Rainbow Dash was tired of Applejack bringing home countless trophies and ribbons from the rodeos she competed in. The day after Applejack acquired a shiny new hay bale monster stack trophy from the Appleoosa Rodeo, she told her as much.
Applejack pointed out that Rainbow had lodged that complaint multiple times in the past, and if she was so tired of hearing about how Applejack had won at the rodeo, why didn’t she go compete in one sometime. Rainbow retorted that she would, but they were always so far away, and she was a busy mare.
So Applejack contacted her cousin Braeburn and his friends in Appleoosa, who agreed to come to Ponyville and stage a rodeo of the town’s own during the following season. That would get Rainbow to put up or shut up.
And although Applejack would never admit it, she liked showing off the trophies and ribbons she won. Especially when it got under Rainbow Dash’s skin.
Nearly the entire population of Ponyville showed up to watch the town’s rodeo on a warm weekend afternoon. The event had begun with the barrel race, which had just ended (Rainbow Dash won by two-tenths of a second – Applejack was never going to hear the end of it), and it was time to change over the arena for the roping competition.
A burly stallion entered while towing a two-wheeled wagon filled with dirt – his job was to replace the dirt that had been kicked up during the race and smooth everything out. Directly behind him was the rodeo clown act.
The largest earth pony any of the town’s residents had seen – slightly taller than Princess Celestia and much less petite – came out in full clown garb, pulling a small covered wagon. When he stopped, six additional clowns – the size of average stallions – emerged from the wagon’s interior, which should have been too small to fit all of them. Three of the clowns separated to gather the three barrels used in the race, tipping each barrel over onto its side, standing on top, and rolling them to the end of the arena. Two clowns produced some small colorful balls and stepped over to another part of the arena to perform a juggling act. Another clown took out a lasso and pretended to have trouble roping a stationary bale of hay.
As those six entertained the crowd, the large clown was struggling to detach himself from the wagon. Although he had successfully undone his breeching and the right-side trace, the trace on his left side refused to come off of its hook on the singletree. When jerking the trace back and forth with his teeth failed to do the trick, he attempted to tug on it with his foreleg – unsurprisingly, that was even less effective. He then gave up on the trace itself and tried jumping up and down, which shook the ground nearby, but failed to dislodge the wagon.
The jugglers, their routine disrupted by the ground shaking, cantered over to assist the large clown. As they approached, the large clown, oblivious to everything but his own struggles, started spinning in place in an effort to get centrifugal force to do the trick. His spinning turned the wagon into a flail, which slammed into both of the jugglers, sending them crashing into the arena wall. Some of the ponies in the crowd pointed and laughed.
Upon hearing the crash, the clown roping the hay bale dropped his lasso and ran over to help. He tried to avoid the large clown with the wagon, but the large clown chose that moment to stop and spin in the other direction, causing the wagon to knock the roping clown toward the other wall. The rest of the crowd joined in the laughter – they were thoroughly enjoying the cleverly staged slapstick.
One more reversal of his rotation freed the harness from the large clown’s body. It also sent the wagon flying toward a storage area next to the arena wall. Four wooden posts supported two horizontal beams perpendicular to and positioned above the wall. Resting up on top of the beams were three sideways barrels of root beer – inventory for the refreshments stand.
The wagon crashed through the two nearest posts, knocking the beams down on one side, which allowed the heavy barrels to roll quickly into the arena. The large clown, seeing that the barrels were headed directly toward him, began running in the opposite direction.
His path was blocked by the wagon filled with dirt, which at present had its rear end resting on the ground, like a ramp. Running at full speed, the clown jumped onto the dirt in the cart and leapt up and off the other end.
When he landed on the ground, the clown turned his head back to see whether the barrels were still following him. Which was why he didn’t see the lasso that had been dropped by the roping clown, lying in the dirt. He snagged the lasso with a foreleg, got it looped around a hind leg, and tumbled into a somersault, the rope wrapping around all four of his limbs.
Because he had been running at full speed, the clown’s momentum sent him bounding across the arena. At the other end, the three clowns had arranged their empty barrels upright in a tight triangle pattern. Seeing the large clown rolling toward them, they each jumped into a barrel for protection. Just as they made it inside, the large clown slammed into the nearest barrel, knocking all three away like bowling pins.
