//------------------------------// // 32: Derpyland // Story: Lyra's Human 2: Derpy's Human // by pjabrony //------------------------------// Derpy lay awake in bed, watching the hands of the clock go round. With her head tilted on the pillow, she thought for a moment that it was 6:15, but then the wrong hand moved and she realized that it was 3:30. She rolled over and saw her cat Muffinhead looking at her. “You think that Karyn would be mad if I went to Earth this early?” “Meow.” “Yeah, me too. You think there’s any chance that she’s awake too, and hoping that I would arrive early so that we could both deal with our insomnia together?” “Meow.” “Yeah, me neither.” She tossed and turned for another twenty minutes, then lit the candle next to her bed and read for an hour. It occurred to her that even if she fell asleep right then, she might only get two more hours sleep, which wouldn’t do much. And it would probably take some time to get to sleep, which would cut into it. Then she thought that she might sleep in and go to Karyn’s in the afternoon, but couldn’t do that to her friend. The first rays of the morning sun streaked in through Derpy’s window and lit on her eye. She groaned, “Oh, really, Princess Celestia? You couldn’t have let us all sleep for five minutes more? Sure, all the continents would probably fly off into space and the oceans would boil and Equestria would burn to a cinder, but I’m tired!” She staggered to her hooves and trotted downstairs. She looked at her coffee pot and her oven, but decided that what she really wanted to do was to just get to Earth already. Ducking in to the bathroom, she gave her mane a quick brush, threw on her saddlebags, and activated her spell. By contrast, Karyn was the epitome of bubbly and cheerful. She was looking bright-eyed and was practically dancing around the room. Throwing her arms around Derpy’s neck, she gave her a big kiss. “Ugh, don’t smack your lips so loudly.” “What’s wrong with you?” asked Karyn. “Did you stay up all night with Berry Punch or something?” “A couple of days ago, but what does that have to do with anything? All we did was play board games.” “No, I meant did you go on a bender? Get tight? Go three sheets to the wind?” Derpy put her hooves on the sides of her head and shook it back and forth. “Stop! I can’t handle euphemisms this early in the morning.” The two friends’ moods started to equalize. Karyn calmed down and Derpy focused enough to talk about it. “I just couldn’t get any sleep last night. And I really wanted to. I hadn’t stayed up too late, despite spending some time with friends, but I went to bed early so that I would have that refreshed feeling. You know that one? Where you sleep for like ten hours and then you’re still kinda tired but you just feel so good?” “Yeah, but you can’t plan to make it happen. You just have to get lucky.” Derpy nodded for about thirty seconds before coming back to reality. “I guess so. Anyway, you’re perky this morning. How did you do it?” “I don’t know. In the same way, sometimes you’re just full of energy. That’s how I am today. I could do anything. The sun’s up, the air’s clean, my best friend’s here. . . “ “I guess your room is just the happiest place on Earth.” Karyn chuckled. “Well, it’s no Disneyland, but” Derpy held up a hoof. “Hang on. I may be bleary-eyed and ready to collapse, but I know a new word when I hear it. What land?” “Disneyland. It’s an amusement park.” Derpy tilted her head in the gesture that Karyn had come to understand meant that she wanted more information. She went over to her computer and searched for some pictures. “That castle looks a little like Canterlot!” said Derpy. “Very little. No one lives in there.” “Huh? What’s the point of having a big castle without a princess to live in it?” “There kind of is a princess, but it’s just a made-up one. She’s not real like Princess Celestia or Princess Luna.” Karyn winced a little as she realized that most other humans thought they were made-up as well. “I don’t get it. You’re saying that there aren’t any human princesses? I know that the sun rises on its own here.” “One question at a time, Derpy, or we’ll just get confused. OK?” Derpy folded her wings and looked attentive. “Now. We have human royal families, but for the most part they’re just figureheads. A few do have power, but that’s a little anachronistic. They might have princesses, but they never rule. If they get in charge, they become queens. “But, since everyone loves princesses as little girls, Disney, which makes movies, put together a lot of them with princesses instead of queens. Then they built this park where kids and their parents can go pretend that the princesses are real. With me so far?” Derpy nodded. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been there,” said Karyn. “But when you’re a kid, having your parents take you is like the most fun thing you could ever anticipate. It’s only once you get there that you have to deal with things like long lines, and the fact that it might rain.” “And the whole thing is done in Canterlot-style architecture?” “No, only one part. See, the land is divided up into sub-lands, and some of them are styled like Appleloosa, this one like Canterlot, one of them is like a Daring Do novel, and another. . .” Karyn paused, trying to think of how to describe it. “Go on.” “Back when the park was built, there was a lot of popular belief that the future would be all gleaming metal and plastic, where all the fonts had curves and there was space travel and lots of that. Well, they built a land around it.” “What’s the big deal about space travel? Princess Luna lived on the moon for a thousand years.” asked Derpy. “And ponies say that my head’s in space all the time.” “Well, they shouldn’t. So those four are the main sections of the park. Then there’s Main Street USA, but that’s just shops and eateries. Parents pay attention to that, but not kids.” “And you’ve been there?” Karyn cast her memory back. She had taken two trips, one with only her father when she wasn’t tall enough to go on all the rides, and the second time with both her parents when she had remembered everything. “I have. But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that when you can’t go.” “Hmm. As may be, tell me the story.” She leaned in the chair and reminisced. “I’m probably conflating both times I went, but you line up at the beginning of the day with a huge crowd and the characters come out. The princesses, yes, and that’s who I was looking at, but there are also people dressed up as talking mice, ducks, and dogs. No ponies, for some reason. “We go in and veer to the left. The first ride is a cruise and it’s more about comedy than the fun of the boat ride. Oh! I should tell you this. The whole place is so clean. They have people walking around picking up any trash and putting it in the bins, and they don’t have bags in them to overflow. The bins are themed, too, and in Adventureland, which is the one like the Daring Do books, they’re painted to look like bamboo.” Derpy laughed. “The thing you remember most is the garbage bins?” “Just first, not most. Anyway, the next ride is also on a boat, and it’s themed around pirates. They made a movie out of the ride, and I haven’t seen how they changed it since. Now, the problem is that there are a lot of lines. Sometimes you might have to wait for up to an hour or more!” Derpy steamed a little inside at the vagueness of Karyn’s sentence, but she knew that nopony likes a grammar enforcer, so she held her tongue. “We moved on quickly to Frontierland, that’s the one like Appleloosa. What I remember there is that they sold these big turkey legs covered in sauce. It was grotesque, watching people eat those things. That land had one good ride, but we didn’t go on it.” “Then how do you know it was good?” “Well, it was a coaster, as opposed to a theme ride or a boat ride,” said Karyn. Derpy looked as if she was going to ask another question, but Karyn continued. “I think it might have been broken. Anyway, so we went to the castle and had lunch there. My father made reservations and I got to wear a crown just like I was a princess too!” “I know a little about what that’s like.” “Right, but this wasn’t the worry of being an actual princess with responsibilities, just the fun parts. What I remember about that was the drinking goblet, that was probably just aluminum, but made to look like it was pewter.” “What did you have to drink?” asked Derpy. “I couldn’t tell you. I was very young, so I’m giving you what I remember. Anyway, more rides, and now it’s getting toward the afternoon, so we took the skyride. Just a little car suspended from a cable, but you’re in the air and you can see the whole park. You really don’t know how lucky you are to be able to fly. I think every human at some point wishes she had wings.” “Go on with the story.” Karyn smiled as she brought her tale to its climax. “All right, so there we are, in the cable car, and I can see it in the distance, the big round dome with the spike pointing out of it. That’s what I’ve been psyched for the whole time. The best ride in the park: Space Mountain. The only real roller coaster.” “You said that before. What’s a roller coaster?” “What’s a—? OK, well, it’s like a train, but for fun.” “We always have fun on the train.” “No, it’s the motion of the train specifically. Because it goes up and down really fast and around curves and sometimes upside-down.” “Upside-down? But you’d fall! Watch.” Derpy took off and did a backward roll in the air, then closed her wings and collapsed face-first on the bed. “See?” “Right, but don’t stop in the middle. Keep going and