//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Reconciliation // Story: Derp Eyed Ponies // by Perfect Prime //------------------------------// Chapter 3: Reconciliation “Here you go Derpy,” said Carrot as she handed her a clean-ish towel. Giving a momentary grin, Derpy took the raggedy fabric and started to dab her eyes with it. Slowly, the tears were dried from both her face and the floor, and Derpy had calmed down after the outburst from her filly as well as their exchange of shouts and screams. Her eyes stared at the dining table and the pile of books that Dinky kept at the bottom of the bed. Sniffing, she felt as if the tears had run out, and that any cries from hereon out would be dry, irritating and painful. Carefully, Carrot Top sat herself down in front of her friend with her hooves tucked away under her body, and she lowered her head. She looked into Derpy’s teary, amber eyes as the mailmare’s head flicked back just a little with every one of her sniffles. “Are you feeling any better now?” Carrot asked, staring down at the ground. “Yeah...” mumbled Derpy. “What should we do now? continued Carrot, taking Derpy’s hoof in her own and gently stroking it. “We should-” started the mailmare before being cut off by a sniff. “We should go and find Dinky,” she concluded. “Maybe we should, but I’d bet that Dinky ran off to my house,” murmured Carrot, shuffling closer. “Afterall, she took her bag with her, and she has a copy of my house keys in there right?” “Yeah...” “So she probably ran off to my house. Maybe she’s just watching the TV. It’s seven right now, isn’t that when her favourite show starts?” Derpy paused before giving a slow nod. “I hope she’s alright...” she mumbled, biting her lip again to hold back the cries. “She’ll be fine,” reassured Carrot Top. “She’s a smart filly!” Silence permeated the room once more and the two mares found themselves sitting on the floor opposite each other, but with their faces turned to the walls around them. One of Derpy’s eyes was indeed staring at one of the walls, but the other was pointing at the other pony in the room, and this was the one that was focussed. Unbeknownst to Carrot, Derpy eyed her over and over again, thinking to herself about how everything went wrong. She had been waiting for an opportunity like this longer than most ponies care to keep track off, and yet, she had to admit that her daughter had a point. They weren’t in the best of situations, and it would seem wise to pay off a few debts, but she feared that if she did she would never have a chance like this again. “Carrot...” started Derpy, pausing as Carrot turned to face her. “Hm?” “What do you think I should do with the money?” “The money?” asked Carrot, startled. “Honestly, I think you should smoothen things out with Dinky first before you think about that?” “I am thinking about Dinky...” grumbled Derpy, rubbing her nose with a hoof. “I am thinking about her...” “What are you talking about?” “What do you think I should do with the money?” repeated Derpy, voice trembling and breaking. “What?” “What do you think I should do with the money?” asked Derpy for a third time. “Well...” began Carrot, turning her face away for a brief moment. “Maybe you should listen to Dinky,” she suggested nervously. “She has a point. Even if I’m willing to clean your slate, I can’t say the same for all the other ponies you owe money to. They aren’t all your friends, so you’ll have to pay them all back before you can’t.” “Before I can’t huh?” mused Derpy somberly. “This is the last chance for a lot of things isn’t it?” “What do you mean?” questioned Carrot. Derpy stood up and left her friend on the floor behind her as she trotted in circles. The creaking of the floorboards perpetually invaded Carrot’s ears, but the carrot farmer was much more fixated on the perturbed mare before her. Derpy’s eyes were uncharacteristically parallel to one another, aimed at the floor and staring at the countless cracks and bent nails her daughter often tripped over. Of a sudden, she stopped and lifted her head up to the ceiling. She stayed like that for a moment and with Carrot debating whether or not she should offer her help, Derpy let out a deep sigh before continuing her movement. Without a single word, she walked over to where her daughter stood and gazed down at the clipboard with sheets of paper emblazoned with numbers, symbols and variables of every kind. She pointed at them with a hoof and her lips moved apart slowly. “Before today, I never knew that Dinky was keeping track of all the money we owed, all the money we spent and all the money I make on a monthly basis.” Carrot Top stared at her, stunned. “Not once did I think that she would take the initiative to do something like this -- that she’d be so responsible even though she’s only twelve...” Carrot stood up but stopped before she made it over to where Derpy stood, and she watched as her friend wiped away the newly formed tears. “I never thought that she’d be more responsible than me...” “Well, think about it like this: she probably gets it from you!” reassured Carrot with an awkward grin. “Ha!” scoffed Derpy, eyes glistening for a moment before the smirk was wiped from her face. The sound of a butterfly’s wings harmonising with their soft breathing echoed around