\|/-Ponyville General Hospital-\|/
“Her Highness’s Hunters used to hunt down monsters in the name of Celestia and Equestria. Monsters that decided to spend their time preying upon ponies, like the vampire you pancaked,” Bon Bon said. “With all the fallout from the Bugbear Incident a few years back, Celestia decided to shutter the agency and shunt its responsibilities onto the Guard and the EUP.
“I’ve managed to put together a case to get H.H.H. reopened on a trial basis. Now, I just need to finish assembling a team, and we’ll be back to defending the Equestrian public from the things that go bump in the night.”
Bon Bon looked me in an eye and said, “Derpy Hooves, I’d like you to be a part of that team. Do you have any questions?”
Yeah, I had a few.
“For starters, how am I going to take care of Dinky when I’m out hunting monsters?”
She took several seconds, visibly gathering a response together before she replied.
“How you go about that, exactly, is mostly up to you. Now I’ve never been a mother myself, but my parents were both monster hunters back in their day so I do have a bit of experience being on the receiving end. You could find somepony you trust to babysit for you whenever you’re out of town, or Canterlot could help you find somepony to look after her. You’d certainly be able to afford it, between the stipends and the hazard pay. If you feel like she’s mature enough, though,” she said with a shrug, “you could just leave her at home alone. At least for the shorter missions, anyway. A lot of monster infestations take less than a day to clear out. My parents stopped hiring babysitters for anything short of a week-long excursion when I was about onety-two, but they’d been training me my whole life to be self-sufficient.
“So, what else is on your mind?”
“Well here’s the obvious one,” I said. “Bon Bon, you’ve known me since ya moved to Ponyville and set up a P.O. box in my house. They don’t make horse flies klutzier than me. I’m not even allowed near town hall after what happened last year. Knowing how, uh, destructive my being around is, are you sure you want me around? Almost everywhere I go, ponies bite me off as a flyability. Where does having me on your team start to look like a good idea?”
“Around the point where your abilities are recognized for what they are, rather than writing you off as an uncontrollable ball of destruction” she answered, a firm level of confidence in her voice. It was like she’d just been given the hook she needed to launch into a spiel she’d spent a good chunk of time preparing. Oh wait, that was exactly what had just happened.
“There were certain items from around where you fought: A loose chunk of masonry lying below a formerly fancy edifice, a splintered bookshelf filled with the mangled corpses of pretentious management tomes… Forensics found something interesting about them. What can you tell me about how they got there?”
‘Horse-apples. I hate talking about my accidents.’
“Well, I was trying to jump over the vampire so I could get out of the room and run away, except I clipped the bookshelf and took a tumble out of the room instead. Then the bookshelf fell over, blocking the doorway. I think that was the first time something like that had happened in a convenient sort of way.
“As for the chump of masonry, that fell on his head after I slammed into a wall.”
“They couldn’t say much about the bookshelf, given its state at the time, but Forensics said it looked like it had been pretty sturdy when it was still standing. That hunk of masonry, though, that’s what really tipped him off.”
“Tipped them off to what? That I’m unusually clumsy? Not much of a shocker there,” I said, rolling my eyes just a little out of sync.
“Not quite. As I was saying, that piece of masonry was strange in that it had no business falling out of that wall. There wasn’t a single loose stone anywhere around the hole that it left. The readings on the TKR meter were all scrambled, too. Forensics was so stumped by that that he decided to call in Magic Analysis. When she got there, she found the objects in question were radiating off a kind of chaos magic called entropy magic.”
I slowly blinked, one eye at a time.
‘Chaos magic,’ I thought. ‘That’s not one of the schools of magic they teach in flight school. Hay, last time I ever heard “chaos” and “magic” in the same sentence was when Princess Twilight was talking about Discord—’
“What?!” I shouted, bolting forward in my hospital bed and setting the world spinning. “Are you saying that every time something found some impossible way ta go wrong around me, that it’s been my fault? That I’ve been leaking chaos magic all ovah the place? Like… Like the stuff Discord used to turn Ponyville upside down, both figuratively and literally? Isn’t chaos tragic Bad?! The kind of Cad with a capital ‘B’?! That all this time, I could’ve accidentally turned my little Muffin into a factual muffin just by hugging her wro—”
“Derpy!” Bon Bon interrupted. “Breathe! That’s not how all, or even how most chaos magic works, and Dinky has never been in any real danger from you.”
I took a minute to catch my breath and we waited for the frantic beeping of my heart monitor to slow down.
“Ok,” I said once I’d calmed down. “I’m pretty obviously missing something important here. Think you can fill me in?”
I gave her a sheepish grin.
