If somepony had told me when I was a foal that I was going to grow up to be a mail mare, I wouldn’t have believed them. I knew exactly what I was going to be: A Wonderbolt. Yes, I had strabismus, but I was going to be such a great flier in spite of it that the Wonderbolts were going to let me in anyway. Not that I was in any way, shape, or form training to be a Wonderbolt, of course. Foals have dreams like that: we’re going to get everything we ever wanted without ever putting any actual effort into it. Wonderbolt, adventurer, princess, it all boils down to fantastic dreams, totally unrealistic desires. That’s what makes them so fun, though, isn’t it? Just daring to imagine, daring to dream. Believing beyond reason. Ignoring the obstacles in our way and aligning the stars with our bare hooves.
There’s no one point when we realize the folly of our dreams. We just gradually begin to understand that the world doesn’t bend over backwards to accommodate us. That we have to work for what we want, have to set realistic limitations on our goals, be careful with our bits, be mindful of our faults and our vulnerabilities. We gradually wake up and take stock of where we are and work with what we have. The dreams are still there, but they’re tempered by doses of reality. We settle on things like becoming a weather captain, or teacher, or general manager of some chain of stores. Sure, they’re not as amazingly fantastic, but they’re what we can achieve.
A lot of ponies, on realizing it, think that’s kind of sad, and I guess to an extent it is. But what if everypony actually did achieve their foalhood dreams? What if everypony became a Wonderbolt or an archaeologist or a princess? Then who’d be left to take care of the weather, or the teach the next generation of adventurers, or run all the stores of Equestria? Besides, when we grow up, we discover a much better dream than any we ever had as a foal: Parenthood.
Not that everypony is necessarily cut out to be a parent, or that everypony should try to become one even if they don’t want to, of course! But for ponies who do have foals of their own…we find a new dream. And unlike all our foalhood dreams of soaring at supersonic speeds, or uncovering lost cities, or ruling the kingdom, these dreams are real. They’re dreams that we can reach out and touch, and hold, and watch as they grow up. They require work, but they’re dreams that we’re actually willing to work on, unlike our foalhood dreams.
No, we don’t all lead glamorous lives. We don’t have to. Just living, all by itself, is enough. At least it is for me. I’ll never fly at supersonic speeds, I’ll never find a lost city, I’ll never rule a kingdom. But I will do everything I can to make tomorrow a better place for everypony – because if I do that, then tomorrow will be a better place for my daughter.
And that would be a dream come true.
---
There was something to be said for how much the right uniform could make a pony feel like they were a part of something bigger than themselves.
First came the pants, deep blue, buckled around her loin and festooned with pockets, into which Ditzy Doo slipped several tightly-sealed ink wells, pens, and forms. Following that was the jacket, with holes along its back to allow for her to spread her wings. She turned up the collar on the jacket as she finished sliding it on. Next came the saddlebags, well-worn but sturdy, currently empty but soon to be brimming full of letters and parcels to be delivered to the mares and stallions of Ponyville, and expertly designed to not interfere with her wings if she chose to fly while delivering the mail. Nearly suited up for the day, Ditzy Doo preened her feathers, ran a brush through her mane and tied it back so it would be out of her way, and last but not least reached for her –
Ditzy Doo frowned when her hoof reached out for her hat, but came up empty. Glancing at the spot where she’d set it down in confusion, she turned around and found the hat easily enough, as it was sitting on her daughter’s head. Dinky Doo was smiling at her mother, and gave a quick salute after a moment, though the action nearly made the hat fall from her head.
It didn’t matter how often Ditzy saw the sight of her daughter wearing her mail mare’s hat: it was adorable every time, and always would be. She hid a chuckle behind one hoof as Dinky’s horn glowed, tongue clenched between her teeth as the young unicorn focused on her telekinesis, moving the hat from her head to her mother’s. It still took visible effort, but she wasn’t straining the way she had been at the start of the year – her telekinesis had improved by leaps and bounds, though she still occasionally grabbed things harder than she intended.
Ditzy smiled as she trotted up to her daughter, drawing her into a tight hug and nuzzling her. Dinky returned it eagerly. “Is your lunch packed up?” Ditzy asked.
Dinky nodded, pointing to the counter, where a brown paper bag sat at the ready. “Yup!”
“Homework packed?”
Dinky trotted over to her school pack and opened it up, double-checking. “Uh-huh!” she confirmed as she slid her bag over her back.
“Teeth brushed?”
Dinky gave a pearly white grin in response, one that Ditzy returned. “Okay,” she said, as her daughter grabbed her lunch from the counter and the two ponies left the apartment, Ditzy’s destination simply downstairs, while Dinky would be trotting to the school across town, along with dozens of other foals. “What are you learning about today?”
Dinky scrunched her nose a little as she remembered the lesson plan. “Well, in math, Miss Cheerilee is teaching us about multiplying and dividing fractions. And in history we’ve been learning about the creation of the Hippogriff State…ooh! And in social studies today we’re supposed to be learning about cutie marks.” Dinky’s nose scrunched a little more at that. “I don’t know why, I already know all about cutie marks…”
“Oh?” Ditzy asked. “Well, what makes them?”
Dinky smiled. “When a pony discovers his or her special talent!”
“Yes, but I mean, what actually makes them? How come all animals don’t get them? Or other races, like griffins, or buffalo?”
The filly unicorn considered that for several long moments. “I don’t know,” she admitted after a moment, looking up to her mother. “But I’ll find out today!”
“Yes you will,” Ditzy responded, mussing her daughter’s mane a little. Dinky waved her off with a giggle as the two reached the bottom, and mother and daughter shared a nuzzle and a quick peck on each other’s cheek. “See you later, Dinky!” Ditzy said.
“’Later, Momma!” Dinky returned as she galloped off, already spotting a small gaggle of foals on the way to school themselves, joining them easily. Ditzy smiled a little at the sight. Her daughter made friends easily, certainly much easier than Ditzy herself had at the same age. Her gaze lingered for a few more moments on her daughter, before she turned, straightened her collar and the hat on her head, and strode boldly into the nerve center of Ponyville, the most important building in town, for it was the building through which the ponies of Ponyville were able to remain in contact with the rest of Equestria:
The Post Office.
