First Flight
Chapter 1
Right side, fourteen rows down, yellow.
Left side, fourteen rows down, finish.
Right side, fifteen rows down, red.
"Actually, knitting isn't so hard after all.", thought Carrot Top. She had taken up the practice during her afternoon tea breaks, and was making actual progress with it.
As she bent over to sip at her mint tea, it struck her as odd why some ponies claimed to find it so...SPLASH!!!
A sudden impact, roughly equal to being jumped on by a young unicorn filly, knocked Carrot's snout into the cup and the feeble beginnings of the scarf out of her hooves.
Dinky jumped off of Carrot's head and dove under a bunch of pillows on the couch quickly.
Her mother, Derpy, came flying in only a second later, carrying a brush in her mouth.
"Thnky! Cm auf so I cn brsh yu!", she said through said brush as she hovered, looking for her unwilling daughter.
Very swiftly, scanning both sides of the room at once thanks to her special eyes, she spotted the tip of a blonde tail sticking out underneath some pillows. She gently flew down and pulled a dissapointed Dinky out.
"Awww, you're way too good at finding...", Dinky said sadly.
Derpy had fastened the brush to one hoof, and started pulling strokes through Dinky's mane and tail gently.
"That's because mommies have special ways to find their little foals everywhere
and all the time.", said Derpy proudly.
Carrot pulled herself out of the cup again. All porcelain cups in the house had been gradually replaced with sturdier ones ever since her two housemates moved in, so no shards or anything.
"Hi Aunt Carrot!", Dinky said cheerfully despite being on the receiving end of a well-needed brushing. "Ow!"
"Hi Carrot!", echoed her mother equally happy. "Why are you all wet, Carrot?"
Carrot stared evilly at both oblivious ponies, then walked off to the kitchen to clean herself off. She had also completely forgotten where the heck she was on the knitting pattern.
As she returned, Derpy was finally ready to let a very anxious Dinky out of her hooves. Dinky leapt down from the couch and away from her mother, who seemed to want to spend a few more hours brushing.
Dinky quickly walked to the front door with her mother flying about a meter behind her, worrying out loud: "Don't go playing in mud, or anything else dirty, okay? And be back before the sun goes down! And don't dive into the shallow end of the pool! And always be polite to strangers! And..."
Dinky added a "Bye Mom, bye Aunt Carrot!" swiftly, and ran out of the house with haste.
Derpy stared through the small window in the door intently, until Dinky was out of sight.
"Derpy? What's all this trouble about now?", Carrot asked kindly, seeing her best friend distraught like this.
"Dinky wants to go play with her new friend...", Derpy said, saddened.
"Really? That's great, right? Right?", said Carrot Top. Dinky was a pony who never really went playing with her friends outside of school. In fact, Carrot wasn't so sure she had that many friends...
"But I don't want her to be with some strange ponies, I want her to be here with us... I want her to be here with me...", Derpy continued.
Carrot wasn't a mother herself, so she couldn't possibly imagine how all of this must've felt for Derpy, seeing her little foal running off into the wide wide world all by herself.
She was however, a damn good best friend.
Carrot sat down next to Derpy, who was still cradling the brush with a bunch of yellow hairs in it and looking out the window.
Carrot gently put her hoof on Derpy's, and looked into the big, teary yellow eye next to her. She pulled Derpy so they were facing eachother properly.
"Derpy, all fillies grow up someday. You know that, right?", said Carrot intently.
"Uh-huh...", nodded Derpy sadly.
"And it's a good thing she's making new friends now, right? Nopony should be without friends.", Carrot continued.
"Yeah...that's true...", confirmed Derpy, still sad.
Then, Carrot took a guess: "Derpy... wouldn't you have liked to have a good friend yourself when you were a little filly?"
Carrot's guess was dead on.
Derpy's legs wobbled, her lip quivered and her feathers ruffled. She dropped flat down and shut her eyes to keep the tears in, even if just for a moment.
