Doing cute things was Dinky’s destiny.
She could be cute sleeping, learning, eating, hopping up and down, chasing butterflies, and doing many other things a filly her age would do. She didn’t have a cutie mark, but she suspected that it was actually a blank space – just because blank flanks were cuter than older ponies.
On this particular day, Dinky awoke from her adorable slumber and slid down the bannister in the most cute way possible. Well, except of the last part when she fell to the floor, but even then she just bounced off the rug and landed on all four like a kitten. She then trotted to the kitchen to get some breakfast. Naturally, in as cute way as possible.
“Hello, Dinky,” a grey pegasus colt with blonde mane said when she entered the kitchen, prancing around. He was sitting at the table, sipping orange juice and staring at a bowl of cornflakes without much enthusiasm.
“He–” Dinky’s hoof froze halfway to the fridge door. She turned to the colt. “Wait, who are you?”
“What?” The colt nearly choked on his juice. “I’m your brother, Crackle Pop.”
“Wait, I have a brother?” Dinky asked, trotting to the colt and looking into his eyes.
“All your life,” Crackle Pop replied. “Don’t you remember?”
“Did I have a brother for all my life yesterday?” Dinky raised her eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”
“Dunno, I was always here.” Crackle Pop took a bite of his cornflakes. “Strange that you’ve never noticed. I mean, you were always a bit busy doing that weird stuff, but we played together a few times, I’m sure.”
Dinky’s cheeks turned red. “What weird stuff?”
Crackle Pop shrugged. “Dancing, prancing, glancing, freelancing, stuff like that. You somehow missed me and mom at the Applewood Derby last week.”
“Umm… maybe?” Dinky shrugged. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her why she was there in the first place. She opened the fridge and grabbed milk from it. She levitated it, almost spilling some on the floor, and poured it into another bowl of cereal. After a moment of hesitation, she sat at the table next to Crackle Pop.
“So, you’re my brother,” Dinky said after a moment of silence.
“Thinking is not your forte,” Crackle muttered with a shrug.
“I’ve never thought I had a brother,” Dinky replied. “That’s a new experience for me.”
Crackle sighed and focused on cornflakes. Dinky puffed her cheeks, seeing this lack of attention, but at the same moment her mom walked into the kitchen.
“Hello, muffins,” Derpy said, patting the manes of her kids. “How are you today?”
“Mom, did I always have a brother?” Dinky asked.
“Of course not, Muffin,” Derpy replied, putting a bag of groceries on the counter.
Dinky turned to Crackle Pop. “See? I knew it.”
“He’s a year younger,” Derpy said.
“Aww…” Dinky furrowed her eyebrows. “But there’s just two of us, right?”
Derpy stopped in her tracks and looked at her daughter. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. “Last time I checked, I had two children.”
Dinky nodded and went back to her cereal. The rest of her breakfast was quite uneventful; Crackle Pop eventually went to his room, probably to do some colt things. Dinky didn’t know – she still felt just yesterday she was the only foal in the house.
She levitated the empty bowl to a kitchen sink, managing not to drop it on the way. Then she hopped off her chair and went to the living room. The good side of vacation; she had plenty of time to read and there was no better place to do that than the big couch standing in the middle of the room.
Dinky sat on the couch and levitated a book from the shelf. Unfortunately, she lost her grip and the book fell on the carpet somewhere halfway through. Groaning, Dinky got off the couch and trotted to the book.
“Ba!”
Dinky’s ears perked up, trying to find the source of the noise. It definitely sounded like a foal, and that reminded her of one movie her mom didn’t let her watch, but she went to the cinema anyway, after Rumble somehow convinced Lyra, who was working there at the time, that they were sixteen. It was a bad idea. Not only she was now scared of foals; Rumble kept avoiding her since she had to drag him from under his chair.
Slowly, Dinky turned back to see a foal on the couch. It looked more or less like her mom, with grey coat and blonde hair, except it was a unicorn, just like Dinky. It couldn’t be more than two years old; currently it was trying to eat the foam poking out of the hole in the couch’s upholstery.
“No, don’t eat that!” Dinky exclaimed, using her magic to catch the little filly. She didn’t risk levitating it; she just grabbed the filly’s diaper with her magic and dragged her away from the foam.