The arena wall was nearby, so the clown finally came to a stop. He was positioned in such a way that he could see that the barrels of root beer has failed to clear the wagon full of dirt and were lying, unbroken, a considerable distance away. The three nearby clowns climbed out of their barrels, dizzy and staggering, but otherwise unharmed.
The three clowns that had been hit by the wagon got up, brushed the dirt from their clothes, and walked over to retrieve and return the root beer. Meanwhile, the three clowns from the barrels regained their bearings, grabbed the rope wrapped around the largest clown, and dragged him, still tied up, out of the arena.
It was one of the greatest acts of physical comedy the audience had ever seen. Throughout the stands, the ponies laughed and cheered wildly.
With one exception.
Derpy Hooves had more experience getting into accidents than anyone else in Ponyville. And she wasn’t certain that any of what she had just witnessed was choreography. Based on what she knew from her own life, that largest clown either was the greatest actor who ever lived or had truly made multiple mistakes.
Derpy found the remainder of the rodeo to be entertaining enough, but throughout it all, she couldn’t get that klutzy clown out of her mind. She had to know whether all the difficulty he had experienced was genuine.
It was still midday when the show ended. While most of the ponies in the crowd made their way back toward their homes, Derpy flew over to the area that was designated for the competitors and performers to be in, made up of trailers and tents in a grid pattern. She swooped down and slowly flew between the structures, trying to locate the large pony from before.
As she passed by open doors and lifted-up tent flaps, her left eye glimpsed something large and colorful. She turned her head to look, only to find that it was two stacked bales of hay with blankets draped over them.
While she had her head turned to look at what wound up being hay, she continued flying forward. Which was why she didn’t see a large brown earth pony, no longer wearing his clown clothes but still in clown makeup, step out from between two tents while carrying a hoagie in his right hoof. Derpy crashed into his left shoulder, and because his right foreleg was holding up food, he was unable to brace against the impact. The two of them tumbled down into the dirt and dust, Derpy bouncing off of the earth pony and landing nearby.
She quickly got up and just as quickly said “Sorry!” to the downed stallion. She then saw that the dirt he had landed in was settling onto his coat.
“Oh no, I got you all dirty!” she said. “Stay right there – I’ll be right back!”
She looked around but saw no nearby source of water. However, there were clouds in the sky. She flew straight up – apologizing as she knocked a passing pegasus off-course – and grabbed the nearest tall, puffy cloud she could find. She brought it back down and positioned it above the stallion, who had gotten up and was now simply looking at the ground.
“I’ll clean you off!” she said. He looked up at the cloud as she jumped on it with all her might in order to make it start raining.
Not only did her actions force it to produce a heavy rain, but Derpy jumped so forcefully on the cloud, it also produced a bolt of lightning. The electricity, looking for the most convenient path toward the ground, found it through the extremely tall pony who was standing directly beneath the cloud.
“Yeeeooowww!” he exclaimed as the pain caused him to jump straight up. That sent his head directly into the cloud, knocking Derpy off balance; she tumbled through the air. It also positioned the stallion directly next to the origin point of the next bolt of lightning, which found him to be an excellent conduit between the cloud and the ground.
He screamed again and landed on his stomach in what was now a patch of mud, getting him even dirtier than he had been before. Meanwhile, Derpy flapped furiously to keep herself upright. The breeze generated by her wings pushed the cloud down toward the stallion, who was subsequently struck by a third bolt of lightning. This time, the stallion merely grunted in pain and didn’t bother to get up.
Derpy landed on the ground next to the stallion. “I am so, so sorry! I—”
It was only then that she realized that the stallion she had hit was the rodeo clown from before. She recognized the makeup on his face, which was slowly being washed away by the rain.
Afraid to touch the cloud again, Derpy simply let it empty its water onto the stallion. If nothing else, the rain at least was also washing the mud off of his body.
She looked back at the stallion’s face, now nearly free of makeup. As he lay on the ground, not even bothering to lift his head, he looked up at her. For just a moment, both of her eyes simultaneously locked onto his. And she saw something.
Derpy had always been able to read ponies’ basic emotions – happiness, disappointment, frustration – but in this stallion’s eyes, she saw more. She was looking at a pony who had experienced so many calamities in his life, his response to them was no longer irritation or resolve or even surprise. Just… a resigned acceptance.
She understood.
