Three stories about Derpy.

by alafoel

Muffins

Derpy did not deliver mail on Sundays - this is because there was no mail on Sundays. Derpy, instead, delivered cakes and pastries and similar things. She did this because Sunday was the day Sugarcube Corner had their weekly deliveries and she much preferred it to staying home all day.

She liked Sugarcube Corner because it was a nice place to be. It looked nice, it smelled nice and it sold nice food. And, of course, the pony at the counter was always nice too. The pony at the counter was usually Pinkie Pie, but the Cakes themselves were just as kind to customers. One time Derpy Hooves came in while Pinkie Pie’s sister Maud Pie was filling in for Pinkie Pie, on account of Pinkie Pie being sick, and Maud Pie being in town and Maud Pie not being sick, and perhaps Maud Pie wasn’t necessarily the customer service type, what with her unusual demeanor and all, but Derpy still appreciated Maud for trying her best - which Maud Pie did, try her best.

Derpy liked delivering food for Sugarcube Corner because other ponies liked Sugarcube Corner and they liked the food from Sugarcube Corner, so they also liked Derpy for delivering it for them. Derpy considered this a win-win. The pay was a bonus - it wasn’t quite as good as a day delivering mail, but it did come with muffins.

Derpy liked muffins.

So, here was Derpy: Waiting in front of Sugarcube Corner on a Sunday morning. Derpy waited outside the bakery, rather than inside, because her cart was too big to fit inside the Bakery. She used a cart because there was often lots of boxed baked goods to deliver, and they were too plentiful and too fragile to try and carry by hoof. Instead, Pinkie Pie (or the Cakes, or, one time, Spike - a dragon friend of Pinkie Pie) would load the boxes into the cart and Derpy would walk the cart from house to house. This was not a bad way to go about things - many ponies did this: Farm ponies did this every day. Once a week was not so bad. Plus, Derpy was not the best at flying, so walking was good once in a while. She tried her best flying but she often crashed. Walking was simply less likely to end up with her hurt.

This Sunday was a warm, sunny Sunday - it being about the time in Spring it started to feel like Summer instead. It was a pegasus job to make sure that was the case: Derpy knew a few ponies on the weather team. She delivered them mail. Mail delivery was usually a pegasus job too, but just about anypony could get the job if they cared enough. Derpy was a pony who really cared.

Weather made ponies happy, but in a distant logical way. Getting things made ponies happy in a raw, direct way. Mail was a thing. Weather was not. Of course, not all mail made ponies happy - some mail happened to make ponies very sad. Derpy once delivered herself an invitation to the funeral of a pony she knew. She knew she didn't feel happy when she got that invitation. When mail made ponies sad, it still made them a little happy in that distant logical way, though. Thunderstorms, however, made ponies sad in a raw, direct way but it did not make them happy in a distant logical way. The reason why even bad mail made ponies happy was so: It reminded ponies that they are alive. That others are aware of them, and that they are thought of and perceived. Most ponies are secretly afraid that they do not exist - that they are some kind of ghost that nopony else knows about and that ponies stop thinking about them when they leave the room. Mail was proof otherwise. Mail made ponies happy.

There was one exception for this: Junk mail. Junk mail did not make ponies happy. It did not remind them that they really existed. In fact, it made them think they did not really exist. It was extremely illegal to tamper with most mail in Equestria but it was not illegal to tamper with junk mail, so Derpy threw it out when she found it.

Cake deliveries mostly made ponies happy because most ponies like cake.

Pinkie Pie was loading boxes into Derpy’s cart. “Hiya, Derps! It’s never Sunday without Miss Hooves!” Pinkie said this to Derpy every Sunday, even on the Sundays when Derpy wasn’t delivering or when Pinkie Pie wasn’t working at Sugarcube Corner. “So, how ya been?” The boxes being loaded into the cart were all made out of card or paper, or something similar. They were a slightly muted pink with ‘Sugarcube Corner’ in a fancy white font on top. The boxes hinged open at the back and had a sticker on the front keeping them closed and asserting their freshness: ‘Fresh and delicious!’, they said, in a similar font to the ‘Sugarcube Corner’ on top.

Derpy stopped and thought for a moment. “Good”, she said. Then she thought some more. “Thank you for the party. I’m sorry I left early.”

“You didn’t leave early,” Pinkie said, “it was your party. You can’t leave your own party early.” Derpy thought Pinkie Pie was strange but Derpy did not judge Pinkie Pie for this. Derpy thought it was quite good for ponies to be strange because then it meant they were actually them.

“But I didn’t stay for long.” Derpy waited again before speaking. “It was a lot of effort for a party. And I left very quickly. Maybe you feel… Like you wasted your time.” What Derpy meant to say was this: ‘I feel like I wasted your time. I want you to try and reassure me even though I know it won’t make me feel any better’.

“Eh,” was Pinkie Pie’s response. “I had fun!” One of the reasons that Derpy thought Pinkie Pie was weird was Pinkie Pie often stood on her hind legs only, rather than all four. She did that now when loading up Derpy’s cart.

Derpy started thinking again. Then Derpy spoke. “I was glad to see everypony there. And it meant a lot to me that you would throw that party for me.”

Pinkie Pie said this: “Oh, it was nothing’. I would'a done that for anypony!” What Pinkie Pie meant to say was this: ‘I love you. You are never a burden to me, because I love you.’ Then Pinkie Pie said this: “Done! You're good to go!” She said this because she had finished loading up Derpy’s cart.

