Derpy awoke with a jolt, gasping for air. Her head whipped back and forth as she scanned her room. She had just had the most peculiar nightmare, but even as she tried to think back on why she had awoken with such a start, it occurred to her that she hadn’t the faintest idea what her dream had even been about.
Her heart beating as fast as she thought it would go, she took one more sideways glance at her surroundings, taking in the same mundane room that she had always awoken to in the mornings, albeit a little creepier with the sudden outburst of paranoia. There was the same closet where she kept her raincoat and other garments that hadn’t been touched since the last snowfall. The door sat firmly shut as it should have been, and the mirror that had been fixated upon it reflected back her curious yellow eyes, just as it always had.
A glance to her left showed that the windowsill still held the same sunflower sitting in a clay pot waiting patiently for the sun to rise once again outside the window. The window was slightly ajar, but Derpy always kept her window like that in the summer since the nights could get quite hot at times. The clock on her bedside table displayed the time of six in the morning, and the drawers that it rested upon were all neatly shut and ready to provide her with some assorted book or comic for her to read late into the night.
She couldn’t shake a tingling feeling that she had just nearly escaped something terrible. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on her dream a bit further, trying to remember what it was that she had apparently just had a nightmare about. A sea of black washed over her vision, wisps of thoughts flew through as she struggled to remember anything about the past few hours. A blurry hoof passed through her vision before quickly morphing into that of a calendar. Derpy saw that the sixteenth was circled in what looked to be crimson-red ink. A horn flew by, casting a magical spell into the void. A stack of hay toppled over in front of her. A tree. A house. An unnamed stallion.
Her own face.
It hovered there for a long time, staring right at Derpy and never looking away. The expression was blank, lacking even a single hint of an emotion. The Derpy in front of her looked exactly the same, and yet it seemed wrong. It seemed empty, like her soul had completely left and all the remained was a limp fleshy body puppet, waiting for someone to take control of it.
Derpy opened her eyes again, the moonlight softly flooding her vision once more as a chill ran down her spine. The Derpy she saw scared her. Nothing was wrong about her except that she seemed completely empty. Whether it was a terrible vision of some kind or some silly fear she didn’t know. Shaking her head slightly, she dispersed the grim thoughts and yawned, stretching her hooves above her head and fanning out her wings. She ruffled her wings’ feathers before closing them again, throwing her sheets to the foot of the bed.
Swinging her hooves over the side of the mattress, she hopped out of her bed and gave yet another yawn, briefly glancing over at the clock again to see that it was now four past six in the morning. She figured that now was as good a time as any to get up and prepare her daughter’s lunch for the day. Derpy shut her window before heading over to her bedroom door.
Placing a hoof on the door handle, she gave a push and her door slowly swung open, revealing a hallway lined with photographs of her and her daughter as well as many other family members that she hadn’t seen in years. A lamp was illuminated downstairs, serving almost as a nightlight for the house.
Down at the other end of the hall on the right, she saw the room belonging to her daughter, Dinky. The door to the room was ajar slightly, which struck Derpy as odd. Dinky always liked to keep her door closed because she was always afraid of “the scary monsters” getting in. Silently, the mother of one walked to her daughter’s door and took a peek inside, being careful not to let the lamplight wake up the sleeping filly. When she glanced inside, she saw the slow rise and fall of the sheet covers, telling her the Dinky was sound asleep.
A glass of water on her bedside table told Derpy all she needed to know about Dinky’s door being open. As Derpy started to close the door, she saw a spark of yellow light emit from her daughter’s horn. The pegasus smiled when she remembered her friend Twilight telling her that the sparks mean Dinky was getting better at magic. Derpy barely contained a squee before finally closing the wooden door with a hoofmade sign reading “Dinky’s Room.”
As quietly as she could muster, Derpy descended down the carpeted steps, avoiding any creaky floorboards, and turned towards the small kitchen. The dining table was bathed in a dull, white light as a sliding glass door leading to Derpy’s garden let moonlight flood the room. Clicking on a lamp, she illuminated the kitchen area just enough to see what she was doing. Her eyesight was never top-notch, but the darkness certainly didn’t help her out any.
Opening the fridge with a wing, she immediately caused the carton of eggs on the door to fall and splatter on the ground. She really did need to find a better place to put the white nuisances, as that had been the third carton she had broken that month.
Suddenly a stench arose from the eggs, and she scrunched her nose in disgust. Maybe those eggs weren’t wasted after all, as it became clear that the rotten smell was coming from the broken white bits. Opening another cabinet carefully with her other wing, Derpy pulled out a roll of paper towels out from its depths with her mouth. With a yank, she pulled down on the roll in an attempt to rip off a few pieces. Her wing, however, slipped and the roll tumbled off the counter and onto the floor, with nearly half the paper towels coming undone. Derpy gave a frown before putting a hoof on the remaining bit of the roll and haphazardly pushing it back. Finally, the paper towels resembled somewhat of a roll and Derpy gave a disapproving look before letting it go and ripping off the correct amount.
