Three stories about Derpy.by alafoelChaptersAnd a poem, too.DerpyDerpy HoovesMuffinsAnd a poem, too.Swift hum and fleet and dash of street hooves catch up to follow wings aside but start to stride and stretch the air to swallow that ground below should feel so slow and the land but empty and hollow. The clouds that glide along your side and tell you now you’re flying to leave the land that smother of hand to forget the feeling you’re dying a lack of pain is ne’er true slain ‘course, pain still exists when you’re crying. DerpyDerpy Hooves has, since birth, been completely unable to feel pain - it’s something a lot of ponies seem to covet (stunt ponies have certainly proclaimed their jealousy, and Trixie once almost got Derpy to join her act for a trick she called “firewalking” before other ponies convinced her not to) what with the way it seems to lend Derpy this fearlessness about her (not uncommon) tumbles and crashes. There are ponies out there who don’t covet it, but that’s more for the clumsiness they assume it causes in Derpy - that her tumbles and crashes are caused by a carelessness instilled with the lack of pain. Doctors who have examined Derpy generally agree that the clumsiness is caused by a dyspraxic comorbidity of the painlessness, rather than some further development of the painlessness itself; with Derpy’s birth not being the easiest, like, medically and all. But so the point is that Derpy is both very clumsy and totally unable to feel pain, which explains her very rapid descent onto the Wonderbolts training fields and also her very rapid shaking-off of said descent - the whole situation witnessed by Rainbow Dash. “Hey, are you- are you alright?” Rainbow Dash was standing over Derpy’s still sort of hunched frame - Derpy still not having fully risen from the small divot she’d left in the grass and dirt. “Think so.” Derpy didn’t even look up, she was just rooting about in her saddlebags for something or other, legs quivering slightly beneath her in this way that made the rustling of said saddlebags seem unnaturally frenzied. “That was a pretty bad wipeout, Derp.” “Hold on a moment…” Derpy sprung her wing from out of her saddlebag, holding something small between the feathers. “I have a letter for you, Dash!” “You’re shaking, Derpy. I can see you shaking.” Rainbow Dash looked between the almost full standing figure in front of her and the training facility proper, many paces back. “Do you need to, like, come inside or something?” “Oh, I’m alright Dash. I don’t wanna…” Derpy transferred the letter from her wing to her hoof. “I just have this letter for you. You must see a lotta ponies crash up here, huh?” Rainbow Dash grabbed the letter. “Most of those ponies are Wonderbolts. Why didn’t you just deliver this to my place back in Ponyville?” Derpy sort of cocked her head at this, this complete lack of understanding. “Well, you’re not in Ponyville. You’re here.” If she’d tilted her head the opposite direction, her eyes would almost look in line, but as it stood they just seemed even more out of wack than usual. Derpy used to feel very self-conscious about her eyes (Ponies always seemed to stare at them, after all), but then, after some point, she began to feel more self-conscious about feeling self-conscious about her eyes (but then again, isn’t that just what eye contact is, the staring at her eyes? Is she so special that she’s, like, exempt from eye contact?), and so she just decided she’d try and ignore it all. Just ignore thinking about her eyes at all, the same way she never really thought about the color of her coat or the cutie mark she wore on her flanks, these things that were just her in this way she didn’t have to think about. It worked sometimes, sometimes it didn’t and she just got caught up in these even deeper patterns of thinking/being self-conscious/being self-conscious about being self-conscious/etc. about her eyes. But today was one of those days she didn’t have to think about her eyes, the same way she didn’t have to think about ‘is it even worth getting up from this fall’ today. Rainbow Dash tucked her letter into that little band that kept her goggles on her face. “Do you have loads more mail to deliver today?” “Oh, umm… Only a little.” Derpy was folding and flexing her wings in and out as she spoke - scrunching them in basically every way they could be scrunched, rolling them about in their joints, occasionally touching her hooves with her feathers - alternating between smooth and jerky motions, these slow motion flails. It almost had the coursing of a rhythm and system throughout it, though one that seemed impenetrable to the outside observer. Her hind legs were still shaking, and the rest of her along with them. “I delivered most of the Ponyville mail already.” “Do you think you can take a little break, then?” Rainbow Dash looked back to the training facility. “I’m not, like, worried about you, or anything. I just think- I mean it’s not a short flight back to Ponyville, I just thought you might want to rest.” Derpy thought for a moment, wings now settled astride her barrel in rest. She was a mare who had no problem sitting and thinking in silence, even if she was mid-conversation. The phrase ‘think before you speak’ had floated around her a lot when she was a filly, so she did. She thought before she spoke. “Okay.” So she got up and trotted, line as straight as she could, alongside Dash. “Aren’t you gonna open your letter?” Derpy was laying full body across the sofa in the Wonderbolts Rest Area, possibly the only comfy surface in the whole Wonderbolt Academy. There wasn’t any conscious ‘anti-comfort’ philosophy amongst the Wonderbolts, it’s more that they just didn’t have the time for comfort - or, like, if they did they were at home already. “Sure, yeah, I just- I just gotta talk to Spitfire real quick.” Rainbow Dash was off as soon as she came. Derpy lay, then, just staring at the ceiling. It was a common ceiling of interior modern pegasus architecture - thick plywood with cloud-fluffing either side, for insulation. Heavier materials were often too awkward to work with, just in terms of working at altitude/with clouds, so plywood/cloud combination was a nice mix of price, ease of assembly and function. It, unfortunately, didn’t make much to look at, though - it was the same sort of cloud you could see anywhere in Cloudsdale, just with a little light-ish brown faint behind it. Derpy was the sort of pony to touch her face without realising, this absent minded action of thought (or, sometimes, thoughtlessness) which overtook her occasionally - which, today, is what finally alerted her to the blood sort of globbing from her nose. It wasn’t a particularly fast or heavy stream, more this slow, slow, slow release of thicker blood that had already started clotting to the fur of her face. Rainbow Dash didn’t mention any bleeding to Derpy. Derpy wondered if Rainbow Dash thought she (Derpy) already knew about the bleeding, and was just trying to be, like, fearless about it. Derpy was not a fearless pony. She remembered saying, quite casually, to another pony when the topic of fear/fearlessness came up something along the lines of ‘it’s not the falling that scares me, it’s the getting back up’ and then being very proud of saying that afterwards, that she was able to so casually say this thing which actually seemed quite profound to her. Derpy wondered if maybe she should ask Rainbow Dash for a tissue, just for the bleeding, or if it’s better not to bother her for whatever important thing she has to talk to Spitfire about, and she wonders this long enough that she decides laying here on this couch doesn’t seem to be doing her any issues so she’ll just keep doing that instead. One time Derpy broke a wing and only realized it when she started crashing a lot more than usual on her daily delivery, and asked a doctor about it thinking maybe it was some issue with her ears. She remembered hearing that ear infections can cause, like, balance issues or something. Since that major crash and wing incident, she’s taken more care to properly inspect her wings post-crash - along with that she developed this tendency to probe at the ground with her hooves: It’s not as conscious as her wing examinations, but still as important in terms of her telling when something is ‘off’, really, just with how she’s always nicking at or digging into the ground now, so she knows how it feels even if she’s not necessarily consciously feeling all of it, so she also knows how it’s not meant to feel, ergo she also also knows that something isn’t right if it doesn’t feel right - if and when it does end up feeling not right. The couch was this long, flat L-shape with a single raised edge against the long back of the L. It didn’t have any rests on the other edges, just sort of two flat rectangles placed against each other for the most part. It was comfy though, whatever fabric it was made of feeling nice against her body, and firm enough that she didn’t feel like she was sinking - a feeling she got from most of the furniture she owned herself. Derpy was still staring at the ceiling, so didn’t notice that Rainbow Dash had returned with Spitfire in tow. One of her legs was still twitching, but only a little. “Derpy Hooves!” Spitfire was physically incapable of sounding both loud and empathetic at the same time. “After correspondence with the Ponyville post office you have been relieved of further duty today. Rainbow Dash is willing to cover the rest of your shift.” Derpy let her head loll to the front side of the sofa, where Spitfire and Dash were standing. She didn’t speak for a few seconds. “Can I have a tissue for my nose?” Her voice was very nasal, but this was unrelated to the nosebleed. She just spoke like that. “For the blood, I mean. I don’t need to blow my nose.” Spitfire looked to Rainbow Dash for maybe half a moment, then back to Derpy. “On it, citizen.” Derpy thought it was strange that Spitfire called her ‘citizen’. While, admittedly, she hadn’t spoken to or seen Spitfire all that much, she couldn’t recall Spitfire calling any other ‘citizens’ ‘citizen’. At the same time, though, Derpy wasn’t unused to ponies acting differently around her in this sort of small way, this way she couldn’t always point right at - sometimes less blatant, even, than slipping in the word ‘citizen’ out of nowhere - but she could tell just that ponies weren’t working their A game around her, a lot of the time. Like they lost their metaphorical balance, in terms of social skills and whatnot, this little thing Derpy could only just pick up on. “So, should I just… Take your bags and go?” Rainbow Dash asked. Derpy didn’t answer. She was staring back at the ceiling now. “I mean, I’m covering your-” “I’ll be fine.” Derpy didn’t mean to interrupt Dash, it’s just it took her that long to think of what she wanted to say. “I just need to clean my nose.” “Are- Are you sure?” Rainbow Dash was trotting on closer to Derpy, now, standing right by the sofa and looking over this supine mare below her. “I’ll be fine.” Derpy sniffed up a glob of blood. There was some silence as she let herself think for a while before she came to what she had to say. “It’s not the falling that’s scary. I don’t think it’s getting back up, either.” From the looks of things, Dash didn’t seem at all sure what Derpy meant. Or maybe that sort of inattentive goggle she was giving was from her still piecing together Derpy’s getting back up off the couch in general. “I think the scary part is not getting back up, right?” Derpy slipped back off the couch, slowly, and sidled over to Spitfire - who had appeared by now with a full box of tissues. “Thank you. I got some mail to deliver.” She took a tissue from the box, erupted into it, scrunched it up and handed Spitfire back the now damp red ball. Rainbow Dash and Sptifire still just stared on, confused. “I got some mail to deliver.” Derpy HoovesMoon gloating in a pitch sky: Ponyville lays bathed in the grey-light residuals of nightshine, bearing cut-offs and secondhanders of the sun’s own words, yet coming off as strikingly more beautiful and distinct. At least, that’s what you’ve always thought: Maybe it’s just the calm that night brings, this round and warm and wholeness of an emptiness, distant lights in happy homes and still, still, still streets. Certainly fraught with none of the rush and bustle that comes from Ponyville’s daytime markets or mail deliveries - you know a lot about mail delivery, of course: Your name is Derpy Hooves and you’ve been delivering mail for a not-insignificant portion of your life, and - unfortunately - you really don’t have the time right now to appreciate the current lunar beauty. You’re in a bit of a hurry. You have to get to Pinkie Pie’s surprise party for you that she made you promise you wouldn’t tell anypony that you know that you know about it, it being some sort of (now wholly unsurprising) I'm-glad-you-got-well,-and-soon-party type party. You, with your hobble on the cobble and wings pressed astride barrel, are notably not flying: You haven't flown at night for a long time - your vision isn't the best which, alongside the dyspraxic/CIP comorbidity issue, has led to many experiences of gravity’s familiarity lost, it having been thrown away through the same legs your head rested between, thrust into some Gaskinian Knot, stars being but nopony's guide in your own sea of imbalance, the grass for the ceiling and the sky for the floor. But, now, the cobble hobbling, hooves protracting tap-taps from the stone beneath, sets you well on the path to Sugarcube Corner, sets you in the moonglow that bounces in perfect strips across your coat and, soon enough, sets you in front of that wood-oak monolith: marked with its own pretty-pink-paint, proclaiming itself the gateway - this liminal arbiter of space. If you weren't already aware of the surprise party, the bakery’s exuberance of warm-yellow glow, streaming through window-glass and staining hoof-path and no-longer-greeneries alike, would have likely been unusual. The expected proclamation of knock-knocking of hoof on wood was dashed instead with the creaking of hinges, door folding inwards, already unlocked and loose. A cacophony of ponies staring inwards, outwards all towards you - grouped and bunched and stead astride of one another in wait, your hoof bringing with it the final hand of the clock. You recognize most of them, their vacant eyes boggling inside your own - direct guided, invisible strings taut between you and everypony else. The cacophony lets out a cacophony of their own: “Surprise!” Again, their eyes making contact with your own. Your eyes. There are an awful lot of ponies to cram into one bakery, this profligate of hooves for someone like you, staring, staring into your eyes. Despite the working of brain and throat, no words leave your maw but only a hopeless gumming of tongue about itself: What are you supposed to say? You are not surprised. This is expected, of you and Pinkie at least. The head is blasting, furnaces all on, firing every which way beam of light and electricity: Bolts and courses throughout, you feel your rear-left leg shaking, slightly. You swallow. There are a lot of ponies looking at you. Looking at your eyes. One word leaves your maw: “Oh.” The bounces of pink form and mane habits the crowd, tripping through in different spots til her snout is almost touching yours: “Hey Derpy! I’m so, so, so, so glad that you got better after you totally crashed out the other day! We all are!” Pinkie Pie’s head crooks indicated smiling, agreeable faces in the crowd. “Oh. Thank you. I was alright.” You reflexively bend and stretch your wings. “Sort of thing happens all the time.” A weak laugh escapes your maw. “Oh, oh, oh, oh! Remember that time you crashed out and you totally had to go to the hospital cause your wings were broken? ‘Member that?” Her head tilts as she speaks, the same way you’ve seen Applejack talk to her dog. “I remember. That was pretty bad.” You sniff and suddenly think to touch your face. “This wasn’t so bad. I’m getting better now.” Pointed daggers of iris and pupil still make their way from eyes of other ponies to your own. “Thank you for this party.” You then think to add: “It surprised me.” “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear, derps!” Some ponies try to adorn you with sobriquets. Most do not. Pinkie Pie sinks back into the pulsating sanctum of flesh and breath. You are still on the threshold, waiting to be scooped up and chewed. Your hooves press against the floor, ungular pressure taking up the stress of a sieved brain. You might as well enjoy your party, right? Hoof in front of hoof, considered ballerinic ambulation: Precise movements as you let yourself drift in to the tide, wall of hooves and maw opening to let you succumb, you glaze past bodies and dissolve into the center, the one, the Body, the Party. Some ponies are still staring at you. Others aren't even aware you sidled in. You're not sure which is worse. It's a bustle of forms, you're stuck between hoof and fur and table splattered with food, drink, little cakes. Embedded in the throes of social saturation, words whispered and shouting drifting across, zagging in your ears and bunching into your head, this swirl. Pinkie Pie is still there, chatting now to another pony you don't recognise. There’s a cake with your face emblazoned on the icing, this confectioned reflection of form fit with gog-eyes and smile, staring back at real gog-eyes with no smile beneath. Hooves, again, work beneath to draw you to the table. You are eager to take a bite out of yourself, to carve in and grab a slice. The pink form seems to notice you, and zips right back. “Ooooooh, you're gonna love it! It's peach and vanilla!” she says. You didn't know they did peach cakes, but you like peaches. “Sounds nice.” She already has a slice ready for you, hands it over while she starts to speak. “SOUNDS nice? Wait til you taste how it TASTES! This is gonna be the bestest ‘I'm