Three Months Ago:
I hated Derpy Hooves.
Well, I didn’t actually hate her. I just really, really disliked her. Cloud Kicker and I had a good thing going before she showed up and started ruining everything. Now all of a sudden Cloud Kicker was shutting me out, spending time with Derpy instead of me. Telling Derpy things she wouldn’t tell me. Lying to me.
Worst of all, she wasn’t leaving. I didn’t mind when Cloud Kicker had her one-night stands. Well, I didn’t mind it much. Those ponies always left the next day, but I was still there for Cloud Kicker.
Derpy wasn’t leaving though. She’d somehow managed to achieve the impossible and get Cloud Kicker to stick around. Maybe even fall in love with her.
And now she wanted to talk to me. I guess it was inevitable after the way I’d blown up at Cloud Kicker when I got the news. I felt a little bad about that, but I was entirely justified in being angry with her. Cloud Kicker shut me out when I asked what happened with Fluttershy, and then outright lied to me by saying she’d never told anypony about it. Anypony except Derpy. Her new fillyfriend. Who she apparently liked a lot more than me.
Derpy landed on a cloud and waved me over. After a quick check to make sure there was nopony around to overhear our talk, I landed next to her. I don’t know what she wanted to talk to me about, but I was going to take this chance to give the pegasus a piece of my mind. From what I know of her she’s a pretty nice pony most of the time, but she was ruining Cloud Kicker.
I opened my mouth to get started, and Derpy interrupted me by doing the last thing I’d expected. She hugged me. “I’m sorry, Blossomforth.”
“Bwuh?”
Derpy continued on. “If I’d known how you felt about Cloud Kicker I never would’ve–”
“Waitaminute! What? How I feel about Cloud Kicker?” I felt heat building up in my cheeks. “She’s my friend.”
Derpy just looked at me. After a few seconds of that I started feeling warm and guilty for some reason. “It’s okay Blossomforth. You don’t have to hide your feelings from me.”
“Hide what?” What Derpy must have thought was going on suddenly clicked in my head. “Derpy – do you think I have a crush on Cloud Kicker?” I let out a giggle. “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard! Cloud Kicker and I are just friends! There’s no way I could ever possibly have any romantic feelings for her. That’s just silly. You’re silly, Derpy.”
“Actually, that’s not what I was going to say at all,” Derpy answered with a grin. “So tell me more about this crush you have on Cloud Kicker.”
“I don’t have a crush on Cloud Kicker!” I insisted. I was tempted to move to a different cloud, because this one was way too warm. It must have been sitting out in the sun all day.
Derpy gave me a gentle little nudge in the ribs with one of her wings. “Sweetie, I’m not gonna blame you for falling for her. I did too, after all.” Derpy reached around into her saddlebags and pulled out a pair of muffins, then passed one to me. “Here, have a muffin. Trust me, it helps.”
I reluctantly accepted the baked good from the crazy pony who thought I had a crush on Cloud Kicker. “Thanks.”
“Sooo...” Derpy drew the word out and smiled at me. “What made you fall in love with her?”
“I’m not in love with Cloud Kicker.” By now I was starting to sound like a broken record. You’d think Derpy would’ve understood after the third or fourth repetition.
“Was it the wings? Her mane? Her eyes?
“She’s brave.” I don’t know where that came from. “Have you ever wanted to say something, but you were afraid of consequences? Or felt like you had to pretend you were somepony different, just to fit in? That’s what’s always impressed me about Cloud Kicker. She is who she is, and she doesn’t try to hide it or make any apologies for it.”
It was a couple moments before what I’d just said really sank in. “N – not that I have a crush on Cloud Kicker.”
“Of course not,” I had a feeling that there was more than just her bubbly personality behind that giggle.
“Um – if you don’t mind me asking, what about you?”
“What about me?” Derpy asked innocently.
“Why do you like Cloud Kicker?” A second later I realized how that question could be misinterpreted. “Not that I care if you like her or not. I’m fine with it. Totally fine. I’m just curious about it, that’s all. I don’t understand how anypony could be attracted to Cloud Kicker. Because I’m not. At all.”
