Derp Eyed Ponies

Chapters

Chapter 1: Winnings
Chapter 2: Buying Happiness
Chapter 3: Reconciliation
Chapter 4: The Way It Should Be
Epilogue

Chapter 1: Winnings

“Alright, what are your numbers?” asked an impatient and dull stallion, sitting behind a counter with a pen behind his ear as he stared through the glass separating him from the line of ponies.

“Sixteen, seven, nine, six, eight and five!” exclaimed a jubilant, grey mare, bouncing around with a slip of paper between her hooves and delight chiseled into her features.

“OK...So you’ve matched five of the six numbers and you also managed to match the bonus ball, which means that you are entitled to...Five thousand bits,” he concluded after sifting through the mess of papers on the countertop. “I’ll be right back with your reward.”

Derpy watched gleefully as the depressed stallion got up from his seat and trotted through the door behind him, disappearing from her diplopic vision. Beside her stood her childhood friend, Carrot Top who came with her to both share in her excitement and to help her take her winnings home. Soon, the stallion returned with two, large bags balanced on top of both of his wings. The look on his face was evidence that the load was incredibly heavy, but neither Derpy nor Carrot cared -- they were just glad that this wasn’t a dream.

“Here you go,” moaned the pony in an envious tone as he trotted out of the door at the side and handed both bags over to the two good friends.

In an instant, they both fell to their knees. However, their smiles didn’t waver and the delighted aura around them never faltered.

“Thank you!” they chimed before cantering off with the mailmare’s winnings.

The Unicorn that stood behind them stared with fury in his blood red eyes as he watched them leave with more than ten times the amount he managed to win. Gritting his teeth, he turned his attention to the still bored stallion behind the counter when Derpy and Carrot Top could be seen no longer.

“Whew, we’re finally here!” exclaimed Carrot, wiping the sweat away with her hoof.

“Yeah,” agreed Derpy benignly. “It still doesn’t feel like home though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s not somewhere I want to be,” explained Derpy.

She too held a hoof to her forehead, but her mind was flooded with thoughts and visions of a future so bright that her hoof didn't even move. The sweat merely rolled over it and continued their descent down her face on the other side of her limb. Eventually, the liquid met the curvature of her enormous grin and with no other option, it gathered just under her nose, waiting for the smallest jolt so that it could meet the cold, hard floor down below.

“Where are we going to put this?” asked Carrot Top, looking around the single room.

Derpy came out of her thoughts for a moment and scanned her home. There was one single bed in the corner of the room and it alone took up more than an eighth of the entire surface area. The rest of the space was occupied by a rickety table kept stable by a dictionary and a textbook under two of its remaining three legs, two chairs -- one of torn leather and the other of chipped wood, -- a stove embedded into the wall no more than two metres away from where they slept, and finally a cupboard wherein the mailmare kept everything from cutlery to her not-so-fine plastic plates.

There were no modern, technological devices in this home -- no television, no computer, and certainly no game console. The more Carrot Top looked at the mess around her that could barely be called a dirt-hole, let alone a home, the more she wanted to spend all her money on her friend and buy her a new house -- especially when she thinks about all the times that Derpy has brought Dinky over to her house just because they wanted to watch a program on the telly. However, despite her financial position, Derpy’s pride forbade something like that.

Sighing, Carrot Top turned to her friend and saw the deep concentration in both of her eyes. One stared in front of her at the books piled at the end of the bed and the other looked directly at Carrot, through her eyes and into her soul. One of Derpy’s eyes would always be void of life and seem completely empty, but she says that it’s the only way she can focus her vision. If she blurs one eye then the other one is clearer in comparison. To Carrot it didn’t make a lot of sense and it didn’t even seem possible, but it seems to work for Derpy, so she had no reason to question it.

“We can’t hide it here,” concluded Derpy, her tongue in her cheek and her eyes shifting, focussing in on her friend leaning on one of the bags of bits.

“Then what do you propose we do then?”

Although Derpy was no match for Carrot when it came to common sense and basic knowledge, she always managed to resolve problems faster. Picking the shortest route home, playing hide and seek so well that Carrot had to give up after two hours, and even finishing jigsaw puzzles -- Derpy was pretty good at all of them, despite what eyes tell you.

“The only solutions would cause so much trouble that there would be no point,” she declared solemnly. “Therefore, the only road of action we can take is to ignore my initial plan and come right out with it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Carrot, standing up straight.

“We’re going to tell Dinky about it!” cried Derpy, wings shooting out at her sides.

“Ar-are you sure?” stammered Carrot, a little taken aback,.

“Yes! There’s no other way! This is the path of least resistance! When Dinky comes home, we’ll tell her about how ever since she was born I’ve been buying lottery tickets on a monthly basis and how after twelve, long years, I finally won! I finally won enough to change everything!” declared Derpy, trying her best not to squeal and fly through the open window.

Carrot offered her pal a shaky grin as she turned the words over in her head. She could never think like Derpy could, nor could she ever understand the way her friend’s mind worked. All she could do was trust that the seemingly dim-witted pony was capable of what everypony deemed she would be unable to do. Derpy appeared to be telling the truth straight from her mind, but Carrot didn’t know if that was a good thing. She still didn’t know what Derpy had in plan. After all, Derpy only won five thousand bits, there’s quite a lot of things you could do with that much money. But for a pony in her situation, Derpy probably needed more than five thousand bits to turn her daughter’s life around.

“Derpy?” started Carrot, getting the attention of her friend. “What exactly do you plan to do with this money?”

“Ah!” exclaimed Derpy with an elated yet cheeky grin. “Well, I was thinking about maybe-”

Of a sudden, both of their ears pricked up and Derpy stopped talking. They both looked at each other and confirmed their suspicions without a word. From downstairs in the post office, the hoofsteps of a twelve year old filly could be heard as she trotted closer and closer to the small, uncomfortable room she called her entire house.

Chapter 2: Buying Happiness

A dull thud sounded as the saddlebag held in the filly’s mouth fell to the floor and a high-pitched creak came as Dinky took a step back from both her mother and her beloved aunt Carrot.

“Mom...Are you serious?” managed the filly, her legs shaking under her.

“Yes, I am Dinky!” declared Derpy proudly, taking both bags in her mouth, opening them and toppling them over.

The contents poured out and the silver coloured coins dazzled Dinky as she stared at the small puddle they made before her eyes. There was easily two thousand bits in the coins she could see, and even more than that still inside the two cloth bags.

“Wow...” mumbled the filly, trotting closer to the money on the floor.

Gingerly, she reached a hoof forwards and felt the cold surface of the bits against her coat. It was a feeling she seldom experienced and one that she always looked forward too, since it would signify the day her life -- and also her mother’s -- turned around.

“Mom, these are real right? You’re sure they didn’t get switched? And you’re sure that they are genuine?”

“Yes Dinky, I’m sure!” confirmed Derpy, no longer able to contain her excitement and clinging onto her daughter. “All this money is real, and this isn’t a dream! We really have five thousand bits Dinky!”

