//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: The Dawn of a Realization // Story: Underped // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// Despite the purely theoretical annularity problem, the new crystal-driven trains were incredibly speedy. Derpy and Dinky had arrived back in Ponyville before the sun had even set. It was strange to Derpy how the trains now ran so quickly on a version of the same technology that was currently reprogramming her brain, re-configuring her neuron connections around the injuries that had plagued her for so long. Making life beautiful again. It was no longer quite winter, but not quite spring either. The winter had not yet been wrapped up. The snow was no longer as beautiful as it had been when it had been newly manufactured flake-by-flake in factories or when it had been delicately placed. The trees had yet to even start to grow buds. The world was filled with half-melted snow, slush, and dreary shades of gray and brown. Even the sun felt cold through the thick gray clouds overhead—and as depressing as the world looked, Dinky still looked adorable in the probably excessively poofy coat that Derpy had brought her. They stopped at a small bridge over the nameless creek that ran through Ponyville. Derpy looked over the edge excitedly, but then frowned. She could for some reason not recall the river having been the size that it was—it was either too big or somehow too small. “Huh...” Dinky was silent for a moment, and Derpy smiled at her. “You used to love this little bridge when you were younger.” “Only after I convinced you it was safe to cross. You were afraid it was too high.” “I know,” sighed Derpy. “I used to forget I was a Pegasus pretty often. Flying is actually pretty fun, but sometimes you don’t even know you’re doing it.” “I know,” said Dinky. “I managed a gossamer-dew wing spell during the first semester. It only lasted for a few seconds before the, you know, combustion...but I flew a few feet in the air.” She looked at her mother. “I guess that’s how you feel? When you do it?” Derpy smiled, but something felt odd. Something she could not place. She looked out at the town. The sensation was still there. Something novel, and yet somehow old. Like a distant memory. A nameless sensation that she had never really noticed before. How strange the town seemed to look to her—how oddly flat the buildings came across. “Yeah,” she said. “Flying is pretty great.” They were both silent. Then, eventually, Dinky spoke. “So,” she said. “You had experimental brain surgery. To try to get smart.” “No,” interrupted Derpy, sharply. “I didn’t get ‘smart’, and I’m not ‘smart’. I just wanted to be normal again. To fix what was broken.” “I don’t think you were broken, exactly—” “Dinky, I’ve been your mother since you were born. I can tell when you’re lying.” “I...sorry.” “Why would you be sorry? I had it fixed. I can remember who I once was.” She paused. “It’s a compressed crystal with something similar to a healing spell, but parsed down to the levels of sub-neurons. The facets intersect into sub-programs, splitting the spell into independent nano-units. It’s rebuilding me. I can feel it.” Her smile faded. Something was wrong. She did not know why she could not make herself believe that was true, even though she was sure it was a fact. The town looked strange. Felt strange. The world was dim, far more dim than she had remembered, and Derpy shivered against the cold wind. “We should go home. Sparkler’s there. She’ll be happy to see you.” Dinky smiled and nodded. Derpy smiled too, as her daughter was adorable—and yet a deep shard of fear moved through her as she looked into her daughter’s wide yellow eyes. As if something was terribly, horribly wrong. Derpy woke up. There was a moment of not quite panic as she realized she could not remember having gone to sleep. There was a space in her memory that she could not recall, although she was certainly comfortable in her pile of blankets. She sat up and, as always, there was a slight popping and flash of light as Trixie vanished from her usual position watching Derpy sleep. Then another mental pause as Derpy looked around the room. The same room that she had awoken to every day, or at the very leas every day she was at home—and yet something felt strange. She was barely conscious of herself mentally counting as her eyes moved from surface to surface. She stood up and walked downstairs. Something smelled bad. She did not know what, exactly. It was not the smell of a sewer line break, or of something burning, but something just wholly unpleasant. A haunting aroma that seemed to be coming from the floor below. When she entered the kitchen, the smell was almost overwhelming—and Derpy would have nearly spilled her oats from it had she not seen the look on