Derpy blinked.
It had been over ten hours since she had arrived at the forest, along with a small stuffed bunny. The toy had long ago lost its novelty, and now the only think Derpy could think about was eating. Her mind drifted to thoughts of the muffins Mommy made. They were always so perfect, and the flavors were always offset by the thought that Mommy had made them for her.
Because she loved Derpy. She had made a simple mistake, that was all. She just hadn't come for her yet, because she had a lot to do. She'd be come for Derpy soon.
"It's your fault our daughter is a retard!"
These thoughts had been filling her mind, with the raw hunger offsetting each one, when she blinked. The sky was a deep blue, and the sun was filling her vision. She must have fallen asleep, and as she blinked, trying to clear her muddled brain, she became aware of another pony, sitting nearby, watching her. She was bright, like the sun. Her coat was yellow, like Derpy's mane, and Mommy's as well, and that made her smile. The stranger's mane was a deep orange, and it reminded Derpy of the carrot raisin muffins she had sometimes.
"Hi!", said the stranger cheerfully. Derpy was taken aback by her smile. It was rare that anypony greeted Derpy without speaking slowly and with an air of impatience. It was refreshing, but before she could get her mouth to form the words she wanted to say, the new pony continued to speak, and far too fast for Derpy to follow.
"I'm Golden Harvest, but my friends call me Carrot Top. You can call me that too. I was walking with my Mom and Dad. They said to stay with them, but they're too slow. It's not like I'll get hurt or something if I walk a little farther than them. I'm hungry. Carrots sound good right now.Why are you out here anyway?"
"Uh..." Derpy tried to say something, and her eyes traveled in opposite directions. Golden let out a musical giggle.
"Hee hee! Your eyes! They look funny!"
"Uh..." Derpy tried to speak again, but a sharp pang of hunger ripped through her insides, and tears welled up in her eyes. Golden Harvest's expression crumpled immediately.
"Oh no! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I don't always think before I say things, and it makes people feel bad, and I'm sorry, please don't cry!"
"No..," Derpy moaned, so quietly that she barely heard herself, much less Golden, who continued to spill out an apology.
"One time I lost my friend Applejack for a while because I did this, and I should have learned my lesson from that, and I'm so sorry, please-"
"Golden Harvest!"
Her rant was cut short as two ponies, a mare and a stallions emerged from the woods. The mare had the same bright coat as Golden, while the stallion's colt was a deep blue, the same as the sky. Golden trotted up to them, her head down. Derpy watched as the two berated her. After a few minutes of the lecture, the mare looked over Golden's shoulder, and her eyes fell on Derpy, then moved to her eyes and her dirty, stained coat. A flicker of understanding crossed her face and she slowly made her way to Derpy. The stallion glanced at Golden once more, then followed his wife's lead. The same expression she had worn now was fixed onto his face.
"I met her," Golden said simply. "She's um...."
"What's your name, dear?" asked Golden's mother. Derpy's eyes slowly slid back to the correct position as she tried to speak.
"Derpy," she managed.
"Where are your parents, Derpy?"
"Hungry."
"Um."
"We can fix that!" Golden Harvest chirped. "We have lots of food!" The blue stallion started to say something, but was interrupted by Golden's mother. She glanced at him, and a subtle understanding was passed between the two. He looked down, and cleared his throat.
"Um. Yesh. I mean yes. I think that's a good idea."
"It's a great idea," she agreed.
Derpy was confused. Mommy had told her never to go with anypony she did not know, but these ponies seemed so kind and friendly, and she was so hungry. She let herself be picked up by the big ponies, and closed her eyes. The last thing she was aware of was the stuffed rabbit being slipped into her mouth.
***
Derpy looked around her, awed. The family's house was enormous, painted a brilliant yellow. A large farm was visible behind the house, filled with carrots and other root vegetables. She was led into the home, and Golden Harvest giggled at Derpy's expression again, as her eyes walled to take in every single inch of the house. It was a much nicer house than Derpy was accustomed to; Mommy's house had always been stained and had a bad smell.
They placed her in a chair at a square oak table, and gave her carrots and bread and a pink juice that entranced Derpy. While she messily ate, Golden chatted on about everything that came to her mind: the school, her house, the squirrel she saw yesterday, and so forth. Derpy didn't mind. She liked to hear Golden talk passionately and cheerfully about random subjects. There had not been a large amount of cheer in her home. She reached for the glass of juice, but it slipped from her hoof and smashed on the ground. Golden immediately stopped talking and froze, staring at Derpy with a horrified expression on her face. Derpy immediately felt sweat break out on her face, and her control over her bladder failed. She tried to shrink back into her chair, because Mommy had always said when accidents happened, she will get a spanking. She could hear the ponies trotting from the living room into the kitchen, and she braced herself for the pain she knew would come, squeezing her eyes shut.
It didn't come. She opened one eye, and Golden's mother was gazing at her, but with a very pained expression. Derpy had seen it before on some of the ponies who saw her, almost as though they were about to cry but were struggling not to.
She didn't understand. The other eye opened, and while Golden's face was twisted in disgust, the blue stallion's face so resembled the look her Mommy had worn so many times. Golden's mother whispered something into his ear, and he closed his eyes, exhaling. Then she scooped Derpy up.
"I think it's time for a bath," she said smiling, and Derpy's ears perked up.
A bath meant one thing.
Bubbles.
***
Time passed, and Derpy grew. It was not an easy life, adjusting to the busy life of Golden Harvest's family, and it was certainly not easy trying to attend school again. Whenever she recalled that first day, for some time, she could not keep from weeping. The other ponies had ferociously leaped upon her....
