Elements of Good Support

"Hiya! Gah! Doctor, your muffins are being baked right now. Calm down!" I quietly step aside to let the Doctor in, and the stallion behind him too.

"Sorry Derpy." The doctor looks around eagerly. Of course he would. The mystery stallion flips through a notebook

I Sigh. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Research and Development." The stallion waves a hoof, magic lighting up the notebook as he glanced at my flank. Normally I'd be upset, but he started drawing circles on the notebook. Guessing he's drawing my cutie mark, since he glanced at the Doctor's too.

"Who?"

"Somepony who wanted to talk to everypony about the Elements of Ha-Oh! Chocolate Chip Muffins!" The Doctor ran across my kitchen at Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash speed.

"Hey!" He stopped before reaching for them, a bit of dirt falling on my floor. "Doctor, wipe your hooves first, I don't want you getting sick because you have dirt on your horseshoes."

"Like it's any better than that time you had clouds on your wings." The Doctor joked back, lightly bumping my wing with his flank as he walked back to the mat, making me go red.

"Clouds taste better than mud." I stuck my tongue out at him, only half aware of the unicorn chuckling at us.

"If you say so. I still feel them zapping around in my stomach." The Doctor finished wiping his hooves and ran twice as fast, dodging the dirt he had dropped so I wouldn't yell at him again. Good

"Ahem." Research coughed quietly, looking me in the eyes. Er, eye. He, like so many others, was staring at my wandering eye.

I smiled warmly at him, or I hoped it was warmly. "Oh! Sorry about that sir. So you wanted to speak with me about the elements of harmony? I don't know why." I honestly didn't. It doesn't really make any sense. "I don't have any Magical know-how, and I barely know Pinkie, Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow, and Fluttershy. I really only know them from delivering mail and muffins to them day by day."

"It's not that, Miss Hooves." Research put a pencil behind his ear and smiled.

"Please call me Derpy. Everypony does." And it avoids people calling me and the Doctor Mister and Misses Hooves...

"Er, all right Miss Derpy. I wanted to know why you fall under the element of Kindness." I blinked a couple times. The Doctor had come back with a muffin in his mouth and I just stared at him.

"Do you understand him?"

"Of course I do Derpy! Research here wants to know how kind you are."

"Say what?" I'm not excessively kind, I'm just good at treating other ponies well. I'm no Fluttershy, who spends day in and day out caring and healing the animals. I'm not even like Rarity and her "I'll make dresses for you, free of charge". Or rather, at a lower price than she should.  I just make muffins and deliver the mail.

"Well, I guess I don't actually have to ask... It's plain and simple." Research made another note in his notebook, as the Doctor nodded and grinned knowingly.

"Ah, it is it is."

"Hey, hold on a second. What do you mean by "Plain and Simple"?" Are they calling me stupid for not realizing it? Isn't he talking about 'ponies who are excessively' an element. That's what I talked to Twilight about once.

Research turned his notebook to me, a pink necklace with a few bubbles as a gemstone. "Well, Miss Derpy. You're a mailmare, however you bake muffins all day and deliver them to ponies."

"I'm just being nice and friendly. Anypony would do that." I waved him off, but it didn't quite sit right with me. This... Praise. "It's just a pony's way. Honest."

The Doctor mumbled, "Not the element of Honesty." and both of my eyes snapped to glare at him.

"You also worried about the Doctor's health, even though he obviously wasn't." The Doctor quietly complained by I spoke over him.

"Again, anypony would! It's not special!"

"Mama!" Dinky had run in and pulled at my wing. "Can you read me a story?"

"Oh, of course my little muffin." I turned to Research with another warm smile. "Excuse me for a bit."

I tucked Dinky into her bed and told her the story of "Doctor Donna", a beautiful mare who went on a splendid journey on her wedding day to far off lands, eventually going back to the way things were for her own health. A sad story, but Dinky knew that Donna had gotten a happy ending anyways, marrying somepony she loved. I tiptoed downstairs, stopping at the doorway when I heard Research and the Doctor talk.

"... She really doesn't see herself does she?"

"Aye. It's a bit shocking. You saw her eyes, right? She's always been teased and insulted because of them. Why, the first time we met I may have put my foot-"

"Hoof."

The doctor laughed lightly, like he always does with pony terms. "-Hoof in my mouth asking if everypony's eyes were like hers. But she, remarkably, took it in stride."

Research fiddled with his notebook, if the rustle of paper was any clue. "And she didn't mind me prying into her life."

I walked in, chuckling quietly as the stallions jumped. "That's just what anypony would do. I think I've said that a lot."

Research smiled back at me, eating the muffin I passed to him with a laugh. "That seems like common sense, but you'd be surprised at how uncommon that mindset is."

The Doctor and I laughed, and he said, "All right, we're not going to convince Derpy about just how kind she is-"

"Because-"

The two of them, so in synch I almost thought they'd practiced this while I told Dinky her story, said. "I'm not that kind, I just do what anypony would do.'

I puffed my cheeks out as my wings flared in annoyance, going to lightly hit my friend in the head. "All right all right. Enough teasing me. I'll give. I'm a kind pony."

The doctor talked about the next pony he would bring Research to meet and I said I'd come with. I can't leave Research alone with the doctor in his Tardis, after all. It would be cruel and unusual punishment.

-The Mailmare Who Does What Anypony Would Do.