Her injuries were not serious. Their quantity far outweighed their quality. Even the numerous burns and scratches had required only a few bandages a little antiseptic. Only the sprains to her leg and wings were in the least bit severe, and the doctor had promised her that they would heal in only a few days, if she rested.
Under most circumstances, it would have been good enough for her to know that she would be able to walk and fly normally again soon, but in spite of that, her heart was troubled. She lay in her bed at Ponyville Urgent Care, and she stared at the wall silently until the door to her room opened.
“Hello, Miss Hooves,” said Nurse Red Heart, stepping into the room. “Feeling any better?”
Derpy stared at her for a moment before she responded. This was, without a doubt, the Nurse Red Heart she knew and had known for the better part of a decade.
“Hey,” mumbled the pegasus.
“You okay, Derpy?” asked the white Earth Pony. “You weren't hurt all that badly, but you look, well..."
Her voice trailed off into silence.
“Awful?” Derpy asked.
“Sad,” said the white earth mare.
“It just hurts a little,” said Derpy.
Nurse Red Heart pressed a button on a small panel mounted at the bedside.
“That should help,” she said.
At that moment, there came the sound of hooves in the hallway, and Chill Breeze stepped through the door.
He said nothing upon seeing her, but that did not surprise Derpy. He was not a garrulous pony, she had come to understand, but that did not mean he was unfeeling or uncaring. She saw his gray eyes soften and his shoulders go slack with the release of gathered tension. He exhaled, and shut his eyes for just a moment. For all that she could see it, Derpy knew he would not say he had been worried.
“Hi, Chill,” she said quietly.
She wanted to smile at him, but she could not make herself do it. He must have gotten the news from Rainbow Dash. She felt ashamed to have worried him.
He stepped past Nurse Red Heart, and to the bedside.
“Ditzy,” he said. “Rainbow Dash said you crashed.”
“Sort of,” she said.
He lay a foreleg over her and rested his chin on top of her head.
“I already hate Hearth's Warming,” he said. “Don't ruin Nightmare Night for me, too.”
That comment actually made her feel better. Chill Breeze hated Hearth's Warming because of somepony he'd lost at that time of year. If losing her today would have ruined Nightmare Night for him, then certainly she must mean something to him.
“I'm sorry,” she said, finally able to smile a little. “It was a really random thing; like a one-in-a-billion chance.”
“Always your luck, huh?” he said, squeezing her a little more tightly.
“Always my luck,” she said, and then she yawned. “I feel really sleepy.”
“That's the IV,” said Nurse Red Heart, busily fiddling with some of the machines near Derpy's bed. “If you feel sleepy, just go ahead and sleep. That's the best thing for you."
He hugged her tighter still.
"Just Go to sleep, Ditzy Doo,” said the stallion, releasing her from his embrace, and kissing her on the forehead. “I'll come walk you home tomorrow morning.”
“I like that,” she mumbled, beginning to fall asleep. "When you call me my real name, I mean."
She dreamed that night, but none of her dreams were nightmares. They were the strange sort of dreams that lilt between places and times; the sort of dreams that are neither particularly happy nor particularly sad. Then, in one of them, she saw her mother. Her eyes were blue, and she was simply explaining how to properly stretch one's wings to avoid a sprain.
It was an ordinary dream.
Princess Luna found Derpy at the Nightmare Night Festival. Despite a few bandages here and there, she was helping with the dunking booth this year, collecting bits from ponies in exchange for an opportunity to dunk local dignitaries in an enormous barrel of water. Of local dignitaries, there were precisely two: the mayor and Princess Twilight, both of whom stood nearby wrapped in towels and shivering. Both had been dunked several times, and it was not a warm night.
As Princess Luna approached, Twilight's eyes lit up momentarily with excitement, then widened with horror as she realized that Luna was stepping towards where Derpy sat at the ticket table.
“Well, this looks fun,” said Luna. “What are the rules?”
“Well,” said Derpy, you can pay five bits for a chance to dunk the mayor or ten for a chance to dunk Princess Twilight.
“A chance?” asked Luna.
“Yeah,” said Derpy. “You have to throw these balls at that target there. If you hit it, and hit it hard enough, it triggers the machine, and they fall in the water. You get three chances.”
“Crude,” said Luna. “I will play.”
“Well,” said Derpy... “I guess for you, it's free, on account of this is your festival... Who do you wanna dunk?”
Luna grinned broadly at Twilight Sparkle.
“I am so gonna tell Celestia on you,” growled the smaller alicorn.
“'Tis my understanding that everypony working in any capacity for this festival is a volunteer,” said Princess Luna.
