The Mailmare's Holiday

by DutchGentleman

Hearth's Warming with the mailponies

Chapter One

Unicorns may not be meant to fly, but that doesn't mean they can't enjoy it. This was especially true for little Dinky Hooves, a young unicorn from Ponyville. For her, riding on her mothers' back while she flew gently through the sky was a special something.

Ever since she was born Dinky had been surrounded by pegasi like her mother, and even for just a short trip to town together there would be that comforting feeling of laying her head into her mother's mane, feeling the warmth coming from her body and hearing that steady 'swoosh' of a wingbeat.

And that was very much what she needed right now. The last few days were the busiest of the year for mail delivery ponies like Derpy, right before Hearth's Warming Eve thousands of ponies suddenly decided to write eachother cards and letters. Dinky missed her Mommy very much during the day, and in the evening Derpy was too tired to do much with her as well.

It didn't help that her aunt Carrot Top was away too, she decided to spend time with her family up in Muzzletreal. Fortunately, a similiar oppertunity existed for Dinky and Derpy. The boss-mailpony and Dinky's godfather, Carryall, invited every mailpony that had to work on Hearth's Warming itself (and anypony extra who could make it) for a big dinner.

But first, there were things to be done.

Dinky put the finishing touches on her army of Guardspony-snowponies. With their intimidating shapes surrounding the house, no burglar, robber or monster would dare break in!

Derpy peeked out of a window at her laboring daughter and drew a brief smile before focusing back on her own responsibilities. Carrot had left her in charge of the entire house for a whole week!

Doubts and worries shot through the back of Derpy's head as she meticulously checked every window, door, closet and chest. There were a lot of things that could go wrong when you least expect them to, Derpy knew from experience. Thankfully, Carrot had anticipated this, and talked Derpy through everything she wanted her to do before leaving the house.

One by one she went down the list in her head before finally flying around the house one last time, just to make sure.

Dinky was growing impatient waiting to go. For her, there were three things required to go: herself, her mother and a saddlebag with supplies. Two of those were there already, and Dinky was hopping up and down waiting for the third one.

The sun was already setting, surely a sign of how incredibly late the two were already! Dinky could imagine her Uncle Upwind scarfing down HER special honey-dipped asparagus-lettuce strings, slightly singed and served after exactly five minutes of cooling made specially by Aunt Slipstream!

This was unacceptable!

"Mom! Hurry up! We need to go now!", Dinky shouted impatiently while rapidly stepping in place.

Derpy stopped flying around and hovered between Dinky and the house. It looked like everything was in place... but Derpy shuddered to think what would happen if Carrot returned to find her house plundered, or burnt down or lifted into space or...

Dinky couldn't fly, which was a problem when she was just a foal living in a house full of pegasi. Pegasi like to put things in high places. Dinky compensated by learning to jump hella high.

With a big leap, Dinky grabbed hold of her mothers tail and brought her down to the snow-covered ground with her. She quickly ran in front of the crashed Derpy's face and shouted: "WE'VE GOT TO GO NOW! HE'LL EAT EVERYTHING!! THE ASPARAGUS WILL BE LOST!!!"

Derpy got the hint, and she picked up the saddlebags Dinky had loaded up with everything they'd ever need in the next two days. And then some. Together with Dinky's weight, this wasn't going to be an easy flight. But she wasn't about to tell Dinky she couldn't take her own pillow or her favourite storybook with them.

Dinky climbed on her mothers back carefully. Neither Derpy nor Dinky liked to admit it, but even without the cargo, maybe she was getting too big and old to be carried around by her mother?

Finally, slower than usual, Derpy and her haul took flight from the carrot farm. The setting sun illuminated the snowponies in a way that when Derpy looked back with one eye, she was unfortunately reminded of an old monster movie she once saw.

Dinky snuggled up with her snout against the side of Derpy's neck, careful where her horn was pointing. That went wrong a few months ago, and Derpy had to wear an eyepatch for a week. So she was more careful now.

The flight to the mailstation was a little longer than usual, due to Derpy's exhaustion, her heavy load and the sub-zero temperatures. Still, she'd do the one thing she invariably did while flying along: hum.

It was a quiet, simple tune of little hums that popped into Derpy's head. Every few wingbeats, with no rhyme or reason as to which, as far as anypony knew. Even Dinky hadn't ever been able to accurately find a pattern.

Dinky usually loved to figure out things like this, but she'd given up on that long ago and just hummed along whenever she felt it, instead of predicting. She was almost never off anymore.

To Dinky's delight, the snow around the mailhouse was untouched and pure. Not a hooftrack to be seen anywhere, except right in front of the front door! Snowfights! Snowfortresseses! Sleighrides! Sleigh-riding ponies invading snowfortresses while throwing snowballs!

"Mom! Mom! Don't land on the snow! We'll need it later!", Dinky insisted.

Derpy smiled and hovered above the ground for a meter, before touching her hooves down right in front of the door. "Ta-daah!", she sang proudly.

Derpy let Dinky off and held the door open for her daughter, who could barely wait for that before running inside. Dinky missed her old home, and it's residents, quite a bit. Derpy watched the lavender-and-yellow streak dash off proudly.

"Hey, there's a plant-thingy over your head! Look!", said Dinky as soon as Derpy stepped into the house. She was pointing her hoof to something right above her head.

Derpy said: "What? Something over my...OOMPH!?", and turned her head upwards before being taken completely by surprise.

Her coworker and good friend, a stallion named Dropoff suddenly kissed her full on the mouth, to the loud cheering and laughter of the rest of the mailponies!

In suprise, Derpy had reared to her hindlegs, but Dropoff put his hooves on hers quickly to stop them from falling. Time slowed as she relented to the feeling on her lips, as it traveled to the far reaches of her brain, to regions left unused for far too long.

It was Hearth's Warming Eve when it should've been the first time too...

Chapter Two.

Ditzy danced across clouds on her way home from school, making graceful leaps and pirouettes on one hoof. He said yes! HE SAID YES! Eeeee!

She landed bellyfirst on a pony-sized cloud and sighed deeply, sinking into thought and fantasy.

"Hello, Ditzy. You're looking beautiful tonight.", said imagination-Thunderstruck. He looked so gorgeous and stallion-y in that uniform...

Ditzy giggled, both in and out of fantasy. The big school dance was tonight, and HE ACTUALLY SAID YES!

"Thank you, Sundertruck.. I mean Thunderstruck!", imagination-Ditzy replied. Thunderstruck smiled and stuck out his dark blue hoof, and Ditzy hooked hers into it. They flew, bathed in pearlescent moonlight, to the dance hall together.

In perfect synchronization, their wings never touched, only the tiny gusts indicating there had been a wing there a moment ago. Ditzy held her breath a little each time she felt it.

With her right eye, she glanced over Thunderstruck, who kept looking straight ahead with that wonderful, wonderful smile of his. He was one of the school team's best hoofball players, and it showed.

When her gaze returned to looking at his well-defined jawline, Ditzy suddenly noticed Thunderstruck was looking back at her! Oh no!

Ditzy quickly jolted her eye back forward in reflex. The sudden shock threw her rhythym off, and her wing grazed Thunderstruck's. Caught off guard, Ditzy was sure she was going to stall and drop, making her look like a total groundbounder!

To her surprise, she was immediately caught by the strong forelegs of her date, bringing his smiling face so close to hers...

Ditzy looked in those deep, green eyes and found them looking back wantingly. She blinked once, then closed her eyes halfway and leant forward, her lips almost...

FFWWHHOOOOMMMPH!!!

Ditzy was thrown from her cloud violently by the giant puff of steam from the cloud-chimney!

She fell headfirst into the cloudlayer beneath her, getting it stuck there. She pulled herself free with a loud POP! and looked to see where she was.

She'd managed to drift all the way to her house, and ended up right above the chimney! Ditzy quickly pulled the cloud back together over the head-shaped hole it it, she wouldn't want anypony to trip over it.

Ditzy walked over to the door of the house, and hesitated. She didn't really like being around her father much... especially around this time. He was a cloudforger, shaping clouds for all purposes, to be used all over Equestria. And in winter, production had to be in overdrive. He was ever grumpier than usual...

Ditzy quietly opened the door and snuck in. If possible, she'd like to pick up her mailpony-saddlebags and escape without getting noticed.

The first part went okay, Ditzy went into her room and made it out of there just fine. But a few meters before reaching the door, she suddenly heard a low, grumbling voice behind her:

"And where did you come from?", he asked, annoyed.

Ditzy slowly turned around, her head slung downwards and pawing the floor with her hoof a little. "School, Father.", she said softly. She'd learned not to speak too much around him.

"Still? And where are you going to?", he continued.

Ditzy lifted her head a little. "I'm gonna help Mister Carryall with the mail! It's very busy on Hearff...!". She stopped herself right there. Father hated Hearth's Warming Eve.

Her father gave a short, dismissive, growl.

Ditzy lowered her head again. "And then... uh... there's a school... dance...thing... tonight..."

Ditzy's father snorted. "Fine. Don't disturb me.", he said grumpily. He walked back to the forge without a second look or word.

