Broken, but Still Standing

I'll tell you, once we got over the whole 'misunderstanding' of, well, everything, that Derpy mare got very friendly. She was all smiles and hugs. I didn't mind, but the actions were sending mixed signals to me, but with that all aside, we went to bed at a reasonable hour, since there wasn't much point staying up till the plot crack of dawn.

My eyes slowly opened as the sunlight started pooling on my white coat. Sitting up, with a yawn, stretching my forelegs out, I arched my back, feeling every vertebra in my back pop in rapid secession.

“Sweet Celestia's plot, that was nice.”

A quick sniff of the air told me that the Derp was treating me to pancakes. If this keeps up, I should just employ he as a live in maid. A chuckle escape my lips at the thought, until I thought of her in a maid outfit. The blood rushed to my cheeks...and to where the sun don't shine.

“Aww stallion...” I grumbled, forcing myself to slump out of bed and head to the bathroom. “Sure hope this won't take long. Those pancakes smell amazing.”

Derpy must have heard me get out of bed, because once the bathroom door was shut, and locked to prevent what happened last night from happening again, she knocked.

“You up Viny?”

VINY?! Buck! This mare was adorable. My hoof moved to my marehood on it's own, stroking soft, but fast as I tried to keep the lust and gasps out of my voice.

“Yeah. It's me.”

“Okay. Don't be long, breakfast is ready.”

I sighed as she left. I won't say I'm a screamer, and if I was I'd never admit to it, but I'm not the silent type either. That being said, I kept the most bucking silent I've ever been in my whole Celestia damn life as I tended to my carnal needs. It wasn't long at all before I fell the spasmic relief of ecstasy that can only be achieved through sexual release. Lucky for me, I didn't cause much of a mess, and so clean up was a one tissue, one flush job.

“So,” Derpy smiled once I came into the kitchen. Yep, satisfying my needs was the best thing to do before I saw that sexy thing in that apron. “What are the plans today?”

Remembering last night, and how I was now out of a job until I could find a new club, instantly put a sour taste in my mouth.

“I'm going to be job hunting.”

Derpy watched me silently, her mismatched eyes wells of confusion and concern. I guess I had to come clean. If I was going to explain it, I'd better explain all of it.

“I....I was asked to take a leave of absence from DJing at the Blue Moon, last night. That's why I was home early.”

“Why would they ask that?” She asked. “You're really good. Why would they not want you to DJ?”

Her statement caught me off guard. “Whoa, whoa, I'm really good?” I smirked. “Where did that come from?”

Derpy blushed. “The other night...I came to the Blue Moon because of the music.”

“I thought you were there because-” I stopped myself from compleating that sentence. That was only two days ago, and even thought I had it bad, the twitch in my horn told me this mare had it way worse.

The unusual thing is that I actually gave a buck about her. Mentally I slapped myself. Caring doesn't mean jack shit in the world I came from. Ponies who cared got pissed on on a regular basis in the entertainment world. Why else would I skew the brains out of any hot plot pony and tell them to get their shit and leave before my after glow faded?

“It was.” She answered, drawing my attention away from me to her. “There's...more to it than that.”

“Tell me about it.” I took a long drink of the coffee she brewed that morning. “Damn filly, this is good.”

Derpy blushed happily. “Thank you.”

“But, as I was saying, I was asked to go somewhere else,” I took a deep breath and plunged on before I could get a chance to rethinking this. “Because of my dad.”

“Your dad?”

“Yeah....Here's the story, abridged version. Dad was an officer in the Equestrian army. About twenty four years ago, before I was born, he died being deployed to some other country as part of a diplomacy mission. I think it was Fangland.”

“Fangland?”

I almost laughed at her confusion. “Yeaaaah, most ponies haven't ever heard of it. Fangland is a small country way out to sea. They had relations with Griftopia, but things turned nasty. Things were at a stand off and they asked for a third party to come in and help settle things peaceful.”

Derpy thought that over for a moment, her face scrunching up as the facts I was telling her clashed against my earlier statement.

“Then, why did he die?”

“Fangland is home to the wolves. Actual wolves. Not the monsters that live in the Everfree Forest by Ponyville.”

