We're Gonna Get There Soon

by Cranberry Muffin


Speak

It was a good morning, Derpy thought to herself as she looked about the empty schoolroom.

She had answered questions for a solid fifteen minutes after wrapping up her story. And though there was the occasional question about her parents or the weather factory, the foals were predictably clamoring to hear more about Surprise. She answered their questions as best she could –though some of them were things she had no clue about, as she hadn’t spent as much time with Surprise after leaving Cloudsdale as she once had- which of course only lead to more questions, until finally Cheerilee dismissed them for recess, shooing them out the door.

“Thanks so much for coming,” Cheerilee smiled, already halfway out the door herself, hurrying to keep an eye on her rambunctious students, “You did great!”

And that left Derpy and Rumble alone in the room.

“You weren’t great…” Rumble was still wriggling with excitement, his little rump waggling, tail swishing behind him, “You were awesome! And look how everypony listened to you! I knew you could do it!”

And then he leapt at her in one of those over-exuberant hugs, knocking her off balance and into Cheerilee’s desk in the process. She grunted as she hit the desk’s wooden side, one foreleg shooting out to steady the both of them. “Thanks, Rumble.” Despite the awkwardness of being slumped against the cool wood with the eager colt practically climbing up her, she smiled, giving him an affectionate squeeze, “I don’t think I would have been brave enough to talk to everypony if it weren’t for you believing in me.”

A face splitting grin tugged at Rumble’s mouth and he hugged her again, then bounced towards the door, wings fluttering. “I gotta go talk to everypony, now! And tell Tornado Bolt ‘told you so’!”

And with that…He was gone.

Derpy stood up and dusted herself off, giving her wings a ruffle and folding them neatly at her sides. She shook her head a little, a small smile on her face. Rumble was Rumble; he would always be himself and hopefully always do everything with great enthusiasm. It was part of what made him so adorable.

She started out the door and into the sunshine, tilting her head towards its warmth as she trotted down the path from the school. She had done it; she had spoken about herself without sounding like an idiot…And in front of a crowd, no less. It didn’t matter that they were just children; she knew that in many ways, foals were even more judgmental that adults. And yet…they had liked her story.

They had liked her.

And perhaps they would go home and talk about her. Perhaps they would tell their parents and the other grown ponies would somehow understand. Perhaps things would get better for her, if more ponies understood her. She had a hard time speaking in front of others about important things, especially around other ponies her own age or older. Her parents and their friends had left her so broken in that regard that she was nearly incapable of discussing deep feelings with anypony she didn’t know well.

She didn’t think she would ever be able to speak so candidly in front of a group of her peers, but the day had been a step in the right direction.

A gentle tug on her tail drew Derpy from her thoughts and she turned, bewildered, to find a petite unicorn filly standing behind her, a bit of her tail held loosely in the foal’s mouth.

This filly must have been part of the class –they were still in the schoolyard- though Derpy hadn’t remembered noticing her in the classroom. She was small, though, and it was entirely possible that she had simply escaped the older pony’s unreliable vision due to her small stature.

She was a cute little thing, with wide, guileless eyes in almost the same shade of gold as Derpy’s. Her coat was a muted greyish-purple, fuzzy and fine. Her mane and tail were the same straw color as the pegasus’, though they were thick, her short-cropped mane bushy, her tail long and unruly.

When Derpy stopped and looked at her, she smiled shyly at the sky, releasing the mare’s tail from her grasp.

“Hi.” Derpy smiled kindly, sitting in the grass near the filly, “Did you want to ask a question or something?”

The small pony shook her head, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. Then, still smiling, she lit her tiny horn and produced a paper folded neatly into eights from somewhere in her mane. She floated the paper through the empty space between them, dangling it in front of Derpy’s good eye, clearly enticing the mare to take it.

For a moment, Derpy did nothing. Then she blinked, glancing over at the filly, who furrowed her brow, once again offering the paper, this time forcing it right against the tip of her muzzle. The whole time, the small unicorn had been gazing at some point above Derpy’s head, as if incapable of making eye contact, despite the fact she was being kind of pushy about the paper.

