The Ballad of Derpy Hooves
The Ballad of Derpy Hooves
“I’ve seen her crash like this all the time!” cackled Diamond Tiara as she shoved Dinky to the ground. Dinky’s head connected with the hard dirt that threw up dust in her eyes. The concoction of debris and her crushed feelings yielded a gratuitous river of streaming tears from a white sea veined a bloodshot red.
“Y-you shut up about my m-mommy!” Dinky sobbed as she tried to get up.
“Or what?” Silver Spoon snickered, “Is she gonna look at us with those eyes of hers?” She fell on her back in uncontrollable laughter as Diamond Tiara followed suit.
“How about those bubbles on her flank? Who would want those as a cutie mark?” mocked Diamond Tiara.
“I guess her special talent was so useless she had to take that postmare job to scrape together a living!” answered Silver Spoon with a fake sympathy in her voice. “Gee Dinky,” she continued, “it must be so humiliating having a retard for a mom, eh?” said Silver Spoon with a malicious, sadistic grin on her face. Dinky only stepped backwards with a frown and tears rolling down her cheeks. Her watery eyes were as wide as saucers. The clique’s laughter rung in her ears as she ran crying all the way home. This wasn’t the first time she had endured her friends’ insults.
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Dinky shoved the door to her house open, almost jarring it off its hinges as it hit the wall, sending a few pictures to the ground off their hooks. She ran inside, slammed it closed and flung herself on the small divan by the window and buried her face in a pillow, dampening it with her sorrows. She heard the sudden sound of somepony's hoof steps reverberating off the walls of the upstairs hallway. Dinky turned around to see that it was her mother who wore a concerned look on her face with her tagged mail satchel on her back that read, “Ditzy. H.”
Dinky ran over to her mother and nuzzled her face in her chest as she poured out the day’s sob-story.
“…and then they pushed me to the ground because they said you look funny mom!” cried Dinky looking up at Ditzy’s unforgettable eyes. One eye focused on her, but the other rolled off to a complementary angle. Even so, a sad look washed over her as she closely held her sobbing daughter to her chest. She lightly tapped Dinky’s shoulder to prompt her to look up. She stepped away and looked at her mother who said nothing. She only smiled with a reassuring look. In her outstretched hand was a steaming oatmeal muffin, one of Dinky’s favorites. However, Dinky only stared blankly at it. She scowled as she looked back at her mother’s equally blank face that only seemed to stare into nothing. Her right eye rolled downward in a most ridiculous look even by Derpy standards. Dinky could stand it no longer. She gritted her teeth and then screamed as she slapped the muffin out of Ditzy’s hoof.
“It’s not fair!” She shrieked. “Why can’t you ever talk to me? Why are your eyes so weird? Why are you so obsessed with those stupid muffins?! Because of you, I get made fun of every single day that my mommy isn’t normal!" Ditzy looked shocked as she tried to embrace her daughter again. Dinky only slapped her hooves away. Ditzy could only stare silently with those rolling eyes... Dinky screamed at her.
"WHY AREN’T YOU NORMAL?! I HATE YOU!” She pushed past her mom and ran upstairs to her bedroom and slammed the door. Ditzy looked heartbroken as she held out an arm in supplication for her daughter to come back. As soon as the door shut she shut her eyes and looked down in defeat. After a brief moment, she opened them again. In a rare moment, her retinae were aligned correctly as she walked over to the small writing desk, took out a quill and inkwell, and removed a small stack of papers from one of the drawers. She dipped the pen into the well and continued to add to the final sheet of paper.
Tonight was the night she would tell her everything.
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Dinky lay in bed that night with the covers up to her neck. She was all out of tears as she tried to just fall asleep for the next day. Then came a knock on her door. She sat up and folded her forelegs with a pouty look on her face.
“Don’t come in.” she muttered. Regardless, Ditzy came into her daughter’s dark room. Dinky folded herself under her comforter defiantly. Again, her mother said nothing. She tapped at Dinky through her covers as a small plea to come out. Dinky consented grudgingly. She couldn’t see very much until Derpy turned her bedside lamp on, bathing them in a warm, incandescent glow. Dinky saw a stack of papers in her mother’s mouth, which Ditzy motioned for her daughter to take.