The rain – and the cloud with it – began to dissipate. As the last few drops fell, Derpy realized that she had been silently looking at the stallion for too long. She forced both of her eyes to point in other directions. As she did, her right eye fell on the hoagie, now a wet pile sitting in the mud.
“Your sandwich!” she said. “I’m sorry about that!” As he stood up, the rest of the mud dropping from his body, she said, “I can make it up to you – I promise. I want to take you out to dinner.”
The words she said reached her ears.
“I don’t mean ‘take you out’! N-not like a date! I mean, I just want to buy you dinner to make up for your sandwich. And the lightning.” She could feel her cheeks heating up.
The stallion sighed. “Of course that’d be my luck. The first time a pretty mare ever invites me out to dinner, she makes it plain it ain’t meant to be a date.”
Derpy’s face got even redder.
“But I’d appreciate the meal nonetheless. I accept your offer, Miss…”
“Hooves. I’m Derpy Hooves.” She shook his hoof. “But you can just call me Derpy. It’s short for—”
“Did I hear thunder?!” an unseen stallion yelled. “Is this your doing, Trouble Shoes? If you’ve got a storm cloud following you again, you’d best not be inside the chow tent!”
He motioned for Derpy to follow him as he quickly walked toward the exit. “Reckon we should get you out of here before Mr. Whip Cracker finds this mud.”
As they walked into the heart of Ponyville, the stallion properly introduced himself as Trouble Shoes and explained that although he lived just outside of Appleoosa, he worked as a rodeo clown, so he frequently traveled to different towns to put on a show. Derpy reciprocated by telling him that she had lived in Ponyville for pretty much all of her life and that she worked for the town’s postal service.
In the few short minutes they spent walking together, she could tell that what she had seen while they were among the tents genuinely reflected his personality. She also learned that he was polite, as he never asked about her eyes. His chivalry was confirmed when he placed himself closer to the roadway – a good thing, too, because during their walk, he was splashed by a cart being pulled through a puddle. Which was strange, because there hadn’t been rain in more than two weeks.
She led him to Ponyville Diner, where a waitress pointed them to a small maple table with two chairs located near the middle of the dining area. As the waitress left to get water, Trouble Shoes waited for Derpy to sit down, then pulled his own chair out. As he lowered his weight onto the seat, it made a creaking noise.
And then it broke. As Trouble Shoes’ body plummeted straight down, he reached a foreleg out to steady himself. He was attempting to grab the table, but his hoof landed on the paper placemat, which slipped off of the table and pitched the top half of his body forward as he failed to gain purchase. His chin slammed down on the table, which held firm as Derpy gasped.
With his vision blurred from the pain of striking the table, Trouble Shoes overcompensated for pitching forward and jerked his body too far back. He toppled over backward, his large frame dropping the back of his head against the edge of the table of an unoccupied booth behind him.
The booth’s table was supported by a single pillar in the center, so when Trouble Shoes’ head slammed against it, the entire table tilted like a seesaw as he fell flat on his back on the floor. On the other end of the table were a napkin dispenser, a salt shaker, and a pepper shaker. The sudden force of the table’s tilt sent all three objects into the air.
The heavier napkin dispenser had the shortest flight, landing squarely on Trouble Shoes’ muzzle and bouncing off. His eyes went wide from the sudden blow.
The salt and pepper shakers arced through the air and began their descent, tops pointed down. Each landed squarely in one of Trouble Shoes’ eyes.
Trouble Shoes screamed, all four legs momentarily going rigid in the air in response to the pain. He clumsily swiped at his face with a foreleg to dislodge the shakers, knocking them out of his eyes and toward the other side of the dining area, rolling sideways along the floor.
At the same time, an earth pony waitress was carrying a coconut cream pie toward the diners in a different booth. She didn’t see the salt shaker roll under her body, and one of her hind legs came down directly on top of the cylinder. As she flailed to keep from falling, the pie she was carrying was thrown from her hoof, flew across the room, and splattered all over Trouble Shoes’ face.
All activity came to a halt as everyone in the restaurant stared at the aftermath near the center of the dining area. As Trouble Shoes lay panting and coughing through the custardy mess, Derpy turned and looked at all the other ponies sheepishly.
“We’d like to order for carry-out?”