so glad you didn't seriously injure yourself the other day and you already got better already' cake you'll ever eat! Oh, unless I have to make another one someday.” The cake does taste nice. “I HOPE I don't have to make another one someday. Or no, I hope I DO have to, ‘cause then you wouldn't be seriously injured. Or, uh… I dunno. I lost myself.” She laughed. “So, how ya enjoying the party?” You struggle to talk with cake in your mouth. “I don't know. I just got here.” “Well that's fine, cause this baby is lastin’ ALL NIGHT!” Her hoof is slung around you as she speaks. “And it’s just for YOU!” You pause. “What do ponies do at parties?” “Talk to different ponies. Eat cake. Get a hug from their best friend, Pinkie Pie.” She says. “Look's like you've got two of those down already!” Before you can respond she already has you in a close embrace. “IT'S YOUR PARTY!” she shouts at you, before walking off. Now it's you, solitary in a numerous beast, the only one of a many, cake half digested and floor beneath and unsure. Unsure. Every pony else is already entangled in some play of two or three, spent in their little circles exchanging eyes and words, blocked and icy, no more space aside. How are you meant to talk to other ponies if the other ponies are already talking to each other? Then you notice her. Her face ahead, maw relaxed, set across the table from yourself, you recognise Berry Punch - readying herself to sup on the liquid spoils of the banquet. Her eyes drift, make contact with yours but lack spark and purpose. A dagger blunted beyond use. This is your party. It’s for you. “Hello.” You manage to allow yourself this only after a couple seconds for prep. “Hey,” the mare replies, “what's up with the party?” “Oh.” You take some time to work the gears in your head. “I don't know.” “It’s your party, right?” She sips from the cup held in her hoof. You worry this is a coded message you don't understand. “Oh, yeah.” You touch your face. “I got hurt the other day, but only a little. So I think Pinkie wanted to celebrate. I'm better now.” She crooks her eyes, drags down the brow. “Celebrate you getting hurt?” You laugh. “No. Celebrate me getting better.” “Cool.” She takes another sip. “How'd it happen?” You think. “You’d have to ask Pinkie that. I don’t really know about parties.” “I meant the injury.” Her grin was now pulled wide cross her face. “Ponyfight? Manticore? Railroad spike?” “Oh, no. Just a crash landing.” You bend your wings to prove the point. “Ah.” She takes a sip. “I knew a pony once, D.I.Y. sorta pony. Liked makin’ and fixin’.” Another sip. “One time he figured he'd build himself a shelf, talked about it so long. Designed it himself, bought and chopped the wood, had the paint and all ready. It was just assembling it. Hammer and nails. Bang, pop. First two pieces together. Bang, pop. Next one too. Then he’s lining it up, like the final nail he needs to hammer in, the nail is there, one hoof holding it, the other's steadying it, hammer in his maw. Then, who knows what happens? My guess is a sneeze. But suddenly, he doesn't know what happened, suddenly the hammer went down and the nail was right there, in his hoof. Well, not in the hoof, like the bit betwen the hoof and the rest of the leg. Like, the flesh that keeps it together. Right in there, hammered inside and hurting. For some reason he thought he could get it out himself just fine, like he didn't need to go to the hospital. Bad idea. That's when the bleeding really started” - you reflexively touch your face with your hoof - “like, REALLY started. So like he's trying to get the nail out, first with another hoof - that just jams it round, tears more of the flesh. Lodges it in further, and this point he's like holding back tears. I would'a just cried if I were him, but I guess he just didn't want to. So the hoof didn't work, figure's he'll use his teeth to get it out - which is a darn awkward position, if you think about it, tryna get the hoof in his mouth like that, but he's tryna get his teeth round it and he can’t tell if that metallic taste is the nail or the blood because, wow, yeah, he's bleeding a lot. Didn't realise til he wrangled his leg round his maw and felt how wet it was, but it was wet, soaking. So but he's got the nail clenched between his teeth now, and it must be bent or something by now because he just cannot get it out, he can't, it won’t come out - he’s tugging and tugging on this nail, but it won't budge, it's just like… Stuck, and every time he tries to pull it out it catches or something and hurts even more, so now he's tryna get it unstuck, jiggling it about again - remember, he’s in a lot of pain, and the jiggling isn't helping, right? But jiggling it about trying to get it free, and its like going through that sinew, right? The more he tries to get it out the more he pierces and tears. Now he really wants it out, he just wants this to be over. He's jamming his teeth in there, just gnawing and going crazy, his brain isn't even trying anymore he's just doing whatever he can think with his like primal, stupid brain, and thats gnaw and bite and shove, get it free, and then… Bang, pop. Clatter. The nail's on the floor, at last. But it doesn't stop hurting, no, it's even worse now. This searing fire of pain, like blood torrenting out, full on horror novel blood, and that's when he sees it: He popped his hoof off. It’s just hanging there, loose, from strings of flesh. Off. And that's when he decided to go to the hospital.” Her grin swims across her face, eyes sunken inside and deep before they readjust to you and widen again. You don't know what to say. So, staring at you, some face of death upon her, she asks you a question: Are you okay? MuffinsDerpy did not deliver mail on Sundays - this is because there was no mail on Sundays. Derpy, instead, delivered cakes and pastries and similar things. She did this because Sunday was the day Sugarcube Corner had their weekly deliveries and she much preferred it to staying home all day. She liked Sugarcube Corner because it was a nice place to be. It looked nice, it smelled nice and it sold nice food. And, of course, the pony at the counter was always nice too. The pony at the counter was usually Pinkie Pie, but the Cakes themselves were just as kind to customers. One time Derpy Hooves came in while Pinkie Pie’s sister Maud Pie was filling in for Pinkie Pie, on account of Pinkie Pie being sick, and Maud Pie being in town and Maud Pie not being sick, and perhaps Maud Pie wasn’t necessarily the customer service type, what with her unusual demeanor and all, but Derpy still appreciated Maud for trying her best - which Maud Pie did, try her best. Derpy liked delivering food for Sugarcube Corner because other ponies liked Sugarcube Corner and they liked the food from Sugarcube Corner, so they also liked Derpy for delivering it for them. Derpy considered this a win-win. The pay was a bonus - it wasn’t quite as good as a day delivering mail, but it did come with muffins. Derpy liked muffins. So, here was Derpy: Waiting in front of Sugarcube Corner on a Sunday morning. Derpy waited outside the bakery, rather than inside, because her cart was too big to fit inside the Bakery. She used a cart because there was often lots of boxed baked goods to deliver, and they were too plentiful and too fragile to try and carry by hoof. Instead, Pinkie Pie (or the Cakes, or, one time, Spike - a dragon friend of Pinkie Pie) would load the boxes into the cart and Derpy would walk the cart from house to house. This was not a bad way to go about things - many ponies did this: Farm ponies did this every day. Once a week was not so bad. Plus, Derpy was not the best at flying, so walking was good once in a while. She tried her best flying but she often crashed. Walking was simply less likely to end up with her hurt. This Sunday was a warm, sunny Sunday - it being about the time in Spring it started to feel like Summer instead. It was a pegasus job to make sure that was the case: Derpy knew a few ponies on the weather team. She delivered them mail. Mail delivery was usually a pegasus job too, but just about anypony could get the job if they cared enough. Derpy was a pony who really cared. Weather made ponies happy, but in a distant logical way. Getting things made ponies happy in a raw, direct way. Mail was a thing. Weather was not. Of course, not all mail made ponies happy - some mail happened to make ponies very sad. Derpy once delivered herself an invitation to the funeral of a pony she knew. She knew she didn't feel happy when she got that invitation. When mail made ponies sad, it still made them a little happy in that distant logical way, though. Thunderstorms, however, made ponies sad in a raw, direct way but it did not make them happy in a distant logical way. The reason why even bad mail made ponies happy was so: It reminded ponies that they are alive. That others are aware of them, and that they are thought of and perceived. Most ponies are secretly afraid that they do not