//------------------------------// // 131: Occupational Derpy // Story: Lyra's Human 2: Derpy's Human // by pjabrony //------------------------------// It was early enough when Karyn got up and headed to the bathroom to wash up. Already she was getting used to not cheating and using the powers she once had to get ready. As she went through the motions, she silently congratulated herself for not relying on them too much. One day she might magic up her hair, the next day her makeup, the next her clothes, but she kept in practice doing each task. Now she just had to do them all. Still, this took time, and when she heard Derpy appear in the apartment before she was finished brushing her teeth she spat out the toothpaste and shouted, “I’ll just be a minute!” Derpy came to the door. “A minute’s OK,” she said, “but can we go back to my place once you’re ready?” “Yeah, that’s fine.” But it intrigued Karyn. Usually when Derpy had something for them to do in Equestria, it could wait. Equestrians were late risers. Or, Karyn thought, correcting herself, the Ponyvillians were late risers on Sundays. That was different. She finished washing and threw on a robe to run down to the bedroom. Once dressed, she came back out. “OK, let’s go.” Derpy made a nifty maneuver, ducking and lifting Karyn onto her back in one motion, and continuing that motion into activating the spell to get them to Equestria. Clearly she was in a hurry. “Thanks for coming with.” “I hope nothing is wrong like what happened with Dinky.” “Not like that, but it does involve Dinky. I don’t want to leave her alone at this point. She hasn’t gotten all her magic back yet. It’s a long process.” Karyn patted her neck. “I understand. And you want to be there for her if she needs it.” “Yes, but there are practical considerations as well. Anypony ought to be able to defend themselves from the beasts that come from the Everfree. Oh, sure, it’s unlikely that they’d get into town, and even if they did that they’d reach Dinky, but still. An Earth pony could fight with their hooves, a pegasus could fly away, and a unicorn could defend themselves with magic. But Dinky would be in trouble.” This still seemed overprotective to Karyn, but if anypony had a reason to be, it was Derpy. She hopped off of her and kept a good walking pace as they reached the house. “I’m home!” Derpy shouted, and Karyn had a vision of Derpy saying the same thing, day after day, after she’d finished the mail and finally made it back to her daughter. “Hi, Mommy. Hello, Karyn.” Dinky approached Karyn as if she were afraid to touch her, like she was too precious. “You see?” said Derpy. “I raced there and back to get her. I knew you didn’t want to be alone.” “I’m glad that she’s here, but you didn’t have to run. Actually, the other thing that I’m glad of is that I had a chance to see her apartment—and her world—before the princesses had to put a stop to other ponies going. I wish I could do it again, but that too is a long process.” Karyn winced as she realized that, however normal she appeared, Dinky’s mind was always on what was coming to be a kind of therapy. “Well, how about I get breakfast ready?” “Oh, I’ll help.” Karyn made her way to the kitchen. “Thanks, but why don’t you let Dinky help? We used to make breakfast all the time, and she’s been my assistant all week. You can see how well we work together.” Dinky brightened up as they went to work with flour, eggs, and butter. Derpy portioned everything out, but Dinky did much of the physical labor, and again Karyn saw a picture in her head of their family life, Derpy teaching Dinky how to prepare food for herself and bonding over it. “Are you making muffins?” Karyn asked. Derpy looked up. “No, cinnamon rolls. Why, do you want muffins? We can make them too if you really want. Or I might have some left over that aren’t too stale.” “That’s fine, I just thought...never mind.” They kept mixing, including the cinnamon they’d mentioned, and then they went into the oven. “Now we wait. You’d like coffee, Karyn?” Karyn began to say yes, but, blushing, said, “Could I ask you for a different favor? Would you mind if I used your shower? I didn’t get a chance to take as long of one as I wanted this morning, and I just don’t feel clean.” “Well, it is for ponies...” “Of course you can!” Dinky said. “I’ll show you how it works, come on.” Karyn followed Dinky up to the washroom and said, “Thanks.” “Mommy doesn’t get it. Now that you don’t have your magic, it takes you longer to do things.” “Thank you for understanding that.” “Understanding is what I have now. Besides, I should know you well enough, because I’ve got a little piece of you in here.” She pointed to her horn. “It wasn’t mine to begin with. It was the changeling usurper’s.” Dinky shook her head. “Maybe that’s how it started, but I’m not so bereft of magic that I can’t tell dark magic from light. You purified it when it was in you, and I have to thank