Derpy sat at a table outside the diner. Trouble Shoes was lying on his stomach on the ground beside her, which still allowed his head to reach her level. One of the waitresses had given them a pitcher of room temperature water, which Derpy was using to slowly flush Trouble Shoes’ eyes.
“I thank you mightily for your aid,” Trouble Shoes said as the last of the salt and pepper was rinsed away. “I can’t rightly remember the last time somepony showed me this amount of kindness after one of my catastrophes.”
“You’re welcome,” Derpy said. “I know how much a helping hoof is appreciated when something like that happens.”
She put the pitcher on the table as Trouble Shoes sat up and blinked. After blinking several more times, he was able to hold his eyes open.
“Trouble Shoes?” Derpy said.
“Yes?”
She looked at the ground and scratched her foreleg. “At the rodeo…”
She looked back up.
“…that wasn’t an act, was it? You really did trip and fall.”
Trouble Shoes sighed, a frown forming on his face.
“Yes’m, I did. Couldn’t get that wagon unhitched from me, neither – I was supposed to head over to Full Circle and be the second target in his roping act. I wasn’t aiming to hurt anypony or break those beams. Calamity always befalls me in some way during the show, but it usually ain’t that severe.”
He turned his head to indicate his flank. “I reckon you saw my cutie mark. Hard to miss it on account of my metabolism. That upside-down horseshoe ain’t just for show – I truly am fated to have bad luck follow me wherever I go. But the way I see it now—”
“That’s terrible!” Derpy exclaimed, standing up on her chair and flaring her wings as she struggled to keep her balance. “Nopony should have to deal with that kind of bad luck! But I know just who can help you. Follow me!”
She jumped off her chair and began to fly away. She looked down, realized she was too high up and too far away, and dropped down so she’d be at the height of Trouble Shoes’ head. Trouble Shoes slowly stood up, approached her, and then kept pace as she led him toward the Everfree Forest.
Less than a minute later, the waitress returned to the deserted table, order pad in hoof.
“Don’t worry,” Derpy said as she and Trouble Shoes entered the Everfree Forest, “my friend Zecora is great with curses and magic and potions. She’ll be able to cure you of your bad luck, no problem!”
Trouble Shoes looked around at the dark, forbidding woods. “I’ve had the misfortune of being in some miserable places in my life, but something about this forest just don’t feel right.”
Derpy dropped to her hooves and began to walk alongside Trouble Shoes down the vaguely defined path. “Yeah, the Everfree is a weird, dangerous place. It doesn’t act the same way as the rest of Equestria. But we’ll be okay. I have to come this way to deliver Zecora’s mail and most of the time, I don’t run into anything scary.”
“You live a riskier life than I’d ever dare to.”
“Everypony needs their mail.” She watched a hawk fly across the path up ahead as it pursued a chipmunk. She looked up at Trouble Shoes. “You know, I’ve never been in the Everfree with somepony who’s bigger than most of the mean creatures in it. Makes me feel safe.”
Trouble Shoes glanced down at her before reverting his attention to the woods. “Only ’cause you haven’t spent enough time around me. Nopony who knows me would say my company makes them feel safer.”
Derpy tried to shrug while she walked, although she only succeeded at stumbling briefly. “Maybe you don’t know the right ponies. My friends know that I sometimes make mistakes, but they’re still my friends. And you’re a nice stallion.” She tried to look up at him, tripped over a tree root sticking out of the ground, then looked toward the path again. “So maybe bad things happen to you once in a while. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you.”
She once again heard the words she had just said.
“Er, I mean, I don’t want to be walking with you.” She processed that sentence. “No, I do want to be walking with you!” She chose her words slowly and deliberately as she clarified, “It doesn’t mean I don’t want to be walking here with you.” At her normal speaking rate: “That’s what I mean.”
Trouble Shoes smiled. “I know what you mean.” The smile faded. “Because I’m bigger than the mean creatures.”
Derpy flapped up so she could try to look at him without tripping. “Because you’re a nice stallion!” A branch brushed past the back of her neck. She jerked her head away, realized it was harmless, then dropped back down to walking. “You just happen to be big, too.”
“And you’re a really nice mare. I like walking with you, too.” He cleared his throat, then said, “So… what’re these other creatures I’m bigger than? So I’ll know it when they inevitably show up to ruin this walk we’re having.”
