Dinky Hooves's New Friendby pjabronyChaptersChapter 2 - BathsChapter 3 - SwingsetChapter 4 - The Obligatory Muffin ChapterChapter 5 - BreakdownChapter 1 - PlaygroundChapter 2 - BathsAt a spreading rock farm just outside of Ponyville stood an impressive house, all the more imposing for the three wings that were obviously additions to the original structure, a small farmhouse. In one of the wings little Suzie Pie was peering into a large granite bathtub, poking in a hoof. “Mom, it’s too hot!” Her mother was behind her, using her own foot to tap at the marble flooring impatiently. “It’s not too hot, you’re just dawdling. And how can you tell with just the tip of your hoof?” “Can’t I bring in something to read? “Suzanna, this isn’t going to be the full salon treatment, I just want to scrub you and wash your mane and your tail and get you ready. We’re going to be late as is!” The filly looked on the edge of the tub and noticed something. “You’re going to need my scrub-brush then, I’ll go get it!” and she backed off from the tub and galloped around her mother. “Get back here and get in!” But her foal trotted right back with a thick wire brush in her mouth, and spat it into the water. “All set now, Mom! But can’t I let it cool off just a bit?” “Suzanna if you don’t get into that tub right now, no PlayStallion 3 all week!” (PlayStallion 3 is a registered trademark of PonySony, all rights reserved. It’s also not nearly as risqué as it sounds.) Suzie dipped in her hoof again, then appeared to turn part-snake, as she slithered segmentally into the bathtub, until her head was completely covered and small bubbles floated to the surface. ****** Over on the Ponyville-Cloudsdale highway, which at its one terminus is quite a high way indeed, stood a dilapidated cottage, inside of which Dinky Hooves was dipping a hoof into a porcelain bathtub. “Mommy, it’s too hot!” Derpy stood tall and tried to put on a mean look, which on her face just made Dinky smile. “It has to be hot, because tonight for dinner I’m making Dinky soup! And I can’t make Dinky soup without Dinky, so get in!” “But we need more, mommy! We need carrots and onions and those other things that are always in soup that might be celery but you can never quite be sure.” “We don’t have any of that.” Dinky looked to her left for a second in thought, then said, “Well, how about bath toys then?” Derpy chuckled. “OK, but hurry up with them. You’ve got just four seconds to be in that bath, or no dessert tonight. One!” The little unicorn raced off to her room and returned bulldozing a small mountain of floating rubber in various shapes. She had been gone perhaps two minutes. Derpy tried her mean look again. “Two!” Dinky began carefully mouthing her toys into the water in alphabetical-chronological-size order, making sure each was at the correct spot before it floated right next to all the others. “Dinky, what comes after two? Mommy forgot.” “Three, I think.” “That’s it! Threeeeeee.” The last of the toys were going in. “Three and a haaaaaaalf!” Dinky wiggled her rear end like a cat about to leap up onto an unsuspecting lap. “Three point nine repeating!” And with that the little filly jumped and belly-flopped into the tub, splashing the room and sending waves back and forth within the bathtub itself. “I made it, mommy! I still get dessert!” Derpy was trebly happy. Firstly because Dinky was in the bath at last. Secondly, because Dinky had answered the counting question so quickly. Her filly was smart, and she was never sure if she was allowed to hope that a mare who everyone called stupid could raise a smart child. And lastly because she was firmly indoctrinating that smart child into believing that point-nine-repeating was NOT equal to one. ****** Suzie was squirming in the bath as her mother continued to scrub her hide with a wiry brush. The gray pony was exasperated. “I don’t know what possessed you to go into that sandpit. Didn’t you think that you would get dirty?” “I usually wouldn’t, but another filly was there and invited me.” “And if another filly jumped off a bridge, would you do that too?” Suzie thought about that. “Well, not if it was a pegasus, because they would have a reason to jump off, they’d be practicing flying. But she was a unicorn.” “So you would follow a unicorn?” “Jumping off a bridge into the sandpit? Sure, that would be fun!” “No, I meant a higher—never mind. So who was this filly?” “She was super-fun and knew fun games and shared her toys with me! Her name is Dinky Hooves and her mother is—hey! Her name is almost like yours, mom! Dinky, and Inky!” “That’s not my name. Only Aunt Pinkamena and Aunt Blinkwina call me that. My name is Inkara. And you call me dam.” Suzie ducked her head below the water and said through bubbles, “What’s wrong with ‘mom’?” “It’s that modern pony-lingo, and if the old words were good enough for your Grandsire and Grandam, they’re good enough for us.” “Grandma lets me call her Grandma,” said Suzie, but by that point she had dropped her head so low that all Inkara heard was, “Glub-blub lets me blub-blub Glub-blub.” She ignored her and scrubbed harder. Idly she reminisced about the conversation with her parents that had set her life on its present course. ”Inkara dear,” Sue Senior said after sitting her down, “Your sister Pinkie has just told us that she’s moving into Ponyville proper. She’s has an offer to work in a shop and tells us she doesn’t want to take over the rock farm.” “Really? Will she be able to make it there? Pinkamena’s always been rather. . . flighty, if you’ll excuse me gossiping.” “She’s no pegasus, but you’re right, she is flighty. All the more reason why she’s better off working for someone else instead of running a farm. Her bosses will be the Cakes, at Sugar Cube Corner, and they’re good, level-headed ponies who’ll hopefully keep her in line.” “I think I’ve met them once or twice.” “You’re awfully level-headed yourself, and I’m not just talking about how flat your mane lies. That’s why we want to know if you’d like to be trained to run the farm.” Inkara was taken aback. “But I don’t know anything about rocks!” “No, but you’re a hard worker, and that counts for more. And just between you and me, there’s not a whole lot to know. They’re rocks. You don’t have to milk them or feed them or shear them. You would think we wouldn’t even have to farm them when they’re lying all over the place, but most other ponies don’t know that, so we’ve got a good racket going. But in any case we’ve also found an experienced farmhoof to help you out. He’s a nice mustang from Espoña.” Just then Suzie kicked and reared, splashing her mother in the face and jarring her out of her reverie. “Mom, watch it!” “I’m sorry, dear, did I scrub too hard?” “No, but when you flashback the wavy lines make me all dizzy!” Inkara bristled. That was something like the silly things her older sister would say, that or something about sticking her head out of frame, when there weren’t even any picture frames around that she could see. ****** Derpy was taking her time bathing her filly, gently brushing her coat and scrubbing her with a washcloth while Dinky squeezed a rubber duck, alternating between doing so underwater and in the air. “So being as you made it in time for dessert, what would you like this evening? Do you want a cookie?” “No, mommy!” “How about a slice of cake?” “We never have cake!” “Really? What about some nice pie?” “Dessert’s got to be muffins!” “Muffins? I’m not sure I have those.” “Then it’ll be the first night we don’t.” “Well, then I’d hate to break a streak.” Derpy put down the washcloth and squirted bubble bath into the water. “Does your new friend like muffins?” “She never said. Actually we just played until her mommy came. She was awful mad.” “Why’s that?” “I think Suzie isn’t allowed to play. Her mommy mentioned something about her daddy not liking it.” Derpy said nothing for a minute or so, just idly brushing her daughter’s mane, then, trying not to sound serious, asked, “Dinky, are you sad you don’t have a daddy?” Dinky didn’t pick up the question as anything significant. She kept playing and idly said, “Not one like Suzie’s. He gave her a lot of names. She’s going to be the last in class to learn how to write her full name. If I had to be Dinkywinky Scoobydooby Bibbidy Bobbidy Hooves, I’d never get through telling ponies all that.” Derpy took a few steps back and let Dinky play with her toys. The motion of the bubble-bath would do the scrubbing fine on its own. She sat down on the floor, and a memory came into her head. ”Derpy, I’m sorry, I did love you, maybe even still love you, but we can’t live together, we’re just going to keep fighting over and over.” “But I can change, I can stop being such a ditz.” “It’s not that, it’s not about you. I don’t think I can change.” “But what about Dinky? She made you different.” “Not deep down. I love her, but I love other things too.” Derpy didn’t have an answer for that. From the moment she first held the filly and saw a tiny horn poking out from the swaths of a hospital blanket, Dinky had been the center of her life. It was funny, she thought, that two ponies could say the same words and mean the exact opposite. She could have said, “I love other things too” and mean that everything else was secondary to her love as a mother. He had said it in the passing of a death sentence on a marriage. “If you feel that way, then I won’t stop you. It’ll be hard to bring her up alone, but I’ll manage.” “It shouldn’t be alone. I’ll still want to visit her, and I’ll send money whenever I can.” Derpy from long experience understood her husband’s methods of speech. She knew that the last three words he had said cancelled out the three before. “No, dear. I agree with you that it’s better off for you to go, but going is going. You can’t have a daughter on weekends and holidays.” “Mommy, look!” Derpy was jerked back to reality. She looked in the tub and saw that Dinky had gathered up the suds and stuck some of them onto her flank. “We have the same cutie mark! I’m just like you, mommy!” Derpy dove forward and landed in the tub with her forelegs embracing her daughter and gave her a wet, sloppy kiss, not caring if she got wet or if the bathroom got messy. Dinky giggled at how silly her mommy was acting. Derpy was just glad that with the rest of her head soaked, her filly wouldn’t notice any particular moisture in her eyes. Chapter 3 - SwingsetDerpy was looking at another mess in her kitchen, and thought to herself that after she put Dinky down to bed, she would have a good hour of cleaning two rooms before she could lay down herself. She hoped delivery work would be light tomorrow. Dinky was finishing the last crumbs of a chocolate-chip muffin which she had devoured with relish (not the condiment.) She looked up and said, “So the next time I see Suzie, I want to show her my blow-up swimming pool, or—no, that’ll be too heavy to bring. My kite! We can take turns flying it!” Dinky liked kite flying, though more than half the time it was her mother holding up the kite. “Do you know when you’ll see her again?” “Huh? No, she left so soon, I didn’t get a chance to ask when she’s coming back. OK, I’ll just go to the park every day until I see her!” “You can stop on your way home from school if you like, but you know that when the big clock chimes three, you come right home, got it?” “OK, Mommy. But what if Suzie comes at four?” “Then you hope she’s a slow walker so she has to start an hour early and you see her trotting up.” ****** Suzie had steeled her courage as she went into her mother’s sitting room to kiss her goodnight. “Mo. . . Dam, may I go to the park again tomorrow?” “Suzanna, you know tomorrow you have polo practice.” “Oh, right. How about Tuesday then?” “Tuesday is Filly Scouts.” “Then—“ “Wednesday is your religion class. You can’t miss that, you’re making your