//------------------------------//
// It Ends in Tears?!  Pulling Out of the Academy! 
// Story: The Adventures of Derpy, Lyra, and Octavia 
// by IsabellaAmoreSirenix 
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"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Lyra demanded.

"Just what I said," replied Derpy as she stuffed a red and green Hearth's Warming Eve sweater in her bag.  "I'm leaving."

"B-But you can't j-just... just leave!" Octavia spluttered.  "Not now, not when we..."

"My sister Dinky sent me a message last night.  It's finally happened.  My mom's found a nice stallion.  Her and Dinky, they're packing their bags and moving out of the apartment my father owns in Manehattan, and they're moving across the country to Los Pegasus to live with him.  And I've met him, you know.  He's a good pony and everything.  He works as a crew member for a traveling show... well, he did work.  Past tense.  Hey, I remember that, Lyra!  Anyway, his job didn't make much too begin with, but unemployment... well, that doesn't pay anything at all, really.  And a family's something, you know, like you said, Octy.  Something can't survive on nothing."

Derpy let the suitcase close with a thud.  "So, I'm moving out with them," she continued.  "See what I can do to help.  I don't know, being a mailmare sounds like a fun job, doesn't it?  At least it won't build up student loans.  So yeah!" she finished cheerfully.  "That's why I'm leaving!" 

"Oh my Faust, Derpy," said Octavia, covering her mouth with her hooves.  "What about going to school and being an artist?  You will come back to do that, won't you?"

Derpy shrugged, still looking fixedly down at her suitcase.  "Oh, Octy, it's okay," she said in a shaky voice.  "There's more important things in life than becoming an artist.  It... It's about getting to see your little sister being pushed on a swing set.  It's about having her being lifted up on a set of broad shoulders to see the fireworks on the night of the Summer Sun Celebration.  It's about letting her staying up until midnight to see, with heavy eyes just about to close, four black-booted hooves thunder towards the Hearth's Warming tree.  And not by a mom, or a big sister.  By a good and proper dad.  That's what I want to make sure Dinky has."

"A-And you've talked to them about this, haven't you?" Octavia asked.  "Your mom and Dinky and everypony?"

"Mm-hmm," said Derpy with a tiny nod.  "Mom fought against it for a bit, but she came around.  Dinky's   just excited to have me over; she's already planned for me to help her decorate her new room.  Even the Doctor said it's for the best.  So yeah!  Now all that's left is to tell you two!"

Derpy took a deep breath and looked up at the two other mares with clear, dry eyes.  "Goodbye, Lyra.  Goodbye, Octy," she said.  "I know we've only known each other for a month, but still, it was really nice to become friends with you."

"Oh, don't talk like that, darling," said Octavia, clasping Derpy's hooves.  "We'll write you plenty of letters  when you're in Los Pegasus, okay?  And you make sure to write too, ya hear?"

Derpy nodded.  Her throat hurt too much to speak.

"Wait, wait, are the two of you insane or something?" demanded Lyra as she adjusted her tin foil hat.  "Derpy, kid, if it's money you need, there's no problem!  All you have to do is name an amount, and you'll find double that amount sitting in your family's bank account by this afternoon, I promise!"

It took several tries of different muscle combinations for Derpy to get herself to smile.  "Thank you, Lyra," she said while hurriedly dragging her suitcase along the fuzzy blue carpet, "but that's alright. Goodbye, girls!"  Not a second later did the door close with a slam, and the buzzing of two frantically flapping pegasus wings could be heard in the quiet.

Then breaking the quiet, Octavia slapped Lyra in the face.

"Ah, what in Tartarus, Octavia!" Lyra howled, pressing a hoof to her swollen cheek.  "What did you do that for?  Oh Celestia, you and Derpy went and ate the cafeteria's blueberries, didn't you?  I told you they made ponies loopy, I told you, but does anypony believe loony Lyra--?"

"Would you listen to yourself?" Octavia shouted. "I can't believe you sometimes!"

"Yes, I know, trying to find a reasonable way out of a situation like Derpy's is such a horrible idea, isn't it?" Lyra said, narrowing her eyes.  

"You think that you can live in this whole other world of yours and everything will work out fine, don't you?  That... that everything can be solved your way, that you can throw charm and wit and money at a problem to make everything better.  Well guess what, you can't!  Because Derpy's situation extends far past needing some philanthropist's daughter to hit her up for some bits!  Didn't you hear her?  She wants to make sure that Dinky has a good and proper dad.  And if you don't know what that means, then maybe you should do a little more 'observation.'"

Lyra was sent reeling, stumbling into a bedpost.  "At least I'm trying to solve the problem!" she yelled.  "You and your negativity, always blowing up everything!  I'm not just some Faust-damned philanthropist's daughter!  I'm Derpy's friend, and if money is the only way I can help her, then I'm at least going to give her that!  You, you just sit and mope!  What good is that going to do, huh?"

