Derpy slept well, and in the morning opened her eyes to find that once again her vision had gone strange. She went about her morning ritual without much fuss. It was as normal as things would be for her, and getting upset about it wasn’t going to change it. She hadn’t yet found anypony who could help her fix it, nor a way to avoid it happening or to switch her vision back on command. It was just how things were for her, and she had learned to live with it.
She could handle it. She was tough.
Breakfast consisted of a muffin, which she loved to pieces. That was why everypony called her that. Mrs. Cake frequently sent her muffins free of charge for all her deliveries, so she had a steady supply of them, and she shared them with ponies she visited with. She couldn’t tell what flavor this one was by sight, so she bit into it and was pleased to discover it was banana nut. Not the best, but still good.
Once breakfast was over she hunted down her uniform, tripping over the sofa in her quest, but she was dressed and out the door in a rather timely manner. She couldn’t tell the time exactly, but the red orb in the sky was the usual replacement for the sun, so she guessed she had maybe fifteen minutes? She always erred on the side of ‘late’ to avoid just such a problem, so she’d have to fly to work.
She didn’t like flying when her vision was like this, but if they had wanted ponies to walk deliveries, they would have hired earth ponies. Pegasi were just faster since they didn’t have to manage things like buildings being in the way or hills slowing ponies down.
She could manage. She was tough.
Derpy flapped her wings and gave a little hop before taking off. It was hard to see where things were while her vision was like this. Especially other ponies. Their shades weren’t obvious in colour, so she had to watch out. She buzzed another Pegasus, their wings nicking each other because she hadn’t seen the pony until the very last second. They didn’t crash, thank Celestia.
Derpy looked down at Ponyville as she flew. The dark and winding road she only saw in this version of sight wound like a snake through the alleys and streets of the town. She always felt like it was going somewhere specific, but she hadn’t ever wanted to follow it to find out. She looked at the shape of the city to determine where her office was. It was right on a specific corner, so she could identify it by shape if not by name.
She swooped down in a whirling loop, frantically avoiding the other delivery ponies who flew out of the building. She could barely register them at the last second, but they knew her well enough to give her a wide berth, so none of them hit her.
The ground was not so easy to avoid. It didn’t move, it just waited there for her to hit it, the impact sending up a cloud of dust. Her depth perception—or lack thereof—was still a hurdle, even with her vision like this.
Derpy picked herself up, her uniform now more disheveled than before and covered in dust, and trotted inside. “I’m here!”
“Ah, oy Derpy, we got anudda delivery for da Cakes. Dey likes you, so you gedda deliver it,” Crafty Crate said. “After dat, it’s just some small packages around town a’ight?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Crate sir!” Derpy said. Mr. Crate was easy to identify even when she couldn’t properly see him. His speech gave him away in a second. Other ponies were harder depending on how well she knew them.
Derpy grabbed her saddlebags from her locker and wandered to the room where the packages were kept. All of hers were placed in a section cordoned off so that she’d know which ones she was supposed to take without having to read labels. Crafty Crate had done that for her so that she would stop taking the wrong packages. Ever since he’d created this system of divvying out packages, mistakes had gone down for everypony, not just her. It kept everypony’s responsibility sectioned off from everypony else’s.
Derpy stuffed the smaller packages in her saddlebag, and hefted the one she assumed was for the Cakes in her hooves. She flapped her wings to keep herself up, and stumbled out the front door of the office.
“Good luck dere Derpy,” Crafty Crate said.
“Will do, sir!” she answered.
Once outside, she did an awkward little hop, then leaped into the air, wings flapping hard to take her up. She zeroed in on her target across town, not too far away from a big ugly building that she assumed must be the Princess of friendship’s castle. Derpy took off toward her target, clutching the package to her torso.
As she flew, she looked down at the dark, winding road passing through Ponyville. As she watched it began to undulate, the black stones it was composed of shifting in her sight as though passing through town like a serpent coiling through rocks. It wasn’t unusual, the dark road she always saw didn’t seem to have ever done anything throughout her life, but it was always there, even though it matched no other landmarks in Ponyville.