Celestial Communion this year. And Thursday is more polo practice, you have a big match on Saturday against Cloppington.” “Friday is free.” “Friday I’ve got a dinner to go to. You can’t expect me to run you around every day of the week. Don’t be selfish, now.” Suzie thought to herself that she’d like to be as unselfish as she could by giving up all of the activities mentioned, but she had said yes to every one when offered, and she liked doing dressage. “I could go on my own then.” “At your age? Forget it! I’d be so worried about you I wouldn’t enjoy myself at all.” “Well, what if the match Saturday is rained out?” Inkara didn’t wear glasses, but if she did she would have nodded her head down to look over the rims at her filly. “First, if your match were rained out, the park would be too. Second, why would the pegasi schedule a rainstorm when little kids are playing polo?” “Maybe they want to see water polo!” Inkara realized her daughter wasn’t leaving. “All right, here’s what I’ll do. Next Sunday I’ll take an earlier salon appointment, if I can get one, and after that we can go for a half hour. And only on the swings, slide, and carousel! I’m not going through what we did again today!” “That’s fine, Mom! I love you, good night!” She kissed her mother and galloped off to bed. The gray pony sighed. She had the prime appointment slot and giving it away gave the other mares a chance to swoop in and take it. She hoped that by the end of the week Suzie would forget about going. ****** But Suzie did not forget. Every day of that week, in school and in her activities, she kept looking forward to going to the park. She hoped that Dinky would be there, but even if not, Suzie could go down the slide or play on the swings as she liked, without it being a practice or a meeting or having any kind of structure. Dinky of course knew none of this. She went every day after school, but most other foals her age were in activities just as Suzie was, so all she could do was play on the equipment and wait. Sliding soon paled, swinging wasn’t really fun without her mother to push her, and she wasn’t strong enough to go across the monkey bars yet. But for six days straight she went after school until the clock struck three, then hurried home as instructed. On the next Sunday, Derpy had no need to spur the little one to hurry with her things. Dinky seemed to be ready as soon as the sun rose, and as it peaked in the sky they arrived. Mother pushed daughter on the swings again for a while, then was about to go for her flight when she paused and turned back. “Little Muffin, do you like coming here? Do you want to join some club so you can learn a sport or some such?” “The playground’s swell. I wish they would put in some new stuff, but I always have fun.” Derpy took off, somewhat relieved. If she had gotten a different answer, it would have been difficult to find the time and the money to sign Dinky up, though she would have found a way. But, she thought, it was easier to just spend the time they had together on simple things. Suzie and her mother came trotting into the park while Dinky gave the slide another go. Suzie broke into a gallop as she saw her friend and arrived as Dinky came down, putting them face to face. “Hey, you’re back!” said Dinky. “Yep! I had to convince my mom, but she finally said yes.” “Want to finish the game from last time?” “My mom said I could come only if I don’t get dirty.” “OK, want to do the slide then? “How about the swings? Those are fun.” Inkara had caught up and joined the two of them. She stood behind her filly and looked down at Dinky. “So, you’re the friend Suzie has mentioned, Dinky is it?” “Yes ma’am.” “And where are your parents?” “My mommy went off for a bit to play by herself.” “Great,” Inkara muttered to herself. “Irresponsible mare dashes off and leaves her brat here for me to give free babysitting to.” Dinky turned back to Suzie. “Since your mom’s here, she can push us on the swings. I’ve never been pushed by an Earth pony before. You’re all super-strong, right? I bet she can even push us over the bar!” “Mother never pushes me. I always just swing myself.” “You can do that?” “Yeah, come on, I’ll show you!” They ran off to the swingset and Inkara kept talking under her breath. “Expects me to push her on the swings, as if I have nothing better to do.” She went to have a seat where she could keep an eye on the two of them. “So, put your belly on the swing, and then push off of the ground to start yourself,” said Suzie, getting into one swing as she described. Dinky climbed on the next swing over, then flailed her legs. “I’m too short! I always just run and jump into the swing.” “That can work too, but once you get going, pump your forelegs when you go forward.” She wasn’t too much taller than the unicorn, but she could get enough of a hoof on the ground to start herself, and then demonstrated the technique. “OK, I’ll try,” said Dinky, and she leaped into the swing, then seemed to start dancing wildly. The swing twisted left and right, and came to a stop quickly after. “It’s not working!” “Don’t swing each leg on its own. Do both.” “I don’t get it.” “Forget the legs then. Just put all your weight forward when swinging down, and then bring it back to center going up.” Dinky got off, waited for the swing to come to a stop, then jumped in again. She leaned forward, and though she felt like she was losing her balance, held on until she swung back, and kept going. She was losing momentum with each pass. “I’m still slowing up, but it’s longer than I’ve ever lasted without mommy pushing!” “It takes practice, and when you get taller you can always use the ground to cheat. Or you’ll learn to magic yourself into swinging.” ****** Derpy circled overhead and noticed three tiny bodies interacting in the park. Correctly guessing that the other on the swing was Dinky’s friend, she glided down to a landing and trotted over to the young ponies. “Hi, little muffin! Having fun?” “Sure am! Suzie’s showing me how to swing without being pushed. Suzie, this is my mommy.” “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Hooves,” said Suzie. “How polite you are. It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Pie.” Suzie was staring at Derpy’s face. Derpy looked quizzical. “Is something wrong?” “Your eyes go all funny!” Derpy was thrown off at first, but then found the child’s honesty refreshing. Most ponies she met went out of their way not to mention it, but didn’t look at her too much either. “Yeah, I suppose they do.” Inkara got up and joined the others. “Ah, you’re the little unicorn’s mother. She was all alone when we got here.” “I know, she’s so glad that her friend came back.” Derpy had not picked up the full meaning of what the gray mare had said. She tried to be a bit less subtle. “Aren’t you worried about leaving her by herself?” Derpy looked around the park. “Not really, ever since they put in sawdust under the slide and monkey bars, you can’t really fall and hurt yourself too much.” Inkara gave up. Clearly, she thought, the other mother was not very responsible or intelligent, as her eyes indicated. She looked away and again spoke under her breath. “Typical pegasus parent.” Derpy, perhaps because of her eyes, had excellent hearing. “What’s that you said?!” “I said. . . Pretty good weather for us. . . ain’t it?” “Yes, it’s quite so. The weather pegasi sure do good work.” Dinky picked up on her mother’s rising temper and decided to vacate the conversation before it could be deflected to her. “C’mon, Suzie, let’s practice swinging more!” The two fillies sped off. Their mothers returned to their vantage point, Inkara staring to make sure nothing went wrong, Derpy just glad to see her little one so happy. Inkara decided to try to engage the blonde pegasus again. “So, do you work the sky?” “I sure do!” “Do you happen to know if there are any storms scheduled for this week.” “Nope! Never much pay attention to the weather ahead of time, just let it hit me.” “But you’re a weather pegasus.” “Huh? I’m a mailpony.” “But you said you worked the sky.” “And I work it hard, pushing it this way and that to get all the letters delivered. I clock an awful lot of mileage, I’ll tell you.” Derpy was definitely not her first choice of conversational partner, but there was little else to do, so after a few minutes during which Derpy just rocked on her haunches and sang to herself, Inkara tried again. “I’m a rock farmer myself.” “Yeah? I don’t think we had any rock farms where I grew up in Cloudsdale. Good thing too, for anyone walking below.” Inkara decided she would put up with the boredom and singing and resolved not to speak again. She turned back to the girls and watched them closely for several more minutes. She was about to shout to Suzie not to go too high, when Derpy spoke to her. “So is Suzie going to be here every Sunday? My little Dinky’s so happy to have her as a BFFFF.” “Bee-eff-eff-eff-eff?” “You never said that when you were young? It means best filly friend forev-fer.” “I suppose we can come regularly if nothing interferes on my schedule.” And if I can bring my TrotMan music player so I don’t have to listen to you, she thought, but was careful not to say anything, even in whisper. “I moved my salon appointment to earlier, and I probably won’t get my old time back.” “Salon appointment every week, huh?” “Oh yes, wouldn’t miss it,” she said, throwing her head so that Derpy could be impressed by how shiny her mane was. “I wouldn’t think that salon workers needed farmed rocks so often, but like I said, I’ve never been on a rock farm.” Was there no end to this pony’s non sequiturs?! Inkara decided that enough was enough. “Suzanna! Let’s go, I don’t want to be late.” Suzie turned to Dinky. “I’d better not dawdle. You can keep practicing swinging though. You’re getting good.” “OK, Suzie, it was good to see you again! Come back soon!” Inkara headed over and nudged her filly along. She placed her own body between Suzie and Derpy as if to make sure that Suzie didn’t catch the derp. “I guess we’ll see you next week.” “We’ll be looking forward to it.” And they trotted off. Derpy went over to her little one. “OK, muffin, you ready for me to push you?” “Actually, Suzie showed me a way you don’t have to. I want to keep practicing.” “Oh. All right. I’ll just watch then.” She stood behind and watched Dinky try time and again to get the pumping technique down. Several times she was tempted to spread her wings and give a little push, but she was afraid that her daughter would know. Dinky seemed to have limitless energy. She kept on jumping in and trying hard, and the swing eventually seemed to give her a little more time in the saddle before stopping entirely. She worked until the sun was low in the sky. “Come on, my little muffin, time to go home.” “OK, mommy.” They headed for home at a slow trot. It seemed to Derpy that Dinky had something on her mind, but said nothing. About halfway back, as the red sun set behind her, Dinky turned to her mother and said, “Mommy?” “Yes, dear?” “Why do your eyes go funny?” Derpy knew the question would come someday, though she held out slight hope that it never would. She had the vague outlines of an answer prepared, and she stopped her trot and faced her daughter full on. “They do that for you, Dinky.” “For me?” “Yes. You see, every parent has two jobs. One job is to protect their little foals and make sure they’re safe. But the other job is to make sure they grow up to be big ponies. For a lot of foals, the daddy will do one job and the mommy will do the other. But I have to do both with you, and my eyes help me. Whenever I look at you, my left eye sees a little filly wrapped in a blanket that’s crying out for me to hold her, and my right eye sees a beautiful grown-up mare, a unicorn with a horn a foot long, who knows all her magic and can do anything