“What’s this?” she asked, though she knew she would get no verbal answer. She only looked at her mother who wore an expression that seemed to say, “Please read it.” Dinky obliged. However, she couldn’t believe what she saw once her eyes registered what was on the page. It was a draft of writing with the most beautiful calligraphy she had ever seen. It was perfectly legible. Not too fancy, yet it was a pleasure to look at what an art it was that stretched across the paper.
“Who gave you this?” asked Dinky. Derpy pointed her arm toward herself with a modest smile. “You? You wrote this?” asked Dinky quizzically. “But…” It didn’t make any sense. This handwriting was probably better than Princess Celestia’s. Each letter curled and flowed with such grace and beauty into the next, like a river of ink, flowing gently with the guide of the quill. Nevertheless, she started to take in the words that her mother wrote.
My dearest daughter Dinky, words can’t describe the joy that I feel now that I finally get to tell you something I’ve wanted to say for a while now, ever since I heard how you felt about me, and how you were being teased and bullied only because of me, and ever since I felt your frustration at who I am. I know and feel your pain and frustration. I can’t express how much I curse the powers that made me mute to the world, mute before my own daughter. I have no words in my mouth to comfort you with, only my shoulder to cry on as well as the muffins. I hope you will realize that they mean something more to me than a simple pastry, dear daughter. To me, odd as this may sound, they symbolize one of the only forms of kindness I have ever known in this world. Although this is not a happy story, please listen and know why I am the way I am, and why I love you dearly, my little Dinky Hooves: The letter continued.
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All my life, I have also been the receiver of bullying. I was just vulnerable that way. By now I have accepted my faults and the fact that others wonder and joke about how stupid I must be because I can’t speak to prove them wrong, nor can I look them in the eye to be on their level. But know first, my daughter, that I am not dumb or stupid or any less capable of critical thought than any other pony, though I know you would never think such a thing. I gave up long ago trying to write down my thoughts to my peers who only laughed and ignored my notebook. I only give this to you because you are the only love I have in this world who would understand.
My eyes were not always crossed as they are now. However, I have always been unable to speak. It caused my parents panic that I was silent when I was born. The doctor quickly alleviated their fear of a stillbirth, but their joy was to be short lived when he explained that I was unable to utilize my vocal chords at all. I wouldn’t be able to talk, cry, sing, or shout for the entirety of my life. But like any good parents, my mother and father loved me all the same.
It was this that saved me, and ruined me. My mother always doted on me a bit more than necessary, in my opinion, as she was quite protective of me. That isn’t to say I was spoiled or none the like. She praised me when I did well in school and punished me when I needed it and gave me a small present on my birthday and Hearth’s Warming Eve. She just seemed to always pay too much attention to me. Perhaps she was trying to compensate for my father’s ambivalence. He, too, loved me as any good father would, make no mistake. However, he never really showed it. He was always disgruntled with the fact that his only daughter was a mute. He stifled his sorrows with a bit of drinking, but it never came to anything more than that. However, other than my muteness, I was a perfectly normal filly: I Did well in school, and went to flight camp in the summer. I also looked the part. On the outside, I was quite normal.
Until one day, when literally and figuratively, I saw the world from a whole new perspective.
I was about your age when I got my cutie mark. For a while, I would love nothing more in my spare time than to mix some dish soap and water and endlessly play with a rod and string making bubbles. I loved how beautifully the colors of the rainbow appeared in those free orbs of all shapes and sizes. They jiggled as I giggled when they popped. A thing of such wonders that seemed to be alive with a spirit of its own was so fragile. I especially loved them because I could play and dance with them, and they would never ask anything of me. I didn’t need to talk. Blowing bubbles created a silent dream world for me that I could just glide through. Eventually, I became much better at the art of creating bubbles from learning techniques such as getting the correct quantity of soap and being careful in how forceful I was with the rod and string. I found myself being able to blow bigger and bigger bubbles until I once created one so big, it could fit Princess Celestia inside twice. I immediately dunked myself into the bucket of soapy water until I was completely drenched, then I slipped myself into the bubble. It was as if I were part of another world. Everything that happened on the outside I couldn’t hear. It was silent. Like me. Imagine my glee when the mark appeared on my flank. I didn’t care that blowing bubbles couldn’t get me a job I liked. It was who I was.
