All She Wanted was a Nap...

Terra rushed across the dimly lit carriage lot of her father's Hay-Fil-A to the restaurant's large dumpster, towing a large, plastic container--aptly named the 'Whale' for it's shape-- full of garbage. She dragged along her slender, lavender Hippopotamus friend and co-worker holding the whale with her.

"C'mon M!" Terra exclaimed, nearly breaking into full gallop. "This is the last job! Then we can clock out!"

"Hey, slow down Terra!" the Hippopotamus, M Warn, huffed, "You'll drop the trash!"

"Psh!" Terra waved, "We'll come back for it if we have to!"

"OHHHH!" M 'retorted' with a strange noise.

"OHHH!" Terra shot back.

Needless to say, it wasn't long before they reached the rather large, steel dumpsters.

The two co-workers gave a collective moan as they discovered that the dumpsters were already containing near-max occupancy. Terra sighed, "Well, you know the drill:"

"Toss 'em in?" M asked.

The pegasus nodded, "Toss 'em in."

One by one, Terra and M began tossed trash bags over the top of the azure dumpster. As the mare grasped a bag with her hooves, she asked, "So, we've worked together for a few years now, but tell me again, what's the deal with your name?" She tossed the bag into the dumpster. "I'm sorry, I forget things easily."

M chuckled as she grabbed two relatively small bags and threw them overhead into the trash bin. "It's simple, actually. Hippos only use one letter for their first name." She explained, "Like, I'm M, my dad is W, and my cousin is L. Oh, Fun Fact: L has issues with notebooks. Dunno why. And you know our friend Jonathan Jean? Yeah, she's actually V."

"Hmm." Terra nodded in understanding. "Cool."

M smiled a smirk-ish smile, "OHHH! Is it now?"

Terra chuckled, tossing yet another bag into the dumpster, "Yeah. It's intriguing."

"Hey," M asked as she tossing up trash bags. "are you working tomorrow?"

"Nah," The pegasus employee shook her head, "I've got the next two days off."

"Oh." The hippopotamus employee replied, "Good for you."

"Mm-hm." Terra yawned, "Oi... I'm tired."

"Long day?"

"Yeah. Started at 2:00 today." She glanced at her watch. Reading 11:17, she sighed, "We should hurry and finish up." M agreed as Terra reached into the whale for the last trash bag. But the bag was WAAAYY heavier than she anticipated and nearly dragged her into the black container.  "OHGOSH." she grunted.

M crossed her purple forelegs and giggled. "OHHHH! Is that bag being a peckerwood?"

The pegasus chuckled at her friend's strange 'Oh's' and huffed, "Just a bit." Taking a deep breath, Terra pulled at the bag with all her might, but lifted it only a few inches. She gasped as she dropped the bag back into the whale.

"Need help?" M asked.

The mare, determination now burning in her eyes, shook her head, "Nah. I got this." She wrapped both her forelegs and her wings around the bag and lifted with her legs. With spastic breathing, Terra slowly carried the bag--filled with what seemed to be tightly packed powder--to the dumpster.

"You can do it!" M cheered.

With sore muscles and even worse breathing, Terra smiled as she attempted to throw the bag into the dumpster. However, her attempt fell short as the bag merely slammed against the side of the trash bin. She sighed as she tried again only to witness it plop to the concrete of the carriage lot.

With a disgruntled sigh, she once more grasped the bag, and, with every once of strength she could muster, she heaved the bag nearly over the dumpster. She held it above her head as it teetered on the edge of the metal container. But it wasn't far enough, as she knew that if she let go, the heavy, powder-filled trash bag would fall right back to the ground. M immediately rushed to Terra's aid, but alas, it was all too late: Terra's hoof had punctured a hole in the bag, causing the powdery remains to cover Terra's face and entire right side. "ACK!" she yelled, "HAY COATER!!"

M fought with every ounce of her being just to stifle a laugh. Beginning to nearly climb the wall to finally do away with the trash, she joked, "Heh, if only we were bit taller, huh?"

Terra laughed while spitting the coater off of her lips, "I know, right?"  The mare heaved once more and yelled, "HWAAAAGH!", chucking the bag over the dumpster.

With heavy breathing and shocked wonder, the mare slowly raised her front hooves in victory.

"We did it!" M beamed. "Yay!"

"Woo!" Terra smiled. "Thanks M."

The hippopotamus nodded, "Mm-hm. Helpin' a sister out." She then gazed down at the mess the bag had made. "But, um..."

Terra's smile faded slightly as she noticed not only was her face and entire right side tainted ivory, but the area surrounding the dumpster was as well. She chuckled and sighed, "...Crap."