Derpy thought to herself that it was a good day to walk through Ponyville with a cart. It was the market that day, which meant there were lots of other ponies walking through Ponyville with their own carts. Derpy liked to walk past them and smile and nod. They would often smile and nod back. One pony, Big MacIntosh, had started to wink at her when she walked past and smiled and nodded. Derpy would giggle and wink back. Big MacIntosh was one of those farm ponies who walked their carts about every day. Derpy delivered his sister apple fritters every Sunday, even though she could make them at home.

One time Derpy asked Big MacIntosh’s sister this: “I wonder, why do you always order apple fritters from the bakery when you could have some with your own apples from the farm?”

Big MacIntosh’s sister lived on an apple farm. Big MacIntosh did too.

This was Big MacIntosh’s sister’s response: “These are my apples.”

The first pony Derpy had to deliver to was named Strawberry Sunrise. She lived close to Sugarcube Corner. She had ordered strawberry tarts. Derpy knocked on Strawberry Sunrise’s door: When the door opened, Derpy said “Delivery!”

Strawberry Sunrise smiled and said “Strawberry tarts!”

Derpy did not have the box of tarts ready so she had to look through the cart to find it. The first deliveries scheduled were on the top of the pile in the cart, so they were easy to get. Pinkie Pie was clever like this. When Derpy gave the tarts to Strawberry Sunrise, Strawberry Sunrise smiled again and said ‘thank you’. Derpy said ‘thank you’ too, then Strawberry Sunrise closed the door and Derpy left. Most deliveries were similar to this.

One pony made it very difficult for Derpy to deliver her cakes too. This pony did not do it on purpose, so Derpy was not upset at them. It was difficult for Derpy to deliver to this pony because she lived on a cloud. Derpy could not walk to the cloud and she was too weak to carry the cart up to it. This meant that every time Derpy delivered to this pony, Derpy had to take off the cart, grab the box and then fly up to the house to deliver the cake. This pony’s name was Rainbow Dash and she and Derpy had had a somewhat awkward encounter recently which had led to the also somewhat awkward party which Pinkie Pie had held for Derpy. The awkward encounter with Rainbow Dash was that Derpy had injured herself in front of Rainbow Dash and Rainbow Dash still did not know how to talk to most disabled ponies.

The way to talk to disabled ponies that Rainbow Dash still did not know was just to talk to them as you would talk to any other pony without disabilities.

“Delivery!” It was not possible to knock on clouds the same way you would knock on a door, so Derpy just said this out loud without doing any knocking.

When Rainbow Dash came to the door, she said this: “Oh. Derpy. I didn’t expect to see you today.” Rainbow Dash was not lying when she said this, even though Derpy had delivered her a different type of cake for most of the past 60 or so Sundays. “Listen, I’m sorry. About the other day.”

“Why?” Derpy asked. She was holding out a box with a chocolate cake in it. She was holding it out on one of her hooves. Her other three were still on the cloud.

Rainbow Dash now thought for a moment. After the moment was up, all she said was “I’m sorry.”

Derpy thought too. “Delivery!” Derpy said, and held out the box again.

“Chocolate cake,” said Rainbow Dash. “Thank you.”

“Thank you!”, said Derpy. Then Derpy flew back to the ground and put her cart back on.

The reason Derpy said ‘thank you’ after she delivered something was that she was very happy that the other ponies were polite enough to say ‘thank you’ first. There were some ponies that didn’t say ‘thank you’ first so Derpy didn’t say ‘thank you’ back. One of the ponies who didn’t say ‘thank you’ first was Filthy Rich, who usually ordered a millionaire’s shortbread. Derpy wondered if he only ordered that because it sounded expensive, but she never asked because she didn’t care what Filthy Rich had to say since she was sure he wasn’t going to follow it up with ‘thank you’.

The last delivery of the day was to Big MacIntosh’s sister, in Sweet Apple Acres. It was the last delivery every week because it was the furthest place out from Sugarcube Corner that Sugarcube Corner still delivered to. Sugarcube Corner only delivered this far out because Big MacIntosh’s sister was a friend of Pinkie Pie and the Cakes.

When Derpy knocked on the door, she did not say “Delivery!” Instead, she said “Hey Applejack.” This was because Big MacIntosh’s sister’s name was Applejack, and also because Applejack called Derpy by name too.

“Hey Derpy! Cart all good?” Applejack called Derpy by name because Derpy always borrowed the cart she used for deliveries from Applejack. Applejack would take it to the market in the morning, empty it, then give it to Derpy.

“No problems today!” Derpy got the last box out of the cart. Applejack and Big MacIntosh and most other farm ponies were usually very good at taking care of their equipment. Sometimes Derpy would crash or bumble and dent the cart or mess up the wheels, but it would always be perfect again the next Sunday. “Apple fritters this week.”

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Applejack grabbed the box of apple fritters. “Thanks, Derpy. Wanna come in for a bit before you head off back out?” Applejack asked this every week.

“I’m fine. Thank you.” Derpy said this every week too. “Thank you.”

“You're always welcome.” Applejack said.

“Thank you.” Derpy said. “I’ll take the cart round.” Derpy always took the cart into the barn herself, even when Applejack offered to help.

“See ya next week!” said Applejack.

“Will do!” said Derpy. Then Derpy walked off.

After she was finished with Applejack, Derpy walked all the way back into Ponyville and then into Sugarcube Corner. When she went back to Sugarcube Corner, she would talk to Pinkie Pie and pick up her muffins.

“So, how’d it go?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Good.” Derpy replied.

“Good.” Pinkie Pie said. “Muffins’re fresh!”

Derpy grabbed the box from Pinkie Pie. The muffins came in the same sort of box Derpy had been delivering to everypony else. This box was different, though, because it was hers.

When Derpy got home and opened the box, she realized that Pinkie Pie had given her an extra muffin than usual.

She wasn’t sure why.

She just ate it.