//------------------------------// // Motherly Love // Story: Derpy Hooves: Vampire Slayer // by CountDerpy //------------------------------// Derpy flew happily towards the old broken down shack that Ponyville called a schoolhouse. It was her favorite time of day, a scenic flight on the way to pick up her little muffin from school. The path that she followed was lined with hundreds of very large and very old redwood trees. She bobbed and weaved through the thickest parts, her heightened senses picking up every little sound that nature had to offer. She could hear everything from the loud screech of an eagle to the quiet flutter of a monarch butterflies wing as she soared past. After several minutes of her relaxing flight, the schoolhouse came into view. It was in terrible condition compared to what it had been nearly 50 years ago. The rotted wood on the outside of the building was visible even beneath 6 coats of paint. The bell tower that stood on the top had collapsed months ago, the falling bell taking a good chunk out of the roof with it. Derpy landed outside the front door when a wave of children poured out the entrance like a tsunami. The fillies and colts were too excited to be leaving for summer vacation to care about anypony being trampled in their way, luckily for Derpy they all ran around her. She stood calmly and waited until the crowd thinned before she trotted into the school. The inside was not in need of the repairs that the outside was, but was still pretty bad for a building its age. The one room of the school was lined with everything from black boards and motivational posters, to hoof drawn pictures of the town’s only teacher, Cheerilee. “Ah, Derpy, you’re here.” A voice called out from the back of the room. A dark pink mare walked towards the desk where Derpy was standing. Her eyes where bright and cheery, reflecting the nature that life had bestowed upon her when she got her cutie mark. “I didn’t think you would be here right away.” “I had to pick up Dinky anyways, so I flew over as soon as I finished helping Rainbow Dash.” Derpy said with an odd grin on her face. “By the way, where is she?” “I told her that I and you had some personal business to talk about, so I sent her to go play on the playground until we finished.” Cheerilee said with a happy smile. “Ok, that’s fine with me.” Derpy replied as she pulled a small box out of her saddle bags. “Here is your package, Miss Cheerilee.” Cheerilee quickly grabbed the package and ripped open one end of it. She shook it violently until three bags of red liquid fell out of the side and landed in her hooves. She looked down at them. “Is this all that I get?” “Sorry, but you know there is a shortage of donors right now. You’re going to have to make do with a bag a week and get some pony to let you feed from them once.” Cheerilee groaned. “Come on, Derpy, there has to be more than just this. I mean how many others do you monitor and supply in this damn town!” “You, Lyra and I are the only ones, Cheerilee, and you know that well. I’m doing the best I can here, so you’re going to have to live with it until the next blood drive. “ Cheerilee groaned again. “Fine, I’ll see if Vinyl or Octavia will let me have a drink sometime here soon.” She placed two of the bags in a locked drawer of her desk and took off the cap of the third. She waited no time in bringing the pouch to her lips and greedily guzzling every last drop from it. In fact, it took her a little less than 15 seconds to drink the entire pint dry. She tossed the package over into a trashcan under her desk and kicked back in her chair, her eyes red and pupils dilated. “Wow that was some of the crappiest blood ever. Where the hell did that come from, some old dried up stallion or something?” Derpy shrugged and sat in the chair on the other side of the desk. “So, is there anything school related with Dinky I need to know?” “Yes, there are a few things that have been going on.” Cheerilee sat forward and tried her best to look professional, even though she was blood drunk. “She has gotten into three fights this week alone and it seems to be affecting her school work.” Derpy sighed. “Was she fighting with Diamond Tiara again?” Cheerilee nodded. “I have already had a talk with Filthy Rich, but he said that she won’t even listen to him. She definitely has not been taking it easy on Dinky.” “Maybe I should go have a talk with Mr. Rich later this evening, try and see if we can work something out to get Diamond to stop picking on my little muffin.” Derpy rubbed her hoof over her forehead. “And I will talk to Dinky about the fighting later.” “Dinky understands why she is fighting though, so just be gentle on her ok?” “Of course I will, I wouldn’t lay a hoof on her or even yell at her ever!” Derpy snapped “Derpy, calm yourself.” Cheerilee demanded. “All I am saying is that you should listen to Dinky’s side of the story before you scold her for this, if you even scold her at all.” Derpy nodded. “I will.” “Good.” Cheerilee pushed her hooves against the desk, sliding her rolling chair over to the window that was facing the playground. She carefully opened the broken glass window and poked her head outside. “Dinky, your mother is here to get you.” A small periwinkle unicorn with her mother’s mane looked over at Cheerilee from a swing set near the top of a small hill. She smiled at her teacher and called back to her. “Ok, Miss Cheerilee!” Cheerilee ducked back inside and looked over at Derpy. “So…have you told her yet?” Derpy looked over to