• Published 25th Apr 2012
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Lyra's Human 2: Derpy's Human - pjabrony



Serveral years after the events of "Lyra's Human," Derpy Hooves meets a human of her own.

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148: Gainful Emderpment

Karyn was already at the breakfast table when Derpy arrived, but she was drinking orange juice instead of coffee that morning. Derpy figured that she had waited for her to arrive before putting on the pot, and after greetings and hugs, asked as such.

“No, but I’ll get it going straight away for you,” she said. “The weather’s too hot and sticky for me to drink coffee this morning. I’ll wake up eventually the natural way. Or maybe I’ll figure out how to make ice coffee. Or I’ll get a soda.” She had gotten up and loaded the pot with water, but Derpy held up a hoof before she could scoop the coffee into the filter.

“That sounds good, actually. We’ll go without, today.”

“Suits me fine.” She let the grounds pour back into the can before dropping the scoop in and snapping on the lid. Then she lifted it again and breathed in. “Just the smell of it is good.” Staying on her feet, she danced over to the refrigerator to get the eggs, then cracked them with a flourish.

“If you asked me,” said Derpy, “I’d say you were going to have a squall later on.”

“I think the weather report said as much.”

“Might not be able to go out.”

“Well, we might stay in.” Karyn whisked the eggs with vigor.

“You do seem cheerful, though.”

“I might have a reason to be. I had a very good interview this week.”

Derpy perked up at that. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Do you remember a long time ago, as an exercise, we worked that one Sunday at a bank?”

Derpy did remember, but she didn’t answer right away, because she wanted to think about some of the details. Yes, they had helped out so that Karyn could learn about the working world, and they had also solved a problem and gotten paid. Or rather, Derpy had solved the problem and Karyn had gotten paid. Not that she resented it. “Yes.”

“The guy who ran the computers there, Jim, you remember? He got me the interview.”

“So you’re going back there to work?”

Karyn shook her head. “It was with one of the software companies they contract out to. They do banking and collection software for many clients, but Jim’s bank is one of them and he knows a guy there.” For the first time, she stopped smiling. “I don’t know that I like getting my foot in the door that way.”

“Why not?”

“Well, in the first place, if someone else did it the proper way, filling out the application and just banking on their merits, why should I get preference because I’m a friend of a friend? Or, more selfishly, if the same thing happened on all the jobs that I applied for the proper way, how is it fair to me?”

Shrugging, Derpy said, “I guess that’s just how things are. But maybe they aren’t really looking to hire you and just gave you the interview as a favor to Jim.”

“I don’t think so. It was definitely a different tenor than the other interviews I’ve gone to. Like, in all those, it felt as though they were looking for a reason not to hire me, but still had to talk to me to fill out a minimum number of candidates. Here it was the opposite. Like that all they were trying to do was make sure I wasn’t a psychopath or so lazy that I would just take the paycheck and not do any work. Which again doesn’t seem fair. A hirer shouldn’t go into an interview with any preconceived notions.”

“Even so, I hope you get it. Just because things aren’t always fair like that individually doesn’t mean it’s unfair overall.”

“You’re talking about karma? Or ‘what goes around comes around’?”

“Could be. Anyway, when will you hear from them?”

Karyn sneered. “They said by the end of the week. Not this week, last week. The interview was on Wednesday so they should have called me yesterday. I was hoping to have good news.”

“Maybe they run the week from Monday to Sunday.”

“I suppose that’s possible, but it’s more likely that they, along with every other company that I or anyone else has ever interviewed at, isn’t going to keep their promises about getting to you. Even though they expect you to jump at a moment’s notice.”

“You’re getting bitter again.” Derpy tried to put a smile into it to get Karyn back to happy.”

“Well, it’s not fair, and this time I mean in the aggregate. Companies should know how important these jobs are to the people they interview, and get back with quick answers, even if it’s no. It would help the people, but I guess they’re not interested in that.”

“Nothing to do about it, though. Want to go out before the rain sets in?”

Karyn pulled her chair over to the window. “I’d actually rather stay in, hope they call.”

“Won’t they call your cell phone, though?”

“Probably, but if they do I don’t want to be outside where I can’t hear anything, or worse, where I don’t have bars and I miss the call.”

Derpy thought that Karyn was being melodramatic, and that even in those cases she would get a voicemail.

