A Derpy Tale

“Derpy!” exclaimed Durpy.
“You’re hurt!”

Pebble and Twig started walking backwards, but Bob caught them.

“Give us the spell!” he demanded.

Pebble and Twig squirmed around in Bob’s giant hands and Cyrus yelled,

“Do it! Do the Pegasus too,”

Twig chipped off a tiny piece of himself, and Pebble cut off a strand of wood from his head. Then, the items started swirling around in the air, and turned into dust.

“Sprinkle this on yourself,” said Twig.

Pebble was trembling wildly, and Bob let them go. He put them on a smooth grassy area, where they ran off from the roaring sound that came.

Derpy had a gash on her left front leg, which was oozing blood. Well, it wasn’t like red blood, like for humans. Pegasi have blue blood, which might seem kind of gross, but it is what gives them the ability to use their wings.

“Derpy, what happened? Who did this?” said Durpy.

Question Marks, she said weakly. They invaded the flock, and a lucky few got away. I did not get poisoned but… they are coming, run!

“Question Marks?” asked Cyrus.

Derpy nodded, and Bob said,

“But we have protection!”

He was right. Pebble and Twig had given them protection from the Question Marks, but Derpy was already hurt.

“I know!” yelled Cyrus quickly.

“Crixie Magic, it’s really risky because crixies are horribly cross-eyed but I know some of them can help,”

“Good enough,” said Durpy.

They all ran into the awkward cave, faster than ever before.

“Question Marks are everywhere!” exclaimed Bob.

“They can’t hurt you Bob,” said Cyrus.

“THEY CAN HURT ME! HELP!”

Remember, Bob’s hearing was bad sometimes. Durpy still had the dagger attached to her belt. She was carrying Derpy with both hands, like a baby. Surprisingly, Derpy wasn’t heavy at all. She was actually light.

“Derpy, hang in there, we’re going to help you,” she said to her.

Derpy nodded weakly.

“Faster!” yelled Durpy.

Then, there was a big flash of light, just when it seemed that they were nearing the end of the cave. Bob had made the light. It was swirling around him; it was a blinding yellow light, like the sky. Then, Bob screeched,

“OUCH!”

A Question Mark had thrown a rock at Bob.

“I thought we were immune to them,” said Durpy.

“Apparently, the light means it goes away!” yelled Cyrus, as he was covered in the yellow light.

He slashed his tail out to a Question Mark.

“Don’t fight them! You’ll just get poisoned!” Yelled Durpy.

Bob grabbed Cyrus and ran for the exit.

“Derpy, you need to go with them, hurry!”

She handed Derpy to Bob who gladly carried her to the exit. Durpy was the only one who still had the protection spell on. That didn’t last long. Just as she reached the exit, the spell wore off, and a Question Mark nearly got her! Luckily, Bob had the idea of throwing a small tree at it, because it wasn’t actually Bob doing the touching. It was the tree. Then they ran a while, until they were in a clearing. There was a lake on the left side, and a big rocky mountain on the right side.

“Let’s rest,” suggested Cyrus.

He sat on a boulder and used his tail as a fan. Bob stuck his tongue out to catch a breeze, and Durpy kept Derpy company.

“Are we close to the Crixie Hollow?” asked Durpy.

“Yeah,” said Cyrus.

He had also picked up some water and gave it to Derpy.

“Thanks guys. I really needed your help, and thank you for helping me. I really appreciate it,” said Durpy.

Bob found some big leaves and spread them over Derpy like a blanket. Derpy was freezing, and she was extremely weak. Durpy sat by her side all day. Later, when it was starting to become night-time, Durpy decided to go for a walk.

“Can you take care of her while I’m gone?” she asked Bob.

Bob nodded and patted Derpy’s side.

“Good Pegasus!” he said.

The last thing Durpy saw before she left off was Bob trying to sing a song to Derpy, though she couldn’t catch which one it was.

Durpy walked slowly, trying to catch every detail of their surroundings. She wanted to find the upside-down waterfall, but it seemed to be nowhere. She took note of the plants and creatures around her. There were lots of Hiadies, who were like butterflies except they had an extra pair of wings, and they could change color all they liked. Hiadies also had night vision, so they could clearly see Durpy. Hiadies also could talk through telepathy, but they could only talk in very short sentences. The sentence, ‘There is a cat on my doorstep, help!’ was too long for them. They would have to say something like, ‘Cat! On doorstep! AHH!’ and it would be very weird. Right now, a small Hiadie had landed on Durpy’s shoulder. It changed color to match her purple jacket, and then, it fluttered off into the sun. Durpy was also seeing lots of delves. Ever heard of elves? Well, these were exactly like elves, except they could shape-shift. There were millions of delves in this area, and Durpy nearly stepped on a rock, which turned out to be a delf.

“Why did you nearly do that? You could have ended my life! You Dinkys have no respect for anything! Even Nightfellows have more manners…”

then it walked off angrily. Durpy hand nearly tripped on a stick, which had turned out to be another delf.

“Do you always step on sticks!? Where are your manners young Dinky!? Go get eaten my Nightfellows!”

There it was again, Nightfellows. Durpy wondered what that meant. She was about to find out, even though she didn’t know it.

Durpy had accidentally ripped a leaf off a tree, which just happened to be a delf.

“Why do I keep bumping into you guys!?” she said.

The delf shrugged and said,

“Don’t go any further, the Nightfellows are out in their hunting hour.”

