//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Winnings // Story: Derp Eyed Ponies // by Perfect Prime //------------------------------// Chapter 1: Winnings “Alright, what are your numbers?” asked an impatient and dull stallion, sitting behind a counter with a pen behind his ear as he stared through the glass separating him from the line of ponies. “Sixteen, seven, nine, six, eight and five!” exclaimed a jubilant, grey mare, bouncing around with a slip of paper between her hooves and delight chiseled into her features. “OK...So you’ve matched five of the six numbers and you also managed to match the bonus ball, which means that you are entitled to...Five thousand bits,” he concluded after sifting through the mess of papers on the countertop. “I’ll be right back with your reward.” Derpy watched gleefully as the depressed stallion got up from his seat and trotted through the door behind him, disappearing from her diplopic vision. Beside her stood her childhood friend, Carrot Top who came with her to both share in her excitement and to help her take her winnings home. Soon, the stallion returned with two, large bags balanced on top of both of his wings. The look on his face was evidence that the load was incredibly heavy, but neither Derpy nor Carrot cared -- they were just glad that this wasn’t a dream. “Here you go,” moaned the pony in an envious tone as he trotted out of the door at the side and handed both bags over to the two good friends. In an instant, they both fell to their knees. However, their smiles didn’t waver and the delighted aura around them never faltered. “Thank you!” they chimed before cantering off with the mailmare’s winnings. The Unicorn that stood behind them stared with fury in his blood red eyes as he watched them leave with more than ten times the amount he managed to win. Gritting his teeth, he turned his attention to the still bored stallion behind the counter when Derpy and Carrot Top could be seen no longer. ---------- “Whew, we’re finally here!” exclaimed Carrot, wiping the sweat away with her hoof. “Yeah,” agreed Derpy benignly. “It still doesn’t feel like home though.” “What do you mean?” “I mean it’s not somewhere I want to be,” explained Derpy. She too held a hoof to her forehead, but her mind was flooded with thoughts and visions of a future so bright that her hoof didn't even move. The sweat merely rolled over it and continued their descent down her face on the other side of her limb. Eventually, the liquid met the curvature of her enormous grin and with no other option, it gathered just under her nose, waiting for the smallest jolt so that it could meet the cold, hard floor down below. “Where are we going to put this?” asked Carrot Top, looking around the single room. Derpy came out of her thoughts for a moment and scanned her home. There was one single bed in the corner of the room and it alone took up more than an eighth of the entire surface area. The rest of the space was occupied by a rickety table kept stable by a dictionary and a textbook under two of its remaining three legs, two chairs -- one of torn leather and the other of chipped wood, -- a stove embedded into the wall no more than two metres away from where they slept, and finally a cupboard wherein the mailmare kept everything from cutlery to her not-so-fine plastic plates. There were no modern, technological devices in this home -- no television, no computer, and certainly no game console. The more Carrot Top looked at the mess around her that could barely be called a dirt-hole, let alone a home, the more she wanted to spend all her money on her friend and buy her a new house -- especially when she thinks about all the times that Derpy has brought Dinky over to her house just because they wanted to watch a program on the telly. However, despite her financial position, Derpy’s pride forbade something like that. Sighing, Carrot Top turned to her friend and saw the deep concentration in both of her eyes. One stared in front of her at the books piled at the end of the bed and the other looked directly at Carrot, through her eyes and into her soul. One of Derpy’s eyes would always be void of life and seem completely empty, but she says that it’s the only way she can focus her vision. If she blurs one eye then the other one is clearer in comparison. To Carrot it didn’t make a lot of sense and it didn’t even seem possible, but it seems to work for Derpy, so she had no reason to question it. “We can’t hide it here,” concluded Derpy, her tongue in her cheek and her eyes shifting, focussing in on her friend leaning on one of the bags of bits. “Then what do you propose we do then?” Although Derpy was no match for Carrot when it came to common sense and basic knowledge, she always managed to resolve problems faster. Picking the shortest route home, playing hide and seek so well that Carrot had to give up after two hours, and even finishing jigsaw puzzles -- Derpy was pretty good at all of them, despite what eyes tell you. “The only solutions would cause so much trouble that there would be no point,” she declared solemnly. “Therefore, the only road of action we can take is to ignore my initial plan and come right out with it.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Carrot, standing up straight. “We’re going to tell Dinky about it!” cried Derpy, wings shooting out at her sides. “Ar-are you sure?” stammered Carrot, a little taken aback,. “Yes! There’s no other way! This is the path of least resistance! When Dinky comes home, we’ll tell her about how ever since she was born I’ve been buying lottery tickets on a monthly basis and how after twelve, long years, I finally won! I finally won enough to change everything!” declared Derpy, trying her best not to squeal and fly through the open window. Carrot offered her pal a shaky grin as she turned the words over in her head. She could never think like Derpy could, nor could she ever understand the way her friend’s mind worked. All she could do was trust that the seemingly dim-witted pony was capable of what everypony deemed she would be unable to do. Derpy appeared to be telling the truth straight from her mind, but Carrot didn’t know if that was a good thing. She still didn’t know what Derpy had in plan. After all, Derpy only won five thousand bits, there’s quite a lot of things you could do with that much money. But for a pony in her situation, Derpy probably needed more than five thousand bits to turn her daughter’s life around. “Derpy?” started Carrot, getting the attention of her friend. “What exactly do you plan to do with this money?” “Ah!” exclaimed Derpy with an elated yet cheeky grin. “Well, I was thinking about maybe-” Of a sudden, both of their ears pricked up and Derpy stopped talking. They both looked at each other and confirmed their suspicions without a word. From downstairs in the post office, the hoofsteps of a twelve year old filly could be heard as she trotted closer and closer to the small, uncomfortable room she called her entire house.