Table Top Opens Up

I walked back home, full of food and booze, at a pleasant buzz due to the alcohol in my system. It didn’t take long to get back, my house was only a short walk from Sugarcube Corner. A pleasant little place, not much in room, but with a decent garden, where I grew my flowers and tea bushes for my cigs. As I walked in, I grabbed the bushels of dried herbs and flowers hanging just outside and brought them in. I had a train to catch in a few hours and a long night of travel, followed by plenty of hours of gaming. I needed to stock up.

I spent my time properly taking off the leaves before grinding them, then packing them within a small roller, which I then inserted the packed herbs into the cylindrical cigarette casing with a filter in place. I repeated the monotonous task over and over, being careful with how much I packed in, just focusing to stop any thoughts from crossing my mind. I knew where my mind would dwell, and there was plenty of time for that when I was alone on the train. For now, just roll.

As I finished packing my last cigarettes, for a total of 48 that would last me the next three days, I carefully packed them in silver cases, each containing 12. These went into pockets on my jacket, where they would stay til needed. I looked at my clock, and I still had about 30 minutes until I really needed to be heading to the station. Luckily, I knew where I could go at this time and get a few snacks for the road. So I donned my jacket and wrapped a scarf around my neck (it may not be cold, but it feels comfortable) and made my way to Sugarcube Corner.

I refrained from lighting a cigarette since I’d just be there in a minute and be out not long after, but instead put one behind my ear for the walk to the station. I got to the doors and went in, the bell jingling lightly. There weren’t many customers since it was already dark, but one certain pony was being as energetic as usual, making sure everyone had what they needed. The big ball of pink cotton candy hair bounced my way then stopped in front of me letting out a cheerful “Hi Topsy!” before going behind the counter.

“So Topsy, what can I get for you this evening?” Pinkie smiled in that goofy way that just makes anypony want to smile. I resisted that urge as best I could.

I failed. I smiled back at her. “Well, it’s Tuesday night, and I’ve got a train to catch to Fillydelphia, and decided I’d like a few snacks for the trip. Would you mind getting me three chocolate chip muffins and three banana nut muffins? To go, of course”

“Okie dokie lokie!” She bounced back into the kitchen and in a moment brought out my order, as well as an extra banana nut muffin on top, which she placed on the counter. “Extra one’s on me! A snack now means you can enjoy these ones slower and spread them out!”

I chuckled. She knows my habits when it comes to my favorite food. “Thanks Pinkie. You’re a good mare, and you’ll make somepony happy one day.”

She laughed loudly, snorting a little, then answered “Well, I TRY to, but Rarity is always so picky and consumed with her work, and I try to help her when I can, but usually it backfires and I’ve made a mess or done something wrong and she gets angry at me, but it’s alright because she’ll apologize once she’s calmed down for getting angry and I apologize to her for messing things up and then we kiss and then-“

I shoved my hoof in her mouth before she could go any further. “Pinkie, 2 simple rules, if you please? 1, you shouldn’t discuss your private life openly in public, some ponies may not take it in stride as it just you being you; and 2, breathe every once in a while when you talk, ok? You can say a lot more that way.” She nodded her head and I took my hoof away, then grabbed my muffin with the other hoof, taking a quick bite. “Mmmm, delicious. How is it that they always seem like they just came out of the oven? You were back there just a second, these couldn’t have been waiting.”

“That’s a secret!” She giggled and came around, patting my back. “Have a safe trip, alright? I hear Fillydelphia will be a bit colder. But you’re always wearing your jacket and scarf, so you should be alright!”

I lifted my muffins into my bags and nodded at her, dropping the bits I owed on the counter, leaving enough to cover the extra. “Thanks for the snacks Pinkie. See you on Thursday if I see you.”

I exited the building and sighed. That mare just has a talent at making people smile, even when they don’t want to. I’d prefer to keep it where only Ditzy could make me smile, as always.

I made my way down to the train station, paid for my ticket, and waited for the train to arrive. My mind drifted to the baked goods I had brought with me. My favorite food of all, chocolate chip muffins and banana nut muffins. Truth be told, I hated them once. But that was long ago. The train crawled into the station, and I boarded, finding a nice secluded booth where I could lay and rest before the next day’s activities. As luck would have it, I dreamed about Ditzy. Of course I would.

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It was my first day at the new school. My mom and I had just moved to a town called Ponyville, much to my dismay. I had no friends, and I didn’t know this place. It scared me. The teacher, I couldn’t remember her name, introduced me to the class, telling them I had just moved from Fillydelphia. I got a seat in the middle of the class. It wasn’t assigned, but if I made any friends at recess I’d be more than welcome to switch seats. That didn’t happen, though.