the earth pony confused. “Told her what?” “You know…about what we are.” Derpy looked at her in shock. “Of course I haven’t told her, and until she is old enough to understand without fear it will stay that way. You can tell her about yourself whenever the buck you want to, but no pony besides me is going to tell her about me. I mean, do you know what that could do to a sensitive filly like Dinky!?” “Ok, Derpy, calm down! It was just a simple question. You don’t have to fly off the handle like that.” “I’m sorry, Cheerilee. It’s just…. You know how I am about Dinky.” Derpy had become the mother of a foal 4 years ago. She hadn’t the slightest idea at how she had gotten pregnant nor if she had ever done anything to get pregnant, but still she was happy. She carried her foal inside her for a long time, not knowing how long since time had become nothing to her. The only problem was, Dinky was born prematurely and spent a whole year of her life in a machine that kept her alive. That time was one of the darkest in Derpy’s 1450 years alive, not knowing if the next day would be the last one for Dinky or not. Eventually, Dinky was able to go home for the first time, but the doctors had told Derpy that she was sickly and frail, and that there was a good chance that she might never be able to use magic. Derpy broke down mentally around that time, she didn’t know how she was going to care for a magic-less unicorn filly, but somehow she had done it for 3 years, and she would continue to do it until the day that Dinky died. “I know Derpy, I know.” Cheerilee stood up just as the tiny unicorn ran inside and jumped up into her mother’s lap. “Mommy!” she giggled happily as she nuzzled against her mother’s stomach. Derpy couldn’t help but laugh. “You are so weird Dinky.” She said as she brushed her mane out of her face. “Mommy is weird too!” She giggled even more. “Derpy got up out of her chair and lifted Dinky onto her back laughing. “Come on you silly filly, let’s head home.” “Ok, mommy.” She held on tight to her mother’s back. “Bye Miss Cheerilee!” “Bye Dinky!” Cheerilee called out to her as Derpy took to the sky. She flew close to the ground and at a much slower pace than she had earlier. Dinky laughed and talked about her day the whole flight to the small house that they lived in on the north side of Ponyville. It wasn’t very impressive, but it had been enough for Derpy for centuries. “…and I saw this weird bug that had this large blue spot on its forehead, and I painted a picture of it and it looked more like a potato than a bug.” “That’s great, Dinky. I’m glad you had fun today.” Derpy unlocked the door and walked inside, nearly being trampled by Dinky, who launched herself from her mother’s head onto a large beanbag chair. “Yeah It was a fun day…..for the most part anyway.” Dinky’s demeanor changed at once. All the energy she had when they had gotten home seemed to have been sapped away from her like a ghost drawing energy from the world around it, and she was the battery drained. “So I heard.” Derpy said as she sat beside her daughter in the beanbag. “You want to tell me what happened?” Dinky sighed a bit. “… I was outside playing at recess, looking at that bug that I saw. It was beautiful and I had almost finished my picture of it….then Diamond tiara and her friends walked up. They were all calling me Dinky Doofus and a few other names. One of them picked up the bug wit h magic and killed it. I…I just got so mad and I….” “What did you do, Dinky?” Derpy said gently. “It’s ok; you’re not going to get in any trouble.” “I… I hit Diamond Tiara with a rock and we got into a fight. She kicked me in the face and then ripped out a chunk of my mane. Sweetie Belle’s sister was nice enough to repair it a bit so it wasn’t noticeable when she came to get her. She also ripped up my picture that I had worked so hard on. I tried to repaint it, but I couldn’t find another bug like that and it came out to look like….a blue potato. Then every pony in class started to laugh at me when I showed Doctor Whooves to them for show and tell.” Doctor Whooves was a doll Derpy had made for Dinky right after they came home from the hospital once. Derpy had to go away on some business and Dinky was too sick to go with her. She made the doll so that when Twilight was foal sitting her, she wouldn’t be lonely and upset. It had since gone everywhere that Dinky went. “Every pony?” Derpy asked “Well, not every pony, but most of them did.” Dinky sighed as she nuzzled up against her mother. Derpy wrapped her wing around her daughter, pulling her as close as she could. “Dinky, I know that it’s hard for you, but you are stronger than they are. You don’t have to fight to defend yourself.” She looked down at her. “You just have to remember that you’re special no matter what those other ponies say. Trust me; I had to go through the same thing when I was a filly too.” “Because of your eyes mommy?” Dinky said cautiously. Derpy nodded. “Among other things, but I always held my head up high through all the teasing and names and whatever other insults anypony threw at me. I know you can do the same, I mean, who is the only filly in the world who can eat an entire zap apple pie in less than a minute." Dinky giggled. "I am, mommy." "I know you are, Dinky." Derpy nuzzled her daughter a bit. "Now...how about I make us some dinner and a few muffins before bed time." Dinky wrapped her hooves around her mother's neck and gave her a small peck on the cheek. "Thanks mommy." "Your welcome, my little muffin."