//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Newfound Literacy // Story: Underped // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// Derpy looked up at her house, realizing that it badly needed to have the siding repainted—only for the sudden motion of her head to cause her to tilt as a spell of dizziness caught her. She was immediately buffeted by Sparkler’s magic. “Mom, you’re not okay,” she insisted. “You should have stayed longer to recover.” “I already had time to recover when I was comatose,” replied Derpy, forcing herself to stand on her own. She did not feel exactly normal, but did not exactly feel different either. She was weaker and got tired just from moving, but her mind did not feel any different from the way it had been before. She continually probed her memories and thoughts, trying to find a gap where she could compare it to what she had been before, but she could find none. There was no mental purchase, no sense of dissimilarity—and she could not be certain that her intelligence had actually changed. This left her wondering how to devise an assay that she could use to more accurately test it. “I left your room just the way you left it,” said Derpy, pushing open the door. She had never learned which direction to turn the key to use the lock, so she left it open. Which was how Trixie probably kept getting in, aside from the teleportation. “I know you can’t stay long with your big-time job in the Crystal Empire.” “Cadence has a really generous Empire-wide family leave policy,” said Sparkler, closing the door and making sure it was properly seated. “And I have a lot of vacation time from both jobs.” “Both?” Derpy turned slowly. “Sparkler, not again...” “Mom, it’s fine.” “But when you were a teenager you almost worked yourself into a hole in the ground because I didn’t know how to actually make money or manage my finances or...really anything financial.” She paused. "Or really how to do anything useful." “I know. But it’s not like that.” Which was a lie—Derpy saw Sparkler’s eyes moving to the pile of bills, and although Sparkler’s dyslexia made it difficult for her to read she was better at it than she let on. “It’s a career thing. I’m working part time for Flurry’s start up.” “Flurry?” Derpy frouned. “The scary baby?” Sparkler laughed. “Pretty much, except she’s fourteen. Her wings are still disproportionate.” “She has a job already? Like you did. That’s sad.” “It’s not sad. Frankly, she really needs it, she’s kind of a brat.” “What does she do?” Derpy paused. “Fashion design? Social media?” Sparkler paused. “Obligatory diplomacy? I don’t really know a better way to describe it. But you should see her business partner. He’s her age but twice her size and a really dark color with a curved horn and an accent...” “You mean a hunk?” Sparkler sighed. “Yeah...” She then reddened. “NO.” Derpy smiled, even though the math Sparkler laid out before her suggested an especially disturbing age difference. “I think I need to rest,” continued Derpy. “Being in a coma for a few weeks will really make a pony tired, I guess.” She turned and started to walk up the stairs to where her bed had once been before Trixie had stolen it. “Mom.” Derpy stopped, but said nothing. She recognized the tone in her voice—and it was sickeningly familiar, reminiscent of their inverted roles. Derpy, the mother, who had been cared for by a a daughter who had surpassed her IQ by the age of five. A fact that she now found herself resenting—through the lens of self-loathing. The sudden realization of just how inadequate a mother she had been. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Am I not allowed to make my own medical decisions?” “I didn’t say that,” replied Sparkler, suddenly defensive. “But you could have told me. It was an experimental brain surgery, it was dangerous. You almost didn’t...I mean, if it weren’t for...we were...I was lucky...and Dinky wouldn’t have...” “You both would have been fine if it failed.” “Mom...” Derpy looked down from the staircase and smiled. “Because you’ve both done so much more than I ever could. Gone so far, done so much, even with me holding you back.” “You never held us back. I’m only here—we’re—only here because you loved us.” “This isn’t the Crystal Empire. Love isn’t enough. I wasn’t able to be the mother you needed.” She sighed. “And I’m tired, Sparksie. Tired of being the mare they all laugh at.” “But you could have at least told me. I mean...I’m your daughter. Don’t you trust me?” Derpy’s smile faded. “I didn’t want to make you worry.” “Well fat lot of good you did at that.” “For a surgery that didn’t even work,” sighed Derpy. She turned back up the stairs. “At least I can see better.” Sparkler watched her go, and then tuned back to the kitchen. She indeed could not read the bills, not initially, although she knew what bills looked like. She stopped, finding that there was broken glass on the floor. She reached down with her magic and winced as she found it to be sharp, and instead picked up the broom usually meant to deal with Trixie and began to sweep. As she did, though, she heard a sudden cry from upstairs—and before she even knew what she was doing, she had dropped the broom and was raising to the second floor. She had lived with her mother long enough to know that sudden sounds were not the time for thinking, but the time for action—and if she was lucky, they would be a false alarm. But more often, it was a sign of yet another accident and yet another trip to the emergency room. She passed through the narrow hall, pushing open the door to her mother’s closet bedroom—but finding no one present and the mattress missing. A second gasp came from elsewhere, and Sparkler turned surprised toward the far end of the hallway—to Dinky’s room. With only a few steps she reached it, throwing open the door—and finding her mother sitting unharmed in the center of the room, a book in her hooves and her eyes wide and welling with tears. “I...I...” She held up the book. It was a children’s picture book, a copy of The Pony and the Oni that Dinky had read as an infant. “Mom?” Derpy sniffled and smiled. “I can read it.” Sparkler’s eyes widened. “You...you can?” “I can! I can—I can read Sparsie, I can read again!” Sparkler took a step forward, then burst out laughing. She ran forward and nearly tackled Derpy in a hug. “It worked, Sparksie, it really worked!” cried Derpy, through her tears. “I know, mom! Congratulations!” They hugged for what felt like several minutes, and then Derpy sniffled and wiped her eyes with her hoof. She gestured for Sparkler to sit down, and, although confused, Sparkler did so. Derpy opened the book to the first page, with a little stylized picture of a little earth-cold and a few large-print words below it. “Mom?” “I never got a chance,” she said, sniffling. “When you were a foal I never got a chance to read to you. Can...can I now?” Sparkler smiled, feeling tears welling in her own eyes. She laid down on Dinky’s rug and nodded. “Yes, please. I’d like that. A lot.” “So would I.” Derpy looked down at the book and began. “There once was a little pony who was terribly afraid of the dreaded oni...” She then proceeded, for the first time in almost thirty years, to read a book.