Ditzy felt bad. She hated being around her own father... Ditzy only ever saw her father angry, and maybe that was because he always was.

She was a terrible daughter. Children should love to be with their papas and mamas, not hate it...

She felt crummy, but there was more to do, so she left the house quickly.

As Ditzy made the long glide towards Ponyville and the mailhouse, her mind drifted off again to tonight. Oh, Thunderstruck...

This time, she snapped back just in time to avoid crashing through the roof. Ditzy adjusted her course so she slipped through the entryhole on the balcony just barely, landing in a big pile of empty bags.

"Hey, Ditzy! Just in time!", said Carryall from downstairs. There was only one pony he knew who made landings like that regularly.

Ditzy jumped down the hatch seperating the top floor from the middle one with a big smile. She loved being here! Everypony was nice to her and she felt very useful when working her delivery route and not being at home. It was the best!

She flew right into Carryall, her best (and first) friend and boss. He caught her with both fronthooves and spun her around one-and-a-half times before letting her land softly on a big pile of letters.

"Wow, you're excited today!", he said while he returned to sorting the letters in front of him, throwing them to the five other ponies on the floor, each sorting them in different piles themselves.

"Uh-huh!", said Ditzy with a giant, glowing smile. "I love Hearth's Warming letters!" She dove right in to join Carryall.

"And you remember the big school dance tonight?", Ditzy continued, beaming.

"Yes, what about it? I thought you weren't going, and something about how it was only for the other ponies and probably wasn't much fun anyway?", asked Carryall, intrigued by Ditzy's swing on the matter.

Ditzy couldn't help it; she shouted: "I've got a date! Me! Eeee!", followed by a little screech into her own fronthooves.

With a big sigh, she let herself fall gently on the floor with folded legs, spreading halfway over the pile of letters.

By now the other mailponies had come near, curious about the whole thing.

Carryall groaned, looked at the clock and dropped the notion of finishing work on time this year. Oh well, better luck next time. He joined the circle of curious coworkers.

"Who'd you ask?", "Is it somepony I know?", "Is he handsome?", "Are you sure he said yes?", "How's your dress look?", "You gonna kiss him?"

The barrage of questions overwhelmed Ditzy quickly, and she quickly backed up against the wall while answering as best as she could.

"H... His name is Thunderstruck, and... he plays hoofball on the team and he didn't make fun of me today at all! I asked if he wanted to go to the dance tonight, and he said yes!"

Remembering that last part made Ditzy happy enough to whinny and rear up.

Halfway through however, she remembered something very important about formal dances. You had to have two things for those; big fancy dresses and manners, and dancing hooves. Ditzy had neither.

"But I only have mailpony-hooves...", she said sadly and out loud as she realized that lacking.

Nopony was as accustomed to Ditzy's... moments like Carryall. He quickly took her front legs into his own, then led her to the other room with one of the other two female mailponies. He set the others back to work quickly.

Ditzy mumbled softly to herself, eyes and ears pointed downwards in embarassement as she was set down on the couch. "...and then they'll say 'she can't dance at all! Let's kick her out of Equestria!' And then I'd have to..."

Slipstream took over from Carryall and crouched down beneath Ditzy's lowered muzzle, looking up at the panicked yellow eyes. "Hey, Ditzy?", she said softly.

Ditzy got both eyes to stop moving around, and looked at Slipstream directly with her left one. "Uh-huh?", she squeaked out.

"Have you ever been to a dance before, girl?", Slipstream asked kindly. She was a pony about five years older than Ditzy herself, having passed school and working with Carryall for years now. She found it quite strange for Ditzy to be so jubilant about anything school-related. Ditzy usually said very little about her school and/or home, and according to most mailponies, that was probably because she didn't like saying negative things at all, and that was pretty much all she could say about it.

Ditzy turned her head away from Slipstream, ashamed. Probably everypony except herself her age has been invited to lots of dances and parties before... "No...", she said. "I don't get invitations, I only deliver them... I don't think I'm a good pony to party with..."

Carryall passed Ditzy a cup of water for the shock, from which she drank a bit and calmed down.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want everypony to stop working...", muttered Ditzy sadly. "Especially not on Hearth's Warming... We should go back..."

Carryall slung a hoof over her shoulder and gave Ditzy an encouraging pat on the chest with the other. "Don't sweat it, Ditz'. None of us had anywhere to go anyway, and we don't mind a little overtime.

Various protests came from behind the door to the work area, slightly muffled. "I wanted to go skiing!", "I was going to visit my parents!", "I wanted to propose to my marefriend tonight!", "You WHAT! I do! I do! *smooch*".

Carryall gave a deadly glare back to the eavesdropping mailponies, which quickly shut the lot of them up, even through the door.

"Ditzy? This is your final year of school, isn't it?", asked Slipstream gently.

"Uh-huh... just a few more months to go... Then I can be a mailpony all day!", Ditzy answered, cheering herself up a little in the process.

"Then this is your chance, right? To be on your prettiest, put on a beautiful dress and dance in the moonlight with your sweetheart! Oh, that takes me back...", said Slipstream before humming a slow tune to herself.

Ditzy and Carryall both looked at the remeniscing mare in front of them, a little confused.

"What Slipstream is trying to say, I think..., is that you should totally go for it, Ditz!

Especially with that soon-to-be coltfriend of yours, right?", said Carryall enthousiastically, giving Ditzy a little poke in the ribs with his hoof.

"Bu-but I can't dance at all... and I think that's what ponies do at a dance...", Ditzy meekly replied.

"Well, we'd better get started on that, then.", said Carryall resolutely.

"But...", tried Ditzy in vain, as Carryall summoned the totally-not-eavesdropping remainder of his employees with a sharp whistle.

"Listen up, everypony! One of our coworkers and one of our dearest friends has a problem. As you've heard already, Ditzy here has a big dance tonight...", he said with authority.

Ditzy held her head low and moved her hoof around on the floor a bit.

"...and she's not nearly ready yet! Now, I won't force anypony to do this, if you want to, you can leave right now and I won't blame you. But I want our Ditzy to have the best night of her life tonight, and I can't do that alone. I don't have a clue how to do this. But between the seven of us, I'm sure we can work something out if we put our heads together."

Ditzy giggled a little. Her mind drifted off sometimes, and this time she imagined everypony in the office literally bonking their heads together for ideas.

"So, I'm asking all of you: Will you help me help her?", carryall finished. "I know it means we'll all have to work double overtime the rest of the week to make up for it, but I'm willing to do that for this little filly's big night.", Carryall finished.

Said little filly had turned bright red in the face, flattered by her boss's words but feeling like an incredible burden at the same time.

The other mailponies stood resolutely. Ditzy was, to every last one of them, a good friend. She never saddled anypony else with her burdens, even though she had all the right to, and she'd fly to the depths of Tartarus itself if she thought she could please anypony. Whenever you wanted to, you could find a friendly smile, and whenever you needed to, you could find a listening ear with Ditzy Doo, the little girl who wanted to be a mailpony. So nopony even considered walking out on her.

Carryall saw this in his charges, and he felt proud.

"All right! Now, is anypony's special talent dancing of some sort? Because I don't have the faintest."

The rest of the day was spent practicing dancing, arranging for Ditzy to use Slipstream's old dress and generally having a good time (save the time she swung Roundabout crashing into the wall during a waltz).

And so the big moment approached. Night fell as Ditzy carefully flew away from the mailstation on a small mountain near Ponyville, so as not to ruin the dress she had borrowed. The mailponies, especially Foglight, had not been sparse in affirming Ditzy that she looked absolutely gorgeous in the simple light blue dress. Luckily, the floating city of Cloudsdale was relatively close at the moment.

Secretly, Carryall and the mailponies had been clearing a path straight to Cloudsdale through the clouds. To Ditzy, the heavens themselves opened up a way for her.

Ditzy approached her school from far above, uncertain how things like this usually went.

She could see the flattened sportscloud, shaved to billard-ball-like shinyness, reflecting the cool moonlight with an almost audible gleam. As she descended to look around for her date, she saw a bunch of ponies with school badges holding others off their carefully-worked field.

"Okay, you can do this. Deep breaths.", thought Ditzy to herself as her hooves touched the waiting area. She went through the whole scenario in her head, just as she had practiced all day. She'd put on her best behaviour, find Thunderstruck, let him take her hoof up to the dancefloor and then...

"Huh? Derpy?!", said a voice from off to the side. Under normal circumstances, Ditzy would've immediately seen who that was, but as she was willing her eyes to look 'normal', it took her just a little too long.

"What are you doing here? Of all ponies I'd expected to show up tonight!", said Spark Trail suprised. Spark Trail was one of the more well-liked, or liked at all, fillies from Ditzy's year. She wasn't too bad, she mostly only harassed Ditzy when her friends were around. However, like just about everypony in school, she insisted on calling Ditzy Derpy, on account of her eyes. It wasn't the nickname that Ditzy minded, in fact she kind of liked it, but there was just something about the way they said it that made her feel bad.

"Hey, you actually cleaned up pretty well! Never thought you had in in you, Derpy.", Spark Trail continued. Ditzy saw she had hoisted herself in a big, fancy orange dress with all kinds of decorations. Combined with her bright yellow coat and dark blue mane, which had received at least as much work, Ditzy began to wonder if anypony would even see her past the gorgeous Spark Trail...

