• Published 5th Jun 2012
  • 6,759 Views, 168 Comments

The Story of My Life - Mindblower



Ditsica Doo has 24 hours to find somepony stupid enough to help her with her desperate scheme.

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Ditsica Meets Derpy

Part II

I didn’t have high expectations upon my official entrance into Ponyville. Perhaps it would be mostly vacant, or perhaps there would be friars chanting in the streets about the end of the world of the week. Everything seemed to be relatively quiet, except for a large group of ponies all crowding around something in the center of town.

I approached the several dozen denizens of the village and glanced into the center of the crowd. As I suspected, it wasn’t anything worth my time; just a fallen package that apparently had been dumped unceremoniously onto a different citizen that was just now being helped out of the wreckage of what appeared to be an armchair. A large moving truck was hovering overhead, with several pegasi hovering around it, including one particularly ticked-off looking one.

My ears swiveled to the side as I heard a pony next to me mutter, “What a klutz.” Another mumbled, “Way to go, butterhooves. You could’ve broke Mrs. Cake’s neck.” Yet another remarked to herself, “I simply can’t believe they haven’t fired that poor mare and put her in a mental institution! She’s a hazard to society!”

My curiosity got the better of me. “Excuse me,” I began, pulling a white unicorn mare to the side, the one who had mentioned something about a ‘mental institution,’ “but what is all of this about?”

She shrugged off my hoof, and looked at me, slightly surprised. “Oh! I-... I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t see you there. Um... weren’t you the one that just dropped the chair on poor Mrs. Cake?”

“Pardon?” I asked, confused. “I just got here. I came from Twilight’s; do you know her?”

“Of course I know her, darling, she’s one of my closest friends! My name is Rarity, by the way, and this is my other friend, Rainbow Dash,” she said, motioning to the mare that had muttered something about a ‘klutz.’ “I’m sorry for mistaking you for Derpy Hooves; you two look almost identical.”

“A pleasure,” I said, faking courtesy when what I really wanted to do at the moment was demand answers from Rarity so that I could get on my merry way. The clock was ticking. “So who is this ‘Derpy Hooves,’ and what in Equestria could she have done to merit so much ire out of the two of you?”

Rarity clearly looked as if she had wanted to keep that last part secret. “Oh... you heard that, didn’t you?” She chuckled nervously. “Well... That’s not what I meant, of course, right, Rainbow Dash?”

“Yeah, she can be kind of a drama queen sometimes,” Dash added quickly, though it was clear they were both trying to cover up something. What that was, exactly, I wasn’t sure; perhaps they didn’t want to appear shallow.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said patiently, though my patience was running thin.

“Oh, well, Derpy is an... oddball, of sorts. She has a difficult time...” Rarity was straining for the politically correct words.

“Doing things,” Dash said simply.

“Well, yes, doing things, and functioning in a typical society. She also has the most peculiar eye disorder... But surely you know all this, darling, because you two look almost exactly alike,” she said, inspecting me with an unnerving amount of fascination. “Look! You even have the same cutie mark as her! Are you perfectly certain you aren’t sisters, or cousins, or something?

I gritted my teeth. It was time to terminate this conversation and go directly to the source, because, frankly, I wasn’t all that comfortable sharing so many traits with a character as troubled as Derpy seemed to be. Perhaps if I met the mare, I would be able to form suitable conclusions of my own. “Thank you both for your help,” I began, pushing Rarity away from my flank, which she seemed to find intriguing, “but I have somewhere to be. I hope to see you again once I’m less... busy,” I finished, picking a word that didn’t imply I could spontaneously vanish in less than a day.

As they departed, I noticed that the crowd was already beginning to disperse, though I heard two other ponies anxiously chatting with each other, one of them being the ticked-off pegasus I had noticed before. He was a dirty brown color and had a very early-morning version of five o’clock shadow, and he was speaking with a light yellow earth pony with a carrot-colored mane. Discreetly, I swiveled my ears toward them and eavesdropped on their conversation.

“Look, Ms. Top, I understand that you two are trying your best, and I respect that, I really do,” the very masculine pegasus began, “but if she starts hurtin’ ponies, then I don’t really have much choice in the matter.”

“But I’ve been working with her on this and she’s made fantastic progress!” the other pony, Ms. Top, replied. “This is the first real job she’s had since I first started helping her and if you take that away, then what’ll she have?”

“You know I don’t wanna do this, Miss,” the burly pegasus said, scratching his scraggly chin, “but the accidents, well, they’re bad for business. This isn’t the first time, either. It doesn’t give me many options. My other employees are already complaining about having to work with her, and it places a lot of stress on my own shoulders, you know what I’m saying?”

Ms. Top had no rebuttal. She turned away dejectedly.

“Sorry, Miss, but it is what it is. I’ll give her a couple days pay in advance so that maybe you can help her find a new job; I just can’t risk her dropping cargo on ponies’ heads anymore. Sorry,” he said, turning and flying back up to his crew.