"Oh, like you're one to talk," Octavia countered.  "Tell me, if you think you're so good at helping ponies, when was the last time you actually did, hmm?  All your crazy talk about wanting to defend flufflepuffs and whatnot.  Complete nonsense, all of it, but you never actually do something about it.  And don't talk to me about Carneighie Hall yesterday; there was nothing on the line for you."  Her voice dropped to a whisper.  "Do you know what I think?  I think that the only reason you haven't been put in a straightjacket is because you're too afraid."

"This has nothing to do with me!" screamed Lyra, roaring above Octavia screaming 'oh yes, it does, oh yes it does!' "This is about Derpy, and to Tartarus with whatever you're doing, but I'm going to find Derpy, get her bank account number, and wire her thirty thousand bits."

"Is that so?" asked a voice at the door.  "And just where do you think you're going to get that sort of money?"

Both Lyra and Octavia whipped around to see a tall, willowy, unicorn mare with a teal coat and platinum-blond mane standing before them.

"Ma'am, excuse me, but this is a private dorm--" began Octavia before getting the wind knocked out of her, courtesy of Lyra's strong right hook.

The young unicorn was aghast.  "Mom?" she spluttered.  "Wh-What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?" Mrs. Heartstrings screeched, her voice grating on their ears like two pieces of metal rubbed together.  "All last night, your father and I have been asking ourselves what are you doing here!  Art school," she scoffed, as if the two words were a bit of phlegm she was trying to cough up, "complete rubbish, I told your father over and over, but he insisted anyway.  We had both heard the stories of what assortment of ponies find their way to art school, but no," she said, her voice a retched blend of wailing tears and sickening sugar.  "No, he said.  We have a responsible daughter, he said, a sharp and hardworking daughter, he said.  Well tell me, where is that responsibility now?"

Lyra's brain only vaguely registered Octavia shaking under the bed.  "Wh-Wh-Why m-mother," she said, trying to slow her voice against the racing of her heart, "whatever do you mean?  I've been good, very good!  My classes are good, my grades are good, didn't you get the report card--?" 

"I quite honestly can't tell if you're playing dumb or are actually dumb," said Mrs. Heartstrings.  "Here go your father and I, all trusting, letting you have access to a family account, thinking you'll spend it on reasonable expenses, and then the next thing we know a thousand floats has been used up for gambling!"

"Gambling?" Lyra repeated, scoffing.  "You and Dad honestly think I've been gambling?"

"Well what else could it be?  And to be honest, gambling, drugs, a Faust-damned cruise ship, I don't very much care what it is, all I care is that it stops now.  Lyra, I'm pulling you out of this academy."

"What, don't I even get the chance to explain things?" Lyra demanded.

"Not when I have a meeting to be to in ten minutes.  The carriage driver is waiting; pack your things, we're leaving."

"Please, ma'am, let me explain," begged Octavia, coming out from under the bed to stand between the mother and daughter.  "I-I'm Lyra's roommate, and let me assure you that your daughter was not using your family money for selfish or nefarious purposes.  It was for... a gift, shall we say.  A gift for me, generously offered by Lyra."

"If she was buying you a cruise ship, pardon me, but I don't find that helps the situation."

"Well..." Octavia's eyes scurried like mice as their gaze darted back and forth along the ground, lest they be sucked into the vortex of Mrs. Heartstring's poisonous green eyes.  "Perhaps gift isn't the right word.  See, yesterday I was in a spot of trouble--"

"Oh Celestia and her sun, it's you!" exclaimed Lyra's mother.  "You're the one who's been corrupting my daughter!  Come on then, where's the stash of drugs, the stolen jewelry, bottles of alcohol, the cigarette cases?  Out with it!"

"But... ponies..." Lyra said dazedly.  "Magic... techno-colored... rainbows and sunshine... gumdrops... where in Tartarus do drugs come in...?"

"Please, you must believe me, it's nothing like that!" Octavia pleaded.

"Then answer me plainly, girl, because I haven't got all day."

"Alright!" Lyra shouted, staring down her mother.  "Alright!  Do you want to know what happened?  I wanted to let Octavia inside Carneighie Hall, so we went in through a maintenance door, were caught by a guard on duty, and I paid him a thousand floats so that Octavia wouldn't get in trouble because of something stupid I decided to do.  That's it, alright?"

Octavia watched Mrs. Heartstrings' expression with bated breath, only to let it out like air from a popped balloon as the shouting match resumed with newly found vigor.  So much for the Element of Honesty.

"We finally come into wealth, and what do your father and I think?  We think that we've been given a gift, that we can properly provide for our family, that we can send our daughter to a wonderful school that will give her a wonderful career.  And what do you think to yourself?  You think that this is your chance to abuse what we've given you, to rise above the law.  And I'll tell you now, I'm not having it, not in my family."

"And as for you," she continued, rounding on Octavia, "don't think that you've gotten away with anything either.  I'll report this transgression of yours.  I'll make sure you never step inside that building again, understand?  Lyra," she snapped, not sparing so much as a glance in her direction, "you have five minutes to pack whatever other worthless junk you've spent our money on.  After that, you're gone."

The door slammed, Octavia collapsed into tears, and under the bed, there came a meow.

"Derpy," Lyra whispered, taking the golden tabby in her hooves.  "She... s-she forgot her cat."