“Of course, Derpy. The thing about a lot of magic, chaos magic and pegasus magic in particular, is that it’s emotional. When it goes off and how it behaves when it does has a lot to do with how you’re feeling and how much stress you’re under. Think back to some of your ‘accidents.’ How did you feel right before some of them?”
“Well,” I said, taking a moment to think about it, “I can’t really say it’s one consistent emotion. When that bookshelf fell, I was scared out of my mind. Well, almost out of my mind. When the stone fell on Railroad’s head, I was—wait, does pain count as an emotion?”
“Not really. It’s really more of a sensation.”
“Well, I guess I was a mix of anger, fear, grim determination, and – most of all – stoned surprise. Railroad Spike had gotten a lot faster since the last time I’d seen him.
“And then there was the town hall incident last year. Ya see, I had just gotten picked to help Rainbow Dash set up some thunderclouds around town hall. I never get to help out with weather duty, and it’s so much fun moving clouds around, feeling the energy inside of them… it’s just infectious. Plus, I was getting a chance to work with Rainbow Flippin’ Dash! Mare’s a living legend. I didn’t even care that the only reason they picked me was because literally everypony else who could move a cloud was busy. It had been forever since my last accident, too, so I thought it would be nice to be helpful while I was on a clean streak.
“I’m still not quite sure what went wrong. I was having a great time, following instructions while feeling the pleasant buzz of moving charged thunderclouds, but I was also really anxious not to pinfeather – er, pardon my Prench – mess anything up, and next thing I knew all of the clouds were discharging at once in a single column through me into Town Hall.
“I was pretty embarrassed about that, so I tried hanging back and just giving Rainbow some moral support. Instead, I ended up giving her one of the building’s supports. To the face. By that point, I just wanted to sink down into the ground, so I, uh, did exactly that. When I sat down, I ended up crashing right through the floor, taking Rainbow Dash with me. I had just wanted ta help so bad,” I said, attempting to sink deeper into the way-too-firm-for-my-liking hospital mattress. I really miss sleeping on clouds sometimes. Nothing beats a cloud for a good sulk.
“Yep, that’s definitely consistent with how I understand it to work,” Bon Bon said. “You needed to escape, and it bought you time. You wanted to cave his skull in, and it tried to oblige. As for Town Hall, I’ll make an educated guess and say that you had already been suffering from a magic build-up when you went in. Entering a stressful situation with an overabundance of entropy magic is a recipe for catastrophe. That is, unless you have a convenient release valve available.
“One of the plus sides of hunting monsters for you,” she said with a sly smile, “is that you’ll have plenty of acceptable targets on which to vent your anger and frustration, as well as your excess entropy magic. With a little training, I bet you could even direct your magic somewhat reliably. Having a small landslide crush a horde of devil roaches sounds pretty useful to me, so yes, I would like you to be on my team.
“Your unique talent for courting disaster isn’t even the main reason why I’d want you with us. I just mentioned it first because I thought you’d be happy to hear that we’d figured out what was causing you to have so many spectacular ‘accidents’ whenever you were upset.
“You’re right, Derpy. I have known you for a while. I know that even though you don’t really love your job, you give it your all and you do it with a smile. When you set yourself to a task, you’re dedicated. You evidently love your daughter literally more than life itself. You can still function when you’re scared out of your wits. I like the idea of a pony with those qualities having my back.
“Oh, and you’ve gone hoof-to-hoof with a vampire armed with nothing but your environment, your magic, and your own body and come out on top, and the blood loss was the worst thing that ended up happening to you. That counts for something too, I guess,” she said with a wink.
I arched an eyebrow.
“Wouldn’t the blood loss usually be the worst thing that happens when fighting a vampire?”
“You’d be surprised.”
‘Well, I guess it’s hard to argue with experience.’
“Speaking of my fight with my ex,” I asked, “whatever did happen to all of those… thralls, I think he called them?”
“Without the vampire who took control of them still unalive to boss them around, they seem to have mostly gone back to their normal selves. Canterlot has them all under observation right now, though, in case any of them decide to turn.”
“What will Canterlot do if any of them do turn into vampires?”
“Kill them where they stand at the first sign of change. Or where they lie,” she replied, all emotion having vanished from her voice. “Vampires are serious trouble if they can get their hooves under them, as you’ve already seen, but they’re vulnerable when they first start out and are coming into their new powers. Anypony who chooses to become one was already a parasite in life, and they only ever get worse after that. Like you said about your ex, there’s not much lost to society when they kick the bucket.”
‘That’s a grim thought. I guess that explains the garlic bread…’
About a minute passed in silence. What she said clearly wasn’t wrong, but I still didn’t quite know what to make of it. All of the cheer and enthusiasm had just drained from her face, leaving only grim determination behind.
