I: The Mirror
“Do you know what I used to do in Canterlot, when I wasn't studying?”
Sweat was gathered on Derpy's brow. From some unseen hiding place came the dragon's faint whimpering.
“I was a teacher's assistant. I graded papers.”
Twilight snorted, her nostrils inches from Derpy's face, causing the pegasus to blink reflexively. Moisture nestled on her eyelids. It stung.
“I saw the best that ponydom had to offer, and I saw the worst, Derpy.” A sort of granite had crept into her voice, which was now ominously low.
“I saw the worst.”
Derpy couldn't breathe. She wanted to scream. She wanted to catapult out the window and away from here, as far away as she could be, to a place where the ground would split and she could fly down, down, down to the utmost crevasse and nestle herself in its gloom, its impenetrable gloom that could hide--
“So I want you to know... that when I tell you that you are the most incompetent...” Twilight's voice was rising towards its inevitable crescendo. “ … Ineffectual...” Derpy's paralyzed muscles shifted now only to brace themselves. “... ABORTIVE PONY EVER TO SET HER HOOVES TO EQUESTRIAN SOIL, I AM NOT EMBROIDERING THE FACTS ! ! !”
Blood pounded through Derpy's skull. Her eyes were burning now, as a sweaty glaze rose endlessly from her fur. She ached to wipe them, but the magic held her down like a drug. Why is this happening to me, inaudible voices mused in her head. Are we going to die here? The wood was cool against her flanks.
“WHAT MAGAZINE IS THIS, DERPY?! WHAT IS DEPICTED ON ITS CHROMATIC, LASER-GLOSS COVER?!”
Derpy's tongue lolled out. The half-crumpled magazine suspended centimeters from her face seemed almost abstract to her now. She was able to gag slightly, but no sound came. The dragon's sobbing was reaching a fever pitch, now.
“IT IS A PICTURE OF A MULLET, FEATURED ON THE COVER OF MAN-MANE MONTHLY, THE MAGAZINE YOU DELIVERED TO ME THAT WAS NOT THE NEW SCROLLOMANCY RESEARCH I NEED FOR PRINCESS CELESTIA ! !”
Derpy's right eye swiveled. The room spun. Saliva pooled beneath her tongue. A single name adorned the subscription label. Slowly it came into focus.
Snips.
Oh no. Oh, no no no no...
“Gaze into this glossy mullet, Derpy...” Her voice had become a soft and profoundly disturbing whisper, hot against Derpy's ear.
She tried to press her eyes shut. The magic tugged them wide.
“Can you see the atrocity of your own existence reflected back at you?”
- - -
“It... it just'isnn' fair!”, Derpy murmured into the marble counter. “I’mean, just 'cuz shee'z the super-special miss... ponymagicwonderflanks!! Just cuzza that, she thing'z she can be a cranky-face smarty pony all-a day long and inn'a night time!”
“Another donut!” Pony Joe flinched as his marble counter shook beneath another impact from Derpy's hoof. He turned and gazed at Carrot Top with pleading eyes. She nodded slowly and swayed for a moment, her eyes seeming to contain infinite weariness.
“Derp, listen, ehm, mebbe that's enough for tonight.” Carrot laid a gentle hoof on her friend's shoulder. Her eyelids hung low and sedate. “Le’z give the donuts a... rest, yeah?”
“Nno!” The mailmare lunged away, her light, airy voice unsteady. The momentum caused her to stagger several steps before she was able to steer herself back around. “I'm gett'ng a waffle don'nunt b'cuz I'm Twi'li' Spargle and Ihm'a contr'rol feek!”
Carrot advanced on Derpy as slowly and carefully as her inebriation allowed, trying to anticipate the pony's lurching movements. “Derpy, cam-awn... R’member the last time we closed this place?” Through her own blurred vision, she eyed her friend with concern; frosting crusted beneath the pegasus' lower lip and her fur reeked of stale chocolate sauce.
Pony Joe shifted uncomfortably and glanced at the front window. “I gotta lock this place up. Mayor'll close me down if I serve after hours.”
“Derpy, we're goan' home!” Carrot sidled to her right, trying to back Derpy towards the door. “We can see what's in the fridge bu' we gottuhgo!”
“Please, Carrot...” Joe's voice fell sadly. “Don't make me put the hose on her again.”