she puts her mind to. Sometimes you get hurt and cry, and I close my right eye and only see the tiny filly, and then I know just how to make it better. But other times you tell me that you want to do something on your own, and then I close my left eye and see the big unicorn, and I know that I have to let her do as she says.” She turned back and started walking slowly home. Dinky followed “Once in a while I even see that mare with a little colt or filly of her own, and when that happens it’ll be important for you to know the two jobs. Your eyes work different from mine, but if you look hard enough you’ll see the foal and the full-grown pony, and you’ll see them with both eyes. And you’ll never see anything else so lovely.” Chapter 4 - The Obligatory Muffin ChapterFor several successive Sundays, Dinky and Suzie met at the park and played together for as long as they could. Their time together was mostly limited by Inkara’s patience and whether she had another appointment she had to take Suzie to. Derpy started to understand that the less she talked, the longer Dinky got to play with her friend, so an uneasy peace had developed between the two mothers. On one Sunday, Inky announced to all concerned at the outset that today’s play would be limited to fifteen minutes. “I’ve got a full day planned, I have food shopping and other errands to do, so make whatever you’re doing quick.” Suzie bawled, “Aww, mom! Fifteen minutes is like no minutes. You can’t even get a good game started!” Derpy decided to take advantage of the situation. “You know, if you do have so much to do, I could look after Suzie and Dinky together, and then they could play for a long while.” Hoped kindled in the fillies’ eyes. Inkara looked suspicious. “You mean, like a play-date?” “They can play dating if they want, though I think they’re a little young for it. Mostly I figured we’d just go hang out here for an hour or so, then go back to our house and play with toys.” Inkara glowered. She was dubious that such an unaware mare would be able to care for her filly whom she had described to others as “quite a hoof-ful.” But an ulterior motive crept into her mind. Her husband was out of town. If Derpy did look after Suzie, she could rush through her errands and have some alone time, which she never got. The scales of her mind tipped. “Well, all right, if it’s not too much trouble for you.” “No trouble at all!” The little ones cheered, “Yay!” Derpy followed a half-beat behind. Inkara wondered if she wasn’t just letting them have a play-menage-a-trois. But she trotted off, hurrying to the food stands to get what she needed. After the two fillies had had their time in the playground, they all headed back to Derpy’s house. As Suzie entered, she noticed the small size and the mismatched furniture and thought that it compared poorly with her own dwellings. But as they all sat down in the kitchen, she reconsidered. The scratched table and yellowed curtains might have been of sub-par quality, but they had character, and bespoke of a home that was lived-in, that had seen the lives of its occupants. Her home was showroom-quality and always kept immaculate, but was missing something compared to this. “So, Suzie, what would you like to do?” asked Derpy. “Well, I don’t want to be too much of a bother. What do you normally do at this time?” “I had planned today to be a baking day. Dinky always has fun doing that, right?” The little unicorn grinned. “Yeah, it’s the best! Suzie, don’t you bake with your mommy?” “No, I don’t think she likes cooking much. Or, maybe she does, but she’s just too tired to do it often.” “Then join in and you can learn. Maybe you can do the baking so your mommy won’t have to!” The thought gave Suzie pause. She’d never thought of herself as being able to help her mother. She could do her own chores, but those were assignments, her job. To do something she didn’t have to, to impress her mother—if she was proud of me when I won ribbons, she thought, how proud will she be if I can learn to bake something? “Now, Suzie, what kind of muffin do you like?” said Derpy. “Well, I think corn muffin is OK to eat, but bran muffins might be healthier.” “Yes, but what kind do you like?” “Hmm. Whatever one you make I’ll help you make.” “But it has to be something you want to eat lots of! Now, let’s see, there’s jelly muffins with lots of powdered sugar, or there’s the red velvet muffin, that’s very popular this year. Or just good old-fashioned chocolate muffin.” Derpy would be the first to tell other ponies that she wasn’t that bright, but she knew enough to know that when you offered little ones chocolate as part of a list, the other items get knocked off the list. “Chocolate?! Is that all right to have? Mommy says it’s unhealthy. Actually, she says it’s unhealthful, because she’s picky about words like that.” “Is that true? OK, let Dinky know that she can’t have any muffins any more.” Suzie was mortified, believing that she had cost her friend her favorite treat. But Dinky burst out laughing. “Mommy, you’re such a teaser!” “All right, you can still have muffins, but you have to run around really fast to counter the bad stuff in them.” Derpy and Dinky were going around to various cabinets, removing bowls, measuring cups, flour, sugar, cocoa, and other baking needs. “OK, Suzie, your job is to measure out exactly four cups of flour and put them in this bowl,” said Derpy. The two little ones climbed on a chair and pulled the measuring cup and flour in toward them. Dinky leaned over to Suzie. “Mommy always says that baking desserts is easier than making regular food, because if you follow the recipe exactly, it’ll come out right.” The fillies scooped flour a little bit at a time into the measuring cup, then dumped it into the bowl. Derpy kept giving them other tasks in measuring while she combined the wet ingredients, the eggs and milk. When everything was set up, she said, “OK, time for the fun part: mixing!” “Ooh, can I turn on the mixer?” Suzie asked. “In one sense, I guess you can. Our mixer is a Suzie Cutie 2379 with multi-speed option depending on how fast you go,” she said, handing the filly a wooden spoon. Suzie realized she had made a faux pas, but saw that her friend and her mother were smiling about it, and she felt at ease. She curled a hoof and took the spoon in it, then started spinning it in the bowl. Dinky watched her work. “Make sure you get all the powder off the sides of the bowl,” she said. Even at her age, Suzie’s brute strength was comparable to an adult pegasus or unicorn, so the mix came together fairly quickly. Derpy busied herself greasing the muffin tins. When it looked like the muffin batter was fully mixed, she took out the spoon. “Now, here’s two more reasons that a wooden spoon is better than an electric mixer. One, there’s more room on the spoon for batter to collect, and that means more to lick off.” She presented the spoon to the girls. Dinky grabbed hold and took a lick, then passed it on to Suzie. “You lick the spoon? Is that safe?” “Well, that’s the other reason it’s better: a wooden spoon can’t start spinning while you’re licking it.” She turned her back after saying this, so Suzie was never sure if Derpy was speaking hypothetically or recalling a painful memory. Dinky was still holding the spoon out. “Go on, take some, it’s good.” Suzie took a tentative lick, and moved the sweetness around her mouth, then grabbed a hold of it and took a larger portion. “Hey, not all of it!” said Dinky. Suzie looked. She had taken more than her share. “I’m so sorry,” she said, quickly handing the spoon back. Dinky’s smile never left her face. “Don’t sweat it, I’ll get more next time.” While this was going on, Derpy had poured the bowl into several tins and opened the heated oven, sending a blast of warmth into the room. “OK, Suzie, come and put one of the trays in the oven.” “The oven? Mom says I need to stay away when the oven is on. I could get burned.” “You should be careful, but you can do it. Just don’t touch any of the metal inside and you’ll be fine.” Cautiously, gingerly, the filly picked up a tray of batter and held it firm in her mouth, trotting over to the oven and moving it in as slowly as she could, flattening her ears back so as to avoid getting anywhere near the hot surface. As soon as she felt the rack take the weight of the tray, she let go and backed out quickly. Derpy closed the oven door, pushing the tray in the rest of the way. “Now, these will take about 25 minutes, but our oven is small so I can only fit in one tray at a time, so it might be a couple of hours before these are all done. Why don’t you two go out and play?” Suzie had misunderstood. “OK, we’ll all come back in 25 minutes then.” “No, no, you girls go off and have fun, I’ll stay here and change the trays.” It clicked with Suzie that she wasn’t going to come out with them to supervise. Dinky was already halfway out the door when she started following. As she turned back, she saw Derpy setting up the other trays to go in. It looked like she was talking to the muffins, saying, “Bake up nice and fluffy this week, boys, we’ve got a special guest.” And Suzie marveled at how different the pegasus was from her own mother. “C’mon Suzie, let’s play tag!” called Dinky from outside. And Suzie trotted out to meet her. Chapter 5 - BreakdownSuzie was having the time of her life. Although the Hooveses did not have fancy equipment like the playground, they did have a yard with room to run, and Dinky seemed to know a dozen games that could be played with just two ponies. Tag, hoof-races, leapfrog, (though Suzie had always been told to never play leapfrog with a unicorn, and thought that there might be some logic to the warning.) all of them were fun, and Suzie had never done them before. As the day waned, she found herself more tired than she usually was after a day’s activities, and yet she never wanted to stop. Over the hill came Suzie’s mother. Seeing the two fillies being so rambunctious, she approached and said, “Be careful, now, you two, you don’t want to get hurt.” “We will, mom!” said Suzie “Hello, Mrs. Pie!” said Dinky, “It’s OK, nopony ever got much hurt just running around. You should come run with us, I bet you’d be real fast!” “Mmhm. And where is your mother, little one?” “Oh, she comes and plays with us sometimes, but right now she’s cleaning up the kitchen. Suzie was a great helper with the muffins!” Inkara looked at her daughter. “Muffins? What kind?” “Chocolate, but I only had one!” Dinky said, “You did, didn’t you? You should go have more!” “No, that’s all right.” “I should say so,” said Inkara. “You know, you little foals shouldn’t be out here all on your own. What if somepony came by and snatched you up?” “Who would do that?” asked Dinky. “You never know.” “Mrs. Pie, Suzie’s real nice and I’m glad you let her come over. . . but you can be a real mean mommy!” Inkara bristled. “I think we should go in and see your mother now. She should know that you’re not showing the proper respect to your elders.” Suzie was visibly nervous. As they trotted in, the two fillies trailed behind and she whispered to Dinky, “You’re in trouble now. Mom will make sure your mom punishes you.” “Mommy wouldn’t do that. Mommy always says that respect doesn’t mean letting ponies walk all over you, or we’d never get anywhere. She’ll understand.” “Yeah, that’s fine for other foals, but mom’s an adult! Adults always listen to each other instead of their fillies.” Dinky stopped and looked at Suzie. “That’s why I say your mommy can be mean. Who’s right is who’s right, doesn’t matter how old they are.” Inkara called back, “Come along you two. You’re not to stay out on your own.” When the three of them reached the house, Derpy was just finishing scrubbing the table. “Hi there! Welcome back!” “Miss Hooves,” said Inkara. “Oh, you can call me Derpy, everypony