Chapter 2
"Phew! Finally!", an out of breath Dinky puffed out as she slowed down her pace a safe distance away from home.
She was already late, so she kept moving forward to her friend Pipsqueak's house. If she hadn't fled, her mother would've spent the whole afternoon finding excuses to keep Dinky there. Dinky did secretly hope her mother wouldn't be too upset about the whole thing.
Pipsqueak was a colt from her class, one she played with a little more than sometimes at school, during recess. He sounded silly, but always had good ideas for games and pretends.
Today would be the first time Dinky ever saw where he lived, or in fact the first time she had been to one of her classmates' houses.
Dinky walked by the town square, where some kind of tug-of-war was going on between a bunch of ponies and a giant monster rabbit over a golden-hued piece of lettuce. Dinky ignored it and kept moving, these things happened a lot.
Pipsqueak's house was the one shaped like a giant boot, she remembered. It was supposedly somewhere behind the third bridge, coming from school...
"Hey, Dinky! Over here!", called Pipsqueak from his front lawn. The house he was standing on, and had described as "a small, beat-up lodging", was a large, wooded three-storied house with bright yellow tulips in front of the windows. To be fair, it DID kind of look like a boot, if boots were made for dragons!
Dinky walked up the front lawn, taken aback a little by the size of the whole thing. Much different than the actually beat up mail station and the small farmhouse Dinky was used to.
"So, what do you think?", said Pipsqueak proudly.
"It's... huge!", Dinky stated, still looking up at the building instead of her friend.
"Well, not... huge. More like, you know, big.", said Pipsqueak defensively. He didn't like either of those words much. Due to his small stature, he'd been bullied a lot in Trottingham, his previous place of residence.
"You wanna come inside?", he asked Dinky.
She nodded, then followed him inside. They had already lost a good hour because of her mother's panicked attempts to keep her home, the better to make up for it.
"Mother? Dinky's here! I told you she was coming!", Pipsqueak called as they walked inside, dashing faster inside himself.
Dinky moved slower, taking her time to look at the various paintings and other things hanging on the wall. It seemed like some strange museum of boating to her, filled with countless daring tales of seaponyship.
"That's my father's stuff.", Pipsqueak said suddenly, startling Dinky. "He's not here much... he's a sailor."
"Oh...", said Dinky. Not having a father around was something she was familiar with.
Pipsqueak cheered himself up quickly enough though, and guided Dinky into the living room.
Inside was Pipsqueak's mother, a mare somewhat older than Dinky's own mother and light brown in color, with a greyish-white mane.
"Hello, dear! You must be Pip's little friend Dinky. My name is Tea Spot. I've heard much about you already.", she said kindly and with an accent thicker than Pipsqueak's own. She also shook Dinky's hoof.
Pipsqueak tried to make himself even smaller at the last comment.
After a further introduction over tea and bisquits, Dinky and Pipsqueak went off to play. Soon, it was decided they would be the fiercest pirates the Ponyville river had ever known! Say farewell to your treasures, unwitting merchants!
Chapter 3
She'd never thought it possible, but there was indeed a way to make muffins taste bad, as Derpy realized.
Carrot had tried her best to get her mind off of it, but it wouldn't work. Not even the double-sized, chocolate-sprinkle-covered deluxe muffins made the lingering image of Dinky lying somewhere cold, hurt and scared go away.
"Aww, if not even the big one can fix that sad face, there must be something REALLY bad going on!", said Pinkie Pie, who'd noticed one of her favourite, though not very frequent, customers sulking even after taking a bite of the dentists' nightmare Pinkie made.
She took the third seat on the table Derpy and Carrot Top were sitting on, and planted herself on it in a listening position.
"Lay it on Auntie Pinkie, Derpy!", Pinkie said, sounding cheerful still.
Derpy just snorted dismissively and looked away, she didn't want to answer.
Carrot took over for her in that: "Dinky is playing with one of her friends right now.", she said solemnly.
"What? But isn't that a good thing? Why wouldn't a little filly be out playing on a day like this?", Pinkie replied immediately.