She began to sadly walk away, but as she passed me, she grabbed my hoof gently and urged me forward. “Come on now, Derpy. Time to go hunting again.”

Excuse me,” I said, flinching away from her hoof. “My name isn’t Derpy.”

She looked up, surprised. “Oh, I’m sorry! But... you look a lot alike,” she said. Her brow furrowed. “How about that. Derpy never told me she had a long-lost sister.”

“If she does, I’m not her,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I think it’s about time I meet this ‘Derpy’ character and see why everypony’s been mistaking me for her.”

“Well, she’s just over there, I think. My name’s Carrot Top, by the way. Derpy?” she called to a pony nearby.

A light gray pegasus mare flew over, though her form was clumsy and she was barely able to stop before she ran into me. On the surface, I didn’t see anything all that similar besides our color scheme; her mane was light blond, as mine was, and her cutie mark was indeed a series of bubbles, akin to my own. However, I did a double take once I saw her eyes; they were completely and utterly crossed. She had a bright smile on her face nonetheless. “Uh-huh?” she asked Carrot Top.

“There’s a pony that would like to meet you,” Carrot Top said pleasantly. “What is your name, by the way?” she asked me.

“Ditsica Doo,” I said.

“Nice to meet you, Ditzy!” Derpy said automatically, offering her hoof for me to shake. She had on a scarf similar to mine, though it was completely stitched and had purple stripes rather than blue ones.

“A pleasure, but it’s Ditsica, not... Ditzy,” I corrected, shaking her hoof. She stared at me with an oddly fractured gaze, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

“Do you have any plans for lunch? I accidently bought more lettuce yesterday than I meant to, and I was hoping I could have somepony over for a daisy and pecan salad,” Carrot Top offered.

I considered declining, but something told me Derpy would be make an ideal partner for the journey, given that I had already started to dislike her doltish mannerisms. Considering the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything substantial yet that day, as well, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. “That sounds lovely. I’d be happy to join you two.”

“Three, actually; Dinky, Derpy’s daughter, should be getting home from kindergarten about now,” Carrot Top said. “There’ll be plenty for all of us, though. How does that sound, Derpy?”

Derpy didn’t seem to have been paying attention, and was instead sitting down and glancing oddly at passerby. “Huh?”

“We’re going to have Ditsica over for lunch, Derpy. Doesn’t that sound fun?” Carrot Top prompted.

“Is she nice?” Derpy asked Carrot Top.

She tried to pass it off as a joke. “Well, are you nice, Ditsica?” she asked, attempting wryness.

“I’d say so, but that’d be my ego talking,” I said simply, starting to get impatient.

“What’s ego?” Derpy asked.

“In this context, arrogance,” I replied, my frustration beginning to show.

“What’s arrogance?” Derpy asked, tilting her head slightly.

“Being full of yourself,” I said, stating the term in the simplest terms I knew of, though I was clearly exasperated by this point.

“What does that mean?” Derpy asked, scratching her temple.

“Oh, good grief,” I muttered, pushing my spectacles back up the bridge of my nose. “Forget I mentioned it.”

“Now, now; she was only asking a question,” Carrot Top told me. She turned to Derpy and said, “All of those mean that you think more of yourself than you really are, or that you think can do more than you can really do.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you just say so?” Derpy asked me.

I resisted the urge to wrinkle my nose, and put on my most impassive face of the day. “I did. Thrice. Now shall we be going?”

After Carrot Top properly defined the term ‘Thrice’ to Derpy, we were off on our way to the home the two of them shared. I was well on my way to officially declaring Derpy my partner in crime, for who would be better for me, a sophisticated and intelligent mare, to hate than Derpy, who doesn’t even know what the word ‘sophisticated’ means?

=====================================================================

Prior to our arriving at Carrot Top’s household, she directed Derpy to the schoolhouse and asked her to walk Dinky home. I was unsure whether or not I pitied Dinky’s situation, though I supposed I would find out once I found out if she was anything at all like her mother.

Their home was quaint, and not quite as large as Twilight’s, although theirs didn’t have a library addition to it like Twilight’s did. I wiped my hooves on the doormat and draped my scarf on the coathanger before following Carrot Top into the kitchen, which was a fairly small room composed of a counter, a refrigerator, a stovetop and a couple cabinets. Carrot Top grabbed various ingredients out of her vegetable drawer while I leaned against the back wall and watched. As she began to prepare lunch, I began to inquire about her past with Derpy, since at the moment I had no better way to spend my time.

“How did you two meet?” I asked.

“Out of necessity,” Carrot Top replied as she diced some radishes. “Equestrian law requires that ‘all disabled single parents must be assisted by an able member of the community, with the amount of help proportional to the magnitude of the disability’ or something like that. After Derpy had Dinky, I, being a close friend of Derpy’s parents, chose to do my duty and help her raise the child.”

“You’re doing much more than just that,” I remarked. I paused for a moment before asking, “If it’s not too sensitive a topic... how did Dinky come about? I don’t mean to pry, I’m simply curious.”