does!” “Be that as it may, do you know what your filly just said to me?” “. . . Was it hello? Because usually when somepony comes into the yard she says hello.” “No! Well, yes, she did say hello, but that’s not what I’m talking about. She was very disrespectful and said I was mean!” “And are you?” “I most certainly am not! The very idea! Suzie, go on and tell her that I’m not mean.” The gray filly said, “It’s true, you’re a good mother.” “I wonder how not mean you are if you have to have your filly confirm it,” said Derpy. “All right, I’ve had just about enough of you. I have a thing or two to tell you and you’re going to listen.” But Derpy walked right past Inkara and into the yard. She took to the air and flew about a hundred yards down the road. “Of all the nerve!” said Inkara, and she ran after Derpy. When she reached her, the pegasus said, “I’ll listen to anything you have to say, but we will not get into an argument in front of our children. They’re friends.” “Not anymore, they’re not. You’re neglectful, irresponsible, and you let them get away with far too much. You’re free to raise your own filly the way you like, but you will not turn Suzanna into a disobedient little brat like yours. I don’t know how you expect her to ever grow up and make something of herself with only one parent, who as near as I can tell is one of the most incompetent, unintelligent, and just plain stupid ponies in Ponyville!” Derpy fought back tears. She thought about whether to just walk away, but emotion overtook her. “I may not be very smart, and I may not be able to see all that well, but I can see which of our kids is going to grow up right. Dinky knows how to take care of herself, have fun, and be helpful around the house. Suzie is a wonderful girl, but is crying out to be left alone for one moment in her life so that she can find out who she is. Unless you plan to keep watching over her for the rest of her life—“ She cut herself off as realization hit her. “That’s what the expression means! I’m not the pegasus parent, you are! Because you’re going to hover over Suzie all her life and block out the sun. Only someday you can’t and there’s going to be trouble. “And you told a lie. You can’t let me be free to raise Dinky as I like. If you do, then Suzie will want to be friends with her. The only way to get your daughter to grow up as you like is to make sure every pony in Equestria who has a child treats them just the way you do. And I’m certainly not. So the fact is that you can let Suzie have a wonderful unicorn for a friend, or you can keep trying to raise the pony in the plastic bubble, and believe you me, I know a thing or two about bubbles.” The two ponies just stared at each other. Then Inkara lifted her head and started trotting back to the house. “I’ll be taking Suzanna home now,” she said. When Derpy reached the cottage a few moments after Inkara, the two earth ponies were already heading out the door. For a moment, Derpy was able to look both mother and daughter in the eye. Then she headed in. Dinky was sitting down at the kitchen table. “Did I do something wrong, Mommy?” she asked. “A little. You didn’t mean to say the wrong thing, and that means you can’t be blamed for it. But things have gone wrong, and you have to deal with it.” “What’s gone wrong?” “Well, you might not get to see Suzie again, not for a long while at least.” “You and Mrs. Pie got in a fight?” “Yeah, and I whipped her earth pony butt!” said Derpy, just to break the tension. Then she got serious again. “We lost our tempers, and we shouldn’t have. Whether she comes around and lets Suzie play with you will depend on how she really is deep down.” “I hope she does.” “And so do I, but not so much for you.” “Huh?” “Little Suzie needs a friend like you much more than you need her.” “But she was fun to play with and taught me stuff!” “And you taught her too, Dinky. You probably didn’t even know it at the time. But now she’s not going to get to play with you and learn more. Again, not for now. Maybe someday you two will be in the same class at school, or she’ll grow up and remember you. There are always possibilities, my little muffin, and we just have to grab on to the good ones.” “Mommy?” “Yes?” “When you and Suzie’s mommy went off, I took Suzie into my room. Do you know my little hair barrette? I gave it to her and told her to hide it in her hair till she got home. I planned to go to her house someday and she would give me something of hers, you know, a friendship exchange. But now I can’t.” “No, but that was a good thing nevertheless. If you never see her again, you’ll never get it back. You liked that barrette, didn’t you?” “Mmhm.” “Then that means that until you meet again, Suzie will have a piece of your heart with her at all times. That might just be enough to keep you together. And Derpy and Dinky cuddled together, and they watched the sun set. Chapter 1 - Playground“Let’s go, Dinky! The park won’t wait for us all day!” Derpy Hooves called up the stairs to her young filly who was busy grabbing various toys with her teeth and putting them into a pail. She bit on the handle and carried it down to where her mother was waiting. “You’re silly, Mommy! Sure it will.” “Nuh-uh. I bet it’s crying to itself now, saying, ‘Little Dinky doesn’t want to come play in me any more. I should pick myself up and find a new town.’ And then it’ll blow its nose.” Dinky laughed. “Parks don’t have noses!” “You’re right. It’ll blow its swing-set. And it won’t find a tissue big enough for it, so we should get there so it’s doesn’t get to that point.” Dinky was doubled over. “You’re really silly, Mommy.” Then she got up and picked up the pail and trotted after Derpy The little unicorn was much too small for magic, and moving things around required teeth, so she had become quite adept at speaking with her mouth full. As the two arrived at Ponyville Park, she looked up at Derpy and said, “I wanna go play in the sandbox!” “Ok, but then you’re getting a bath when we get home!” “That’s fine!” Bath time for Dinky was play time. She trotted over to the sand pit and spat out her pail, spilling tiny shovels and rakes all over. She dove in and a cloud of sand flew around her. She started piling sand into little mountains, pretending that they were home to desert caves. It was then that she noticed another young filly sitting on the side of the sandbox, looking at her a bit nervously. Dinky stopped her building and called out, “Hey! You wanna come in and play Arabian ponies?” The other filly was a light gray earth pony with short legs and a long mane that made her look like she was always too close to the ground. She said, “I don’t know, don’t you get awfully dirty? My mom doesn’t like it if I get dirty.” “Can you ask?” “My mom’s not here now, I came with grandam.” “Oh. Then come on in! Grammas never say no.” “I guess you’re right. What’s your name?” “I’m Dinky Hooves! What’s yours?” “Sue.” “Just Sue?” “My last name is Pie. Grandam calls me Suzie Cutie Pie.” “That’s a nice name.” “Yeah, it’s my Grandam’s name too.” Dinky climbed out of the pit and saw a pony with laugh lines around her eyes wearing half-glasses on a chain, her gray-white mane tied up in a bun. She called out, “Hi, Missus Sue’s Grandma!” The elderly mare smiled and waved back. Dinky turned back to Sue. “Come on, let’s play!” They went back into the sandbox. Sue had never been allowed in and fumbled with her hooves trying to pile the sand. Dinky said, “Here, you can borrow my shovel. It’s easier that way.” “Thanks!” ****** Derpy flew overhead lazily, flapping her wings only every two or three seconds and relying on glide and headwinds to keep her aloft. Sundays were for both Dinky and for her to relax. Derpy loved flying. As a filly she had remarked to other ponies that when she was flying, she never had to do any hard thinking, just let go and soar. One had smirked and said that she never did any hard thinking on the ground either. That had made her run off crying. When she had Dinky, she was so overjoyed at bearing a healthy foal that she didn’t care that she had a unicorn instead of a pegasus. She never once regretted that she wouldn’t be able to give flying lessons to her filly. When things went bad and she had to work, the delivery job was a Celestia-send, as it let her fly all over town without embarrassing or confusing Dinky. But over the years the luster had faded. Derpy thought hard about why, and Derpy didn’t think hard very often. She concluded that flying to a place you wanted to go was fun, flying to a place you had to go was stress. It also seemed to her that ponies were sending ten times as many letters as they used to. She refused to believe the rumors that this was because only ten percent of the letters actually reached their destination. Circling back to the park, she saw little Dinky making sandcastles with an Earth filly. Dinky made friends so fast, she thought. Not like when she was young, and couldn’t seem to approach anyone. The eyes had put off the first few, and then she stopped trying. ****** The elder Sue was having similar thoughts as she trotted over to a bench and sat down. It was good that Little Sue was making friends at such an early age. Her own daughters had been so busy then, they barely had time to be friends with each other. It was right then that her daughter, a dark gray mare with a very straight mane and tail, trotted up saying, “Hello, dam, where is your namesake?” “Playing there in the sandpit.” “The sandpit?!” Sue and Dinky had assembled a fortress of two towers, and were preparing to assail it with ten-thousand of the strongest earth ponies and unicorns Equestria had ever known, cunningly disguised as a shovel and rake, when a yell came from across the park. “Suzanna Zenobia Quentin Tiberius Pie!” Sue turned white. “Uh oh, that’s my mom. All those names means I’m in trouble. At least she didn’t use both my last names.” “You have more names?” “Yeah, my daddy is a mustang pony, they always have lots of names. If Mom’s real mad she’ll say all that plus Pie-De Masdedos. Last time she had to say that, everyone thought I got my cutie mark.” “Huh?” “Yeah, it was red and in the shape of Mom’s hoof.” Her mother had reached the sandpit and steam was coming out of her nose. “What are you doing in there! You’re a sandy mess!” “Aw, mom!” “Don’t you ‘Aw mom’ me. Your father hates sand! He’s always saying how it’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere! Now I’ve got to get you home and in a bath before your dressage practice. Out at once!” Dinky looked on, feeling sorry for her new friend. She called after her, “Buh-bye, Suzie! Come back soon!” Since the climax of the game was to knock over the sandcastles, Dinky felt it was wrong to do it alone. She left them there, hoping that next week Suzie would be back and they could finish. She went over to the swingset and leaped on. After a few seconds, her momentum ran out, so she got off, trotted around behind, and dove on again. Derpy was returning to the park after her flight. She landed next to the swingset where Dinky was slowing down once more. “Mommy, push me!” Dinky called. Derpy ran over and gave the swing a mighty shove with her hooves, then hovered by and kept it going by sending gales of wind from her wings. Dinky was cheering with delight. Her mother just smiled. It was always fun at the playground. Buck, it was always fun anywhere with her filly. She heard of others who said the worst thing for a child was a pegasus parent, but she was going to work as hard as she could so that her wings wouldn’t hold Dinky back. When the Sun started getting low, Derpy and Dinky trotted home. Dinky said, “Say, mommy, I met a really nice little filly at the park, her name’s Suzie and she has a gramma and we played Arabian ponies in the sandbox until her mommy came and said she had to go practice how to dress. I should show her how to dress, you let me dress myself all the time!”