Derpy sobbed quietly, keeping silent as much as possible.
"Well... Derpy and Dinky have always been very close, and this is the first time Dinky ever went to a friend's house by herself. And all out of a sudden too... Derpy's taking it pretty bad.", Carrot answered.
"Awww, that's so sad... But I know what'll make you right and...", Pinkie said.
Carrot slung her right front leg over the crying pegasus, who quite failed to keep it inside. She gave Pinkie a look that told her that there wasn't going to be a simple cheerup operation to devise, and Pinkie quietly took her leave. She still snuck a full refund for the muffins in Carrot's saddle-pouch.
"I'm... imma... I'm the worst mother ever! I don't want my little filly to be happy! uhuu...", Derpy cried.
Derpy was a pony for theatrics, that's true. But Carrot sensed she actually felt that way, dramatics included.
Carrot let her cry out for a good half hour. "Should've knitted a hoofkerchief...", she thought.
Chapter 4
The H.R.M.P.C Dinksqueak cruised the brazen seas as gently as a dove, yet as fearsome as a gryphon. Her captain, the mighty Pipbeard, at the helm, it was truly a sight to behold. The mission of ship and crew was to chase after the cowardly brigands who took off with a piece of a map leading to a legendary treasure.
"All hooves on deck! Lower the mast!", called First Mate Dinkleg from the upper deck.
"Lower?", Captain Pipbeard repeated, confused. "Dinkleg, explain yourself! We'll never catch up to the lost treasure of Anchors Away without every knot we can muster!"
"I think you'll see for yourself! DUCK!!", screamed Dinky as she flattened herself on the bottom of the shoddily-assembled barrelboat.
Pipsqueak narrowly touched the bottom of the bridge with his ears. The "main mast", a scavenged broomstick, wasn't so lucky. The impact broke it in half and made it smack him square on the forehead.
The world stopped spinning as what was left of the ship came to a relatively gentle stop in the reeds of one of the bends in the river.
"Now how do we get off again?...", asked Dinky out loud while mooring. "Should've made a gangplank... Ooh! I know!"
She turned to Pipsqueak and pointed her hoof at him.
"You jump on the ground and pull the boat over!", she said.
"What? I can't jump that far! (About half a meter) You jump!", he said.
"I wouldn't make it either! Plus, a gentlecolt should always help out a lady in distress!", Dinky said while attempting to emulate Sweetie Belle's older sister.
"But a captain is supposed to be the last pony off, not the first mate!", Pipsqueak stated.
"That's true...", conceded Dinky. Maritime rules are golden, after all.
So the little unicorn took a big breath, set her hooves on the edge of the boat and took a giant leap!
Ten centimeters short.
The resulting impact was sufficient to finish off the shoddy remains of the Dinksqueak, condemning her captain to an equally wet fate.
Chapter 5
"I want my Dinky back...", was the only clear thought in Derpy's head as she laid belly-first on the park bench. She knew it wasn't going to go away either.
Carrot was off getting both of them tea from the restaurant, which lead to Derpy having to watch multiple families of ponies having fun in the lazy summer afternoon.
There were ponies playing ball, running around and generally enjoying eachothers company.
What stuck most in Derpy's head was one unicorn father lifting his foal son up in the air for a soft little headbutt.
Why did her little baby go away? Of course she was going to return all okay, but what in the world made her decide some other pony would be more fun to play with than her own mommy?
When Derpy was busy with work, delivering mail and packages all over Equestria, of course there had been times when she and Dinky were seperated. Back when they lived at the mailhouse, there always was somepony of Dinky's "aunts" or "uncles" to take care of Dinky. And now Carrot was there when Derpy wasn't.
But so far never, ever, had Dinky voluntarily chosen to spend playtime without Derpy.
And Derpy couldn't think of anything she wanted to do that didn't involve Dinky.
It hurt.
Derpy drooped her head down, almost touching the ground with her nose sadly.
*BUMP!*
Something knocked into Derpy's head, causing her to tumble off the bench!
