“I am sorry, Miss Tiara, but your father has ordered me not to.”
Two ponies occupied the otherwise vacant room. The shorter one, however, would not take the taller one’s answer quietly.
“But it’s due tomorrow and I need to go to the mall today!”
“Need I remind you of the conversation your father had with Miss Cheerilee?”
Diamond opened her mouth to interject, but the butler refused to listen.
“I shall not do your homework for you this time, Miss. Now, that does not mean I will not help you. In fact, I have taken the liberty of calling Hoof-drawn Carriages, and the manager told me there is somepony you can interview there.”
“But—”
“No ‘buts,’ Miss. You have five minutes to get there, or the pony may well leave, as well as your trip to Manehattan Mall next week!”
“Wh— Argh!” Appalled by such a harsh rebuke, Diamond Tiara stormed out of the room.
“Oh, yes, Miss Tiara, please have a seat right there. I’ll be right back.”
The receptionist trotted towards the back and disappeared through the door, leaving a fairly irritated filly sitting on a wooden bench.
I can’t believe this! And I had everything planned for today, too! I was going to buy that pretty dress in th—
“Miss Tiara?”
Diamond perked up her ears at the words, a faint flame of anger still burning in the back of her eyes.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid the pony in question is unavailable. He’s called in sick, and at the moment we are unable to find somepony else. I apologize for this inconvenience.”
“What? But I need to have this report done by today!”
“I am sorry, Miss, but there’s no one available at the moment. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
With that, the attendant promptly trotted away, leaving a sour filly to angrily trudge outside.
Can you believe her? Just wait until my father hears about this. He’ll m—
“WATCH OUT!”
Unfortunately, the warning came too late for Diamond as a grey mass dove straight into her. The world became chaotic swirls of inseparable colors as the two objects tumbled for a couple hoof-lengths before stopping inches away from a hurrying earth pony. The unworldly screeches of horseshoes on concrete reverberated throughout all of Equestria, prompting all nearby creatures to cover their ears.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” the earth pony cried out as he trotted away.
“Wh… what…” With unsteady hooves, Diamond Tiara clambered into an upright position and shook her head. A second later, she spotted the cause of the crash. It was a pegasus, all right, and her cheeks grew red as her fury escalated.
“What’s the meaning of this! I almost broke my hoof! Why, if my fath… my fath… wh…”
Diamond Tiara’s face contorted with fright.
“WHERE’S MY TIARA? WHERE DID IT GO?”
The filly hurriedly crouched down and searched high and low, praying to Celestia for the characteristic glimmer of jewels under the sun.
“Excuse me, Diamond,” the pegasus remarked.
“Not now, I’m looking for something very important!”
“Do you mean this?”
Diamond looked up and caught that unforgettable, that unmistakable glimmer. Instantly, she snatched the object away from the pegasus’s mouth and inspected every inch of it.
“It’s not scratched. You would have been in so much trouble…
“Actually, what am I saying? You are in trouble! You crashed into me while you were flying! Don’t you ever watch where you’re going, feather brain? And how did you know my name?”
“Oh, sorry. It’s just that my vision’s not as good as it used to be,” the pegasus replied, “and I would pass by your father’s house many times in my flights.”
Diamond Tiara focused her gaze away from her prized possession and onto the pegasus’s pupils. Simply watching them began to give the filly a headache: one eye would go one way, and the other would go the opposite way.
“Well, you should watch where you’re going next time, derpy eyes!”
“Ooh, how did you know my name?”
“I— Wait, what?”
“My name’s Derpy, nice to meet you.” Derpy stretched out a hoof towards Diamond, who promptly ignored it.
“Well, whatever, I don’t have time to chat,” Diamond replied as she started to walk away. “I have to go find someone to interview.”
“Okay, then. See you later!” Derpy bent her four legs and extended her wings fully, closing her eyes as she felt the breeze tickle her feathers.
And then she launched herself up…
Only to land atop Diamond Tiara again.
“What… DIDN’T I TELL YOU TO WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING!”
“Oops, sorry,” Derpy responded with a smile on her face.
“I swear, it’s like you haven’t even graduated flight school or something. You’d think with a cutie mark of bubbles you’d fly better or something…”
And yet something bugged Diamond Tiara. Something apart from those weird eyes, something below them…
“Why are you smiling at me? I just insulted you! Why are you so happy?”
“Oh, I’ve heard it all already! For many years actually! I just don’t let it get to me.”
Diamond Tiara just stood there, awestruck.
H-how… She just…
Diamond commanded her brain into overdrive as she struggled to come up with something to aggravate this pegasus pony.
“You… you’re so clumsy it’s a miracle they didn’t make flying licenses because of you!”
“You know, I actually supported that proposal, but other pegasi thought it would infringe on their right to free and open skies.”
What is she talking about?
“Y-you know what? I have to go find a working-class pony to interview, so I d—”
“Did you know I was the best PegaPost mail deliverer three years in a row?”
Diamond suddenly stopped.
“Wait, did you say PegaPost?”
“Yes, I did. Region C, Sector 252, visiting P—”
“Wait, I didn’t ask you all that yet!”
“Oh, sorry.”