exist - that they are some kind of ghost that nopony else knows about and that ponies stop thinking about them when they leave the room. Mail was proof otherwise. Mail made ponies happy. There was one exception for this: Junk mail. Junk mail did not make ponies happy. It did not remind them that they really existed. In fact, it made them think they did not really exist. It was extremely illegal to tamper with most mail in Equestria but it was not illegal to tamper with junk mail, so Derpy threw it out when she found it. Cake deliveries mostly made ponies happy because most ponies like cake. Pinkie Pie was loading boxes into Derpy’s cart. “Hiya, Derps! It’s never Sunday without Miss Hooves!” Pinkie said this to Derpy every Sunday, even on the Sundays when Derpy wasn’t delivering or when Pinkie Pie wasn’t working at Sugarcube Corner. “So, how ya been?” The boxes being loaded into the cart were all made out of card or paper, or something similar. They were a slightly muted pink with ‘Sugarcube Corner’ in a fancy white font on top. The boxes hinged open at the back and had a sticker on the front keeping them closed and asserting their freshness: ‘Fresh and delicious!’, they said, in a similar font to the ‘Sugarcube Corner’ on top. Derpy stopped and thought for a moment. “Good”, she said. Then she thought some more. “Thank you for the party. I’m sorry I left early.” “You didn’t leave early,” Pinkie said, “it was your party. You can’t leave your own party early.” Derpy thought Pinkie Pie was strange but Derpy did not judge Pinkie Pie for this. Derpy thought it was quite good for ponies to be strange because then it meant they were actually them. “But I didn’t stay for long.” Derpy waited again before speaking. “It was a lot of effort for a party. And I left very quickly. Maybe you feel… Like you wasted your time.” What Derpy meant to say was this: ‘I feel like I wasted your time. I want you to try and reassure me even though I know it won’t make me feel any better’. “Eh,” was Pinkie Pie’s response. “I had fun!” One of the reasons that Derpy thought Pinkie Pie was weird was Pinkie Pie often stood on her hind legs only, rather than all four. She did that now when loading up Derpy’s cart. Derpy started thinking again. Then Derpy spoke. “I was glad to see everypony there. And it meant a lot to me that you would throw that party for me.” Pinkie Pie said this: “Oh, it was nothing’. I would'a done that for anypony!” What Pinkie Pie meant to say was this: ‘I love you. You are never a burden to me, because I love you.’ Then Pinkie Pie said this: “Done! You're good to go!” She said this because she had finished loading up Derpy’s cart. Derpy thought to herself that it was a good day to walk through Ponyville with a cart. It was the market that day, which meant there were lots of other ponies walking through Ponyville with their own carts. Derpy liked to walk past them and smile and nod. They would often smile and nod back. One pony, Big MacIntosh, had started to wink at her when she walked past and smiled and nodded. Derpy would giggle and wink back. Big MacIntosh was one of those farm ponies who walked their carts about every day. Derpy delivered his sister apple fritters every Sunday, even though she could make them at home. One time Derpy asked Big MacIntosh’s sister this: “I wonder, why do you always order apple fritters from the bakery when you could have some with your own apples from the farm?” Big MacIntosh’s sister lived on an apple farm. Big MacIntosh did too. This was Big MacIntosh’s sister’s response: “These are my apples.” The first pony Derpy had to deliver to was named Strawberry Sunrise. She lived close to Sugarcube Corner. She had ordered strawberry tarts. Derpy knocked on Strawberry Sunrise’s door: When the door opened, Derpy said “Delivery!” Strawberry Sunrise smiled and said “Strawberry tarts!” Derpy did not have the box of tarts ready so she had to look through the cart to find it. The first deliveries scheduled were on the top of the pile in the cart, so they were easy to get. Pinkie Pie was clever like this. When Derpy gave the tarts to Strawberry Sunrise, Strawberry Sunrise smiled again and said ‘thank you’. Derpy said ‘thank you’ too, then Strawberry Sunrise closed the door and Derpy left. Most deliveries were similar to this. One pony made it very difficult for Derpy to deliver her cakes too. This pony did not do it on purpose, so Derpy was not upset at them. It was difficult for Derpy to deliver to this pony because she lived on a cloud. Derpy could not walk to the cloud and she was too weak to carry the cart up to it. This meant that every time Derpy delivered to this pony, Derpy had to take off the cart, grab the box and then fly up to the house to deliver the cake. This pony’s name was Rainbow Dash and she and Derpy had had a somewhat awkward encounter recently which had led to the also somewhat awkward party which Pinkie Pie had held for Derpy. The awkward encounter with Rainbow Dash was that Derpy had injured herself in front of Rainbow Dash and Rainbow Dash still did not know how to talk to most disabled ponies. The way to talk to disabled ponies that Rainbow Dash still did not know was just to talk to them as you would talk to any other pony without disabilities. “Delivery!” It was not possible to knock on clouds the same way you would knock on a door, so Derpy just said this out loud without doing any knocking. When Rainbow Dash came to the door, she said this: “Oh. Derpy. I didn’t expect to see you today.” Rainbow Dash was not lying when she said this, even though Derpy had delivered her a different type of cake for most of the past 60 or so Sundays. “Listen, I’m sorry. About the other day.” “Why?” Derpy asked. She was holding out a box with a chocolate cake in it. She was holding it out on one of her hooves. Her other three were still on the cloud. Rainbow Dash now thought for a moment. After the moment was up, all she said was “I’m sorry.” Derpy thought too. “Delivery!” Derpy said, and held out the box again. “Chocolate cake,” said Rainbow Dash. “Thank you.” “Thank you!”, said Derpy. Then Derpy flew back to the ground and put her cart back on. The reason Derpy said ‘thank you’ after she delivered something was that she was very happy that the other ponies were polite enough to say ‘thank you’ first. There were some ponies that didn’t say ‘thank you’ first so Derpy didn’t say ‘thank you’ back. One of the ponies who didn’t say ‘thank you’ first was Filthy Rich, who usually ordered a millionaire’s shortbread. Derpy wondered if he only ordered that because it sounded expensive, but she never asked because she didn’t care what Filthy Rich had to say since she was sure he wasn’t going to follow it up with ‘thank you’. The last delivery of the day was to Big MacIntosh’s sister, in Sweet Apple Acres. It was the last delivery every week because it was the furthest place out from Sugarcube Corner that Sugarcube Corner still delivered to. Sugarcube Corner only delivered this far out because Big MacIntosh’s sister was a friend of Pinkie Pie and the Cakes. When Derpy knocked on the door, she did not say “Delivery!” Instead, she said “Hey Applejack.” This was because Big MacIntosh’s sister’s name was Applejack, and also because Applejack called Derpy by name too. “Hey Derpy! Cart all good?” Applejack called Derpy by name because Derpy always borrowed the cart she used for deliveries from Applejack. Applejack would take it to the market in the morning, empty it, then give it to Derpy. “No problems today!” Derpy got the last box out of the cart. Applejack and Big MacIntosh and most other farm ponies were usually very good at taking care of their equipment. Sometimes Derpy would crash or bumble and dent the cart or mess up the wheels, but it would always be perfect again the next Sunday. “Apple fritters this week.” “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Applejack grabbed the box of apple fritters. “Thanks, Derpy. Wanna come in for a bit before you head off back out?” Applejack asked this every week. “I’m fine. Thank you.” Derpy said this every week too. “Thank you.” “You're always welcome.” Applejack said. “Thank you.” Derpy said. “I’ll take the cart round.” Derpy always took the cart into the barn herself, even when Applejack offered to help. “See ya next week!” said Applejack. “Will do!” said Derpy. Then Derpy walked off. After she was finished with Applejack, Derpy walked all the way back into Ponyville and then into Sugarcube Corner. When she went back to Sugarcube Corner, she would talk to Pinkie Pie and pick up her muffins. “So, how’d it go?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Good.” Derpy replied. “Good.” Pinkie Pie said. “Muffins’re fresh!” Derpy grabbed the box from Pinkie Pie. The muffins came in the same sort of box Derpy had been delivering to everypony else. This box was different, though, because it was hers. When Derpy got home and opened the box, she realized that Pinkie Pie had given her an extra muffin than usual. She wasn’t sure why. She just ate it.