M chuckled as well, still examining the powdery mess, "You may want to get the Manager."

The mare nodded as she carefully trudged inside the restaurant's back door. She cautiously dragged herself through the kitchen (with many kitchen staff members asking what had happened) and brought herself to the managers' office, presenting herself to Surefire, the Team Leader on staff that night. "Um... Surefire?"

The brown-maned, tan unicorn mare wearing a black blouse turned to face Terra, only to sigh in disbelief. "Oh, Terra..."

The pegasus nervously smiled, "I, uh, had an accident..."

"I see." Fighting back a small giggle, Surefire straightened her eyeglasses to better see the ivory stain left on Terra's body. "Where is it?"

Terra scratched the back of her short, crimson mane. "Kinda... all around the dumpster..."

The unicorn leader shook her head and sighed, "...Aye... Alright Terra, I think you're good for tonight. Go ahead and clock out."

Terra's nervous smile remained stuck to her face, "O-Oh, um, alright."

Surefire let out a smile as she replied, "Have a good night, Terra. Be safe. Oh, and take a shower!"

She nodded, "Gotcha. Bye!"

____________________________________________________________________

In a dim room lit only by the light of her her TV screen, a warm blanket snugly caressed Terra's silver fur as she stared breathless after just finishing her most recent anime, Shingeki no Pony. To calm her excited emotions, she gulped the remainder of her fourth Hilltop Mist can--which was, in hindsight, probably counter-productive--and threw it in the pile with the other empty cans and two empty Doritos bags (Doritos, by the way, are WAY too awesome to be changed from dimension to dimension).

Terra glanced at her wrist-watch. Reading 3:26 A.M., she sighed, "I should probably sleep..." But her gaze shifted over to her Ybox 720, complete with Tartarus Souls 2 and a Ybox controller. "...Nah." With little effort, she grunted as she reached across her bed for the controller. Pressing the Golden Y in the center of her controller, she powered up the console and loaded up the game. To her momentary happiness, her good friend, Itch the Panda, had gotten online. She added her Ybox Usertag--Invisibl3 Panda-- to a private chat. She joined soon after and greeted somewhat lazily, "Hello.~"

"Hello.~" Terra tiredly responded .

"How are you?" Her voice asked over the microphone attached to Terra's ear.

Terra sighed, "I'm fine. Worked tonight."

"Coo. Making them bits, yo."

"Mm-hm." Terra nodded as she loaded up the first Tartarus Souls 2 loading screen. "How are you?"

"Alright. Simply and I watched anime all day." The panda replied.

"Oh, cool." The mare approved, "I spilled coater all over myself tonight."

"Coater?"

Terra, now moving her character through the town of Jamula, answered, "Y'know, like hay breading."

"...Did it burn?"

"Wait, what?"

"Well, you gotta fry the breading, right?"

"It wasn't in the fryer!" Terra exclaimed as she had her character quick travel to the Old Steel Castle. "It was in a bag. And raw. The bag broke. Lots of powder spilled all over the place."

"Fun times." Itch affirmed.

"Oh yeah." Terra chuckled. "Hey, wanna have a movie night tomorrow night?"

"Meh... Sounds fine."

"What about Ben and Simply?"

"They'll probably be okay."

"What about your parents? Will they be alright with it? Since we usually have it at your house, I wanted to be sure that we weren't, like, doing something against them, y'know?"

"Yeeaaah... My family left for two weeks. As long as we behave competently, we should be fine."

Terra smiled, "Cool. Hey, you wanna help me fight the Old Steel Queen again? I wanna trade her soul for that one pyromancy."

"Eh..." Itch paused, "Sure."

"Cool. Thanks."

"Yerp. Where are you?"

"I'm by the third spawn waterfall."

"Steel Impasse?"

"Yeah."

"Alright."

It didn't take very long for Terra to find Itch's turquoise in-game summon signal. When she entered her world, she sang out almost melodiously, "PRAISE the moon!~"

Terra responded, "PRAISE the moon!~" She smirked, "Alright, let's do this."

_________________________________________________________

Terra mindlessly stared at her watch.

6:18.

She took in a deep, tired breath, "Hey, Itch?"

"Yeah?" Itch replied in an equally tired voice.

Terra moaned as the sun's first rays started leaking through her blinds, "The sun's coming up... I'm gonna go to bed."

"That's-" She yawned. "That's a common problem. I'm gonna sleep too."

"Alright." The mare yawned herself, "See you later."

"Later."

