Epilogue
Dinky blinked awake when she felt a beam of sunlight tickle her nose. The little filly looked up with groggy eyes and saw that the curtains had been drawn and her mother sat by her bed and watched her daughter with admiring eyes.
“Mom,” the violet Unicorn rose up to sit in her bed. “When did you come back home? We were worried when you hadn’t come home yet yesterday, it was getting so late.”
Derpy didn’t respond just yet but reached forward to grab her in a tight embrace. The filly was lifted up and held in her mother’s forelegs, Dinky was mildly confused and wondered even more what had happened.
“Did you meet dad? Uh he wasn’t mean to you because of the letters was he?” Dinky asked, still a little worried that she was in trouble for the letter writing.
The mare put her daughter down so she could sit down on the floor with her. Derpy still had one hoof on Dinky’s back as she thought back to the events of yesterday. Tootsie was not in the room, having been sent out earlier as Derpy knew she would need to speak with Dinky alone.
“Yes, I met your father,” she confirmed. “And yes, he was mean.”
“Was it because of the letters?” Dinky cringed a little, to her surprise her mother shook her head.
“Dinky, no, this was not your fault at all. Your father did use your letters as an excuse to be very mean to ponies he knew and to me and even to Time Turner,” Derpy explained to the filly and her smile turned sadder. “Dinky, you never have to write to him again or ever have to hear from him again if you don’t want to.”
“Good, because if he was mean to you and to Mister Turner who I think is really nice for fixing Tootsie’s clock so quickly, I don’t want see him again,” Dinky said with a frown.
Derpy’s smile brightened a bit and the two ponies hugged again. She was so proud of her daughter right now, she just wanted to burst. The mare only wished she had known about Dinky’s feelings sooner.
“And Dinky, please tell me from now on if something bothers you like this. I won’t tell you to be nice just to be nice,” she told her daughter who nodded.
“Sorry about that mommy,” Dinky grinned sheepishly. “I won’t do it again.”
“Now my little muffin, I want to tell you about your sister and your uncle.” Derpy couldn’t help but chuckle a little at the confusion that came on the filly’s face.
“But I don’t have an uncle and which sister, Tootsie? Sparkler?” she just couldn’t understand it, what was her mother talking about? Derpy didn’t have any siblings and the only male in the family she knew was her grandfather, her mother’s father.
“Actually you have a sister that’s only few months older than you in Fillydelphia. Remember Foxy who came to visit us? She dated your father before he met me and she has little filly named Coal, you have the same dad but she lives with her mom who, if you remember, was super nice,” Derpy explained to her. Dinky’s eyes opened wide when hearing this. The mare wanted to wait though with mentioning Cara until she knew more regarding her, considering that filly was living with Barricade.
Wonder though if Dew and Foxy will have that arrangement changed, Derpy thought.
“And you know what, your dad was mean to her too, breaking promises and never visiting, the same with you,” she continued.
“Wow, can I see her?” Dinky looked up at her mother, excited gleams in her eyes.
“Hopefully, I told your uncle to ask her mother for me if that was possible next weekend. Speaking of your uncle, he lives in the same house as Coal and Foxy and Dew and he is really super nice to her, he’s there for her when her dad breaks promises, he plays with her and takes her places,” Derpy said, hoping she was mostly right. She was only going by with what she had heard mostly from Foxy and what was overheard from Private’s rant.
“How is he my uncle?” the little unicorn wondered, she was somewhat familiar with how relations worked. Her mother braced herself knowing this could go either way.
“He’s your dad’s brother, but he’s so much more different. He’s been more of daddy to Coal than her real father ever was. I won’t say he does as I don’t know, but I bet he goes to every school play she is in,” Derpy told her, deep down hoping it was true.
“That sounds like a real dad.” Dinky nodded, she had frowned a little when hearing the relations but it eased when her mother continued. “Will I ever see him?”
“If you want to, who knows maybe it will be him who comes with Coal next weekend, that is if Foxy agrees to it,” her mother said and made a mental note to send a telegram to Foxy about it.
I will wait telling about the grandparents until I know for sure that the visit happens, Derpy thought and rose up. “Now, how about some breakfast, Carrot Top is making her famous Carrot Delish.”
“Carrot Delish!?” Dinky gasped, sprung up and rushed out of the room, yelling: “Tootsie, you better not have eaten all of the Carrot Delish!!!”
