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Twilight was just reaching for the door to have a quick run through the Ponyville market and stock up on essentials when she heard the familiar sound of approaching wings – quickly followed by an equally-familiar, bone-shaking crash that rattled the door in its frame, and the just-as-familiar cry of “Mail for ya!”
Quickly, she wrenched the door open to find a tangled pile of pony on her doorstep, legs and wings akimbo, mailbag wrapped around her neck, and a large flat, rectangular package sliding off her head.
“Ditzy! Are you all right?”
The grey pony blinked her golden eyes and accepted the hoof up. “Ooh, my bad! Weight shifted in flight just as I landed. No harm done.” With considerable aplomb for somepony who had just made such a spectacularly bad landing, Ditzy Doo rescued her cap, which was hanging off one ear, and plonked it firmly back into place before pulling a clipboard from her bag. “Delivery for you, Twilight! Second page, I think.”
Twilight seized the quill dangling from a string on the clipboard and quickly scribbled her name in the assigned slot. Poor Ditzy looked rather concussed, but it was difficult to tell with somepony whose eyes never quite pointed in the same direction. “Are you sure you don't want to come in and sit down for a bit? That was quite a landing!”
She got a cheerful smile. “No thanks, Twilight. Duty calls and the mail must get through! Speaking of which, that's yours, there,” she said, patting the rectangular package that had landed on her head.
“Thanks, Ditzy!” There was a brief, apocalyptic tearing noise as Twilight's magic seized the parcel and reduced the anonymous brown paper to a cloud of fragments. Nothing about the great slab of a book in severe beige covers that was revealed appeared to justify Twilight's delighted squeal of happiness. “Ooh, it's my new quantum astrophysics book! Finally! It's been sold out in Canterlot for months and I had to order one from the publishers!”
Ditzy tilted her head to read the title. “Quantum astrophysics, huh? Fancy that!”
“I know, right? Professor Dood has to be one of my favourite authors for some light bedtime reading,” Twilight gushed, fondling the heavy tome covetously.
“She's that good is she?”
“She's a genius! I'd love to meet her one day, but they say she's very reclusive.”
Ditzy gave her an unexpectedly sly smile. “Wow, she must be some pony. I mean, maybe she's so reclusive that you've already met her and you didn't know it?”
Twilight giggled happily at the absurd thought. “Oh, Ditzy! With a mind like hers, I'm sure it'd be obvious to anypony the second they walked into the same room with her.”
Ditzy's sly grin widened. “You'd think so, wouldn't you?”
Twilight blinked, unsettled by the break from Ditzy's usual sunny demeanour. “What do you mean?”
Ditzy laughed. “Oh, come on, Twilight – and you're supposed to be the Princess's prized student!”
Twilight shuffled her hooves anxiously, starting to feel rather silly. “Still not with you, I'm afraid?”
“Professor Dood. It doesn't ring any bells?”
“Um... what sort of bells should it be ringing? Other than little quark-shaped ones?”
Ditzy rolled her eyes. It was a horrifying sight. “How about if I do this?”
She took the quill from Twilight's magical grasp and, with a tiny, controlled flick of her head, added a comma to the author's name. Twilight looked down and read, her eyes widening and her jaw sagging open as realisation struck.
Professor Doo,d. Professor Doo, D. Professor...?!
“But... but, but, that's a coincidence, right? Right? Please tell me it's a coincidence!”
Ditzy – Professor Doo? – simply cocked an eyebrow at her. “What do you think? It's not much of a nom de plume, but I guess it's more effective than I thought. Somepony made a typo on one of my papers, once, and I thought it was funny. Mind you, who'd associate quantum astrophysics with the likes of me, right?”
Twilight simply stared at her, her mouth flapping like a gaffed fish.
“I know, I know. There goes dumb ol' Ditzy Doo on the mail run. Derpy Hooves, as thick as molasses in January and screwing things up as usual. Can't look straight, can't fly straight, can’t talk straight, can't think straight. Still, as a librarian I would have thought you'd have known not to judge a book by its cover?”
Twilight felt all her blood gallop north into her face. Ditzy's cutting comments were, well, distressingly accurate in some ways. She'd heard the same sort of remarks from others about the mail pony ever since she first moved to Ponyville, and she had unconsciously accepted it without question. What does this say about me? What sort of friendship student am I that I'd fall into that trap?
“Well, sorry? I mean, I only see you when you've got some mail for me, so how was I supposed to know?” She let out a nervous laugh, “You know what they say – if you hear hooves, think ponies, not Zebras.”
There was a loud, indignant huff, and she looked over Ditzy's shoulder in time to see Zecora do an abrupt about-face and stalk away, looking peeved. Twilight clapped a hoof over her mouth, letting out a squeak of dismay. “Have you ever had one of those days?”
Ditzy grinned. “All the time. Enjoy your book, Twilight!”
With that, Ditzy turned and trotted a few steps, wings spread to take to the air.
Twilight took a pace after her. “Wait! Professor, come back!”
Almost before she could blink, Ditzy whipped around and lunged at her, shoving her muzzle up close to Twilight's with those golden eyes boring fiercely into hers. “Call me 'Professor' again, especially in public, and I'll let everypony in Ponyville and Canterlot know about that Filly Funtasia box set you bought last month!” she growled in a low voice.
“But-”
“The Extended Platinum Edition box set, with the stickers, the wall-chart, the Battiwigs doll, and the replica crown, for fillies aged three to seven.”
“That was for Spike!” Twilight whimpered, blushing wildly.
“Sure it was. Now listen – I've got a nice, simple job that provides me with some pocket money and gets me out in the fresh air and sunshine every damn day. I get to see everypony in Ponyville instead of being locked away in some crappy University back-office, shovelling paperwork and funding applications. I've got no stress, no hassle, no annoying grad students pestering me, and I've got plenty of time to relax, and think, and write. I love my life here, Twilight, no matter what some ponies may say about me, and I won't let anypony take that away from me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a mail round to finish!”
As Twilight leaned against the doorframe, watching her hero fly lopsidedly towards Quills & Sofas with the bulging mailbag hanging from her side, she couldn't help but emit a quiet, heartfelt squee of sheer adoration.
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