“I’m glad we cleared that up.” Derpy took a bite out of her muffin. I was just a bit annoyed when she took another bit of the muffin before she finally got around to answering me. “As for why I like her, it’s simple really: she’s a good pony. Better than most ponies think she is. There’s a side to her most ponies don’t ever see beneath the teasing and the running around. I wish she showed it more often.”
Well, I could certainly understand that. Most ponies think Cloud Kicker just wants to run around and mate with anything that moves. The truth is a little more complicated.
I’m not surprised Cloud Kicker and Rainbow Dash were old fillyhood friends. They have a lot in common: they were both bold, aggressive ponies who knew what they wanted and weren’t afraid to say it. With Rainbow Dash, everypony knew that underneath the ego and brashness there was a good pony and a loyal friend.
Cloud Kicker didn’t show that part of herself the way Rainbow did. I don’t know why, but she kept her good side hidden most of the time. Like this one time when a stallion was bothering me. Cloud Kicker never said anything about it, but a couple days after I mentioned it to her I found out he’d gone to Nurse Redheart for a lightning strike, and after that he never bothered me again. The one time I’d asked her about it she’d just said she didn’t know what I was talking about, but the gleam in her eyes when she said it gave her away.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“I bet you do.” Derpy was smiling just a bit too widely when she said that.
It took me a moment to figure out what she was talking about. there was an odd draft against my side, and when I looked over I saw my wings spread wide. “Eep!” I quickly pulled them back in. “That was – I was just stretching my wings.”
“Of course you were,” Derpy answered with a knowing grin. That grin was really starting to get on my nerves. “Anyway, I think you should tell Cloud Kicker how you feel about her.” A grey hoof rose into the air and cut off my objection. “Yes, yes, you only think of her has a friend. You should tell her anyway. If you don’t, somepony else might realize what a catch she is and swoop in to snatch her up. It might even be me.”
I felt a sudden unexpected surge of anger at that. Not that I cared about who Cloud Kicker mated with, but I definitely didn’t want her mating with Derpy again. “Right. Well, have a good day Derpy.” I deliberately turned my back on her and spread my wings. I was about to take off when I heard something behind me. It was so quiet that I almost didn’t even turn around. Derpy had laid her head on the cloud, forelegs wrapped around her head. I realized that the strange sound was her whimpering. I went back over to her, not quite sure what to do.
“Derpy?” I asked. She whimpered again and held out a hoof. I’d seen Cloud Kicker hungover enough times to recognize it as hoof-language for ‘Quiet, please.’ I just stood there, not sure what to do. She got back to her hooves after a minute, panting slightly.
“I’m okay now.” She grimaced and rubbed her left eye gingerly. “Sorry about that.”
“Derpy, what the hay was that? And don’t say ‘nothing’ – you didn’t look this bad when half the town hall fell on top of you.”
She closed her mouth, probably cutting off a ‘nothing’ as it formed. “It was a flash-migraine,” she conceded. “My family is prone to them, on my dad’s side.”
My respect for her went up a notch. Delivering mail on a day-to-day basis with that kind of condition couldn’t have been easy. “Have they always been that bad?”
“They started about a year ago, but it hasn’t been this bad until just recently. I’m actually going to see Redheart later today for some migraine treatments like what my dad’s on.” She took one last breath to steady herself. “Okay, I’m good to go now. Really,” she added at my less-than-convinced expression.
“Do you want me to come with?” She may be a delusional Cloud-Kicker-stealing pony who was trying to steal Cloud Kicker from me (in a totally platonic way), but that didn’t mean I wanted to risk her dropping out of the sky.
“I’ll be fine,” Derpy answered. I wasn’t quite sure if I believed her or not. Before I could say anything more, she took to the air. I hesitated about whether or not I should follow, and by the time I made up my mind she’d gotten too far ahead for me to catch up.
Two Weeks Ago:
“I’m dying.”
I sank back onto my haunches, staring at the grey pegasus in blank incomprehension. Sure, when I’d shown up at the hospital and seen the condition Derpy was in I’d already guessed as much – she’d lost way too much weight and her mane had completely fallen out – but to have her just come out and say it like that...
