//------------------------------// // F12: Friendship is Derpic // Story: Lyra's Human 2: Derpy's Human // by pjabrony //------------------------------// In Gayle’s spacious rooms, the slightest sound would echo through, but that made it all the quieter. Every shuffle of their feet was like sandpaper on the bare wood floors. The clink of a metal knife on the butter dish chimed like a xylophone. “Thank you for inviting us to breakfast,” said Derpy. “Thank you for coming. I remember when you didn’t even show yourself to me.” “Well, I have to be careful, you know.” When Karyn had told Derpy that they were going over to her landlady’s to eat, Derpy had been skeptical. But compared to the eggs and toast Karyn usually made, it was a sumptuous banquet. Gayle had gone out and gotten a big paper bag of bagels, planning to have some the next few days. Derpy was halfway through her second one. “I think the coffee’s ready,” said Gayle, “but I hope it’s to your liking. I drink tea myself, but I have to have a coffee maker for guests.” “We need to follow the stereotypes. You’re an artist, so of course you drink tea. I’m in IT; coffee fuels the industry.” Karyn passed a cup over to Derpy and then took her own. “Either of you want lox?” Derpy picked her head up. “I’m not sure. What is it?” “You don’t want it,” said Karyn. “It’s fish. Thanks, but we’re both vegetarians.” “Oh. My bad.” Gayle lifted a filmy slice of the lox onto her own bagel. “I know a lot of people who do eat fish don’t like it, but I have a taste for it.” Seeing how Gayle had slathered it with cream cheese, Derpy went to match her for a third bagel, but Karyn cleared her throat, knowing how many calories were in each one. Settling for a thin veneer, Derpy munched away. “This is the best breakfast I’ve had in a long while. No offense, Karyn?” “None taken.” “So, Karyn,” Gayle said, “I was walking by the college the other day and I see they’re winding down another year. You’re graduating, aren’t you.” Karyn was suddenly alert for tough questions. “Yes. But I don’t know what I’m doing afterwards. I’ve been looking for a job, but it could be months before I find something.” “Hmm. We don’t have a formal lease, but maybe we should hash that out before you graduate.” “Yeah, I honestly don’t know if I can stay then. I’m thinking I’ll move back with my parents probably. Even if I do get something, there’s no guarantee that it’ll be close to here.” Gayle softened. She’d gotten the information that she wanted, or as much as Karyn had to give. “Well, whatever happens, even if we’re not living in the same place, I hope we remain friends.” “Of course we will be,” Derpy said. “I’ll make sure that Karyn brings me out here some Sundays to see you.” Now she looked even more satisfied. Karyn was almost jealous, as though wanting to be Derpy’s only regular human friend. At that moment, there was a knock on the door. Derpy skittered to the back of the room and prepared to go invisible if necessary, but she recognized the uniform of a courier. “Here for the pickup?” Gayle asked him. “Just wait a moment.” She went into her back room and emerged with a very large package that she had to stretch her arms to carry. She was struggling, and Karyn went to help, but the well-built courier handled it easily. “You know there’s an extra charge for an oversized package.” “It’s being paid by the receiver, so I don’t care.” She signed his electronic pad, and they were alone again. “Sell a painting?” Karyn asked. “Yes, thanks for asking.” “I never thought of the problems that involve moving one.” “Well, it’s not as bad as a piano. But yes, I got good money for it. Would you like to come back to the studio?” Karyn and Derpy put down their coffee mugs. It wasn’t as though Gayle kept her work hidden, but this would be the first time they were formally invited to step into the back area. What they found could best be described as organized clutter. There were hundreds of paint tubes, but all in racks arranged by shade or material. Four smocks hung on hooks, and against a wall were the brushes, knives, and palettes. Two easels were folded up against the wall, and one was in the center. A canvas was resting on it, but it was covered with a tarp. “I try to never work on more than two projects at once,” Gayle said. “If I think of something else to do, I sketch it out and put it off. But I keep the three easels in case I get a specific order that I can’t refuse. Anyway, this is another copy of the one I just sold. Would you like to see it?” Karyn nodded. Derpy said, “Yeah!” Gayle gingerly rolled up both ends of the tarp, paused to check that the lighting was right and the sun wasn’t about to go behind