And a poem, too.Swift hum and fleet and dash of street hooves catch up to follow wings aside but start to stride and stretch the air to swallow that ground below should feel so slow and the land but empty and hollow. The clouds that glide along your side and tell you now you’re flying to leave the land that smother of hand to forget the feeling you’re dying a lack of pain is ne’er true slain ‘course, pain still exists when you’re crying.
DerpyDerpy Hooves has, since birth, been completely unable to feel pain - it’s something a lot of ponies seem to covet (stunt ponies have certainly proclaimed their jealousy, and Trixie once almost got Derpy to join her act for a trick she called “firewalking” before other ponies convinced her not to) what with the way it seems to lend Derpy this fearlessness about her (not uncommon) tumbles and crashes. There are ponies out there who don’t covet it, but that’s more for the clumsiness they assume it causes in Derpy - that her tumbles and crashes are caused by a carelessness instilled with the lack of pain. Doctors who have examined Derpy generally agree that the clumsiness is caused by a dyspraxic comorbidity of the painlessness, rather than some further development of the painlessness itself; with Derpy’s birth not being the easiest, like, medically and all. But so the point is that Derpy is both very clumsy and totally unable to feel pain, which explains her very rapid descent onto the Wonderbolts training fields and also her very rapid shaking-off of said descent - the whole situation witnessed by Rainbow Dash. “Hey, are you- are you alright?” Rainbow Dash was standing over Derpy’s still sort of hunched frame - Derpy still not having fully risen from the small divot she’d left in the grass and dirt. “Think so.” Derpy didn’t even look up, she was just rooting about in her saddlebags for something or other, legs quivering slightly beneath her in this way that made the rustling of said saddlebags seem unnaturally frenzied. “That was a pretty bad wipeout, Derp.” “Hold on a moment…” Derpy sprung her wing from out of her saddlebag, holding something small between the feathers. “I have a letter for you, Dash!” “You’re shaking, Derpy. I can see you shaking.” Rainbow Dash looked between the almost full standing figure in front of her and the training facility proper, many paces back. “Do you need to, like, come inside or something?” “Oh, I’m alright Dash. I don’t wanna…” Derpy transferred the letter from her wing to her hoof. “I just have this letter for you. You must see a lotta ponies crash up here, huh?” Rainbow Dash grabbed the letter. “Most of those ponies are Wonderbolts. Why didn’t you just deliver this to my place back in Ponyville?” Derpy sort of cocked her head at this, this complete lack of understanding. “Well, you’re not in Ponyville. You’re here.” If she’d tilted her head the opposite direction, her eyes would almost look in line, but as it stood they just seemed even more out of wack than usual. Derpy used to feel very self-conscious about her eyes (Ponies always seemed to stare at them, after all), but then, after some point, she began to feel more self-conscious about feeling self-conscious about her eyes (but then again, isn’t that just what eye contact is, the staring at her eyes? Is she so special that she’s, like, exempt from eye contact?), and so she just decided she’d try and ignore it all. Just ignore thinking about her eyes at all, the same way she never really thought about the color of her coat or the cutie mark she wore on her flanks, these things that were just her in this way she didn’t have to think about. It worked sometimes, sometimes it didn’t and she just got caught up in these even deeper patterns of thinking/being self-conscious/being self-conscious about being self-conscious/etc. about her eyes. But today was one of those days she didn’t have to think about her eyes, the same way she didn’t have to think about ‘is it even worth getting up from this fall’ today. Rainbow Dash tucked her letter into that little band that kept her goggles on her face. “Do you have loads more mail to deliver today?” “Oh, umm… Only a little.” Derpy was folding and flexing her wings in and out as she spoke - scrunching them in basically every way they could be scrunched, rolling them about in their joints, occasionally touching her hooves with her feathers - alternating between smooth and jerky motions, these slow motion flails. It almost had the coursing of a rhythm and system throughout it, though one that seemed impenetrable to the outside observer. Her hind legs were still shaking, and the rest of her along with them. “I delivered most of the Ponyville mail already.” “Do you think you can take a little break, then?” Rainbow Dash looked back to the training facility. “I’m not, like, worried about you, or anything. I just think- I mean it’s not a short flight back to Ponyville, I just thought you might want to rest.” Derpy thought for a moment, wings now settled astride her barrel in rest. She was a mare who had no problem sitting and thinking in silence, even if she was mid-conversation. The phrase ‘think before you speak’ had floated around her a lot when she was a filly, so she did. She thought before she spoke. “Okay.” So she got up and trotted, line as straight as she could, alongside Dash. “Aren’t you gonna open your letter?” Derpy was laying full body across the sofa in the Wonderbolts Rest Area, possibly the only comfy surface in the whole Wonderbolt Academy. There wasn’t any conscious ‘anti-comfort’ philosophy amongst the Wonderbolts, it’s more that they just didn’t have the time for comfort - or, like, if they did they were at home already. “Sure, yeah, I just- I just gotta talk to Spitfire real quick.” Rainbow Dash was off as soon as she came. Derpy lay, then, just staring at the ceiling. It was a common ceiling of interior modern pegasus architecture - thick plywood with cloud-fluffing either side, for insulation. Heavier materials were often too awkward to work with, just in terms of working at altitude/with clouds, so plywood/cloud combination was a nice mix of price, ease of assembly and function. It, unfortunately, didn’t make much to look at, though - it was the same sort of cloud you could see anywhere in Cloudsdale, just with a little light-ish brown faint behind it. Derpy was the sort of pony to touch her face without realising, this absent minded action of thought (or, sometimes, thoughtlessness) which overtook her occasionally - which, today, is what finally alerted her to the blood sort of globbing from her nose. It wasn’t a particularly fast or heavy stream, more this slow, slow, slow release of thicker blood that had already started clotting to the fur of her face. Rainbow Dash didn’t mention any bleeding to Derpy. Derpy wondered if Rainbow Dash thought she (Derpy) already knew about the bleeding, and was just trying to be, like, fearless about it. Derpy was not a fearless pony. She remembered saying, quite casually, to another pony when the topic of fear/fearlessness came up something along the lines of ‘it’s not the falling that scares me, it’s the getting back up’ and then being very proud of saying that afterwards, that she was able to so casually say this thing which actually seemed quite profound to her. Derpy wondered if maybe she should ask Rainbow Dash for a tissue, just for the bleeding, or if it’s better not to bother her for whatever important thing she has to talk to Spitfire about, and she wonders this long enough that she decides laying here on this couch doesn’t seem to be doing her any issues so she’ll just keep doing that instead. One time Derpy broke a wing and only realized it when she started crashing a lot more than usual on her daily delivery, and asked a doctor about it thinking maybe it was some issue with her ears. She remembered hearing that ear infections can cause, like, balance issues or something. Since that major crash and wing incident, she’s taken more care to properly inspect her wings post-crash - along with that she developed this tendency to probe at the ground with her hooves: It’s not as conscious as her wing examinations, but still as important in terms of her telling when something is ‘off’, really, just with how she’s always nicking at or digging into the ground now, so she knows how it feels even if she’s not necessarily consciously feeling all of it, so she also knows how it’s not meant to feel, ergo she also also knows that something isn’t right if it doesn’t feel right - if and when it does end up feeling not right. The couch was this long, flat L-shape with a single raised edge against the long back of the L. It didn’t have any rests on the other edges, just sort of two flat rectangles placed against each other for the most part. It was comfy though, whatever fabric it was made of feeling nice against her body, and firm enough that she didn’t feel like she was sinking - a feeling she got from most of the