She must have noticed me noticing her, because her expression quickly warmed back up when she finally broke the silence.
“Remember, Derpy, it’s always a choice to become a monster. Nopony can force that on you, or on anypony else.”
“Well that’s… That’s good to know.”
“So, do you have any other concerns about signing up with Triple H?”
“Well,” I replied, “I still have a couple of concerns. If I join your team, then it’ll mean quitting my job as Ponyville’s mailmare. They’ll have to find a replacement for me, for one thing. For another, that’ll mean movin’ me and Dinky out of our home in the post office, and we don’t really have a place to go.”
“Since both your current position as Ponyville’s mailmare and your prospective position with Triple H are managed and paid for by Canterlot, you wouldn’t technically be quitting your job; you’d just be transferring to another department. That might not mean a lot to you, but it means a lot less paperwork for me, heh.
“You’re still right about their needing to find a replacement for you and about your need to move out, though. The replacement won’t be a huge issue. It’s the Government. They’ll have somepony flying your old route before you even walk out the door. As for housing, I would like to inform you that Her Highness’s Hunters offers its new employees a generous relocation bonus of one-hundred chips with which to procure lodgings closer to our base of operations just outside Ponyville.”
‘Yeesh,’ I thought, ‘she wasn’t kidding about generous. That is way more than I’d want to carry around in bits or bars. I may not be able to afford a mansion with that, but it’s definitely enough that I won’t need a mortgage for our next home.’
“Still,” she continued, “I can’t deny that a move might be disruptive for your daughter, and I don’t have an easy answer for solving that potential problem. That’s going to have to be between you and her.”
I took a few seconds of the following thoughtful silence to gather the nerve to ask my next question. It was a bit of a doozie.
“Well,” I said, “I guess we should also talk about the elephant in the room. Monster hunting doesn’t seem like the safest profession I could have, if my last run-in with a monster is anything to go by. What—” I pause briefly to blink tears out of my eyes. “What’ll happen to Dinky if, one day, I can’t come back home? I don’t really have any family that could take her in, and I don’t want to burden Carrot Top more than I already do. I can’t just have her sent to an orphanage, though. You said your parents used to hunt monsters. What sort of plans did they have to care for you if they ended up dying out there?”
She took a few thoughtful seconds herself, and then steeled herself to deliver her answer.
“Derpy, I won’t lie to you. Our work is dangerous, and ponies have died hunting down monsters for Celestia and Equestria. That’s why we’ll have a team, though. We’ll all be there to watch each-other’s backs, cover our weaknesses, and make sure we all get back alive. Still, it’s good to have a backup plan should the worst come to pass. For starters, you’ll definitely want to take out some life insurance on yourself. Beyond that, you’ll want to have somepony lined up that promises to take Dinky in in case of your death or extreme disability. It’s not a comfortable thing to talk about, but not having a plan for this situation is the worst way it can go down. If you can’t find anypony yourself, then Canterlot can help you there as well. I don’t mean by sticking her in an orphanage someplace, shuffling her around in foster care, or making her a ward of the state, either. The princesses look after their little ponies, especially those ponies that are in their service.
“If anything does happen to you before you can make any arrangements, though… then Lyra and I will take care of Dinky ourselves. I know that doesn’t sound like much comfort, and Lyra is a little… different, but she’s really a good and caring mare. She even attended Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns with Princess Twilight, back in the day, so she’d probably be able to help Dinky with learning to use her magic—”
I flashed out a wing to cut her off, wincing at the soreness that brought out. ‘Right. Still not healed all the way yet.’
“Bit’s ok, Bon Bon,” I said with a sniffle. “It’s—good to know that my daughter would be in good hooves if I can’t come back home one day. You’ve definitely addressed all of my main concerns. Hay, maybe I can still get Lyra to tutor Dinky without waiting for me to die first, if she doesn’t mind.”
“So you’ll take the job?” she asked.
“I’ll have to sleep on it.”
“Well, get back to me in a week. The monsters won’t wait forever.”
After that, Bon Bon and I drifted towards less exciting topics, like whether Lily or Roseluck grew tastier posies or what kind of antics we’ve seen Princess Twilight and her friends getting into in town, whiling away the rest of my visiting hours until Nurse Gentle Touch shooed her away so I could get some rest. I was a little sad that Dinky didn’t get a chance to visit me today, but I was also kinda glad. I needed some time to digest the details of the situation I found myself in and figure out what I thought of it.
‘Maybe if I sleep on it,’ I thought, ‘I’ll know better how to feel about Bon Bon’s offer in the morning.’
And so I did.