Carrot took a few steps back and watched as the corners of Dinky’s lips were pulled up into an unimaginably wide smile, from ear to ear. The genuine joy embodied in the glistening eyes of both mother and daughter made Carrot’s heart ache just a little, and she could feel the tears welling up under her eyes as Dinky sniffed and rubbed her face against Derpy’s cheek.

Derpy extended her wings and wrapped them around her daughter, pulling her closer into their embrace. The smell of cheap shampoo from the filly’s mane overwhelmed the mailmare and now that her daughter was with her, it seemed like the tiny, one-room residence was finally her home again. She felt Dinky move slightly, and eventually the filly popped her face out of her wings to stare up at Derpy through overjoyed eyes, covered in a thin film. For a moment, Derpy’s eyes both fixated on her beloved miracle. Dinky was clear in her vision for just a second, and for that second, Derpy understood how elated Dinky was. As a gentle smile crept across her face, she noticed that Dinky was still moving and before she realised, Dinky freed her hoof, and her horn was coated in her signature, magical aura.

Her eyes split up again and out of one her two eyes, Derpy saw a clipboard with a number of papers on it float towards them. Dinky hoofed through the various sheets before her very eyes, focussed and determined. Derpy hadn’t a clue what was going on and inevitably, she loosened her grip on her daughter, cocking her head and eyeing that clipboard.

Seizing the opportunity, Dinky rushed away from her mother and with the aid of her magic, she obtained a cracked biro with so little ink that it wasn’t even visible anymore. With her tongue out and her brows furrowed, Dinky turned the pages, crossing out lines, adding some in and ticking the boxes next to some others. Before Derpy got a good look at the figures and the words, Dinky had moved away from her again and lifted a half broken calculator with a only portion of all the keys visible.

With her right hoof, Dinky entered the various numbers and functions, taking note of all the results one by one and crossing even more figures off of her list. Before long, her smile grew even wider, and she tucked the pencil behind her ear as she placed the clipboard on the floor in front of her, delighted with her work. Derpy and Carrot both stared at her curiously, and Derpy was the one to break the silence that had descended upon them.

“Sweetie...” she started, reluctant to carry on. “What is that?”

“Hm? What, this?” asked Dinky, pointing to her clipboard. “This is just a record of all the money we owe listed in chronological order,” she explained simply. “I started keeping track when I was six!”

Derpy and Carrot trotted closer to the filly, both staring eagerly at the work she so proudly flaunted. Though Carrot found it hard to comprehend the true meaning behind the rows of numbers with varying decimal tails, Derpy saw through it all. Dinky had not only created a list of all major debts, but she also kept track of all the money they’d ever spent buying food, necessities, or the few, not-so-exclusive luxuries that they owned. On the bottom of the last page, Dinky had also done a grand total. The number was larger than Derpy remembered, and the size of it diminished that joy she felt after she won something from the national lottery.

Before Dinky put away the clipboard, Derpy stole one last glance and noticed that a few of the numbers were starred, some had been crossed off and some were re-written as either a smaller or a larger number. At first, Derpy didn’t realise the importance of these changes, but as the afterimage of the list lingered before her mind’s eye, she noticed that these particular amounts of money were owed to either banks or other ponies that were important to them. It was then that she realised Dinky also made it clear which debts should be paid off first before the rest, and although she felt even more disheartened knowing that her daughter spent that much time of her life arranging this list, she also felt a small sense of pride. She was proud that Dinky was capable of being so responsible.

“With all this money, we can finally pay what we owe to the bank, and we won’t have to worry about the interest rates anymore! We’ll have enough left over to pay back aunt Carrot what we owe her, and still pay our rent for next month! Assuming you make the same amount of money this month as you did last, we’ll have an extra fifty bits which we can put into our savings jar for when we’re ready to pay back some more of the money we owe!” Dinky skipped around them, gleefully squealing as she circled the others.

All the while, Dinky’s smile remained and it never faltered. She had nothing to gain from her plan apart from an opportunity to rid herself of some pressure and responsibility, yet she was still genuinely excited about it all. However, the same could not be said for the mailmare who wore a look of despondent disappointment and hesitated as she spoke.

“Oh, sweetie, that’s so...So...Thoughtful of you,” managed Derpy as she approached her daughter and knelt down to look her in the eyes. “But honestly, mommy was thinking that maybe we could spend the money on something else...”

Dinky stopped and stared at her mother cautiously.

“What do you mean?” she asked with a brow raised.

“Well...I mean that I already have something in mind -- but don’t worry! We’ll both be satisfied with this!”

“What do you already have in mind?” continued Dinky, even more anxiously and slightly saddened.

Derpy looked back at Carrot Top and grinned when she gave her an unsure nod as if to say it was OK for her to continue. Then, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and calmed herself before staring back at the amber, determined eyes of her filly.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time now, and I can finally do it now!” declared Derpy exuberantly.

“Mom, tell me what you had planned already!” whined Dinky, desperate to know.

“Well Dinky, I have decided that I will use four of the five thousand bits, to pay for an operation that can fix my eyes!” she exclaimed, throwing her hooves up into the air and hovering in the room with two shocked ponies.

She was the only one that celebrated the news, and she was the only one that exemplified any form of joy. Whilst she was in the air and a dumb, toothy grin lingered on her face, both Dinky and Carrot Top stared at her with mouths wide open, eyes disappointed, muttering incoherent strings of confusion. Soon, Derpy felt the tension around her and firmly planted her hooves on the floor before looking from one pony to the next, begging for some sort of reaction other than the dumbfounded one they both gave her.

“Guys...?” mumbled Derpy, shuffling her hooves as she stood between them both.

“Mom, are you serious?” questioned Dinky, aghast.

“Derpy, you didn’t mean what you said, did you?” asked Carrot, taking a single step back from her friend.

“Of course I meant it!” defended Derpy, stomping a hoof down. “Why aren’t you guys happy? I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire life! Ponies have always laughed at me because of my eyes and I can’t even remember just how many times I’ve broken a bone or two because I have no depth perception!”

Neither of the ponies could find the words they wanted to say, but their silent stares said more than they could manage.

“Dinky, you even used to complain that you were embarrassed because your friends used to laugh at you for having a mother like me!” continued Derpy, gritting her teeth and holding back her building anger. “I thought you’d be happy! I thought that this way you wouldn’t be so embarrassed to be around me in public! How come this isn’t what you want anymore?”

Dinky bit her lip for a second before replying to her mother.

“Mom, I used to be embarrassed by you. I used to be embarrassed by you when I was eight!” retorted Dinky, stepping forward and raising her voice. “I don’t care about any of that now! All I care about is the fact that we might not even be able to afford our rent for the next few years, and you plan to spend the majority of the money you won -- which could have pulled us closer to the top of the hole we’re in -- on something as unnecessary as an operation for your eyes?”

“Unnecessary? What do you mean unnecessary?” demanded Derpy, reluctant to talk any louder. “It’s not unnecessary! I’ve had to deal with these eyes all my life! It’s horrible to not be able to see where you’re going, it’s horrible to not be able to read a book once in a while, and it’s horrible to not be able to see the ponies you care about clearly!”

