy thought, surprised at what her little sister said. 'That just seems so... odd, but neat at the same time. I sure wished I had somepony helping with my homework back in... back wherever I'm from.'
When Dinner was over and they were washing the dishes together, Ditzy noticed her head ache wasn't getting better despite her eye being closed. If any thing, it felt a little worse than before.
* * *
"You found my thunderbolt Sparkler." Dinky says.
"Ditzy, are you sure you don't want to take a turn? You usually love battlecloud." Sparkler asks.
"I'm sure. I can't seem to grab the pieces tonight. The headache isn't gone yet."
"Cloud two."
"Well we won't force you." Sparkler says as she goes back to the game. "Cloud two? miss. But it's a shame. I enjoy playing with you. You never fail to give me a challenge when we play."
'I'm that good at it?' Ditzy thinks, she seemed to be surprising herself a lot tonight.
"Hey Ditzy. If you're not playing, do you think you can make some popcorn then?" Sparkler asked.
"Ya, popcorn!" Dinky added, excited about the idea of a snack.
'They trust me with that? I could have sworn I wasn't allowed to cook. I mean, I'm a klutz aren't I?" She looked at them asking her so nicely. 'Then again, I'm supposed to be able to make muffins.' "I'll try."
Ditzy walks to the kitchen where they had washed dishes. "Now where do we keep the popcorn again?" Ditzy searched the cupboards below the counter and found cleaning supplies, plates, tableware, bowls, and one cupboard that was full of short story books and coloring books.
Before trying to look into the upper cupboards Ditzy looks in the fridge. She didn't want to risk using her wings if she didn't have to. But all she found in there was normal refrigerator things, the leftovers from dinner, and an unusually large amount of butter that said 'reserved for Doctor', whoever that was. Didn't doctors usually suggest not eating a lot of butter?
Not even seeing food in the lower ones, she tried to look in the higher ones. After managing to get the doors open with her clumsy front hooves and only one eye in mid air, she saw cereal and other breakfast supplies in the cabinet. Looking in another she sees a lot of basic baking supplies, though some of the smaller things were missing. 'guess muffin night is a really big thing in our family'
"Still feeling bad about forgetting the supplies we needed for muffin night?" Sparkler asks, coming into the kitchen and seeing her looking into the baking cupboard.
"I'm having trouble finding the popcorn." Ditsy answers embarrassed.
"Oh, navigation trouble again? Should have guessed with the headache." Sparkler says as she points to a cupboard Ditzy hadn't looked in yet.
"My bad..." she says as she opens the cupboard and finds a popping pan of popcorn.
"Don't sweat it. It happens to all of us."
"At least my wings are working alright tonight." She says as she lands with the popcorn pan.
Sparkler looks at her funny as she started to turn to leave the kitchen. "Why wouldn't they? Your wings have always worked fine. If it wasn't for your eye, you could have tried out for the Wonderbolts." Sparkier finishes her question. Finding Ditzy didn't want to say anything back, she goes back towards the living room.
'My wings are strong enough for the Wonderbolts? I thought I was a pathetic flyer.' Ditzy thinks as she starts cooking the popcorn.
"At any rate, Dinky and I are setting up a different game, maybe you can play with us on this one." Sparkler says as she leaves the kitchen.
As she stairs into the foil covered pan just as it starts popping up her mind wanders. 'Wonderbolts... why does that seem so important?' Her headache starts to get worse as she ponders at this and she is forced to stop.
When the popcorn is done she takes it into the living room and starts playing the new board game with her sisters.
"Oh, this will be sweet. Just wait for the hypnosis to wear off and boom!" Pinkie Pie exclaims while jumping up in the air and throwing her front legs high above her head. "Lightning Dust will realize just how nice a pony my Derpy pal is."
Pinkie Pie thinks as she is heading to sugar cube corner. She had a party to plan for tomorrow. It wasn't for Lighting Dust. Lightning Dust hated parties, that's why she had to pull her prank instead. Even without Lightning Dust, Pinkie still had plenty of parties to plan for all her other friends.
Tingly Tongue... 'Oh! that means Time Turner needs to see me.' Pinkie Pie thinks as her Pinkie sense kicked in. 'I'll go to that blue box he likes to hang out in. I can usually find him there. I still find it Funny how he calls himself 'the Doctor' but ehh. He's fun to hang out with when he's in town. He talks funny and laughs easy.'
Pinkie bounces merrily along towards where Time Turner usually keeps his box. She knows she can always plan the party later, the parties were fun but when Pinkie got 'tingly tongue' Time Turner usually ended up being fun in some new and unexpected way. She almost always had time for that. "I wonder what he needs from me this time? Sometimes even he doesn't know."
Pinchy Knee... Pinky burst into full gallop the moment she landed after getting her second call from her Pinkie Sense. When Pinchy Knee and Tingly Tongue came together, it never had good results.
"Thanks for cheering me up Doctor."
"Your quite welcome Derpy. It's nice getting the TARDIS navigation working somewhat reliably again. I hope our next adventure is actually where I aim for as well."
"At least it never fails to bring us back to Ponyvile when were done."
Pinkie Pie come running up to them. "Time Turner. I came as fast as I could. What do you need?"
"Pinkie Pie? As far as I know I don't need any thing." He pauses for a brief moment in thought. "That is unless you can make me an order of English muffins tomorrow morning."
"English muffins..." Ditzy Doo whines.
"They're not that bad Derpy. You just need to use more butter."
Pinkie Pie interrupts them. "No, no, NO! I got 'Tingly Tongue' a little bit ago. That means you need something Time Turner. And I got 'Pinchy Knee' too. That means something scary is about to happen. It can't be just a bakery order!"