Derpy cleaned up the eggshells and rotten egg innards and threw everything in the trash before turning back to the fridge. Opening it again with her wing, although more carefully this time, Derpy grabbed an apple, some celery, and a chunk of fresh cheese out from the fridge and set all of the items on the counter next to her. Closing the fridge with a thump, Derpy then opened a cabinet to have a can of beets fall and whack her on the head. She gave a small yelp before covering her mouth, realizing that her daughter was still sound asleep in her room.
“Mommy, are you ok?” Derpy heard a groggy voice ask from upstairs.
“Mommy’s fine, Dinky,” Derpy responded, silently scolding herself for waking her daughter up again. Every time she tried to stack the cans neatly, she’d always screw up somewhere. They were just really hard to stack precisely with big clumsy wings. “She just hit herself with a can,” Derpy continued pausing for a moment, “…again.”
“Is it time for school yet?” the tiny unicorn asked, her head peaking around the corner. She yawned, blinking the tiredness out of her eyes before continuing to the dinner table. Dinky sat at the table, staring out the glass door, the first rays of light streaming through the window.
“Not quite yet, my little muffin,” Derpy replied, grabbing the box of corn flakes out from the breakfast cabinet along with a bowl. “You can get started on breakfast. Mommy still needs to get your lunch ready.
“Oh,” Dinky lazily replied, her mind clearly not at its full capacity yet. Derpy heard a click next to her as she pulled out the milk and sat it next to the cereal bowl. Looking to her right, she saw the coffee pot start heating up as a yellow aura faintly faded from it. Dinky always insisted on morning coffee, and this morning was no different.
Dinky slid out of her chair and used her magic to levitate the cereal, milk, and bowl over to the table. She sat there blankly staring at the window, watching Celestia’s sun slowly rise on the horizon as Luna’s moon fell. Derpy finished making her daughter’s lunch, pulling fresh oats out along with peanut butter. Derpy covered the celery with peanut butter and dashed the oats into it, a trick that her friend Pinkie had taught her. It was, according to Pinkie, a “super celery supper or lunch!” Taking a few slices of bread from the box, she sat the cheese in between making a simple cheese sandwich, one of Dinky’s favorites.
“Mom,” Dinky said, her gaze now focused on the bowl in front of her.
“What’s up, Dinky?” Derpy asked, placing the celery, sandwich, and apple into Dinky’s lunchbox.
“I think we might need some new milk.” Derpy turned around to see a chunk of white lying on top of a freshly poured bowl of cereal lying in front of her daughter.
“Oh, sorry about that, dear,” Derpy apologized, taking another bowl from the cupboard and setting it next to the rancid one. She took the old bowl and milk and threw them in the garbage with the rotten eggs. Apparently today was a day to get some new groceries. “You’re going to have to eat your cereal dry today.
Dinky sighed and poured another bowl, using her magic to take a spoon out from the silverware drawer behind Derpy. “Oh, oops,” Derpy said as the spoon levitated past her, the yellow aura emanating from her daughter’s horn controlling it.
“It’s ok, Mom,” Dinky said, turning to her Ditzy mother and giving a small smile. “You just forgot is all,”
Derpy heard the coffee grinder start to gurgle, drops of coffee now filling the pot below. Finally, Derpy took a water from the fridge and placed it neatly in her daughter’s lunchbox, closing the lid that had a strange creature depicted on the front with the title “Human Harbor” on the top. It was Dinky’s favorite cartoon.
“Our neighbor, Lyra, was talking to me yesterday about this show,” Derpy said to dinky, carrying the metal box over to the table and setting it next to Dinky’s cereal bowl.
“Oh?” Dinky said, her eyes opening a little wider as she put another spoonful of corn flakes in her mouth.
“Apparently she really likes the show. She told me that the character ‘Jane’ was her favorite.”
“Huh, I never thought Adults liked that show,” Dinky said.
“I watch that show with you,” Derpy defended her friend, smiling a little.
“Yeah, but you’re my mom. You like everything I do,” Dinky giggled.
“I wouldn’t say everything, Dinky” Derpy said, glancing over at the coffee pot.
“Ok, mostly everything,” Dinky rolled her eyes as the grinder gave another gurgle. She glanced over at the clock that was on the counter before her eyes widened. “Oh, shoot! School starts in fifteen minutes! I gotta get going, Mom.”
“Oh, here’s you pack, Dinky,” Derpy said, grabbing a purple bag with a strap.
“And here’s yours, Mom,” Dinky said, handing her a brown leather bag with a blue hat tucked away inside it.
“Thanks, dear,” Derpy said, exchanging packs as the pot of coffee and a thermos from the sink floated over her head. “Enjoy your day at school!” Dinky poured the coffee into the thermos on the table before putting the pot back.
“You have fun at work mom,” Dinky replied, headed for the front door. Closing the door, Derpy dug into her pack and pulled out her mailmare’s cap, putting it on before heading out the front door herself. She may not have the most exciting life, but Derpy enjoyed it nonetheless.
With a smile, she stepped out into the sun, and immediately tripped down the front steps. It wouldn’t have been a normal day otherwise.