“But you still managed to live with it didn’t you? You still managed to survive all these years, so what is there to say that you can’t live for a few more years like this? If you could live your entire life up until this point with your eyes like that, then why can’t you put up with it for a few more? Why do you want to waste this great opportunity??” screamed Dinky, tears rolling down her face.

“Because this would make me really happy, and I thought it would make you happy too!” cried Derpy as her separated eyes stared to water. “We could pay off our debts, or we could use the money to make us happy! Where’s the point in living if you aren’t happy?”

“This won’t make me happy though!” declared Dinky, sniffling. “This would just give me unnecessary stress, since I’m the only one in this two-pony family that keeps track of our taxes, the amount we’ve spent and just how much we owe! I’m the one that has to keep track of who we owe money to, and I’m the one that makes sure we pay off our debts before they become unmanageable. I’m a twelve year old filly, I shouldn’t have to do things like this! But you have to when your mother is as irresponsible as you are!”

Gasping and eyes wide open, Derpy stepped back, distancing herself from her now irate daughter. Dinky ground the crowns of her teeth to a fine dust and with every one of her huffing breaths, the vein at the side of her head bulged and pulsed furiously.

“Dinky, you can’t talk like that to your mother!” exclaimed Carrot Top, appalled.

“Argh!” screamed Dinky as she clenched her jaw, slamming her hoof onto the floor again and again.

Derpy had fallen to the floor and she found herself staring up with both eyes focussed for a rare moment on the red-faced filly before her. Dinky looked from one pony to the other as she rubbed the tears from her eyes and dried her face with a towel controlled by her magic. Giving her mother one, last look of angry disappointment, Dinky turned and bolted, almost flying out of the single room home with her bag on her back, leaving her favourite aunt with a pony she no longer knew.

Derpy’s eyes split again, and as the tears cascaded, Derpy’s ears listened intently to the sound of keys turning. Indubitably, Dinky ran out of the building and with Celestia preparing to descend the sun, Derpy feared that she might run into to trouble she’d never seen before in the daytime.

Cautiously and reluctantly, Carrot Top approached her childhood friend and placed a hoof on her shoulder as the floorboards beneath the Pegasus felt the fury of heavy rainfall despite being inside. Looking out the door, Carrot pondered where Dinky had run off to whilst Derpy wondered what she was going to do.

Chapter 3: Reconciliation

“Here you go Derpy,” said Carrot as she handed her a clean-ish towel.

Giving a momentary grin, Derpy took the raggedy fabric and started to dab her eyes with it. Slowly, the tears were dried from both her face and the floor, and Derpy had calmed down after the outburst from her filly as well as their exchange of shouts and screams. Her eyes stared at the dining table and the pile of books that Dinky kept at the bottom of the bed. Sniffing, she felt as if the tears had run out, and that any cries from hereon out would be dry, irritating and painful.

Carefully, Carrot Top sat herself down in front of her friend with her hooves tucked away under her body, and she lowered her head. She looked into Derpy’s teary, amber eyes as the mailmare’s head flicked back just a little with every one of her sniffles.

“Are you feeling any better now?” Carrot asked, staring down at the ground.

“Yeah...” mumbled Derpy.

“What should we do now? continued Carrot, taking Derpy’s hoof in her own and gently stroking it.

“We should-” started the mailmare before being cut off by a sniff. “We should go and find Dinky,” she concluded.

“Maybe we should, but I’d bet that Dinky ran off to my house,” murmured Carrot, shuffling closer. “Afterall, she took her bag with her, and she has a copy of my house keys in there right?”

“Yeah...”

“So she probably ran off to my house. Maybe she’s just watching the TV. It’s seven right now, isn’t that when her favourite show starts?”

Derpy paused before giving a slow nod.

“I hope she’s alright...” she mumbled, biting her lip again to hold back the cries.

“She’ll be fine,” reassured Carrot Top. “She’s a smart filly!”

Silence permeated the room once more and the two mares found themselves sitting on the floor opposite each other, but with their faces turned to the walls around them. One of Derpy’s eyes was indeed staring at one of the walls, but the other was pointing at the other pony in the room, and this was the one that was focussed. Unbeknownst to Carrot, Derpy eyed her over and over again, thinking to herself about how everything went wrong. She had been waiting for an opportunity like this longer than most ponies care to keep track off, and yet, she had to admit that her daughter had a point. They weren’t in the best of situations, and it would seem wise to pay off a few debts, but she feared that if she did she would never have a chance like this again.

“Carrot...” started Derpy, pausing as Carrot turned to face her.

“Hm?”

“What do you think I should do with the money?”

“The money?” asked Carrot, startled. “Honestly, I think you should smoothen things out with Dinky first before you think about that?”

“I am thinking about Dinky...” grumbled Derpy, rubbing her nose with a hoof. “I am thinking about her...”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you think I should do with the money?” repeated Derpy, voice trembling and breaking.

“What?”

“What do you think I should do with the money?” asked Derpy for a third time.

“Well...” began Carrot, turning her face away for a brief moment. “Maybe you should listen to Dinky,” she suggested nervously. “She has a point. Even if I’m willing to clean your slate, I can’t say the same for all the other ponies you owe money to. They aren’t all your friends, so you’ll have to pay them all back before you can’t.”

“Before I can’t huh?” mused Derpy somberly. “This is the last chance for a lot of things isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” questioned Carrot.

Derpy stood up and left her friend on the floor behind her as she trotted in circles. The creaking of the floorboards perpetually invaded Carrot’s ears, but the carrot farmer was much more fixated on the perturbed mare before her. Derpy’s eyes were uncharacteristically parallel to one another, aimed at the floor and staring at the countless cracks and bent nails her daughter often tripped over. Of a sudden, she stopped and lifted her head up to the ceiling. She stayed like that for a moment and with Carrot debating whether or not she should offer her help, Derpy let out a deep sigh before continuing her movement. Without a single word, she walked over to where her daughter stood and gazed down at the clipboard with sheets of paper emblazoned with numbers, symbols and variables of every kind. She pointed at them with a hoof and her lips moved apart slowly.

“Before today, I never knew that Dinky was keeping track of all the money we owed, all the money we spent and all the money I make on a monthly basis.” Carrot Top stared at her, stunned. “Not once did I think that she would take the initiative to do something like this -- that she’d be so responsible even though she’s only twelve...”

Carrot stood up but stopped before she made it over to where Derpy stood, and she watched as her friend wiped away the newly formed tears.

“I never thought that she’d be more responsible than me...”

“Well, think about it like this: she probably gets it from you!” reassured Carrot with an awkward grin.

“Ha!” scoffed Derpy, eyes glistening for a moment before the smirk was wiped from her face.

The sound of a butterfly’s wings harmonising with their soft breathing echoed around them, occupying their minds for an instant and urging the depressing tension to leave them alone.

“What do you think I should do with the money Carrot Top?” asked Derpy one more time.