No wait, not something. Somepony crashed into her. It was an odd feeling to be on the receiving end of a collision for Derpy.
Not a nice one.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Ohmigosh I'm so sorry! I was looking for my lost friend Ewan and I didn't think to look up and I'm sorry!", said the assailant in a hasty, but still low-key voice.
Derpy stood up again, dazed but alive. Still apologizing was Fluttershy, a timid local pegasus like herself.
Derpy hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings herself, so she didn't make a big fuss out of it (neither would she have otherwise).
"It's okay Fluttershy! I bump into ponies all the time!", Derpy said as cheerful as she could muster. "Do you want me to help find your friend? I'm good at finding things!"
"Oh, I don't want to be a bother...", said Fluttershy.
Derpy welcomed the distraction. She simply smiled to confirm her un-bothered-iness.
"Okay... Ewan is really small, so you'll have to look hard for him! He's a grasshopper! I was tending to Mr and Mrs Hedgehog and I think he just slipped away...", said Fluttershy.
Derpy wasn't keen on bugs, all squiggly and crawly. But if she just helped find Fluttershy find the thing, it would be gone away sooner.
So she looked.
Derpy was quite a good finder, as she had claimed. Dinky (and a lot of the other mailponies) loved to play hide-and-seek. She was especially good at looking in both directions at once, something almost no other pony could do as well.
Oh... Helping Fluttershy made her think of Dinky too...
Derpy hovered a bit off the ground to help her look around. She looked and looked to no avial. When she turned to Fluttershy however, something caught her eye. A small green shape on Fluttershy's back, hidden between her wings and if insects could have facial expressions, smirking.
"There he is!", said Derpy excitantly. "Right there!", as she pointed her hoof straight at the little bug.
Ewan was startled enough to jump from Fluttershy to Derpy, landing in the same spot only on Derpy's back.
Derpy froze up as Fluttershy removed the tiny grasshopper from her back and onto her hoof.
Fluttershy held Ewan up to her ear and listened to some chirps he made.
"Ewan says sorry... He just wanted to go for a ride...", she translated.
The grasshopper held up one of his legs for Derpy to shake, which she very carefully touched with one hoof.
Fluttershy bowed politely. "Thank you for finding my little grasshopper, Derpy. I was so worried about him! I thought he might get stepped on or something... But he's becoming a big bug who can take care of himself now, aren't you, Ewan?", she said still holding up the critter.
Ewan chirped in response proudly.
Derpy was happy to have helped, even just a little. She said goodbye to the leaving Fluttershy before returning to her bench.
She set down with a sigh.
Yes, little creatures, be it grasshoppers or unicorns, eventually became big and strong individuals who went into the wide world. But why couldn't Dinky wait a few more years with that?
When she played with her mommy, Dinky was as safe and sound as Derpy could make it. When Dinky wanted to go far away to play with somepony else, then Derpy couldn't be sure of that.
All this worried pondering gave Derpy a giant headache.
Derpy stood up to look for Carrot and the tea when she saw the things she wanted to see most and least at the same time.
Dinky, absolutely covered in dirt, plants and a bunch of scratches, happily trotting forward towards the fountain.
Derpy's had never flown that fast before.
Chapter 6.
Dinky liked baths, she honestly did. And to be fair, she did like to be bathed too. It didn't matter that she was actually getting a bit too old for it.
What Dinky didn't like, was forcibly getting washed for the fourth time by a pegasus in full overbearing-mother-mode.
For the fourth time, Derpy flushed Dinky's mane with soap before inspecting each strand carefully.
"Moooom! Surely you've gotten everything NOW! This is like the twentieth time already!", Dinky exclaimed.
"But I just want to be extra sure my little foal is all clean...", Derpy responded dotingly. "Maybe just one more wash..."
Her mother reached for the soapbottle again, but Dinky seized the moment and jumped out of the washtub.
Covered with a dozen band-aids, a few patches of wet lavender fur stuck out from her frame.