Seeing no other alternative than to actually take the paper, Derpy reached for it gingerly, removing it from the unicorn’s golden magic. She started to unfold it, but the filly shook her head, holding up a hoof as if telling her to wait.

Then, with her gaze still slanted to the side, she took a couple tightly controlled steps closer, until her small shoulder was brushing against Derpy’s left leg. She beckoned the older pony closer and Derpy obliged, inclining her head in the filly’s direction.

“Thank you…” A tiny voice came right by her ear, the filly’s warm breath tickling across her cheek, and then in a pop of magic, she was gone, transported to some other part of the schoolyard, and Derpy was left alone, holding the folded note.

She blinked in confusion a couple times; what had just happened? That was the strangest foal she’d ever encountered.

Glancing about her –the filly was nowhere to be seen- she looked down at the note in her hooves, turning it over a few times. It was folded neatly, the creases crisp, and one side had her name printed on it in softy, curvy letters.

Giving one last glance around the schoolyard, Derpy began unfolding the note, smoothing it carefully atop the grass.

The paper contained a letter, written in the same gentle, loopy pen as her name on the outer corner.

Dear Miss Hooves, it began…

I wanted to thank you sincerely for coming to speak to the other schoolponies and I. Your story was very interesting and enjoyable and I found you to be incredibly brave. Speaking in front of other ponies is a very frightening prospect for me and I can’t even begin to fathom how you found the nerve to do so.

I wanted also to tell you that I too am teased by my peers. It started on the first day of the school year, when somepony tripped over my tail. It was Tornado Bolt, the filly sitting in the back next to Rainy Feather; the filly who said she would rather have ‘stuff’ than loving parents. She felt that it was my fault that she was not looking where she was going –I think she tried to blame me to keep herself from looking stupid.

But whatever the reason, she began calling me names and saying that I must be related to you, to be so clumsy and stupid. And I am clumsy, sometimes, though that’s due to the fact that I have a lot of magic and very little control over it, since I have not yet attended magic school. In any case, I have no idea why she dislikes you so much, but I suspect it was due to our similar coat and mane colors that she decided to attack me by insinuating I must be just like you. Tornado Bolt likes causing trouble and the other bullies feed off her negative attitude. It wasn’t long before they were calling me all kinds of names and attempting to insult the both of us.

But after today, with how courageous you were, I wanted to tell you that I would not be ashamed, if we were really related. I would be honored to call a fine mare like yourself family and I hope that I someday also have the confidence to stand up to the world and show everypony who I really am.

Thank you again.

Sincerely,
Dinky Doo

Huh.

Derpy read and reread the letter several times, trying and failing to make sense of it.

She was assuming the filly who’d given it to her was the pony who’d written the letter; it made sense, given the letter’s writer had said they looked alike and the filly certainly bore a resemblance to her. But the letter itself was very eloquent and mature, with some words Derpy had stumbled over before pulling their meaning from the context in which they were used.

It was a very curious letter, and the grey mare had no clue what to make of it.

“Derpy…” Cheerilee had suddenly appeared by her side, startling her from her jumbled thoughts.

She looked up from the paper at the schoolteacher. Cheerilee was frowning slightly, her brows drawn. She looked troubled, though Derpy couldn’t really guess at why.

“Did Dinky Doo speak to you, Derpy?” Cheerilee asked, her darkly serious gaze never leaving the other mare’s face. Her green eyes were lit with concern, though they displayed a hint of curiosity as well.

“Um…” In light of the other pony’s clear unease, Derpy wasn’t sure what the right answer was. She was, of course, an honest pony, but she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d done something wrong by talking to that filly. “Yes?”

“She did?!” Cheerilee didn’t even bother attempting to hide her shock. Her eyes widened, her mouth falling open in complete and utter astonishment. “Derpy, that’s huge!

“It…It is?” The pegasus blinked, wholly confused and having absolutely no idea what was going on. The letter had said that its writer had a difficult time speaking to other ponies, but could overcoming shyness really be a reason for the teacher to react in such a dramatic fashion? “…Why?”