complete the roll. These coasters go fast and they test them. OK, so, we can see Space Mountain, which is not only a roller coaster but it’s indoors too, which is doubly cool. But of course my father still wants to build the excitement, so first we have to go on all the other boring rides like the Carousel of Progress, where you just sit there and watch these dioramas of people throughout history. Finally, he says we can go, but it’s the peak time, right before dinner, so there’s this huge line going out the door. Well, we decide to go and a soda to have something to do before we get on the line. We buy the drinks and go back, and the line is gone! We never figured out why, but a lot of people must have either given up or gotten on the ride while we stepped away. We had to throw away the drinks because you weren’t allowed to take them inside. “Once we got in the building, the line started up again, but it was short and went quickly. Soon enough we were strapping in and off we went.” Derpy waited a moment, but Karyn didn’t seem to be continuing the story. “And then?” “Well, you can’t really describe a roller coaster, but it was every bit as awesome as I’d hoped it would be. That feeling of free fall is the best.” “OK, so what happened after that?” “I think there were a couple more rides, but I’d had enough. We all gathered round a big lake and watched the fireworks show. They have one every night. I didn’t make it through without falling asleep though.” Derpy closed her eyes and tried to envision all the parts of Karyn’s story and what the place she had described was like. They had many fairs and events in Equestria, but no one specific place set out just for entertainment. She opened her eyes and pounded her hoof. “OK, I’m sold. Let’s go.” “Go? Where?” “To Disneyland, of course.” Karyn sighed to herself. She should have seen this coming. “Listen, Derpy, I know how you get. You put on a puss face and you act as if we’re going anyway, and I go along because it’s fun. But in the first place getting to Disneyland would be a big project, and in the second there’s no way of doing all the rides without every human there finding out that you exist.” Derpy just stared at Karyn with her mouth open. “Don’t do that! I know you think that by saying nothing that we’ll find ourselves on a plane again halfway to Anaheim talking about the fun we’re going to have and you asking me about our hotel reservations, but it’s not happening. Admit it, that’s what you were thinking.” “Well, yeah, it kinda was. Things like that always work out for us, don’t they?” Karyn tempered her mood a little. “Yeah, but this time it’s just not feasible. I’m sorry.” “Aww.” Derpy kicked at the carpet with a hoof, then picked her head up and said, “What if we designed a spell to—“ “No.” She trotted toward the window. “If we had Dinky shrink us down to—“ “No.” She looked outside toward the west. “If we asked—“ “No! I can’t say this strongly enough! We can’t go to Disneyland. Believe me, I wish we could. Because it is a happy place to be. But part of the reason that it’s happy is that it’s so controlled. The people who run the park don’t allow anything in that they don’t want. Even if I took my Bluetooth in and talked to you, someone would probably see and hear, and they’d wonder what I was doing. You’re on camera all the time. There’s no privacy. They can search you whenever they want.” Derpy stopped pouting. “All right. I’ll stop asking. For real. I just thought that if the place was that cool, that they might be cool with me being there.” The rest of the day was uneventful. They watched videos on the computer and Karyn played some soft music. After lunch, Derpy listened to it and fell asleep. Karyn dragged her onto the bed and covered her with an extra blanket she had. As she watched Derpy’s chest rise and fall, and saw the fretful look on her face, Karyn thought about the conversation she had just had. It hurt her to disappoint her friend, who after all just wanted to know as much as she could about the world she was visiting. If there were any magical means that Karyn could think of to get Derpy into Disneyland, she would have. But, even racking her brain, she could come up with nothing. “Well, maybe there isn’t a magical way, but how about a human way?” she said to herself. She was still stymied on Disneyland itself, but she might be able to bring Derpy to a different amusement park. There was a local one halfway between the university and Karyn’s home that, while not as opulent as a major theme park, had rides. She picked up the phone. “No, it’s not a group rate exactly I’m looking for,” she said, trying to keep her voice low enough to not wake up Derpy. “In fact I’d be willing to pay extra for what I’m asking.” When Derpy came to, she smacked her tongue and wiped the drool off her cheek. “I’m