Chapter 2 - BathsAt a spreading rock farm just outside of Ponyville stood an impressive house, all the more imposing for the three wings that were obviously additions to the original structure, a small farmhouse. In one of the wings little Suzie Pie was peering into a large granite bathtub, poking in a hoof. “Mom, it’s too hot!” Her mother was behind her, using her own foot to tap at the marble flooring impatiently. “It’s not too hot, you’re just dawdling. And how can you tell with just the tip of your hoof?” “Can’t I bring in something to read? “Suzanna, this isn’t going to be the full salon treatment, I just want to scrub you and wash your mane and your tail and get you ready. We’re going to be late as is!” The filly looked on the edge of the tub and noticed something. “You’re going to need my scrub-brush then, I’ll go get it!” and she backed off from the tub and galloped around her mother. “Get back here and get in!” But her foal trotted right back with a thick wire brush in her mouth, and spat it into the water. “All set now, Mom! But can’t I let it cool off just a bit?” “Suzanna if you don’t get into that tub right now, no PlayStallion 3 all week!” (PlayStallion 3 is a registered trademark of PonySony, all rights reserved. It’s also not nearly as risqué as it sounds.) Suzie dipped in her hoof again, then appeared to turn part-snake, as she slithered segmentally into the bathtub, until her head was completely covered and small bubbles floated to the surface. ****** Over on the Ponyville-Cloudsdale highway, which at its one terminus is quite a high way indeed, stood a dilapidated cottage, inside of which Dinky Hooves was dipping a hoof into a porcelain bathtub. “Mommy, it’s too hot!” Derpy stood tall and tried to put on a mean look, which on her face just made Dinky smile. “It has to be hot, because tonight for dinner I’m making Dinky soup! And I can’t make Dinky soup without Dinky, so get in!” “But we need more, mommy! We need carrots and onions and those other things that are always in soup that might be celery but you can never quite be sure.” “We don’t have any of that.” Dinky looked to her left for a second in thought, then said, “Well, how about bath toys then?” Derpy chuckled. “OK, but hurry up with them. You’ve got just four seconds to be in that bath, or no dessert tonight. One!” The little unicorn raced off to her room and returned bulldozing a small mountain of floating rubber in various shapes. She had been gone perhaps two minutes. Derpy tried her mean look again. “Two!” Dinky began carefully mouthing her toys into the water in alphabetical-chronological-size order, making sure each was at the correct spot before it floated right next to all the others. “Dinky, what comes after two? Mommy forgot.” “Three, I think.” “That’s it! Threeeeeee.” The last of the toys were going in. “Three and a haaaaaaalf!” Dinky wiggled her rear end like a cat about to leap up onto an unsuspecting lap. “Three point nine repeating!” And with that the little filly jumped and belly-flopped into the tub, splashing the room and sending waves back and forth within the bathtub itself. “I made it, mommy! I still get dessert!” Derpy was trebly happy. Firstly because Dinky was in the bath at last. Secondly, because Dinky had answered the counting question so quickly. Her filly was smart, and she was never sure if she was allowed to hope that a mare who everyone called stupid could raise a smart child. And lastly because she was firmly indoctrinating that smart child into believing that point-nine-repeating was NOT equal to one. ****** Suzie was squirming in the bath as her mother continued to scrub her hide with a wiry brush. The gray pony was exasperated. “I don’t know what possessed you to go into that sandpit. Didn’t you think that you would get dirty?” “I usually wouldn’t, but another filly was there and invited me.” “And if another filly jumped off a bridge, would you do that too?” Suzie thought about that. “Well, not if it was a pegasus, because they would have a reason to jump off, they’d be practicing flying. But she was a unicorn.” “So you would follow a unicorn?” “Jumping off a bridge into the sandpit? Sure, that would be fun!” “No, I meant a higher—never mind. So who was this filly?” “She was super-fun and knew fun games and shared her toys with me! Her name is Dinky Hooves and her mother is—hey! Her name is almost like yours, mom! Dinky, and Inky!” “That’s not my name. Only Aunt Pinkamena and Aunt Blinkwina call me that. My name is Inkara. And you call me dam.” Suzie ducked her head below the water and said through bubbles, “What’s wrong with ‘mom’?” “It’s that modern pony-lingo, and if the old words were good enough for your Grandsire and Grandam, they’re good enough for us.” “Grandma lets me call her Grandma,” said Suzie, but by that point she had dropped her head so low that all Inkara heard was, “Glub-blub lets me blub-blub Glub-blub.” She ignored her and scrubbed harder. Idly she reminisced about the conversation with her parents that had set her life on its present course. ”Inkara dear,” Sue Senior said after sitting her down, “Your sister Pinkie has just told us that she’s moving into Ponyville proper. She’s has an offer to work in a shop and tells us she doesn’t want to take over the rock farm.” “Really? Will she be able to make it there? Pinkamena’s always been rather. . . flighty, if you’ll excuse me gossiping.” “She’s no pegasus, but you’re right, she is flighty. All the more reason why she’s better off working for someone else instead of running a farm. Her bosses will be the Cakes, at Sugar Cube Corner, and they’re good, level-headed ponies who’ll hopefully keep her in line.” “I think I’ve met them once or twice.” “You’re awfully level-headed yourself, and I’m not just talking about how flat your mane lies. That’s why we want to know if you’d like to be trained to run the farm.” Inkara was taken aback. “But I don’t know anything about rocks!” “No, but you’re a hard worker, and that counts for more. And just between you and me, there’s not a whole lot to know. They’re rocks. You don’t have to milk them or feed them or shear them. You would think we wouldn’t even have to farm them when they’re lying all over the place, but most other ponies don’t know that, so we’ve got a good racket going. But in any case we’ve also found an experienced farmhoof to help you out. He’s a nice mustang from Espoña.” Just then Suzie kicked and reared, splashing her mother in the face and jarring her out of her reverie. “Mom, watch it!” “I’m sorry, dear, did I scrub too hard?” “No, but when you flashback the wavy lines make me all dizzy!” Inkara bristled. That was something like the silly things her older sister would say, that or something about sticking her head out of frame, when there weren’t even any picture frames around that she could see. ****** Derpy was taking her time bathing her filly, gently brushing her coat and scrubbing her with a washcloth while Dinky squeezed a rubber duck, alternating between doing so underwater and in the air. “So being as you made it in time for dessert, what would you like this evening? Do you want a cookie?” “No, mommy!” “How about a slice of cake?” “We never have cake!” “Really? What about some nice pie?” “Dessert’s got to be muffins!” “Muffins? I’m not sure I have those.” “Then it’ll be the first night we don’t.” “Well, then I’d hate to break a streak.” Derpy put down the washcloth and squirted bubble bath into the water. “Does your new friend like muffins?” “She never said. Actually we just played until her mommy came. She was awful mad.” “Why’s that?” “I think Suzie isn’t allowed to play. Her mommy mentioned something about her daddy not liking it.” Derpy said nothing for a minute or so, just idly brushing her daughter’s mane, then, trying not to sound serious, asked, “Dinky, are you sad you don’t have a daddy?” Dinky didn’t pick up the question as anything significant. She kept playing and idly said, “Not one like Suzie’s. He gave her a lot of names. She’s going to be the last in class to learn how to write her full name. If I had to be Dinkywinky Scoobydooby Bibbidy Bobbidy Hooves, I’d never get through telling ponies all that.” Derpy took a few steps back and let Dinky play with her toys. The motion of the bubble-bath would do the scrubbing fine on its own. She sat down on the floor, and a memory came into her head. ”Derpy, I’m sorry, I did love you, maybe even still love you, but we can’t live together, we’re just going to keep fighting over and over.” “But I can change, I can stop being such a ditz.” “It’s not that, it’s not about you. I don’t think I can change.” “But what about Dinky? She made you different.” “Not deep down. I love her, but I love other things too.” Derpy didn’t have an answer for that. From the moment she first held the filly and saw a tiny horn poking out from the swaths of a hospital blanket, Dinky had been the center of her life. It was funny, she thought, that two ponies could say the same words and mean the exact opposite. She could have said, “I love other things too” and mean that everything else was secondary to her love as a mother. He had said it in the passing of a death sentence on a marriage. “If you feel that way, then I won’t stop you. It’ll be hard to bring her up alone, but I’ll manage.” “It shouldn’t be alone. I’ll still want to visit her, and I’ll send money whenever I can.” Derpy from long experience understood her husband’s methods of speech. She knew that the last three words he had said cancelled out the three before. “No, dear. I agree with you that it’s better off for you to go, but going is going. You can’t have a daughter on weekends and holidays.” “Mommy, look!” Derpy was jerked back to reality. She looked in the tub and saw that Dinky had gathered up the suds and stuck some of them onto her flank. “We have the same cutie mark! I’m just like you, mommy!” Derpy dove forward and landed in the tub with her forelegs embracing her daughter and gave her a wet, sloppy kiss, not caring if she got wet or if the bathroom got messy. Dinky giggled at how silly her mommy was acting. Derpy was just glad that with the rest of her head soaked, her filly wouldn’t notice any particular moisture in her eyes.