“Yuh're not powning this hosy!” Suddenly agitated, Derpy leapt to the air and circled the room, skidding off walls and dislodging a mounted alligator head. “Fear tha muffinmancerrr!!”
“Buck it, Derpy! I cann'take yoo anywhere!” Carrot shouted as she flung a mug at the crazed pegasus before being forced to dive for cover as Derpy swooped in low.
“That's it! I'm callin' Cranky Face!”, intoned Pony Joe from somewhere under the counter.
“You get yer butt down here yoo flankh'rt bubbl'brain!” Carrot had mounted a table and struggled to keep her balance as she turned circles, screeching at Derpy and hurling plates and spoons at the airborne pony.
“Mm' gett'n d'zzzzy....”, droned Derpy as she kept looping, unable to keep from rolling wildly in one direction and the other. A stream of letters from her mailbag drifted behind her, bearing silent testament to the proceedings.
“We cann'ever juss go bowl'ng! Ya'r the woh-rst friend evar!!” Carrot lunged into the air and clapped her teeth down on Derpy's tail, swinging from her flank like a carrot-hued anchor.
“Thassit, I'hm leav'n!” The mailmare zoomed out the building's skylight, smacking Carrot against the ceiling as she did and successfully dislodging the pony. Her voice trailed behind her into the night. “Neith'r rain'nor shine'nor cold nor gloomy gloompants carrotface canna stop these swiff coury'ers...”
- - -
“An' whad'uz she know 'bout mail ennywayz... Nev'r felt th' strap of a mailbag weigh hev'y on'er flank...”
The Everfree forest was cold and suffocatingly dark that night, but Derpy barely noticed. Her wings exahusted, she staggered in fits and starts through the mud and dense underbrush.
“Pay 'tention Derpy! We needa find th' fridge! ...Or th' bed. Or th' mailblox uh wha' waz the question...”
The wind rushed through the trees and deafened her thoughts for a moment. Out of the quiet that followed, a cool, clear voice seemed to coalesce from the night air itself. She could just make it out...
“... Derpy ... Derpy...”
She stopped in her tracks and let a few instants go by. “ … H'lo? Anypony there?”
“... Come here, Derpy... This way...”
Derpy struggled to focus her impaired powers of reasoning. Someone was calling to her. She’d probably know who it was if she wasn’t so drunk. If she kept them waiting, they’d know how drunk she was. Better go answer.
“A t’ousand er’pologies miss, um...” Had the voice been discernibly female? “Fer the delays due ta the dist’rbances an’a... unferseen... compl’rcations...” She stopped. Which way had it come from?
“This way, Derpy...” She shuddered as though someone had slid a shard of ice along her spine. The voice was definitely closer. “There’s something I so want you to see...”
“Like I said befur... We ‘pologize for’a inconven’ence but I’m here now an’ I, um...” Adrenaline was beginning to counteract her inebriation. Some part of her knew that if she were sober, she’d be running for her life, but somehow that didn’t seem to matter now. A curtain of thick vines hung before her. She stepped through it.
“I br’ght yoo a letter... ?” Her voice fled her. She stood in a small grove, dimly lit by faint glowing orbs that floated lazily through the air, draping their surroundings in deep purple and vibrant green. It was warmer, here. Somewhere a chorus of cicadas chirped languidly. The grove was enclosed by all manner of flora and the canopy hid the stars from view, but the effect wasn’t claustrophobic. It was intimate, somehow.
“Come and see, Derpy. Come and look with me.” The voice was gentler than before, and drew Derpy’s attention to the center of the grove, where lay a rock formation - or was it carved that way? - in the shape of a small raised basin, only a little larger than a birdbath. The water inside it looked black, but the glowing orbs hung reflected in its surface.
“Um...” Derpy’s vision was clearer now, some subconscious function had willed her into a more lucid state. She very suddenly became aware of how scared she was. “Who’re you?”
The lights danced on the surface of the pool. Derpy rubbed her tired eyes. Had it rippled, just now? “I just want to be your friend, Derpy.” Yes, the water was rippling gently along with the sound. “I just want you to have what you deserve.”
Timidly, Derpy raised a forehoof and took a step toward the pool. She had to admit, despite the fear, something about the voice was so inviting, so... comforting. It felt like it understood, somehow. Understood everything. And that felt good. Good enough that it didn’t matter if none of that made sense. She took another step.
“What I... des’rve?”
