//------------------------------//
// Day 15 
// Story: Eye of the Storm 
// by TheDriderPony 
//------------------------------//

Derpy knocked twice on the front door, then wobbled alarmingly as the enormous box she had balanced across her back tried to fall one way and the much littler box balanced atop her uniform’s hat tried to fall the other.

After a few unsteady moments she righted them, then set both down. She fetched a key from her pocket, unlocked the door, and walked inside.

It was her house, after all.

Now inside she turned around, signed for the delivery (she could take the paperwork back to the office tomorrow) and brought the boxes inside.

Even more than a week later, it felt strange to move so freely. Her body felt so light compared to when it’d been a block of pegasus-shaped rock. While freeing, the downside meant she was knocking over even more things than usual.

Once she was inside, alone and with the curtains drawn, she allowed herself a giddy giggle of anticipation. Finally. After days of waiting, it had arrived.

Grabbing the letter opener by the door, she sliced through the tape that separated her from her purloined prize, lifted the lid… and smiled.

Within the box… was rocks.

Hundreds— thousands, even— of obsidian shards. Some were big enough she could recognize the curve of a horn or the knuckle of a finger, but most of it was so much gravel. But it was all there. Every single pebble. The Royal Guard had made very sure to get every last piece.

It was her good fortune that they hadn’t been nearly so rigorous in checking their shipping labels. By the time anyone at the Tartarus mail depot realized a package was missing, it had already been routed through a dozen redirects and loopbacks. Anyone who even tried to trace the web she’d woven would wind up fruitlessly digging through the Las Pegasus dead letter office.

Not even the most thorough gumshoe would think to check in Ponyville.

And yet here he was. Her mail-order husband, some assembly required.

She opened the second box, one that had traveled through more normal channels. Luckily, it too was exactly what she’d hoped for. A fifty-two bottle case of Dr. Whoopsie Daisy’s all-purpose superglue. More than her usual order, but this was a big job.

Derpy sighed in contentment. Nothing was missing. Everything was in place. Sure their first time together had ended in him being stoned and shattered and sentenced in absentia to Tartarus  while she was flung through a window, but she’d been on worse first dates.

“Dinky!” She called out. “Do you want to help me with a jigsaw puzzle?”

“What? Yeah! I love puzzles!”

“I know,” Derpy tittered, “So I got an extra hard one for us!”

It was going to take many long nights (and no shortage of sticky hooves) but in her heart Derpy knew without a shadow of a doubt…

…she could fix him.