you again for that. It never would have worked if you hadn’t. Well, come on, I’ll turn on the shower for you.” It wasn’t complicated, and Karyn could have figured it out, but of course Dinky wanted to speak to her alone. What was different was how wide the showerhead was, and the fact that it was overhead instead of at an angle. Karyn figured that ponies would want to be able to move around more instead of standing still and scrubbing. The water was hot though, and Karyn didn’t know if it was done by natural methods or magical. It was possible that Derpy had a wood or coal heating system underneath the house that she’d never seen. She let it flow over her and scrubbed with a bar of soap left on a low ledge. It was always awkward, she thought, to be in someone else’s shower, but at least she would be clean. Running her hands over her shoulders, she finally accepted that this was her body, and it would no longer change, and it would be that way the rest of her life. Deciding to eschew shampooing her hair, Karyn shut the water and found a towel. Here too, Equestria showed up Earth. The towel was thick and soft. Karyn had a hard time believing that there was no animal fur in the towel, but would have been equally surprised if there were. Maybe the sheep voluntarily gave up some of their wool, but it didn’t feel woolen. Now dressed, Karyn descended the stairs to see Derpy putting the breakfast dishes in front of Dinky. It reminded her of when she would sleep late on weekends and her own mother would have breakfast ready for the family, and it renewed her connection to the two ponies. She joined them at the table. The conversation mostly concerned the breakfast itself, with Dinky and Karyn praising Derpy for her cooking skills, and Derpy modestly accepting the compliments. During the meal, Karyn kept sneaking looks at Dinky, hoping she wouldn’t notice. What she wanted to talk about was how she was getting on with her recovery, all the details of how her magic was doing and how long, if at all, it would take for her to get her powers back. But she knew how sensitive a subject that was, so she held off. “How’s school?” Dinky asked, perhaps hoping for a vicarious echo of what she would have experienced herself. “Good. Did your mother tell you about the problems I had in one of my classes?” “No.” Dinky’s eyes opened, as if eager to hear any story of someone else’s woe, greedy for a chance to help instead of to be helped. “Well, the teachers at my school aren’t all about instruction. Some of them use their grading to get back at students...” Karyn recounted the tale of the midterm with the professor she still despised. “...and your mother helped get me the discipline I needed, although my arm is still sore from writing so much. I made the grade though, and I happily showed her up on the final. Finished in forty-two minutes flat with a perfect score, and there was nothing the prof could do but scowl.” “I’ll massage your arm if you like.” “No, I was exaggerating about that. At the time it hurt, but I’ve long recovered.” “I have a question,” said Derpy. “How come you aren’t home for the holiday break?” “I will be, soon enough. And was, before. I spent Christmas—you remember, Dinky? That’s the human Hearth’s Warming—with my family, but one of the gifts my father got my mother was a vacation trip. I didn’t feel like staying at home all alone with nothing to do. At school there are always some people around, even if my friends are home.” “Were you going to tell me about this or let me show up at the apartment next week while you were gone?” Derpy smiled to show she wasn’t serious. “Nah, I was going to hit you up impromptu to help carry stuff home.” Karyn also laughed, and Dinky looked a little jealous that her mother could share such a moment with Karyn. “All right, so how were they?” “How were what?” “Your holidays,” said Dinky, who felt better for correctly interpreting her mother’s vague question. “The time you got to spend at home?” “Oh. Good, fun. Too fast. And I didn’t get the same level of pure swag that I did when I was a little girl. But that’s to be expected. Really it was more about getting to be with my folks and have them hug me while we listened to the music by the fire. That’s probably what I’ll remember about it, even if I didn’t get much.” “That sounds nice. It was similar for us, except no fire.” Karyn looked toward the living room, realizing that many of the houses of Ponyville did have chimneys and fireplaces, but Derpy’s did not. She asked why that was. “I never had one as a filly,” Derpy said, “and so I never really learned how to make them effectively. Mine always go out too quickly, plus I don’t like poking at it or trying to use the bellows to get it hotter. And I’m bad at stacking the logs so they don’t fall over once they burn. Basically I don’t like them.” “But how do you keep it warm in here?” “Pegasus pony, remember? I channel all the warm air