Lost Legacies

by AkibaWhite

Episode 07: The Kindness of Others [5/9]

[High Noon of Day 31]
Derpy Hooves gazed out the open window at the clear blue sky. A few hours rest had gotten rid of both her headache and the strange flashes, but it had done nothing for her sense of unease. Even in this wonderful room where nothing talked, nothing moved, and nothing threatened, she still felt tense. Derpy's eyes stared directly at different parts of the sky. She wished fervently that her mind could be like what she saw, beautiful and carefree.

"No matter what these ponies have told you, you're nothing more than a burden on each and every one of them."

So what? thought Derpy as she snuggled down against the comforter. Maybe that's all I can be.

The door to the room opened with a tiny squeak from its hinges.

Derpy grimaced. "Not again," she groaned. "I told you I'm not hungry."

"Okay then," said Fluttershy. "Are you thirsty?"

With that, Fluttershy delivered a powerful double-hoofed kick to the bed frame. The bed upended, sending the unsuspecting Derpy Hooves sailing out the window with a startled yelp. She fell through the open air in a perfect arc and landed in the brook below with a resounding sploosh.

Derpy broke the surface of the crystal waters, shocked and chilled to the bone. She gasped for air and looked about only to find three squirrels watching her from the top of the tiny bridge nearby. "W-what are you—" she began to ask when the three rodents answered the question for her. Each of them held up tiny scorecards that read 10, 10, and 9 from left to right. Derpy's mouth could only hang open at the sight.

Fluttershy exited the cottage through the front door and offered a saccharine smile. "Rise and shine! up and at 'em," she declared.

"Why?" the sopping-wet Derpy exclaimed. "I was having such a good—"

"I saaiid," interrupted Fluttershy. "Up, up, up!"

A pair of obedient otters swam up underneath Derpy and pushed her ashore in an instant. The beleaguered pegasus mare pulled herself to her hooves, if for no other reason than to get out of the ice-cold water. "What is this?" she moaned. "I don't even . . . ugh."

"Red Leader," Fluttershy called out in a singsong voice. "Your turn!"

A flock of birds led by an oversized cardinal descended on Derpy. She recoiled from their sudden appearance, but soon found herself buffeted from all sides. The birds beat their collective wings in furious rhythm and, within mere moments, they'd thoroughly blow-dried their target. They rocketed back into the sky, leaving Derpy Hooves looking less like a pony and more like a puffball of gray and blonde hair with a pair of angry amber eyes.

"Good job, little birdies," said Fluttershy. She waved goodbye, then wasted no time in grabbing a nearby bucket and plopping it in front of Derpy.

Derpy Hooves looked inside. This was clearly animal feed. She looked back up at Fluttershy. "What are you doing?"

"Wrong question," answered Fluttershy. She pointed a hoof at Derpy. "The right question is, what are you doing? You want to stay cooped up in my upstairs room all day? Well, that's fine by me."

Derpy raised an eyebrow. "It is?"

"Sure," said Fluttershy. She tapped the bucket. "But rent isn't free."

Derpy balked. "You're charging me?"

Fluttershy leaned in close, sugar-sweet smile unwavering. "Um, look at it this way. You want to find out what your Cutie Mark means, right?"

Derpy's eyes narrowed. That motivation felt more distant than it should have. Hadn't it been only yesterday that she'd decided not to accept a job on Sweet Apple Acres for that very reason? Derpy sighed and nodded.

"Good," chirped Fluttershy. "Then why don't we find out if you've got a knack for taking care of animals? Shall we?"

~

[Afternoon of Day 31]
Within a matter of hours, Derpy had fed and handled more animals than she'd seen in her entire life. From the tiniest mouse to the strongest bear, it seemed that every single critter for miles had some sort of dependency on Fluttershy. Derpy found it hard to keep up with the caretaker's practiced pace, and not simply due to the number of her charges. Applejack's training had come to naught. No matter how careful she tried to be, Derpy made mistakes at a rate even she was unfamiliar with. The irrepressible Fluttershy took her failures in stride no matter how amateurish the error, but this only made Derpy's bad mood worse.

I don't want to do this, Derpy thought to herself over and over again as the laborious afternoon wore on.

Eventually, the question met with an internal rejoinder. Then what do you want to do?

Go home, thought Derpy, but that thought troubled her. Where was "home" anyway? The library? No, even though she was welcome there, that was conditional on her continued progress. The apartment, then? No, although the peace and quiet of that desolate place seemed an appealing choice at the moment. When Derpy thought of home, her mind reached out for something it couldn't grasp. There was something intangible, hazy, and half-forgotten at the edge of her memories. It was warm, it was inviting, and Derpy was certain that she'd called it "home" once upon a time. When was that? she wondered. What was it?

A squirming motion underneath her called Derpy's attention back to the task at hoof. Fluttershy had charged her with checking a half-score of rabbits for ticks while she attended to another ten. The specimen currently in her hooves, a reddish-brown cottontail buck, had taken it upon himself to be uncooperative.

Derpy's eyes narrowed in frustration. "Hold still, you."

The rabbit glared back at her with equal annoyance and resumed kicking and squirming. No matter how Derpy tried, the cottontail deftly defied her every attempt to roll him over. The other rabbits in her set wiggled their noses in amusement.