"T-thank you?", answered Ditzy, caught off guard by the 'compliment'.

"You're welcome!", said Spark Trail. "You know, I think I might have..."

Spark Trail was interrupted by her catching sight of one her friends, and trotted over awkwardly in her unwieldy getup. Ditzy was left alone again.

One by one ponies assembled onto the waiting area, some in pairs, some looking for their dates there, some hoof- in hoof. Ditzy wondered if she probably should have talked to Thunderstruck about this beforehoof...

After a good half hour of waiting, and as the gala was about to begin, Ditzy finally caught a glimpse of Thunderstruck's orange mane between the masses and she, crazy nervous but determined, slipped through the ponies seperating them. Finally, the moment was there! Only one thing was on Ditzy's young mind now, only...

"Why is Thunderstruck nuzzling with that other filly?"

Ditzy stopped moving suddenly enough for her back hooves to make an audible "CLACK!" as they made contact with her already frozen front ones.

All gathered ponies turned their heads in surprise, right towards Ditzy. After a few moments, she realized because she was shrieking out loud, a hellish sound poking at eardrums like a needle made of glass.

When her active mind returned, Ditzy stopped shrieking. She wanted to be angry now, very angry. Deadly furious! But she couldn't, she really couldn't. Stumbling over words, the most she could bring out was a confused: "But... but... but... Th-Thunderstruck?"

"Uh, yes?", he replied, shaken a bit by this sudden turn of events but mostly clueless.

"Wait, you know her?", the filly next to him, a light green pegasus pony named Spring Break, asked with more than a little venom in it.

"No... I don't think so... Wait!", he said. Ditzy had stopped trying to straighten her eyes, and thus she became that much more recognizable. "Derpy?"

"Y-es!, she said, her voice changing upkey mid-word, creating a very odd effect.

"But... what are you doing here?", he asked confused.

"I... You... We... You said you... you wanted to go to th-the dance with m-me... right?", Ditzy replied, using what little control over her vocal chords she had left.

Thunderstruck turned his head for an apologetic look at Spring Break, who repayed him with a murderous stare. He turned back around to the distressed filly in front of him, who looked like she was about to keel over and faint.

"Where... did you get that idea?", he said, trying to make heads or tails of this situation.

"But... I told... I-I-I asked if you wanted to... to go to the dance! I told you this morning, after Equestrian History! And you said yes, you... said... yes...

Ditzy started realizing just what exactly happened that morning.

She'd asked Thunderstruck on a sudden spur of the moment, having had a crush on the athletic colt for quite the time now. In fact, he was her first crush ever. Ditzy was a very accident-prone pony normally, but turned into a real flying hazard when around him. She subconciously always kept one eye turning in his direction if possible.

She may have said it accidentally, and unhearably soft, and she may have been at the other side of the room, while everypony was flying out of class, and Thunderstruck may have been talking to a bunch of other poies at the time. One of them may have been asking him if he was going to ask... his... filly.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Ditzy's eyes shot back and forth between Thunderstruck and Spring Break, as well as the other confused ponies who had all turned to watch the spectacle. The edges of the world started to turn black and she could hear a heart beating loudly, like a iron-hooved-tapdancer on a giant bongo.

"Oh no. You thought that I... that we... With... Oh! Ugh! Oh no, no way. Of course not!", said Thunderstruck, appaled.

Ditzy froze. Unable to move herself, her face or even breathe, she could only watch how Thunderstruck took a few steps backwards, and brushed against Spring Break, who did not recoil from his touch, but did shoot him another annoyed, but loving, glare. She was the filly he was taking.

Then it was silent.

It stayed that way for Celestia-only-knows how long, at least for Ditzy. It wasn't until the first pony realized what'd just happened and found it amusing enough to blurt out a chuckle that something broke inside Ditzy.

"Away. Home."

"I need home."

These were the subconcious edicts laid upon Ditzy by her own mind. Miraculously, she made it there too.

The last memory to jump through Derpy's head as she fell back into the present day was how she fell through the front door cold, miserable and crying, and having Carryall and the others carry her safely over to the couch.

But she never kissed anypony that evening, did she? Still, she knew how it felt somehow...

Chapter Three.

"...eewwwww! Stop kissing Momma, Uncle Dropoff!", said the disgusted voice that pulled Derpy out of her trip down memory lane. Dinky's panicked voice could probably draw Derpy out of the deepest slumber.

Derpy realized where she was and what was going on, then reflexively pushed off Dropoff, embarrassed.

"Happy Hearth's Warming, Derpy!", said pegasus said with a huge grin. "You're quite the kisser, you know?". Dinky blew a raspberry at that suggestion.

Dropoff was amused by this, and turned to the filly next to them. "Oh, you want a big kiss too? Come here you!", he said with glee as he began chasing after the laughing Dinky in a mock-chase.

The cold draft blowing past her quickly alerted Derpy to where and when she was again. She turned to close the door quickly and put her saddlebags next to it.

Dinky ran back and forth, laughing all the way as the joking Dropoff flew slowly after her, forelegs spread for a giant hug. Derpy looked over the two ponies chasing eachother around for a moment and calmed down.

One of the other ponies came flying up to Derpy, eager for a chat. "Happy Hearth's W...Derpy?", said Slipstream. "Derpy, are you crying?"

"Wha...? I am?", said Derpy suprised. She wiped a wing against her eye and saw a few drops hanging from the edge of her feathers. "Oh...", she said sadly. Derpy would have liked it if she never had anything to do with Ditzy anymore, but sometimes it did happen.

"Here you go...", said Slipstream as she bent her frontlegs around her friend's neck, and her wing under her chin. Most of the time Derpy was a very happy and optimistic pony who was there for anypony, but sometimes she had a little moment of being as sad as life made her have every right to be.

"Thank you, Slipstream... Happy Hearth's Warming to you too...", Derpy said warmly, recollecting herself quickly.

Then, Dinky made a quick slide underneath the two hugging ponies, startling them enough to topple over as Dropoff crashed into them too.

Out of the four-pony-pile popped Dinky first, as the smallest, she could wriggle free the fastest. "Hi Aunt Slipstream!", she said, quickly followed by "Ooh! Ooh! The asparagus! Is it ready, is it?! Is it?!", excited.

"Happy Hearth's Warming to you, too...", said Slipstream, still reeling. Dinky got the hint, and flew onto Slipstream's muzzle in a big hug. Everypony stood up, and Slipstream let her facehugger drop down gently.

"Easy, Dinky. If you want Auntie Slipstream to make something nice for you, you should give her the time to do it right, and her asparagus-yummies take a lot of work.", said Derpy kindly while pulling Dinky next to her with her muzzle.

"Aww, okay...", Dinky said. "But you are gonna make 'em, right?"

Both Dinky and the recovered Dropoff stared at Slipstream with great interest.

She smiled briefly, and then relented. "Okay... but only if you ask reaaal nicely. All three."

Faced with three ponies smiling their broadest and a resounding "Pleeeeeaaaassseeee?", Slipstream had no choice but to go check up on the treats in the kitchen she'd already been preparing in advance, knowing her "niece"'s taste very well.

"Hey Mommy?", asked Dinky curiously, "Why was Uncle Dropoff kissing you?".

Derpy had to think about that for just long enough to let Dropoff himself answer that for her: "Because she's the prettiest mailmare there is, of course! Why wouldn't I kiss her?"

Derpy blushed a bright red. She saw Dinky's confused expression, and quickly reassured her. "It's a special Hearth's Warming game, Dinky. Look." She picked Dinky up and flew her to the pluck of mistletoe that had been fastened above the entrance.

"The rule of the game is that you may kiss anypony who is under the mistletoe. Like this.", said Derpy gently, then held Dinky under the plant for a quick kiss on the cheek.

"And not like this.", Derpy continued, moving her giggling daughter to the side. This time, she blew a little air past Dinky's muzzle.

"But you can like this!", Derpy said as she turned over completely in mid-air, moved back under the mistletoe, held Dinky on her chest and gave her a little peck on her forehead.

Dinky laughed the way only little fillies could, and held as close as possible to her mother. "I understand now, Mommy. Thank you."

Derpy touched down hind-hooves first and put Dinky down again. "It's just a silly little game for big ponies, okay?", she said kindly.

"It's my favourite!", added Dropoff proudly.

Dinky made a "blech" expression again, then saw two ponies playing tablehoofhockey and went to look at that. Derpy smiled as she saw Dinky loudly cheering on both sides alternatively.

"Hey, Derpy?", asked Dropoff quietly so only Derpy could hear him over the rest of the party. "Are you sure you're okay with the mistletoe... thing?"

Derpy was not sure what he was talking about, "I'm pretty sure... why?"

"Well, Slipstream, Safe Haven, Skybox, Transit and Raindrops smacked me right away...", he said, rubbing a slightly reddened cheek, "but you looked to be completely out of it."

"It was a very nice kiss?", Derpy said sheepishly.

Dropoff knew there was something more there, but he didn't press the issue. Derpy was a good friend and he didn't want to ruin her mood. If there was more to be said, she'd tell him.