“I...I don’t really know,” she admitted.

Carrot shuffled her hooves and tried not to look her friend in her wall-eyes, but she still noticed the translucent sliver down Derpy’s face that shone under the flickering light of the filament bulb dangling above their heads, threatening to throw them all into a world of darkness lest they do something soon.

“You’re right though...” mumbled Derpy, letting out another sigh and glancing out the open window above her daughter's bed.

“Right about what?” questioned Carrot, confused.

“I should think about Dinky, shouldn’t I?”

“Well, yeah...I guess...” stammered the farmer, fiddling with her hooves again.

“So then what’s the only thing I can do?” continued Derpy. The corners of her lips drifted up towards her ears and Carrot saw the white teeth of Ponyville’s mailmare from her side.

“Well, you could do what she told you to. You could pay off some of your more serious debts.”

“But that won’t make Dinky happy would it?” retorted Derpy. “She says it will, but what she means is she’ll be relieved.”

“What’s the difference?”

“She means that she’ll have a lot less to worry about, but for her to be happy, she needs to have nothing to worry about,” explained Derpy, chuckling as if she were about to burst into tears.

“How would that work?” asked Carrot, still unsure what her friend was talking about.

“Ultimately...I’ve been the source of all her suffering, haven’t I?” begged Derpy, turning to face her friend, looking at her through drowning eyes and talking between the sniffles and chokes.

“N-no, that’s not true!” assured Carrot.

“Yes it is!” she declared. “With that in mind-” Derpy paused for a moment,holding back her sobs. “What do you think I should do?”

Carrot stood with her jaw slack, but she had no response. She stood there, thinking, and thinking, and thinking. Eventually, the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes turned to regretful, unwanted tension. Before Derpy could prepare herself for the revelation however, Carrot came to an incredibly shocking realisation.

“No...” she mumbled, eyes wide and astonished. “You can’t be thinking about that can you? You can’t actually be considering it, can you?”

“Yes, I am,” admitted Derpy, tears raining down on the already worn floorboards again.

“That won’t make anypony happy though!” protested Carrot, stomping her hoof.

“It will, as long as some things are made certain,” corrected Derpy, rubbing her eyes with a hoof.

“Like what?” cried Carrot in anger with a shaky undertone.

“As long as I can see her whenever I want, and she can see me whenever she wants, then won’t we be happy?” asked Derpy with an insincere grin. “Legally, there won’t be a single thing that ties us together, but there is a bond in our blood, and that’s not something that we can forget so easily, is it?”

“How do you think she’ll feel in a stranger’s home for the rest of her life?” demanded Carrot, holding her friend by the shoulders. “How do you think she’ll feel staying with ponies she doesn’t know, living with them, listening to them and talking to them every single day! How do you think she’ll feel knowing that you’ve abandoned her!”

“But I haven’t abandoned her,” insisted Derpy. “I told you that we can see each other whenever we want. I’ll make sure that a family in Ponyville takes her in so we can always be close, and so I can always be there for her when she needs me. I’ve caused her so much trouble all these years, and I’ve made her take care of me. She took on all the responsibilities that I should have carried on my own shoulders. I owe her this much...”

Derpy moved away from Carrot and went over to her bed. She knelt down at the bottom and started to collect the books with worn pages and creased covers, piling them together on top of the covers. Then, she went to a box in the corner and dove in nose first, digging through the few broken toys that were in there, hoping to find something that was in one piece. Eventually, she found a plush toy and although parts of it were badly sewn up , it was still whole, so she placed it gently beside the books. Lastly, she went into the kitchen and pulled out of the non-functioning oven a baking tray, on which there was a single muffin. With the utmost care, as if she carried a masterpiece in her hooves, Derpy placed it on top of the pile of books before licking her lips and tasting the salty pang of her own sorrow.

“What are you doing Derpy?”

“I’m just getting some of Dinky’s things ready for when she comes home.”

“But if you put it on her bed then how is she going to sleep?” asked Carrot, knowing that her question was pointless and well aware of the mailmare’s reasoning behind her actions.

“She’s not going to be sleeping though,” admitted Derpy. “At least not here, not anymore...”

Carrot lowered her gaze at the back of her friend’s head and she saw a droplet fall from her chin.

“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

“Dinky should know what it feels like to have a loving mother who she can depend one. I’m just disappointed that it couldn’t be me...”

“It can though!” declared Carrot, raising her voice again. “You just need to do all those things for her!”

“But if she stays with me, she’ll still have to worry won’t she? She’ll still have to take care of me won’t she? This is the only way I can show her that I...That I don’t need her, and that she doesn’t need to worry anymore...”

“Why does somepony else need to show her what a loving mother is like? I don’t understand why it can’t be you!” Derpy let out a grieving sigh.

“I love her unconditionally, like nopony else ever will. But she thinks that I’m...A little bit pathetic, doesn’t she? Everypony does -- I can’t expect her to be different. Love shouldn’t be one-sided, it should be reciprocated. She won’t know how I feel about her for a long time, and I just want to make sure that she leads a happy, exciting life until then.”

The farmer mare was speechless again and she watched as Derpy gathered a few more of the filly’s belongings together on top of her bed. The moonlight slipped through the cracked glass of the open window and although it was no match for the artificial light source faltering every now and then in the room, it added to the grace of the mare before Carrot, emphasising some of the more unfortunate features about her. Above all, it made it clear to Carrot just how upset Derpy was. She tried to act calm, but her shaky voice, her trembling hooves and her dishevelled mane gave it all away.

“How are you going to take it?” asked Carrot, placing a hoof on her back.

“I’ll be fine,” assured Derpy.

“What will you do though?”

“Everything I can to make sure that Dinky won’t worry about me,” revealed Derpy

“What do you mean?”

“As long as I’m in debt, she’ll always worry about me, just a little bit won’t she? That means that for Dinky to be happy, I need to make sure that I pay off all of my debts.”

“If that’s all you need to do then let me lend you the money!” begged Carrot Top earnestly. “I’ll do anything to stop you from making a bad decision!”

“Can you really just lend me ten thousand bits?” screamed Derpy, shooting her wings out at her sides. “Besides, none of us would be happy with that, because it just means I need to pay you back!”

“Well, how do you plan on earning ten thousand bits?” retorted Carrot, a little hurt.

“Five,” corrected Derpy.

“What?”

“I only need another five thousand bits to pay off my debts...” confirmed Derpy.

“Where did you get the other five thousand bits from?” asked Carrot, oblivious.

“I won some money from the lottery, remember?” Derpy let out a gentle chuckle.

“I thought you wanted to have that operation done on your eyes.”

“I did, but you were right. Dinky was right as well. I don’t need the operation. It might make me happy, but it couldn’t possibly bring me any more joy than seeing a lively, elated smile on Dinky’s face.”

Carrot could feel a slight tingle in her nose and she noticed that her sight was starting to blur. Tears of her own were gathering underneath her eyes and she bit her lip to hold back the squeals and whimpers that fought for their freedom. Once again she watched as her friend moved around the home, pausing only to reminisce about days gone by, spent happily with a filly different from all the others. A filly that kept quiet through everything she had to suffer and stayed strong through the tough times. A filly that knew she had to help her mother, since nopony else was going to.