furniture she owned herself. Derpy was still staring at the ceiling, so didn’t notice that Rainbow Dash had returned with Spitfire in tow. One of her legs was still twitching, but only a little. “Derpy Hooves!” Spitfire was physically incapable of sounding both loud and empathetic at the same time. “After correspondence with the Ponyville post office you have been relieved of further duty today. Rainbow Dash is willing to cover the rest of your shift.” Derpy let her head loll to the front side of the sofa, where Spitfire and Dash were standing. She didn’t speak for a few seconds. “Can I have a tissue for my nose?” Her voice was very nasal, but this was unrelated to the nosebleed. She just spoke like that. “For the blood, I mean. I don’t need to blow my nose.” Spitfire looked to Rainbow Dash for maybe half a moment, then back to Derpy. “On it, citizen.” Derpy thought it was strange that Spitfire called her ‘citizen’. While, admittedly, she hadn’t spoken to or seen Spitfire all that much, she couldn’t recall Spitfire calling any other ‘citizens’ ‘citizen’. At the same time, though, Derpy wasn’t unused to ponies acting differently around her in this sort of small way, this way she couldn’t always point right at - sometimes less blatant, even, than slipping in the word ‘citizen’ out of nowhere - but she could tell just that ponies weren’t working their A game around her, a lot of the time. Like they lost their metaphorical balance, in terms of social skills and whatnot, this little thing Derpy could only just pick up on. “So, should I just… Take your bags and go?” Rainbow Dash asked. Derpy didn’t answer. She was staring back at the ceiling now. “I mean, I’m covering your-” “I’ll be fine.” Derpy didn’t mean to interrupt Dash, it’s just it took her that long to think of what she wanted to say. “I just need to clean my nose.” “Are- Are you sure?” Rainbow Dash was trotting on closer to Derpy, now, standing right by the sofa and looking over this supine mare below her. “I’ll be fine.” Derpy sniffed up a glob of blood. There was some silence as she let herself think for a while before she came to what she had to say. “It’s not the falling that’s scary. I don’t think it’s getting back up, either.” From the looks of things, Dash didn’t seem at all sure what Derpy meant. Or maybe that sort of inattentive goggle she was giving was from her still piecing together Derpy’s getting back up off the couch in general. “I think the scary part is not getting back up, right?” Derpy slipped back off the couch, slowly, and sidled over to Spitfire - who had appeared by now with a full box of tissues. “Thank you. I got some mail to deliver.” She took a tissue from the box, erupted into it, scrunched it up and handed Spitfire back the now damp red ball. Rainbow Dash and Sptifire still just stared on, confused. “I got some mail to deliver.”
Derpy HoovesMoon gloating in a pitch sky: Ponyville lays bathed in the grey-light residuals of nightshine, bearing cut-offs and secondhanders of the sun’s own words, yet coming off as strikingly more beautiful and distinct. At least, that’s what you’ve always thought: Maybe it’s just the calm that night brings, this round and warm and wholeness of an emptiness, distant lights in happy homes and still, still, still streets. Certainly fraught with none of the rush and bustle that comes from Ponyville’s daytime markets or mail deliveries - you know a lot about mail delivery, of course: Your name is Derpy Hooves and you’ve been delivering mail for a not-insignificant portion of your life, and - unfortunately - you really don’t have the time right now to appreciate the current lunar beauty. You’re in a bit of a hurry. You have to get to Pinkie Pie’s surprise party for you that she made you promise you wouldn’t tell anypony that you know that you know about it, it being some sort of (now wholly unsurprising) I'm-glad-you-got-well,-and-soon-party type party. You, with your hobble on the cobble and wings pressed astride barrel, are notably not flying: You haven't flown at night for a long time - your vision isn't the best which, alongside the dyspraxic/CIP comorbidity issue, has led to many experiences of gravity’s familiarity lost, it having been thrown away through the same legs your head rested between, thrust into some Gaskinian Knot, stars being but nopony's guide in your own sea of imbalance, the grass for the ceiling and the sky for the floor. But, now, the cobble hobbling, hooves protracting tap-taps from the stone beneath, sets you well on the path to Sugarcube Corner, sets you in the moonglow that bounces in perfect strips across your coat and, soon enough, sets you in front of that wood-oak monolith: marked with its own pretty-pink-paint, proclaiming itself the gateway - this liminal arbiter of space. If you weren't already aware of the surprise party, the bakery’s exuberance of warm-yellow glow, streaming through window-glass and staining hoof-path and no-longer-greeneries alike, would have likely been unusual. The expected proclamation of knock-knocking of hoof on wood was dashed instead with the creaking of hinges, door folding inwards, already unlocked and loose. A cacophony of ponies staring inwards, outwards all towards you - grouped and bunched and stead astride of one another in wait, your hoof bringing with it the final hand of the clock. You recognize most of them, their vacant eyes boggling inside your own - direct guided, invisible strings taut between you and everypony else. The cacophony lets out a cacophony of their own: “Surprise!” Again, their eyes making contact with your own. Your eyes. There are an awful lot of ponies to cram into one bakery, this profligate of hooves for someone like you, staring, staring into your eyes. Despite the working of brain and throat, no words leave your maw but only a hopeless gumming of tongue about itself: What are you supposed to say? You are not surprised. This is expected, of you and Pinkie at least. The head is blasting, furnaces all on, firing every which way beam of light and electricity: Bolts and courses throughout, you feel your rear-left leg shaking, slightly. You swallow. There are a lot of ponies looking at you. Looking at your eyes. One word leaves your maw: “Oh.” The bounces of pink form and mane habits the crowd, tripping through in different spots til her snout is almost touching yours: “Hey Derpy! I’m so, so, so, so glad that you got better after you totally crashed out the other day! We all are!” Pinkie Pie’s head crooks indicated smiling, agreeable faces in the crowd. “Oh. Thank you. I was alright.” You reflexively bend and stretch your wings. “Sort of thing happens all the time.” A weak laugh escapes your maw. “Oh, oh, oh, oh! Remember that time you crashed out and you totally had to go to the hospital cause your wings were broken? ‘Member that?” Her head tilts as she speaks, the same way you’ve seen Applejack talk to her dog. “I remember. That was pretty bad.” You sniff and suddenly think to touch your face. “This wasn’t so bad. I’m getting better now.” Pointed daggers of iris and pupil still make their way from eyes of other ponies to your own. “Thank you for this party.” You then think to add: “It surprised me.” “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear, derps!” Some ponies try to adorn you with sobriquets. Most do not. Pinkie Pie sinks back into the pulsating sanctum of flesh and breath. You are still on the threshold, waiting to be scooped up and chewed. Your hooves press against the floor, ungular pressure taking up the stress of a sieved brain. You might as well enjoy your party, right? Hoof in front of hoof, considered ballerinic ambulation: Precise movements as you let yourself drift in to the tide, wall of hooves and maw opening to let you succumb, you glaze past bodies and dissolve into the center, the one, the Body, the Party. Some ponies are still staring at you. Others aren't even aware you sidled in. You're not sure which is worse. It's a bustle of forms, you're stuck between hoof and fur and table splattered with food, drink, little cakes. Embedded in the throes of social saturation, words whispered and shouting drifting across, zagging in your ears and bunching into your head, this swirl. Pinkie Pie is still there, chatting now to another pony you don't recognise. There’s a cake with your face emblazoned on the icing, this confectioned reflection of form fit with gog-eyes and smile, staring back at real gog-eyes with no smile beneath. Hooves, again, work beneath to draw you to the table. You are eager to take a bite out of yourself, to carve in and grab a slice. The pink form seems to notice you, and zips right back. “Ooooooh, you're gonna love it! It's peach and vanilla!” she says. You didn't know they did peach cakes, but you like peaches. “Sounds nice.” She already has a slice ready for you, hands it over while she starts to speak. “SOUNDS nice? Wait til you taste how it TASTES! This is gonna be the bestest ‘I'm so glad you didn't seriously injure yourself