Chapter 3 - SwingsetDerpy was looking at another mess in her kitchen, and thought to herself that after she put Dinky down to bed, she would have a good hour of cleaning two rooms before she could lay down herself. She hoped delivery work would be light tomorrow. Dinky was finishing the last crumbs of a chocolate-chip muffin which she had devoured with relish (not the condiment.) She looked up and said, “So the next time I see Suzie, I want to show her my blow-up swimming pool, or—no, that’ll be too heavy to bring. My kite! We can take turns flying it!” Dinky liked kite flying, though more than half the time it was her mother holding up the kite. “Do you know when you’ll see her again?” “Huh? No, she left so soon, I didn’t get a chance to ask when she’s coming back. OK, I’ll just go to the park every day until I see her!” “You can stop on your way home from school if you like, but you know that when the big clock chimes three, you come right home, got it?” “OK, Mommy. But what if Suzie comes at four?” “Then you hope she’s a slow walker so she has to start an hour early and you see her trotting up.” ****** Suzie had steeled her courage as she went into her mother’s sitting room to kiss her goodnight. “Mo. . . Dam, may I go to the park again tomorrow?” “Suzanna, you know tomorrow you have polo practice.” “Oh, right. How about Tuesday then?” “Tuesday is Filly Scouts.” “Then—“ “Wednesday is your religion class. You can’t miss that, you’re making your Celestial Communion this year. And Thursday is more polo practice, you have a big match on Saturday against Cloppington.” “Friday is free.” “Friday I’ve got a dinner to go to. You can’t expect me to run you around every day of the week. Don’t be selfish, now.” Suzie thought to herself that she’d like to be as unselfish as she could by giving up all of the activities mentioned, but she had said yes to every one when offered, and she liked doing dressage. “I could go on my own then.” “At your age? Forget it! I’d be so worried about you I wouldn’t enjoy myself at all.” “Well, what if the match Saturday is rained out?” Inkara didn’t wear glasses, but if she did she would have nodded her head down to look over the rims at her filly. “First, if your match were rained out, the park would be too. Second, why would the pegasi schedule a rainstorm when little kids are playing polo?” “Maybe they want to see water polo!” Inkara realized her daughter wasn’t leaving. “All right, here’s what I’ll do. Next Sunday I’ll take an earlier salon appointment, if I can get one, and after that we can go for a half hour. And only on the swings, slide, and carousel! I’m not going through what we did again today!” “That’s fine, Mom! I love you, good night!” She kissed her mother and galloped off to bed. The gray pony sighed. She had the prime appointment slot and giving it away gave the other mares a chance to swoop in and take it. She hoped that by the end of the week Suzie would forget about going. ****** But Suzie did not forget. Every day of that week, in school and in her activities, she kept looking forward to going to the park. She hoped that Dinky would be there, but even if not, Suzie could go down the slide or play on the swings as she liked, without it being a practice or a meeting or having any kind of structure. Dinky of course knew none of this. She went every day after school, but most other foals her age were in activities just as Suzie was, so all she could do was play on the equipment and wait. Sliding soon paled, swinging wasn’t really fun without her mother to push her, and she wasn’t strong enough to go across the monkey bars yet. But for six days straight she went after school until the clock struck three, then hurried home as instructed. On the next Sunday, Derpy had no need to spur the little one to hurry with her things. Dinky seemed to be ready as soon as the sun rose, and as it peaked in the sky they arrived. Mother pushed daughter on the swings again for a while, then was about to go for her flight when she paused and turned back. “Little Muffin, do you like coming here? Do you want to join some club so you can learn a sport or some such?” “The playground’s swell. I wish they would put in some new stuff, but I always have fun.” Derpy took off, somewhat relieved. If she had gotten a different answer, it would have been difficult to find the time and the money to sign Dinky up, though she would have found a way. But, she thought, it was easier to just spend the time they had together on simple things. Suzie and her mother came trotting into the park while Dinky gave the slide another go. Suzie broke into a gallop as she saw her friend and arrived as Dinky came down, putting them face to face. “Hey, you’re back!” said Dinky. “Yep! I had to convince my mom, but she finally said yes.” “Want to finish the game from last time?” “My mom said I could come only if I don’t get dirty.” “OK, want to do the slide then? “How about the swings? Those are fun.” Inkara had caught up and joined the two of them. She stood behind her filly and looked down at Dinky. “So, you’re the friend Suzie has mentioned, Dinky is it?” “Yes ma’am.” “And where are your parents?” “My mommy went off for a bit to play by herself.” “Great,” Inkara muttered to herself. “Irresponsible mare dashes off and leaves her brat here for me to give free babysitting to.” Dinky turned back to Suzie. “Since your mom’s here, she can push us on the swings. I’ve never been pushed by an Earth pony before. You’re all super-strong, right? I bet she can even push us over the bar!” “Mother never pushes me. I always just swing myself.” “You can do that?” “Yeah, come on, I’ll show you!” They ran off to the swingset and Inkara kept talking under her breath. “Expects me to push her on the swings, as if I have nothing better to do.” She went to have a seat where she could keep an eye on the two of them. “So, put your belly on the swing, and then push off of the ground to start yourself,” said Suzie, getting into one swing as she described. Dinky climbed on the next swing over, then flailed her legs. “I’m too short! I always just run and jump into the swing.” “That can work too, but once you get going, pump your forelegs when you go forward.” She wasn’t too much taller than the unicorn, but she could get enough of a hoof on the ground to start herself, and then demonstrated the technique. “OK, I’ll try,” said Dinky, and she leaped into the swing, then seemed to start dancing wildly. The swing twisted left and right, and came to a stop quickly after. “It’s not working!” “Don’t swing each leg on its own. Do both.” “I don’t get it.” “Forget the legs then. Just put all your weight forward when swinging down, and then bring it back to center going up.” Dinky got off, waited for the swing to come to a stop, then jumped in again. She leaned forward, and though she felt like she was losing her balance, held on until she swung back, and kept going. She was losing momentum with each pass. “I’m still slowing up, but it’s longer than I’ve ever lasted without mommy pushing!” “It takes practice, and when you get taller you can always use the ground to cheat. Or you’ll learn to magic yourself into swinging.” ****** Derpy circled overhead and noticed three tiny bodies interacting in the park. Correctly guessing that the other on the swing was Dinky’s friend, she glided down to a landing and trotted over to the young ponies. “Hi, little muffin! Having fun?” “Sure am! Suzie’s showing me how to swing without being pushed. Suzie, this is my mommy.” “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Hooves,” said Suzie. “How polite you are. It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Pie.” Suzie was staring at Derpy’s face. Derpy looked quizzical. “Is something wrong?” “Your eyes go all funny!” Derpy was thrown off at first, but then found the child’s honesty refreshing. Most ponies she met went out of their way not to mention it, but didn’t look at her too much either. “Yeah, I suppose they do.” Inkara got up and joined the others. “Ah, you’re the little unicorn’s mother. She was all alone when we got here.” “I know, she’s so glad that her friend came back.” Derpy had not picked up the full meaning of what the gray mare had said. She tried to be a bit less subtle. “Aren’t you worried about leaving her by herself?” Derpy looked around the park. “Not really, ever since they put in sawdust under the slide and monkey bars, you can’t really fall and hurt yourself too much.” Inkara gave up. Clearly, she thought, the other mother was not very responsible or intelligent, as her eyes indicated. She looked away and again spoke under her breath. “Typical pegasus parent.” Derpy, perhaps because of her eyes, had excellent hearing. “What’s that you said?!” “I said. . . Pretty good weather for us. . . ain’t it?” “Yes, it’s quite so. The weather pegasi sure do good work.” Dinky picked up on her mother’s rising temper and decided to vacate the conversation before it could be deflected to her. “C’mon, Suzie, let’s practice swinging more!” The two fillies sped off. Their mothers returned to their vantage point, Inkara staring to make sure nothing went wrong, Derpy just glad to see her little one so happy. Inkara decided to try to engage the blonde pegasus again. “So, do you work the sky?” “I sure do!” “Do you happen to know if there are any storms scheduled for this week.” “Nope! Never much pay attention to the weather ahead of time, just let it hit me.” “But you’re a weather pegasus.” “Huh? I’m a mailpony.” “But you said you worked the sky.” “And I work it hard, pushing it this way and that to get all the letters delivered. I clock an awful lot of mileage, I’ll tell you.” Derpy was definitely not her first choice of conversational partner, but there was little else to do, so after a few minutes during which Derpy just rocked on her haunches and sang to herself, Inkara tried again. “I’m a rock farmer myself.” “Yeah? I don’t think we had any rock farms where I grew up in Cloudsdale. Good thing too, for anyone walking below.” Inkara decided she would put up with the boredom and singing and resolved not to speak again. She turned back to the girls and watched them closely for several more minutes. She was about to shout to Suzie not to go too high, when Derpy spoke to her. “So is Suzie going to be here every Sunday? My little Dinky’s so happy to have her as a BFFFF.” “Bee-eff-eff-eff-eff?” “You never said that when you were young? It means best filly friend forev-fer.” “I suppose we can come regularly if nothing interferes on my schedule.” And if I can bring my TrotMan music player so I don’t have to listen to you, she thought, but was careful not to say anything, even in whisper. “I moved my salon appointment to earlier, and I probably won’t get my old time back.” “Salon appointment every week, huh?” “Oh yes, wouldn’t miss it,” she said, throwing her head so that Derpy could be impressed by how shiny her mane was. “I wouldn’t think that salon workers needed farmed rocks so often, but like I said, I’ve never been on a rock farm.” Was there no end to this pony’s non sequiturs?! Inkara decided that enough was enough. “Suzanna! Let’s go, I don’t want to be late.” Suzie turned to Dinky. “I’d better not dawdle. You can keep practicing swinging though. You’re getting good.” “OK, Suzie, it was good to see you again! Come back soon!” Inkara headed over and nudged her filly along. She placed her own body between Suzie and Derpy as if to make sure that Suzie didn’t catch the derp. “I guess we’ll see you next week.” “We’ll be looking forward to it.” And they trotted off. Derpy went over to her little one. “OK, muffin, you ready for me to push you?” “Actually, Suzie showed me a way you don’t have to. I want to keep practicing.” “Oh. All right. I’ll just watch then.” She stood behind and watched Dinky try time and again to get the pumping technique down. Several times she was tempted to spread her wings and give a little push, but she was afraid that her daughter would know. Dinky seemed to have limitless energy. She kept on jumping in and trying hard, and the swing eventually seemed to give her a little more time in the saddle before stopping entirely. She worked until the sun was low in the sky. “Come on, my little muffin, time to go home.” “OK, mommy.” They headed for home at a slow trot. It seemed to Derpy that Dinky had something on her mind, but said nothing. About halfway back, as the red sun set behind her, Dinky turned to her mother and said, “Mommy?” “Yes, dear?” “Why do your eyes go funny?” Derpy knew the question would come someday, though she held out slight hope that it never would. She had the vague outlines of an answer prepared, and she stopped her trot and faced her daughter full on. “They do that for you, Dinky.” “For me?” “Yes. You see, every parent has two jobs. One job is to protect their little foals and make sure they’re safe. But the other job is to make sure they grow up to be big ponies. For a lot of foals, the daddy will do one job and the mommy will do the other. But I have to do both with you, and my eyes help me. Whenever I look at you, my left eye sees a little filly wrapped in a blanket that’s crying out for me to hold her, and my right eye sees a beautiful grown-up mare, a unicorn with a horn a foot long, who knows all her magic and can do anything she puts her mind to. Sometimes you get hurt and cry, and I close my right eye and only see the tiny filly, and then I know just how to make it better. But other times you tell me that you want to do something on your own, and then I close my left eye and see the big unicorn, and I know that I have to let her do as she says.” She turned back and started walking slowly home. Dinky followed “Once in a while I even see that mare with a little colt or filly of her own, and when that happens it’ll be important for you to know the two jobs. Your eyes work different from mine, but if you look hard enough you’ll see the foal and the full-grown pony, and you’ll see them with both eyes. And you’ll never see anything else so lovely.”
