//------------------------------// // Chapter 11: Encroaching Insanity // Story: Underped // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// Night had fallen, and Equestria was suffuse with an abundance of darkness. Time Turner was preparing for bed while enjoying the light of the half-moon during his nightly ritual of tidying his workspace. His laboratory contained a variety of inventions, both mechanical, electrical and chemical, and it was often difficult to navigate if he did not keep it quite clean. It was, after all, smaller on the inside. By several inexplicable feet. Humming to himself as he deactivated the lights, he found himself alone in a dark room lit by a column of floating colorful things of inexplicable origin or nature—and then one of the lights flickered. Confused and frowning, he turned back, staring into the darkness—only for it to flash again, revealing a pair of seemingly luminescent yellow eyes staring back at him. The sudden shock caused an unexpected realistic horse noise to escape him—only for him to realize that it was, in fact, just Derpy. “Derpy!” “Hello, doctor,” she said, softly. Standing far too still, staring at him—into him—or, rather, just to the side of him. As if she feared to draw close because she could almost see something standing beside him. He took a step back as she moved far too smoothly from where she was standing. She did not move around frantically, comically emerging from objects or playing in his Renaissance-style rocket or wearing the bio-neural colander he had invented. She just stared at him with an unnerving expression and underped eyes that no longer seemed to blink. “I—I went calling earlier,” he explained. “I heard about your condition through the grapevine I’m afraid, and it appears you were out when I arrived. I’m terribly sorry to hear about—” “About my sudden intelligence? Or the insanity?” “The...what?” “Never mind,” said Derpy, smiling. “It doesn’t really matter. I went out for a flight and thought I should visit my best friend. Even though I can’t quite remember any times we were ever really together.” “What do you mean? I just visited the other day, before the...ahem...accident.” “Yes, a comically pun-ish mixup. Sorry about that.” “It’s okay, I’m mostly better. Still can’t look at a berry, though. I’m afraid I’ve been traumatized away from yet another fruit...” He sighed. “To be included with peaches because they look like flanks, and pears because...well the pears know exactly what they did...” He shook his hoof at a nearby bowl of the offending fruit. He sighed. “Would you like some tea?” “Doctor. You’re my best friend. In all of Equestria.” “Um...yes? I’m glad you think of me that way, I care deeply for you as well obviously.” “Then can I assume that you know me well?” Time Turner gulped. He was not sure why he felt so afraid—or why she was looking even less at him and more at something that when he turned his head he could not see. He was not even sure she could see it. Not exactly. “Well, of course.” “Who are Sparkler and Dinky’s fathers?” Time Turner immediately reddened. “Well—I—certainly not me, of course, but you...were always private with that knowledge.” “Really?” Derpy turned sharply toward him, and the fact that her full attention was on him made Time Turner begin to sweat. He was forced to loos ten his tie. She noticed this but still continued, her voice oddly and nearly sing-song. “Because I can’t remember.” “Well, that’s unfortunate, surely, but there are genetic tests—” “That’s the weird thing, Doc,” she said, her tone growing serious. “I love my daughters. More than anything. Anything in all of the whole dang world. But I can’t remember giving birth to them. I’m told I did. Something in my brain tells me I did. But there’s no memory of it, no matter how hard I look. And I can’t stop thinking about it. No matter how hard I try. My mind keeps going back over itself over and over again. Repeating the same thoughts. Expanding them, building on them...opening more and more holes I’m not meant to look down. You’re a doctor, aren’t you? You’re smart?” “Well, I’m not technically a doctor...” “Where do they come from? Foals, I mean.” Time Turner reddened deeply. “Well...um...oh my. Well...when a mommy mare and a daddy stallion love each other very much—” “I don’t have a hole they could have come out of.” Time Turner gaped, reddening even further. “E..xcuse me?” “Neither of us have genitals. No pony does. Have you ever actually looked? How do we reproduce?” “Well I—of course we don’t, that would be downright silly...disturbing, even...” Derpy took another step forward. She had still not blinked. “But how does that make any sense? We’re small horses, even if I have inexplicable bird-parts sticking out of my back. We don’t reproduce by spores. I can’t...I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember, Doc? Where did my memories go? Who took them?” Time Turner felt his rump land against a counter. He had been quite literally backed into a corner. “Derpy, you’re scaring me—” “Why? Why would you be the one scared?” She paused, looking over his shoulder, and then back at him. “Our biology doesn’t make sense. I mean...am I organs on the inside, or just homogeneous pony all the way through? Are you?” “Derpy, please...” “How would I go about finding out?” Her eyes drifted toward a nearby butter knife. A weapon intended for knifing butter—but among the deadliest of all known artifacts to otherwise highly pacifistic ponies. “I wonder if I could even pick that up with hooves. My brain says I can, but I know I can’t. Huh.” Time Turner collapsed into a heap, whimpering—and her eyes shot back to the thing she seemed to be looking at just as the door burst open as one of Twilight’s royal guard kicked it open. “Freeze!” cried the guard, pointing a Derpy with his horn as mares in white coats charged in past him with oversize butterfly nets. “This is a mental health emergency and I am DEESCALATING THE SITUATION! GET ON THE GROUND OR I POKE!” Derpy sighed. She did not see the humor in the situation—but saw something else. Something behind them all, connected to all of them. A ghost, one of many or many in one—and she did not see them. They were no one. No cutie marks, no clear faces. Pony blanks staring her down, empty and devoid of substance even as they trapped her in their comically large nets. “None of you are even real,” she said. “None of you are real...” She was then promptly struck with a magical tasing spell to further deescalate the situation.