Twilight Sparkle's Latest Book Club Member
Twilight Sparkle ran throughout the streets of Ponyville in a huff. Trapped in a swirling vortex of magic around her head was a combination of Friendship Reports, Budgetary Tax Forms, and even a few overlong book reviews she’d agreed to write for the local newspaper. Clenched between her teeth was a quill; one she hurriedly slashed along the bottoms of each page, hopeful it would still somewhat resemble her normal hoof signature.
To say Twilight had become overworked in the last couple of weeks would’ve been a vast understatement. It had gotten so bad in fact, that—
“Twilight? Twilight Sparkle?” A yellow coated stallion had begun galloping alongside her. “Could I talk to you for a moment? You see, I’m having a problem with all these poems I’ve been trying to write for this mare I like. So I’ve been thinking to myself: who in Ponyville’s like super smart…”
—that Twilight couldn’t even finish a single thought without someone asking for her assistance.
And perhaps the worst part of all? Twilight found she could never turn anyone away.
“Fine. Throw it in the pile and I’ll get them back to you as soon as I look them over.”
The stallion did just that before happily cantering away.
Twilight’s shoulders slumped. She’d do almost anything for a break. Even a forty one second tea break this afternoon would be nice, she thought, as she calculated in her head just how fast she’d have to move to earn herself such a break. Maybe if I don’t give it any time to cool. Burnt tongue and throat? Bah. I’ve suffered for tea before, haven’t I?
“Necessary tea break! Here I come!” Twilight loudly decried, before she turned to her right and careened with the pegasus in front of the mailbox. Because of this, a sack of undelivered mail fell to the road and cracked wide open, right next to a heavily tattered blue postman’s hat.
“I just don’t know what went wrong!”
From the voice alone, Twilight let out a sigh of relief and picked herself up. If there was anyone that could understand being a bit frazzled some days, it would be Derpy Hooves.
“Sorry about that, Derpy,” Twilight told her, beginning to gather some of the mail currently attempting to blow away in the breeze. “Busy morning, too?”
“I just… don’t know… what went wrong…”
The sentence almost sounded like an afterthought to the mailmare.
With her back to her, Derpy kept close to the ground and had two hooves searching along the road. She ignored every bit of fallen mail within reach. Her postman’s hat, too.
“Need help with the rest?” Twilight asked. “Wouldn’t want any letters going missing on account of my clumsiness.”
Finally Derpy seemed to have found what she’d been searching for. With a soft exhale, she withdrew her hoof from the road and jammed it straight into her eye.
Twilight whirled her around. “Derpy! You can’t just go putting things into your eyes like that! It might be—” But her sentence stopped there.
Derpy gulped dryly at her. One of her eyes stared directly at Twilight, while the other one stared right toward the sky. Twilight was almost positive that the crooked eye was the one Derpy had only a second ago placed something in.
“Derpy, are you okay? Since when do you wear contact lenses?”
“Never been better, Princess Sprinkle!” Derpy exclaimed with a blush. She rose into the air with her torn-open mailbag swinging against her hip. “Sorry I can’t stay to chat! Maybe next time!”
With that said, Derpy awkwardly took to the air, colliding not with one, but three pegasi as she did. Once again, she claimed that she just didn’t know what went wrong. Yet Twilight thought that maybe this time she actually did.
***
Twilight knew she had the right place almost immediately. All she’d had to do was give the mailbox a quick onceover. “DERPY’S HOWSE,” it read, complete with a cute backwards R. Why Ponyville’s only mailmare even needed a mailbox was anyone’s guess, but Twilight decided to let it go before a headache could start to form deep within her skull.
She used her hoof to knock on the door and waited. She heard no noise from inside.
After a half-minute, Twilight tried again. Then she shook her head and chuckled to herself. “This is ridiculous. As if Derpy of all ponies would have some crazy hidden secret to uncover and expose.”
Twilight took a single step in the direction of home before abruptly spinning around and bolting to the side of the house. She stuck her face directly against one of the glass windows. The blinds inside had been closed, yet there was still just enough of a gap to give Twilight a glimpse inside. What she saw made her exhale in shock.
“Derpy’s faking it?”