---
“Ditzy!” Silver Script, the post master of Ponyville, and therefore Ditzy’s boss, called as Ditzy finished punching in. “What are you doing here? Isn’t this supposed to be your day off?”
Ditzy offered a slight smile, shaking her head. “Starburst’s cousin in Las Pegasus is getting married, remember? I’m covering him for today.”
Silver Script frowned at that. “I didn’t know he’d gotten you to cover him,” he said, concern in his voice. Silver Script’s coat was white, and his mane and tail were silverish. His uniform was basically identical to Ditzy’s, though he wasn’t wearing mail bags, and his hat featured a star that denoted his managerial position.
“Why?” Ditzy asked, head tilting to one side, eyes sliding almost, though not quite, into focus. “You’re not sick of me, are you?”
Silver Script shook his head at that. “It’s just, I think that every time we’ve needed a shift covered, ever since you moved to Ponyville, you’ve been the one to do it. I’m not paying you that badly, am I?”
Ditzy blanched, holding up her hooves. “N-no!” she exclaimed. “No, boss – I mean, technically besides, you’re not paying me, the Postmaster-General in Canterlot is…but the pay’s just fine!”
Silver Script’s concern didn’t fade as he ruffled his wings. “I’m just worried that some of the other mailponies are coming to you whenever they need time off, since they know you won’t say ‘no.’”
“I’ve said no,” Ditzy objected, as she trotted past Silver Script, towards the mail room. “I said ‘no’ to Leeroy Wingkins last year! He had tickets to a Wonderbolts derby, I think, but I said no, because it was Dinky’s birthday, and I’d requested the day off already and Dinky was ‘out sick’ from school,” she made quote-motions with her hooves as she said that. Education was important, but birthdays only came once a year, and they shouldn’t be wasted in a classroom.
“Well, okay, but that’s a special occasion,” Silver Script pointed out, as Ditzy and he entered the mail room. All the various letters and parcels had been sorted the previous day – Ditzy had done a significant amount of that, in fact, though she wouldn’t be doing that today, instead simply focusing on making the deliveries. She began to load up her mail bags. “When was the last time you tried to take a day off? Apart from that thing with the Princess a few weeks ago, that is, that doesn’t count.”
Ditzy Doo paused at that, frowning a little as she took in a breath, then let it out slowly. Talking about money and paychecks was always uncomfortable with one’s boss. “At my pay grade,” she admitted, “how much I’m making an hour isn’t as important as how many hours I’m working each week.”
Silver Script frowned. “You get the same hours as everypony else…”
“Most everypony else have roommates, or live with their parents, or otherwise don’t really pay rent,” Ditzy pointed out. She glanced up, where, on the second floor of the post office, her apartment was. “Don’t get me wrong, I can afford it, I do get paid enough each month, I just…like to have a buffer, you know? In case of a bad week, or needing to take sick time off, or Moon forbid something happening to me or Dinky…”
Silver Script’s face shifted to look far more sympathetic. “Oh,” he said. “Well…that’s sensible, I guess. Still, don’t overwork yourself, okay?” He smiled. “You only get the one life, and you’re still pretty young. You don’t want all your memories later on to be of this place.” He waved a hoof at the four walls of the post office.
Ditzy nodded, then grinned. “Slack off more. Got it.”
Silver Script chuckled. “Oh, we all know this place would fall apart without you, you don’t need to rub it in,” he said, turning around and heading towards his office.
Ditzy’s thoughts, meanwhile, turned elsewhere as she came across a quartet of deep blue envelopes with familiar addresses on them – her own, Trixie’s, Raindrops’, and Bon Bon’s – though for the last, the letter was made out to Lyra. Of more interest to Ditzy, however, was the return address:
Her Majesty the Princess
Canterlot Castle
Canterlot, CN, 10100
Ditzy blinked a few times at the sight. After a moment, she left her stack of letters for a moment, wandering over to another route’s and rifling through them until she found a fifth deep-blue envelope addressed to Cheerilee, and a sixth for Carrot Top in another pile.
“Hmm,” she said, returning to her original pile and taking out her own letter, opening it after a few moments and pulling out something that felt like parchment but looked like paper-thin silver, which further began to glow like moonlight when it was removed from the envelope. The text on the parchment was thin and elegantly curved, in dark silver ink rather than black.
Dear Ditzy Doo,
In recognition of your heroic bravery and the services performed to protect the safety of the Kingdom of Equestria and all of its citizens, I, Luna, wish to personally extend to you an invitation to attend this summer’s Grand Galloping Gala, to be held at Canterlot Castle on Saturday, July 10th, beginning at 8:00 P.M.
This letter shall serve as a ticket of entry for yourself and up to one guest. Please do not hesitate to contact me through Trixie if any special considerations are necessary for you or your guest of choice.
R.S.V.P.
Signed,
Luna Equestris, Princess of Equestria
Ditzy stared at the letter in her hooves, blinking a few times. “Boss?” she asked.
“Hmm?” Silver Script asked from his office, looking up from some paperwork that he had just begun.
“I think that I’m going to be requesting some time off.”
---
Despite the fuss that Silver Script had made concerning Ditzy taking Starburst’s shift, it was actually going to be a fairly short one, from the looks of things, though Ditzy Doo did get Silver Script’s permission to take Carrot Top’s and Cheerilee’s letters so that she could deliver them personally once her shift ended – they’d make an excellent capstone to a day that had so far gotten off to an amazingly good start.
After finishing double-checking her loads and packing up, Ditzy sallied forth, head held high and scarcely aware of the weight on her back as she set out for the start of her route. It was a circuitous one, starting at the north of town and winding counter-clockwise through Ponyville’s streets and buildings until coming to a stop at the Residency of the Representative of the Night Court of Luna – Trixie’s house. Because it moved through such a densely populated area – as compared to, for example, delivering mail to the farms – the route also wound its way back to the post office a few times. Strictly speaking, it would have made more sense to divine the route up further between several ponies, but the post office just didn’t have the pony-power, and it was hardly more than one pony could handle. Like all the routes in Ponyville, it was relatively new, having been instilled only a few months back after Silver Script had finally convinced the Postmaster-General to approve his updates to routes through the whole town. Despite this, Ditzy already knew the route, and everypony on it, like the back of her hoof.