My peers, however, found my cutie mark to be a laughing matter, dangerously so.
One day, I was making an art piece of the slippery spheres floating about with the sky as my canvas when I heard a splashing of water behind me. I turned around in horror to see that some of my schoolmates had followed me to the Whitetail Woods where I sometimes went to be alone and upset my bucket of soapy water. It wasn’t the loss of my liquid that horrified me, but the fact that I was being laughed at again. Some of my classmates had always been a bit short of understanding of my inability to speak. Thus, I was made a figure of ridicule by various cliques. But this was my private life that they were mocking now. I didn’t know how I could ever respond. I backed away and shut my eyes hoping that they would go away.
However, I wish my eyes had been open for as long as possible so I could see the world clearly one last time. The next thing I felt above the noise of the grating laughter of my classmates was a sharp force that hit me in the head. A large rock. I dropped to the ground, unable to move. Their laughter became dimmer either because I was falling unconscious, or because they trotted away, chuckling at their joke. I would have screamed if I could have, with blood and dirt washing over my face.
I woke up in a hospital to the sight of my parents crying hysterically as the doctor showed them pictures I didn’t quite see. I learned later that they explained the potential damage of my concussion. When I fully came to my senses, I was to discover what that damage meant. The doctor looked at me and shook his head as he tried to get me to focus on a light he was shining in my eyes. Try as I might, I couldn’t help but see double. He sighed and went on about my eyes having been forced into a state of both eso- and exotropia, that is, why my eyes are the way they are: All for a laugh at my expense. My life would never be the same. The doctor nonchalantly tossed something on my lap. It mattered not that my left eye looked down while the other looked up. I figured out then, that tears all fell the same way when they came pouring out of my eyes, down, staining the sheets of my hospital cot as I saw what it was that the doctor gave back to me.
Broken into pieces when I must have fallen on it, was my bubble rod.
Now you know, dear daughter, that I was born mute and how I became cross-eyed. I would like to say that my troubles ended there. However, that would only be partly true. I didn’t acquire any other peculiar traits, but I still only felt sorry for myself until I had you. Although, as soon as I recuperated and stepped back into school, I knew that all smiles directed at me were ones of Schadenfreude. I had no real friends.
To them, I was just a freak. I was Ditzy “Derpy” Hooves. I swore never to blow bubbles again.
However, I decided that this was no matter to keep me from living. At least I was capable of working and a decent flyer. After school I decided to work for the Equestrian Mail Service. I needed a job right away as my family needed money just as urgently. My father had slipped farther and farther away from reality ever since the accident. He commonly drank more than which was good for him until one night he had succumbed to alcohol poisoning. My mother was on her own and barely able to work. I do thank my lucky stars today when I think of my small, but generous salary. I had enough to support you and my mother.
But for a long time, I felt despondent after my father died and my mother was helpless. In that dark time, I was truly and utterly alone. Wherever I went, the strain of laughter behind my back drilled into my brain. I couldn’t take it anymore.
That is, until I discovered compassion in its purest form.
Years ago, I had delivered a package or two to a few addresses in Canterlot back when I was still a filly. I had to make the three hour trip in the pouring, freezing rain from Ponyville to the high mountain citadel. The trip was also quite difficult whenever my eyes crossed one way or the other. I wasn’t used to predicting the ways my eyes would roll, so I crashed quite a few times. Luckily, I had delivered the packages successfully without damage. I tried to put a smile on my face in the freezing downpour as I knocked on the doors of the recipients. They cared not for the small, bruised, beaten filly out in the rain as they snatched their parcels and slammed the doors in my face without even a tip. After the rounds, I was so starving I felt dizzy. I had a bit in my pocket as I looked for something to eat. Rounding a street corner, I smelled something wonderful. Baking. I saw a small pastry shop lit up on the road on what was a dark, rainy day in Canterlot. The smell of sweet goods that emanated from the small bakery was one that reminded anypony of home. I walked in and the showcase caught my eye.