Chapter 4 - The Obligatory Muffin ChapterFor several successive Sundays, Dinky and Suzie met at the park and played together for as long as they could. Their time together was mostly limited by Inkara’s patience and whether she had another appointment she had to take Suzie to. Derpy started to understand that the less she talked, the longer Dinky got to play with her friend, so an uneasy peace had developed between the two mothers. On one Sunday, Inky announced to all concerned at the outset that today’s play would be limited to fifteen minutes. “I’ve got a full day planned, I have food shopping and other errands to do, so make whatever you’re doing quick.” Suzie bawled, “Aww, mom! Fifteen minutes is like no minutes. You can’t even get a good game started!” Derpy decided to take advantage of the situation. “You know, if you do have so much to do, I could look after Suzie and Dinky together, and then they could play for a long while.” Hoped kindled in the fillies’ eyes. Inkara looked suspicious. “You mean, like a play-date?” “They can play dating if they want, though I think they’re a little young for it. Mostly I figured we’d just go hang out here for an hour or so, then go back to our house and play with toys.” Inkara glowered. She was dubious that such an unaware mare would be able to care for her filly whom she had described to others as “quite a hoof-ful.” But an ulterior motive crept into her mind. Her husband was out of town. If Derpy did look after Suzie, she could rush through her errands and have some alone time, which she never got. The scales of her mind tipped. “Well, all right, if it’s not too much trouble for you.” “No trouble at all!” The little ones cheered, “Yay!” Derpy followed a half-beat behind. Inkara wondered if she wasn’t just letting them have a play-menage-a-trois. But she trotted off, hurrying to the food stands to get what she needed. After the two fillies had had their time in the playground, they all headed back to Derpy’s house. As Suzie entered, she noticed the small size and the mismatched furniture and thought that it compared poorly with her own dwellings. But as they all sat down in the kitchen, she reconsidered. The scratched table and yellowed curtains might have been of sub-par quality, but they had character, and bespoke of a home that was lived-in, that had seen the lives of its occupants. Her home was showroom-quality and always kept immaculate, but was missing something compared to this. “So, Suzie, what would you like to do?” asked Derpy. “Well, I don’t want to be too much of a bother. What do you normally do at this time?” “I had planned today to be a baking day. Dinky always has fun doing that, right?” The little unicorn grinned. “Yeah, it’s the best! Suzie, don’t you bake with your mommy?” “No, I don’t think she likes cooking much. Or, maybe she does, but she’s just too tired to do it often.” “Then join in and you can learn. Maybe you can do the baking so your mommy won’t have to!” The thought gave Suzie pause. She’d never thought of herself as being able to help her mother. She could do her own chores, but those were assignments, her job. To do something she didn’t have to, to impress her mother—if she was proud of me when I won ribbons, she thought, how proud will she be if I can learn to bake something? “Now, Suzie, what kind of muffin do you like?” said Derpy. “Well, I think corn muffin is OK to eat, but bran muffins might be healthier.” “Yes, but what kind do you like?” “Hmm. Whatever one you make I’ll help you make.” “But it has to be something you want to eat lots of! Now, let’s see, there’s jelly muffins with lots of powdered sugar, or there’s the red velvet muffin, that’s very popular this year. Or just good old-fashioned chocolate muffin.” Derpy would be the first to tell other ponies that she wasn’t that bright, but she knew enough to know that when you offered little ones chocolate as part of a list, the other items get knocked off the list. “Chocolate?! Is that all right to have? Mommy says it’s unhealthy. Actually, she says it’s unhealthful, because she’s picky about words like that.” “Is that true? OK, let Dinky know that she can’t have any muffins any more.” Suzie was mortified, believing that she had cost her friend her favorite treat. But Dinky burst out laughing. “Mommy, you’re such a teaser!” “All right, you can still have muffins, but you have to run around really fast to counter the bad stuff in them.” Derpy and Dinky were going around to various cabinets, removing bowls, measuring cups, flour, sugar, cocoa, and other baking needs. “OK, Suzie, your job is to measure out exactly four cups of flour and put them in this bowl,” said Derpy. The two little ones climbed on a chair and pulled the measuring cup and flour in toward them. Dinky leaned over to Suzie. “Mommy always says that baking desserts is easier than making regular food, because if you follow the recipe exactly, it’ll come out right.” The fillies scooped flour a little bit at a time into the measuring cup, then dumped it into the bowl. Derpy kept giving them other tasks in measuring while she combined the wet ingredients, the eggs and milk. When everything was set up, she said, “OK, time for the fun part: mixing!” “Ooh, can I turn on the mixer?” Suzie asked. “In one sense, I guess you can. Our mixer is a Suzie Cutie 2379 with multi-speed option depending on how fast you go,” she said, handing the filly a wooden spoon. Suzie realized she had made a faux pas, but saw that her friend and her mother were smiling about it, and she felt at ease. She curled a hoof and took the spoon in it, then started spinning it in the bowl. Dinky watched her work. “Make sure you get all the powder off the sides of the bowl,” she said. Even at her age, Suzie’s brute strength was comparable to an adult pegasus or unicorn, so the mix came together fairly quickly. Derpy busied herself greasing the muffin tins. When it looked like the muffin batter was fully mixed, she took out the spoon. “Now, here’s two more reasons that a wooden spoon is better than an electric mixer. One, there’s more room on the spoon for batter to collect, and that means more to lick off.” She presented the spoon to the girls. Dinky grabbed hold and took a lick, then passed it on to Suzie. “You lick the spoon? Is that safe?” “Well, that’s the other reason it’s better: a wooden spoon can’t start spinning while you’re licking it.” She turned her back after saying this, so Suzie was never sure if Derpy was speaking hypothetically or recalling a painful memory. Dinky was still holding the spoon out. “Go on, take some, it’s good.” Suzie took a tentative lick, and moved the sweetness around her mouth, then grabbed a hold of it and took a larger portion. “Hey, not all of it!” said Dinky. Suzie looked. She had taken more than her share. “I’m so sorry,” she said, quickly handing the spoon back. Dinky’s smile never left her face. “Don’t sweat it, I’ll get more next time.” While this was going on, Derpy had poured the bowl into several tins and opened the heated oven, sending a blast of warmth into the room. “OK, Suzie, come and put one of the trays in the oven.” “The oven? Mom says I need to stay away when the oven is on. I could get burned.” “You should be careful, but you can do it. Just don’t touch any of the metal inside and you’ll be fine.” Cautiously, gingerly, the filly picked up a tray of batter and held it firm in her mouth, trotting over to the oven and moving it in as slowly as she could, flattening her ears back so as to avoid getting anywhere near the hot surface. As soon as she felt the rack take the weight of the tray, she let go and backed out quickly. Derpy closed the oven door, pushing the tray in the rest of the way. “Now, these will take about 25 minutes, but our oven is small so I can only fit in one tray at a time, so it might be a couple of hours before these are all done. Why don’t you two go out and play?” Suzie had misunderstood. “OK, we’ll all come back in 25 minutes then.” “No, no, you girls go off and have fun, I’ll stay here and change the trays.” It clicked with Suzie that she wasn’t going to come out with them to supervise. Dinky was already halfway out the door when she started following. As she turned back, she saw Derpy setting up the other trays to go in. It looked like she was talking to the muffins, saying, “Bake up nice and fluffy this week, boys, we’ve got a special guest.” And Suzie marveled at how different the pegasus was from her own mother. “C’mon Suzie, let’s play tag!” called Dinky from outside. And Suzie trotted out to meet her.
Chapter 5 - BreakdownSuzie was having the time of her life. Although the Hooveses did not have fancy equipment like the playground, they did have a yard with room to run, and Dinky seemed to know a dozen games that could be played with just two ponies. Tag, hoof-races, leapfrog, (though Suzie had always been told to never play leapfrog with a unicorn, and thought that there might be some logic to the warning.) all of them were fun, and Suzie had never done them before. As the day waned, she found herself more tired than she usually was after a day’s activities, and yet she never wanted to stop. Over the hill came Suzie’s mother. Seeing the two fillies being so rambunctious, she approached and said, “Be careful, now, you two, you don’t want to get hurt.” “We will, mom!” said Suzie “Hello, Mrs. Pie!” said Dinky, “It’s OK, nopony ever got much hurt just running around. You should come run with us, I bet you’d be real fast!” “Mmhm. And where is your mother, little one?” “Oh, she comes and plays with us sometimes, but right now she’s cleaning up the kitchen. Suzie was a great helper with the muffins!” Inkara looked at her daughter. “Muffins? What kind?” “Chocolate, but I only had one!” Dinky said, “You did, didn’t you? You should go have more!” “No, that’s all right.” “I should say so,” said Inkara. “You know, you little foals shouldn’t be out here all on your own. What if somepony came by and snatched you up?” “Who would do that?” asked Dinky. “You never know.” “Mrs. Pie, Suzie’s real nice and I’m glad you let her come over. . . but you can be a real mean mommy!” Inkara bristled. “I think we should go in and see your mother now. She should know that you’re not showing the proper respect to your elders.” Suzie was visibly nervous. As they trotted in, the two fillies trailed behind and she whispered to Dinky, “You’re in trouble now. Mom will make sure your mom punishes you.” “Mommy wouldn’t do that. Mommy always says that respect doesn’t mean letting ponies walk all over you, or we’d never get anywhere. She’ll understand.” “Yeah, that’s fine for other foals, but mom’s an adult! Adults always listen to each other instead of their fillies.” Dinky stopped and looked at Suzie. “That’s why I say your mommy can be mean. Who’s right is who’s right, doesn’t matter how old they are.” Inkara called back, “Come along you two. You’re not to stay out on your own.” When the three of them reached the house, Derpy was just finishing scrubbing the table. “Hi there! Welcome back!” “Miss Hooves,” said Inkara. “Oh, you can call me Derpy, everypony does!” “Be that as it may, do you know what your filly just said to me?” “. . . Was