"Okay then.", he said calmly.

The two ponies looked around eachother (both sides at once for Derpy) for a few moments awkwardly, then Dropoff saw a fresh plate of cucumber-on-toast standing unguarded and walked off.

"I can't even get a kiss without turning it into a disaster...", thought Derpy. She flew upstairs to her and Dinky's old room. She didn't feel like partying right now.

In the bedroom laid a big pile of extra blankets and cushions, for all the guests that stayed overnight. Derpy landed chest-first on it and let her wings droop down beside her.

She let out a big sigh.

As Derpy looked around the room, she could see the old state of the room again, before she lived there, before she had Dinky, before everything...

"It's so roomy! There's enough space to fit like a million ponies in here!", said little Ditzy excited. "And the ground is everywhere!"

The little gray pegasus filly zoomed around the cabin, gazing her diattentious eyes out.

Derpy smiled a little again, thinking about how incredible she found her first trip to the ground. She barely got out of Father's house, and Celestia knows how small that was, let alone the area she was allowed to go. Then Derpy retracted her smile again.

For a few minutes, Derpy just laid there thinking. She didn't even notice the hoofsteps on the stairs until somepony opened the door.

"There you are, Mommy! Oh... were you sleeping?", asked Dinky. She jumped up beside her mother, and snuggled under a wing closely.

The warmth radiating from the energetic little filly brought a nice, comfortable feeling to Derpy. "It's okay, Dinky. Mommy was just lying down. Don't you want to be at the party?", she said tenderly.

"I kinda do... But you should come downstairs too! Everypony's been asking where you are!", Dinky replied. "And I didn't know where you were either..."

After a brief pause, Dinky hit upon an idea: "Are you sad because Uncle Dropoff kissed you?"

"...a little...", answered Derpy, head turned away from her daughter.

"Why? I thought big ponies liked having kisses?", inquired Dinky.

"I... I don't know why, Dinky...I thought I did too...", said Derpy tearful. "I just got really... sad."

Derpy gathered herself again. Whatever worries she had boiling inside of her, Dinky should not be saddled with.

"But I'm okay now, little muffin. Thank you for coming to check on Mommy.", Derpy said while taking Dinky into her hooves and lifting both of them off the pile. "I love you."

"I love you too, Mommy. Please don't be sad anymore.", said Dinky, concerned but loving.

Derpy rubbed her muzzle across Dinky's side playfully, tickling her into a giggle.

"I won't. Now let's go see if your Aunt Skybox needs any help setting the table...", Derpy concluded, hiding a little ping of regret behind a cheerful smile.

Chapter Four.

"...all right! All right! Everypony be quiet for a moment, then we can begin!", shouted Carryall from the head of the long row of tables put together.

He waited for the room to quiet down before continuing: "Today is Hearth's Warming Eve, a time in which we celebrate the founding of Equestria by our ancestors. Before we start the feast, I want to say a few words."

There was a tradition under ponies that on Hearth's Warming Eve, each race of ponies should be grateful for the hard work of the other two, as that was what Equestria was founded upon.

"And this year, I'm not the only one.", Carryall said before pointing a hoof at little Dinky, holding an equally little scroll in her mouth. "Dinky feels that she needs to represent the unicorns of Equestria tonight.". He ruffled his hoof through her mane to
ease her nerves.

The gathered ponies looked at them both, intrigued. Carryall scraped his throat and began.

"We want to say thank you. Thank you, to the Earth ponies, who grow and give us the best foods there are. You fill our bellies with love.", spoke Carryall.

Everypony present looked over the table on which stood dozens of plates with even more varieties of food for them to devour.

"And our thanks to the unicorn ponies, who shine their magic and wisdom over all. You fill our minds with knowledge.", Carryall continued. Everypony looked at Dinky, not only because she was the only unicorn present, but also expectant of her speech.

Carryall hoisted Dinky up to the table in front of him, then stepped down from his chair to give her space. Dinky laid her scroll down, looked over the gathered ponies nervously and gulped audibly. She looked at her mother, who returned her gaze with both eyes focused and a proud smile. That was enough for Dinky.

"We, the unicorns of Equestria, want to thank the pegasusses and the earth ponies.", Dinky said in an effort to sound as formal as possible. "Because the earth ponies make lots of nice food and the pegasusses protect us from monsters and also bring mail to everypony."

Dinky quickly jumped down again and ran back safely to Derpy, who scooped her up in a big swing and planted Dinky on the raised seat next to her.

"That was a beautiful speech. Momma's so proud of her brave little muffin talky-pony...",

Derpy said before planting a kiss on the side of Dinky's head. Dinky would get less-sappy compliments on her bravery from the other mailponies for the rest of the evening.

"Fillies and Gentlecolts, let's eat!", came the call to carnage suddenly from Carryall.

And the pent-up ponies pounced on the precious plates so precariously prepared. None were spared.

Ten minutes later.

"Eeek! That *prmff!* tickles! Bwahaha!", said Dinky between complete laughing fits as Derpy took great effort to clean the strawberry-sauce-covered filly off. The unfortunate result of Derpys clumsiness plus asking Draft Drift to pass her the sauce, and him optimistically expecting her to catch it.

"Almost done, Dinky! Just hold still a little longer, okay?", Derpy said, rinsing out the pink washcloth for the fifth time. Wasn't it blue when she started?

"Hurry! I think there are still some cara-melons left!", said Dinky impatiently. If it was up to her, her accidental "shower" shouldn't have to be cleaned off right away. it could've easily waited until long after dinner.

Derpy checked behind Dinky's ears one last time, wiping the last smidge of food away quickly. She let out a little sigh. Again she put Dinky in distress...

Dinky took the sigh a little differently. She had reasoned it was polite to try at least one piece of everything at a dinner like this, even if you knew you didn't really like it.

Everypony had put effort in their dishes, and it was the food-eater's task to validate that effort. And Dinky wasn't going to let anypony feel bad because she didn't get to do that to his or her dish.

"Thank you, Mommy. Now hurry!", Dinky said and took off like a rocket back to the dining room, leaving Derpy behind alone.

Dutifully, Derpy put the cloth in the washbucket and cleaned up the mess of strawberry sauce and hairs they had made.

As she did so, her attention was drawn to a tiny white print of a hoof on a doorpost, with a few overlaying bigger lines. Derpy looked fondly at the sign and remembered the story about it...

It had been one of the first times Derpy had flown out again in months. Her newly arrived foal had been taking up most of her time and energy. But slowly she began picking up a mailroute again. For the time being, Carryall had let her do the nearby Ponyville route. Derpy had missed flying around and bringing mail to ponies terribly.

It was a very hard thing to do, leaving her baby in the hooves of somepony else. But Derpy knew that it wasn't an option to be around for every second of her life, even though she wanted to more than anything. So she left the snoozing Dinky quietly in her crib during her morning nap, and set out for Ponyville.

Looking at the little lavender foal murmuring in her sleep in the small, wooden crib made Carryall think far deeper than he wanted to admit. The little filly he'd felt pity for all those years ago had become a parent all so suddenly, and he felt he, in some way, had let the pony who he most thought of as a daughter down when she did that out of the blue. And the way she kept insisting she had no idea how it happened... Did Derpy do something she was so ashamed she wouldn't even tell him, or did she honestly not know?

Then Dinky let out a little burp in her sleep, and wiggled her front legs around to reach for something in the realm of dreams. Carryall gently put his front leg within her reach, and she curled around it and calmed down. "Buh-brub-baba", was approximately what she said.

Carryall's doubts were gone for the time being as his goddaughter nestled peacefully against his hoof. He wanted to stay longer, but there still were a lot of chores to be done around the house. Carryall gently replaced his hoof with a soft plush cube of Dinky's, and snuck out of the room.

Content that Dinky was fast asleep even without her mother, Carryall set out to work. There were mailbags that needed stitching, the first aid kit needed to be resupplied, somepony should probably throw out what used to be cheese in the fridge and the walls of the break room needed repainting. Mailpony work wasn't only out in the field.

Carryall was terrible at stitching, he couldn't leave the house to fly to town for first aid supplies and he wasn't going NEAR the fridge. That left painting.

Painting is a tricky thing to do when you have to manipulate a brush using just your hooves and mouth, and it was times like this when Carryall wished he'd been born a unicorn instead. He wore a painting mask against the fumes and paint splatter, and flew up and down the wall with a long brush held between his teeth.

Some part of Carryall was still a little colt, and he secretly relished the oppertunity to smear paint all over the wall without being scolded. Even though it was just reapplying white paint to a white wall, the little painter within Carryall felt pride in his work.

Every few strokes, Carryall had to fly back towards the plate of paint standing near the door, fast enough to prevent it from dropping to the ground. After about twelve trips, he could have heard the door creak a little. After trip number fourteen, he probably should have seen the door was just open enough to let a foal-sized pony through. However, the artist Carryall worked so fervently, it prevented him from realizing before it was too late.

"SPLASH!"

Carryall dropped the brush he was carrying in surprise, as he saw Dinky climb over the side of the plate and into the paint, murmuring curiously. Carryall threw the brush aside, and raced towards the foal.