“Hey, remember that time you were evil, and I saved your soul?” said Twilight, irritably.
“Can't recall,” said Luna. “Thou mayst recount the incident from yon dunking platform.”
“Well,” began Twilight, climbing the short flight of stairs to the small, wooden bench so precariously suspended over the barrel, “Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters, and one of them was a JER...”
She did not manage to finish the word “jerk” before Luna's thrown ball struck the target, dropping her into the barrel of frigid water.
She came up coughing and sputtering.
“That's it!” she said, hanging her forelegs over the barrel's edge. “I gotta have a break. Mayor, please bring me my towel. Derpy, take five... or ten... or half an hour... or the rest of the night; I haven't decided!”
With that, the alicorn climbed out the barrel. She shook as much of the water from her fur as she could, and the mayor presented her with her towel. Then, both soggy ponies made their way to a small tent that had been placed nearby with a space heater for them to warm themselves during breaks.
“I was right,” said Luna. “This game is fun.”
Derpy smiled, then laughed a bit and shook her head gently.
“So, 'twould seem thou hast faced thy fear," said Luna. "Otherwise I imagine that this festival should have required far fewer costumes to have been true to theme.”
“I guess I did,” said Derpy, “but I'm so confused by it all.”
“Oh?” said Luna.
“The thing that was haunting me in my dreams...” she said, scratching at the dirt a bit with her hoof. “It came to me, right over there.”
She nodded towards the steps of town hall.
“It was me, Princess. It was Derpy Hooves or Ditzy Doo or... Maybe both of them; I don't know.”
“Well,” said the Princess, “whatever 'twas, 'twould seem thou hast placated or otherwise done away with it."
“No,” said the pegasus. “I couldn't find a way to deal with it. It's still there waiting for me in that other Ponyville, right where I left it sitting. Don't ask me how I know that, but I'm sure of it. I don't know what it wanted from me, but when I finally met it face-to-face, it didn't do anything to me. I couldn't make myself do anything to it, either. I just left it there, and walked away. I don't even know how I got back here, or how this place got back to normal.”
Princess Luna looked down at the little pegasus, and shook her head, her eyes moving over the little mare in what Derpy slowly deciphered as something between disbelief and admiration.
“What?” asked the pegasus, confused by the Princess' expression, even as she perceived it for what it was.
“Thou walketh away from that which doth embody all about thyself which thou hast come to despise, and yet thou wonder that thy world restored itself to wholeness? Thou art of uncommon character, and much it behooves thee that thou knowest this not of thyself. ”
“I don't understand,” said the pegasus.
Princess Luna stared into the sky, and Derpy did not have to follow her eyes to guess where they were fixed.
“Ditzy Doo,” she said, “much like you, I cannot forgive myself, nor can I kill the thing that haunts me. In those respects, we are the same, but in one way, certainly, thou art my better.”
She looked down at the pegasus.
“I am not ready to walk away from my nightmare,” she said, “and in truth, I doubt I ever will be.”
Derpy almost came back with a mindless platitude; a cheerful “You'll get there,” or a “Don't give up,” or some other platitude as oft-repeated and as essentially meaningless.
Instead, she opted for honesty.
“I don't think you will, either,” she said, prompting a very surprised look from the Princess.
“Oh?” said Luna, an eyebrow raised.
“I think you're proud of your nightmare,” said Derpy. “Why else would you be here? You're just gonna give nightmares to the children... and a few grown-ups too, probably. Then, you'll have to clean up the mess you made later. I mean... it has to be worth it to you. You like being Nightmare Moon.”
“I think you may be right,” said Luna, her voice assuming the more plainspoken speech patterns she tended to use when transformed into Nightmare Moon, though her shape remained her own. “But tell me this, little pony. Do you like being Derpy Hooves?”
“I like things about her,” said the pegasus.
“Enough to keep answering to that name?” asked the Princess.
“It's my name, isn't it?” replied the gray mare.
“One of them,” said Luna, smiling slyly and allowing her voice to darken a bit in its tone, "but if you will excuse me, I have something I need to go change into." With that, she turned and began to walk away.
“Princess Luna!” said Derpy, suddenly concerned by something she had only just noticed.
“Yes, Ditzy Doo?” asked the alicorn.
“Why isn't your... uh... 'scribe' with you?”
“Moondancer?” asked Luna.
Derpy nodded.
“She resigned rather suddenly this morning,” said the Princess. “I had never seen her so happy.”
The next morning, Derpy Hooves likewise resigned rather suddenly from her position with the Equestrian Parcel Service. She could not recall ever having been so happy.
finem