"Hi, everypony! Lyra and Octy aren't here, so I'll be running the show today! Oh, I... I hope you don't mind. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun together!"
Derpy smiled as she skipped down the hall. She really didn't know how it had happened, how she had ended up all alone that morning. Everything had seemed perfectly normal with her friends last night, but this morning...
"Lyra! Lyra! Lyrie lyrie Lyraaaa!" Derpy chirped while rolling up her sleeping bag. "Don't you want to get up?"
A pair of venomous green basilisk eyes poked out from under the heavy orange comforter. "No," the creature said with fearsome resolution and the cutest pouty face.
"But you'll be late for class!" Derpy said. "Besides, it's a bright sunny day, with flowers and sunshine and sunshine and friends and applesauce and sprinkles and..."
The groan that issued from the comforter could shake mountains. "No. No sunlight. Not today."
Derpy laughed, playfully lifting a corner of the blanket. "Octy, is that you?"
The corner was yanked from Derpy's hoof like the snapping jaws of a dragon.
"Oh, forget about her, Derpy," said Octavia, who was packing up her instruments. "If she doesn't want to get up, then there's no use trying."
Derpy took a step back and bit her lip. "Are... A-Are you sure you don't want to come to breakfast with us?" she asked sweetly, softly, like a the voice of a child, pure and innocent. (At least when they weren't crying, whining, fighting, or any other child activity.) "It'd be really, really nice if you could."
The basilisk blanket shifted, but did no more. "Kid, I am super lazy today," said Lyra, pulling the fabric around her head. "Which is like normal lazy, except I have a cape."
"Okay..." Derpy's tiny frown brightened when she said, "Well, have a good day, Lyra! Have fun being..." she waved an uncertain hoof in Lyra's direction.
"A rare species of Writerius insomnius," Lyra said.
"Right! Have fun being that! Octy, are you ready to go...?"
Derpy trailed off when, instead of a pony, she saw a grey blur zipping all over the room. "Sorry, so sorry," she said over her shoulder as she started lugging her instrument cases out the door. "Apparently dorm room assignment isn't the only substandard part about this academy's administration. Schedules have been mixed up; I'm due for an appointment with my wind ensemble instructor in negative two minutes."
"Oh! Well, maybe I can come with--"
"Great, thanks for understanding, haveagooddaybye!" The door closed with a resounding slam.
Derpy's waving hoof fell to paw at the ground.
But that was five minutes ago; no need to dwell on the past! Now Derpy was walking down the East Tower corridor with the usual skip in her step. Of course, it was a little lonely, not having her friends with her, but the way Derpy looked at it, it was also an opportunity. A chance for an adventure she just might not be able to have with her friends around. Maybe, just maybe, a chance for independence.
At least if the Doctor didn't shut her down.
"I know you already will, Derpy," echoed his voice in her head, "but please stay close to your roommates. You never known what may happen at this academy."
"But what could possibly happen, Doctor?" asked Derpy. "There's nothing dangerous here!"
The Doctor sagged in his chair. "Derpy, I'll be absolutely, completely honest here: It's nothing short of a miracle that you haven't been killed by walking down a flight of stairs."
Derpy suddenly came to the spiral staircase leading down the East Tower. Its bright gold banister shone in the early morning sunlight, catching Derpy's eye.
"Oh, Derpy, would you please act like a proper pony for once in your life, dear?"
"Kid, I don't know if that's the best... Octavia, where's the first aid kit?"
"Weeeeeeeeee!" Derpy sang as she slid down the banister. The wind played with her mane while the world around her became a blur of white, purple, and gold. She gave another whoop to release the feeling of her heart jumping in her chest. And still she went faster, faster, until she was deposited to the ground with a soft plop.
"Owwie," said Derpy, trying to stand up in spite of her sore bottom. Then she broke out into a wide smile. "That was so much fun!"
Looking around, Derpy quickly located a clock above the archway leading to the castle courtyard. Apparently her slide had saved her an extra ten minutes, and the breakfast hall wouldn't open for another twenty.
If Derpy were able to find a way to magical slide upwards, she'd be spending those twenty minutes having the time of her life. But alas, not even Derpy's cute puppy dog eyes could shake the cosmic forces of gravity... yet.
Where to go, Derpy wondered, where to go? If Lyra were with her, they'd be running towards the library to do a little light reading. If Octavia were there, then... still, the library, where she would claim there to be peace and quiet. Or at least, until she saw Lyra there as well. Now, Derpy was from Ponyville, and so she didn't quite understand the way that city ponies seemed to like yelling and glaring at their best friends. So she would probably be sitting through the whole sign of friendship as she quietly ate a muf-- Ooh, bubble!