Hastily, Diamond pulled out a small notepad and pen from her saddlebag.
“Okay, now you can begin.”
“Nah, there’s no way you could have delivered so many packages that day. The storm was terrible. I heard that the weather ponies put together too many rainclouds for it,” Diamond Tiara commented as she looked at Derpy skeptically.
If I don’t believe it, I doubt Cheerilee would.
“It’s true, I did do it. But I accidentally tripped near the end and messed up my front hooves a bit.”
Diamond hadn’t even noticed the earth-stained bandages on Derpy’s hooves until then.
How can you even walk with those bandages?
Her own brain began to toil as the sight brought forth one memory, one from ages ago when she had broken a hoof playing outside.
I couldn’t even pick up a spoon… The pain…
An instant later, she shook her head fervently.
“W-well, that’s your own clumsy self’s fault. Now tell me more about your work.”
“That’s pretty much it, I think. I left after that.”
Diamond Tiara’s brain stopped functioning at that precise moment. Her eyes stared motionlessly towards Derpy, almost as if staring right through her soul, until finally words emerged from her mouth.
“You… you mean to tell me you aren’t working with them now?”
“No, I, um… I had to leave for personal reasons.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me about this until the end?” Diamond gritted her teeth, but after a second her heartbeats slowed down.
But Cheerilee won’t know that if I don’t tell her…
“Okay, then. I think I have everything. Now scram, I have other things to do.”
“If you say so!” Derpy prepared herself for flight once more, but she halted right before extending her legs.
“Oh, Diamond, do you like muffins?”
“What? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Oh, nothing. See ya later!” With that, Derpy flew off, and Diamond Tiara was left to ruminate on the past minutes.
Finally, I’m done with that dumb homework! I hope there’s still time to go to the mall!
The due date for the assignment had finally come and gone, and Diamond was quite glad that Cheerilee hadn’t doubted the information in the assignment.
“See, it was not so hard, now was it?”
“Whatever,” Diamond responded to the butler. “I was still late to the mall. Somepony else took that dress, but I guess I found a better one.”
“Oh, and by the way, Miss Tiara, I received a package today with your name on it. I left it on your bed.”
A package?
And it was as the butler said: a brown box lay atop her sheets, a cube decorated with only the words “To: Diamond Tiara.”
Her curiosity fully fledged, the filly tore open the top…
To find a semi-burnt muffin and a small letter inside.
“What the…”
Not even wanting to touch what she considered an abomination to pastries everywhere, she nimbly took out the letter, taking care not to touch the visible smudges lining its edges.
Maybe this will tell me who sent it so I can make their lives a living Tartarus!
Her mind quickly changed, however, as she began to read.
Hey! It’s me, Derpy! I didn’t ~~kne~~ know if you liked muffins, so I tried baking you one! It took me a ~~wi~~ while, but after a couple hours I think I got it! Sorry about ~~te~~ the scratches, my hooves aren’t ~~wokk~~ working so well yet.
Think of it as a sign of our friendship!
Derpy
Those bandaged hooves, the pain tingling throughout them from something as simple as picking up a pen… she knew that so well, and yet…
Why? Why did she go through all this? Even… after all that…
But no, what was she thinking? It was just a stupid muffin in a stupid box from a stupid, derpy-eyed, feather-brained pony!
She just wanted to throw it away, stop it from tainting the perfection that was her room! But for a minute she just stared blankly at the creation, and unbeknownst to her, she found her own eyes watering slightly.
“B-butler!”
“Yes, Miss? Oh, would you like me to throw th—”
“NO! I mean, no. I want you to find a container for it and place it on my dresser.”
“This thing?”
A reproachful gaze halted any further conversation, and the butler left without another word.
And all the while she kept asking herself, “Why?” She set down the letter and folded it up neatly before placing it inside the top drawer of her dresser, the clacking of wood on wood highly audible as her hooves continued trembling.
And that night, she tossed and turned and couldn’t bring herself to forget about that one pegasus.
The following week, Diamond ran into Derpy once again, a meeting the filly had for a long time been waiting for.
“Why? Just why? Why did you send me that package? Why didn’t you care if I insulted you? Why? Why do you still want to be my friend, when I would never, ever, ever want to be friends with somepony as dumb, as horribly uncool as you, when I am just so exclusive and… and mean?”
Why would you want me to be your friend?
And Derpy’s response was so simple.
“Because life is better with more friends, and friends would do anything for each other. Wouldn’t you agree?”
And once again, Derpy stretched out a hoof.
“So what do you say, friend?”
…
No, I’m too cool for you! I don’t… I don’t associate with ponies like you! I-I have a high status to keep up! I… I can’t just go around making friends with anypony who comes my way!
But by then, Diamond knew. She knew it was against the logic she had lived under for many years, the logic she and Silver Spoon, her only other friend, accepted as a universal truth…
But is one addition really so bad?
Author's Note
I had this story planned out since March 3rd, but basically the weeks after then were all Hell Weeks for me: problem sets left and right, exams almost one after the other...
So, in reality, this was planned out and written in about 3-4 days (if not for Spring Break, I doubt I would have finished it in time for the contest). Hope you all enjoy it, and remember, comments and constructive criticism are appreciated!