“Lets go,” announced Derpy, wiping the tears from her face.

“Where to?” asked Carrot, talking through her sobs.

“Your house.” Derpy let out a single chuckle before trotting through the noisy door and making her way down the stairs into the main room of Ponyville Post Office as her friend finally got her wits about her, and followed closely behind.

“Dinky, are you here?” called out Carrot.

They both heard faint hoofsteps from upstairs and noticed that at the top of the spiral staircase, a thin, short shadow was cast forward, embedded into both the steps and the curved wall.

“Dinky, can you come down please, I need to talk to you,” continued Carrot, heart heavy and pounding.

“Is my mom there?” asked the filly at the top of the stairs. Her voice was cold and hard as stone.

“No, Derpy’s not here,” lied the mare, hiding her friend behind her.

The was a brief moment of hesitation before Dinky started to come down the stairs, as if she wanted to check if what she heard was true but realised that she couldn’t. Her face wasn’t visible until she had come down five steps, and when it was she saw that she had been tricked. Before her she saw the same wall-eyed, grey coated, lemon maned mare that she lived with. In a moment of panic, she tried to run back up, but she lost her balance and for an instant, she was in a state of freefall. Her chest felt as if it would burst. Both Derpy and Carrot were filled with fear as they watched the young filly tumble down the stairs, crying and calling out for help whenever she could. Before Carrot even realised what had happened, Derpy flew forward and tried to save Dinky, but she was just a little late. After hitting her own hoof on a step and hearing a dull thud accompanied by a painful, crack, she held her daughter in her wings. To her horror however, Derpy saw that a trail of blood was trickling down from the top of her head, around her head and down to her closed eyes. Dinky’s cries had stopped, but Derpy’s picked up again.

Chapter 4: The Way It Should Be

“How is she?” asked Derpy through streams of tears and intermittent cries as she clung onto the doctor’s white coat.

“As far as we can tell, she’ll be fine,” reassured the professional, giving his umpteenth encouraging smile. “She lost a bit of blood, and she’s out cold for now, but she’ll be fine soon enough. There’s no major problem, apart from maybe a concussion, but that should pass soon.”

Derpy loosened her grip for just a moment before resting all her weight on the doctor’s attire.

“Are you sure she’ll be OK even after she lost all that blood?” she begged.

“It wasn’t a lot,” affirmed the stallion calmly. “The blood was from a small cut to the left of her horn, so it isn’t anything too serious. Perhaps the most serious injury she’ll walk away with is a slight crack at the base of her horn-”

Derpy slapped her hooves on her mouth and let out a sharp, horrified gasp.

“-But it should heal in a week or two,” he finished, placing a hoof on the mailmare’s shoulder. “She’ll be absolutely fine.” he repeated.

Derpy reluctantly let the doctor trot off and attend to the various other tasks that demanded his attention. Almost immediately after she released him, he disappeared into another patient's room and they watched as a struggling mare was wheeled into an entirely different part of the hospital, with the same doctor closely behind, worry and frustration chiseled into his features. Carrot listened to the monotonous flaps of the double doors as they opened and closed. Hidden under the boorish noises, Carrot heard a shaky whimper. Turning to her side, she saw her friend stare lifelessly out of parallel eyes, swimming on top of cascading waterfalls.

“Hey, cheer up,” muttered Carrot, smiling. “Didn’t you hear Dr. Stable? He said Dinky will be fine! You should be happy!”

“I don’t think you heard what he said...” mumbled Derpy, rubbing her eyes.

“What do you mean?” Derpy got up and trotted away from her friend.

“He said that as far as they can tell, she’ll be fine...”

“Exactly, so she’ll be fine!” continued Carrot, trying to pull Derpy away from her thoughts.

“But it also means that something bad could still turn up right?” asked Derpy, flapping her wings for a moment.

“You can’t think like that!” declared Carrot. “You’ll just make yourself depressed.”

“No, I can’t think like that!” cried the mailmare, furiously pointing a hoof at her friend.

Carrot took a step back and distanced herself from her friend. Derpy gritted her teeth but she stopped soon enough. Instead, she went back to hanging her head and sulking in a building full of both elated and depressed ponies. She was one of the latter.

“I can’t just think about happy things when there’s even the slightest chance that things could take a turn for the worst...”

“But just thinking about them won’t help prevent them-”

“Neither will hoping that they don’t happen,” retorted Derpy, quick and brief. “But it’s the only I can do...isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” asked Carrot, curious.

“Nothing...” Derpy waved a hoof in the air and brushed it off.

Pacing back and forth, Derpy stuck her tongue in her cheek and focussed her eyes on cold, tiled ground beneath her hooves. Her brows were furrowed, and a single tear hung on to the corner of her eye as if for dear life. The clop clop of her hooves came at periodic intervals, pausing at predetermined moments before continuing again with their monotonous, soporific drone. Carrot felt her eyelids grow heavy as she sat in a seat a yard or so from her friend, and eventually her sight faded into black.

**********

“Ugh...” moaned Carrot as she lifted her head and stretched out her legs.

Her hoof naturally came to her eyes and rubbed away the thin layer of crust before blocking her mouth as she let out a long, content yawn. Stroking her own mane gently, she let her eyes wander and she saw that there wasn’t a single pony around. Getting up, she trotted over to the counter where an unfamiliar mare just started her shift and already looked bored out of her mind.

“Uhm, excuse me,” began Carrot, stealing a few glances behind her. “I came here with a friend, do you happen to know where she is?”

“No ma’am, I just got here. Whoever your friend is, she left before I arrived,” she replied, voice hoarse and uninviting.

“Oh...OK then...” she mumbled. “Thanks anyway!”

Carrot bowed her head slightly, smiled at the despondent mare and turned to trot away.

“Are you talking about Derpy? That grey mare with the bubbles on her flank?” she heard a soft voice call from behind her.

Carrot’s ears pricked up and her eyes went wide. Pivoting around a hoof, she faced the counter once more and saw a different mare, one that she recognised.

“Nurse Redheart!” she exclaimed with a grin before skipping over to her. “Did you see her?”

“I think she left an hour ago. She came up to the counter and asked about some patient’s room, so she’s probably there. Is she visiting someone?” asked the mare, concerned and interested.

“Nurse Redheart, can you tell me what room she’s in?” demanded Carrot, eyes determined.

“I...I guess,” stammered Redheart, placing her saddlebag on the floor and taking a seat. “Do you know that patient’s name?”

“Dinky!” she replied without missing a beat.

“Dinky?” repeated Redheart with a bemused expression as she flipped through the papers. “Isn’t that Derpy’s daughter? Is she OK? Oh, and she’s in room...217. It’s down that corridor, fifth door on your left,” she explained, pointing a hoof into an empty stretch of hallway, lights and doors.

“Thank you so much nurse Redheart!”