Her first stop was Pokey Pierce’s house. She hadn’t talked to Pokey as much as she might have liked, but she knew that he was Trixie’s personal assistant at the Residency, and also quite likely the reason why any work ever got done there, Trixie herself by nature being, to put it bluntly, lazy, or at least easily distracted from doing actual work in favor of whatever she felt like doing in the moment. Pokey Pierce lived in a two-story townhouse, one of several dozen that had been built over the past twenty years or so to accommodate Ponyville’s growing population. Unlike the center of town, where the first floors of homes tended to do double duty as a shop with the resident of the building living on the second floor, these townhouses were actual houses through and through.
Ditzy opened her mail bags, pulling out Pokey’s mail after a few moments of searching. She found a letters, and once parcel, labeled Hoofington Horn Care as its return address. The parcel was too big to fit through Pokey’s mail slot, meaning that she had to knock a few times on Pokey’s door, then begin fishing out a clipboard for him to sign and a pen and inkwell with which to perform the deed.
After a few moments of waiting, the door opened, revealing a blue unicorn stallion with a wavy silver-and-blue mane and tail, and a cutie mark of an open safety pin. Pokey’s most defining feature, however, was his horn – it was easily a third again as long as was average for a unicorn stallion of his height, and was sharpened to a perfect point. She’d heard it described as “magnificent” in the past, and it definitely seemed like an apt description.
“Hello!” Ditzy said brightly. “Package for you.”
“Oh?” Pokey asked, taking the package in his telekinesis and looking it over. His face fell a little when he saw the label and return address. “Oh. Well…that’s good.”
Ditzy blinked a little as Pokey used his telekinesis to further grasp Ditzy’s clipboard and provided pen and inkwell, dipping the pen’s point and then signing. “Problem?” Ditzy asked.
Pokey grimaced, casting a glance upwards, at his horn. “Nothing,” he said after a moment.
Well, this was odd. Ditzy might not have known Pokey very well, but she did know that he was normally much more talkative and sociable, even at this time of day. “Are you…” Ditzy asked, considering how to phrase things delicately. “Having…horn problems?”
Pokey’s eyes widened at that. “Wh-what?” he demanded.
Ditzy held up her hooves. “Well, there’s obviously something wrong and you looked at your horn, so…”
Pokey considered Ditzy, who put her best ‘talk to me’ face. Half of being a mailmare in a small town like Ponyville, she had discovered, was in being able to listen to ponies’ problems. Not necessarily to solve them, or even to give any real advice, but sometimes ponies needed somepony to talk to, somepony they saw every day and whom they trusted, but whom they didn’t actually know all that well. Of course, this wasn’t Ditzy’s normal route, but the uniform all by itself went a long way, as did the fact that she was somewhat familiar with Pokey already.
At length, Pokey relented. “Okay,” he said, rubbing a hoof on his forehead. “Trixie and I…had a little…fight. Sort of.”
Ditzy blinked. Trixie was one of her best friends, but she was also incredibly abrasive at times and difficult to put up with. “About your horn?”
“Sort of,” Pokey repeated, sitting down on his haunches. “She’s been messing around with zebra magic again – ”
“Uh-oh…”
“Yeah, but this time she apparently got it right. Cooked up something called Truth is a Scourge, some kind of truth potion. Only it’s more like a truth poison. According to her it forces a pony to tell the truth, and say exactly what they’re thinking, as soon as they think it.”
Ditzy blinked a few times. “And?” she asked.
Pokey looked up at his horn again. “She tested it on herself,” he said. “And, let me tell you, it works. She just started blabbing about everything she saw, couldn’t stop…of course then she looked at me and apparently that made her start saying…let me see if I can remember…” he thought a few moments, before doing a surprisingly good imitation of Trixie’s Canterlot lilt “Oh Pokey I don’t think you should be here right now because I think I’m going to start telling you just how weird your whole horn obsession really is.”
Ditzy blinked. “That’s not really that bad – ”
“ – I mean seriously pierce the heavens with your horn you don’t have wings and what does that even mean anyway just because you have a long horn doesn’t mean anything and by the way how does a safety pin cutie mark in any way relate to ‘perseverance’ you just have an abnormally sharp horn because you spend all your free time polishing and sharpening it and frankly I think you’re thinking about something else when you polish it…”
Ditzy stared. Pokey stared back. “She went on for some time,” he added. “But it became mixed with her trying to remember how to dispel the potion’s effects. Then she gave me a few days off.” He looked to his parcel, and sighed a little. “I always thought my cutie mark was perseverance…I mean, I got it after I managed to split a board in half with just my horn. I’d been trying for weeks, building up a tolerance…unicorn horns aren’t really meant for stabbing, see…and when I pulled it off I was so happy and I got my cutie mark. But now I’m wondering if Trixie’s right, if maybe it’s not perseverance…that my special talent is just having a sharp horn…”
Ditzy grimaced. The entire point of a cutie mark was that it manifested when you realized what made you truly happy – meaning that it took a lot to make a pony doubt their mark, but if it happened, it meant that the pony was fundamentally doubting who they were: never a healthy prospect. She carefully weighed her next words.
“Why not both?” she asked.
Pokey looked to Ditzy, frowning. “A pony can’t have two special talents,” he objected.
Ditzy shrugged. “But their special talent might encompass a bunch of things,” she pointed out. “A pony with a special talent for carrot farming, for example, has to be good at watering and plowing her fields, planting and tending her crop, knowing when and how to harvest…and besides,” Ditzy said, straightening up a little. “My special talent is feeling air currents and breezes. But I think I make a pretty good mail mare. My special talent isn’t my only talent.”
Pokey seemed to be a little assuaged at that. Ditzy pressed on. “The way I see it,” she said, “either your special talent is perseverance, and all the work and time and effort you’ve put into your horn is indicative of that – or else your special talent is how sharp your horn is, and you’re talented at perseverance, at seeing anything through to the end – reaching any goal – climbing any mountain – ”
“Stabbing right to the heart of any problem…” Pokey intoned, then louder, cheering up noticeably, “slicing through any kind of obstacles put in my way…boring through to the other side!”
“Exactly!” Ditzy exclaimed, wings flapping a few times in happiness at her success. She decided to let the hurricane of puns slide; clearly he was feeling better and so had earned them.
Pokey Pierce stood, one hoof raised to the sky. “You’re right! It doesn’t matter what the dumb picture on my flank means! Because no matter what, my horn is the horn that will one day pierce the Heavens!”