Through the day, I showed my smarts, answering questions easily, even in my most hated subject, math. By the time recess came around, I already had the class calling me a geek and teacher’s pet. I didn’t let it bother me. They didn’t come up to me directly, so I couldn’t care what they thought. Just meant that I’d be alone again…

That was when I saw her the first time. A colt was cornering her against the school’s wall. I couldn’t let someone be bullied right in front of me, so I went up to them. As I got closer, I heard what he was saying.

“What are you gonna do, retard? Gonna break something then act like you didn’t mean to do it? Well?” He was getting closer to her. I couldn’t stand it, so I did what I could. I walked between them, pushing him aside while grabbing her hoof and walked away. It didn’t go quite as planned as he turned and shouted, “HEY, GEEK, where the buck do you think you’re going?”

That was it. Anger flared up inside me. I dropped the mare’s hoof and stomped over to the colt. He was a little taller than me, but that didn’t matter. I glared at him, sending whatever negative feelings I could through eye contact and drew myself up to make myself seem bigger.

Then I smiled and poked him in the chest, saying, “I’m a Nerd, not a geek, please get it correct.” I walked away and got next to the mare, taking her hoof in mine again and walking to a tree to sit down.

She looked at the ground then at me, then back to the ground. After a few minutes, she looked directly at me. “Thank you for that.”

I looked back in her eyes, feeling a smile, a genuine smile, crawl onto my face. “It was nothing. Can I have your name? I’m Table Top, and I’m new.”

She glanced around a bit. She was nervous, and absolutely adorable. “Umm… My name is Ditzy Doo Hooves, but ponies around here call me Derpy. I’m not very… umm… well I’m a bit clumsy and I break things often.”

I extended a hoof out to her. “Well, I don’t have much to break, so I don’t see why we can’t hang out.”

She looked at me a little confused for a second, then grinned goofily, and I felt something in my chest flutter a little. She took my hoof in hers for a moment then hugged me.

I blushed a bit, then cleared my throat, “Well, that wasn’t really called for, but I’m sure friends hug… Thanks Ditzy.”

We sat in the shade of the tree until the bell rang for us to come back inside for the last bit of lessons. Instead of the seat I was given, I moved beside Ditzy, at the back of the class. It went on uneventful until the last lesson. “And now,” the teacher proclaimed, “We’ll learn a little geometry, about shapes and how they can add up.”

I groaned. This wasn’t something I knew at all. I hated any math that I didn’t already know. It just got so complicated. Beside me, though, Ditzy was all bright eyes. I leaned across and whispered, “How can you like this stuff?”

She looked at me a moment, confused, then smiled, “Because it’s fun! And with shapes, you can make other shapes! See?” she showed me her paper where she had twenty triangles drawn out in a weird pattern. Then she cut them out along the lines, keeping the triangles connected, then with some folding made it into a ball.

I stared at it, amazed. It was so simple yet so complex, so symmetrical, and beautiful. “How do you do that?” I asked.

“Here, I’ll show you!” She grinned again and showed me equations and math problems. I was a little confused, but I started to get a hang of it. I learned more from this mare that ponies of our class had labeled a “retard” than years of advanced classes had attempted to teach me. I lost interest in the work and took to just watching her, her eyes, mane, and mouth moving as she worked and explained to me how lots of things could be figured out with numbers.

The bell rang suddenly, snapping me out of my reverie. We exited slowly, me and Ditzy being the last in line to leave. We chatted lightly until we got out to the school yard. “I’m glad that I met you Ditzy. You know, you’ve taught me more than adults have attempted to for years!”

She clapped her hooves together, saying “Yay!” with a big goofy smile on her face that infected me. At that time, my stomach decided to give a big growl, making me blush profusely.

“Sorry, sorry, I forgot to get my lunch…”

She looked lost in thought for a moment then brightened. “I have two muffins if you wanna share them!” She beamed at me. I hated muffins, they were always dry and stale and didn’t taste good. But I couldn’t say no to her.

“Alright, let’s just get a spot to sit down at…”

We got to a bench and sat down. She opened her saddle bags and extracted two perfect-looking muffins. “One’s chocolate chip and the other is banana nut! Which would you like?”