them, occupying their minds for an instant and urging the depressing tension to leave them alone. “What do you think I should do with the money Carrot Top?” asked Derpy one more time. “I...I don’t really know,” she admitted. Carrot shuffled her hooves and tried not to look her friend in her wall-eyes, but she still noticed the translucent sliver down Derpy’s face that shone under the flickering light of the filament bulb dangling above their heads, threatening to throw them all into a world of darkness lest they do something soon. “You’re right though...” mumbled Derpy, letting out another sigh and glancing out the open window above her daughter's bed. “Right about what?” questioned Carrot, confused. “I should think about Dinky, shouldn’t I?” “Well, yeah...I guess...” stammered the farmer, fiddling with her hooves again. “So then what’s the only thing I can do?” continued Derpy. The corners of her lips drifted up towards her ears and Carrot saw the white teeth of Ponyville’s mailmare from her side. “Well, you could do what she told you to. You could pay off some of your more serious debts.” “But that won’t make Dinky happy would it?” retorted Derpy. “She says it will, but what she means is she’ll be relieved.” “What’s the difference?” “She means that she’ll have a lot less to worry about, but for her to be happy, she needs to have nothing to worry about,” explained Derpy, chuckling as if she were about to burst into tears. “How would that work?” asked Carrot, still unsure what her friend was talking about. “Ultimately...I’ve been the source of all her suffering, haven’t I?” begged Derpy, turning to face her friend, looking at her through drowning eyes and talking between the sniffles and chokes. “N-no, that’s not true!” assured Carrot. “Yes it is!” she declared. “With that in mind-” Derpy paused for a moment,holding back her sobs. “What do you think I should do?” Carrot stood with her jaw slack, but she had no response. She stood there, thinking, and thinking, and thinking. Eventually, the seconds turned to minutes and the minutes turned to regretful, unwanted tension. Before Derpy could prepare herself for the revelation however, Carrot came to an incredibly shocking realisation. “No...” she mumbled, eyes wide and astonished. “You can’t be thinking about that can you? You can’t actually be considering it, can you?” “Yes, I am,” admitted Derpy, tears raining down on the already worn floorboards again. “That won’t make anypony happy though!” protested Carrot, stomping her hoof. “It will, as long as some things are made certain,” corrected Derpy, rubbing her eyes with a hoof. “Like what?” cried Carrot in anger with a shaky undertone. “As long as I can see her whenever I want, and she can see me whenever she wants, then won’t we be happy?” asked Derpy with an insincere grin. “Legally, there won’t be a single thing that ties us together, but there is a bond in our blood, and that’s not something that we can forget so easily, is it?” “How do you think she’ll feel in a stranger’s home for the rest of her life?” demanded Carrot, holding her friend by the shoulders. “How do you think she’ll feel staying with ponies she doesn’t know, living with them, listening to them and talking to them every single day! How do you think she’ll feel knowing that you’ve abandoned her!” “But I haven’t abandoned her,” insisted Derpy. “I told you that we can see each other whenever we want. I’ll make sure that a family in Ponyville takes her in so we can always be close, and so I can always be there for her when she needs me. I’ve caused her so much trouble all these years, and I’ve made her take care of me. She took on all the responsibilities that I should have carried on my own shoulders. I owe her this much...” Derpy moved away from Carrot and went over to her bed. She knelt down at the bottom and started to collect the books with worn pages and creased covers, piling them together on top of the covers. Then, she went to a box in the corner and dove in nose first, digging through the few broken toys that were in there, hoping to find something that was in one piece. Eventually, she found a plush toy and although parts of it were badly sewn up , it was still whole, so she placed it gently beside the books. Lastly, she went into the kitchen and pulled out of the non-functioning oven a baking tray, on which there was a single muffin. With the utmost care, as if she carried a masterpiece in her hooves, Derpy placed it on top of the pile of books before licking her lips and tasting the salty pang of her own sorrow. “What are you doing Derpy?” “I’m just getting some of Dinky’s things ready for when she comes home.” “But if you put it on her bed then how is she going to sleep?” asked Carrot, knowing that her question was pointless and well aware of the mailmare’s reasoning behind her actions. “She’s not going to be sleeping though,” admitted Derpy. “At least not here, not anymore...” Carrot lowered her gaze at the back of her friend’s head and she saw a droplet fall from her chin. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” “Dinky should know what it feels like to have a loving mother who she can depend one. I’m just disappointed that it couldn’t be me...” “It can though!” declared Carrot, raising her voice again. “You just need to do all those things for her!” “But if she stays with me, she’ll still have to worry won’t she? She’ll still have to take care of me won’t she? This is the only way I can show her that I...That I don’t need her, and that she doesn’t need to worry anymore...” “Why does somepony else need to show her what a loving mother is like? I don’t understand why it can’t be you!” Derpy let out a grieving sigh. “I love her unconditionally, like nopony else ever will. But she thinks that I’m...A little bit pathetic, doesn’t she? Everypony does -- I can’t expect her to be different. Love shouldn’t be one-sided, it should be reciprocated. She won’t know how I feel about her for a long time, and I just want to make sure that she leads a happy, exciting life until then.” The farmer mare was speechless again and she watched as Derpy gathered a few more of the filly’s belongings together on top of her bed. The moonlight slipped through the cracked glass of the open window and although it was no match for the artificial light source faltering every now and then in the room, it added to the grace of the mare before Carrot, emphasising some of the more unfortunate features about her. Above all, it made it clear to Carrot just how upset Derpy was. She tried to act calm, but her shaky voice, her trembling hooves and her dishevelled mane gave it all away. “How are you going to take it?” asked Carrot, placing a hoof on her back. “I’ll be fine,” assured Derpy. “What will you do though?” “Everything I can to make sure that Dinky won’t worry about me,” revealed Derpy “What do you mean?” “As long as I’m in debt, she’ll always worry about me, just a little bit won’t she? That means that for Dinky to be happy, I need to make sure that I pay off all of my debts.” “If that’s all you need to do then let me lend you the money!” begged Carrot Top earnestly. “I’ll do anything to stop you from making a bad decision!” “Can you really just lend me ten thousand bits?” screamed Derpy, shooting her wings out at her sides. “Besides, none of us would be happy with that, because it just means I need to pay you back!” “Well, how do you plan on earning ten thousand bits?” retorted Carrot, a little hurt. “Five,” corrected Derpy. “What?” “I only need another five thousand bits to pay off my debts...” confirmed Derpy. “Where did you get the other five thousand bits from?” asked Carrot, oblivious. “I won some money from the lottery, remember?” Derpy let out a gentle chuckle. “I thought you wanted to have that operation done on your eyes.” “I did, but you were right. Dinky was right as well. I don’t need the operation. It might make me happy, but it couldn’t possibly bring me any more joy than seeing a lively, elated smile on Dinky’s face.” Carrot could feel a slight tingle in her nose and she noticed that her sight was starting to blur. Tears of her own were gathering underneath her eyes and she bit her lip to hold back the squeals and whimpers that fought for their freedom. Once again she watched as her friend moved around the home, pausing only to reminisce about days gone by, spent happily with a filly different from all the others. A filly that kept quiet through everything she had to suffer and stayed strong through the tough times. A filly that knew she had to help her mother, since nopony else was going to. “Lets go,” announced Derpy, wiping the tears from her face. “Where to?” asked Carrot, talking through her sobs. “Your house.” Derpy let out a single chuckle before trotting through the noisy door and making her way down the stairs into the main room of Ponyville Post Office as her friend finally got her wits about her, and followed closely behind. ---------- “Dinky, are you here?” called out Carrot. They both heard faint hoofsteps from upstairs and noticed that at the top of the spiral staircase, a thin, short shadow was cast forward, embedded into both the steps and the curved wall. “Dinky, can you come down please, I need to talk to you,” continued Carrot, heart heavy and pounding. “Is my mom there?” asked the filly at the top of the stairs. Her voice was cold and hard as stone. “No, Derpy’s not here,” lied the mare, hiding her friend behind her. The was a brief moment of hesitation before Dinky started to come down the stairs, as if she wanted to check if what she heard was true but realised that she couldn’t. Her face wasn’t visible until she had come down five steps, and when it was she saw that she had been tricked. Before her she saw the same wall-eyed, grey coated, lemon maned mare that she lived with. In a moment of panic, she tried to run back up, but she lost her balance and for an instant, she was in a state of freefall. Her chest felt as if it would burst. Both Derpy and Carrot were filled with fear as they watched the young filly tumble down the stairs, crying and calling out for help whenever she could. Before Carrot even realised what had happened, Derpy flew forward and tried to save Dinky, but she was just a little late. After hitting her own hoof on a step and hearing a dull thud accompanied by a painful, crack, she held her daughter in her wings. To her horror however, Derpy saw that a trail of blood was trickling down from the top of her head, around her head and down to her closed eyes. Dinky’s cries had stopped, but Derpy’s picked up again.