A shiny floating sphere reflecting all the colors of the rainbow floated past Derpy's nose.
Derpy's cutie mark was of bubbles. Bubbles were essentially her destiny in life. So could anypony blame her for bending obediently to the whims of fate and following the bubble, wherever it led? Of course not.
So she followed the bubble into the courtyard.
To be perfectly honest, the courtyard looked horrid that time of year. I mean, keep in mind that Canterlot is built on top of a mountain. Mountains get pretty cold after summer passes. The chilly winds shook the threadbare tree branches and rustled the brown, crumpled leaves scrapping against the sidewalk. It was uninviting. It was freezing. It was desolate.
Well, except for one.
In the center of the courtyard was a dancing mare. Her coat and mane were rich purple tones to contrast the washed-out grey of the sky and the grass. When she glided across the dirt, her mane briefly glowed the lavender of a delicate flower. Her movements were fluid, her demeanor of grace. Yet there was something inexplicably sad about her dancing. Her fluid movements transitioned from one wild spin to the next. She didn't feel like she was entirely in control of her dancing; rather, she was only a puppet being guided by silver silk strings. Derpy's eyes widened when she saw tears drip down the mare's face.
But worst of all was the laughing. It was the kind of crazy, deranged laughter that made Derpy's knees knock together. In the back of her mind, she could almost hear the voices of her friends telling her to turn back, to run for help, to do anything other than steadily walk towards the dancing mare, still laughing horribly as she cried.
"Hello," Derpy called, then louder. "Hello!"
The mare screeched to a halt when she saw Derpy. "Who are you?" she asked warily. "What do you want?"
Don't be afraid, Derpy told herself. Don't be afraid. "My name's Derpy!" she said, extending a hoof. "What's yours?"
The mare averted her eyes. "None of your business," she muttered.
"Oh." Derpy's ears drooped. She felt the enclosing silence press down upon her, force her to speak. "What are you doing out here so early in the morning?"
"I don't have to tell you anything, little girl," she said. Derpy could smell grapes in her breath. "You're not a cop; I know my rights. Nothing wrong with being out here. If you have a problem with that, then just move along."
"Oh, good, because I don't have a problem at all!" Derpy said cheerfully.
The mare's eyes narrowed.
"I don't have a problem with you," Derpy said, softly, quietly, gently. "I think that you're anything but a problem." She pointed to the scattered bottles around the mare. Only one smelled of bubbles. "Were you the one blowing bubbles?"
Hesitantly, the mare nodded.
"Why?"
"'Cause they're pretty," she answered.
"I think they're really pretty too!" Derpy said. "I mean, they're really simple and all, but the way they float through the air freely with all their pretty colors... it's so beautiful." Derpy sat on the barren ground and gazed up into the sky. "I wonder if I'll ever get to feel that way. Free. Beautiful. Unafraid."
She looked back at the mare, who was staring at her with bloodshot eyes. "I think we all have the chance to feel that way. And... I think I stopped to look at you dance because you were so free, so beautiful, so unafraid."
Derpy's eyes shone like gold. "But I think it'd be a lot nicer if you weren't crying."
"Well, what are you going to do about that?" the mare grumbled as she kicked up dust with her hoof. "Wave a magic wand and make everything better? Ha, as if. What do you care? What do you even know about me?"
"I know you're an alcoholic," Derpy answered simply.
The mare opened her eyes real wide, so wide that Derpy could see her pupils swimming in the liquor, but beyond even that, little droplets of tears like dew on her eyelashes. "Don't I scare a little thing like you?"
Derpy shook her head. "You did a little at first, but not anymore. You don't want to hurt anypony, not even yourself. I... I don't know how you'll not do that anymore. Like you said, I don't know anything about you. But... please, just for this moment, I don't know quite why, but... I would really like to dance with you."
It was strange, reckless, even crazy, but Derpy took the alcoholic's hoof and gently guided her across the ground. At first it started slow, as the other mare tried to pull away, but soon they began to spin, faster and faster across the dead garden. There was no rhyme or reason to it, just the sensation of spinning round and round as children sometimes do. They were spinning back in time, to a place where the wilted flowers shone beautifully in the sunlight, and a mare's laughter was pure and free, if only for a little while.
"Wee! Isn't this fun?" Derpy asked.
The mare smiled. "Yeah... yeah, it is."
Neither pony noticed as bubbles rained down like snow.