My feet were leaden as I climbed the stairs. I was stunned past thought. A dull buzzing was all that was going on in my head.
At least, that was all that was going on besides sharp flashes of the argument I was fleeing coming back to me like the lash of a whip.
You’re always behind on your schoolwork!
You don’t practice enough.
You’ll never get anywhere!
You need to put effort into finding a real job!
Do more with your life!
In the end, all I heard was ‘Be less of yourself and more of what we want to see!’
My own parents: Disappointed in who I was. And they expected me to change with the snap of fingers? As if!
A tear threatened at the corner of my eye. It was a tear of anger, not at them, but at myself for being angry with them. I knew I had problems. I knew they wanted me to be better. Heck, I wanted to be better. Still, I couldn’t turn night to day with just a thought. The tear stayed back.
I got to my room and sat down on my bed with wooden grace. The remains of the lunch I’d carried with me managed to make it from my hands to the desk seemingly of its own volition. I certainly didn’t remember setting it down there. I stared at it without seeing it for a moment and let the weight of my emotions fall upon me. Tears ran freely this time.
Through the veil of sorrow I was trying to drown in, I suddenly saw more clearly than ever before. My lunch; such an odd thing to notice. It was just a half eaten sandwich, a few chips, a lemon-poppy seed muffin and a couple sliced apple crisps on a plate. My eyes, however, knew what they were looking at before my brain could catch up. My tears stopped like a faucet running dry.
Lightning traveled in slow motion as it brought the realization to my consciousness. A muffin. Just one ordinary muffin that wasn’t even my favorite variety. It was a large one, sure, but nothing else set it apart from anything in a rational person’s world. But I was looking beyond this world. And suddenly I could see a face looking back at me.
Or it seemed to be trying to. I blinked and the face came into focus. The eyes didn’t quiet line up but they both aimed more or less in my direction. I preformed a quick test of my consciousness and found myself to be as sane as I’d ever been, and just as awake. This face was real. And it looked like a grey horse.
“Derpy?”
The face disappeared so fast that I almost convinced myself I’d been mistaken. After a second of silence though, she reappeared.
“You saw me, huh?” She regarded me guiltily.
“Well, yeah. I did. But…” I hesitated. “Why are you here?”
“I smelled a muffin.” She made the statement as if she thought it was enough to explain how or why a cartoon horse was in my bedroom. “And I wanted to see what kind it was.”
“Lemon-poppy seed,” I said blankly.
She nodded again and resumed looking at it.
“Did…did you want some?” I asked, normal conversation automatically taking over as the vacuum of this strange situation sucked thoughts from my head.
“Oh, yes please!”
She bounded up on my bed and sat expectantly while I broke the muffin in half. She wasn’t much larger than a Labrador. She took the piece I handed her in her forehooves and nibbled at it.
“Mmmhmm,” she hummed, closing her eyes blissfully.
“It’s not warm anymore,” I offered lamely.
She swallowed.
“That’s no big deal. Sharing a muffin is always good.” She smiled warmly enough for every muffin in the world.
I looked at my half. She caught my wistful half smile and inclined her head questioningly.
“Is something wrong?”
“Naw,” I shrugged.
She put a hoof on my shoulder and set the muffin aside.
“I can tell that there is. I’ve seen that look before.”
“Yeah? And where was that?” I said, hurriedly changing my expression.
“In the mirror.”
I looked at her closely. She’d said that plainly. I didn’t doubt that she meant it but how could something this painful be so easy for her to admit?
“Tell me what’s wrong,” she pressed.
Her voice was compelling. Even without focusing on me completely, I felt her eyes piercing my attempts to hide behind the familiar mask of dismissal. With just those few words, spoken bluntly but softly, she tempted me to open up in ways I’d never done with anyone else.
“Have you ever been told that you’re not good enough?” I asked. I winced and waited for her reaction. If I know anything about this pony it was that she was considered clumsy. This question was probably insulting to her.
“At what?”
Her response might have been the last one I expected. She was inclining her head again as if unsure what I meant. Why would she not understand this?
“At anything. Everything! At what you least wanted to hear them say.”
She took a moment to think, her hoof rubbing her chin seriously. Then she shook her head.
“Not when it really mattered.”