“Gah!” The filly looked at her, too surprised to cry. “Hi, thith!”
“What?” Dinky approached the filly and looked at her like Daring Do was looking at some dangerous trap in the middle of an ancient temple. “Did you just call me your sister?”
“Yeth.” A smile adorned the filly’s face. “You awwight?”
“Yes, I’m aww–” It took Dinky two years of speech therapy to learn to pronounce her r’s correctly and she didn’t want to squander it all because of some small kid. “Alright.” She gritted her teeth. “So, you’re my sister. What’s your name?”
“Dipthy.”
“Dipthy?” Dinky asked.
“No, Dipthy.”
Dinky nodded. “Ah, Dipsy!”
“Yeth, Dipthy,” Dipsy replied.
“I swear you weren’t here yesterday, Dipsy,” Dinky muttered, still eyeing the filly.
“No,” Dipsy said. “Couch tall!”
Dinky remembered her own attempts to first climb on the couch. It required at least two base camps in perfect weather conditions, but that was before she grew up.
“Okay,” Dinky muttered. “So, who put you on the couch in the first place?”
“Mommy.”
“And why did she leave you here?” Dinky asked.
It took Dipsy a while to figure out the answer. Mainly because she tried to eat the foam again. “She’s wowking. She thaid, ‘thtay with Cwackle.’”
“Working, yeah.” Dinky sighed. “Good that my siblings at least know about each other.” She stood up and walked to the door of the living room. “Crackle!”
“What?” Crackle Pop shouted from his room.
“Weren’t you supposed to take care of Dipsy or something?”
“You do that much better!” Crackle Pop replied.
Dinky frowned. “I do?”
“Yes.” Crackle flew downstairs and landed next to Dinky. “When I was taking care of her, she figured out that she can turn the lights on and off with her magic since she can’t reach the switch.” He pointed at the wall. There were several burn marks around the light switch, as well as a big hole in the wall above it. Dinky could swear they weren’t there yesterday.
“Really?” Dinky asked. “I don’t remember that.”
“Weird,” Crackle replied. “When you saw her, you said a bad word and mom nearly fainted.”
Dinky sighed. “Maybe. But why it’s me who has to take care of her? She could’ve started figuring her magic out when I was with her.”
Crackle Pop looked at her unsurely, then shook his head. “But you can at least contain her. Last time she got a magic outburst, I got a scar. I’d show it to you, but it’s not in a place I usually show to the world.”
Dinky barely paid attention to him, turning back to look at Dipsy. Her little sister was silent for too long, which, as far as Dinky knew, could mean she was up to something. She was right; Dipsy was chewing the couch’s stuffing as if it was food from the most elegant restaurant in Equestria.
“What is wrong with you?” Dinky muttered, trying to get the stuffing out of her sister’s mouth. She managed to levitate most of it out, much to Dipsy’s displeasure. After she was done, she dropped on the couch next to the filly and groaned.
“Yeah,” Crackle Pop said. “Imagine me trying to do that with my wings.”
“Wait!” Dinky exclaimed. “Mom said she had two kids last time she checked!”
“When did she say that?” Crackle Pop asked, raising his eyebrows and eyeing Dinky.
Dinky smacked her hoof against her forehead. “When we were eating breakfast, just a few minutes ago! Don’t say you don’t remember that!”
Crackle Pop thought for a while. “Actually, she said you have two siblings. That was because you somehow forgot that Dipsy and I existed.”
“That’s because you didn’t exist just yesterday,” Dinky muttered, lowering her head. “I’d remember that my brother keeps sitting in his room, or that my sister makes holes in the walls.”
“Well, you just proved you remember that,” Crackle Pop said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t just say that.”
“It’s because that’s something anyone with half a brain would figure out!” Dinky groaned. “And you’ve just told me about the walls.”
“Well, I’m trying to help!” Crackle’s wings perked up. “But if you don’t need it, I’ll go upstairs!” He took off and flew away.
Dinky dropped on the couch next to Dipsy and sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that, should I?”
“Nope,” Dipsy replied. “Cwayons?”