Derpy stopped to watch from above as the road changed position, slithering its black form underneath several houses and settling into a new shape. It now touched main street, dozens of ponies trampling over it as they went about their business, none the wiser to its presence. Save Derpy herself.
Derpy looked down from above and gave a small smile. She waved to the road as it looked far more comfortable in its current position. She had been told to stop ponifying inanimate objects, but it was hard when they moved and shifted for her just as much as ponies did. She was an adult now. She could do it if she wanted to.
She noticed out of the corner of her eye, a pony-shape walking along the black road in the alleys of Ponyville. She wasn’t sure what road that was when her vision was normal, nor was she sure what buildings the pony was near. However, as the pony turned and meandered along, she was positive that they had a distinct direction to their walk, and they were following the black road. They were even following the direction of the fake stones as they shifted and writhed along the path.
That wasn’t normal. As far as Derpy knew she was the only pony who could see them, and she had common sense enough to avoid following the dark road. Who knows where it led to? It could go to Tartarus as far as she knew, but she didn’t want to find out if it was or wasn’t safe. Derpy looked over at Sugarcube Corner, then back at the pony wandering through the alleys along the black road. She made her decision. Sugarcube Corner could wait.
Derpy dove down into the back alleys of Ponyville, the area appearing much darker than usual because of her vision problem, and landed in front of the pony. She set the package down next to her and held out a hoof.
“Stop!” Derpy said.
The pony obeyed, and tilted its head, looking at her. “Oh, hello again Miss Muffins. I thought I’d catch your attention this way.”
“Hello ‘again’? Who are you?” Derpy asked.
“You really don’t remember me? It was just last night I tried to introduce myself,” the stallion said. “As I recall, you chased me out with a knife.”
Derpy frowned, but after a moment realized what he was talking about. “You’re the stallion that broke into my house last night!”
He chuckled. “Not the brightest bulb in the box, are you?”
Derpy bristled, puffing out her cheeks. “That’s beside the point! I just came to tell you to stop going where you’re going.”
“Oh? And why would that be?” the stallion said.
Derpy opened her mouth, but realized that whatever she could say would sound crazy. While it was true the stallion seemed to want to get her attention, which might mean he could see the same things she could, something about him seemed… off. She didn’t want to tell him too much about herself.
“It’s just… bad,” Derpy said.
“Bad like, how?” He took a step closer to her.
“I can’t explain it, but it’s bad.” Derpy took a step back, but realized her package would be closer to him than her, and it was her job to protect it, so she stood her ground, straightening herself up.
“How bad? Why do you think that? What did you see that would make you stop a complete stranger to warn him not to continue walking down old, abandoned alleys?” the pony said.
He was right in front of Derpy now, and he was big. Bigger than a normal stallion. Had he always been that big? She felt tiny compared to him, but she didn’t back down. She had to stay with the package. She was tough. She could take it.
The stallion reached out a hoof, and as it got closer Derpy felt like spiders were crawling over her where his hoof was approaching. She wanted to pull back, but she was frozen by a little bit of fear, and a little bit of stubbornness.
“Derpy? Where’z you at? You grabbed the wrong packages by mistake! Somepony said they saw youz fly down here!”
Derpy’s head swam, and she blinked. When her vision cleared, things were normal again, and the stallion was missing. This was confusing.
“I’m down here, Mr. Crate!” Derpy called.
Crafty Crate flew down from above, carrying a package, with his own saddlebags full of smaller ones. He thumped to the ground next to her with a frown on his face, and plopped the package down in front of her. It did indeed have the Cake name on it, compared to hers, which had Rarity written on it.
“Youz alright Derpy? Youz sittin’ down here in an alley, and youz a little more scattabrained than uzwal,” Crafty Crate asked.