her daughter’s face as she sat at the lopsided wooden table in the corner of the room as she levitated bills past her face. Or the fact that she had once again begun to count. “Sparkler?” “Who?” Sparkler looked up. “Oh, me. Yes. Sorry.” She held up a long scroll that immediately unfurled into her lap. “Sorry, I was just trying to do math and planning.” “For what?” “Well...um...for the bills, largely. I mean, the situation isn’t exactly ‘grim’, I wouldn't call it 'grim', but...um...it’s not ‘great’ either...so...um...” Derpy looked at the pile of paper finances. Then back to her daughter. “Oh,” she said. “I already fixed that.” She walked to her mail bag and produced some of the mail addressed to her. She took it in her mouth and gave it to Sparkler. Sparkler took it, opening it, and then paused as she slowly read it—and then her eyes grew wide. “What is this?” “My current bank account.” Sparkler looked over the paper at her mother. “How did you—how did—what?” Derpy shrugged. “It wasn’t hard. I sold off my back account of LunaCoin and leveraged it into—” “Your what?” “LunaCoin.” Derpy reached into her bag and tossed a silver piece to Sparkler who caught it, turning it over to see a portrait of Luna on the front. “When she came back from the moon, she started minting currency. I bought a whole bunch because it was so shiny and I thought the portrait made her look really pretty on the front. It was worth almost nothing then because, you know, Nightmare Moon, but you know how currency works. It’s value is entirely based on how popular the Princess on the front is. That and Twilight’s new bimetallic currency system has drove silver prices through the roof.” “And this came from that?” “No, of course not. I leveraged the LunaCoin payout to buy a controlling share in Stable Prices Grocery right before the merger with Rich’s Barnyard Bargains. SPG is quasi-corporate and RBB is privately owned. They had to buy me out and I was able to get a much higher price than they were expecting.” Derpy shrugged. “It’s technically insider trading but I don’t think that’s actually illegal yet because I’m the first pony to do it. So, yeah, I paid off the bills. Turns out making huge amounts of money in Equestria is incredibly easy.” “But...but...” “Ha. You said ‘butt’.” “MOM!” Dinky poked her head around the corner into the kitchen. “Did somepony say ‘insider trading’?” She looked at Sparkler. “Also, I know she said ‘butt’. Why am I the most mature pony here?” “Because you're my adorable littlest daughter? Also, you’re awake early.” “Yeah,” said Dinky. “I wanted to check out the library.” She paused for a moment. “Do you want to come?” Derpy smiled. “Sure. We can all go.” She sniffed the air and winced. “But...um...do either of you smell that?” “Oh! They’re probably done!” Sparkler stood up and ran to the stove, levitating an oven mitt as she opened the door to pull out a strange metal tray with rows of wells filled with baked goods. “They’re not as good as you make them, mom, but I followed your recipe exactly.” “They spell pretty dang good,” said Dinky, setting the book she had been holding down and entering the room. “Dinky, watch your language,” chastised Sparkler. “My recipe?” Derpy stepped forward, confused, looking at the tray. The moment she saw them, she felt a strange wave of nausea. She looked up at Sparkler. “What are they?” Sparkler looked at her mother, confused. “They’re muffins.” A wave of pain moved through Derpy’s head, a sudden migrant bringing immense pain behind her eyes and flashes of waving colors around every shape around her. She shuddered, barely able to keep down whatever the contents of her stomach were that early in the morning. “Mom!” Dinky and Sparkler both caught her, but Derpy shuddered, something deep in her mind suddenly circling back on itself. It moved quickly, each time striking a dead end in her memory, only to try again, frantically accelerating as some part of her grew more and more desperate. She had no idea what those things were—and why they made her so sick and in so much pain to think about. But part of her knew—and it was terrified beyond believe that that memory had been surgically severed from her brain, reconfigured to make room for the crystal that had given her back her life. The realization struck her, and she gasped, stepping back. “Mom, are you—” “I...need to be outside, I need air,” said Derpy, fleeing the kitchen. “But they’ll get cold!” “Please just—just leave me alone!” Derpy stumbled and staggered, barely managing to get the front door open as she took flight into the cold late-winter morning. And as she flew, the freezing tears stung at her face. She was afraid, because she almost knew something—something that some part of her did know. That something had been gained—at the cost of something lost.