In the corner of the house’s main room sat a roaring brick fireplace adorned with jewel-encrusted relics. Opposite of that was a pony-sized globe on a stand—pushed up tight against a writing desk littered with both glass and brass instruments of all sizes and shapes.
She does science experiments? Since when? Twilight thought wildly, before even more items in the room pulled at her attention.
Alongside the rest of the helter-skelter items stacked atop the desk were ones Twilight knew well: thermometers, a barometer, a rain gauge, an anemometer, a hygrometer alongside a solid gold compass.
Twilight unknowingly licked at her lips as excess saliva flooded her mouth. Every square inch of Derpy’s home appeared buried in books: text books, hard covers, books packed with essays and speeches and various poems and journals. In fact, there were so many books in the room that they’d started being stacked from the floor to the ceiling in columns beginning from thickest to thinnest.
“Books… so many… yummy books…” Twilight spoke aloud without realizing it.
Seated on an armchair at the very center of the room was a pegasus mare. On her lap was an opened book and on a stand next to her was a steaming cup of liquid.
Twilight had to do a double take. “Derpy?”
It was. It just had to be.
Only two things had changed since Twilight had seen her last. One was her currently brown mane and tail, and the other was her eyes; perfectly normal ones that seemed to zip through her current book with relative ease. In the time Twilight had spent staring around her home, she must’ve read twenty pages minimum. It was even a book Twilight knew well.
That might not even be Derpy in there, Twilight’s mind warned. A cousin perhaps? Long lost sister? There was only one way to find out.
Twilight used her magic to knock on Derpy’s door again. Harder than before.
Inside, Derpy snapped her book shut and angrily grumbled to herself. Then she set her reading material aside as gently as she could. From underneath her chair she yanked out two yellow-colored wigs to tie around both her head and buttocks.
“I’m coming!” she called, in her usual Derpy-like tone. Too bad the rest of her didn’t match that tone. She actually looked rather annoyed. “Just a sec… whoa!”
After popping in a fresh pair of cross-eyed contact lenses, Derpy retrieved a box from the floor marked “BREAKABLES”. From that she lifted out a large white coffee mug and cheap looking lamp that she quickly smashed against the ground.
“Almost there! Bumped into some stuff!”
Finally having finished Derping herself out, Twilight teleported to the front of the house in order to meet her there. If Derpy had been ticked at Twilight’s impromptu appearance before (which she clearly had been), she sure didn’t show it after opening up.
“Pancake Sparkle? Did I leave some letters behind in town?” Derpy flicked her head from side to side—her fake yellow wig coming along for the ride. “Sorry about earlier. Sometimes I don’t even know where—”
Twilight gave her a nod. “Okay, Derpy. You can drop the act now. I know you’re faking it.”
Derpy blinked a single time. “Faking what?”
“This! This whole thing!” Twilight waved a hoof up and down frantically. “The contact lenses! The wigs! The cute little voice! You’re not derpy at all, are you?”
“Yes, I am Derpy Hooves.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “No, I mean… when someone says they’re derpy they usually mean…” She really had no good way of finishing that, so she didn’t. “Can I come in for a second?”
Derpy’s jaw visibly tightened. “But why would you need to do that?”
“Glass of water, perhaps? Flying makes me mighty thirsty.”
Derpy pursed her lips. “My sink’s broke. I mean… I was the one that broke it! Yep. There’s also a family of skunks in here, too! I invited them in for company a few weeks ago and now I just don’t know—”
“—what went wrong? Yes, I think I’m getting that now.” Twilight held a hoof to her chin to ponder. “Tell me, Derpy. Who’s Ponyville’s mayor again?”
Derpy shrugged. “I dunno.” Then she gasped in alarm. “Is it you? Do I need to pay you some bits or something? Or are you here to take me to jail? I didn’t mean to roll doubles so many times! I’m sorry I never voted for you!”
Twilight smiled at her thinly, ignoring everything she’d just said. “Fine. Next question. Where’s the Crystal Empire located?”
Again, Derpy only shrugged. “Saddle Arabia?”
“Seven minus three?”
“I’m not a unicorn, Twilight! I can’t just perform impossible magic like that!”