Ditzy nodded. “And as for Trixie,” she said, “you said yourself that she was under the effects of a truth poison.” She paused, thinking as she tapped a hoof to her mouth. “Let me put it like this…see my eyes?” Ditzy raised her two front hooves, pointing at her eyes and how they wandered of their own accord. Currently her left eye was mostly pointed at Pokey, while her right one was looking down the street. “What do you think of them?”
Pokey blinked a few times at that. “Um…” he said. “They’re…yellow?”
Ditzy frowned. “And?”
“…wandering,” he said cautiously.
Ditzy nodded. “And what do you think about that?”
Pokey looked like he was sensing a trap ahead but had no idea how to avoid it. “I…don’t, really. They’re just fine.”
Ditzy’s smile returned. “Liar,” she said. “They’re weird. You know their weird, you just don’t want to hurt my feelings. And you feel bad for thinking that they’re weird, but it is what you think, right?”
Pokey continued to look uncomfortable at that, not looking Ditzy in the eye – in fact, he was making a point of avoiding her eyes. Ditzy reached out a hoof, gently putting it on his shoulder. “It’s okay, they’re weird,” she said. “So is how much effort you put into your horn. But let’s face it,” she leaned in, and in a conspiratorially low whisper added, “if we started listing out Trixie’s problems, we’d be here all day.” She leaned back. “I think that we all have things we think about other ponies that we keep hidden. That truth poison just forced Trixie to reveal it, but she always thought it, just like you’ve always thought my eyes were weird but never said anything. But I think we can still be friends, right? So you can still be friends with Trixie too. Right?”
Pokey weighed what Ditzy was saying carefully. “You’re right,” he said, with a slight sigh. “I can’t believe how much I was letting that get to me…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ditzy said, as she turned around, trotting from Pokey’s home and back onto the street. “Now, if you’ll excuse me – I have mail to deliver and more spirits to lift today!”
---
Ditzy finished her winding route through the homes of north Ponyville in record time, making up for the prolonged stop at Pokey’s through the fortune of not having to deliver any more parcels, simply drop mail in through slots in doors or into mailboxes.
The residential north of Ponyville taken care of, she now entered the west, which consisted of businesses. This meant that most of her stops were quick, as the proprietors of the businesses usually didn’t have much time to stop and chat – her stops consisted of walking in, dropping off the mail on the front counter, and walking out, pausing only if she needed a signature for a parcel.
The spring to her step faltered a little, however, when she found herself standing outside of her next stop: Amethyst Star’s Fine Jewelers. The gray pegasus blinked a few times as she stared at the door, which was wood but with a frosted glass window on its front that had the store’s name on it.
When she had been a younger mare growing up in Fillydelphia, Ditzy had a made a mistake of nearly catastrophic proportions: she’s conducted an affair with a unicorn named Castor Cut, a unicorn who was already married (though his marriage had been failing) and who had a daughter who was nearly as old as Ditzy Doo herself. Ditzy had known this – and hadn’t cared, too caught up in the affair, the passion, the thrill, not caring about the potential consequences – at least not until she’d become pregnant. Castor Cut had broken off the affair at that, and Ditzy, despite herself, had let him, even hoped that he’d patch things together with his wife. And if things had ended there…
…but they hadn’t. Ditzy’s parents had found out – of course they’d found out – and they had dragged her to Castor Cut’s doorstep. They’d demanded, in front of his wife and his filly, that he take responsibility for Ditzy Doo an her unborn foal. And the short version of what had happened next was Ditzy had taken her savings and moved to Ponyville, looking to escape everything that had happened. Her daughter was the result of that affair, and though Ditzy would never in a million years regret having or raising Dinky, she did wish that the circumstances had been better. Still, things had been improving – until Amethyst Star had moved to town. Castor Cut’s daughter. Her parents divorced, the only-slightly-younger unicorn had moved to Ponyville for much the same reason that Ditzy had, not knowing that Ditzy was already living there. It had nearly ended disastrously for all ponies involved, but Dinky, bless her heart, had been able to start a sort of reconciliation between her mother and her half-sister.
But Amethyst Star – or Sparkler, as she preferred amongst her friends – hadn’t quite yet forgiven Ditzy for the role she’d played in her parents’ break-up, and Ditzy, herself, wasn’t certain she was ready to be forgiven to playing such a large role in destroying somepony’s life.
But her trepidation wasn’t going to get the mail delivered. There were four envelopes burning a hole in Ditzy’s mail bag, and the oath she swore on joining the Equestrian Postal Service meant that she had to deliver this mail, no matter what. Steeling herself, she opened the door and let herself in.
“Good morning!” a voice called as soon as she entered. “Welcome to…oh. Um…hi.”
Sparkler, a pony who’s mane, eyes, and coat were all varying shades of purple, was standing behind her jewelry counter, a ledger in front of her. The store was set up with display cases on three sides, forming an angular U-shape. Apart from Sparkler, there was nopony else in the store, though then again it hadn’t even hit noontime yet, so this made sense. Sparkler had been wearing a smile as Ditzy entered, though it faltered when she saw Ditzy.
Ditzy, herself, put on the best one she could muster at the moment. “Hi,” she said. With Dinky around, the two could be quite cordial, as the little filly provided a common link between them - but otherwise, when the two were on their own, things tended to get tense. “Um…mail call!” she trotted up to Sparkler’s counter and pulled out the envelopes from her bag.
Sparkler took them with her magic, eagerly grasping the opportunity to look at addresses and paper rather than Ditzy. “Where’s Starburst?” she asked.
“His sister’s getting married in Las Pegasus,” Ditzy responded. “I’m covering his route today.”
“Oh,” Sparkler said, as she looked at her envelopes. “Well, good seeing…you…” her voice trailed off as she stared at one of her letters, in a plain white, official-looking envelope. The return address on it had it coming from Fillydelphia.
“Problem?” Ditzy asked. She readied herself for anything at the question. She wasn’t certain she was entirely welcome helping Sparkler with anything that might be wrong, but she’d still make the offer, and if Sparkler turned her down, she’d bow out and just wish the best for her.
Sparkler’s lips were pressed together in a thin line. “This is from my father,” she said quietly.
