Bob

Derpy Hooves woke up at 3:00 in the morning, but she didn't make any move to get out of bed or return to sleep.  Instead she sat there for another two hours, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out life's most ancient and daunting questions.

Why are we here?!  What happens after we die?!  How do I respond to watermelon Oreos?!  Ponies are but a minuscule part of the universe and growing even smaller as the universe expands!  Nobody is standing still!  Equestria is moving at thousands of kilometers per second around the sun and the solar system is flying around within our galaxy and is moving even faster and faster still! Our galaxy is, as we speak, hurling throughout the universe at an incredible rate!  Eventually, we die!  That is the end of it! What will become of us when BEES die?! Nothing makes sense!  Even the brightest minds of Canterlot can't even begin to wrap their minds around that of the pony brain!  World conflicts will never cease!  Soon, the world energy crisis will catch up to all of us!  And there's nothing we can DO ABOUT IT!

Derpy did all of this in silence, staring up at the ceiling with her eyes wide open and every ounce of hope draining from her, and all thoughts of sleep fled from her mind.  She was completely focused on one thing; the impending doom of the pony race.  And muffins. Muffins always made everything better.

Twilight Sparkle was up at 3:00 as well, but for a different reason.  Her schedule was jam-packed with chores and errands that had been planed out weeks beforehand.

1- Pick up a sofa from that Furniture and Quills store.

2- Attend Pinkie Pie's party at the park.

3- Remodel and reorganize every book in the entire library by alphabetical order.

4- Go to Rarity's and help with sales and dresses.

5- Memorize a new word from the dictionary.

6- Do something with the dead body out back.

7- Don't tell anyone about the dead body.

8- Order the chocolate raspberry cupcakes from that cupcake shop I can never remember the name of.

9- Have lunch.

10- Wake up Spike.

11- Attend Celestia's royal banquet.

12- Visit the annual cider tasting convention.

And so on.  (The list included about 50 other things to be done that you don't want to hear about.)

Anyway, Twilight got started on her list with frighting speed.  She whipped on her saddlebag, got her coffee, checked her mail, had breakfast, and ran out the door in tree seconds flat.  Of course, it being three in the morning and all that, nopony would be up and about, which made it the perfect time to pick up the sofa from Furniture and Quills, which was open 24-7.

She chose to run instead fly because of her lack of practice and experience, but Twilight was still galloping at such a speed that it would have made an Equestria Games sprinter wet his trousers.  The store was all the way across town, but she made her way there in a few minutes, using pure determination and also the horror of her not finishing everything on time.  Twilight saw the glowing neon OPEN sign hanging in the window of the shop, and sprinted to the finish.  Her eyes watered, her hooves were screaming in agony, her lungs were being pushed to the limit.

As the alicorn leaped onto the stone steps she teleported throughout the door, crashing into a lamp and tumbling onto the floor all the while screaming at the clerk, a small green mare wearing half-rimmed glasses, "Im-here-to-pick-up-a-sofa-for-Twilight-Sparkle-please-and-thank-you!" She slammed into the desk and lay on the floor, gasping for air and drenched with sweat and newly-formed bruises.

The clerk stared with an earnest look on her face.  "We'er also having a happy hour special.  If you buy any two pieces of furniture, then you get one quill, free."

Twilight pondered for a moment, "Can that include my sofa?"

The clerk smiled and nodded, "Yes it can."

As they spoke, a light blue pony with white streaked hair could be spotted roaming in the streets of Ponyville.  The stallion wore a black stetson and walked with a limp in his left foreleg, where a jagged scar could be seen running up from the hoof to the shoulder.  He watched from a wooden bench as a black-haired, purple coated alicorn with a saddle-bag darted onto the street and into a furniture store.  She was graceful in the way she ran, and did so with such speed and agility that he would have wet his trousers if not for the fact that he hadn't drank anything for days.  (Or the fact that he didn't wear any trousers.)The pony had no idea how he had gotten there, or why he was wearing a stetson.

This stallion's name, was Bob.