Happily playing in the funny smelly water, Dinky looked up to see a giant brown monster-pony with a white skull for a face coming to eat her. She took the sensible action for any few-months-old-foal; cry as loud as possible and run away.

Derpy was just done with delivering the last few letters as fast as possible when she felt it. A sting in the back of her head that was there where it should not be. A sting Derpy somehow knew existed beforehoof, but could never imagine. She sped off to the mailhouse as fast as her wings would allow her.

Derpy felt the crying long before the actual soundwaves hit her ears, but once she actually heard it she immediately gave everything. She dashed inside the roof opening and dove through the hatch in one motion. She picked up the sound of her crying foal from the bathroom and threw herself against the door...

Carryall screamed in surprise (he would later deny ever screaming "like a little filly"), and immediately positioned himself between Dinky and the pony that crashed through the bathroom door.

"Dinky!", screamed Derpy immediately afterwards.

Dinky recognized the voice as the one thing that had been missing in her still little world ever since she woke up that day. She decided the best way to make her mother come to her was to cry even more.

Carryall covered his ears with his hooves at the loudness of the foal, allowing Derpy to hop over him and pluck Dinky away. She came down clumsily on her side, but with the crying Dinky safely clutched to her snout.

"Dinky...", concluded Derpy in relief, snuggling her baby even closer.

Carryall stood up again as Dinky started to calm down a little, though still sniveling.

"Hu... hubuhbuhbuh...", said Dinky.

"Shhhh... Mommy's here, Dinky. Mommy's here.", said Derpy, as much for herself as for her foal.

Derpy raised her head to Carryall, and held Dinky to her neck with one hoof. She actually only now noticed where she was, and that she knocked over a bucket of warm water while barging in.

"Carryall? What's going on?", she asked, confused.

Carryall lowered his head down and dropped his ears flat, a sign of embarrasement among ponies. "Short version; Dinky discovered hoofpainting and I tried to clean her before you got back... And I don't think she likes hoofscrubs...", he said. He turned his head towards the now open hallway, beckoning Derpy's attention to the trail of tiny white hoofprints on the floor and walls.

Derpy had a short, girly chuckle. The white hoofprints actually looked kind of funny this way. As she looked around a bit more, she could see dozens of prints in the bathroom and on Carryall as well. That resulted in a second chuckle. And a third one. Then, full on laughing her flank off for making such a big deal about the whole thing.

Cradled safely in her mother's hooves and calmed down a great deal, Dinky felt the need to laugh with her as well. This prompted Derpy to raise her in front of her head, and commend the little troublemaker on her painting skills.

In the end, with Dinky safely in her playpen, Derpy and Carryall cleaned all the hoofprints except one; the one on the inside of the bathroom. Through a sudden flash of inspiration on Derpy's part, they decided to keep that one to remember the whole thing by.

A few years later, on one of Dinky's birthdays, the idea sprung to outline her hoof over the original again, and to keep doing this every year...

Derpy had absentmindedly put her hoof on the mark too, back in the present. There wasn't that much difference between the most recent outline and her own any more...

"It's going fast, huh?", said Carryall suddenly. Apparently, he had walked up without Derpy noticing.

"uh-huh...", said Derpy, and nodded in agreement. "Too fast...", she added sadly. "It would be better if it was like, ten times as slow..."

"I think any parent would still find that too fast. Heck, I do, and I'm only a guardian.", said Carryall profoundly.

"The best godpapa I can think of, Carryall.", Derpy noted. "She loves you, and I couldn't be more grateful."

The two ponies stared at the mark for a little while longer, until the sounds of ponies clearing the tables drew them back to the improvised dining room.

Immediately after opening the door, Derpys eye was drawn to the strange assembly in front, and slightly below, of her.

Dinky was loaded up with two plates on her back, and one spinning on the peak of her horn.

On seeing her mother, she looked up and said: "Hi Mom!", followed by an "Oops..." as the plate went tumbling off her head.

The plate hit the ground on its side perfectly and spun off towards the kitchen on its own. It bounced off the doorstep, launching itself into the air with surprising speed.

Derpy and Dinky couldn't see what happened after that from where they were standing, but from the sounds of it, it had something to do with Slipstream, Dropoff, some face-to-flank contact and a slapfight with drycloths.

Chapter Five.

"...and as the bear falls down, all of a sudden the salespony says: 'If I knew that, I would've charged ya double!'", Transit ended her story with, earning the laughs of her coworkers.

"Who's next? Who's next?!", shouted Dinky, eager for the next story. As she wasn't seeing her aunts and uncles as often anymore, each story told here had far more value to her.

However, the thirty-plus dishes she had managed to put away, combined with hours of running back and forth to play with everypony present at least once, began taking its toll on Dinky. A big yawn escaped from her little lungs.

"You're a yawny pony, Dinky!", said Derpy lovingly to the little filly sitting on her side, trying not to make anypony feel bad by falling asleep. "Want Mommy to put you to bed, baby?"

"I'm not sleepy! Not *yawn* at all! And I'm not a baby anymore.", pleaded Dinky. "I wanna hear more, please!"

"Okay...", conceded Derpy. She had never needed to forcefully sent her daughter to bed ever since she could talk, and she doubted that she could if she had to, really.

As the next pony told a story, Derpy watched Dinky closely with her right eye. Soon enough, Dinky started to yawn and her eyes began closing little by little, the filly struggling to stay awake. From time to time, even though she didn't notice it, Dinky even made her eyelids stay up with a little unicorn magic.

"Dinky?", asked Derpy quietly, so as not to disturb the story. No response.

Derpy poked Dinky in the shoulder with a hoof softly, but just enough to get her attention.

"Wuh?", Dinky replied, groggily.

"You're sleeping already, honey. Come on, let's go to bed.", said Derpy.

"I am not...", answered Dinky weakly, knowing better but still unwilling to run out on anypony.

Derpy thought about her response for a few seconds, then found it. She gently swept Dinky's front legs out from beneath her, placing Dinky completely lying down on her side.

Dinky couldn't find the strength to stand up again, and after a few tries, she conceded to the somniac desire of her body. "No... fair...", she muttered before drifting off completely.

Derpy waited a minute after Dinky's eyes closed, then scooped her up in her hooves, and flew her upstairs to their old room.

Dinky muttered something unintelligible and moved around in Derpy's grip a little. It made Derpy pause and bend her head down for a nuzzle. Unfortunately, this also made her forget about the top of the doorframe she was passing through.

A firm bonk and a short yelp from Derpy were sufficient to wake Dinky, if only for a moment. The little filly opened her eyes briefly, worried.

Derpy made herself forget about the pain just long enough to return Dinky's look with a warm, motherly gaze. Derpy cood softly as Dinky fell back asleep. Only then did she allow herself to rub her injured forehead with a wing.

Gently, Derpy laid Dinky on a bed, and got the pillow from Carrot Tops house for her from her bags. When told to pack everything she needed for a sleepover, that was one of the things Dinky was adamant about. After they'd moved in, Dinky got her own room in the deal and had gotten quite attached to the feel of this particular pillow.

Derpy shoved the pillow under Dinky's head gently. Dinky shuffled around a little before settling, a quiet snore confirming the effort as succesful. Derpy gave her a quick kiss on the side of her head, then left the room as quietly as possible.

Derpy sighed as she flew slowly back downstairs. It sounded like everypony was having a good time, and she had been having that as well. But still, there was a little ache in the back of her mind. Like there was somepony missing from the ensemble, even though absolutely everypony there should be was there...

Chapter Six.

"Hey, Derpy!", interrupted Carryall suddenly.

Surprised, Derpy ascended in reflex and bonked her head on the ceiling again. "Ow!", she yelped out.

"Ooh, sorry...", said Carryall. "Hey, do you want to put some ice on that?"

Derpy got the mental image of herself with an ice cream cone on her forehead, flying about and singing about how great it was to be a princess. That worked well enough as painkiller. "Pfffgh!", she said as she stifled the resulting giggle. "Thanks Carryall, I feel better already!"

"Really? Okay...", said Carryall. "The little one fast asleep?"

"Uh-huh.", answered Derpy while nodding. The nodding made her head hurt because of the bumps, so she quickly stopped that. "She ate so much and she was running around all day.

She's sleeping as soundly as a very sleepy rock that is also counting sheep!"

"Great!", said Carryall as he went for the door. "Gimme a hoof with the presents, would you?"

Derpy nodded and followed Carryall out the front door. It was snowing lightly, and with only a little wind, there would be a beautiful layer of snow on the mountain tomorrow morning.

"I hid them a little better this year, you remember last time, right?", said Carryall as they flew up to the snow-covered roof of the mailhouse. Last year, Dinky had become mighty suspicious of the large mailbag with destination "Presentington" hidden underneath the spare bags. Carryall caught her in time, but only just.

Carryall and Derpy cleared the snow around the base of the chimney, and Carryall worked his hoof underneath a loose piece of the roof. With Derpy's help, he pulled out quite a cloth mailbag from a hidden stash.

"There we are! One last delivery.", said Carryall proudly.

As she helped carry the load down, Derpy couldn't help but feel around in the bag. Maybe she could sneak a peek through a small hole in the side of it? There was a present for her in there somewhere...