I ran a hoof through my mane slowly, feeling a little awkward. I didn’t want to disappoint her. “How’s about we just split both?” Her eyes widened and she laughed for a second, then quickly broke both muffins in half, handing me half of each one. I gulped, dreading this moment. I didn’t want to eat them because I knew what was in store for me, but if I didn’t eat them, she’d be sad… Without much grace, I bit off a little bit form the banana nut one, and my eyes shot open.

Instead of being dry and stale and tasteless, this muffin was rich, moist, and the banana and nuts were actually present in the taste. I took a bite out of the chocolate chip one, and it was the same moistness, with dark chocolate chips turning to goo as soon as I bit into them. These had to be the two most delicious things I had ever eaten.

I gobbled them down quickly and turned to look at Ditzy. She had a pleased smile on her face, having watched me wolf down her muffins. “Who made these?” I had to know, these were culinary perfection!

“I did, of course,” she responded with a giggle and a bite of her muffin.

I sat dumbfounded on the bench as she finished off her muffins and got down. I got down a moment after, having needed a moment to regain my senses. “Well Table Top, I need to get home, mommy and daddy will be worried if I’m late.” She hugged me gently.

“I guess I should head home too. Mom will want to know how my day went. I’ll see you tomorrow, same spot?”

She nodded her head and gave me one last hug, then turned and walked away toward her house.

I may have been young at the time, but I knew, I had started to fall for that little filly.

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I woke up from my nap, sighing while I stretched. Nopony had come into the car, so I was still alone. I’ll always be alone, of course, that’s how life works. You never get the mare of your dreams, you can get a decent job, but you can’t come home to the one thing you want more than anything else. And ponies wonder why I’m bitter. I’m bitter because life always sucks no matter what because there’s just one aspect that will pass you by. Some get lucky, but the rest of us have to deal with it on our own.

Resting my head against the window, I look out the one opposite me, looking at the moon, almost completely hidden, just a sliver of light left. Ah, what the hay, I’ll catch a little more shut eye. It’ll still be a while until the train is in the proper station.

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Mom always hummed that tune around me. I knew most of the words, but she didn’t sing them all. Ditzy was over for dinner and mom was busy around the kitchen, getting the last of the food ready. She watched my mom intently and listened close. Finally, mom brought our plates and set them down in front of us and herself, taking a seat across from me and Ditzy.

A few bites into the meal, Ditzy looked at mom, and asked quite bluntly, “What’s that song you were humming?”

Mom looked a little startled, not having expected a question out of air like that.

“Well, little one, I’ll tell you about a wonderful stallion: little Tops’s father. He was a big unicorn, and had the same coat and mane as little Tops has. Oh, and his eyes! You see, Table Top is the spitting image of my husband, Turn Table. But,” mom looked down, saddening, “when Table here was only two, Turn was in an accident which took him from us. But whenever I’m sad or lonely,” she looked up, holding back tears, “I sing that song to myself. It was our song, and he wrote it for me. He made a lot of money from it when I told him to let it be published, but it’s always our special song. Would you like to hear it, little one?”

Ditzy nodded her head eagerly, a few tears dripping down her face, and mom began to sing.

Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars…

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I woke up as the train pulled into the station, dawn breaking out the window. I gathered my things and departed the train on cramped legs before stretching them out while walking to my destination. Fillydelphia was big in standing to Ponyville, but couldn’t live up to the big city of Manehattan. I still had quite a walk, though. I needed to get out of the business district and get to rural area, and that takes some travel time. Doesn’t matter, I need to walk off that sleep.

An hour later I finally made it out of the business districts (wouldn’t have taken so long if I were going faster than walking), and stopped to get a quick carrot dog. Another 20 minutes passed with me walking, and finally I arrived at my destination. A large house with plenty of space and a bland fence out front disguised what was inside.

I knocked on the door and waited. The door opened after half a minute, and I made my way in and down into the basement. Swords, staves, axes, maces, and props of all kind aligned the walls, as well as posters and a book shelf dedicated to the different versions of our game, as well as other types of roleplaying games.

All five of them were there already, character sheets out, dice at the ready. But this is my domain. I pulled out my laptop, letting it start up while I plugged the surround sound speaker system into the laptop, and got out my chosen books, notes, papers, dice, and most importantly, the recorder, set in place in the middle of the table. I cracked my neck, got a chosen song for background, and got a cig out, putting it in my mouth and lighting it with my magic, only before it lit, the paper it was housed in turned black as night. I took a deep drag, feeling the smoke in my lungs as I focused my magic. I exhaled, releasing more smoke that could have possibly been in my lungs, which spread above us all in a thin layer that somehow obscured the ceiling from view. With a flick of magic, the record button was pressed, and we began.