Right. That made Ditzy officially unwelcome, in all likelihood. She turned to leave – at least until she saw Sparkler tear the envelope and the letter inside in half with her telekinesis, and tossed it into a nearby waste-paper basket before looking very pointedly at the next envelope. Ditzy stared at Sparkler for a few moments in silence, scuffing one hoof on the floor and shuffling her wings. “Um…” she ventured cautiously. “You’re…not even going to read it?”
Sparkler was standing very still. “I haven’t spoken to him for a very long time,” she said softly. “That’s not going to change. You know why.”
Ditzy weighed her options here, and came to the conclusion that some battles just couldn’t be won. She turned around to leave, when Sparkler spoke up again. “Why should I?” she asked. “He doesn’t deserve to be a father. Not after what he did. With you.”
The question was asked just loudly enough that Ditzy’s instincts strongly suspected that the unicorn was hoping for an answer. What kind of answer, though, Ditzy didn’t know – for all she knew, it wouldn’t matter, all Sparkler wanted was for Ditzy to rise to her bait so that she had an excuse to start shouting – turning Ditzy into little more than a winged bucking bag.
Ditzy could be a winged bucking bag for Sparkler if she had to be. She owed the young mare at least that much. “Sparkler,” she said softly, trotting forward again, getting as close as she dared. “Your father…made a mistake. But he never meant to hurt you. He just didn’t think things through.”
Sparkler remained quiet. Ditzy considered. “I didn’t really get along with my own parents either,” she continued. “I mean, not after I became pregnant. I spent a few months trying to hide it…and when my dad found out…” she breathed out a long sigh. “Well. You were there.”
“Yes. I was,” Sparkler hissed.
Ditzy flinched. “I didn’t want to do that,” she said. “I…I’d accepted that your dad chose your mom and you over me. I figured that that’s what he was supposed to do. But my dad and mom, they got so angry, they weren’t thinking straight, so they decided to drag me to his door…tried to basically shame him into choosing me. Showed me off like I was a…some kind of…” Ditzy’s front hooves were raised, held out before her like she was trying to crush an apple between them. Words failed her, however, and after a moment she sighed. “Well. I moved out to Ponyville after that and didn’t see or write to my parents for a year, though I did have a few friends I kept in contact with, so my parents knew where I was. But I just threw out their letters, too.”
Sparkler stared intently at her own front hooves. “My dad is a construction worker,” Ditzy said. “In Fillydelphia. And one day, just a few months after Dinky was born, my mom showed up on my front door and told me that he’d been in an accident.”
Sparkler’s eyes shot up at that, looking to Ditzy, the implications cutting through her own personal feelings. “Was he…?”
“He was…okay, and he's fine now,” Ditzy said. She felt a little guilty for the set-up like that, but she needed to make sure that Sparkler understood the gravity of what she was doing. “A girder had fallen and he’d nearly been caught under it pushing another pony out of the way, but it still ended up clipping him, broke his pelvis.” Ditzy looked down herself. “Could have been worse. A few more inches, and it might have been his spine…a few feet, his head.” Ditzy looked back to Sparkler. “And then that would have been it. I’d have never seen him again.”
Ditzy looked to the waste paper basket. “I’m not telling you to just make things up with your father. I don’t have the right. But you shouldn’t just…ignore him. Because you only have the one dad.”
Sparkler stared at Ditzy for a long while, weighing what she said. At length, her horn glowed, and she pulled the pieces envelope from the trash bin, removing the letter from it. After a moment, she unfolded the two halves and looked it over, holding her breath all the while. Ditzy, herself, was waiting.
Sparkler finished reading, and set the letter down in front of her, letting out a long sigh. “He’s…he moving,” she said. “Leaving the old house, getting a smaller place since it’s just him now. He was just sending his new address.”
Ditzy nodded. She knew that there had to be more, Castor Cut probably asking, or even begging, for his daughter to write him every once in a while. Ditzy didn’t need to hear about that, though. Instead, she just nodded, turning and leaving.
“Ditzy?” Sparkler asked as the pegasus reached the door. Ditzy paused, looking behind her. “Thanks,” the unicorn said after a moment. “I…I might stop by the post office later. I’ll have a letter to send.”
Ditzy offered a smile at that, nodding. “Don’t know if I’ll be there,” she said, unconsciously tipping her mail mare’s hat, “but we’ll make sure it gets to the right place.”
---
Ditzy wandered through Ponyville, the spring to her step gradually returning. She’d made her first return trip to the post office to retrieve more mail, and on the way out she’d noticed a gradually approaching storm cloud from the Everfree Forest – and a distinct lack of any weather patrol pony cloud platforms in front of it, where the weather patrol should have been preparing to tackle the Everfree storm.
She sighed at the sight, considering for a few moments before heading back into the post office. Her mail bags were waterproofed, but the same could not be said for the pegasus pony who carried them. She didn’t doubt that the weather patrol was just taking longer than it should have to get organized, and that the storm cloud proper would be dealt with soon enough, but there was always a chance of a few stray clouds wandering over Ponyville and soaking it.
Be prepared! Technically the Colt Scout motto, but Ditzy found it to just be useful life advice no matter the circumstance, and as a result Ditzy emerged from the post office a second time carrying, though not yet wearing just in case it turned out to be unnecessary, an official Equestrian Postal service rain cloak as she resumed her rounds.
Ditzy’s deliveries and little chats as she made them weren’t all about drama, of course. She chatted with the Flower Trio about the contents of their parcels, apparently rare flower seeds imported from Tapira (they sounded delicious), asked after Baritone’s husband, who had been sick last time Ditzy had chatted with him (he’d made a full recovery), was given a few pieces of ‘sound business advice’ from Filthy Rich (who never seemed to be shy about hoofing out such advice, even to those who did not run a business), and in general got paid to walk around and socialize and, as a favor to the Equestrian government, pass out mail. Or at least that’s how Ditzy chose to approach her mail routes, anyway.
As she walked, the jealous sun continued to rise in the sky, quickly approaching its zenith. Gradually the ponies out and about on the streets began to thin, each finding some good reason to be indoors and remain so for at least a half an hour – and traditionally a full hour – as noon arrived. There had been a time only a few months ago where some ponies would choose to skirt or even outright ignore the tradition, but then Corona had returned from her imprisonment, and made good her escape to parts unknown, if not her plan to take over Equestria. Suddenly, not lingering beneath the burning orb she claimed dominion over had once again seemed like a sound policy, and it was no different with Ditzy Doo herself, who had at once the distinct pleasure of driving Corona off coupled with the distinct displeasure of having met her personally in the first place.