But in defiance of all expectations, they heard the dim buzz of Karyn’s cell phone vibrating, only to be confirmed by the piercing ringtone.

With hope in her eyes, Karyn looked at the caller ID. “Unknown number. Could be. Hello?” She listened for a moment, then made a gesture to Derpy where she put all her fingers together and shook her hand. Derpy shrugged in confusion, then Karyn gave up and moved toward the laptop. Derpy flew out of the way and watched as she opened up word processing. Now she understood the gesture; Karyn was looking for a pen. Too late, as Karyn was taking down notes. Derpy listened to the one-sided conversation. “Yes….Yes, I am! Well, that’s good to hear…OK…Got it. How will that work? I see. Can I call you tomorrow to work out all the details? Great. Thanks. You too. Goodbye.”

Derpy gave her an open-mouthed smile. “Good news? It sounded like good news.”

“They made me an offer.”

“Great! That’s what you’ve been waiting for, right?”

It seemed to snap Karyn out of her thoughts. “Yes, exactly. Finally, after months of searching and interviewing, there’s one place that’s willing to say that they want to pay me to do some work.”

“Awesome!”

“I didn’t say yes right away, though. Actually, I’m a little proud of myself for that. See, all the books I’ve read and the lists of tips all say not to jump at the offer or seem too eager, but I expected that I would mess up and say, ‘Yes, please, I’m desperate! I’ll take anything!’ But I did just what it said and told them that I would call them back.”

Grinning, Derpy said, “So are you going to make them wait longer than you told them?”

“It doesn’t work that way. I can’t get petty revenge. Or maybe I can, but I’m not risking it. Unless I decide not to take it.”

“Well, let’s talk about that. Why might you not want to?”

Karyn switched programs on the laptop to the spreadsheet. “In the first place, the money’s not awesome. I mean, there are some figures they could have named where it would be like, OK, I’m set for life on it. But this is decidedly entry level. I’ve got to see if I can even live on this.”

“Well, plug the numbers into your budget and let’s see.”

“First I’ve got to figure out the tax implications.” She did a lot of research before arriving at an estimate of what her take-home pay would be. “They said payday was every other week, so I’ll put it in twenty-six times.”

Derpy saw an opportunity for pedantry. “Unless your payday falls on the first of the year, in which case you’ll have twenty-seven. Or if it falls on the second of the year, but it’s a leap-year.”

“Yeah, I won’t worry about the edge cases. See, here’s how it is. I’m still going to have to scrimp. I can’t afford to buy new clothes every month, like I’d want to. And I’d have to factor in commuting too.”

“But isn’t it good to know where you stand? That’s why you need this budget.”

“Yes, you were completely right. For all its annoyance, it helps.”

“I don’t think it’s annoying. To me it’s like a game. But never mind. Besides, if you just break even for a while, you’ll be advanced, won’t you?”

Karyn sighed at another difference between Earth and Equestria. “It used to work that way, but the way to advance now is to keep changing jobs every few years. Which, believe me, I don’t want to do. I’d prefer to stay in the same office with the same co-workers. Assuming they’re nice and all. But beyond just the pay is something big.”

“You mean the work itself. Is it going to be something you want to do?”

“Actually, yes. It’s the kind of thing I’m looking for. Minimal support, maximal project work. I’d be coding for database software, and sometimes building the machines that run it, or installing the software on the machines for testing. They said they’ll move me around until they find out what I’m best at. That’s the techie’s dream, to stay behind the scenes, not have to work with the users. But that wasn’t what I was talking about.”

Derpy sensed something ominous in her voice. “What’s that?”

“As I said, it’s coding and installs and projects. Which often has to be done out of hours. Some bank that’s open to the public can’t be installing software when customers are there. It means night work. And it means weekend work.”

“Well, you can deal with that.”

She wasn’t getting it. Karyn had to be more direct. “Derpy, every week, we’ve never missed Sunday together. I’ve been on a regular schedule. Better than regular, because I’ve only had fifteen hours of class, more or less. Sometimes Fridays off. But we’re not going to be able to see each other like we have been.”

“Oh. You mean that this is the end for Derpy and her human?”

“Hey! No! No way. If you think that I’m going to let something like a job stop me from seeing you, you don’t know me at all. But it is going to make things complicated, and that’s why I’m wondering if I should reject the offer. Maybe there’s something else out there for me. Something with more money and regular hours.”

“But if you want this type of work, won’t every place be like this?”

