//------------------------------// // Put Things In Perspective! Derpy's Worrisome Day! // Story: The Adventures of Derpy, Lyra, and Octavia // by IsabellaAmoreSirenix //------------------------------// A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every equine creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life’s end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them? Derpy sighed and put down her book. The world was spinning. The lights above her head, the white tiles just out of her hooves's reach as they dangled on the chair, the bowl of freshly tossed salad greens that Derpy hadn't touched. Though to be fair, everything was always spinning, wasn't it? The planet of Equus continued to spin, as did its inhabitants, going in and out of their days in the timeless routine that had held steadfast for millennia. Yet every so often in this rhythm, something, somepony, somewhere, for some reason, would stop. Just for a second, in the breadth of a heartbeat, something would change. The world would jump with a start. The age-old universe would be taken by surprise. However, Derpy thought to herself, that surprise was most likely not found on the other side of the table. "It's horrible, simply horrible," Octavia lamented, stabbing into her salad with a vengeance. "Honestly, don't ponies have anything better to talk about than the private lives of others?" "You'd think they would, but nope," said Lyra. "It's so boring. What would be less boring would be knowing just what's gone wrong this time." "If only ponies thought I were boring instead of blowing everything out of perspective." Octavia slammed her hoof against the wooden table top. "One drink! One drink with the Doctor during the Moon Festival, and now everypony's going around saying we're an item. Why, just why?" "To be fair, two weeks ago you'd have been the one trying to spread those sorts of rumors about yourself," Lyra reasoned. "I suppose," said Octavia, "but that never took off; we all know it. But... there's still a part of me that would like those rumors to be true. It's just... I'm at a loss, you know? I don't want ponies to keep spreading lies. But I have no idea how I'm supposed to stop it." Lyra stopped chewing her hayfries and gave Octavia a fixed, serious look, or at least, as serious as she could manage while wearing a floppy bunny-ears headband. "Heads up!" she shouted, roughly shoving Octavia's textbooks to the other side, where they dangled precariously on the edge. "Make way for some real life advice!" "This'll be good," grumbled Octavia. "Hey, you don't think I've dated before?" said Lyra. "With the kind of personality I have, all sorts of crazies start coming out of the woodworks. But never mind me, this is about you. You say you do like him?" "A bit," Octavia admitted, "I don't know. It's this thing in the back of my mind, more than anything. I could be walking along, see him, and think to myself 'I wonder what our foals would look like' or something like 'that weird screwdriver he has, I wonder what--'" "Too much information, Octavia," Lyra quickly cut in, trying to conceal a laugh. "I think you're veering dangerously close into creepy stalker phase." "No, I never said anything like that!" Octavia protested. "Doesn't matter, because I'm calling an intervention. You need to stop, you hear me? And even if you actually wanted to have a romantic relationship with him, do you think it would sit well in his mind that you started coming onto him just as ponies started the gossip mill? Bit of a happy coincidence, don't you think?" Octavia sighed. "You have a good point." Then she shuddered. "That may have been the worst-sounding sentence to come from my mouth. Anyway, so what do I do about everypony else?" "Set the record straight," said Lyra. "Find a place where you two will be together in a crowded place. Not too crowded that you can't have personal space, but... I don't know, like the main atrium at seven in the morning. Be seen with him, give him the evil eye or something like that, and soon any possibility of romance between you two will be swept away from their puny craniums." Octavia's eyes widened. "Seriously? That's your idea?" she asked. "No alien invasions or mass executions via flufflepuff frooglas or anything else ridiculous?" Lyra gave a toothy grin. "There are those days when I happen to wake up with my head on straight," she said. "Now, we have to be careful about this, since if you do it incorrectly, we'll end up with breakup rumors on our hooves, and those are far nastier. Let's see, if you act... well, like you do when the bathroom's taken at six in the morning..." Derpy tried to pay attention, but it only resulted in her staring up into the spinning lights. Which resulted in her getting vertigo, which resulted in the knots in her stomach tightening to painful degrees, and on and on until she was Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole, with no end in sight. A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every equine creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A secret, she echoed in her mind. Am I keeping a secret? The worry that weighed on her mind wasn't one she could just spill out in an angry huff like Octavia was. Derpy closed her eyes. She could still hear Dinky's voice from after the Moon Festival resonating in her bones, in her eye sockets, in her ribcage, in her skull. What should she do? she wanted to ask. What, what, what should she do? "...And we'll even end up helping the banana industry in the process!" Lyra finished. Octavia smiled and shook her head. "Thank you, Lyra, but I think I'll just talk to the Doctor. Who knows, maybe we can something out. Perhaps not a friendship, but, well, you know..." Derpy couldn't sit there anymore. If she did, she would throw up from anxiety. "Oh, look at the time!" she exclaimed. "It's time for our next class!" Octavia's eye twitched. "Time..." she whispered. "That great lie of existence, time... I've made a horrible mistake..." "Woohoo!" Lyra cheered. "Way to go, kid! You fixed her!" She held her hoof out for a hoofbump, which Derpy returned with only a little less than her normal enthusiasm before she started gathering up her books. Lyra