“Let me think,” Derpy said. “There are cockatrices. You’re way bigger than those. There are manticores. I think you’re bigger than those. If you make yourself look bigger, they’ll run away.” She paused for a moment. “Or is that bears? Maybe it’s both? But I’ve never seen an ursa except for that one time somepony brought one into town, so we don’t have to worry about those.
“What else is in here… there are timberwolves.” Another pause. “Hm, maybe you’re not bigger than those. Okay, we should try to stay away from timberwolves. But don’t worry! There’s a way you know they’re coming before they arrive! It’s… um… I used to know it.” She scrunched up her face in concentration. “Oh, it’s because they howl! You can hear them howl, that’s it. Like this:”
She stopped walking for a moment, took a deep breath, and howled at the top of her lungs. Trouble Shoes stopped and flattened his ears against his head.
When she finished, he said, “That was mighty impressive. Usually the only time I hear a sound like that is when I sit on a cactus.”
“Wait, you’ve done that more than once?”
“I believe my tally is at three times for that particular mishap.”
Neither of them noticed that the lone howl echoing in the distance didn’t exactly match the sound that Derpy had made.
Two turns and five carnivorous-looking squirrels later, the two found themselves walking through a section of forest with an especially thick canopy. The afternoon sun could only break through the leaves in sporadic narrow columns.
Derpy said, “We’re almost at Zecora’s, I promise. Just one more left when we reach the patch of heat moss.”
“And then our journey together will be at an end,” Trouble Shoes said sadly. He abruptly stopped and wrinkled his nose. “Do you smell something?”
Derpy stopped by his side and sniffed at the air. It smelled like a foul blend of rotting meat and compost. “Ugh, yeah.”
“What sort of misfortune have I brought upon the two of us now?”
“There are a lot of things the Everfree does on its own. It might not be you.” She trotted toward the source of the smell. “I think it’s coming from—”
From the darkness, a large, wolf-shaped creature made entirely of branches, leaves, and dark magic leapt out. Derpy screamed and tried to fly away, but the timberwolf snapped its jaws and caught the end of her tail in its mouth.
“Look out!” Trouble Shoes yelled, but his warning came too late. Derpy flapped her wings with all her might, but the timberwolf tugged back on her tail. Faced with continued resistance from its prey, the timberwolf began to thrash its head back and forth, leaving Derpy unable to do anything other than endure the whiplash.
Trouble Shoes charged forward. “No sir, cutie mark – I won’t let you take away that sweet mare!”
At full speed, he hurled his body toward the timberwolf’s chest area, intending to broadside the animal and knock the wind out of it so it would release Derpy. Instead, to his surprise, he found himself plowing completely through the creature, which exploded at the force of his impact and did nothing to stop his forward trajectory.
As the timberwolf shattered to pieces, flinging Derpy in the opposite direction, Trouble Shoes rocketed helplessly through the air. His body left the path and came down on a fallen rubber tree – a tree whose trunk was the consistency of rubber. He bounced off the tree, sailed head over hooves through the forest, and crashed into the foliage.
Derpy, who had landed in a large cluster of mushrooms, needed to take a minute to stop her eyes from spinning. Once she had gotten them under some modicum of control, she looked around for Trouble Shoes. Failing to see him, she got up, took to the air, and called out, “Trouble Shoes! Where are you?”
From the distance, his voice came back. “My luck has seen fit to get me tangled up in these here vines!”
Derpy flew toward the sound and saw Trouble Shoes’ rear end and one foreleg sticking out. He was upside down in a cradle of vines hanging from a tree branch that was bowing from the weight of his body. As a result, he was only about a meter off the ground, but still immobilized.
There was enough clearance inside his cocoon of vines that Derpy was able to hover and poke her head inside. She was relieved to see that other than being stuck, he appeared to be okay.
“Don’t worry,” she said as she looked around. “These vines don’t look all that thick. I bet I can bite right through them.” She extended her neck, reached for the vine supporting his foreleg, and chomped down. The vine snapped and his foreleg dropped down with it.
“See?” she declared proudly. “I’ll have you down in no time.” She bit down on the vine next to it. It broke, and all of Trouble Shoes’ weight shifted. Which resulted in several loud snapping sounds as multiple vines all broke at the same time.