“Not necessarily. It’s just because it’s a customer service industry. I could wind up working IT for, say, a big factory that pushes software out on its own schedule.”

Derpy kept looking for excuses. “But there are going to be holidays and vacations, right?”

“Not so many in the early years. Holidays, maybe, but again, the bank holidays will be opportunities to do our work. I mean, they won’t make me work on Christmas in all likelihood, but those convenient Monday holidays will be up in the air. Vacation time might be a week or two for the first year, and I’ll be last in line for getting to pick the ones I want.”

“Well, we’re going to have to figure out a way to schedule visits. I know you’ve always been against it, but maybe we can finally figure out a way to communicate between the worlds.”

“Interuniverse texting?” Karyn said “Yes, maybe it is time for that. I’ve been wary of it as a way to get caught, and because we didn’t need it. But now we do. I wonder if we can do it in time.”

“Even if it’s not smooth, we can do something as simple as me sending a note to Earth with the same spell I use for myself.”

“Yes, but again, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I haven’t said that I’ll take the offer. Just like when I made the decision to look for a job instead of going to graduate school, I’ve got to weigh all the pros and cons. And not getting to spend Sundays with you is a con.”

Derpy thought back, as far as she could remember in her friendship with Karyn. Back to when Karyn was a freshman and she, Derpy, was going through her empty nest syndrome. Coming together had been a key point in both of their lives. Now a new cusp was approaching.

“Listen,” she said. “You can’t base your decision around me. Not even as a factor. Not even if it meant never seeing each other again. If it’s going to be the right job for you, with work you want at a salary that will sustain you, then there’s no reason to say no.”

“Are you saying that work is more important than friendship?”

“No, I’m saying that friendship is more powerful than work. That even if our story ended here, our friendship would be everlasting.”

“Aww,” Karyn said, but she trailed off, deep in thought. Derpy figured that despite what she had said, Karyn was making the cost-benefit analysis, and she anticipated that it might be a long and drawn-out process like her last decision was. But she snapped right up and said, “I’m going to take the offer.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. It might not be perfect, and there might be something better out there, but what it’s going to do is relieve the stress in my life and make me happier. I can work within the system to try to improve, rather than have to go out trying new systems. Not to mention that if I have weekdays off that I can still go on interviews on those days looking for better work. I’ll set my mind to doing that. This way, a few years down the line, we can go back to Sundays. Maybe.”

Derpy nodded, and she hoped that it would be sooner rather than later. Even though Karyn had to do what was best for her, she wanted to spend more time with her friend. “So are you going to call them back and accept it?”

“No, I’ll call them tomorrow. I still don’t want to sound desperate. But what I will do is call my parents. They should be the first to know. After you of course.”

She moved her chair closest to the window. Although the cellular reception had gotten better as her carrier had improved the network, it was still the one place she knew to make sure that she didn’t drop a call. Hitting the speed dial, she waited for the ring.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Mom. Can you get Dad? I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Just a minute.” Karyn’s mother walked away from the phone, giving Karyn the chance to sneak an aside to Derpy.

“I hope they don’t guess ahead of time. But I also hope that they don’t think I’m telling them I’m pregnant or something.” She heard the phone go to speaker and greeted her father. “So I got a job,” she said.

Her parents spoke over one another. “That’s great! Where?”

Karyn ran down the details of the job. Her father wasn’t too overwhelmed but her mother seemed happy. “Are you going to stay where you are? Your room here is still available if rent will be an issue,” her mother said.

“I haven’t decided yet. I mean, yeah, it’s not like I’m walking into an executive’s salary. But I think I always knew that I wouldn’t be. I’ll get by.”

Her father spoke up. “I’m very proud of you. I know how many kids your age are coming out of college and they’ve got nothing, so I guess you were working hard after all. And thank you for calling us and letting us know.”

“Of course.”

“And I’m sure you want to go on the internet and tell all your friends now, right?”

“Actually, I’ve got one friend here. Sorry you weren’t the first to know.”

“Oh?” Karyn’s mother broke in again. “Who’s that? Have we met them?”

Karyn wasn’t sure why she had mentioned that, until she realized that she had gotten so used to having Derpy around that her innate self-consciousness about keeping her hidden had gone away. What surprised her was that she wasn’t worried about it this time. She tried to think of a lie to cover it up, but she decided that she didn’t want to lie anymore.