so sorry!” she said. “It’s just that the music was so nice and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.” “Don’t worry about it. If you want to sleep, it’s fine by me. In fact, you should rest up because you’re not going home at sunset today.” “What?! Why? Don’t tell me the return spell is malfunctioning again!” Karyn grinned. “No, it’s not that. You and I have a date with a roller coaster.” ****************************************** As they drove toward the park, Derpy asked, “How in Equestria did you manage this?” “Not through Equestrian means, believe me. Good old-fashioned money. I offered them a quasi-bribe. I pay triple for a ticket in, and I go on one ride after the park is closed.” “They didn’t ask why?” Karyn waved her hand. “They did, but I just told them that I really hate lines. They probably think I’m drunk or something and aren’t expecting me to show.” “You didn’t have to do this for me. And I know how tight money is with you anyway.” “I wanted to. But listen. You’ve got to be extra careful. You’ll be invisible, but you’ve got to strap in as unobtrusively as possible, and be quiet too. There won’t be anyone else around, so if the ride operator hears voices, he’ll get suspicious.” When they reached the park, it certainly wasn’t the pristine land that Karyn had described, but the lights were on and the last of the guests were filing to their cars. Karyn talked to the ticket-taker and the ride attendant, and a few minutes later, she and Derpy found themselves being strapped in to the front row of a car. The roller coaster was not a fancy modern one. The track was made of wood, and the car rattled as it left the starting area. They slowly pulled out and around a curve, then were dragged up to the highest part of the structure by a chain. As soon as it reached a peak, the car dipped and came back up. In a whisper, Derpy said, “That wasn’t so bad.” The car went around another curve and was still moving slowly. From her seat, Derpy peered out and didn’t see any track below her. The reason became clear a second later as the bottom dropped out from under her. Derpy was used to being in the air, but what was new about this sensation was the vibration as the car came back up and shuddered around a curve. The g-force she felt on the left turn was amplified as she spread her invisible wings and felt the wind on them. Around they went and came to the last bump. The car slowed and they pulled back into the starting gate. Karyn thanked the attendant and they went back to the car, Derpy not trusting her hooves and staying airborne. Once they were ensconced in the quiet safety of the car, Karyn slipped on her Bluetooth and they started talking. “Well, that’s a roller coaster. Not quite Disneyland, but that’s what I enjoyed.” Derpy said nothing for a moment, and Karyn was worried for a moment that Derpy didn’t enjoy it, or was even hurt. But then she said, “That was awesome!” “You liked it, huh?” “It was one of the most fun things. Not all of it, just that one part.” “I know what you mean,” said Karyn. “That big drop that you weren’t expecting, right?” “No, that wasn’t the important part.” “Then what was it? The fake-out drop?” “No, the first part, where we were pulled up by the chain.” Karyn looked at the empty seat next to her. “Oh, yeah,” said Derpy. “Because all the time we were going up, I knew that there was going to be a drop at the end, but just being pointed at the sky was cool. I never fly at that angle.” “I’m glad you could experience it, even if I couldn’t take you to Disneyland.” Derpy was silent until they were back at the dorm. Sitting on the bed, she said, “Don’t worry about the other park. It was more than enough to have fun with you, and even more than more than enough to hear your story. It was like I was there with you, going through all those lands and being on the rides.” “That’s very nice, but I’m not that good a storyteller.” “Maybe I just have a good imagination then.” “That’s definitely true.” Karyn went over to her computer and closed the window that still had the pictures of Disneyland on it. “Speaking of which. . . “ said Derpy, causing Karyn to look at her. “Yes?” “Well, I was thinking about the whole atmosphere of that kind of park. Whether it’s clean and sunny like what you showed me, or simple and quiet like the park we just went to, rides and games and such are a lot of fun. And it occurred to me that I know somepony who’d be awfully interested in that sort of thing: Pinkie Pie. “I’m going to tell her all about what we did here. Maybe she’ll build her own theme park in Equestria, or something like that.” Karyn wondered if she had created a monster. “I’m going to write to her as soon as I get home!” said Derpy, already preparing her return spell. “That’s fine. Just tell her to keep on her side of the wall.”