the other day and you already got better already' cake you'll ever eat! Oh, unless I have to make another one someday.” The cake does taste nice. “I HOPE I don't have to make another one someday. Or no, I hope I DO have to, ‘cause then you wouldn't be seriously injured. Or, uh… I dunno. I lost myself.” She laughed. “So, how ya enjoying the party?” You struggle to talk with cake in your mouth. “I don't know. I just got here.” “Well that's fine, cause this baby is lastin’ ALL NIGHT!” Her hoof is slung around you as she speaks. “And it’s just for YOU!” You pause. “What do ponies do at parties?” “Talk to different ponies. Eat cake. Get a hug from their best friend, Pinkie Pie.” She says. “Look's like you've got two of those down already!” Before you can respond she already has you in a close embrace. “IT'S YOUR PARTY!” she shouts at you, before walking off. Now it's you, solitary in a numerous beast, the only one of a many, cake half digested and floor beneath and unsure. Unsure. Every pony else is already entangled in some play of two or three, spent in their little circles exchanging eyes and words, blocked and icy, no more space aside. How are you meant to talk to other ponies if the other ponies are already talking to each other? Then you notice her. Her face ahead, maw relaxed, set across the table from yourself, you recognise Berry Punch - readying herself to sup on the liquid spoils of the banquet. Her eyes drift, make contact with yours but lack spark and purpose. A dagger blunted beyond use. This is your party. It’s for you. “Hello.” You manage to allow yourself this only after a couple seconds for prep. “Hey,” the mare replies, “what's up with the party?” “Oh.” You take some time to work the gears in your head. “I don't know.” “It’s your party, right?” She sips from the cup held in her hoof. You worry this is a coded message you don't understand. “Oh, yeah.” You touch your face. “I got hurt the other day, but only a little. So I think Pinkie wanted to celebrate. I'm better now.” She crooks her eyes, drags down the brow. “Celebrate you getting hurt?” You laugh. “No. Celebrate me getting better.” “Cool.” She takes another sip. “How'd it happen?” You think. “You’d have to ask Pinkie that. I don’t really know about parties.” “I meant the injury.” Her grin was now pulled wide cross her face. “Ponyfight? Manticore? Railroad spike?” “Oh, no. Just a crash landing.” You bend your wings to prove the point. “Ah.” She takes a sip. “I knew a pony once, D.I.Y. sorta pony. Liked makin’ and fixin’.” Another sip. “One time he figured he'd build himself a shelf, talked about it so long. Designed it himself, bought and chopped the wood, had the paint and all ready. It was just assembling it. Hammer and nails. Bang, pop. First two pieces together. Bang, pop. Next one too. Then he’s lining it up, like the final nail he needs to hammer in, the nail is there, one hoof holding it, the other's steadying it, hammer in his maw. Then, who knows what happens? My guess is a sneeze. But suddenly, he doesn't know what happened, suddenly the hammer went down and the nail was right there, in his hoof. Well, not in the hoof, like the bit betwen the hoof and the rest of the leg. Like, the flesh that keeps it together. Right in there, hammered inside and hurting. For some reason he thought he could get it out himself just fine, like he didn't need to go to the hospital. Bad idea. That's when the bleeding really started” - you reflexively touch your face with your hoof - “like, REALLY started. So like he's trying to get the nail out, first with another hoof - that just jams it round, tears more of the flesh. Lodges it in further, and this point he's like holding back tears. I would'a just cried if I were him, but I guess he just didn't want to. So the hoof didn't work, figure's he'll use his teeth to get it out - which is a darn awkward position, if you think about it, tryna get the hoof in his mouth like that, but he's tryna get his teeth round it and he can’t tell if that metallic taste is the nail or the blood because, wow, yeah, he's bleeding a lot. Didn't realise til he wrangled his leg round his maw and felt how wet it was, but it was wet, soaking. So but he's got the nail clenched between his teeth now, and it must be bent or something by now because he just cannot get it out, he can't, it won’t come out - he’s tugging and tugging on this nail, but it won't budge, it's just like… Stuck, and every time he tries to pull it out it catches or something and hurts even more, so now he's tryna get it unstuck, jiggling it about again - remember, he’s in a lot of pain, and the jiggling isn't helping, right? But jiggling it about trying to get it free, and its like going through that sinew, right? The more he tries to get it out the more he pierces and tears. Now he really wants it out, he just wants this to be over. He's jamming his teeth in there, just gnawing and going crazy, his brain isn't even trying anymore he's just doing whatever he can think with his like primal, stupid brain, and thats gnaw and bite and shove, get it free, and then… Bang, pop. Clatter. The nail's on the floor, at last. But it doesn't stop hurting, no, it's even worse now. This searing fire of pain, like blood torrenting out, full on horror novel blood, and that's when he sees it: He popped his hoof off. It’s just hanging there, loose, from strings of flesh. Off. And that's when he decided to go to the hospital.” Her grin swims across her face, eyes sunken inside and deep before they readjust to you and widen again. You don't know what to say. So, staring at you, some face of death upon her, she asks you a question: Are you okay?
MuffinsDerpy did not deliver mail on Sundays - this is because there was no mail on Sundays. Derpy, instead, delivered cakes and pastries and similar things. She did this because Sunday was the day Sugarcube Corner had their weekly deliveries and she much preferred it to staying home all day. She liked Sugarcube Corner because it was a nice place to be. It looked nice, it smelled nice and it sold nice food. And, of course, the pony at the counter was always nice too. The pony at the counter was usually Pinkie Pie, but the Cakes themselves were just as kind to customers. One time Derpy Hooves came in while Pinkie Pie’s sister Maud Pie was filling in for Pinkie Pie, on account of Pinkie Pie being sick, and Maud Pie being in town and Maud Pie not being sick, and perhaps Maud Pie wasn’t necessarily the customer service type, what with her unusual demeanor and all, but Derpy still appreciated Maud for trying her best - which Maud Pie did, try her best. Derpy liked delivering food for Sugarcube Corner because other ponies liked Sugarcube Corner and they liked the food from Sugarcube Corner, so they also liked Derpy for delivering it for them. Derpy considered this a win-win. The pay was a bonus - it wasn’t quite as good as a day delivering mail, but it did come with muffins. Derpy liked muffins. So, here was Derpy: Waiting in front of Sugarcube Corner on a Sunday morning. Derpy waited outside the bakery, rather than inside, because her cart was too big to fit inside the Bakery. She used a cart because there was often lots of boxed baked goods to deliver, and they were too plentiful and too fragile to try and carry by hoof. Instead, Pinkie Pie (or the Cakes, or, one time, Spike - a dragon friend of Pinkie Pie) would load the boxes into the cart and Derpy would walk the cart from house to house. This was not a bad way to go about things - many ponies did this: Farm ponies did this every day. Once a week was not so bad. Plus, Derpy was not the best at flying, so walking was good once in a while. She tried her best flying but she often crashed. Walking was simply less likely to end up with her hurt. This Sunday was a warm, sunny Sunday - it being about the time in Spring it started to feel like Summer instead. It was a pegasus job to make sure that was the case: Derpy knew a few ponies on the weather team. She delivered them mail. Mail delivery was usually a pegasus job too, but just about anypony could get the job if they cared enough. Derpy was a pony who really cared. Weather made ponies happy, but in a distant logical way. Getting things made ponies happy in a raw, direct way. Mail was a thing. Weather was not. Of course, not all mail made ponies happy - some mail happened to make ponies very sad. Derpy once delivered herself an invitation to the funeral of a pony she knew. She knew she didn't feel happy when she got that invitation. When mail made ponies sad, it still made them a little happy in that distant logical way, though. Thunderstorms, however, made ponies sad in a raw, direct way but it did not make them happy in a distant logical way. The reason why even bad mail made ponies happy was so: It reminded ponies that they are alive. That others are aware of them, and that they are thought of and perceived. Most ponies are secretly afraid that they do not exist - that they are some kind of ghost