it hello? Because usually when somepony comes into the yard she says hello.” “No! Well, yes, she did say hello, but that’s not what I’m talking about. She was very disrespectful and said I was mean!” “And are you?” “I most certainly am not! The very idea! Suzie, go on and tell her that I’m not mean.” The gray filly said, “It’s true, you’re a good mother.” “I wonder how not mean you are if you have to have your filly confirm it,” said Derpy. “All right, I’ve had just about enough of you. I have a thing or two to tell you and you’re going to listen.” But Derpy walked right past Inkara and into the yard. She took to the air and flew about a hundred yards down the road. “Of all the nerve!” said Inkara, and she ran after Derpy. When she reached her, the pegasus said, “I’ll listen to anything you have to say, but we will not get into an argument in front of our children. They’re friends.” “Not anymore, they’re not. You’re neglectful, irresponsible, and you let them get away with far too much. You’re free to raise your own filly the way you like, but you will not turn Suzanna into a disobedient little brat like yours. I don’t know how you expect her to ever grow up and make something of herself with only one parent, who as near as I can tell is one of the most incompetent, unintelligent, and just plain stupid ponies in Ponyville!” Derpy fought back tears. She thought about whether to just walk away, but emotion overtook her. “I may not be very smart, and I may not be able to see all that well, but I can see which of our kids is going to grow up right. Dinky knows how to take care of herself, have fun, and be helpful around the house. Suzie is a wonderful girl, but is crying out to be left alone for one moment in her life so that she can find out who she is. Unless you plan to keep watching over her for the rest of her life—“ She cut herself off as realization hit her. “That’s what the expression means! I’m not the pegasus parent, you are! Because you’re going to hover over Suzie all her life and block out the sun. Only someday you can’t and there’s going to be trouble. “And you told a lie. You can’t let me be free to raise Dinky as I like. If you do, then Suzie will want to be friends with her. The only way to get your daughter to grow up as you like is to make sure every pony in Equestria who has a child treats them just the way you do. And I’m certainly not. So the fact is that you can let Suzie have a wonderful unicorn for a friend, or you can keep trying to raise the pony in the plastic bubble, and believe you me, I know a thing or two about bubbles.” The two ponies just stared at each other. Then Inkara lifted her head and started trotting back to the house. “I’ll be taking Suzanna home now,” she said. When Derpy reached the cottage a few moments after Inkara, the two earth ponies were already heading out the door. For a moment, Derpy was able to look both mother and daughter in the eye. Then she headed in. Dinky was sitting down at the kitchen table. “Did I do something wrong, Mommy?” she asked. “A little. You didn’t mean to say the wrong thing, and that means you can’t be blamed for it. But things have gone wrong, and you have to deal with it.” “What’s gone wrong?” “Well, you might not get to see Suzie again, not for a long while at least.” “You and Mrs. Pie got in a fight?” “Yeah, and I whipped her earth pony butt!” said Derpy, just to break the tension. Then she got serious again. “We lost our tempers, and we shouldn’t have. Whether she comes around and lets Suzie play with you will depend on how she really is deep down.” “I hope she does.” “And so do I, but not so much for you.” “Huh?” “Little Suzie needs a friend like you much more than you need her.” “But she was fun to play with and taught me stuff!” “And you taught her too, Dinky. You probably didn’t even know it at the time. But now she’s not going to get to play with you and learn more. Again, not for now. Maybe someday you two will be in the same class at school, or she’ll grow up and remember you. There are always possibilities, my little muffin, and we just have to grab on to the good ones.” “Mommy?” “Yes?” “When you and Suzie’s mommy went off, I took Suzie into my room. Do you know my little hair barrette? I gave it to her and told her to hide it in her hair till she got home. I planned to go to her house someday and she would give me something of hers, you know, a friendship exchange. But now I can’t.” “No, but that was a good thing nevertheless. If you never see her again, you’ll never get it back. You liked that barrette, didn’t you?” “Mmhm.” “Then that means that until you meet again, Suzie will have a piece of your heart with her at all times. That might just be enough to keep you together. And Derpy and Dinky cuddled together, and they watched the sun set.
Chapter 1 - Playground“Let’s go, Dinky! The park won’t wait for us all day!” Derpy Hooves called up the stairs to her young filly who was busy grabbing various toys with her teeth and putting them into a pail. She bit on the handle and carried it down to where her mother was waiting. “You’re silly, Mommy! Sure it will.” “Nuh-uh. I bet it’s crying to itself now, saying, ‘Little Dinky doesn’t want to come play in me any more. I should pick myself up and find a new town.’ And then it’ll blow its nose.” Dinky laughed. “Parks don’t have noses!” “You’re right. It’ll blow its swing-set. And it won’t find a tissue big enough for it, so we should get there so it’s doesn’t get to that point.” Dinky was doubled over. “You’re really silly, Mommy.” Then she got up and picked up the pail and trotted after Derpy The little unicorn was much too small for magic, and moving things around required teeth, so she had become quite adept at speaking with her mouth full. As the two arrived at Ponyville Park, she looked up at Derpy and said, “I wanna go play in the sandbox!” “Ok, but then you’re getting a bath when we get home!” “That’s fine!” Bath time for Dinky was play time. She trotted over to the sand pit and spat out her pail, spilling tiny shovels and rakes all over. She dove in and a cloud of sand flew around her. She started piling sand into little mountains, pretending that they were home to desert caves. It was then that she noticed another young filly sitting on the side of the sandbox, looking at her a bit nervously. Dinky stopped her building and called out, “Hey! You wanna come in and play Arabian ponies?” The other filly was a light gray earth pony with short legs and a long mane that made her look like she was always too close to the ground. She said, “I don’t know, don’t you get awfully dirty? My mom doesn’t like it if I get dirty.” “Can you ask?” “My mom’s not here now, I came with grandam.” “Oh. Then come on in! Grammas never say no.” “I guess you’re right. What’s your name?” “I’m Dinky Hooves! What’s yours?” “Sue.” “Just Sue?” “My last name is Pie. Grandam calls me Suzie Cutie Pie.” “That’s a nice name.” “Yeah, it’s my Grandam’s name too.” Dinky climbed out of the pit and saw a pony with laugh lines around her eyes wearing half-glasses on a chain, her gray-white mane tied up in a bun. She called out, “Hi, Missus Sue’s Grandma!” The elderly mare smiled and waved back. Dinky turned back to Sue. “Come on, let’s play!” They went back into the sandbox. Sue had never been allowed in and fumbled with her hooves trying to pile the sand. Dinky said, “Here, you can borrow my shovel. It’s easier that way.” “Thanks!” ****** Derpy flew overhead lazily, flapping her wings only every two or three seconds and relying on glide and headwinds to keep her aloft. Sundays were for both Dinky and for her to relax. Derpy loved flying. As a filly she had remarked to other ponies that when she was flying, she never had to do any hard thinking, just let go and soar. One had smirked and said that she never did any hard thinking on the ground either. That had made her run off crying. When she had Dinky, she was so overjoyed at bearing a healthy foal that she didn’t care that she had a unicorn instead of a pegasus. She never once regretted that she wouldn’t be able to give flying lessons to her filly. When things went bad and she had to work, the delivery job was a Celestia-send, as it let her fly all over town without embarrassing or confusing Dinky. But over the years the luster had faded. Derpy thought hard about why, and Derpy didn’t think hard very often. She concluded that flying to a place you wanted to go was fun, flying to a place you had to go was stress. It also seemed to her that ponies were sending ten times as many letters as they used to. She refused to believe the rumors that this was because only ten percent of the letters actually reached their destination. Circling back to the park, she saw little Dinky making sandcastles with an Earth filly. Dinky made friends so fast, she thought. Not like when she was young, and couldn’t seem to approach anyone. The eyes had put off the first few, and then she stopped trying. ****** The elder Sue was having similar thoughts as she trotted over to a bench and sat down. It was good that Little Sue was making friends at such an early age. Her own daughters had been so busy then, they barely had time to be friends with each other. It was right then that her daughter, a dark gray mare with a very straight mane and tail, trotted up saying, “Hello, dam, where is your namesake?” “Playing there in the sandpit.” “The sandpit?!” Sue and Dinky had assembled a fortress of two towers, and were preparing to assail it with ten-thousand of the strongest earth ponies and unicorns Equestria had ever known, cunningly disguised as a shovel and rake, when a yell came from across the park. “Suzanna Zenobia Quentin Tiberius Pie!” Sue turned white. “Uh oh, that’s my mom. All those names means I’m in trouble. At least she didn’t use both my last names.” “You have more names?” “Yeah, my daddy is a mustang pony, they always have lots of names. If Mom’s real mad she’ll say all that plus Pie-De Masdedos. Last time she had to say that, everyone thought I got my cutie mark.” “Huh?” “Yeah, it was red and in the shape of Mom’s hoof.” Her mother had reached the sandpit and steam was coming out of her nose. “What are you doing in there! You’re a sandy mess!” “Aw, mom!” “Don’t you ‘Aw mom’ me. Your father hates sand! He’s always saying how it’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere! Now I’ve got to get you home and in a bath before your dressage practice. Out at once!” Dinky looked on, feeling sorry for her new friend. She called after her, “Buh-bye, Suzie! Come back soon!” Since the climax of the game was to knock over the sandcastles, Dinky felt it was wrong to do it alone. She left them there, hoping that next week Suzie would be back and they could finish. She went over to the swingset and leaped on. After a few seconds, her momentum ran out, so she got off, trotted around behind, and dove on again. Derpy was returning to the park after her flight. She landed next to the swingset where Dinky was slowing down once more. “Mommy, push me!” Dinky called. Derpy ran over and gave the swing a mighty shove with her hooves, then hovered by and kept it going by sending gales of wind from her wings. Dinky was cheering with delight. Her mother just smiled. It was always fun at the playground. Buck, it was always fun anywhere with her filly. She heard of others who said the worst thing for a child was a pegasus parent, but she was going to work as hard as she could so that her wings wouldn’t hold Dinky back. When the Sun started getting low, Derpy and Dinky trotted home. Dinky said, “Say, mommy, I met a really nice little filly at the park, her name’s Suzie and she has a gramma and we played Arabian ponies in the sandbox until her mommy came and said she had to go practice how to dress. I should show her how to dress, you let me dress myself all the time!”