“Wait!” she cried before Carrot disappeared. “What happened to Dinky?” Redheart’s voice was shaky and laced with genuine worry.

“She fell down the stairs and she hit her head,” answered Carrot reluctantly, leaning closer to Redheart’s ear and keeping an eye on the other nurse who just replied with a silent scowl.

“Oh my...” she managed. “I hope she’s alright...Tell Derpy that if she needs anything, I’ll be right here!”

“OK!”

Giving one last smile, Carrot turned to run down the corridor, trailing hours behind her friend. The statically frustrated mare chewing gum popped her bubble, eyeing Redheart curiously as she remained seated and started to sort the files before her.

“Your shift already ended, why are you still hear?” she asked as if she didn’t want to know.

“I told them that I would be here for them,” Redheart answered simply, smirking.

“You’re going to stay here all night?” she continued, incredulous.

“If they need me too,” Redheart replied with a shrug. “They have my number though, so if they need me to come back in I can.”

“But visiting hours will be over in ten minutes,” protested the nurse, brows lowered in confusion.

“And I plan on keeping them here.”

“How?”

“I’ll think of something...” Redheart trailed off as she tried to align a stack of papers. “In the meantime, can I trust that you won’t say anything?”

“Yeah, fine but, why are you so intent on helping them?” she persisted, raising her voice.

“You’ve never met Derpy have you?”

“Who?” Redheart let out a little chuckle.

“Exactly...If you know her, then you’ll know that she’s a special pony.”

“What? Like she’s retarded?”

“Not like that,” corrected Redheart. “She’s special in a different way. She’s different to a lot ponies. She’s not unique, but she’s definitely not common either...”

The other mare stared at her for a moment completely befuddled before shaking her head and turning her attention to the stallion that had approached her. Redheart smirked again as she put the papers away.

“I don’t expect you to understand yet,” she whispered. “I just expect you to turn a blind eye for now...”

**********

A tired stallion carefully opened the door and heard it creak just like all the others. A thin slit of light penetrated the permeating darkness and lit up the face of a young Unicorn with a bandage wrapped around her head and a white cast on her horn. Taking a look inside and seeing that there were no other ponies, he decided to move on and check the other rooms he still had to check off of his floating checklist. His hoofsteps faded as he trotted further down the corridor and when they were entirely inaudible, three new sets of hoofsteps started up again. They were careful, quiet and discreet as they approached room 217. Taking a quick look around, Redheart opened the door and let the other two get in, wincing at the high noise from the hinges. Carrot turned to her and smiled as she gave a little wave. Redheart smiled back, nodded, and then closed the door before she left. Carrot listened carefully as her footsteps grew fainter with each passing second, and when they could be heard no longer, Carrot’s ears fell along with the corners of her lips.

Meanwhile, Derpy returned to her seat where she sat earlier, and her eyes hovered over her daughter again. Both of them traced her from her horn to the tip of her tail which was sticking out from the side of her covers. Sighing, she placed her hooves around where Dinky’s stomach should be, and then she rested her head on top such that she still stared at Dinky. Her daughter’s eyes were closed and she looked peaceful as she lay there with a faint red stain on her bandage, and her mouth was open as she silently snored in her sleep.

Time seemed to stop for them in that sickly smelling hospital room, with almost no light inside. Derpy kept staring at Dinky, Dinky kept sleeping and Carrot stayed in her seat, too frightened to make a noise and too guilty to leave. Finally, the clock in the room started to click again, and before long both of the mares heard the accentuated tick-tocks as the three hands moved whilst their vision faded. Soon after, the three ponies in the room were all asleep, and occasionally Derpy would grimace and convulse a little, then she’d calm down and fall into a deeper sleep before the same thing happened again.

The short hand of the clock had passed through into the next cycle and was already an hour in when Derpy woke up. Rubbing her eyes, she felt her dry lips and let out a small yawn. Carefully, she trotted over to the bedside table and drank from the bottle before carefully twisting the cap back on with her wings. With her thirst now slaked, she returned to her seat and rest her head on her hooves once more. This time however, she found that all she could think about was the periodic ticking and the occasional mumble or snore from one of the other two. Sighing, she got up and then sat down on the edge of the bed. Turning her head to the side, she watched as Dinky slept and her hoof came up to the filly’s head. Gently, she stroked her mane; the dry, unhealthy hair tickled Derpy, but she couldn’t giggle. Derpy could feeling that tingling in her nose again, and before the tears came she sniffed a little, holding them back. Bravely, she wore a grin and continued to stroke her mane. Leaning forward, she pecked Dinky on the forehead.

“I hope you’re alright muffin...” she whispered, voice cracking and lips trembling.

**********

With a short rattle, the curtains came open and the sunlight poured into the otherwise gloomy room. Carrot yawned into a hoof as she fastened the curtains to the wall and opened the window a little, letting in a soothing breeze. The cold air rushed through her mane and past her tail as it headed for the other two. Turning around, she watched as the frayed locks of topaz were blown by the draft, and she saw that on the bedside table just under Derpy’s head, there were three pieces of toast slathered with apple jam. Grimacing, she took a slice and bit into it, chewing the still warm and disgusting breakfast, savouring it before swallowing. Resuming her seat, she waited for the other two to wake up.

“Ugh...” groaned the Pegasus, wiping the drool from her face and lifting her head from the wet patch she left on the dull, white sheets.

“Morning Derpy,” mumbled Carrot as she sipped a cup of coffee, the steam rising into and warming her face.

“Huh? Oh, good morning,” managed Derpy with her eyes half opened.

Scratching her head, she stretched her limbs and her wings before looking at the filly curled up under the covers with a faint smile on her lips. A grin appeared on her own face as she stroked the dry mane. With each brush, Derpy felt the stress of the filly, and her chest tightened as the magnitude of Dinky’s efforts settled in her mind. Sighing, Derpy reached for a slice of toast, but stopped when she heard a murmur from the filly. Derpy’s grin came back to her as she eagerly watched Dinky turn over and start to rub her eye. Soon, her left amber eye shakily moved from side to side and focussed on the other two ponies.

“M-mom?” she grumbled, sitting up. “Good morning...”

“Good morning Dinky!” exclaimed Derpy. “I’m so glad to see that you’re-”

Eyes wide and mouth open, Derpy stumbled back and fell off the side of the bed. The plastic tray tumbled down with her and threw the plates of toast onto the floor in a shattered, sticky mess. Carrot jumped to her hooves immediately and rushed over to Derpy, but when she saw it, she too fell back in shock. Dinky however, remained where she was on the bed, though her face wasn’t exempt from horror either.

“Mom!” she cried, too afraid to move forward. “Mom, what’s going on? Why can I see the window?” she asked, facing the door of the south wall.

Reluctantly, Derpy lifted herself and tried to hide her alarm, but when she saw her daughter’s face it came straight back to her. A short whelp escaped her mouth and even though her hoof flew as fast as it could to hide it, Dinky heard it, and she started to breathe heavily as her eyes darted and her vision remained split. The filly’s hooves were furiously pawing at her face, hoping to find something that didn’t belong, but aside from the bandages, everything was where it should be. Getting up, she tried to approach her mother, but unsure whether she was facing the window or the southern door, she fell face first and landed in the pool of saliva that her mother had left on the side of the bed.