a cloud, flipped it over in a single motion. It was a close in shot of two objects. Karyn needed a moment to identify the one on the left, but then she realized it was a hand. On the right, though, she immediately recognized Derpy’s wing. Every facet, every feather, every detail had been captured. Karyn thought that, if she were to run her hand across the paint, that it would feel soft and light. Outstretched, the wing looked to be billowed by the unseen air currents. The hand, by contrast, was steady, but it reached out to the wing in friendship. Gayle was narrating now. “I couldn’t paint you entirely of course, Derpy. You’re copyrighted. But I’ve been watching you whenever you’re visible, looking for the right angle to capture a part of you. I’m sorry to say I used my own hand for the model, even though it’s supposed to represent Karyn’s. I thought about doing the wing folded up against your body, because that’s an interesting look too. It doesn’t seem like it would fold out that far.” “It’s…really something,” said Karyn. “I’m impressed.” “You like it as a painting?” “I don’t have much taste in art myself, but I like that it’s about us, and that you cared that much.” Gayle grabbed a stool and sat down. “Good. It’ll take about a week to have it framed and then I’ll have it delivered to you.” “What?!” “Well, why do you think I did more than one? I always intended to give it to you.” “But you’re an artist for hire. I can’t accept this free.” “Please. I made enough on the one I sold to cover the costs of doing another. Once you’ve got the idea, the actual painting is fun.” Derpy got closer and stared with one eye, then the other. “I think you did a good job too. I’m a little envious of Karyn.” “Don’t be.” Gayle went to the other wall where a rack of canvases was kept. From there she took another one, which she showed to be a third reproduction. “I couldn’t be that cruel.” Derpy took it in her hooves. “I’ll have it framed back in Equestria. I don’t want to let this out of my sight. I can’t tell you how thankful I am.” “You’re welcome. Well, I’m going to go have another bagel.” Karyn and Derpy were left alone, and Karyn still wanted to run her hand over the painting, but she feared that would mess it up somehow. “This is way too nice of her.” “She matches Rarity for generosity. I only wish that there was something we could do for her that would be as nice.” “Maybe, someday, when I’m successful, I can turn other people on to her art.” Derpy was deep in thought. “I know, but it would be nice to do it now…hmm…” Karyn shrugged and joined Gayle back at the breakfast table. They talked more about art and Karyn told the story of when she and Derpy went to the art museum, and how she didn’t care for it that much. After a few minutes, Derpy walked back into the room. In her most serious voice, she said, “Gayle, would you like to come visit my world?” With a bite of bagel halfway in her mouth, Karyn couldn’t protest, and that gave her a moment to think. Why shouldn’t Gayle be trusted in Equestria? She was good people. It took Gayle longer to recover. Karyn had already regained her composure when Gayle said, “Are you…you’re…for real…you mean it?” “Yes. We probably shouldn’t go broadcasting it across Equestria, but a little visit wouldn’t hurt anypony.” “Anypony…because there are others like you…a whole world. For me to see that…” Karyn wanted to snap her out of it. “Go on, it’s not that impressive. Just watch that first step, it’s a doozy.” “How do we do it? Is there a portal or a magic mirror or something?” “No,” said Derpy. “That was just in a movie. I have a spell that moves me and whoever’s sitting on me from Earth to Equestria or vice versa. Have you ever ridden a pony?” “Never.” Gayle stood up and walked next to Derpy. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to go about this. Karyn showed her how to lift one leg and let Derpy sort of roll underneath. But even once she was straddling Derpy, Gayle still treated her like glass, something too precious to touch. “Oh, and one other thing, have you ever been invisible?” “Well, let me think for a minute. Of course not!” Derpy got her bearings. “Well, we’re not too far off from the usual transition point anyway, so it shouldn’t be a problem if we just go from here. Hang on.” She took a sharp intake of breath. Karyn watched for the two of them to disappear. Only right before Derpy activated the spell did she realize what was going to happen. Gayle didn’t know how to anchor herself in time, so everything on Earth would freeze. She would see it as a single blink in time. And it was true. There was a stuttering change in Gayle’s position on Derpy’s back, like a