“Her name is Derpy, Mom. I don’t think you know her.”

“That’s kind of a funny name.”

“Mom! You’re on speaker phone.”

“Sorry. Can we talk to her?”

That would be going too far, thought Karyn. Right? Of course, she could always say that Derpy had to go back home to…some far off country. No, there aren’t flights. Or phones. Technically it would even be true. Could she let her parents talk to Derpy? Why not?

“Sure. Just a sec.”

Derpy was more surprised. She pointed a hoof toward herself, as though still not sure Karyn was serious. But she smiled and nodded, so Derpy approached the phone. “Mr. and Mrs. Hubert? I’m glad I got a chance to talk to you. Karyn’s been such a helpful friend to me.”

“That’s good to know. Are you going to school there too?”

“Oh, no. I left school a long time ago. I work, just like Karyn now.”

They all shared a laugh over that, more of relief than of humor. Although they didn’t say anything, Derpy could tell that Karyn’s parents were worried about her employment too. “Karyn, dear, sometime you have to bring Derpy out to spend a weekend here,” her father said. “We’d love to meet her.”

“Maybe someday,” Karyn said, but it was the kind of maybe that people used to mean no.

They wound down the conversation and got off the phone. Karyn was glad to get it over with, and she slumped into the chair, but before she could throw her head back and relax, Derpy said, “Hey!”

“What?”

“I just realized. You remember Dinky’s spell? It worked!”

Karyn thought back. Dinky had said that she was giving her a kind of good-luck-charm magic, but Karyn wasn’t even sure that she didn’t just say that to make her feel better. “Are you saying that I didn’t get the job on my own merit?”

“Oh, no! Nothing like that. I just meant—“

“I suppose I have no right to complain, seeing that I already did about getting it through networking. If anything, I’ll credit Dinky’s spell for having the place call me back in a timely manner. That’s something that can only be accomplished by the most arcane of magic. Indeed, I’m still not sure she didn’t use a dark and forbidden spell to make that happen.”

Derpy laughed.

“And the scheduling might be credited to that as well,” Karyn continued. “Weekday time off can be useful.”

“Even though it means we have to figure out a new way to get together.”

“Well, I’m thinking of things like if I need to get my car inspected. I can go in early and not have to have someone drive me.”

“I guess.” Derpy of course had never had that problem. “What are we going to do today, though? We’ve still got the whole rest of the day, even though it feels like so much has already happened.”

“I’m thinking of what I have to do next. Finals are coming up. I’ve got some study days in class where I don’t have to go in, but I’m going to have to use those.”

“Right. If you don’t pass school, they won’t let you work.”

That brought Karyn up short, and she laughed. “Actually, I’m not sure that’s true. I mean, I told them I anticipated graduating in a couple weeks, but I could be wrong. But no, I’m not going to coast my way through the end of college, not after all the effort I put in in all my other classes. I want to be able to hang my degree on the wall and know that it’s real.

“And more than that, I want to put a bow on this whole college thing. I’m not going back there again, not to study. Maybe for a reunion or an alumni affair or something, but never to, you know, go to college. It’s too expensive. I’ll keep learning, but at my own pace, in things I’m interested in. Over the internet, probably.”

“But that still doesn’t answer the question of what we’re going to do today.”

“You’re right.”

Derpy reached for her saddlebag. “But this does. We’re going outside. To eat, maybe have a drink. Celebrate. You deserve it.”

“Right! And it’s my treat, since I’ll have income soon enough. And also because you don’t have any Earth money.”

They decided to walk toward Karyn’s college. The cafeteria was there, the same one where Karyn got food for Derpy the first time she ate on Earth. Karyn had a good remaining balance on her meal plan, and she spent most of it on hot food and an extra cheese sandwich for Derpy. They found their booth in the corner where Karyn could hide Derpy’s eating from prying eyes.

“Congratulations,” she said.

“Thanks. But, now that I’ve told my parents, and you know, I don’t really have anyone else.”

“Sure you do. I’ve got to tell everypony back home. Dinky and Able, Twilight and Lyra, they’re all going to be happy for you.”

“I guess I’ve got a lot of friends after all.”

Author's Note:

Well, that's the antepenultimate chapter. Only two more left. Next week, certain precedents will be broken. I won't give you any clips, but for those who really need something, here's a spoiler. In chapter 149 there are only two words of dialogue.

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