With that, Terra powered down all her devices and laid her head on her pillow and attempted to sleep.

After an undeterminable amount of time, the sleeping mare had forcibly been awoken by a blinding blast from the sun. "ACK!" She covered her face with her forelegs, "THE SUN! IT BURNS!!!"

"Terra," a topaz mare with a crimson mane tied back in a ponytail glared at her, a wing grasping her window blinds, "time to wake up."

Terra rolled over, covering her equally crimson eyes more tightly. "Back... you foul spawn of Tartarus..."

"I am your mother," The older mare, Caela Nova, frowned, "and It's 11:32, far past time to be awake. Time to say good morning to Ponyville!"

The younger moaned, "I hate mornings."

Terra's mom rolled her sapphire eyes, "Too bad it comes every twelve hours." She walked to the door and stopped, "Wake up."

After she heard her mother's hoofsteps descend to the lower level of her home, Terra sighed as she began her valiant efforts to beat the morning. But alas, they had all failed, as her bed had won another twenty minutes of her life. She muttered, "I have a feeling... that today is going to be bloody horrible..." Eventually, she mustered enough willpower to roll out of bed and plop onto the floor. From there, she crawled her way into the shower. After cleansing herself, she was able to function, if only at least minimally.

"Y'know," Terra mumbled as she stepped downstairs for food, rubbing her black-rimmed eyes, "I think I'm gonna take a nap today at some point."

"No you're not." Her mom called out from the kitchen.

Her jaw dropped as she hopped down the last few stairs, "How did-"

"I'm a mom. I do these things. Anyway, Terra, can you come here please?"

Terra shot her head up and moaned, "Crap..."

She entered the kitchen to see her mother already making lunch. Mrs. Nova began with a sucker punch, "Terra, you're going to go outside today." Terra gasped, but her mother raised a hoof to stop any protests, "You're always inside playing Ybox or watching anime. You need to go out and make some friends."

"I have friends!" Terra slammed her hooves on the counter, now able to protest, "In fact, the four of us are doing a thing tonight!"

"At Itch's house?"

"Yeah."

Mrs. Nova continued, "With Simple and Ben?"

"Mm-hm."

"Is it your guys' all-night thing?"

"Yep." Terra smiled.

"I see." Mrs. Nova stood up. "But, don't you have any other friends?"

"Well, not exactly..." Terra's her smile twisted nervously, "But what's wrong with those three?"

Her mother answered, "I don't have many qualms about Ben and Simple Conundrum, but you know how your father and I feel about Itacchi." Terra rolled her eyes. "So, we decided that you should at least TRY to reach out and make more friends."

"Mom!" The younger mare complained.

"What about your foalhood friend, Chill Breeze? You two haven't talked to each other in ages!"

"He got all into sports and stuff." Terra shrugged. "Then we kinda just grew apart."

"Well, that's a shame. You two used to get along so well together." Mrs. Nova started nudging her daughter towards the front door, "At any rate, I want you to attempt to make friends with SOMEpony today."

"But Mom!" Terra firmly planted her hooves on the hard wood floor. "I hate everypony!"

Mrs. Nova stopped and forced Terra to look her square in her eyes, now two pools of complete seriousness, "Now, Terra, you know what the Creator's Book says about true hatred, right?"

Terra sighed as she recalled the specific passage her mother was referring to, "Yes... It's like murder... Fine then. I extremely dislike everypony."

Mrs. Nova raised a concerned eyebrow, "Now, why do you say that?"

Terra heart sank slightly, knowing she just accidentally trotted into deep waters. Attempting to avoid her mother's gaze, she answered, "Ponies are generally just idiots."

"How so?" Caela cocked her head slightly.

She sighed, "Y'see, I've discovered in my experiences at Hay-Fil-A that ponies generally don't care about anyone else's well being. Now, they're not out to hurt anypony, but they're far more concerned with their own agenda. And the rude way they carry that agenda out utterly astounds me. They always do what they feel is right in their own eyes, regardless of others."

"I see." Mrs. Nova replied. Terra could see her mother's mind running like clockwork. "Is that all?"

Terra retreated slightly, unwilling to proceed any further. But, not wanting to lie, she fought her own will and spoke, "N-no... I've also discovered that ponies aren't very accepting..."

"Can you explain what you mean by that?" Caela further questioned.

Terra remained silent, until realizing she wouldn't be able to leave until this was resolved. "...Well, you know the stuff I like to watch and do: Doctor Whooves, rock music, anime, video games, et cetera. That's not..." She paused and rubbed her chin, trying to find the right words to explain, "...those things aren't exactly the norm for our small town. Once they catch on that I enjoy those things, they label me as 'that one weird mare' and write off anything else I have to say as 'stupid'. They just don't care."