currents I can find into the area around the house. Plus it’s well-insulated. I even sneak a few sunbeams through on cloudy days when I’m not supposed to.” Karyn was impressed that, for all the time they had known each other, Derpy could still surprise her with something completely foreign to her own world. She had never noticed a heat difference between Derpy’s house and the outside world, but now that she was aware of it, she felt it. Derpy cleaned up the breakfast at last. It had taken much longer than the quick breakfasts they had on Earth, when it was just the two of them. But through all the pleasant politeness, Karyn kept looking over at Dinky. Finally she could take it no longer. “So have you made any progress? Is your magic getting stronger?” Dinky looked down, and Karyn feared that she had broached a tough subject. If Dinky was doomed to being a low-power unicorn, or worse, if she had gone backwards toward no magic at all, then the last thing she would want to do is talk about it. But Karyn also felt that if that were the case, Dinky would have shown it during the meal. She would have been more nervous. Now, she burst out laughing. “I knew that you were curious, and thanks for holding out as long as you did. I’ve been working with Colgate almost daily. I have a standing appointment over at her place. It’s the perfect excuse for me to tell anypony who wonders why I’m there all the time to say that I’ve been having a lot of problems with my teeth and that I’m getting long-term therapy. We work on strengthening my magic each day. And...” Dinky made a sour face. “Yes? What else?” “She makes me brush and floss while I’m there as well.” Karyn laughed at that. “But where do you think you are relative to where you were?” “Hmm...if I had to give it a number, I would say twenty-five percent. But that’s twice as good as I started after the operation, and of course it’s infinitely better than it was when I came home. But that doesn’t put me on schedule to go back to school. Mommy wrote to the princess to say that I won’t be coming back in the new year, and Princess Celestia wrote back that she was disappointed but understood how life gets in the way sometimes. She’s holding my place there until we say otherwise, which is very nice of her.” “It is, but no more than I expected.” Derpy had been cleaning the dishes, but she finished and joined in. “The one who is really doing more than she needs to is Colgate. I should do something nice for her.” Dinky stared at her. “You should do something nice for her? Really?” “I don’t get it,” said Karyn. “Karyn, Mommy has practically adopted Colgate into the house. I don’t think Colgate has cooked a meal for herself since the operation. Mommy has had her over for dinner every night. She’s baked more trays of muffins for her than I can count. She delivers her mail by hoof right to her door, with everything sorted and stacked. She told you about sneaking good weather over our house, but Colgate’s has been a sunny paradise these past few weeks. I said that I have a standing appointment, but half the time we do it over here because Mommy insists on her coming to try some new meal, or just so she can rub Colgate’s hooves. It’s embarrassing, but Colgate won’t say anything because Mommy would be insulted if she refused.” “Oh, Derpy, you don’t have to do all that.” “Dinky is exaggerating.” “Not by much!” the unicorn said. Karyn got up from the table to help dry the dishes. “Even so, you shouldn’t do too much, or it can have the opposite effect and make you seem officious. If you’re really that grateful, you should try to help other ponies besides Colgate. It’s what we call ‘paying it forward’ on Earth.” “What I’m most happy about,” said Derpy, “is just having Dinky back home. I know that it’s for a problem, but after three years of her only being here for vacations and holidays, this is like going back to before she left. “And how about you, Dinky? Do you like being home?” “Actually, yes,” Dinky was still sitting at the table, and she had to think about the question. “But not because it’s home. Now that I’ve been in Ponyville and Canterlot, I can see the advantages of both. Canterlot was a nice place to go to school, but when I settle down, I’d like it to be in a small town like this.” “Not that you’ve seen much of it.” Derpy gave the slightest scowl, but couldn’t stay mad at Dinky for very long. “Why’s that?” asked Karyn. ”Dinky’s been so busy working with Colgate that she hasn’t had time to go out.” “It’s not that.” Dinky pointed at her horn. “If I’m out and for whatever reason I need to do magic, everypony will find out. That’s no good.” Karyn shook her head and helped Dinky down from the table. She didn’t need the help, but Karyn wanted to confront her. “What’s no good is you becoming a shut-in. You need to get out, make friends, ensure that you get a support network to help you through your troubles. The problem is that