Derpy sat, idly watching the minute hoof on the round clock in Mrs. Charmer's office go around and around, listening to Mrs. Harvest and the principal talk, not particularly understanding what they were saying.
"We don't have a special program for students of her disposition. Were you aware of that, Mrs. Harvest?"
"I was, but it doesn't matter. She doesn't need one, she's perfectly normal, just as intelligent-"
"Mrs. Harvest." Her voice became stern and cold. "Derpy cannot read, she cannot count beyond the first few numbers, and she has trouble speaking. Do you honestly believe that this child is in step with the other colts and fillies? She's nowhere near that level."
"She came from a poor family. She's a little slow, I admit, but her birth mother thought of her as mentally retarded child and did nothing to teach her, and her father-"
"How do you not know this child is not mentally retarded, hmm? Look at her." The big blue unicorn gestured to Derpy's large gold eyes, which were facing in opposite directions. "Those eyes, are they the eyes of a bright, normal filly? No. I will answer that question for you, since you're obviously as slow to understand as she is. They are the eyes of a retard, and I won't have one my classes when she is clearly incompetent when it comes to learning. Now kindly take your child and try another school, one that will accept her."
"But-"
"Go, Mrs. Harvest."
She did, and, after using the same argument on another school's principal, Derpy was accepted. As she was led into hall, she looked up at Mrs. Harvest, questioning her.
"You're going to school, Derpy. Isn't that wonderful?"
"School?"
"That's right. Do you remember ever going to school, Derpy?"
Derpy remembered well enough. It had been pleasant enough, until she had voided herself. She very rarely did that now, though, so she supposed this day would be an improvement.
"Yus. Was fun.''
"Good. This will be too. The nice mare over there will show you to the class, and I will be here when school is over, okay?"
"Yeah."
Mrs. Harvest started to leave, then suddenly turned and embraced Derpy.
"Have a good day."
"Love you, Mommy." She didn't notice the expression on her "mother's" face when she said that.
As Derpy was led to the classroom, she was left to stand at the front of the class while the principal and her teacher Sugar Song went into the hall for a moment. She watched the sea of faces, and as always was entranced by all of the colors she saw. She didn't notice the filly in the back who was snickering, or the colt in the third row who was crossing his eyes and biting his lip. She saw none of this, and as the teacher came back into the classroom and led her slowly to a desk at the last row, she felt happy. Sugar Song began the lesson by having the students take turns reading aloud from a thick book. She never called on Derpy, but that didn't bother her, as the many detailed illustrations in the textbook were holding all of her attention. The next two classes continued, sticking to the formula: Derpy took in her classmates and the pictures in the books while the rest of the class paid no attention to her, or so she thought. As lunchtime rolled around, and the class was ran outside, Derpy sat alone, under a tree, and was enjoying the bright yellow sunlight and the corn muffin New Mommy had packed for her, when a pegasus trotted up to her.
"Hi!" she said cheerfully.
The cyan pegasus snorted. "Hi. How's that muffin?"
"It's real good. Want some?" Derpy offered a piece of the confection to the pegasus, who promptly spat it onto her. Derpy was confused. Who didn't like muffins?
"Ugh. You really must be retarded if you like that stuff. It tastes like horse apples," said the pegasus, which only further puzzle Derpy, as there were no apples in the muffin. She gave the stranger a blank look, which caused her eyes to wall. The pegasus laughed, and immediately three more ponies appeared by her side. As if on cue, they all began talking.
"You retard."
"Go home. No one wants you here."
"Heard your dad blew his brains out 'cause he didn't want to see you anymore."
They spat on her, and their cyan leader punched Derpy to the ground, where they proceeded to kick her in her face, in her belly, in her flank. She cried, and still the assault, both verbal and physical, continued.
"You gonna piss yourself?"
"You got crap for brains, you moron."
"You retard."
Retard. . .
Derpy curled into a ball, sinking into her bed, trying to forget the memory, as she had tried so many times before, and finally fell into a restless sleep.
An explosion. Pain. Blood. Why am I bleeding. Coughing.
He stumbled about, trying to regain his balance, and ended up tripping over an enormous slab of blue metal. He failed to balance himself and fell to the dirt with a thud. A sharp searing sensation spread throughout his head immediately, and he groaned.
Of all the luck. Why now? Of all times, why now? He reached out and ran his hoof down the metal, which was inscribed with "PON". Streaks of red were left on the surface when he pulled away.
Wait, hoof?
He quickly looked down at himself, and even in the darkness he could see what had replaced his hands. To do so, he had to look past his snout, and this only further cemented the discovery in his brain. He let out a thoughtful snort, and immediately broke into a violent coughing fit. When it subsided, he looked around, trying to take in where he had landed, or rather crashed. As far as he could tell, he was currently in what looked to be a forest. The air was heavy and stifling. He turned his attention back to his ruined TARDIS and-
Correction, he turned his attention back to the piles of scrap metal that used to be his TARDIS.
Damn.
Morning came, and with it, he awoke, getting up from the tree he had been resting against and stretching his hooves. He supposed that now that the sun had rose, he would seek out any other animals he could and get help while fixing his machine. This was assuming that he would even be able to speak to the other animals; he knew nothing of their intelligence or whether their biology was the same as the ones he had met on Earth and other worlds. It was worth a shot though, and so he walked. As he walked, he passed endless waves of trees before being hit in the face with a solar missile, and he looked out across a cliff.
He could see a village, a small one, at least compared to the ones he had scene in his lifetime. Even from this distance he could see numerous shapes moving on the ground, and that gave him hope.. Surely if these equines were intelligent enough to build a civilization, they would certainly be able to communicate, and he set off down the path with a lighter heart.