“How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
“Why can’t those woodchucks handle their own problems for a change?”
Twilight sighed. “Fine. Last question and then I’ll go. Have you ever read The Collected Essays of Spirited Quill? Perhaps the most gifted writer in the last two centuries?”
Derpy shook her head. “I like coloring books best… especially the ones that don’t ask me to stay inside the lines.”
Twilight hung her head in mock sadness. “Darn. Because there was this one great quote that I’ve been trying to remember all day long, but just can’t. I think it starts, ‘I am not afraid of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of…’” She paused. “Any idea how that might end?”
Twilight knew for a fact it’d been The Collected Essays of Spirited Quill that Derpy had been reading right before she’d knocked on her door. That little fact didn’t seem lost on Derpy, either, as her mouth drew as thin as a pencil line.
Twilight continued, “Was it… I am afraid of the sudden appearance of dry and lumpy mashed potatoes?”
“Maybe you should look it up yourself,” Derpy told her. “I’m sure it’s a good enough quote to read over again.”
“Or was it: I am afraid of removing the do not remove under penalty of law tag off my bed mattress?”
One of Derpy’s cross-eyed eyes began to twitch. She hissed out between her teeth: “Why would a famous quote that starts with lions and lambs end with mattress tags?”
Twilight smiled mischievously. “Why don’t you tell me, Derpy?” She happily chuckled to herself. “Now I remember it! So simple, too! It was I am afraid that there may be no vegetarian options at the local griffon owned restaurant!”
That was when Derpy started shaking her head from side to side in rage. She leapt atop of Twilight to wrestle her to the ground. “It’s ‘I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion’ you imbecilic nitwit! I swear you’re acting as dense as plutonium mixed with liquid mercury right now!”
Twilight grinned until dimples appeared on her cheeks. “Come again?”
“I… I mean…” Derpy stammered out nervously. “Muffins? Got any muffins with you?”
“Too late!” Twilight shoved her off so she could direct a hoof toward her—Twilight’s trademark accusation pose. “You’re not dumb at all! You’re actually smart! You’ve been faking it all along, haven’t you?”
“Nu-uh!” Derpy protested childishly. “I’m as dumb as a rock! Quick! Go grab a rock and a chess board and just wait until I accidentally swallow the rock and have to be rushed to the nearest hospital to have it removed!” She hesitated, cross-eyed eyes zipping from one side of her head to the other. “Why… I’m so dumb I once disagreed with a hypothesis without first contemplating the wide spectrum of gathered evidence and well-documented data brought forth by the theoretical researcher in question!”
Twilight had to think about that. “That’s still not that dumb!”
Derpy growled deep within her throat and scrunched up her face. “Curse you, Twilight Sparkle! Curse you and your seemingly simplistic powers of deductive reasoning!” She took in a breath to calm herself. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyways. No pony will ever believe you. It’s your word against mine. Or… Derpy’s, in this case.”
The door to Derpy’s house suddenly blew inward, revealing the thousands of collected books and texts lining each wall. Twilight even noted a few astrology diagrams tacked up over the fireplace she’d managed to miss while looking through her window.
Twilight happily clapped her hooves together and said in a sing-song fashion: “I have a smart friend! I have a smart friend! I have a smart friend!”
Derpy raised a curious brow at her. “And what makes you think we’re suddenly friends?”
“Because I’m the Princess of Friendship, and no one says no to the Princess of Friendship.”
“That sounded an awful lot like a threat.”
Twilight waved a hoof at her. “Don’t be silly! Since when do good friends threaten each other?”
Angrily, Derpy ran a hurried hoof along her mane, before her splayed pupils found the large sundial on the lawn. Whatever she’d gleamed from it made her exhale miserably. “Darn it. We’ve been conversing for over six minutes. That means I’m legally required by the Smart Ponies of Equestria Coalition to invite you in for fresh tea and scones.”
“I know!” Twilight gleefully slapped her hooves against both of her cheeks. “I’m a member, too! I even have a S.P.E.C. tee-shirt I got custom made to wear around town!”
Derpy sighed. “Fine. Let’s get this over with, then.”