“I’ll get you crayons, if you don’t eat them.” Dinky looked around and saw some crayons and paper on the shelf. “Or stuff them up your nose, or draw on the wall, or–” She stopped, realising that giving the filly ideas would not be wise. Instead, she just levitated the crayons and put them on the floor next to a piece of paper. Then she helped Dipsy get off the couch and led her to the crayons.
“There you go,” Dinky said, watching as her new sister started doodling something on the piece of paper. She tilted her head. “That’s Crackle, right?”
“No,” Dipsy replied. “That’s Chiwpy.”
“And who’s Chirpy?” Dinky asked, sighing.
“Milk filly.”
“What now?” Dinky muttered. “Wait here for a minute, I need to check something.”
She trotted to the kitchen and opened the fridge. She levitated a milk carton from it and took a look at the face printed on it. The pegasus filly looked a bit like Crackle Pop; according to the label, her name was Chirpy Hooves and she was slightly older than Dinky.
Dinky took a deep breath. “Okay,” she told herself. “She’s missing and my little sister is drawing her. That doesn’t mean anything. She may not even be from here. That’s like totally normal. Nothing to worry a– Gah!” She screamed when someone knocked at the kitchen’s window.
Dinky put the milk carton down and looked at the window. On the other side of it, there was the exact same grey pegasus filly Dinky just saw. She was even smiling in the same way. However, she looked like she was crawling through some bushes; there were loose twigs and leaves in her mane, and her skin was scratched in a few places.
For a moment, Dinky thought what to do. Then, for the lack of a better idea, she opened the window.
“Hello!” Chirpy burst into the kitchen. “What’s going on, sis?”
“You tell me,” Dinky muttered. “You were missing for–”
“A year and a half, yeah,” Chirpy replied. “But that was, like, totally worth it! How’s little Dipsy?”
“If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t know you existed,” Dinky replied. “Though to be honest, I didn’t know I had any siblings until today.”
“That, like, sucks, sis,” Chirpy replied, grabbing the milk and chugging it. “But I’ve got better news.” She produced a red quill from under her wing and grinned widely. “I got a broken quill!”
“A broken… quill?” Dinky muttered, her eyes widening.
“Yes!” Chirpy exclaimed. “A broken quill! When was the last time you used a quill?”
“Are you trying to sell it to me?” Dinky asked, backpedalling.
“Well, I tried to sell it to Princess Twilight, but it didn’t work out,” Chirpy replied. “But do you know how I got it?” She spun the quill around her wing. “It was a bright sunny day in Ponyville, and I was going to school, when–”
Dinky didn’t listen to her. It occurred to her that Dipsy had been quiet for a while. She was quite sure she wouldn’t do much with crayons, but one could never know. Especially since she saw Crackle Pop rushing into the kitchen.
“Come with me, quick!” Crackle exclaimed. “Dipsy levitated the couch.”
“And then, we landed on the pirates’ airship!” Chirpy said. “And it started shooting its cannons at the ninjas!”
“And that’s how you got the quill?” Dinky asked.
“No, I bought it in a small shop that wasn’t there the day before, in a town that is not on the maps,” Chirpy replied. “But that battle was, like, too awesome.”
“Ah, okay.” Dinky realised that Crackle kept poking her. “What?”
“Dipsy levitated the couch,” Crackle muttered.
“Yeah, I heard it the first ti– What?” Dinky rushed to the living room.
The first thing she saw was a layer of dust and old food bits that was usually hidden under the couch. Dipsy was sitting behind it, her horn glowing. She laughed loudly, looking at all her siblings.
Dinky stepped forward first. “No!” she exclaimed. “Drop it!”
Dipsy looked at her and laughed, levitating the couch even higher.
“I’ll give you more candies than you can eat if you drop it,” Dinky said.
“Okay!” Dipsy exclaimed and cancelled her magic.
Dinky sighed with relief. That is, until she looked up.
She probably shouldn’t have stood under the couch.
Sleeping was Dinky’s destiny.
She could sleep while riding a cart, at school, at home, under a tree, on a tree, in the shop, on the windowsill, in bed, in the loo, and in any place where a filly her age could end up. Her cutie mark was a pillow; she suspected she’d eventually become a model in Quills and Sofas ads.
Dinky opened her eyes to see that she was lying on the couch, with a pink unicorn staring at her with a worried expression. She sighed with relief; none of her rapidly appearing siblings were in sight.