that nopony else knows about and that ponies stop thinking about them when they leave the room. Mail was proof otherwise. Mail made ponies happy. There was one exception for this: Junk mail. Junk mail did not make ponies happy. It did not remind them that they really existed. In fact, it made them think they did not really exist. It was extremely illegal to tamper with most mail in Equestria but it was not illegal to tamper with junk mail, so Derpy threw it out when she found it. Cake deliveries mostly made ponies happy because most ponies like cake. Pinkie Pie was loading boxes into Derpy’s cart. “Hiya, Derps! It’s never Sunday without Miss Hooves!” Pinkie said this to Derpy every Sunday, even on the Sundays when Derpy wasn’t delivering or when Pinkie Pie wasn’t working at Sugarcube Corner. “So, how ya been?” The boxes being loaded into the cart were all made out of card or paper, or something similar. They were a slightly muted pink with ‘Sugarcube Corner’ in a fancy white font on top. The boxes hinged open at the back and had a sticker on the front keeping them closed and asserting their freshness: ‘Fresh and delicious!’, they said, in a similar font to the ‘Sugarcube Corner’ on top. Derpy stopped and thought for a moment. “Good”, she said. Then she thought some more. “Thank you for the party. I’m sorry I left early.” “You didn’t leave early,” Pinkie said, “it was your party. You can’t leave your own party early.” Derpy thought Pinkie Pie was strange but Derpy did not judge Pinkie Pie for this. Derpy thought it was quite good for ponies to be strange because then it meant they were actually them. “But I didn’t stay for long.” Derpy waited again before speaking. “It was a lot of effort for a party. And I left very quickly. Maybe you feel… Like you wasted your time.” What Derpy meant to say was this: ‘I feel like I wasted your time. I want you to try and reassure me even though I know it won’t make me feel any better’. “Eh,” was Pinkie Pie’s response. “I had fun!” One of the reasons that Derpy thought Pinkie Pie was weird was Pinkie Pie often stood on her hind legs only, rather than all four. She did that now when loading up Derpy’s cart. Derpy started thinking again. Then Derpy spoke. “I was glad to see everypony there. And it meant a lot to me that you would throw that party for me.” Pinkie Pie said this: “Oh, it was nothing’. I would'a done that for anypony!” What Pinkie Pie meant to say was this: ‘I love you. You are never a burden to me, because I love you.’ Then Pinkie Pie said this: “Done! You're good to go!” She said this because she had finished loading up Derpy’s cart. Derpy thought to herself that it was a good day to walk through Ponyville with a cart. It was the market that day, which meant there were lots of other ponies walking through Ponyville with their own carts. Derpy liked to walk past them and smile and nod. They would often smile and nod back. One pony, Big MacIntosh, had started to wink at her when she walked past and smiled and nodded. Derpy would giggle and wink back. Big MacIntosh was one of those farm ponies who walked their carts about every day. Derpy delivered his sister apple fritters every Sunday, even though she could make them at home. One time Derpy asked Big MacIntosh’s sister this: “I wonder, why do you always order apple fritters from the bakery when you could have some with your own apples from the farm?” Big MacIntosh’s sister lived on an apple farm. Big MacIntosh did too. This was Big MacIntosh’s sister’s response: “These are my apples.” The first pony Derpy had to deliver to was named Strawberry Sunrise. She lived close to Sugarcube Corner. She had ordered strawberry tarts. Derpy knocked on Strawberry Sunrise’s door: When the door opened, Derpy said “Delivery!” Strawberry Sunrise smiled and said “Strawberry tarts!” Derpy did not have the box of tarts ready so she had to look through the cart to find it. The first deliveries scheduled were on the top of the pile in the cart, so they were easy to get. Pinkie Pie was clever like this. When Derpy gave the tarts to Strawberry Sunrise, Strawberry Sunrise smiled again and said ‘thank you’. Derpy said ‘thank you’ too, then Strawberry Sunrise closed the door and Derpy left. Most deliveries were similar to this. One pony made it very difficult for Derpy to deliver her cakes too. This pony did not do it on purpose, so Derpy was not upset at them. It was difficult for Derpy to deliver to this pony because she lived on a cloud. Derpy could not walk to the cloud and she was too weak to carry the cart up to it. This meant that every time Derpy delivered to this pony, Derpy had to take off the cart, grab the box and then fly up to the house to deliver the cake. This pony’s name was Rainbow Dash and she and Derpy had had a somewhat awkward encounter recently which had led to the also somewhat awkward party which Pinkie Pie had held for Derpy. The awkward encounter with Rainbow Dash was that Derpy had injured herself in front of Rainbow Dash and Rainbow Dash still did not know how to talk to most disabled ponies. The way to talk to disabled ponies that Rainbow Dash still did not know was just to talk to them as you would talk to any other pony without disabilities. “Delivery!” It was not possible to knock on clouds the same way you would knock on a door, so Derpy just said this out loud without doing any knocking. When Rainbow Dash came to the door, she said this: “Oh. Derpy. I didn’t expect to see you today.” Rainbow Dash was not lying when she said this, even though Derpy had delivered her a different type of cake for most of the past 60 or so Sundays. “Listen, I’m sorry. About the other day.” “Why?” Derpy asked. She was holding out a box with a chocolate cake in it. She was holding it out on one of her hooves. Her other three were still on the cloud. Rainbow Dash now thought for a moment. After the moment was up, all she said was “I’m sorry.” Derpy thought too. “Delivery!” Derpy said, and held out the box again. “Chocolate cake,” said Rainbow Dash. “Thank you.” “Thank you!”, said Derpy. Then Derpy flew back to the ground and put her cart back on. The reason Derpy said ‘thank you’ after she delivered something was that she was very happy that the other ponies were polite enough to say ‘thank you’ first. There were some ponies that didn’t say ‘thank you’ first so Derpy didn’t say ‘thank you’ back. One of the ponies who didn’t say ‘thank you’ first was Filthy Rich, who usually ordered a millionaire’s shortbread. Derpy wondered if he only ordered that because it sounded expensive, but she never asked because she didn’t care what Filthy Rich had to say since she was sure he wasn’t going to follow it up with ‘thank you’. The last delivery of the day was to Big MacIntosh’s sister, in Sweet Apple Acres. It was the last delivery every week because it was the furthest place out from Sugarcube Corner that Sugarcube Corner still delivered to. Sugarcube Corner only delivered this far out because Big MacIntosh’s sister was a friend of Pinkie Pie and the Cakes. When Derpy knocked on the door, she did not say “Delivery!” Instead, she said “Hey Applejack.” This was because Big MacIntosh’s sister’s name was Applejack, and also because Applejack called Derpy by name too. “Hey Derpy! Cart all good?” Applejack called Derpy by name because Derpy always borrowed the cart she used for deliveries from Applejack. Applejack would take it to the market in the morning, empty it, then give it to Derpy. “No problems today!” Derpy got the last box out of the cart. Applejack and Big MacIntosh and most other farm ponies were usually very good at taking care of their equipment. Sometimes Derpy would crash or bumble and dent the cart or mess up the wheels, but it would always be perfect again the next Sunday. “Apple fritters this week.” “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Applejack grabbed the box of apple fritters. “Thanks, Derpy. Wanna come in for a bit before you head off back out?” Applejack asked this every week. “I’m fine. Thank you.” Derpy said this every week too. “Thank you.” “You're always welcome.” Applejack said. “Thank you.” Derpy said. “I’ll take the cart round.” Derpy always took the cart into the barn herself, even when Applejack offered to help. “See ya next week!” said Applejack. “Will do!” said Derpy. Then Derpy walked off. After she was finished with Applejack, Derpy walked all the way back into Ponyville and then into Sugarcube Corner. When she went back to Sugarcube Corner, she would talk to Pinkie Pie and pick up her muffins. “So, how’d it go?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Good.” Derpy replied. “Good.” Pinkie Pie said. “Muffins’re fresh!” Derpy grabbed the box from Pinkie Pie. The muffins came in the same sort of box Derpy had been delivering to everypony else. This box was different, though, because it was hers. When Derpy got home and opened the box, she realized that Pinkie Pie had given her an extra muffin than usual. She wasn’t sure why. She just ate it.