“The world’s been unfair to you, Derpy. And unkind. But I don’t need to tell you that...” Slowly, an image coalesced in the water, currents of color and depth swirling together to create shape and motion. Was it... Cloudsdale? Yes, and there was a filly there. Gray flanks... Oh. It was her. Only younger, so much younger. It turned its head. A face she hadn’t seen in so long. Two little crossed eyes over a stubby filly nose.
Suddenly the placid expression shattered, the filly’s eyes darted towards something unseen, full of immediate fear, reflexive fear. A film of moisture was pooling on their surface.
The image moved. Two foals loomed over her, hovering. They gestured and laughed. Their lips moved. Derpy didn’t need to hear their voices to know what they were saying. She’d heard the taunt more times than perhaps any other phrase in her life. Wait, could that be true? Her throat clenched. It had to be. Emotion threatened to careen up into a sob that she quickly and habitually strangled.
“Oh, Derpy...” The voice shattered her resolve almost immediately. She pressed her eyes shut and turned her face to the ground and shook with that old, silent pain, more completely than she had since fillyhood. Hot, stinging tears drowned her vision.
Several moments went by before the torrent began to pass. She caught her breath in quick, staccato gasps and looked around. Was she still here? She’d almost forgotten.
“Derpy. Listen to me.” The voice again. It had waited patiently through all that, but now it was clearer. Firmer. It demanded her attention, now. She said nothing, but turned her gaze back to the pool. Standing over it, she was stunned to see her own reflection.
Oh, ponyfeathers... You’re such a mess, Derpy. Look at you. Leaves stuck to her tangled hair and chocolate still clung to her lip. She was aware again of her own spoiled aroma filling her nostrils. Her mailbag was a faded blue tatter clinging feebly to her shoulders, splattered with mud. Through it all she could see her crossed eyes staring back at her, the tired eyes of life-long grief.
“It doesn’t have to be this way, Derpy. It can be different.” Her image in the water dissipated like a whiff of smoke in the breeze. “I can help you make it different.”
For the first time in a while now, Derpy spoke. The fragile, desperate croak that emerged didn’t sound like her, but she knew somehow that it was. “How.”
“Tell me, Derpy,” the voice intoned, with great seriousness, “if you could live in your perfect world, what would it look like?”
Derpy stared at the pool in disbelief. The lump in her throat bulged again. “D’ya have to ask? Lookit me!” She implored the pool with a sudden, irrational desperation. “I just wanna be normal, I just wanna have straight eyes and be a normal pony and not some sideshow clownpony who drops ‘er letters in the...” She had to sniffle and fight back another surge of pain. “... In the mud.”
“Shh... Don’t cry, Derpy. I can make this world different. I can make a different world out of this one, one just for you. And you’ll have your eyes. You’ll have your beautiful eyes.” A pause. “But go on... You can have anything you want. Don’t you want more?”
The mailmare was still gaping. Surely none of this could be real... but it felt so close. Even if it was just a dream, shouldn’t she be allowed to have what she wanted, just once?
Just once?
Derpy swallowed the accumulated mucus in the back of her throat and searched herself. There was something lurking in there. Something hot and fresh and smoldering. Seizing on it, she allowed it to grow, to expand into her entire being. The impulse of that felt so good, such pure relief. It begged her to let it out.
“I wish...”
“... Yes?”
She bit her lower lip. Something felt wrong. Something elusive.
“Now, Derpy. You have to say it. Time is running out.”
Some little voice in her head was going hoarse from shouting at her, but she just couldn’t make out what it was saying.
“Now, Derpy! Say it! You have to say it now or you’ll have nothing!”
“I wish...” Her sense of judgement halted her for an instant.
She hurled it away and spoke with the molten clarity of anger. “I wish Twiligh’ Sparkle had never come to Ponyville.”
GRANTED.
The voice crashed through her head like a tsunami. It felt cold and suffocating and black and eternal. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came, her lungs had snapped shut empty. Her body, oh god, what was this feeling? Her body fought instinctively as her mind stumbled, unable to comprehend this unstoppable force, dragging her down, sucking her down through a straw to the bottom of the ocean, and she dared point one eye at it and saw the black water of the pool was bubbling and churning, desperate to have her in its depths, and she was still being tugged down by that invisible undertow, too strong to fight... please, no, not down there, please, not there, no, anywhere but there, please, no... please... no... please...