I felt like I should say something – but what can you say to something like that? The way she said it sounded so ... final. Not ‘I’m very sick’ or ‘the doctors aren’t optimistic about my chances,’ or some other flowery way of saying it. Just ‘I’m dying.’ Like she’d already accepted it, and there was nothing anypony could do to change it.
“No. Nonononono. This can’t be right. Rainbow Dash is friends with the Princess, there must be something she can do to–”
“Blossomforth.” Derpy weakly raised a hoof. “Do you think Rainbow Dash hasn’t tried everything she could? When we first got the news she spent an hour yelling at the doctor, and then she flew to Canterlot and demanded the Princess cure me.
“But there was nothing she could do.” Derpy sighed and looked down at her wasted body. “Not even Princess Celestia can stop death.”
“Oh Derpy.” I could feel tears gathering in my eyes. “I’m so sorry. If there’s anything I can do, anything at all...”
“It’s okay Blossomforth.” Derpy let out a rueful little chuckle. “I know you don’t like me very much.”
“That’s not true Derpy...” I didn’t hate her, not really. I think maybe we even could’ve been friends if our lives had worked out differently.
“That’s nice of you to say so,” Derpy answered with a tired smile, “but we both know it’s not true. Don’t worry though, I can’t say I blame you for being upset with me. I did steal Cloud Kicker from you. I suppose it was selfish of me, to fall in love with the pony you cared for. Can you forgive me?”
For a moment I wanted to deny that Cloud Kicker and I were anything more than friends by sheer force of habit, but the words died on my lips. Was it really worth getting into this argument again, especially now? “Of course I forgive you Derpy.” Because there was nothing to forgive.
Derpy gave me a relieved smile. “Thank you, Blossomforth.” She nervously licked her lips. “There is one thing I want to ask you to do for me.”
“Of course, anything.” Regardless of our rocky personal history, I wasn’t going to deny a dying pony her last request.
“It’s Cloud Kicker. I know you and she were really close before, well, me. I want everypony in my life to have somepony with them after... After.”
Luna, it was scary to hear her talking about her death like that. So ... acceptingly. She wasn’t trying to hide from it, or pretend it wasn’t going to happen. She just accepted it and was trying to put everything in order before she passed on.
“Rainbow Dash is Dinky’s godmother, so I know the girls will be okay. Cloud Kicker, though, I...she’s a real sweetheart underneath, Blossomforth. She tries to act strong and independent, like nothing can hurt her. But she’s going to need somepony to be there with her. She needs you Blossomforth, more than she knows. Can you be there for her, no matter what?”
“Of course.” I felt a completely irrational and inappropriate bit of indignation at the request. I appreciated the sentiment Derpy was trying to convey, but at the same time asking me to look out for Cloud Kicker seemed to imply that I wouldn’t do that anyway. “Cloud Kicker is my friend. I would never abandon her.” Even if she abandoned me to spend all her time with other ponies. Grey wall-eyed muffin-loving friend-stealing ponies.
Something of my inner feelings must have slipped into my voice, because Derpy looked rather taken aback. “Of course you wouldn’t. I just needed to ask for my own peace of mind.” Derpy sighed and put her hoof over mine. “Blossomforth, I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I just – I just don’t know what went wrong.”
“You come out of nowhere, steal my best friend, and then you say you never meant to hurt me? You want to know what went wrong? You went wrong!” It felt cathartic to finally say all things I’d been thinking ever since she started monopolizing Cloud Kicker’s time. “If you didn’t want to hurt me then you should have left Cloud Kicker alone! Everything was going fine until you showed and ruined everything!”
“What was I supposed to do?” I took a step back in surprise when Derpy snapped right back at me, her golden eyes aflame. “I made Cloud Kicker happy. She made me happy. After everything I’ve been through and what’s going to happen to me now, I think I deserved to have a couple months of happiness with her! Was I supposed to throw that away and break her heart just because one day you might work up the courage to admit to yourself that you’re sweet on her?”
Derpy fell back into her bed, drained by her sudden outburst. “I never wanted to hurt you Blossomforth – but you had plenty of chances to tell Cloud Kicker how you felt.”
I was tempted to throw back some choice words of my own until I got a good look at her. She looked terribly exhausted, as if a few harsh words was enough to leave her completely drained. As I saw her gulping in breaths of air, the guilt hit me like a kick in the gut. Here she was dying in the hospital and I was yelling at her about some petty grudge.