Ditzy did not dwell on any of this, however. Instead, she found herself comfortably inside Sugarcube Corner, Ponyville’s premier bakery, several minutes before the bell at the town hall struck noon. Immediately on entering, the scent of frosting and batter and good baking assaulted Ditzy’s nostrils, along with the sight of a vibrantly pink pony standing behind the counter: Pinkie Pie, the apprentice baker that the Cakes had taken on a few years back. She was moving like a blur through the visible kitchen, from countertop to oven so fast that Ditzy almost thought she saw multiple Pinkie Pies.
“…served upon a silver spoon…toss a fig and save the date and…oh! Ditzy Doo! Hi!” Pinkie exclaimed. She had been singing to herself, but stopped when she saw the mail pony, looking up from her work and waving one hoof, though it was swiftly joined by a second.
“Hi, Pinkie,” Ditzy said, trotting up to the counter lest she have to deal with Pinkie actually leaping over it to fully greet her – it had happened before. Pinkie was excitable, to say the least. Sometimes Ditzy suspected that her having such an easy access to sugar was not entirely the best of ideas.
Pinkie didn’t make use of her surprising acrobatic skill this time, though she did bounce over to the counter with a beaming smile on her face. “Mail? For the Cakes? Or is there any for me? Huh?”
Ditzy fetched out the letters and one magazine for Sugarcube Corner, checking them. “No letters, but there is your monthly Pony Party Planner Periodical.”
“Oooh yes!” Pinkie exclaimed exuberantly as she took it from Ditzy’s hooves, immediately flipping it open and paging through it. “This is my favorite magazine! Advice on how to make parties, plan parties, prepare for parties, a monthly list of the top ten bestest upcoming parties in Equestria, what to wear, what to do, who to see…”
She went on for a little while, even as she signed for the magazine delivery, never stopping despite having a mouthful of pen at one point. Ditzy just smiled. Constant exposure to Pinkie Pie could begin to grate on anypony’s nerves, but in small doses it was difficult not to catch her perpetually positive fever. “I’m actually going to a party in Canterlot soon, myself,” she said, smiling widely. “Tenth of July, the – ”
“Grand Galloping Gala!” Pinkie exclaimed, leaping backwards and throwing her front hooves high into the air, eyes widening. She lost her balance after a moment, falling backwards, but easily rolled with it and came up on all four hooves and shooting forward again. “You have a ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala? How’d you get it – oh, wait, nevermind, Element of Kindness, saved Equestria, duh. I wish I was an Element! I bet I’d get an invitation!”
Ditzy had heard about what the Gala was typically like, for the non-politicals anyway, from Trixie. She had a feeling that Pinkie and the Gala would mix like oil and water. She settled on simply nodding. “Do you mind if I wait out the sun in here?” Ditzy asked after she tucked away her clipboard.
Pinkie shook her head. “Of course you can! I’d never turn a pony out and just let them get sunstroke!” she paused, putting a hoof to her mouth. “Feel like I’m forgetting something – oh! Cupcakes!” she turned around quickly, dashing back towards the oven and reaching it just as an egg timer set nearby went off. Within moments, the pink pony was removing several trays of baked goods from the ovens, setting them aside to cool off. It was likely the last batch she’d be cooking for a while, given the sheer unlikelihood of her getting customers for the next hour.
Well, apart from Ditzy herself. As long as she was here for the next hour, she supposed she might as well take her lunch break.
“Ooh, the Gala, you’re so lucky!” Pinkie exclaimed as she came galloping back over after finishing with the oven. “It’s the most amazing incredible tremendous super-fun wonderful terrifically humongous party in all of Equestria! I’ve always always always wanted to go!”
Ditzy Doo sensed a song and dance coming on. Indeed, Pinkie began spinning and shaking and generally dancing around behind the counter, to a tune only she could hear.
“Oh the Grand Galloping Gala is the best place for me!
“Oh the Grand Galloping Gala is the best place for me!
“Hip hip – hooray!
“It's the best place for me!
“For Pinkie...!”
Pinkie turned to look at Ditzy, eyes wide and starry. “With decorations like streamers and fairy-lights and pinwheels and piñatas and pin-cushions! With goodies like sugar cubes and sugar canes and sundaes and sun-beams and sarsaparilla! And I get to play my favorite-est of favorite fantabulous games like Pin the Tail on the Pony!”
“Oh the Grand Galloping Gala is the best place for me
“Oh the Grand Galloping Gala is the best place for me
“'Cause it's the most galarrific superly-terrific gala ever
“In the whole galaxy – Wheee!”
Ditzy blinked a few times, her eyes rolling of their own accord as they had tried to keep up with Pinkie’s movements. She knocked the side of her head a few times to remind them that it was alright if they wandered, but not so fast and not at the same time. “I don’t think it’s a party like that,” she said. “Actually from what Trixie’s told me it’s more just bumping shoulders with a lot of high-society ponies. Talking and drinking a little. Hors d’oeuvres. That kind of stuff.”
Pinkie stared at Ditzy for a few moments as she considered that. “Yikes,” she said. “I always thought that the Pony Party Planner Periodical put that in there ‘cause the Gala was too amazingly superrific and if they revealed just how amazingly superrific it was than everypony would go and there’d be lines outside of the gates of Canterlot and ponies trying to get in and they’d run out of bread so Luna would have to let them eat cake but that would just get everypony mad ‘cause there’s never enough cake unless I’m baking and then everypony would rise up and overthrow the government!”
Ditzy stared at Pinkie.
Pinkie stared back. “Or something like that,” she appended, and let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “I wish I could go. Get me there and I guarantee I could turn that bore-fest into the ultra-awesome paaaar-tay that it’s supposed to be in five minutes!”
Some part of Ditzy’s mind reminded her that she was allowed one guest. The remaining parts of Ditzy’s mind fell upon that part and trampled it underhoof until it apologized for raising the subject. Not for the sake of those in attendance as much as for Pinkie Pie herself, and to stave off what would happen if she did end up there. If Pinkie Pie really could turn it into one of her own parties in five minutes, then Ditzy strongly suspected that in ten, she’d be thrown into a dungeon. In her mind’s eye, Ditzy specifically saw Luna doing the throwing, wearing, in addition to her crown, an overturned cake.