Time turner looks at her funny. "Oh my. Well what could it be? We don't know of any thing scary going on, right now at least. Have you done any thing that needs to be fixed?"
"Not that I can think of." Pinkie Pie answers. "I threw a party this morning, foalsat the twins, pulled a hypnosis prank on Lightning Dust and put her in Derpy's house thinking she's Derpy, gave Gummy a bath-"
"Do what!?" Ditzy Doo shouts, turning her head quickly to face Time Turner. "Doctor! We have get to my house now!"
As they run off Pinkie Pie is left there in a small cloud of dust. "But Derpy. Gummy is at my house, not yours." she says as the cloud clears. "Oh well, I had better follow them."
As they are getting ready for bed Ditzy hears Sparkler sing the last of a lullaby to Dinky. It seems to make the growing headache more tolerable. "-take you to where good dreams grow, and help you to sleep again."
Dinky yawns in bed and snuggles up to her teddy bear. "I still Like Ditzy's better..." Then the little filly was out like a light.
Sparkler quietly leaves the room and closes the door. "No matter how I try to tweak mine, I can't seem to match your lullaby sis. You always have her asleep before you end your song."
"That was pretty good though." 'and I somehow top that?'
"Only because I've worked hard on it. Yours was beautiful from the start. I just can't sing quite like you Ditzy. You and mom were always good at singing from the heart."
'From the heart... Mom?' Ditzy's headache spikes and refuses to go down. She puts her hoof to her temple and buckles under the pain.
"Sis! Are you alright?" Sparkler says, worried about her sister
"My head..." is all that Ditsy was able to say.
"Let's get you to the couch." Sparkler holds up Ditzy as she does her best to get to the couch in the living room. Ditzy fails to make it to the couch and collapses shortly after entering the room. "Ditzy? Ditzy!?" Sparkler cries as Ditzy doesn't respond.
All of a sudden the front door bursts open and there Time Turner and... Ditzy? "There she is!" Time Turner calls as he rushes up next to a bewildered Sparkler.
Time Turner pulls out his little stick that Ditzy said could do almost anything. He waves it in front of the Ditzy on the floor as it makes a weird noise. "Oh Pinkie, you amateur. You've scrambled her mind up bad."
"Is there any thing we can do Doctor?" The new Ditzy says worried.
"Not to worry my companion. I am the Doctor. But we will have to take her back to the TARDIS. This will take more than what the sonic screwdriver can handle without killing her."
"Whats going on here!?" Sparkler demands, getting her wits back about her.
"Time Turner, Derpy! I'm here! But gummy is back at my house." Pinkie Pie says randomly as she comes in the front door.
"Oh! umm... she thinks she need to... and she wants... and we need to... umm humm... OK, got it!" Time Turner says, seeming to have the situation under control. "Pinky Pie, I need you to stay here and explain to Sparkler what is going on. Derpy, Myself and... her-" he points to the unconscious Derpy on the floor. "-need to get to the TARDIS without delay."
"Okie doke lokie." Pinkie Pie responds like she was expecting to do something like this.
The still awake Ditzy grabs her doppelganger and flies after the Time Turner to the TARDUS. Pinkie starts explaining things to Sparkler, only confusing her more.
* * *
A few minutes later in the TARDIS.
"She's stable now. But we need to fix a few more things, the TARDIS is saying the timeline is growing unstable and it is involving Pinkie Pie causing her injury somehow, like it wasn't supposed to happen. I can stabilize it but I hoped I'd never have to do this. Here we go."
Time Turner pulls levers and pushes buttons on the controls in an order that Ditzy had never seen him do even remotely like before. It was almost as if it was backwards, but not quite. Sideways? No, still not quite right.
Coming down from practice, Lightning Dust landed in front of the inn.
"That was a whole lot better than when I first saw you kid. You really are something up there. I'd expect no less from a soon to be Wonderbolt," Wayside called from the bench.
"Yay Lightnin' Dust! Woo-Hoo!" Lightning Dust heard the gray pegasus mare next to Wayside cheer.
When Lightning Dust got a good look at the pony that just cheered, she suddenly had a very strong feeling of Déjà vu. Which was strange, because she knew she had never met her before. The wall eyes and childishly cheerful face were definitely unforgettable. Normally, she would be asking what was up with this weird freak of a pony, but something she just couldn't place made her feel jealous of her instead.
"I've done a lot better before, but it will take time for me to get back into the full swing," she responded, unsure of what else to say.
Time Turner was looking around for Pinkie Pie, having set Lightning Dust straight. Whatever she did last time she needed to not do again.
"Time Turner?" He hears Pinkie call from the bushes.
"Ah! There you are Pinkie." Time Turner says relived.
"I need to give you these." Pinkie Pie says as she pushes a red prank kit and a black and yellow prank kit towards him. Her hair flat instead of curly.
Time Turner looks at her and asks "Did you get 'Tingly Tongue' again?" He was surprised she was turning her prank kits over to him before he even mentioned it.
"Uh huh... and 'Creaky Teeth'. I almost did something bad with these didn't I?"
Opening them Time Turner sees some hypnosis tools, grey coat dye and a mussel relaxant in droplet form as well as a few other things in the black and yellow one. In the other he sees a bottle of chloroform and a washcloth.
"Not any more you didn't. Thank you Pinkie." He begins to ask a question to the apprentice baker. "Now I was wondering-"
Pinkie Pie suddenly jumps her head up, hair puffing out to full curl again. But her face seems to be showing she is getting another Pinkie Sense signal. "I gotta go. Gummy needs a bath," she says, dashing off.
Time Turner looks at her running down the road to give her pet a bath. "Right, I'll just place that order for English muffins tomorrow. Off to my companion's house for now. Normal muffins will have to do tonight. I hope Derpy remembered to restock the butter."