She nodded.

“Anyway, while many have embraced the modern trend of being vegetarian like all civilized nations, there was a group that were about following their old traditions, mainly the carnivorous kind.”

The gray mare's eye's opened wide, a question on her lips, but I didn't feel like drawing this out. I just wanted to get this over and done with. I hated thinking about it, and saying it was worse.

“So, long to the short, Fangland's traditionalists attacked the meeting where the treaty would be signed. End result, modern Fangland lashed out and obliterated every rebel or would be rebel, pledged loyalty to Equestria and signed the treaty with Griftopia.”

“Uuuhhh....” Derpy looked more confused than before. “How?”

I ground my teeth, hoping that she'd read between the lines, but alas, Derpy didn't get it.

“My dad's team and a team of Fanglandians held the rebels off until the diplomats could relocate and sign the treaty. He was killed in action. That was the official story.”

Her eyes widened, and her face shown with shock, like she just connected the dots.

“So if he didn't really die, then-”

“The buck I know. Up to the time he showed his bucking face, I was living in the gutter, homeless, begging for food, or stealing it.”

Derpy put a hoof on mine sympathetically. She didn't have to say words, I knew that she was sorry that such a thing happened, and that she wished she could have been there to help.

Damnit! Why the mother buck what I spilling my shit to this beautiful pegasus, like it was Celestia bucking show and bitch about time? I felt something wet on my face. Shit....

“Mom died when I was five.” I forced myself to say, feeling more wetness on my face. “We never had a real place to our own. So when he came back, taking me away to an actual home, I hated it. I hated him.” I shut my eyes, blocking my view of her face, of the world that I lived in, yet hated with every fiber of my being. The tears flowed, leaking out of my tight eyelids, trickling steadily like a leaky facet that you never could close tight enough. “And so I ran away every day since then.”

“But...why?”

I opened my watering eyes to meet her gaze. I guess my face looked pretty ticked because she looked nervous, but continued on with what she was saying.

“Your dad came to take care of you. You weren't alone anymore, and you had a safe place to stay.”

Silence.

Derpy, despite knowing her for only thee days, didn't deserve my tongue lashings for that statement. She didn't understand. She wouldn't NEVER understand. No pony would. No pony would understand the Tartarus I've been through because that bastard had to come back from the Celestia damn dead.

“Point is,” I finally said, getting up to show that I was done talking about it. “I've been running for a long time. When he catches up, he tends to interfere with my life. He found out I worked at the Blue Moon, and interrogated the owner about where I live. I don't usually tell ponies about that. The owner doesn't know the story, and thinks I'm in deep shit, so cut me loose.”

Derpy stood up too, nodding as she gathered the plates onto an outstretched wing, and sliding them expertly into the sink, before getting some hot soapy water running for them to soak in.

“So, we look for jobs.”

That caught me off guard. “We?”

She gave me a sheepish grin. “Well, you said I could stay as long as I needed. I don't have anywhere else to go, but even if I did, I'd need some bits to get there.”

I was about to offer to give her the needed cash, but the realization that I was barely able to afford rent on my Blue Moon income, something I never admitted to any pony before, reminded me that I was not the hot shit I pretended I was.

“Okay, but first things first.” I levitated over my money bag, which was a lot leaner than it should be, and got out five bits. “You need to do me a fav.”

Derpy just cocked her head to the side, curiously.

“No pony is going to hire an albino to do anything. You need to go to the local hair salon and get me my blue hair and mane dye. I am not going out in public till I do.”

She nodded, tucked the five bits into her wing feathers and smiled.

“Vinyl. I know it's hard, but we'll get through this together. As friends, we can do anything.”

I just stared at her.

We. Together. Friends. Those words were as strange to me as Fangland was to Derpy. But that smile. That luminescent smile, that could light the world like wild fire at midnight. How could she smile so brightly? It's so strange. When she said 'We'll get through this together', I believed her. She turned and walked out the door, calling back something, but I wasn't listening. I just stared after her in awe that any creature, either living or dead, could have the hope and happy spirit as the mare who just walked into my life.