Derpy didn’t look up. She wasn’t alright. She was confused, and having a pony following her and trying to get her attention didn’t make her very comfortable. That stallion was nowhere nearby, either, having taken advantage of her dizziness to disappear before Mr. Crate could show up.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Them’s the woids of a pony who’s definitely not fine,” Crafty Crate said. “But I won’t bugz ya ‘bout it. When youz ready to talk ‘bout it, you lemme know. Until then, youz gots deliveries to make.”
Crafty Crate switched the packages in their saddlebags while Derpy waited. Once everything in her bags was for her to deliver, he grabbed the big package and gave her one last look.
“Take care’a y’self Derpy,” Crafty Crate said, and was gone.
Derpy picked up the package and gave the alley one last look. She felt like she was being watched, and something seemed to keep moving out of the corner of her eye, but after looking about and finding nothing there, she paid it no mind. She gave a little hop, then leaped into the air, determined to catch up on all the time she’d lost. She wasn’t sure where that stallion had gone, but she had the sinking feeling she was going to see him again, and at a bad time.
Her deliveries went well. She didn’t even crash when arriving at Sugarcube corner, just landed a little heavily on her flank when she came down with the package. The Cakes gave her a small bag of leftover muffins as thanks, which she dug into with gusto, then she wound around town in a wandering spiral delivering the rest of her packages. By the time the day was over, she was all tuckered out and more than happy to go back home.
Mr. Crate stopped her as she was getting ready to leave. “You doin’ awright there Derpy? Day went okay?”
“It went fine Mr. Crate. Thank you,” Derpy said.
He sighed but relented. “Awright. Lemme know if I can help at all.”
“Thank you Mr. Crate.”
He stepped out the front and Derpy was left to finish cleaning and lock up the place. It was her job to clean since nopony trusted her to organize the packages. They had tried to teach her, but she just couldn’t get it right, and it created an even bigger mess than somepony else had to clean up afterward, so it just wasn’t worth the trouble. Cleaning was done at least twice daily, so allowing her to clean up at night gave her something to do, the leniency to show up late in the morning, and didn’t leave an even bigger mess for the next day.
Derpy was mopping up the floor in the shipping area when she heard it: A sound, as of whispering, hissing through the air. She stopped mopping and perked her ears up, twisting them around to try to figure out if she had truly heard it. She heard it again, and this time almost made out a few words.
“…tell… …what… …Muffins.”
“Who’s there?” Derpy called out.
“…remember? …terrible…” the whispering broke into horrible gasping laughter.
Derpy brandished her mop as she looked around the small warehouse. It wasn’t very big, but it was big enough to house a lot of hiding places if somepony wanted to break in and skulk about. Not the most reassuring thought in the evening when she was all alone. She was sure she’d locked the doors before beginning, though, so how the pony got in was anypony’s guess.
Derpy trotted about the building with an urgent spring in her step, turning on all the lights, and double-checking all the doors and windows. Everything was locked, but if it was all locked and she was stuck in here with somepony anyway, that was going to be problematic. She grabbed a box-cutter and returned to her mop bucket, getting back to her work. The whispering continued, mocking in its tone, and annoying in its regularity.
“If you want something from me, just come out and get it!” Derpy yelled.
“…won’t see… …this.”
“Shut up and go away! I hate you! Leave me alone!” Derpy shouted.
Her voice was absorbed by the crates in the warehouse, sounding small and weak. She didn’t like this at all. If there was a pony here, why hadn’t they come out now that she was alone? Was she hearing the voice the way she saw the strange visions? It wouldn’t surprise her. That stallion in her house hadn’t ever touched her, neither at her home nor in the alleyway. Maybe he was made-up too. That would explain why he disappeared whenever her vision corrected itself. That would make just one more thing on the ever-growing list of things she kept experiencing that she would have to learn to ignore. She could do it though. She was tough.
She finished her work, ignoring the voice as it whispered insults, questions, and nothings at her.
Derpy sniffled.
Yeah, she was tough.