Derpy’s life had always been one of second chances. She could still recall the first time it happened, when she was just a filly.
It was a typical summer weekend filled with sunshine, when her mother would bake a batch of her favorite blueberry muffins. That day, she was sitting at the kitchen table, drawing a picture of her mom as she went about the kitchen. The scene was still imprinted firmly in her memory—the image of her stick-pony drawing; the cool breeze coming in through the open window, mingling with the smell of blueberries and flour; the feeling of giddy excitement as the kitchen timer went off, signaling the impending arrival of muffins. Tendrils of steam escaped the open door of the oven as her mother carefully removed a tray of freshly baked muffins. She balanced the tray on her back and walked toward Derpy with a loving smile.
Then she tripped.
Time seemed to creep forward slowly as Derpy watched the muffins catapult into the air. Her mother’s legs slid out from under her, propelling her forward head-first. With a sharp crack, her mother’s head impacted the edge of the table, leaving behind a dark red stain as her body fell limp to the floor. Muffins fell around Derpy as she stared open-mouthed at the blood pooling on the floor. Then all at once, her dread, fear, and shock found a voice and she let loose a screeching wail with such ferocity that it burned her throat. That was when things began to happen…backwards.
The blood disappeared as her mother’s head rose from the floor and angled towards the table, ricocheting off the edge and sending her entire body backwards into the air. The muffins arced back into the air as well, plopping one by one back into the cup-shaped indents of the tray, which was itself leaping off the floor. Just as her mother landed on all fours, the tray settled on her back and re-balanced itself. Her mother took a few steps backwards and slowed to a halt, freezing for a few seconds before resuming her forward walk towards Derpy. In that instant Derpy shouted and ran to hug her mother, knocking over the tray of muffins in the process. Her mother scolded her briefly, but relented when Depry wouldn’t stop crying. Instead, she just gave Derpy a big hug and whispered words of comfort into her ears.
After the muffins were picked up from the floor, her mother gave a cry a surprise. “Derpy, what happened to your eyes?” She gasped. “And when did you get your cutie mark?”
Ever since that day, only Derpy ever knew the true horrors of the things that could have been, and only she knew the true meaning of the things that made her what she was. Her cutie mark was seven bubbles, for the seven seconds in time she could alter in the immediate past. As far as her crossed eyes, they were not the result of any visual impairment; she could see clear as day—only one eye looked to the present and the other looked towards the past.
…
Derpy found her existence was oftentimes a lonely one. Things would happen before her, and moments later they would undo themselves along with every memory or mention of them aside from her own. The wiping away of the evidence was so complete that sometimes even she doubted that she had ever witnessed an alternate future. It took her many long years to adjust to the new world that her talent presented to her, but she knew from the very beginning that she had something remarkable. It was only shortly after the discovery that she swore she would master her ability for the benefit of all ponykind.
Early on she had learned the capabilities and limitations of her time-shifting. She quickly discovered that it could be triggered inadvertently in her greatest moments of rage and fear, so she took special care to keep a clear head (and a general mood of cheer) at all times. When attempting to use her ability at will, it took incredible concentration to precisely time it. In either case, use of her ability left her exhausted, and came with a disorientation that could only be described as edging towards insanity. It was one of the greatest challenges for her to come to terms with the fact that what others observed and what she observed were two wholly different things.
As she grew up, and used her ability with increasing skill, she kept track of all the possible futures that she had averted. Slowly, in that diary, she could see some patterns emerging. It appeared that she did not have complete freedom in her alteration of the timeline, but that she could only shift the chaos from one form to another. If she saved somepony from injury, there would still be an accident, though perhaps nopony would be hurt. To others, it seemed that she was always at the center of these mishaps, and when combined with the appearance of her offset eyes, she found herself quickly labeled a klutz. That could not be farther from the truth, as she was always carefully watching the world around her, ready to use her gift to help someone in need.
Accidents aside, her eyes had earned her much teasing and name calling as she grew up, but that never bothered her. What really proved to be a burden was the knowledge of the events that could have been. It was as if she was privy to the darkest secrets of the universe that nopony had the right to know, and she could not even begin to talk about it with other ponies. She had tried that a few times in her youth, and had quickly learned that even friends could only believe so much.
(Epilogue)
Derpy’s heart was heavy with those thoughts one day as she walked on a lone path at the edge of Ponyville. Suddenly, the wind began to pick up, scattering leaves and dirt all around her. She looked up at the sky, but there was not a single cloud to be seen. With unnatural haste, the wind intensified and blue arcs of electricity began to jolt through the air. Moments later, there was a brilliant flash and a tall blue box appeared out of nowhere and settled to the ground with a loud mechanical crash. As she approached, a door opened and a light brown earth pony stepped out with a look of disorientation. His darker brown mane was unkempt, and he sported an hourglass as his cutie mark.
…
“You’re a time travelling pony?!”
…
From that moment on, she knew she was no longer alone.