movie with a few frames lost. If her mind had been boggled at the prospect of visiting Equestria, Gayle seemed even more stunned at having returned from there. Derpy handled most of the dismounting process herself. It reminded Karyn of when she first traveled with Derpy and half of the times she got off Derpy’s back it resulted in her stumbling and falling. “That was incredible. Beautiful.” Gayle reached for the back of her chair, caught it on the second try, and lowered herself into the seat, unblinking. Karyn watched her for reaction. Finding none, she brought Derpy a few steps away. “Well, it was certainly weird being the one stopped in time rather than being the stopper, but I guess that’s not what’s important right now. How long were you in Equestria, anyway?” “Not long, maybe an hour.” “Did you show her anything special?” “Not really.” Derpy lowered her voice to give Gayle the quiet reflection she was looking for. “We landed and I mentioned that we hadn’t cleared her being there with anypony. But then again, I don’t think that anypony who doesn’t know you directly can tell the difference between one human female and another at a casual glance, so—no offense.” “Don’t worry about it.” “So I thought we could go into town. But the first thing she wanted to do was land. She touched the grass carefully, like it would dissolve if she made contact, and just stared at the sky for about five minutes. You know in that part of town there’s usually very few ponies around. We saw a couple from a distance, but after just walking around the field and looking at some trees, she asked me to bring her home.” Gayle shuffled and exhaled, so they both looked at her. “Are you all right?” asked Karyn. “Yes. But that…wait, I have to get some of this down.” She ran back to her studio and emerged with a sketch pad, some colored pencils, and a piece of charcoal. Beginning with the colored pencil, she scratched out a few lines, then said, half to herself, “No, I can’t reproduce the colors I saw. That I’m going to have to work on. I’m not sure the paints exist to do that. But I can get the shapes.” She sketched rapidly and crudely, first a hillside, then a farmhouse. Derpy and Karyn walked behind her to see. Since neither of them were artists, they both stared in awe as Gayle’s hand flew across the page, making seemingly unconnected lines bond together into images of clouds in the sky or a dirt road cutting through a meadow. “You’re going to paint from these?” asked Derpy. “Yes. If my mind can hold the memory of what I saw and my hand can translate onto canvas. Landscapes have always been the weakest part of my art, but maybe it was because I hadn’t seen the right ones. Until now.” “I hope you let us see them when they’re done.” Gayle put down the sketch pad and finally seemed to come back to reality. “Yes, I will. Though, I don’t know how long it’ll take me. When I first began painting, I had to go through many failures before I had something that I was willing to show others and have my name attached to.” “Well, yes,” said Karyn, “but now you’re accomplished. Even your worst effort is still going to have some competence behind it.” “I guess, but I was thinking of when I started. Like when I was a little girl and I knew I wanted to paint the areas I saw so that I could keep them forever instead of having to go home. I haven’t thought about that feeling in a long time. Maybe I forgot about it. But when Derpy took me to her world…it was like being that little girl all over again.” “You knew back then that you wanted to be a painter?” Gayle nodded. “Wow. I know kids talk about what they want to be when they grow up, but I don’t know too many who actually do it.” “Exactly!” said Derpy. “I didn’t plan to become a mail carrier. It kind of just happened.” “Same thing with me and IT. How did you know? I mean, when did you figure it out?” Leaning back in the chair, Gayle looked up to remember. “I was very young, still in pre-school, maybe in kindergarten, but I remember that sometimes we had finger-painting in class, which was great fun because we got to be all dirty, which every kid loves. And then one day my parents must have decided that I needed some culture, because they took me to an art exhibit at a park. I remember seeing all the paintings, and it didn’t seem right that the same word was used for my messes and these things. But that’s when I first understood that there was a progression, a learning curve to things. That if I worked and practiced something, I could get good and produce something of value, maybe even something beautiful.” She looked at them. “Of course,” she continued, “I didn’t put it in those terms. But I remember