Trouble Shoes fell the short distance to the ground, landing on his back, his forelegs to his sides. With no weight pulling down on it, the tree branch recoiled straight up, then whipped back down into the hovering body of Derpy, who had not yet reacted to all of the sudden motion. The branch swatted her from the air, down toward the ground, where she landed directly on the chest of Trouble Shoes.
With the wind knocked out of her yet again, it took Derpy a few moments to find her bearings. At which point she realized that not only was she lying on top of Trouble Shoes’ chest, but her muzzle was only a couple of inches from his.
Her cheeks bright red, she flew up and off his body, repeating, “Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry…”
Trouble Shoes stood up and raised a hoof into the air to signal her to stop apologizing. “Don’t you worry none,” he said. “I understand that—”
Loud wooden crackling sounds coming from the path stopped him mid-sentence. The two looked over to see the pieces of the shattered timberwolf rising into the air and slowly reassembling.
“I forgot they could re-form!” Derpy exclaimed.
“Then we need to get you out of here and someplace safe. Come on!”
Trouble Shoes took off running toward the path in the direction they had come from. Derpy followed him through the air. By the time the timberwolf regained consciousness, it had lost track of the two ponies.
Trouble Shoes and Derpy burst out into the open field bordering the Everfree Forest. Confident that they weren’t being chased, they both collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.
Once she could speak normally again, Derpy looked back at the forest and said, “I hope Zecora is okay in there with that timberwolf roaming around. I haven’t been over to see her for a week and a half because of the mail hold.”
Trouble Shoes looked at Derpy. “Mail hold?”
“Yeah, last Thursday she asked us to keep all of her mail at the post office for three weeks and not deliver it until afterward.”
Trouble Shoes was silent for a couple of seconds. “Beg your pardon if I’m making assumptions about matters I don’t understand, but don’t folks usually do that when they’ll be out of town?”
Derpy thought for a moment. “You’re right! She isn’t even home to ask right now! We don’t need to go into the Everfree at all!”
Trouble Shoes sighed. “That’s the way my luck goes. The creature you want to talk to ain’t around to talk to.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of Trouble Shoes’ stomach growling.
Derpy gasped. “Oh yeah! I’m supposed to be getting you something to eat!”
Remembering what had happened at the diner, Derpy opted instead to take Trouble Shoes to a different part of Ponyville to get fast food at the local Hayburger. Once inside the restaurant, she ordered a basic combo meal, while the more voluminous Trouble Shoes ordered four burgers, a large bag of potato fries, and a large drink. To prevent a repeat of the previous incident, they chose to eat outdoors, where they managed to successfully finish the meal with no calamity worse than a passing breeze that wafted pollen into Trouble Shoes’ nose, causing him to sneeze uncontrollably for about thirty seconds. The stallion was extremely embarrassed by the sneezing attack, but at least no one – himself included – had been hurt by it.
Derpy went inside to throw away the wrappers and cups, then returned to find Trouble Shoes counting out a pile of his bits.
“These are for you,” he said, holding out his hoof.
“No!” Derpy said, refusing to accept. “I’m paying you back for making you drop your sandwich.”
“One sandwich. I ordered three more with fries. Not to mention the pie back at the diner. That wasn’t your obligation.”
Derpy blinked. “Wait, I never paid for that, did I?”
“I don’t believe you did. So take these bits so you can settle up the next time you go there.”
Reluctantly, Derpy took the money.
“That makes us square.” He looked at the position of the sun as it began its descent toward the horizon. “I thank you for your company today and for being such a stand-up pony. I won’t soon forget this day – I’m awfully pleased to have met you.”
He offered Derpy a slight bow of his head, then turned and began to walk down the street. Overhead, a bluebird chirped as it flew by. A dropping landed on his back, causing him to stop. He looked behind him and confirmed that what he thought he felt had actually happened.
Trouble Shoes groaned. “Just my luck.”
Derpy walked up to him. “I thought ponies say that getting hit with a bird dropping is supposed to be good luck.”
“Believe me, after the twentieth time or so it happens to you in one year, you realize there ain’t nothing good about it. Just another part of your day when you’re the ‘proud’ owner of a cutie mark for bad luck.”
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Derpy said. “I want to help you with that! Come on – I’ll take you to my friend Zecora. She’ll know what to—” she stopped and thought. “No, wait, she’s out of town. Hmm.”