She stifled a laugh at that, looking to Pinkie. “Maybe you can throw a party here in Ponyville instead,” she said. “Make it as ultra-awesome as you want without worrying about rubbing any of the stuffy Canterlot nobles the wrong way.”
Pinkie was silent a moment as she processed that. Ditzy strongly suspected that Pinkie Pie was much more intelligent than she seemed at first glance, and was even now probably crunching numbers and doing figures in her head – number of ponies in Ponyville, cost of party supplies, amount of eggs needed for batter to make the cakes, how many sheets of paper needed to make the confetti and streamers, and then all of these numbers multiplied several times over in order to make it a worthwhile Ponyville parallel to the Gala.
Apparently the numbers turned out well as Pinkie let out a huge gasp. “I should!” she exclaimed, prancing around at the thought. “That’s the best idea ever, Ditzy! Oh, and I’m gonna need your help to pass out all the invitations! I should get to work on those! Ooh! You can help me with the design!” Pinkie glanced left and right conspiratorially, before leaning in. “I’ll give you a free muffin if you do. In fact a free tray of muffins! Your choice of ingredients! I’ll bake it right up just for you!”
Ditzy’s wings flared a little at those magical, hypnotic words: fresh custom muffin tray free of charge. She was not normally one to give into such an under-the-table request, but where muffins were concerned, she’d make an exception, provided she covered her bases first. “What about Mister and Missus Cake?” she asked, looking around. “Where are they, anyway?”
“At the hospital,” Pinkie said, though the smile didn’t leave her face, so Ditzy assumed that there was no problem worth worrying about. She was vindicated in this believe as Pinkie pressed on, “I think Missus Cake is making a special bun in her personal oven, if you know what I mean!”
Ditzy smiled brightly at that. It was about time, the Cakes had only been married for ten years. “You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure! But I don’t know, I’m not a doctor. That’s what the hospital is for! Now stay right there!” She dashed off, out of sight and up some stairs, to the flat she rented above the bakery. After just a few moments she had arrived back downstairs with pads of paper and pencils. “Now let’s get crackin’! What should a Pinkie Pie’s Ponyville Gala invitation look like?”
Ditzy considered, before reaching into one of her pockets and producing her own invitation. “Well,” she said, “we could use this as a base.”
Pinkie’s grin tripled in size as she regarded the shining invitation. “Alright!” she exclaimed.
The two ponies worked in silence for several seconds. Pinkie broke it first as she finished reading it. “Hey,” she noted. “it says here…that you can take a guest!”
“Uh,” Ditzy responded.
---
Ditzy left Sugarcube Corner an hour later having learned two things: one, that a whole tray of free muffins with her choice of ingredients in them was delicious; and two, that Ditzy’s guest to the Gala was going to be Sparkler. This was a detail she could work out with Sparkler at a later date, of course.
Once again, Ditzy felt that denying the Gala to Pinkie was probably for the perpetual party pony’s own good.
After Sugarcube Corner, she had only a few stops before her mail bag was once again empty, prompting another trip back to the post office. Once more, she noted the building storm over the Everfree, and still a notable lack of cloud platforms from the weather patrol. They weren’t seriously going to just let it go over town, were they?
Several hours later – Ditzy returning to the post office two more times – Ditzy had her answer as the first of the raindrops began to fall. By now, she had completed her circuit through Ponyville’s west and south, and was steadily making her way north again, or beginning to, anyway. She stopped trotting when she felt the first drop of rain, taking off her mail bags and counting herself as showing a surprising amount of foresight for both already having the rain cloak on her, and having dropped her muffins off at the post office, where they would remain safe and dry.
The storm, at least, seemed to be all bark but little bite. The rain began falling in earnest just as Ditzy began travelling more north than east. There was a lot of rain, but not much wind, and no thunder or lightning. The rain cloak she wore was sturdy and large, doing a good job of protecting her from the rain even as she continued doing a good job delivering mail (if she did say so herself, which she did). The conversations of the ponies she spoke to were now inevitably about the rain – complaining about it being out of nowhere, decrying the weather team as being lazy, one particular pegasus pony named Airheart cursing the fact that she’d forgotten that rain tended to have a negative effect on date plans, at least if makeup was involved.
Eventually, Ditzy found herself coming to her last stop, at least before she began making personal stops to each of her friends in order to deliver their Gala invitations: the Ponyville town hall. The circular building was located in the center of town, open at all hours and ready to accept anypony who entered. Ditzy’s mail for the town hall included several parcels and letters for the various town councilors, but more importantly a duo of letters addressed directly to the Office of the Mayor. As per Equestrian Postal Service rules, that meant that Ditzy had to deliver the mail directly to the mayor herself, and not simply the secretary at the town hall’s front desk, and yes, she understood that mayor Ivory Scroll was busy at the moment, but she could wait, and no, scowling at her was not going to make her change her mind or abandon her dedication to her oath of service.
Thus it was that Ditzy waited half an hour outside of the mayor’s office for Ivory Scroll to be free. Part of Ditzy suspected that the wait was as long as it was because the mayor, or else her secretary, was in a bad mood and wanted to make somepony suffer.
It did afford Ditzy an opportunity to look around aimlessly a lot. The sole interesting feature of the hall outside of Ivory Scroll’s office was the name printed on her office door; Ivory Scroll, Lady Mayor of Ponyville, and that only because it reminded Ditzy that whomsoever held the office of mayor in Ponyville was a Lord or Lady, as appropriate, in the Night Court of Luna, though that particular title was attached to the office rather than the pony who held it. It was significant only in that it was a minor fact likely to one day win Ditzy a game of Trivial Pursuit.
At length, the mayor was finally free, and Ditzy trotted into her office. Ivory Scroll decorated in reds and greens, giving her office a surprisingly festive appearance, though the pony sitting behind her desk seemed to be anything but as she alternated between writing something on a ledger and glancing out the window at the rain that was pouring outside.
Ditzy offered a sympathetic smile as she approached the desk, getting out her mail. “Long day?” she asked.