placed a hoof on her shoulder. "Hey, is everything okay?" she asked, her brow creased in worry. Derpy nodded just a bit too vigorously. "Yeah!" she said. "Why wouldn't I be?" "If you're not floating around in that beautiful head of yours like usual," she explained, "then something pretty heavy's got to be weighing it down." "No, I'm just under the weather," Derpy said as the bright yellow sunlight made her eyes squint. "Trust me, I'm fine." Lyra picked up her own books, while giving Derpy a strange look. "Okay, if you say so, kid," she said slowly. "Remember, what we agreed on at Berry Punch's party didn't just apply to me and Octavia. If you need to talk about something, Octavia and I..." She looked around, but the seat beside her had already been long vacant. "...Well, I'm here, at least." "I'm fine, really!" Derpy said as convincingly as she could manage. "I'll see you at the room after classes, okay?" "Alright," said Lyra, nervously glancing at the clock overhead. "See you then, kid! Have a good day!" "Thank you, you too!" Derpy echoed back to match the hollow echoing of her hooves on the tile. The salad remained untouched at the center of the table. "Alright, ponies, please pass up the rough sketches of your landscapes to the front of the room, please!" At once, there was a flurry of ruffled papers around Derpy as students searched for their assignments. Under the desk, Derpy twisted a piece of looseleaf paper in her trembling hooves. "Ooh, yours is really pretty, Derpy!" said Sea Swirl, pointing to Derpy's sketch of a brisk autumn day. "Oh, thank you." A dropped pin could have been louder than her voice. Sea Swirl's expression mimicked Lyra's perfectly. "Are you alright?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. Why does everypony need to ask that? Tears started to form a dull sheen over her golden eyes. Not trusting her voice, she pursed her lips and nodded. "Mrs. Pastel, doesn't everypony's drawings look great?" said a voice in the very back of the room, to the collective sighing of everypony else. The teacher paused, giving a small, patronizing smile. "Why yes, Roseluck," she said. "And what about your sketch?" "Mine's pretty good!" answered Roseluck. "I worked really hard on it!" "I'm glad to hear it, but remember, art isn't just about hard work. It's also about vision, Roseluck." "Absolutely, Mrs. Pastel!" There was a brief pause, filled not by laughter, but stony silence. When Mrs. Pastel walked away to collect papers from the other side of the room, Roseluck cupped her hooves around her lips and stage whispered, "Hey, Sea Swirl, you never answered my question from yesterday. Is your refrigerator on, or what?" Sea Swirl rolled her eyes and stared straight ahead at the blackboard. "Wow, way to be nice," Roseluck teased. "Sea Swirl can be so mean sometimes, right?" Her joke was meant with a screaming wall of silence. Derpy bent her head low so that her mane covered her face. Everypony has problems, she thought to herself, whether it's gossiping or annoying Roseluck in the back. I can't say that my problems are more important, can I? She let out a long stream of air. Everything will be okay. I just need to send a magi-scroll to Mother. But until then... The uneaten salad churned in her stomach. "Haha, aren't I right, Derpy?" Roseluck asked, poking Derpy's shoulder. Instantly, the pegasus's petite body tensed up. "Go away," Derpy whispered. "Go away." Roseluck recoiled, as if burned. "Derpy... are you--?" "Miss Roseluck," said Mrs. Pastel crossly, "I don't suppose you could tell the class which era of art brought in the popularity of using perspective, could you?" Perspective, Derpy thought. It's all about perspective. "Hey, Derpy! Hey--excuse me, sorry, coming through--Derpy! Derpy, wait up!" The pegasus kept walking faster. It wasn't that Roseluck was annoying her or anything, just that she was... yeah, pretty annoying. "Come on Derpy, please!" With a sigh, Derpy turned on the back part of her hooves. "Yes?" she asked. "I wanted to know if you're okay," Roseluck said. "Yes, I'm fine," answered Derpy like an automated machine. "You didn't seem fine in class today," she said, "and I know that your eyes weren't red from any contacts." "Why does it matter to you?" "Because I don't like seeing ponies sad," answered Roseluck simply. Derpy's eyes widened. "Look, maybe it's not my place to say. I'm not part of your group of friends, and I know I annoy you, but if there's anything I can do to help, just say the word." A strange piece of Derpy's heart contracted. "I... I've just had a family issue come up." "Oh, I know all about that," said Roseluck. "They're nasty things, aren't they? My father's in the process of being released from prison; it feels like my whole life has been one family issue after another." "Really? But you seem so calm in class!" exclaimed Derpy. "Doesn't it bother you?" "Well, I can't do much else, honestly. But it won't help me, dwelling on things I have no way of controlling. I have my problems, just like everypony else, and I guess you can't let worry turn everything into a problem ten times as huge. You need some perspective. There were nice things in my day, and sometimes that's all you need to get through a day, right?" Roseluck seemed oblivious to Derpy's mouth hanging wide open. "Where was I going with that? Oh yeah! So, if you ever need to talk to me about stuff, I'm always there, okay?" It took Derpy a minute to return from the bouncing rocket that was her thoughts. "Oh! Sorry," she said, "I guess I'm just not used to seeing this side of you." Roseluck shrugged. "Everypony's a mystery, right?" she said before glancing at her watch. "I've got to get to my next period, but I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" For some reason, Derpy found herself blushing. "Yeah," she said. "Thank you. Thank you!" "Anytime, Derpy!" shouted Roseluck as she wove through the thinning crowd. "You have a good day!" A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every equine creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. Derpy felt a little weight lifted off her shoulders as she trotted down the stairs. On a sour day like hers, mysteries like Roseluck were wonderful indeed.