***
The very first moment she could Derpy removed all her contacts and wigs, giving her head a shake while rubbing her hooves into her eye sockets. She settled into the armchair in the center of the room and brought out another one for Twilight to use. Together, they shared a fresh pot of honey-lemon tea with hints of mint, as well as a plate of cinnamon scones.
“So… you’re not Derpy Hooves,” Twilight began.
Derpy shook her head. “No. I only took on the role of Derpy to disappear.”
“So you’re some sort of criminal? A master thief, perhaps? Currently being chased by the law?”
Derpy took a dainty sip of tea and grinned. “If only it were so simple. No, Twilight, I’m afraid I’m just smart. Too smart, in fact.” She glanced at all the scholarly items placed around the room. “My parents—not the cleverest of ponies in Equestria—gave me the name Fast Flight following my birth, and sent me off to Cloudsdale to live. It soon became clear that I had a natural gift in understanding weather and everything surrounding it, so due to this I became the go-to pegasus for any pony with even the slightest of weather-related problems.” She breathed out wearily. “For years, I ended up helping ponies—helping almost anyone that requested it—but one pony’s problem at a time, I found myself more and more tired of it all, and more and more bitter about having to give up my own time just because I knew more than most. All my personal time had been taken from me—no more time to read or write or even continue with my weather research. Even my very scant social life had fallen victim to a miserable and quiet death by this point.”
Twilight leaned forward in her chair. “So what did you do about it?”
“I vanished,” Derpy replied coolly. “I left Cloudsdale without a word and the very next day came to Ponyville. I’d done my research beforehand, and I knew how open Ponyville was to outsiders of all kinds…”
Well, she’s not wrong, Twilight thought, recalling her first big day in Ponyville all those years ago.
“Anyway,” she continued, “that first day in Ponyville, I made sure to leave not a single doubt in anyone’s mind about Derpy Hooves. With a new mane and tail—and even new eyes to call my own—I was more than ready to show this town just how simplistic Derpy could be. After that day no one would dare ask me for knowledgeable advice!” She smirked. “You ever read about the Great Water Tower Disaster of Unimaginable and Incalculable Proportions?”
Twilight’s mouth dropped. “Are you kidding? Even to this day there are still ponies trying to dry out all the stuff that got wet! It was you who did that? Really?”
Derpy nodded. “Ponyville’s water tower had one single weak spot and one single weak spot only. How was I to know my butt could take out the entire thing?” She chuckled dryly. “It’s almost humorous how smart one needs to be in order to appear overwhelmingly moronic to everyone around them. It’s become clear that the pegasus known as Derpy Hooves would actually need to be some sort of genius in order to do the damage that she does… with no casualties, of course.”
“And what happened next? After the accident?”
“They offered me a job, of course, delivering mail around town. Ponyville’s sort of odd like that.”
Twilight eagerly listened on and refilled her cup. “So, you’re actually happy living like this? As Derpy Hooves, I mean? But doesn’t it ever get annoying acting like someone else all the time?”
“It does,” Derpy told her earnestly. “There are some days when I wake up not in a Derpy-like mood at all, so I’m forced to go outside and stare at the sun for a while, or stick a Crayon up my nose.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit selfish keeping all this knowledge to yourself? That maybe you owe it to Equestria to help make it better?”
Derpy smiled good-naturedly. “I never said I’d stopped researching, Twilight. I think I’ll always have a place in my heart for large scale weather research.”
Twilight raised a brow. “So that means you’ve gone back to Cloudsdale since coming here? And no one asks where you’ve been?”
“I send any findings I make through the mail—usually one twenty page report every six weeks or so. Sources cited, obviously.”
Twilight blanched, almost dropping her tea. “So you’re the one that’s been sending all those research reports! I’ve been making myself copies of those for years!” Twilight then wrinkled her nose as something else came to mind. “So why are all of them addressed from some pony named Fluffy-Butt Von Corkscrew McHammermaster the Third?”
“To keep my identity a secret, of course.” Derpy took another small sip of her tea. “What pony in their right mind would dare travel the globe in search of the fabled McHammermaster the Third? Especially one with the first name: Fluffy-Butt Von Corkscrew? They’d be laughed out of wherever they went.” She paused. “But I think this palaver has gone on long enough. You gave me questions and I answered them. Now here’s my question: are you planning on exposing my secret or keeping it to yourself?”