thinking that when I got older, I wanted to be as good as the artist my parents took me to see.” Karyn and Derpy were now smiling, thinking of Gayle as a cute little girl. “That’s a great story,” said Derpy. “I wonder if the artist ever knew how much he meant to you.” “Funny you should say that. I remember that even though I barely knew how, I tried to write him a letter to say that I would someday have a show like his where I lived. Of course, that was back when I lived a ways away. I even thought of using one name the way he did.” “One name?” Karyn asked. “Yes, like Donatello or Michelangelo. I guessed that’s where he got it from. Or maybe he was just being pretentious. But yes, he just went by Peverley.” Gayle was too deep in her reminiscing to notice the way Karyn and Derpy both snapped their heads up to full attention. They looked at each other as if refusing to believe it for the moment, then realizing it had to be true. Neither knew what to say, and they only drew Gayle’s view when Derpy, still gob-smacked, reached into her bag, pulled out the letter, and set it before her. Her eyes went saucer-wide as she looked. “What is—where did you get that?!” She looked to Derpy for an explanation, her thoughts perhaps turning to time travel or other arcane magic. Instead, Karyn told her the tale of how visiting a post office was one of the weekly outings that they took to teach Derpy more about Earth, and how they’d found it in the dead letter office. “Maybe we can finally deliver it now.” Gayle shook her head. “He died a few years back. I never even thought about this. Probably would have realized that they couldn’t deliver it without the address.” Derpy’s voice went soft. “Was it around here that he lived?” “Yes. I think that influenced why I bought the house here.” “Then you should know that they tried. It got to this post office. Someone else must have known and shipped it with the mail, but a grease spot got on it and changed the P to a B. It wasn’t your fault. Just bad postal work. I’m sorry, on behalf of my profession. All we can do now is to mark it Return to Sender.” She pushed it forward with her hoof. Gayle picked it up, but she had to wipe tears from her eyes. “I don’t even remember what I wrote. All those years ago…” The envelope had been glued shut well, without an easy way to open it, and she put a fingernail to the edge. Then she stopped. “No, I don’t want to open it. It makes me feel good just to know that this still exists, that I started here. What I have to say…that’s all in my art.” “What are you going to do with it?” “Keep it somewhere safe, in a drawer somewhere maybe, or a safe deposit box. I don’t mean to lose it again. Sometimes, not too often, I’ll look at it. Maybe when I finish a painting, and I need to know where to go next, this will remind me to start at the beginning." Karyn couldn’t help her own tears of sympathy. “Then that’s what this means to you. What he meant. Your inspiration.” Gayle sniffed, and her voice was clear. “Yes. Listen, to be creative, to be successful at it, you have to be able to create without inspiration. That’s the drudgery, the work of it. But sometimes you get it. And those times are like diamonds. You have to treasure them. And when it comes from a person, then the creator owes them something. I owed Peverley this letter, and he didn’t get it. I owe you two as well. You’re an inspiration. Derpy, because you showed me a new world. Karyn, because you’re showing me a different way to live, a way that combines the magical with the ordinary. “I’m not sure if I can explain how much people like you mean to me. Just by looking at my art, by giving me a smile or a thank you, or just letting me know to keep going; you give me something that’s necessary for me to create. And it’s necessary for me to create in order to live. You keep me young.” They looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Gayle wasn’t that old, not much more than Karyn, but she was successful in her work and had a house of her own, big enough to rent out part of it. In many ways she was further ahead, but if people like Karyn and Derpy were needed by people like Gayle, then they must be special as well. There was nothing left to say. Gayle hugged each of them in turn, then let them go back to Karyn’s apartment. Once there, Derpy and Karyn decided it was time to relax. They would go out no more that day. Instead, they talked over the amazing way they’d completed the task they’d set for themselves, and how a new bond of friendship had formed. Whatever happened, Gayle would be a part of their lives forever more. And all they could hope for was to say the same thing about each other.