This time, Durpy asked,

“What in Derplandia are Nightfellows!?”

The delf stood on tip-toe and whispered,

“They are like Dinkys, except much more vicious. Don’t even stand in the way of one, unless you want your head rolling on the ground,”

The delf shape-shifted into a ball and rolled away. Durpy started muttering to herself,

“Oh these delves are just so―”

“Drop your weapon!”

there was a loud voice coming from a high tree.

“I said drop your weapon!”

the voice repeated. Durpy wanted to run back to Bob with his magical freezing powers, but the voice made her want to stay.

“Don’t make me say it again!” the voice threatened.

Durpy grasped her dagger and dropped in onto the floor.

“Who are you?” she asked the tree.

A new voice said,

“She really doesn’t know?”

This one sounded like a boy.

“Let me rephrase that. What are you?” asked Durpy.

The first voice who spoke, probably a girl, said,

“Why should we tell you? You are invading our territory!”

“Territory?” said Durpy.

“You’re not from the Small Woods are you?” she asked.

“Uhh… I guess not,” said Durpy.

“We are the Night―” she started.

“No! Don’t tell her, she might tell someone else, like mother or father!”

“Oh please, she doesn’t even know them!”

“Or does she?”

The girl sighed and screamed down,

“Do you know our mother and father?”

“Not enough information,” muttered Durpy.

“But no, I don’t know them.”

“Then let’s tell her! Let her meet us. Durpy should know!”

“How do you know my name?” she wondered out loud.

“Because we’re Nightfellows, its part of what we can do,” answered the girl.

She jumped down from the tree while doing a summersault.

“Whoa!” said Durpy.

“Hi, I’m Sienna, nice to meet you,” she said.

Sienna looked more different than you would expect her to. What do you imagine someone named Sienna, which was a Nightfellow (hint: NIGHT from Nightfellow) to look like? If the clue was night, from the word Nightfellow, you might imagine her to look dark and wear black and her skin to be super pale. Sienna was quite the opposite. She had cinnamon colored hair, which was very messy and went down to her hips. She was wearing a braid, and her eyes were a deep-sea blue. She was wearing a beige coat with too many pockets to count and a light green dress that went down to her knees. She didn’t have any shoes on, and she was armed with a sword.

“So, have you seen any Nightfellows before?” she asked Durpy.

Durpy shook her head. “Who was up in that tree with you?” Durpy asked.

“My brother,” said Sienna.

Even though it was night, the sun came out in Derplandia, so Durpy could clearly see the young boy up in the tree.

“That’s Lake,” said Sienna.

“Where’s the lake?” asked Durpy.

“No,” Sienna giggled.
“My brother is named Lake!”

Lake jumped down from the tree. He looked a little like Sienna; same skin tone and deep-sea blue eyes. He was clearly a year or two older than Sienna, and by that I mean he was taller than her. He had black wind-swept hair. He was wearing a dark blue jacket over a light blue shirt. He was just wearing normal blue shorts and he was armed with a sword darker than death. Sienna’s sword was a lively golden color. Lake and Sienna had pale skin, not super pale, but a little pale. Durpy slowly picked her dagger up again.

Durpy found out a lot of things by talking to Lake and Sienna. For one, they both didn’t have parents. They lived with their mean aunt who always made them work, work, work, and did I mention work? They found themselves scrubbing every inch of the house and cleaning the bathrooms. They had to cook dinner and wash the plates every single night. Same for lunch and breakfast. Lake and Sienna also had run away just last night, during hunting hour so that their aunt wouldn’t notice they were gone until she came back from hunting.

“Why are you called Nightfellows? You look just like Dinkys!” Sienna sighed.

“Well,” she started.
“Nightfellows have night vision, which I don’t think Dinkys have. Also, they are super smart, and I’m not trying to be mean, but sometimes Dinkys take a while to understand things.”

Durpy could also see that Sienna and Lake had dark circles under their eyes.

Back at the camp, Bob was frightened to see Sienna and Lake. Lake seemed really interested in Bob. He asked Bob millions of questions about everything.

“Why do you only have three hairs?” he’d asked.

Bob had said,

“I do not know,”

“Why do you have icy powers?”

“Umm… I was born with the powers,”

“Why are you named Bob?”

“Because my mommy told me so,”

It was kind of funny. Then, Durpy had closed in on Derpy, and Sienna rushed over.

“Oh no! What happened?” she asked, pointing at Derpy.

“Umm… Question Marks happened. She’s not poisoned, it’s just that King Quote also sent Things after her, and Derpy got hurt,” said Durpy.

“I can heal her, so can Lake!” exclaimed Sienna.

Durpy looked puzzled.

“Because Nightfellows can also make some kind of magic! That includes healing magic, I can cure her,” Sienna called Lake over and Lake and Sienna started to hum.

Then, an odd green light glowed in their hands. It floated up in the air, and took the form of an eye. It was really, really weird. Then, the floating light faded as it went into Derpy’s injury!

“Is she gonna be okay?” asked Durpy.

“Yes,” said Lake.

“Tomorrow she’ll be just fine, and I can lead you directly to Crixie Hollow,” he said.

Cyrus nearly jumped a meter into the air.

“How did you know where we were going!? Are you psychic?!”

“No,” said Lake.

“Nightfellows can read minds,” said Durpy.

Cyrus nodded.

“We better rest, we need our energy for tomorrow,” said Durpy.

Derpy shivered in the dark, and Durpy slept right next to her all through the night.