"Hey! Hey! If you're as bad as Dinky, I'm enlisting somepony else for this!", said Carryall loudly, pulling the cargo closer to him for emphasis.

"Sorry! Sorry. My bad...", said Derpy, snapping back into formation.

After they went inside, and stacked the presents under the tree in the living room, Carryall gave Derpy a mock-evil-stare, followed by a quick hug and a ruffling of her mane.

Derpy looked around the room. Some of her coworkers were still talking to eachother, though visibly tuckered out. Some others were fast asleep already, lying in chairs or on floors and whatnot.

Carryall yawned himself, then nodded to Derpy and walked over to an unoccupied piece of the couch. Well, unoccupied after he shoved Dropoff to not take up all of it by himself.

The only pony not remotely sleepy was Derpy herself. She didn't have much of dinner, she noted sadly. Why?

Derpy listened to her stomach carefully with one ear. Nothing unusual. She wasn't sick or anything.

Then she saw it.

On the couch, Dropoff and Carryall were having a struggle over the sole pillow on it. Neither seemed to be fully awake, eyes closed and mumbling. It reminded Derpy of all the times either of them played with Dinky and herself.

It did not do that for Dropoff and Carryall themselves, whose 'fight' escalated into flailing hoofswings. Derpy thought quick, and retrieved another pillow from in front of the fireplace. She pushed it to Carryall, who let go of the first pillow, sniffed the new one and finally took it for himself while grumping something towards Dropoff.

Derpy considered how much of a burden she'd placed on Carryall over the years. From jumping at the opportunity to help deliver the mailroute of Cloudsdale to moving into his

house after her sudden miraculous pregnancy, Derpy wondered how much of life she'd taken from him... Would Carryall have had the time to find a special somepony and have a real family of his own if not for her?

Derpy pondered where she'd be, as well. Between the images of living like a princess in her own cloud-castle or joining the Royal Guardsponies, the image of Fathers house in Cloudsdale kept lingering. And a sad, gray pony staring out of the window, alone...

She shook her head to clear out the thought. That wasn't something to think about on Hearth's Warming Eve! Derpy flew away from the sleeping ponies everywhere to avoid waking anypony up. She flew to the kitchen, when normally she felt a bit down at night, she'd make herself a snack. Carrot Top was not particularly fond of that habit.

Derpy had a whole range of leftovers to choose from. She decided on a plate of small wraps filled with cucumber and tomato slices, finished with some cream. Derpy took one in her mouth and flew around in small circles, thinking.

Hearth's Warming was about friends and family. Between the snores coming out from the living room and the faint noise coming from the upstairs bedroom, one that only Derpy could hear, she should have both covered. But why then, did she keep trying to remember her time in Cloudsdale?

Derpy noticed she'd stopped circling near the window. She looked outside. If she focused and squinted, she could just about make out the shape of Cloudsdale floating a few miles away. ONLY a few miles away, she told herself subconciously.

"You don't need to go, you know?", said Derpy's own voice inside her head. "He's a meanie! You should stay here with everypony and Dinky!"

"That's true...", replied actual-Derpy.

"And you shouldn't feel bad because of a meanie! Missus Echo said so, remember?", the voice continued, triggering Derpy's memory of her favourite teacher.

"But I already feel bad...", actual-Derpy answered.

"Hm, that's true... What if you went just to have a look, but not talk to him at all?", said the voice.

"That could work... You can come up with great ideas really fast, thinking-Derpy!", Derpy concluded.

"That's why we have so many adventures, real-Derpy! Bye-bye for now!", said the voice before leaving Derpy alone in the kitchen. Thinking-Derpy was nice and friendly, but she only talked to Derpy ever so often...

Derpy nervously flew to the door. She had briefly gone to Cloudsdale months ago, for the first time in years, to take part in some competition on Dinky's behest. Every second she was there, she'd feared running into Father, who for some reason could show up behind every corner of Cloudsdale as far as Derpy was concerned.

The door creaked a little as Derpy opened it. Was fate warning her or approving?

Thinking-Derpy was awfully quiet, now.

In the end, Derpy decided that if she couldn't sleep tonight, she wouldn't be able to play with Dinky tomorrow. So she took off into the night for Cloudsdale.

A delightful advantage of snowclouds (besides you know, fun in the snow), that is often overlooked is the topside of them. For a pegasus, the tops of snowclouds are like an endless bouncy castle high in the sky.

For Derpy, this was a rare opportunity. No ponies flying around to crash into, no ponies running around below to drop an entire cloud's worth of snow at once onto. Perfect.

With giant leaps and bounds Derpy sprang towards Cloudsdale in a rapid pace. Nopony was around to see it, but if they were, and looked up, they could see a path of little holes in the cloudlayer form over the skies, moonlight shining through them occasionally.

It didn't take long for Derpy to reach Cloudsdale, and then she wished she could've taken longer.

It was deep in the night now, and almost everywhere in the city of clouds the lights had been snuffed out. Derpy hadn't seen her old hometown in a long time, let alone in the greenish light of the winter moon. It struck her. Even though her farewells to Cloudsdale had been said a long time ago, one does not simply forget and move past one's hometown.

Derpy rose high above Cloudsdale for a better view. A city made of clouds, ever shifting and changing as her residents saw fit, no two times did Cloudsdale look the same. There were always stable elements, of course, but Derpy usually had trouble enough figuring out the two-dimensional towns and cities on the ground. Her less-than-ideal depth perception didn't help matters either.

Fortunately, the solution came to her by chance. A low, grinding sound was audible just barely from a section of Cloudsdale near the bottom. As Derpy flew closer by ear, she noticed that that section was still putting out dark gray snowclouds at a slow pace.

Derpy hovered from some distance, unwilling to come closer. Down here, beneath the city itself, everything seemed far darker as the moonlight did not come there. Fitting.

"So what now?", asked Derpy to nopony in particular. She was kind of hoping thinking-Derpy would reappear for her now, but she knew by feeling she wasn't going to come out right now.

Derpy pulled one of the newer clouds towards her and settled it about fifty meters from the workshop. She put herself on it carefully. As experience had taught her, fresh clouds can be dangerously cold sometimes. But this one was not. It felt odd, somehow. Like a mattress without a cover, or a muffin without the little paper-crown-thingy. Like somepony just paid the minimum amount of attention to it.

That, and whatever other distracting thoughts Derpy could muster, kept her on the cloud for a good half hour, silently watching. She wasn't sure if it was actually Father inside the forge, or even if he was even in Cloudsdale. In fact, she didn't even know if he was alive or not after all these years...

Derpy pushed her face into the cloud deeply, hoping to get some clarity from the coolness on her muzzle. She recoiled swiftly as she felt a burning sensation on the tip of her nose, giving a very little yelp as she shook something off of it.

Twirling down, free from it's cloudy prison, fell a tiny, pure white crystal. Derpy followed its descent with equal speed, flapping slowly. She recognized this thing. It was the centerpiece of all clouds, the forming matrix around which the rest of it gathered. Without it, a cloud would lose its cohesion and break apart quickly, which was happening to her sitting place right now.

Derpy rubbed the little irritated spot on her nose with a hoof. She'd found out about cloudfreeze when she was still little and crashed into a barrel full of forming crystals.

Pain from long ago... Was that all there was to find here tonight?

Derpy looked up towards the workshop again. It just looked like a regular clump of cloud from below, if surrounded by newly fabricated clouds. Nothing special about it.

Derpy sighed. She thought of all the possible ways it could go if she flew inside there right now. And even if he was in there, and even if she could get herself through the door and even if she could stay as calm as possible, even then she didn't want to do it here and now. Perhaps years from now, but not now.

And it was very late too, as Derpy realized. She let out a big yawn that almost made her swallow a small cloud. Slowly at first, she started to fly away from Cloudsdale and back to home. Home where her real family was, who appreciated and needed her.

Despite Derpy's abnormally large range of side-vision, she still didn't see the one other waking pony peeking out of the window of the workshop.

It took far longer to fly back home for Derpy, and not only because she was starting to notice how long she'd been awake already. Eventually, the cabin pulled into sight. Good thing, because Derpy was ready to fall asleep and hit the ground right there.

While desperately trying to keep at least one eye open, Derpy only partially noticed some strange tracks in the snow, leading to the front door. Some big, square, box-shaped imprint was still unfilled by fresh snow, and there were a bunch of hooftracks leading to and from the house. Who would try to deliver a giant box in the middle of the night, at Hearth's Warming Eve no less?

The question faded as quickly as it came, as Derpy stepped inside quietly. She took a look at the sleeping assemblage of ponies in the living room before going upstairs. Besides Carryall holding Dropoff like a stuffed toy, everypony was sleeping soundly.

The giant bag of presents was still... present. In fact, it looked almost fuller than before.

Derpy briefly considered just finding a nice place downstairs to sleep, but her whole trip made her very much in need of her daughter. Quietly, she popped open the door to their old room upstairs.

Normally, Dinky was a very mobile pony when asleep, kicking off the sheets multiple times during a night. This time, strangely, only Dinkys head and one hoof stuck out from underneath it, snoring gently. Almost as if somepony had just tucked her in.