Derpy’s always done everything for you, or you for yourself. Sometimes you let me in, but I’m not a pony. You need to have more ponies on your own level...like that Suzie we met once.” “You really think so?” “As much as you need the therapy for your horn, you need it for what caused the problem in the first place. Come on, get a coat if you think it’ll be cold. We’re going out.” Before Dinky could put up a protest, Karyn put on her own jacket and led Derpy to the front. Derpy liked the idea, but couldn’t bring herself to support it more vocally, preferring not to direct Dinky to things she didn’t want to do. Karyn noticed this, and considered it lucky that Dinky hadn’t been a spoiled child. Whatever her flaws, she had a good heart and hadn’t taken advantage of her mother’s soft discipline. Out into the streets they walked, and Dinky asked, “Where exactly are we going?” “To the market,” said Karyn, who hadn’t known herself until that moment. “It’s where there will be lots of ponies, and that’s what we want.” “It is?” “Yes. I know that sounds intimidating, but trust me, it’ll be easier when you have a big crowd who’ll just see you as another face. It’s the small gatherings we’ll have to work our way up to.” Dinky’s reluctance battled with her naturally longer stride, and she kept up with Karyn until they reached the weekly market. The winter sellers had taken up residence, and Karyn saw some of the summer fruits and vegetables she’d come to rely on as landmarks weren’t there. But she wasn’t there to buy, so it worried her less as she led the two ponies through the lanes. Occasionally she would lean in to a stand to look at the wares. If anything, she pulled more looks than Dinky, and she could no longer blend in. But soon a mare running a cheese stand said, “Derpy? Hey, Dinky! I didn’t realize you were back in town. It’s good to see you again!” Dinky girded herself and said hi, getting into the small talk of a casual acquaintance. More than that, she was happy to have fulfilled Karyn’s assignment. As she had said, this was recovery too. They were about to move on when the mare, who happened also to be a unicorn, said, “Before you go, let me give you a wedge of something. Call it a delayed Hearth’s Warming present. Hang on. Here you are, I think you’ll like this, if you’re into soft cheeses.” Without thinking about it, she floated it over to Dinky. Karyn bit her lip and was prepared to take it, but Dinky’s horn field activated in full color as she landed it gently in Derpy’s saddlebag. After thanking her, Dinky went on her way. She still didn’t want to cause any undue attention, but Karyn moved Dinky quickly to a side alley and said, “You were holding back. You did that perfectly!” “Ha. I burned myself out for that. Right now, I couldn’t lift a feather. By the end of the day, maybe I’ll be back to where I was before then.” “Oh. Well, don’t feel bad about that. It’s like how you exercise a muscle. You have to push it to its limit sometimes, and then it will get healthier.” Dinky looked around while rubbing her hoof. “I would like to get home now, though. I didn’t mind doing that because I knew that I had one good spell if I needed it. Now that I’m out...” “All right. Let’s go enjoy this cheese.” While they were on the move, nopony accosted them, and even out of the market the ponies still looked at Karyn more than the others. Only when they were close to home did they here someone say, “Dinky?” They turned, slightly worried, but it was the one pony they were OK with seeing, Colgate. “Oh, hi,” said Derpy. “I don’t think we’ll actually need you today.” “I hope you’re not letting Dinky skive off. Keeping up with her magic is important.” Karyn admired her tact. Anypony passing by would conclude that it was just an ordinary conversation about a unicorn in training. Derpy, lacking such tact, told the story of what happened at the market, and Colgate nodded approval. “Also,” said Derpy, “I have Karyn here today, so I hope you don’t mind if I don’t have you over.” “Of course not. You’re going to get me fat anyway on your good cooking. I’ll see you tomorrow.” They were free to retreat to Derpy’s house, and once there, Derpy got to work slicing the cheese. “So, Dinky,” said Karyn, “you’ve got a new task. In addition to working with Colgate, I want you to go outside each day. Just take a walk around town a little. Say hi to some ponies. If you get a chance to use your magic like you did today, fine, but if not, that’s OK too. Because if you don’t get back your full power, you’ll need to learn how to interact with ponies anyway.” “Are you going to want me to write up a report?” “No, just do it, and know that you are. You’re not in school now, and you’re going to have to provide your own structure for your life.” Dinky stared, as if thinking about this for the first time. “Wow, you’re right. How do you know about it?” Karyn grinned. “Because the same thing is looming for me.”