“Not many ponies ask that question,” Carrot Top began, pausing in her work. She turned to face me. “You’ve got a lot of nerve.”

Uh-oh. I shifted nervously.

“I like that,” Carrot Top added simply, grinning slightly. She turned back to her cutting board and began to slice some cherry tomatoes. “Too many ponies in this community are spineless. They’re over-polite to Derpy and I just because of her disability. Everypony at school is nice to Dinky, and yet she hasn’t had one friend over to our house to date because they’re all afraid of her mom, even if they don’t say it aloud. Sometimes I wish that they’d all just treat Derpy, well, normal, because that’s what she is at heart.” I sensed a hint of anger in her tone.

“It’s difficult to understand your position without being in it first-hoof,” I said. “I think, personally, that their reaction is reasonable, given what they know. I would hope, though, that once they got to know Derpy, they would be much more comfortable around her.” I didn’t believe that last part, but although I didn’t like Derpy all that much, I did like Carrot Top to an extent, and I didn’t want to see her upset.

“One would think,” Carrot said. She turned back to me for a moment and added, “I’m sorry if this is all a bit ranty, Ditsica.”

“Not at all, but you still haven’t answered my question,” I said, more confidently now that I knew she wouldn’t be offended.

“Well... it’s a rough story, involving Derpy’s first job and her first boss. I’d really rather we don’t go into it,” Carrot Top said as she chopped up some lettuce leaves. “Anyway, where did you come from? I haven’t seen you in town before, and if you’re not Derpy’s long-lost cousin, then who are you?”

I was opening my mouth to weave some fanciful, tragic tale when the door crashed open, and in came Derpy and a young purple-colored filly with a slightly yellower mane than her mother’s.

These interruptions are getting more and more convenient, I muttered to myself.

“Hi,” Derpy said, shuffling to the kitchen. She was wearing the same fractured smile she had on earlier. “Is the salad ready yet?”

“In a few minutes, Derpy,” Carrot Top said. “How about you go set the table in the meantime?”

“Don’t I get to help make the food?” Derpy asked.

“It’s almost ready; all I have to do is toss it,” Carrot Top answered.

“But it looks so yummy; why would you toss it?” Derpy asked. “Can’t I have some first?”

“She means she’s going to combine the ingredients,” I said, though I bit my tongue as I realized the agonizing chain of dialogue that would soon follow.

“Um...” Derpy thought hard, scratching her chin. I looked up for a moment, seeing that she didn’t look like she wanted to ask what the words meant. “Oh... okay. I... I’ll set the table,” she said dejectedly before leaving for the dining room.

“She’s not as dull as you think, you know,” Carrot Top began.

“I never said anything like that,” I said defensively.

“But you and I both know that’s what you were thinking,” she replied, though she didn’t seem hostile or otherwise offended. “I know that she can appear a little slow at times, but she consistently proves me wrong. She caught on to the fact that you didn’t like to explain what words meant and didn’t bother asking.”

I remained unconvinced, but I didn’t have an appropriate rebuttal, so I simply nodded.

“I know you don’t think so yet,” she added as if she had read my mind, “but you will if you spend more time with her, trust me.”

“Mom can be really smart if she wants to,” Dinky said, making me jump slightly because I hadn’t realized she was listening in on our conversation. “She just doesn’t get much of a chance.”

“Shouldn’t you be helping Derpy set the table, Dinky?” Carrot Top asked as she tossed and distributed the salad into wooden bowls.

“I wanted to ask you something, Mrs. Top,” Dinky began. “Is it okay if Mom... doesn’t walk home with me anymore?”

“Dinky, we have a guest. I’m not going to talk about this now,” Carrot Top said forcefully.

Dinky stomped her hoof in protest. “But the other kids have been giving me really strange looks and-”

“Not another word or I’ll send you to your room,” Carrot Top finished. “Now go help your mother set the table.”

Dinky sighed, and she lowered her head as she slowly walked past Carrot Top and I into the dining room. “Sure, I’ll go help her. She’d probably break something without me anyway,” she muttered disappointedly.

After Dinky had left the room, Carrot Top exhaled and said, “You know how mean other ponies can be. I just don’t want Dinky to grow up being ashamed of Derpy, and treating her like she can’t do anything without help. She can. She just, well...”

“Can’t raise a foal,” I offered.

Carrot Top nodded sadly. “I try to have the two of them spend as much time as they can together, but she always ends up treating me as more of a ‘mom’ figure than Derpy. What’s worse, though, is that I usually end up following her lead.”

I didn’t have a way to continue the conversation after that, so I helped her carry the bowls of salad into the dining room. And for the remainder of my stay at Casa del Derp, I focused all of my mental ability on figuring out how to separate Derpy from her daughter and caretaker. That would be the easy part.

After that, though, I would have to find a way to convince Derpy that it would be a good idea to take a journey through frigid terrain with the grand goal of freeing Equestria’s most dangerous villain. And if she was really as bright as Carrot Top claimed, this would be no easy task.

=====================================================================

Next part: Ditsica Departs!