"Strange.", thought Derpy.

"Now sleepy-time. Sleepy-time important.", overruled Derpys body.

Derpy didn't want to risk waking Dinky, so she laid down right next to the bed and curled up. The sounds of Dinky sleeping soundly put Derpy under faster than any amount of tiredness she'd been building up.

Chapter Seven

The laziest morning in a year in Equestria is undoubtably the one right after Hearth's Warming Eve. Nopony would voluntarily leave his or her bed that morning, no matter how much of a morning pony they were.

Unless they'd made the mistake of forgetting that sleeping in delayed the opening of presents by their young colts and fillies.

Derpy was rudely pulled from a realm where chairs were the dominant species instead of ponies, and having just sat on top of the chair king after an epic duel, was about to be crowned queen of all chairdom. Silk cushions for everyone! Then four hooves and a few pounds of unicorn slammed into her stomach from above.

"WAAH!Owww...", said Derpy as she woke up, and clutched her belly in pain.

Dinky scrambled to get off her impromptu safety cushion, apologising rapidly: "Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry!", she said at lightning speed.

Derpy curled up when Dinky got her hooves on the ground and off of her, still moaning. "Owie... Dinky?", she managed to get out.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! I didn't know you were between me and the floor!", Dinky said as she ran around to her mother's head. "I just wanted to be up before everypony left!"

Derpy reached and put her front hooves around Dinky, who seemed ready to fall into tears.

"It's okay, little muffin. It's okay... I'm just glad I broke your fall."

Dinky carefully helped her mother up, who muffled a pained wince when she lifted her side.

Derpy stretched out, finding the pain already soothing out somewhat. Dinky was looking incredibly guilty, with her head and ears lowered. Derpy booped her on the head softly with a wing as a gesture of forgiveness.

She then picked up her young child and flew downstairs. Rude awakening aside, Dinky was right about the "before everypony left" part, Derpy had so much more stories to tell to and hear from her friends.

Deciding on a nice way to wake everypony, Derpy and Dinky went to work together on the world's greatest pancakes, because there's no way anypony can wake up to the smell of pancakes grumpy.

The smell of burning, however, woke everypony withing 20 minutes.

But indeed, not grumpy. There was still some pancake in there... somewhere.

With the help of everypony else, things went far better. In spite of the feast the night before, many ponies were hungry for brunch. Derpy and Dinky made it a game to deliver a plate with fresh contents spinning on the unicorn's horn before it stopped spinning and somepony had to make a desperate catch.

Dinky envied the mailponies quite a bit, getting to travel all over Equestria and deliver goods everywhere. Dinky loved hearing all about everything they went through In a sense, she was now traversing her own little delivery route, and she loved it. Less daring and dangerous situations though.

As soon as the last plate left her head, Dinky sprinted towards Carryall and her mother, who were engaged in conversation.

"...didn't? Then who could've...?", said Derpy before being interrupted by a running Dinky.

"Presentspresentspresentspresents!", Dinky shouted while running circles around her mother.

She skidded to a halt between the two adult ponies after a few laps, and began pushing Derpy towards the other room with her head, reasoning that if one pony went over there, the rest would automatically follow.

"Dinky! Easy! Don't do that, please!", said Derpy mildly stern (she had practiced with Carrot Top on this. A lot.).

Dinky stopped immediately and looked at her mother confused. It was hard enough trying to understand why not everypony wanted to go for the giant bag of presents that always appeared after Hearth's Warming Eve, but let alone her own mother, who she knew loved the holiday. Crazy adults, truly!

"Buuutt whyyyyy!!", Dinky exclaimed. The thing had been tantalizing her ever since she came downstairs. "I wanna open the presents, and so do you! It's unfair to wait any longer!"

Derpy took a quick glance at Carryall. Dinky was right, she was dead curious about what she was getting, and what the reaction would be to the present she put in the bag.

Carryall nodded towards Derpy, telling her that it was all right to go, he'd gather the rest.

"Okay, Dinky.", she said, "But first we need to clean up here a little", looking around the mess of a kitchen. "How about you bring back all the plates, and we'll do the rest."

Dinky immediately sprinted away towards Seal Shut, the last pony with still something on her plate. Dinky put two hooves on the table and stared at the left pieces, then at Seal Shut, then at the plate and soforth... It caused Seal Shut to lose appetite quickly, and Dinky to happily trot off with the plate and its remaining contents.

Eventually, everypony was ushered into the living room for the final Hearth's Warming tradition; presents. Every year everypony except Dinky put their names and a bunch of ideas on a little card, then put it in a mailbag upstairs, destination "Presentington, return mail". Later, it was sorted out who got who, and who got one extra.

This year, Derpy drew Transit, a fellow mailmare. She wanted something nice for a romantic winter dinner with her coltfriend. Derpy got her a bunch of Carrot Top's finest carrots, as orange as the evening sun. She had to insist, but she even got to pay for them herself.

Derpy was the first pony to receive a present, a nice purple-and-butterflies covered scrapbook. One of the few hobbies she truly had to her own was making scrapbooks filled with precious memories, such as Dinky's first foal teeth to fall out or the tickets for a show she and Carrot went to see.

Derpy sat down, front legs over Dinky's shoulders. Partially because she really wanted to just be close to Dinky at the moment, and partially because otherwise she was pretty sure Dinky was going to make a break for the presents. Dinky loved it, but the process of having only one pony at a time open a present was FAR too slow for her taste.

So when finally somepony drew a package from the bag and called for her, Dinky jumped out from her position fast enough for Derpy to lose balance and fall flat on her snout. Derpy recovered before Dinky had taken her present and walked back, leaving Dinky confused as though why she was rubbing her chin with a wing.

Though unable to use magic conciously yet, Dinky had found a practical use for her horn anyway. She undid the wrapping quickly, but still careful not to damage the item inside. While she was distracted, Derpy looked around for a sign from who the present came, intending to thank that pony later, even though that wasn't really the point of secret presents. The little added curve to the smile on Slipstream's face told her enough.

"Oooh!", exclaimed Dinky as she tore away the last scrap of packaging and revealed her gift. It was an old Guardsponies helmet, damaged enough to be discarded, but cleaned up and fixed for the most part. The metalwork was heavily scratched, but polished enough for Dinky to see her own reflection in it.

"Awesome...", Dinky said, awestruck. Countless images and tales of heroic knighthood blew through her head. Whoever wore this, his or her spirit flowed in it still. Dinky touched the crest of the helmet with a hoof, imagining that spirit flowing into her.

"Wow, you really like that thing, do ya?", said Slipstream, impressed. "Why don't you try it on for size?"

Dinky tried to lift the helmet herself to no avail, the thing was heavy and difficult to get a grip on. Derpy took the headgear between her front legs and flapped her wings to stay upright, with some difficulty. Carefully, she lowered the helmet to fit over the eager Dinky's head.

When her mother let go of the helmet, Dinky found herself under quite some stress. The bulky helmet was made for a heavily trained adult pony, not a small filly. She held her head up for about two seconds with the helmet on it before falling down to the ground with a 'CLUNK!'.

"Dinky!", Derpy yelled in surprise. For her, the helmet was at least liftable, but then again she was a strong pegasus who flew around with loads of cargo daily.

Dinky climbed out underneath the thing relatively unharmed, but a little shaken, rubbing her chin with a hoof. "I'm okay...", she noted. "The helmet's too heavy for me..."

Slipstream was still trying not to make too apparent that it was her gift, but she felt quite disappointed with the results.

"So I'll get big enough to fit!", Dinky exclaimed. She sized up the helmet from all sides, then looked at her confused mother's head for comparison. "Three years. Tops.", she concluded. "And then Imma go up to the academy and impress the captain and get admitted into the training program right away and be the bestest knight ever!"

With some effort, Dinky managed to hoist the helmet onto the pillow she was laying on before before settling down in front of it, like a dragon protecting its hoard.

Derpy gave Slipstream an appreciative glance, careful not to reveal it to Dinky.

A few more rounds of presents passed by, and the mailponies finally reached the last present. Carryall pulled a small, seemingly hastily wrapped present out of the bag. "Okay, last one. Lemme see here... it's for... Dinky? Again?", he said confused. Nopony got more than one present, normally. That was agreed on to make everything fair.

Dinky did not have much of a problem with that, though. "Yay! Double presents!", she said as she ran towards Carryall. As her back was turned, Carryall shot Slipstream an irritated look, to which she replied by shaking her head in denial. Derpy joined the impromptu conversation with her well-practiced 'confused' look.

"Dissiz the BEST present-day ever!", Dinky happily said as she tore through the wrapping. Carryall sighed, and gave out a look that said: "Fine, but just this one time!". He didn't do this out of spite, but because he considered Dinky the sweetest filly he knew, and would hate to see her spoiled rotten. If everypony could give as much presents as they wanted to, there was no doubt who'd get the motherload of them.

Dinky was almost done opening the second present now. Derpy bowed over her daughter dotingly, who luckily hadn't noticed the soundless conversation over her head.

She reached inside the box and pulled out a few times her own length worth of a multicoloured scarf. Green, red and yellow patches in varying patterns for about three meters long coiled around the filly's hooves.