Derpy immediately rushed forward and helped the filly out of the puddle of drool and wiped away the liquid with a napkin that had fallen to the floor. After all the saliva had been wiped off of Dinky’s face, two trails of tears appeared and flowed down, drenching the double-layered napkin, rendering it useless. As the mother desperately tried to keep calm and soothe the daughter, Carrot shakily got back onto her hooves and stared at them in wide-eyed fascination. She saw before her two ponies, one a Unicorn and the other a Pegasus, both of whom maintained eye contact with one another, but only with one of their two eyes. Two amber eyes stared at each other whilst the other two darted of at obscene angles.

The panic on Dinky’s face slowly faded as Derpy held her tightly and rocked her from side to side, much like she did when Dinky was born, but when Carrot leaned in closer she could see from Derpy’s side that her tears flowed just as energetically as Dinky’s, and that her silent whimpers were louder than she thought.

The two ponies held onto one another as if for dear life and Derpy could feel a strain on her neck, but she couldn’t say a word. Instead, she just cut her breaths short and stroked Dinky’s mane as smoothly as she could manage. Thankfully, Dinky’s eyes were shut and so she couldn’t see the uncontrollable shaking of Derpy’s wings as she sat there on the bed with her daughter in her hooves, trying to convince her daughter that everything was OK, mouthing those words over and over again.

Carrot suspended her hoof in mid-air, inches away from Derpy’s shivering body. Then, when she lifted her eyes slightly, Carrot could see a glistening droplet in the corner of the filly’s eyes as she bit down hard on her lip and clenched her eyelids tight.

“Mommy, I’m scared...” she whimpered.

Derpy stopped. Her wings were still and her lips were parted. For a brief moment, her eyes were focussed in front of her and she could see her own hoof resting agitatedly on top of the thin, dry strands of tawny hair.

“It’s...It’s OK muffin,” reassured Derpy, placing her muzzle on Dinky’s head and continuing her hoof’s stroking motion. “It’s OK, I promise...”

“But I don’t know where I am anymore mommy!” cried Dinky, opening her eyes and staring around the room.

As one eye moved, the other followed but it followed in such a way that it was never in line with the other. When one looked to the right, the other headed left and when one looked up, the other fell down. Carrot Top couldn’t bear to keep looking at the poor filly as she desperately shot her eyes from side to side, even though Carrot saw eyes like those on a day to day basis. Horrified, Carrot turned her face away whilst wearing a look of disgust. Dinky saw and she shut her eyes tight again. Scrunching her lips she tightened her grip around Derpy’s neck and buried her eyes into the soft yellow mane.

Regretting what she did, Carrot Top got up and exited the room. Before she passed through the doorway completely, Carrot took another look inside and saw her childhood friend embracing a frightened filly on top of a bed with her wings slightly open and shaking vigorously. Once outside of room 217, Carrot Top ran over to the counter and she saw a different mare sitting behind the counter, flipping through the pages of a thick volume.

Lifting her gaze, the Unicorn peered over the top of the clean counter and saw an orange mare hastily rushing towards her. Sitting up straight, she prepared herself for a chain of demands and was ready to redirect the mare, but before she said a word, Carrot Top started to talk, her voice breathless and her eyes constantly glancing behind her.

“Please, is Dr. Stable here?” asked Carrot, leaning over the counter.

“I-I’m sorry, but you can’t jus-”

“This is an emergency!” screamed Carrot, eyes overflowing with desperation. “Is Dr. Stable here or not?”

The mare stared at her, incredulous, then she slowly moved her hooves and checked through a few names on a list, glancing at a watch strapped onto her hoof.

“Yeah, he should be here. He was supposed to come in about an hour ago, would you like me to call him?”

“Yes, please!” declared Carrot, elated and relieved.

“It might take a while, so you might want to go wait for him in your room. Which one is it?” she asked, holding the telephone up to her ear.

“217!” cried Carrot, running off the second the mare behind the counter gave her a little nod.

Minutes later, Carrot saw the drained doctor approach her with bags under his eyes and a weak smile under his muzzle. She rushed towards him and shook his hoof.

“Doctor, something’s happened, something bad!” whispered Carrot, holding onto him by the shoulders.

“What’s happened?” Carrot felt his body clench.

Her lips parted as she was about to explain, but the words wouldn’t come out. There were no words to begin with, she just didn’t want to go back into the room again.

“You should see for yourself,” she mumbled reluctantly as she motioned for him to follow her into room 217 where the two ponies still held each other in their hooves on the top of the bed.

With an even wider, caring smile, Dr. Stable carefully trotted over to the other side of the bed, trying his best not to make a single sound, and he placed a hoof on the mother’s shoulder. Instantly, Derpy’s drenched eyes opened and stared at him, first with fright, and then with relief. Gently, she loosened her grip on the sobbing filly and turned her around so that she faced the stallion who smiled warmly at her. Dinky stopped crying when she saw Dr. Stable, and when she saw that his expression didn’t change at all, her mouth started to twitch, threatening to become a smile of its own. Without a word, Dr. Stable stood up and motioned for Derpy to follow. Carefully, she placed Dinky on the bed and kissed her on her forehead, just below the horn. Then, she silently asked Carrot to watch her, and as the orange mare rushed over to the filly to console her, Derpy exited the room, closing the door behind her, ready for the worst.

“You probably already know what her condition is,” started Dr. Stable, turning away and sighing casually. “After all, you were born with it.”

Derpy bit her lip hard at his words, tasting a hint of iron on the tip of her tongue as she recoiled in pain.

“Dinky has developed strabismus which has lead to diplopia, or double-vision. I think it was caused by trauma, and though I have no evidence as of yet, I think that it is very likely.” He paused for a second and coughed into his hoof, giving Derpy a moment to calm herself. “There are a number of ways we could combat the situation involving various techniques and also surgery. I’m sure you remember all of this from when we talked about your condition.”

Derpy gave a weak nod.

“Well, in my opinion, that is the only way to fix her vision. Strabismus doesn’t disappear on its own, it requires treatment, but that treatment isn’t free.” Derpy smiled.

“Dr. Stable, they need you down in A and E,” called out a nurse from down the hall.

The stallion looked to the nurse and then he grinned back at Derpy.

“I have to go now, but I’ll come back as soon as I can and we can discuss how to tackle the problem.”

“OK, thank you doctor...” Derpy watched as he waved, rubbed his eyes, then cantered off towards where the nurse had told him to go.

When he had disappeared around a corner, Derpy took a deep breath, smiled again, and trotted back into the room. Dinky beamed at her mother as she entered and rushed to her side with one eye closed, wrapping her hooves around her. Derpy could see that the trails of tears had dried, but her filly’s eyes were still red and her cheeks were a lot more sensitive. When Derpy grazed it with her hoof, Dinky flinched.

