Derpy threw her hooves in the air in frustration, sending a blizzard of pages whirling about her. She groaned loudly and span her chair around with a swift kick to her desk, lying back in defeat and watching the room twirl.
“I haaate thiiis.”
As the storm of paper subsided and her chair slowly came to halt, Derpy noticed an unfamiliar splash of grey and orange out of the corner of her eye and stood up, partly out of curiosity and partly out of a burning desire to do anything that didn’t involve signing her name.
She trotted to the wall and tried to work out what she had seen. Her breath caught as she realised that the flash of colour was part of a photograph, a photograph she was not expecting to see. Slowly, she reached toward the simple-framed picture, hoof imperceptibly trembling.
“I thought I put you away...”
The picture was of a happier time. Derpy, barely an adult back then, stood before a pleasant country cottage, gurning at the camera. Next to her was a young Carrot Top, pulling a face along with her. The sun was high, and the two looked as carefree as ponies could be.
Derpy slumped back into her chair, gazing through the window to the past with a mixture of fond remembrance and wistful resignation. Barely realising she was doing it, she lightly touched the tiny earth pony’s face with the tip of her hoof and sighed deeply, talking quietly to herself.
“What happened to those days, Carrot? When did we forget how to laugh? When did we have to stop being fillies and start being heroes?”
She was pulled out of her reverie as she felt the tip of a claw prick the skin of her chest, just above the heart. Her eyes widened as the words filled the empty office.
“My, the past is a painful thing, isn’t it? Shall we find out how painful?”