Ivory Scroll let out a long sigh at that. “More like the day before a long day,” she said. At her desk was a steaming cup of coffee, which she took a long swig from – with such relish that Ditzy suspected that something a mite stronger than milk or sugar was flavoring it, though Ivory Scroll didn’t yet appear to be drunk, or even buzzed. “This…rainstorm. From the Everfree! Out of nowhere! It’s criminally negligent!”
Ditzy blinked. “Really?” she asked, as she set Ivory Scroll’s letters on her desk.
“It should be,” the mayor responded, glancing over the letters but opening neither, instead putting them in a pile on the right side of her desk. She ran her hooves over her face. “This is an election year, and Rainbow Dash lets a rain storm just run roughshod over us for no reason. Why now? We had a schedule – she submitted the schedule herself – why didn’t she stick to her own schedule?”
“I’m sure there was a reason,” Ditzy said conciliatorily. She fluttered her wings a little. “There can be a lot of difference between the weather on the ground and the weather a few thousand feet up. Maybe the winds up there are too strong and Miss Dash didn’t feel like risking her patrol on the storm.”
Ivory Scroll glanced at Ditzy, considering. “Do you think Hoofington will buy that?” she asked hopefully.
“Huh?” Ditzy asked.
“Hoofington,” Ivory Scroll hissed, like it was a foul curse. Hoofington was one of the next towns over from Ponyville, along with Bridleton. “Every time we’ve had even so much as a stray cirrus float over Ponyville and into Hoofington, Mayor Quill Graze has sent me a very angrily-worded letter accusing me of not having any kind of control over my weather team. And then he keeps threatening to send over his weather patrol captain to ‘teach Rainbow Dash how it’s done,’ though the way I hear things she starts things and then takes forever to finish them! Rainbow Dash could take Stormy Squ-”
“So,” Ditzy said, stopping the mayor from going on a rant, “I…take it that a whole storm system reaching Hoofington will be even worse?”
Ivory Scroll stared at Ditzy for a few moments, and responded by taking another long draw of her coffee. “Quill Graze…thinks he’s so great…he doesn’t live on the edge of the Everfree! The weather patrol eats up half of the town budget…not my fault that his weather team is actually going to have to work for a change…”
Ivory Scroll continued under her breath for several seconds, the only intelligible words being the occasional drawn-out, sibilant hiss of “Hoofington,” often accompanied by a slight hoof-shake. Ditzy Doo rubbed a hoof behind her head. “This…isn’t really Quill Graze’s fault, though,” she pointed out.
Ivory Scroll grimaced. “No. It’s Rainbow Dash’s. I just know that she let the storm through. Probably didn’t feel like waking up. It’s easy for her, she can just move that fancy cloud-mansion of hers higher. Some of us have to walk home…” another round of mumblings. “Oooh, I’m going to pay for this come election time…”
“Don’t you usually run unopposed?”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t want the show of support!” the mayor objected.
Ditzy had to concede that point. “Well…just get Rainbow Dash up here and chew her out, then,” she said. “In fact, the whole weather patrol team, or at least the ponies who were on-duty today,” Ditzy winced at that, wondering if Raindrops had been scheduled for today. She didn’t want her friend to be chewed out if she didn’t have to be – but then again, if she had a job and she didn’t do it, then that would have to happen.
Ivory Scroll sighed. “No point. I’m not their boss. Weather patrol is run out of Cloudsdale, I’m basically just a glorified observer. And complaining to Cloudsdale doesn’t help because Rainbow Dash has more pull there than me, somehow.”
Ditzy considered. Political maneuvers were well outside her normal area of expertise, even small-town politics like this. She could offer a shoulder to cry on, give advice for planning parties, patch up spats between friends, but tell somepony how to navigate the quagmire that was modern governance? She was completely out of her league. Sometimes, one had to just accept that. She offered a helpless shrug to the mayor. “Well…” she said, “Good luck, I guess.”
The mayor grunted a little, though she did wave goodbye as Ditzy trotted out of her office and towards the town hall’s exit. Well, she had tried, at least.
Her official rounds for the day completed, Ditzy checked her mail bags and saw that the five remaining blue envelopes, along with her own already opened one, were still tucked safely inside the waterproofed container. Her first stop on this particular route was easy: The Residency of the Representative of the Night Court of Luna, located directly across from the town hall. As she trotted over there, she noticed another pony approaching it as well, wearing a rain cloak as sturdy as Ditzy’s own and with familiar orange tresses poking out from beneath her drawn hood. The other pony noticed her approach quickly enough, and smiled brightly as the two of them reached the front gate of the Residency together.
“Ditzy!” Carrot Top, farmer and Element of Generosity, said brightly. “How are you?”
Ditzy Doo offered a smile as she opened the front gate to the Residency. “Oh, you know,” the mail mare said. “I’ve been spreading good news and good advice all around Ponyville today. You?”
“Spa trip with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy,” Carrot Top said. “It turned out pretty well, actually…Fluttershy is going to try and make it a monthly thing, in fact!”
Ditzy beamed at that. “Great!” she exclaimed, as the two reached the door and opened it. “I’ve been trying for years to help that mare…so she’s happy?”
“Fluttershy is happy,” Carrot Top confirmed as they entered the Residency, drying their hooves on the mat before glancing into Trixie’s office, where there was a fifty-fifty chance of finding the blue unicorn. Instead, what the two found was not just Trixie, but Raindrops, Cheerilee, and Lyra as well, all of them surrounding a pile of candy and looking like they’d just diffused an incredibly awkward situation. “Oh…is everypony really here?”
“Saves me a few trips,” Ditzy said happily. “Huh…what’d we miss?”
The other four mares waved them inside the office once they’d taken off their rain cloaks. “A lot,” Trixie said. “It’s been…an eventful two minutes.”
“An eventful day,” Carrot Top corrected. “Why don’t you start from the top?”
---
I’m going to admit to not being very good at math. Somepony else can tell you what, on paper, the chances are of us six all ending up here, together, on a rainy day, out of all the ponies in Ponyville. It doesn’t really matter, though. What matters is that we are all here, now, right when we need to be. Not to fight monsters, not to make plans, not to do anything in particular but to simply be here, around each other.
We’re all here for each other. And we’re here for everypony else that needs us, too. We can’t always fix every problem, but we can try. And that’s all that can be asked of us.