Caela nodded, "And so, they don't understand your preferences. Let me ask though," She began rubbing her chin as well, "does this also have anything to do with you not having a Cutie Mark?"

"Mom, you know I don't care about that!"

"I know, sweetie," Mrs. Nova placed a hoof on her daughter's shoulder, "but you also know that having one is important to the townsponies. And it's fine that you don't have one, but just know that ponies will find it a bit strange."

Terra turned away and mumbled, "They don't have to treat me like an outcast, though... They don't have condemn my opinions like they don't matter..."

Tears began forming in Caela's eyes. Her lower lip began to tremble, "Come here." She embraced her daughter. "You are NOT an outcast."

"Mom... Don't do that... Don't cry..."

"Well," Mrs. Nova wiped her eyes, but to no avail, "it hurts me to know that you think that way. I'm your mother and I care about you, honey. I don't want you feel like an outcast just because you didn't figure out what you wanted to do for the rest of your life at ten years old. Just because other ponies have the immaturity to judge a book by it's cover, doesn't mean no one cares! You're father and I love you, and we care. Your sister and little brothers love you, and they care. You even have decent friends who I'm sure care to some extent as well, few as they may be."

Terra sighed as she returned the embrace, "...Thanks Mom."

Caela sniffed and pulled away, "Why didn't you tell me you were dealing with this?" Terra shrugged. "Please, if you have any more problems like this, please tell me! I love you sweetie, and I want to help."

The daughter gave a relieved chuckle, "Okay, I will."

Wiping the last of her tears away, Mrs. Nova patted Terra's back and sniffed, "Now, can you promise that you'll go out and try to make some friends? The more ponies you can truly depend on later in life will help you in the long run."

Terra nodded. "I'll try."

"Thank you." Mrs. Nova smiled. She gave her daughter one last push towards the door, "Now, have a good day!"

"Right." The 17-year old mare replied sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. She took a deep, defeated breath as she slowly trudged across the slick, wooden floor of the foyer towards the door. On her way out, she grabbed her jPhone, WEMT Headphones, and Friendtendo 3DS and placed them in her pockets (which everypony knows are located in the Cutie Mark area). She called to her siblings on the upper floor, "Hey, I'm going out for a while; I'll see you guys later!"

An older female voice called back, "Later Sis!"

Two younger male voices followed in unison, "Bye Terra! Love ya!"

She smiled and nodded. Stopping at the door, she stared back at her mom with pleading eyes, hoping that she had changed her mind. She had not. Defeated, Terra gave up the ghost and opened the door.

"Wait honey, one more thing!" Terra returned her gaze to her mother, some hope still gleaming in her soul. "Don't go to the Everfree Forest; it's very dangerous."

The daughter groaned at her false hope. "Kay... Wait, what if I get jumped when I'm in town?"

"Bye!"

"But the description even says-"

"Love you!"

"Mom!" She tried to object, but was no use. There was no turning back. She sighed, "Love you too..."

With that, Terra slammed the door behind her, now somewhat-except-not-really-at-all-ready to face the outside world that was Ponyville. She covered her eyes as they adjusted to the noonday sun. She moaned "Oi... the outside... I hate the sun..." It was then that a wave of exhaustion washed over her, as her body finally remembered the night before. "Y'know, I think I'll take a nap and attempt to make friends later." She reasoned, "I mean, nopony likes an irritated, intolerant, introvert."

As she hopped off of the stoop of her porch, she felt something odd and relatively large object bulging out of her left pocket. With a raised eyebrow, she reached in and pulled out her military orange Limited Edition Haylow Reach Ybox controller. She chuckled, "Did I forget to put this away last night?" She pondered whether to take it back to her room, then shook her head, "Nah. Effort."

She then trotted away from her house as she slipped on her headphones and started playing one of her favorite bands, Seventh Hour Power Nap. It wasn't long before she felt the stares of the townsponies weighing down on her. She sighed in irritation, "...AAND, there it is." She shook her head and sighed. She began singing along just to ignore them, "...Their perfect ways and your mistakes... All the plastic smiles from a thousand fakes... You're more than what they said that you could be... So believe."

Then, something pink blurred past her vision. But since most of her hometown was pretty much drenched in pink, she paid no heed to this particular blur. She simply continued to sing while watching out for a decent napping spot. "We are the Brok-"

But her singing had been interrupted by a damp, sweet-smelling cloth that smothered her muzzle. She struggled for only a few moments before passing out.