Pecking Dinky on the forehead, she hugged her back and looked at her friend. Carrot sat there, too afraid to move and Derpy couldn’t let go of her daughter. She knew what she had to do, and she knew that it was the right thing to do. But the right thing was never the easy thing, and that is still true in Dinky’s case. A single tear fell from Derpy’s chin and followed Dinky’s horn down to the bandages, and Derpy closed her wall eyes as she buried her smile in the dry, blond mane.

**********

It had been a long time, and Derpy had lost track. It had been at least a month or two since that day when Derpy ran into the hospital with her daughter after her accident, and save for those few days where she did any work and those times when she went home to shower, Derpy never left Dinky’s side. She was in the hospital the entire time, and she had helped Dinky whenever she needed it. Now, Derpy watched as the doctors peeled away the last few layers of bandages that covered Dinky’s eyes. With every layer that was removed, Dinky could see through her closed eyes that it got brighter and brighter, until eventually, the blurred light was almost blinding, and she heard the doctor call out to her.

“Alright Dinky, I want you to slowly open your eyes, OK?”

Grinning like a school filly, Dinky opened her eyes, and almost instantly, her concept of blinding light changed, since it felt as if there was a star hanging from the ceiling of the room she was in, and that her eyes were being burnt to a crisp as she stared in front of her. Her hoof helped to shade her eyes, and she could finally see that in the background there was an open door with ‘217’ written on it. In the foreground there was a mare who could barely keep her eyes dry and open who had her hooves clapped to her lips, and who constantly let out short squeals of joy.

Derpy could no longer resist, and she stretched out her hooves, pulling her daughter closer, cradling her head against her neck and stroking the prickly yellow mane. Giving her a smile and a slow nod, Dr. Stable trotted out of the room and left the elated mother and daughter in each others hooves.

“I can see you again mommy,” cried Dinky, her voice breaking. “And I can’t see the window anymore!”

Derpy’s lips quivered as she pecked Dinky on the cheek and she pulled her into another hug, cradling her like a mother and her newborn, precious foal.

“That’s great Dinky, that’s great!”

For what seemed like hours, the two ponies stayed like that, both crying tears of joy and delight, whereas one of them cried with regret and sorrow as well as her happiness. Eventually, Dinky had drifted off in Derpy’s hooves, and when the sound of gentle snores could be heard, Derpy tucked her into the bed and sat by her side for a while. Not long after Dinky’s tears dried, Derpy heard a knock on the door, and it felt as if her eyes were going to pour out a river as she dreaded the pony behind the sound.

“Hello Derpy,” whispered Carrot Top, seeing that Dinky was asleep. “I signed the papers,” she told Derpy, placing some documents on the bedside table next to a pile of unfinished homework that had accumulated over the months.

Hastily, Derpy grabbed the papers in her mouth and stuffed them into her saddlebag before sighing with relief.

“Is something wrong?” asked Carrot Top, approaching her.

“No, I just don’t want her to see them,” replied Derpy as she stared lovingly at Dinky.

“Have you told her?”

“Not yet...” mumbled Derpy, sighing. “But don’t worry, I’ll tell her eventually,” she reassured.

Carrot pulled up another chair and sat down next to her friend. She could see that Derpy was fixated on Dinky, and she knew why, but she didn’t expect her to be this calm. What Derpy was about to do was huge, but she didn’t seemed fazed by it at all. Behind all her tears, Derpy seemed happy.

“Carrot,” started Derpy, turning to face the mare.

“Hm?”

“Would you mind if for the first few days, Dinky stays with me?”

“Of course I don’t mind!” she replied. “Take as much time as you need, there’s no need to rush.”

Derpy smile at Carrot Top, and she smiled back at her. That was something that Carrot Top expected she would say.

Epilogue

With a letter in her teeth and the orange mare trailing behind her, Dinky rushed through the park without sparing a single moment to appreciate the colourful flowers, the soothing breeze or the playful cries of the colts and fillies playing around with their parents. Soon, Dinky found the table she was looking for and sure enough, just like they had arranged, a mare was sitting there waiting for her.

“Hi mom!” cried Dinky as she spat out the letter, slammed it on the table and threw her hooves around Derpy’s neck.

“Hi Dinky!” she cried back, tired and happy. “You’ve gotten taller again!”

“Thanks mom,” mumbled Dinky as she dug her muzzle into her mother’s dry, prickly mane.

With a shaky grin, Derpy carefully stroked her daughter’s mane and rubbed her back with a hoof. Dinky could hear hoofsteps approach her from behind, and turning around she saw Carrot grin at the sight of her and her mother in each other’s hooves again.

“Hello Derpy,” started Carrot, extending the grin to her. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Hi Carrot, it’s nice to see you again too!” chimed Derpy, letting of Dinky.

“Mom! Look at this!” Derpy saw the plain white envelope addressed to a Ms. Dinky held in her daughter’s hooves.

Taking the envelope from her exuberant daughter, Derpy opened it and looked at the letter. As she read the words, sentences and paragraphs, Derpy could feel her prideful smile grow wider and brighter, despite her fatigue. When she finished reading it, she put it down and looked at her daughter, who grinned madly at her.

“I got accepted into Canterlot University!” she cheered, punching the air with her hooves in triumphant joy.

“Congratulations muffin!” Derpy clapped her hooves to the rhythm of Dinky’s cries and exultations.

“Come on, let’s go celebrate!” declared Dinky, pulling on her mother’s hoof. “My treat!”
Gladly, the mailmare followed closely behind her, though before long the distance between them increased, and Carrot had to help support her as she trotted.

“Are you OK?” she asked. “You look really tired.” Her eyes were filled with concern.

“I’m fine,” reassured Derpy, determined to keep going. “I am tired, but I’m fine.”

They continued their futile attempt to catch up to the lively young mare that ran off in front of them, but eventually, they couldn’t even see Dinky anymore, and they only had a vague idea of where she was headed.

“How’s everything going with you?” asked Carrot, letting Derpy trot on her own.

“Fine. The debts are almost all gone.” replied Derpy.

“That’s good to hear...”

“Yeah, it is...” mumbled Derpy, staring off into the distance.

“Come on!” cried Dinky, coming back into sight for a moment. “Let’s go!” Dinky ran off again and disappeared from sight once more.

“Thanks for taking care of her for so long,” muttered Derpy, smiling up at the clouds.

“There’s no need to thank me, I didn’t do that much anyway. She’s an independant pony, and she’s pretty hard-headed too. A little bit like somepony else I know...” Carrot nudged Derpy and the two shared their laughter as they continued along the dew-covered grass.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Derpy thought back to her hug with Dinky and how great it felt. Though she herself was overcome with fatigue, Dinky was the embodiment of energy, and when Derpy stroked her mane during their embrace, she could feel the silky strands of gold flow around her hooves. With a tear hanging, Derpy stretched out her smile and let her eyes go off at obtuse angles before she bit down on her lip. She knew she was about to cry again, but she could do that when she was alone. Today, they were going to be happy. For Dinky.