“Sparkler!” Dinky exclaimed. “Please tell me at least you’re not my sister!”
“Actually, my name is Amethyst Star,” the unicorn replied. “We were worried about you.”
“Yeah, that couch hit me pretty well…”
“What couch?” Amethyst Star asked. “You just slept till noon. And actually, I remember how you wished I was your sister, missy. Remember? We took part in Sisterhooves Social together.”
“We… did?” Dinky asked. “I don’t recall that…”
“Weird,” Amethyst Star muttered. “But I always told you I was too old to be Carrot Top’s daughter.”
“Ah, sure.” Dinky yawned and sat on her bed. Suddenly, her pupils narrowed. “Wait. Carrot Top is my mom?”
“Are you sure you’re not sick?” Amethyst Star raised her eyebrows and put her hoof on Dinky’s forehead.
“No, I don’t think so,” Dinky muttered. “I need to take a walk… Or something.” She got out of her bed and trotted downstairs. To her surprise, the house looked completely different than what she remembered from yesterday. As she went outside, she saw that it was surrounded by carrot fields. The house was located on the top of the hill, and it seemed like an offspring of several big barrels.
“Okay,” Dinky muttered, trotting across the endless plains full of carrots. “You woke up to find out you have a brother and two sisters. Then a couch fell on your head and you woke up to learn that you have a completely different family. Such things happen. But what should I do now?”
“Psst!”
“What?” Dinky turned back to see her friends Ruby Pinch and Tootsie Flute hiding in the carrots. “What are you two doing here?”
“Good to see you back,” Ruby muttered. “We thought we lost you forever.”
“What do you mean?” Dinky asked, looking at her unsurely.
“You don’t remember anything?” Tootsie asked. “Not even the accident with the vortex of time and space?”
Dinky rubbed her temples. “Excuse me?”
Ruby approached her and looked deeply into her eyes. “Did you experience any temporal paradoxes? Or maybe sudden changes in the universe?”
“Well…” Dinky shrugged. “I suddenly got three siblings and then it all disappeared and I got a brand new cutie mark, as well as a new family and…” She waved her hoof at the carrot field. “This. Do you know why?”
“It keeps happening,” Tootsie said. “Most ponies are not aware of that. For example, we all were in one class in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns with Twilight Sparkle, Lyra Heartstrings, and Amethyst Star. Then I woke up and it turned out Amethyst was an adult and my foalsitter.”
Ruby nodded. “Same happened to me. I became aware of this when Scootaloo told me about the first Sonic Rainboom and I suddenly remembered that I saw this race with my own eyes.” She patted her back. “Except I was a pegasus at that time. It seems to be a thing in my case.”
“But... “ Dinky shuddered. “It’s like our lives have no continuity at all! As if someone kept putting us in various roles and change them whenever they’re bored…”
“Yeah.” Tootsie shrugged. “We don’t know how it works. You seem to be the third pony who became aware of that. We’re the first two.” She looked at Dinky, Ruby, and herself. “To think about it, we may have been the chosen ones. We even look the same, except of the colours.”
Dinky lowered her head. “But what can we do about it? I don’t want my life to keep changing like that. And I kinda liked all my new sisters…”
“Embrace it,” Ruby said. “Also, it’s not like they disappeared forever. The number of universes appears to be finite. Soon, you’ll come back to the previous one, and maybe stay there for a while.”
“That’s still strange.”
Ruby smirked. “After a while, you’ll like it…”
Fighting was Dinky’s destiny.
She could fight pirates, zombies, ninjas, aliens, fish ponies, the Great Old Ones, bullies, nerds, The Purple Watchmaker of Light, robots, cyborgs, flying pigs, pink elephants whatever a filly her age could end up meeting. Her cutie mark was a horseshoe; it was the mark she was leaving on faces of her enemies.
She jumped on the deck of the airship and looked around. Her sister Chirpy followed her, turning to see that no enemy was in sight. The pirates were apparently too busy fighting the ninjas below them.
“Are you okay, sister?” Dinky asked.
Chirpy nodded, smiling. “I got a broken quill!”
“Good for you.” Dinky chuckled, staring at the waves of enemies below them. “Good for you! And now, let’s go!”