Derpy looked at the now only half-visible filly curiously, there was something off about that thing... Something familiar...

"It's fuzzy!", said Dinky while trying to move out of the piled-up scarf and only getting herself more wrapped up. "And too big too..."

Hearing the dissapointment in Dinky's voice, Derpy hoisted her up with her snout and began wrapping, so to speak. To Dinky's suprise, the whole thing managed to fit around her just fine, though less a scarf and more of a winter-coat for the small unicorn.

"Yay, it fits!", yelled Dinky excitedly, "Snowball fight! Snowball fight!". She tried to run straight outside for an early start, but Derpy snatched her by the scarf in time.

"Ulp!", she said as she recoiled.

"Dinky! Please don't leave this mess lying around! Somepony could trip over it, and stumble, and crash into the fireplace with her tail and then run around and set the tablecloth on fire again!", said Derpy with more urgency than she should.

"Again?", echoed one of the mailponies.

"Nah, we'll do it.", said Carryall as he got up. "Everypony get your butts in gear!"

Derpy turned to Dinky. "How about you take your pretty new helmet upstairs to our bags so we won't forget it, and I'll take care of the paper?", she asked. Dinky nodded happily in response and Derpy hoisted the helmet carefully onto her back.

Slow but steady, Dinky managed to carry the great weight upstairs. She didn't notice, but every few steps a glimmer of magic appeared between her horn and the helmet on her back and eased the load. "Just a few... more.. steps...", mumbled Dinky between breaths.

Finally, Dinky made it up top. She pushed the door open and let the helmet slide off her back right next to the saddlebags. She made sure to carefully place it so that it couldn't be missed when she and her mother left again.

"That is the bestest gift ever!", thought Dinky to herself, smiling. "Much better than this silly scarf." Any gift was nice, and Dinky knew to be polite, but really, compared to a real Guardspony helmet?

She ran a hoof over one end of the scarf that trailed around her front legs. "Not all bad, I guess... it IS winter.", she thought. Dinky began to get a funny feeling in her hoof, right where she just held the scarf. "Odd, and tickly.", she thought. The curious little unicorn then proceeded to rub her cheek against the scarf as well. She felt it again, stronger this time. Then she did it again.

After a few turns, Dinky could definitely feel something strange flow, swirl and surge through the scarf. Instinctively, she tried to connect the mystical energy within the cloth with her own, and she touched the tip of her horn to it. Dinky felt the ice cold
explosion spread through her forehead, and then everything turned silent and dark.

---

Incorporeality.

That was the word that would best describe her current situation, Dinky thought. She read it in a book weeks ago, and got into a small adventure to find Miss Twilight the librarian and ask her what it meant. To be, but be without a body, she said. Like a ghost!

Except unlike a ghost, Dinky couldn't even move or make a sound. And ghosts always fly around and make "boooo!" noises, she reckoned. So at least she wasn't a ghost. That's good, not being dead and all.

At the edge of audibility, Dinky heard something. She wanted to turn her head, focus her ears and basically do any normal response to something strange, but she couldn't.

The sound came closer.

Dinky tried to flail about in panic, but nothing happened.

"...llo?", sounded closer still. Dinky could almost make out a word there... Was there something looking for her here, wherever 'here' was?

"He-hello?", Dinky tried to say, but just ended up thinking rather loudly.

"Ah, there you are!", said the voice, cheerful. It got incredibly close all of a sudden.

The voice sounded like it came from a older stallion, trying just a little too hard to sound happy. "Hello!", he repeated, this time more than completely hearable.

"Where... where are we?", Dinky thought. She was adjusting to her newly found and only means of communication.

"Beats me,", the stallion said. Or maybe he was thinking loudly too? "I was hoping you'd know, actually."

"No idea.", thought Dinky. Still she couldn't see anything, and not like if she was in a very dark room or had her eyes closed. It was like the whole concept of vision just did not apply here.

"Who are you, anyway?", Dinky thought.

"No idea.", replied the mysterious voice so sincerely and heartily that it scared the little unicorn a little.

Dinky found herself more and more uncomfortable now, and given her situation, that was quite something.

"I don't think I'm a 'who' at all, strictly speaking.", the stallion said. He sounded like he was just figuring this out himself. Dinky wondered how long he'd been stuck in this limbo, then realized she had no clue how she herself had been there. "More of a 'what', actually.", he concluded.

"Well, ummm... What are you, then?", Dinky tried.

"If I had to guess... and I guess there's no other option than to, I'd say I was sort of like a psychic echo.", the stallion-echo said.

"An echo?", Dinky repeated mentally, and here that meant out loud as well.

"Yes, you know... a sliver of sound bouncing around, waiting for somepony to be in the right place to hear it.", the echo said. It sounded confident, like it was used to explaining things in that admiring tone. "Anyway, don't really know who I am, just know something I wanna tell you, and that's about it."

"Wow...", thought Dinky. It was quite a lot to take in, but perhaps it was easier for a adventurous young unicorn filly than for anyone else.

A vibration passed through all of Dinky's senses at once, scaring her again.

"Wha...what's going on?", she asked the echo.

"Oh, I think that means it's almost over. Shame, really.", it replied. "I think you'll be going soon..."

"Going? Going where?", Dinky thought, confused. A second vibration, stronger than the first, spooked her quite.

"Listen, please listen closely.", the echo said, turning serious suddenly. "I don't know how much of this is going to stick, seeing as we're in a VERY unstable psychic pocket, but here it goes:.."

Could bodiless voices inhale?

"I love you, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I can't be there for you, or your mother, ever again. I'm sorry that I won't get to know you for a very long time and I'm sorry and I love you, both of you. Papa... loves you... Dinky....."

Dinky's thoughts were racing between the sudden rush of impulses from her senses, eager to overwhelm the fleeting coherent thoughts of the filly. Dinky literally did not have enough time to think about the last words the echo said as reality made its grand return and drowned out the fleeting moment.

Chapter Eight.

Dinky blinked. She felt strange, almost deja vu-like. She looked around spooked, expecting to see something out of the obvious. Instead, all there was around her was her repurposed old bedroom and the stuff inside it, like her and her mother's luggage, topped of with the Guardspony helmet she'd gotten.

But wasn't there something really important she had to tell to... somepony? Dinky concetrated hard and put her hoof to her chin, because ponies do that when they're thinking, according to Mom. As she put it there, she noticed she was wrapped in the impossibly colorful scarf like a present. Maybe it was something about the scarf?..

"Dinky? Are you almost done? Everypony's waiting for you outside!", shouted Derpy from downstairs.

"Coming!", answered Dinky, then ran downstairs. The short-lived psychic experience finally vanished completely from her mind as she raced through the door.

Unaccustomed to wearing clothing in the first place, but especially giant fuzzy scarves, Dinky tumbled down the stairs from about halfway down. Fortunately her mother was hovering anxiously just at the bottom of it, and caught her careening daughter just in time, sending both of them into a roll which ended up against the front door.

Derpy recovered first, shaking her head to regain her senses. She immediately checked on the filly clutched to her chest. Dinky looked fine, if dizzy. Her eyes briefly spun into similiar positions as Derpy's normal gaze. A brief shot of fear shot through Derpy, that Dinky would end up with the same eye-problem she had, and everything bad that happens because of it.

That fear was alleviated when Dinky returned to her normal, happy expression. "Thanks, Mommy!", she said and squeezed her legs around her. Dinky hopped out of the embrace and shook herself loose. Derpy was glad to see that she was fine. Fine, yes... but there was something off...

Derpy looked at Dinky trying to re-wrap part of the scarf around her hind leg quizzically.

There really was something uncannily familiar about it...

After a few wrestles with it, Dinky gave up. She turned to her mother with big, asking eyes and asked: "Please help..?". Derpy gave her a smile in return and redid the wrapping quickly but carefully, running her hoof along the fabric in curiosity. A little tingle, some last remnant of energy, made a tiny jolt to Derpy's hoof.

She didn't know why, although she didn't need much reason anyway, but Derpy pulled Dinky under her front legs for a moment. She rested her chin on the side of her daughter's forehead. "Dinky? Do you know I... I love you very much?", she said sincerely.

Dinky was silent for a moment. Odd question. "Well, of course I know that! I love you too, Mommy!", she replied. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I... don't know...", Derpy concluded. She had forgotten why she suddenly asked the question, or maybe she never knew why in the first place. "I guess I was just worried... Sometimes I... think I'm not very good at being your mommy... "

"Oh...", Dinky said, a little confused. "Well don't be! You're the best mommy ever! I can't think of anypony else who has a momma as good as you!", she said resolutely.

"Thank you, baby...", said Derpy appreciatively, rubbing her nose on Dinky's cheek, also helping to clean off a tear from her eye.

The two ponies walked out the front door, Dinky using her mother as cover from the barrage of snowballs she'd been expecting from all the mailponies waiting outside. A curveball from Dropoff struck a glancing blow across Dinky's face when Derpy ducked for cover, prompting retailliation-by-snowball from both ponies.

In between their real family, Derpy and Dinky had a well-needed vacation after all.

THE END