“Wait, when does it not matter?” I asked in bewilderment.
“Well, if somepony thinks I messed up, they might say something hurtful. But if they’re my friend, then I can forgive them because I know they don’t really mean it. They were just angry for a moment.”
“And if they’re not your friend?”
“Hehe.” She smiled a bit apologetically. “Then they don’t know me. They can’t judge me if they don’t know me. Why should their misguided opinions matter to me when I know myself?”
“But what if they did know you? Like, if they were family. And…what if it’s true?”
“We all have our flaws and we all need to deal with them.” She put a hoof on my shoulder. “We don’t always see them. Maybe it helps to have them pointed out sometimes. Then we know what needs work.”
“Not like this. This was…” I cast about for a word to describe the amount of disappointment they felt for me and how much disappointment that made me feel in turn. I couldn’t come up with the right one so I just finished with a lame shrug. “…too much.”
“Was it too much, or just what they thought you needed to hear?”
I almost got angry with her. The way she said it, it sounded like an accusation, as if she thought I was overreacting. But when I looked at her, I knew that she was just trying to get me to try looking at it from a different angle.
“I…guess it could have been. I mean, maybe they thought it would get me to change if they got my attention like this.” I was starting to see the logic behind her statement. Maybe I did need to be yelled at to see what I needed to do to be better.
Ha, logic. I was talking to a fictional animated character. Why was I thinking about logic?
Derpy nodded. “The ones who love you don’t say those things to hurt you. It might still hurt, but they also still love you. And you have to remember that instead of thinking about the hurtful part. At the end of the day, they’d rather see you smiling than crying.”
“Yeah,” I shrugged glumly. “And it’s so easy to make that happen after a ten minute shouting match. I’ll just pretend it didn’t happen, right?”
She frowned. “I didn’t say it was easy. But it is the best thing you can do.”
With a sigh, she turned away a bit. I was suddenly concerned. She’d been so forward and comfortable this whole time. The way she was withdrawing changed the entire atmosphere of the room.
“I’m not a perfect pony myself. And other ponies tell me so often enough that it makes it hard to smile back. I know that a smile doesn’t make everything better, but I know that wearing a smile makes it easier to find your way back to better times. So I just keep those times in mind. I focus on where I want to be and not where I wish I wasn’t.”
She looked back at me.
“I’m not saying you should pretend it’s all okay. What I’m saying is you shouldn’t let others decide when you’re sad or happy. When we’re happy and we know that we need to improve ourselves, we can do it. But if we let others make us sad, we start to feel that it’s just too hard. And that’s when we want to give up. That’s when we don’t try anymore.”
I tried not to let my mouth hang open.
“I’ll never be perfect,” she said. “I’ll probably always make at least a few mistakes. But I’d rather be happy and flawed than miserable and flawed. You see what I mean?”
I nodded dumbly and looked at the floor thoughtfully.
“How do you decide to be happy though?” I asked. “It would just be a mask wouldn’t it? A lie?”
“All you need to do is remember the good times. That’s one of the reasons I love muffins so much. They’re full of such good memories.”
She reached out and picked up the muffin again. She held it between her hooves in what could only be described as a caress and stared at it tenderly. Illogically, I wished I was that muffin.
She bit into it and broke off a large piece.
Like I said, illogically.
“I guess I agree. Miserable and flawed isn’t my ideal state of being either. Still, it would be nice to get a little help now and again. You know, someone who understands what it’s like.”
I glanced at her again and found her reaching toward me with both forehooves. I hesitated for a couple seconds before realizing what she meant. I leaned forward and she wrapped her hooves around me. I gripped her lightly just above her wings.
I could feel her chest expand slowly with each breath and the warmth on the back of my neck as she exhaled. My fingers absently stroked her mane, which was much coarser than I’d expected. She nuzzled me back and settled her weight on my shoulders. We stayed in that embrace for a long time, letting the feeling of our closeness fill us. Hugs are a strange thing. They’re so simple and yet they can be so powerful.
Everything we’d said and everything we’d been unable to say, but knew that the other had meant, passed between us again in that hug. I could tell that our sharing had touched her too by the way she let her cheek rest against my neck. The thoughts in my head slowed down until they were just a slow slideshow of impressions. Each was another part of the sensation of having this pony so close to me. Her living presence was so real and seemed so connected to me that I almost feared losing it. So I did my best to imprint this moment in my memory.