Cheerilee glanced about, spotting Dinky off in some remote corner of the playground, where she was alone, lifting and sorting rocks with her magic, lining them in precise rows of ascending size. “Dinky is…She’s kind of special.” The teacher began slowly, “She’s very bright, almost frighteningly so. But in the entire time she’s attended this school, she’s never spoken a word to anypony. Not to me, not to another student, not to her father on the occasion he comes to pick her up…He insists she can speak and that she does so at home, but I’ve never heard her voice.”

Cheerilee sighed, shaking her head sadly, “It makes the other little ponies…wary of her, I suppose. She’s friendly in her own odd way, and always curious and lively, but she doesn’t seem to know how to interact with others well. She never looks right at anypony. She rarely laughs, though she smiles often, and I’ve never seen her cry, either. Her…uniqueness hasn’t left her very popular with the other schoolponies and she spends most of her time alone.”

Derpy’s eyes widened as what the other mare was saying sunk in and comprehension dawned.

That filly –Dinky Doo- never spoke. Not to anypony. And while she had only uttered two wavering words close to Derpy’s ear –had she really even spoken them, or was Derpy just imagining things?- it was two more words than she’d ever spoken to another pony.

Why had she chosen to open up to Derpy, of all ponies? It didn’t matter that it had been only those two little words and the strangely-written letter, it was enough to leave the mare wondering just what she had done, to make her worthy of words in the filly’s eyes. Because honestly, she had just talked and that was all. What she had spoken of was meaningful to her, but she didn’t see how it could have possibly been enough to make that little filly speak.

“What did she say to you?” Cheerilee prompted, nudging the other pony gently with her hoof. Derpy looked as if her mind was blown; as if she were paralyzed by surprise and she couldn’t regain control of her body.

In a way, the teacher could understand. Dinky had been part of her class for over two years and in that time, she had never made a single sound. She answered questions often enough, but did so by handing Cheerilee notes or scrawling her answers on the chalkboard. She spoke with her body, through gestures and facial expressions, though she rarely made direct eye contact. She was an intriguing little creature, full of knowledge and secrets, all locked in her silent mind, and Cheerilee had always hoped to find a way to coax her out to the land of everypony else.

If she had been able to do it, she would have been just as stunned as Derpy. Probably even more so, after having worked with the filly for over two years.

“Just…‘thank you’.” When Derpy finally managed to speak, she sounded nothing short of puzzled, “And she gave me this.” She indicated the note, offering it to Cheerilee, “And I guess, um, it makes more sense, now that you kinda explained about her…”

Cheerilee took the letter, green gaze scanning over Dinky’s careful script. It was written with the same careful consideration for vocabulary and spelling as all of Dinky’s assignments, each letter neat and precise.

It was also positively heartbreaking.

“I…” Cheerilee wasn’t sure what to say. She knew things were tough for Dinky; the little filly had such a difficult time with social interaction, as well as limited control over the astounding magic housed in her tiny body. The teacher had seen other foals pushing the unicorn around, openly laughing at her, and generally being cruel in that special way only children could. “I suppose I’ll have to have another conference with her father. I want to help her and I certainly want this to be a safe learning environment for her…”

Derpy watched Cheerilee’s face with her stronger eye, easily recognizing the distress in the teacher’s expression. “Maybe, um…” She knew what she wanted to say, but not really how to say it. And though she was forming some sort of tentative friendship with Cheerilee, would the other mare take her seriously? “Maybe I can, you know, try talking to her again, next time I see her. You know…to see if she’ll talk to me more. So I can…help?”

Their gazes met and the two mares looked at one another, Derpy’s eyes for once both focused on Cheerilee’s face. She wasn’t sure what the other pony was thinking, but she hoped that whatever response the other mare had, it would be a positive one. She didn’t want any other filly to feel as sad and alone as she had and even if she wasn’t a natural with children…She wanted to try.

There was a moment of silence between then, then Cheerilee smiled. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”