Derpy did not share their mirth. My search for my talent is going nowhere, she thought, there's a crazy pony out to get me, and my dreams are . . . I don't even know what's going on there! She gritted her teeth. And on top of all that, you're making things hard on me for no reason! Her mind knew that the proper course of action was to ask Fluttershy for help. Her body decided that more pressure would solve the problem. Beneath her, something snapped.

The cottontail let out a deafening squeal. Derpy recoiled and watched the injured rabbit flop about on the lawn, unable to use its left hind leg. Her mouth dried up and her heart raced. Did I really just . . . ?

"Oh my goodness!" declared Fluttershy as she descended on the scene. "What happened, Russet Bunny?" She knelt down and listened to the rabbit's painful grunts before turning to Derpy with a stern gaze. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. How could you hurt such a poor defenseless bunny?"

Derpy shook her head. "I . . . I didn't mean to, honest!" She couldn't believe the next words that came to mind, and similarly, she couldn't stop them from coming out. "I just don't know what went wrong!"

"Well I do," responded Fluttershy as she rummaged about in her saddlebags. "When you bottle up bad thoughts, they find a way out sooner or later. How about all that bad stuff you've been moping about today, the stuff you don't want to talk about?" She looked up from her search. "Is this how you want to deal with it? Is this who you want to be?"

The question shook Derpy to the core. She remembered the last night she'd spent in her old apartment, the night she realized that she'd "gone bad." The truth then had been plain as day, but she'd never asked herself why that had come to pass. Am I doing the same thing to myself again? she wondered. A knot formed in her throat as she stared at the injured rabbit. No, it's worse this time.

At last, Fluttershy found the object of her search. She pulled a bottle of tiny green translucent capsules from her saddlebag and set about opening it. "There there, Russet Bunny," she soothed. "Everything's going to be just fine." She took one of the capsules in her mouth and bit down on it with an audible pop, then knelt once more and kissed the cottontail's broken leg. A wave of luminescent green energy spread from the kiss and wreathed about the injured limb, soaking into it as butter into toast. By the time that Fluttershy had risen to her hooves, the rabbit was already testing out its apparently functional leg.

Derpy stared open-mouthed at the sight. "What was that?"

"A gem seed," answered Fluttershy. "Twilight made them for me. Every seed has some of her healing magic inside."

The mention of Twilight Sparkle and the sight of her good works only enhanced Derpy's feelings of guilt. Right now, at this very moment, the unicorn mare she admired was out in the forest hunting for the cause of her woes. And as for me, thought Derpy. What am I doing?

The sternness returned to her face. "Now what do you have to say for yourself?"

Derpy bowed her head. "I'm sorry . . . for everything, really. I shouldn't have been so rude to you and—"

"Oh, I don't mind that at all," interrupted Fluttershy. She pointed down at the cottontail who'd turned his back on Derpy. "I meant, what do you have to say to him?"

Derpy swallowed, walked forward, and brought herself down to the rabbit's level. "I'm sorry, Russet Bunny. I wasn't thinking straight. I'd never want to hurt you or your friends." Her eyes teared up at the very thought. "Can you forgive me?"

The rabbit kept its arms crossed and its back turned.

Fluttershy brought her face close as well. "Now now, Russet Bunny. I know that you were pestering Miss Derpy too." She poked the rabbit in the gut. "Take a look. Don't you see how much she wants to be your friend?"

Russet Bunny sighed and turned about to find a splayed-out and watery-eyed Derpy Hooves on the point of breaking down. Unable to maintain his air of righteous indignation, the cottontail hopped forward a step, reared up on its hind legs, and offered a paw.

Derpy felt ecstatic that this failure hadn't cost her the fluffy critter's affections. She smiled brilliantly and shook the tiny paw with her hoof as carefully as she possibly could.

"See?" asked Fluttershy. "Wouldn't you rather be the kind of pony who . . ." Her voice trailed off as her eyes spied movement from above. The flock of birds from earlier descended and whirled about their caretaker, each of them twittering madly. "What?" exclaimed Fluttershy. Genuine worry crossed her face. "Are you sure?"

Derpy sat up. "What's going on?"

Fluttershy spread her wings in alarm. "Red Leader says he can't find Spike or my Willykins anywhere!"

Derpy raised an eyebrow. "Uh, Willykins?"

~

Comments

[EggnogMcGam]

Willykins/10
Brilliant. Great. The best chapter ever.
Seriously. WILLYKINS.

[EngageBook]

the other from a phantom mare who lashes her spirit to that of Silver Cross, traveling warrior and refugee of a destroyed nation.

Should that be latches?

[AkibaWhite]

2251220

lash
verb (used with object)
to bind or fasten with a rope, cord, or the like.

[EngageBook]

2251227
Oh, kool.
Learn something new everyday.

[Personifire]

Where could those two have possibly gone? After a beaver chewing on armor? I doubt they'd vanish off from that. Unless Screwloose is to be blamed. Gah, that pony.

[Aridifolia]

Hmm, Derpy's character flaws have finally caused an incident that wasn't entirely accidental. I wonder how this is going to turn out later for her.

[Mr Ignorable]

So, you need to start making more chapters, like, pronto.

[Honeytiger]

2254425somehow,that fit your profile picture. Even though it says pretty much the exact opposite thing.