Twilight found she had to think on that. All at once her mind drifted back to the beginning of her day, when she’d been running around town with more to do than she could possibly believe. “I’ll keep your secret under two conditions. First: you have to join my weekly book club.”
Derpy grumbled to herself. “Do I have to?”
“Why does everyone keep saying that? What in Equestria is wrong with my book club? Maud was basically tickled pink last week when we discussed the vast differences between stalactites and stalagmites! Rock talk can be so much fun sometimes.”
Derpy only frowned. “They’re not rocks, Twilight. They’re minerals. But putting that aside… what else did you have in mind?”
Twilight’s face lit up in a grin. “I also get to help you with your weather research.”
“You’d really want to assist me with that? It’s actually sort of boring sometimes.”
“Boring is my middle name, my dear Derpy!” Twilight told her happily. “And how could anything science related possibly end up boring?”
Derpy returned the grin finally. “That was merely a test. Science is never boring. But isn’t the Princess of Friendship sort of a full time job already? You seemed busy enough this morning without more atop your plate.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Twilight explained carefully. “Third request: have any extra pairs of those contact lenses lying around perchance?”
“You want ones like Derpy has?”
“Only for a few weeks. Three weeks tops.”
***
“Are you girls sure Twilight’s still up for official Elements of Harmony business?” Fluttershy asked the five of them tentatively, only a few steps outside the doors to Castle Friendship. “I mean… she was hit in the head with a brick only yesterday. Shouldn’t we give her more time to rest and recover?”
“I might have to agree with Flutts on this one,” Rainbow Dash said. “Have you seen the way Twilight’s eyes are now? She could be talking with Applejack while looking at Pinkie Pie nowadays!”
“Maybe it’s not as bad as everyone’s making it out to be,” Rarity added hopefully. She knocked on the door and took a step back. “Hooves crossed.”
“More like eyes crossed,” Rainbow Dash murmured, mostly to herself.
“One second!” Twilight called out to them from somewhere within. “I’ll be right there!”
Rarity smiled. “See? Twilight sounds just fine. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to assist us in—” Rarity’s ears dropped as something shattered beyond the doors. “Innocent accident, perhaps?”
“Almost there!” Twilight yelled again, somehow managing to break another four items during her journey to the entrance. Once she finally stepped outside, all five of her friends gave her the same tight-lipped grin.
Around Twilight Sparkle’s torso was a stark white lab coat. Around her head was a black pair of safety goggles. While one of her eyes stayed focused on Rarity, the other one seemed completely fixed on her pristine marble floors.
“Hello there, Twilight,” Rarity greeted her cautiously. “Did we catch you at a bad time?”
“Only doing some science experiments with Derpy today.”
Rarity and the rest of them glanced around Twilight’s shoulder and found Derpy Hooves waving back at them in the hall. She also had on a matching lab coat complete with safety goggles. They all politely waved back at her.
Rarity’s face flushed crimson. “Well, we were only wondering if you wanted to accompany us with a problem that’s just cropped up outside of Ponyville, but…” She chewed on her tongue for a moment. “You know what, Twilight? I think we got this one. You just feel better and have some fun with Derpy today. Sound good? We’ll stop by some other time, then.”
“Okay! Have a great time without me!”
Twilight quickly closed the doors on them. Rarity gave a shrug and thought nothing more of it, and turned around to walk up the street with her friends.
“Hope Twilight still knows what she’s getting up to,” Applejack said. “I’d just hate to see that fancy castle of hers blow up or something on account of that noggin of hers being a little scrambled now. I reckon castles might be a tad bit harder building than barns.”
Rainbow Dash laughed at that. “What trouble could her and Derpy possibly cause, A.J?”
Exactly forty one seconds later, a bolt of lightning struck the tip of Twilight’s castle and traveled all the way down to its foundation along a copper rod, fueling the reading machines Derpy and Twilight had previously hooked into place.
Five seconds following that, they happily clinked their tea cups together and drank.
Author's Note
Don't have much to say about this one. Besides the idea of Derpy the scientist sounding cute. 