“Derpy, I...”
Derpy brought a hoof up to her mouth and started coughing. Her other hoof pointed to a pitcher of water and a glass sitting next to it. I quickly got a glass of water and she strained forward to get it. I wrapped a foreleg around her to help her sit up, trying not to think about how bony her wings felt against my hoof. A cough sprayed us with water droplets before the rest trickled in to sooth her ravaged throat, and I dabbed at the moisture with a corner of her blanket. It seemed surreal to be playing nursemaid to a pony I’d been screaming at just a few seconds ago.
It took a minute for her to recover, and I felt guilty enough that I couldn’t hold back my apology anymore. “Derpy, I know you and Cloud Kicker were happy together, and I never wanted to take that away from either of you. I just wish...”
“You just wish it could have been you making her happy instead,” Derpy finished for me.
“Yes.” I finally admitted the truth to myself. “As long as it was just random ponies and meaningless one-night stands I could tell myself that I didn’t care, that it didn’t hurt seeing her with other ponies. That I didn’t mind the way she treated the idea of me and her together like one big joke. But once you came into things it got so much harder to keep the facade up.
“I tried to seduce her, you know.” I let out a self-deprecating chuckle as I remembered just how badly that had gone. “The day after you and her hooked up, once it was clear this wasn’t just another one-time thing for her. I was terrified out of my wits of course, and I wound having a couple drinks to try to build up my courage. You can guess how well that ended.”
“I do remember hearing some gossip about you shouting at her to take your virginity.” Derpy offered a weak little smile.
“I bet Cloud Kicker probably told you the whole story, didn’t she? And she was probably laughing her flank off the entire time too. That’s what the idea of mating with me is to her. A joke.” I sighed bitterly. “I’m the one pony in all of Ponyville she won’t even consider mating with and I had to go and fall in love with her.”
“Oh sweetie.” Derpy waved me forward and pulled me into a feeble hug. “She does love you. Maybe not the way you want her to, but it is love. And if you’d just tell her how you felt...”
“I couldn’t do that. Rule Nine, right? She already has somepony, Derpy. She has you.”
Derpy shook her head. “Not anymore.”
Something about the way she said that made a couple things click in my head. There had been something tickling at the back of my mind ever since I found out about Derpy’s condition, and now I could finally put my hoof on what it was.
Cloud Kicker hadn’t told me anything about this. Things might have been thrown off a bit when she and Derpy got together, but I still would have expected her to tell me at some point. If nothing else, you’d think she would want to come to her best friend for comfort. It didn’t make any sense for her to have never brought it up unless... “You haven’t told her, have you? That you’re dying?”
“No,” Derpy confessed. “I suppose it was selfish of me, but ... being with Cloud Kicker made me happy. Can you blame me for wanting to hold onto that happiness for a little bit longer? I didn’t want my last months on Equestria filled with tears. Cloud Kicker would never just accept it. She would be running all over Equestria trying anything she could think of to save my life, and when none of it worked she would blame herself.
“I always meant to tell her eventually, but it was hard. Every time we got together she was always so happy to see me, and I just couldn’t bring myself to take that smile away from her. The longer I went without telling her, the harder it was to bring myself to admit the truth. And now it’s too late. I just wanted her memories of me to be happy, not...” Derpy sighed and waved a hoof across the hospital room. “This.”
“Derpy...I’m so sorry,” I said again. It sounded so inadequate for the situation, but it was the only thing I could think to say.
“So am I, sweetie.”
“No.” The smooth underfur on top of her head tickled against my chin as I pulled her close. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Don’t you dare apologize to me, Derpy. Don’t you dare.”
She murmured something from within my grasp, and I let go. She was grimacing, and she tenderly rubbed a hoof against her forehead. When she finally opened her eyes again, the left one was pointing almost straight up.
“Headache?” I asked. It was a stupid question, I knew damn well it was. She nodded slowly, and I couldn’t help but stare as her eye tried to realign itself.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but...”
“I’ll let you get some sleep.” I helped her settle back into her bed, tucking the blanket around her before I left. I gave her one last gentle hug. “Get well soon, Derpy. Please.”