Derpy shifted slightly and I sensed the moment coming to an end. We separated at the prompting of that enigmatic mutual understanding of the time to stop a hug. It was a bit of an awkward silence that followed.
“You, um, didn’t eat your half of the muffin,” she said, hesitantly. She gestured to it with a hoof. “Do you…well, do you think I could have it?”
Her face was so bashful and meek that I just burst out laughing. While I clutched my side with one hand, I nodded and passed her the rest of the muffin. I watched her eat for a moment, trying to resist an urge I’d had since I saw her. In the end, it was a hopeless fight.
“How did you really get here anyway?” I asked.
She chewed thoughtfully before answering. “I suppose I just needed to be here. Don’t you think?”
I considered it and then decided I didn’t need a better reason than that.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Besides, I wasn’t in the mood to start arguing the finer points of inter-dimensional magical transport. Then another thought occurred to me.
“How will you get back?”
“The same way I got here, I suppose: By needing to be there.” She shrugged neutrally.
This made less sense but I figured I’d worry about that when the time came.
“You’re pretty casual about this. This isn’t a regular thing, is it?”
“What? No, of course not. This is the first time I’ve gone looking for the smell of a delicious muffin and found myself in a pleasant conversation with a creature I’ve never seen before.”
She smiled at me innocently but I could tell she was trying not to laugh.
“And you’re not moonlighting as a councilor either?” I asked with a sly grin.
“No.” She did laugh this time. “I guess I’m just good at knowing when somepony needs to hear things. You know, when they need a helping hoof to get through their day? Everypony needs that from time to time.”
“There aren’t a lot of people who think like that. You’re special, you know that?”
“The only thing that makes me special is that I take the time to care for somepony other than myself,” she said. “Anypony can do that. All it takes is patience and a little effort. And the best part is, you don’t have to wait around to do it because it’s all up to you.”
“I could stand to be more like that too,” I admitted with a grimace. “I guess I could try.”
“Trying your best is all that matters,” she said solemnly.
We sat in silence for many long minutes. She picked at her feathers while I stared straight ahead and went over the many things she’d given me to think about. I wasn’t just imperfect. I had problems. But I didn’t cringe at the thought this time. I accepted it. What lay before me wasn’t a wall of failures that blocked my path. Instead it was an obstacle course full of hurdles and pitfalls that I needed to make my way though. And I knew now that I could do it if I refused to give up and remembered that I had good people all around me to help me.
She was right as well that I would need to shrug off the hurtful words and look deeper. My parents still loved me and wanted me to be a better person. There would be better times and I just had to keep pushing through until I reached them. I smiled at Derpy again.
“I wish there was some way to repay you for this. You’ve really helped me.”
She popped the last of the muffin into her mouth. “You already have,” she said winking. “And unfortunately, I think it’s time that I get back to Ponyville.”
“You’re sure you can’t stay longer?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound as desperate as I felt. I’d just gotten used to the idea that she really existed. For her to leave now was a bit painful.
“I don’t think so.”
“Can you at least try to visit some time?” This time, I knew I was begging.
She smiled. “I’ll try.”
She walked over to the window and opened it.
“I guess I’ll say goodbye then?”
She put her hooves on the sill and looked up into the sky. She looked back at me and hesitated.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Besides, I’ve got a friend like you. What more could I ask for?”
Her equine features lit up and I seared the image of her wondrous smile into my mind. She leapt onto the sill and spread her wings.
“Watch your head!” I warned.
She ducked just in time to miss the top of the window frame and spun out into the open air. The sound of her wings retreated upward and I stepped over to watch her go. When I looked out the window however, I couldn’t find her. She had simply vanished. I braced myself on the sill and let out a deep sigh. My fingers brushed something soft and I looked down to find a single grey feather resting beside my hand.
I picked it up and twirled it between my fingers. All I could do was shake my head and smile.
Author's Note
Just a quick little blip I've been meaning to put out for a while now. Based on actual events. Specific details have been changed in the interests of personal privacy. Don't take this too seriously, but know that this was a dark moment for me and Derpy is the reason I came out of it in a good state of mind.