On top was a fresh batch of steaming, oatmeal muffins. My stomach growled furiously, yelling at me to take action while they were hot. The kindly old stallion behind the counter caught me eyeing them as he beckoned me to dry off with a towel he tossed to me and to come purchase a muffin. After tossing him the two bits I had in my pocket, all that I had for the day, He carefully took a muffin and handed it to me with a smile. I walked back outside under the awning, savoring the moment. I had never loved food so much in my life. I could only look in awe at it until my hunger got the better of me. I closed my eyes to take a bite until I felt something, or somepony shove me. I opened my eyes to see a stranger passing by, yelling at me to get out of the way. I didn’t mind so much until I realized an absence in my hoof. The muffin wasn’t there anymore. I looked down to see my prize had fallen into the gutter. My eyes widened as I saw my now wet pastry disintegrate into the stream of water passing into the cobblestone road. Not only did I cry, I if could speak I would have started bawling: a small, freezing, lonely filly sobbing over a muffin. There went the only food I could get in a day. My stream of tears added drop by drop to the river of rainwater as I lamented my dearly departed dinner until I heard a cart coming down the street. Suddenly, the creaking of the wheels stopped, and I heard a heavenly, feminine voice directed at me.
“Oh! You poor dear!”
I looked up and saw a shining aura coming from the majestic Princess Celestia herself. The goddess stepped down from the carriage and held me under her wing. Imagine! A regal princess sheltering a poor pegasus filly on the street from the rain. She started to fuss over me and ask questions such as what in the world was I doing out in the rain like this without a coat and that I must be starving, etc. I motioned to my muffin that lay in the gutter. It was the only explanation I could give. The princess figured out that I was an employee of the Mail Service from my heavy satchel. She smiled and walked into the bake shop. I could only gawk and wonder why the most important pony in all of Equestria stopped to care about me. A moment later, she stepped back out levitating something with her magic.
Words would fail me anyway if I tried to describe my disbelief. I smiled and with tears of thanks, I stretched out my arm to receive what she had offered. It was a token of pure kindness. It was a favor of unconditional compassion. It was the purest form of love I had never received before.
It was a hot muffin.
It took a gentle prompt from the goddess to finally take a bite. But I only looked up with tears of joy still running down my cheeks. I wanted to ask, “Why? Why me?” I had never known such kindness before. It didn’t quite register with me. She didn’t even care that I couldn’t see her clearly as one as my eyes rolled and crossed. She understood my look and made nothing of it.
It was simply her responsibility to love, she said.
With that, she went back into her cart as she wished me a safe trip back home. I stood under the awning, staring at her gift. I felt a sensation I had never felt before. The smile I wore and swore to always wear rocked every nerve ending in my body. My throat tingled. I made a noise that I hadn’t heard from me before.
It was voice.
Spurred by an act of kindness, I uttered a single word, the only word I am able to utter to this day:
“M-m-muffin!” I whispered.
I pounced happily on the treat and I never felt so happy in my lifetime. Even if my eyes still crossed about.
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I don’t expect my tale to mean much. However, I only wanted to tell you so you would know what made me who I am today, and most importantly never to let the insults of others make you wish you were something you aren’t. It’s okay that the words others say hurt. I learned that as long as kindness exists in this world, there is always something to smile about, no matter where life has led you. Perhaps this explains my apparent obsession with muffins. They remind me of kindness and unfound compassion that lies in everypony. They remind me of the love I thought I would never receive. I can’t speak, but when I give you a muffin, it’s my own special way of saying: “I Love you, Dinky. I Love you with all my heart.”
Let not my kooky eyes confuse you, nor my muteness leave you feeling alone. You are the reason I cry no more. For you mean the world to me, and I know you love me back.
You will always be my dearest muffin. Mine and mine alone.
Dinky paused. She rested the papers in her lap, dumbfounded and unable to look at her mother who went through so much more than she ever would have thought. Tears began to form in her eyes. Ditzy caught it and nudged her face up to hers. Their eyes met, sort of, as Ditzy only kept smiling reassuringly at her daughter.
“I’m sorry mommy, about… what I said earlier.”
Ditzy shook her head and kissed Dinky on her forehead to wish her goodnight. They looked at each other for the last time before morning. Ditzy's left eye rolled quizzically inward as her trademark smile was still glued on. Dinky laughed uncontrollably as her mother grinned back.
She turned off the lamp and shut the door. Dinky had never felt prouder to have a mom such as her:
Such as the quiet, Derpy Hooves.