"Okay... then bathtime is over...", Derpy moped.
Derpy cheered up again. "Mommy'll dry you right up, Dinky!", she said before rearing up on her hind legs.
Dinky braced.
With powerful flaps from her wings, Derpy blew a fierce gale past Dinky, drying up the filly swiftly. Unlike the three color-coded towels behind Dinky, which were now covered in water, soapy bubbles and band-aids.
Dinky looked more like an odd-colored sheep than a pony now, and Derpy quickly produced the brush from that morning.
Again something Dinky usually enjoyed, but not now.
Why was Mom so obsessed with keeping Dinky within legs' reach today? Dinky knew neither of them liked being seperated from eachother normally, but this was something else.
"Mom? Did something bad happen today?", Dinky asked. She wondered if it was something she did, but nothing she'd done wrong and Mom could know about came up.
Derpy stopped straightening her daughters' mane for a moment and looked forward with her left eye, right one staring at Dinky's face.
"No...", she said after a moment. "Noooo...". She held Dinky tighter to her chest.
Derpy turned both eyes to Dinky. "Mommy's just so proud of you."
She gulped loud enough for Dinky to hear, then continued: "When Mommy was a little filly like you, I never... I mean... I didn't have..."
Derpy stopped talking and just picked Dinky up against her muzzle.
"Momma's so proud of you, baby... But Momma gets so very very worried too...", Derpy whispered softly. "But that's what we do..."
Dinky didn't quite understand what she'd done both for and to her mother then. But she figured out that it was about her going to Pipsqueak's to play this afternoon. And also that to her, it was just playing with somepony even when school was over, but to her mother it was something much more.
Dinky thought it was best to share, to tell her mother of everything she and Pipsqueak had been doing that day. Dinky knew her mother would like that.
After a good half hour, just before sunset, mother and daughter came downstairs again.
Carrot Top had made it back in the meantime, waiting in the living room while attempting to restore life to her knitwork. She put the precarious piece of needlework down on the edge of the table.
Dinky quietly picked up a booklet from one of many piles she'd left lying around and sat down to read.
"I'm sorry, Carrot...", said Derpy sadly. "I was just so worried..."
Carrot drew a bright smile. She was the best friend Derpy could ever wish for. "It's okay, Derpy. I understand.", she said warmly. "But I did give away your tea to Dinky's little gentlecolt companion. He was quite startled when you flew off with his new friend suddenly."
Derpy dropped her head and let her ears down sadly. "I'm sorry, Dinky's new friend..."
Carrot poked her with one hoof on the shoulder. "It's okay, we'll make it up to him. I told him he could come by tonight if that's okay with you."
Derpy (and Dinky, who was only pretending to read) brightened up again, happy to make amends for her behaviour earlier.
Derpy stood there smiling for a moment, happy that Dinky had another chance at making a new friend.
"Mommy?", said Dinky. "Can he?"
Derpy didn't have to think about it long. She nodded to Dinky with a big smile on her face.
"Yes!", shouted Dinky, and pumped her hoof. She jumped off the couch and tugged on her mother's wing.
Both ponies walked up to the front door, but when they reached the exit, something clicked inside Derpy's head.
Dinky walked in front of her, and it took her a second to realize the sound of hooves stopped.
"Mom? Aren't we going to tell Pipsqueak everything's okay?", said Dinky sadly, thinking her mother had changed her mind.
"You know what, Dinky?", Derpy said smiling. "I think..."
Derpy took a big breath and took a very big step: "I think you can do that without me."
Dinky was a little taken aback, especially after her mother's earlier behaviour.
"But please be quick, okay? And be careful! Don't go anywhere else, please!", Derpy said, pride swelling within her. Her little baby was growing up!
Dinky raised a hoof to her head quickly, reared, then ran off as fast as her little hooves could, leaving behind a vague trail of wet band-aids that fell off.
Dutifully, Derpy slowly picked them up, one by one. She again thought of Dinky fiercely, though this time of all the triumphs and accomplishments she had ahead of her.