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// Chapter 2: Muffin 
// Story: The wall-eyed mare 
// by Andrew Stillnight 
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Derpy was sat on her bedroom floor with a puzzle. Mummy had given her weirdly shaped blocks and a box to put them in, but no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t get the blocks to fit into the box. The box had a lot of funny holes in it, too. There was a square hole and a triangle hole. There was a star hole too! Derpy liked the holes. She liked to run her hoof around their edges and feel them.
And then there were the blocks. All sorts of long, weird-looking blocks. There was one that kind of looked like a long square. She tried to put it into the box, but no matter what she tried, it didn’t fit in any of the holes. She’d tried to put it in sideways and diagonally, but nothing worked. So Derpy didn’t play with the blocks anymore, they didn’t like her so she didn’t like them. The box was nice to her. The box didn’t try to make her think so hard. Derpy played with the box, just feeling the edges and seeing the shapes in her mind. She started with the round one – circle, she thought it was called. As she moved her hoof around, the circle started to take shape inside her head too. It was green on the inside and blue on the outside. When the circle was finished, she grabbed it with her mind and put it aside. 
She moved her hoof towards the next hole. Four lines, about equal in length with sharp corners. Derpy thought for a moment, but couldn’t think of the name for the hole so she just kept touching the edge some more to see it in her head. A bright spark drew the lines for her, and she connected them with her mind. The shape was yellow and brown with a pulsating red edge. She put it next to the circle and moved on to the next shape. 
This one consisted of three lines – two long ones and a shorter one. Derpy knew this was called a triangle. She felt around the edges again, and the triangle started taking shape in her mind too. The triangle was magnificent – instead of just being a single, flat colour, the triangle looked like a rainbow seen through a diamond. The edge constantly changed colours through the rainbow as well, but it was never the same as the inside of the triangle. She looked at it, intrigued. After a few seconds, she reached out to touch it. The second her hoof connected to the triangle, it exploded into a million tiny, razor sharp slivers of glass that flung at her head and hit her ear and it screeched and it hurt and it wouldn’t stop the hurting in her ears she couldn’t take it it hurt it hurt it hurt so bad why wouldn’t it stop? Derpy covered her ears with her hooves, trying as hard as she could to stop the screeching but it just kept going. She cried for what felt like hours and suddenly, the screeching was gone and she felt something warm holding her. She knew that smell – it was mommy’s smell. Derpy liked mommy’s smell. She smelled safe. She stopped crying.
“Hello mommy.” She said, but the words came out wrong once again.
“It’s alright, sweetie, you’re going to be okay. Mommy’s here, don’t worry.”
She heard what mommy said, but she had no idea what mommy was talking about. She wasn’t worried – how could she be worried when mommy held her? Mommy was silly like that. Derpy burrowed her muzzle into mommy’s coat and felt the night ponies gently tugging at her eyelids.


***

“I don’t know what to do, Cloudwatcher. It seems like she’s just getting worse every day.” Mommy said to the funny man.
“Yesterday she was just sitting there, just… touching the edges on the box when she completely freaked out because a dog was howling in the streets. She screamed like I’d never heard her scream before – I was so scared.”
Derpy didn’t understand what mommy was talking about now. She understood some words – Cloudwatcher, the funny man that came to talk to her sometimes. Dog, an animal mommy didn’t like. Scared. How Derpy felt all the time. The funny man said something, but it was too quiet for Derpy to hear. After that, he came towards her and squatted in front of her.
“Hey there, bubble butt.” He said. Bubble butt. That’s what the funny man always called her, because she had a hard time sitting still.
“Hey there, mister! How are you doing today? I’m doing great!” Derpy wanted to say. But again, the words played with her tongue, making them all jumbled so that they sounded like nonsense.
“Are you feeling okay?” he said. Derpy nodded – if she told him, the words would just play with her tongue again. 
“Would you like to play with the box, Derpy?” the funny man asked. Derpy nodded again. The funny man smiled.
“Alright then, I’ll be right back.” He said. He stood up, walked towards the door and disappeared. Derpy felt sad. She didn’t want the funny man to disappear. He was nice to her.
“Mommy?” she asked.
“Yes, sweetie?” her mother answered.
“Where did the funny man go?” she asked her. It sounded more like “where funny man”.
“Mister Cloudwatcher went to get your box. He’ll be back soon.”
“Oh.” Derpy said. She didn’t quite understand it, but she trusted her mother. She sat down and looked outside the window. A bird sat on the windowsill. It hopped around for a bit, turning its head fast, like birds do. It looked at Derpy. She looked back.
“Hello, mister bird.” She said. The bird didn’t say anything back. Rather, it just hopped around some more and flew away when the door opened again.
“Here you go, Derpy.” A voice said. Derpy thought for a second. That was the funny man’s voice! She turned around and saw the funny man holding the box with the weird-shaped blocks. He put it down in front of her, and took one of the blocks.
“See this, Derpy?” he asked her. Derpy nodded.
“Can you tell me what shape this is?”
Derpy looked at the block. It was green, with three edges. She held out her hoof, and the funny man gave it to her. She felt around the edges for a moment, and realized she was holding the triangle again.
“Triangle.” She told him.
“Very good, Derpy!” the funny man said happily.
“Now, can you tell me what this is?” he asked, as he gave her another block. Derpy felt the edges of the block again. This one was very strange. It had a lot of edges, and five sharp corners. Derpy ran her hoof around the edges. The shape started showing itself inside her head again. It looked very familiar, but Derpy couldn’t place it. Five sharp corners. A lot of edges. Five sharp corners with a lot of edges. Derpy thought and thought, but it was no good. And then, she realized where she’d seen it before. She held the block up to the window and stared outside for a second.
“Star.” She said with a big smile.
“Good job, Derpy! You found a new one!” the funny man said. Derpy smiled a lot that day.


***

Mommy had put Derpy on her back, and was walking her home. Derpy had found two new shapes today – star and square. Mommy sung a bit while she was walking, and Derpy felt fuzzy inside. She liked this a lot. Suddenly, something darted away from them and hid behind some trashcans. Derpy cocked her head and looked at the funny thing. She climbed off of her mothers’ back.
“Derpy? What are you doing, sweetie?” mommy asked. Derpy didn’t answer. Instead, she kept looking at the weird little fluffy ball. She walked closer to the trashcans and kneeled to see what it was. She reached out and took a hold of the furry ball. She held it to her chest, and felt its fast, jagged breath.
“Look, mommy.” She said, holding out the furry thing.
“Oh? You found a kitty, Derpy?” mommy asked. Derpy looked at the fluffy thing.
“Kitty?” she asked.
“That little thing you’re holding. That’s a kitty, Derpy.”
“Kitty…” she said, looking at it.
“Do you want to take it home, Derpy?” mommy asked her. Derpy looked at the warm fluffy ball. No, at the warm fluffy kitty. 
“Yes, I do.” She said.
“Okay then, give it to me a moment. I’ll see if it doesn’t belong to anypony else.”
Derpy held out the kitty and mommy took it. She looked at it for a while and handed it back to Derpy.
“Looks like it’s okay, sweetie.” She said. Derpy’s heart jumped.
“Would you like to give it a name?” asked mommy.
“A name?” Derpy asked. 
“Yes.” She said. Derpy thought very hard. She liked this fluffy kitty. It had the same colour as that thing mommy bakes that she liked very much. What was it called again? She thought some more, until her eyes lit up.
“Muffin.” Derpy said.
“I’ll call him Muffin.”