She looked up and down the street. “There has to be somepony else around here who knows how to change the magic of a cutie mark,” she said.
She saw a light lavender unicorn exit a shop a few buildings away from where they were standing. Because the pony had just moved to Ponyville a couple of months ago, it took Derpy a couple seconds to recall her name: Starlight Glimmer! That’s right, she lives in the castle because she’s Princess Twilight’s new student. And that was when Derpy realized…
“Princess Twilight! She knows a lot about magic! I bet she can change how your cutie mark works!”
She spread her wings in preparation to lead Trouble Shoes to Twilight’s castle. But before she could take off, Trouble Shoes placed a hoof on her back, gently keeping her on the ground.
“I appreciate you wanting to help – truly I do. But there’s a reason I don’t go trying to change the bad luck that befalls me anymore. You see, when I was growing up, I always wanted to be a part of the rodeo. But the very day I tried out for rodeo school, my cutie mark showed up and made it plain I was never going to be able to compete. For years, I could only stand off to the side and watch, dreaming of what it’d be like to be a real rodeo pony.
“I figured I’d never get to live out that dream. ’Til one day when I met these three little fillies—”
“The Cutie Mark Crusaders!” Derpy exclaimed. “Let’s go find them! They can help you—”
“They already helped me. They’re the ones who showed me that just ’cause I couldn’t compete in the events, it didn’t mean I couldn’t be in the rodeo. They figured out that the bad luck that surrounds me makes me a natural for entertaining folks as a rodeo clown. You saw how it goes – even though I never know what awful thing’s going to happen to me, whatever it is, it’s going to make ponies laugh. So when the rodeo comes to a town, I put on my ugly clothes, get my face painted up, head into the arena, and let my cutie mark do its worst. And for that little bit of time, I get to be exactly where I want to be.
“I ain’t saying I enjoy being a magnet for bad luck, but if I didn’t have that part of me, what then would I do? I wasn’t blessed with the agility to compete in any of the events. I’d never be in the rodeo ever again.”
“I… I didn’t realize,” Derpy said. Then realization dawned. “And I was trying to take it all away from you. I’m so sorry! I never wanted to—”
He put his foreleg on her withers. “It’s all right. I know your actions came from a good place. Truth be told, you’re the first pony who’s ever wanted to help me like that. All the others steer clear of me. Even if they don’t know it’s because of my bad luck, they don’t want to be within striking distance when calamity inevitably rears its ugly head.”
He sighed and took a step toward turning away. “But I reckon that now you do know I’ll be nothing but bad luck for the rest of my life, you’ll want to stay away. I don’t blame you. After all… that’s my luck.”
Trouble Shoes lowered his head and looked away. When he heard Derpy take a step toward him, he looked back toward her.
“Do you… want me to stay away?” she asked.
“Do I want it for me?” he said. “No. But I know I’ll never see you again. Because if I did, that would be the most fortunate thing to happen to me since I got my rodeo job. And I can’t rightly expect two good things to happen to a pony who has bad luck stamped right on his flank.”
“Well…” Derpy said, “if there’s one thing I know, it’s that things you don’t expect happen all the time. And that never stops me. So… why don’t we maybe do something together tomorrow?”
Trouble Shoes’ eyes went wide. Then his eyelids dropped. “Just my luck. The rodeo’s leaving tonight so we can set up in Dodge Junction tomorrow.”
“Dodge Junction?” Derpy said. She thought for a moment. “I’m pretty sure I have some vacation days saved up at work. Maybe I could take one and come visit you.”
Trouble Shoes looked stunned. “I… I’d appreciate that very much.”
“And then… and then…”
Derpy took a deep breath.
“Andthenmaybeafterwardwecouldgoouttodinnerbutthistimelikearealdate!”
Trouble Shoes looked at her for a moment. Slowly, he nodded.
“Yep okay bye see you then!”
Derpy took off at a steep angle, leveled off, and quickly disappeared from view behind Ponyville’s buildings.
For half a minute, Trouble Shoes stared up toward the sky. He smiled.
Then he turned at the neck and looked at his cutie mark.
“Now listen here,” he said. “I know you’ve got it out for me, but don’t you dare do anything to that nice mare. When we’re in Dodge Junction, I intend for her to have the best date she’s ever had. Torment me if you have to, but leave her alone!”
Two more bird droppings landed directly on his head.