Derpy giggled and followed out of the room. Downstairs Dinky and Tootsie had started bickering about the popular breakfast her friend sometimes made. The mare shook her head and approached the stairs to go down. As she started towards the kitchen there was a knock on the front door.
Now who could that be so early? Derpy thought and changed her direction to go to the front hall to open the door. To her surprise it was Applejack who stood here, smiling apologetically.
“Good mornin’ Derpy, sorry to for coming here so early, ya’ll probably still eatin’ breakfast and all. I just came over to see how ya’ll were doin’,” the orange mare greeted, then lowered her tone a little bit after glancing back. “Word on the street is that you’ve been havin’ some spot of trouble.”
The Pegasus mare couldn’t say she was surprised that the town knew, or at least thought they knew something was up. Dew and Foxy hadn’t just visited her and it probably spread that new social workers were doing the visiting rounds and of course the gossipers latched onto it that they came to her.
“Oh it was nothing, just Dinky’s father being his usual jerky self, actually he was being more of a jerk than usual,” Derpy told Applejack. Knowing that the apple farmer was not one to spread things around, she did tell her in brief what had happened.
“Oh that son of a…” Applejack stopped herself quickly when remembering there were foals around that could possibly overhear. “That Barricade, Ah always knew he was trouble. Glad ya’ll got out okay. Ah could kick that sorry excuse for a stallion from here to Appleoosa if I were to meet him again.”
“That is a mental image I’m going to savor forever,” Derpy giggled. “Thanks for stopping by, Applejack. I appreciate it.”
“Hey, like Ah said to Carrot Top, if ya’ll need anything just give a holler,” Applejack said with a chuckle. Then with that the apple farmer said goodbye and trotted away. Derpy close the door and went to the kitchen to have some breakfast, preferably before her daughters finished it all.
“Seriously, are you addicted to these?” Time Turner asked as he sat down at the café table in front of Caramel. The amber pony had a large cup of hay smoothie.
“What? Is good,” Caramel shrugged. “So uh how did to go yesterday?”
“Ugh where to start.” Turner rubbed his forehead for a second. “You should be glad you missed the train, though something good came out of it, I will gladly not repeat this experience.”
The clock smith then began telling Caramel about the second trip to Manehattan. The amber pony listened only half interested, thinking they had just gone to fix some communication issue after all, but when things reached the point of the group being surrounded by a gang, he was all ears. Then he almost dropped his cup when hearing about Tango and then when Private confronted his brother.
“This is crazy and wait, you and Derpy actually confessed your feelings?” Caramel asked but was careful to keep his voice down, not sure if Turner would be comfortable about it being known all over.
“Uh… yeah, so something good came off this trip… we had a long talk in the train about the next step now and… I’m invited to dinner at her house tonight, we want to make sure the girls are comfortable with me seeing their mother.” Turner smiled a little, he was still a little dazed that this was happening.
“Wow, you two, finally.” His employee didn’t seem to be able to wrap his brain around this either.
“Yeah… say what did Sassaflash want with you?” Time Turner then remembered why Caramel hadn’t been with them on the trip.
“Oh um… yeah, we never apparently broke up. She forgot to dial down her sarcasm a little and her mother who was visiting didn’t catch on that she was just teasing me and well… yeah we talked things over and she promised to watch her sniping next time and we apologized. I mean I was being a bit of an idiot myself not remembering that Sass is just a fountain of sarcasm,” the amber pony explained and chuckled a little.
“Ah yes, miscommunication and here I thought that was what I was trying to fix yesterday.” Turner shook his head.
The waiter came and Turner ordered some bagels. Since it was an already prepared item, the food was soon brought out to the clock smith. The two stallions were silent while enjoying their meals, Turner was mostly wondering if he should wear anything special for tonight. Caramel’s mind was just wandering, until the pony seemed to remember something.
“Oh. Ooh, Turner, I think I know why ponies have always been calling you Doctor Whooves,” Caramel whispered and leaned over the table.
“Do tell.” Time Turner raised an eyebrow.
“Yesterday evening, I was passing the train station when I thought I saw double,” his employee said. “I knew you were still in Manehattan, I had come by your house earlier to ask if you wanted my help in the shop today and you weren’t home and not in your shop and not at the clock tower. But I saw a pony with a striking resemblance to you.”
“Excuse me?” the clock smith blinked.
“Well more of a resemblance at a first glance, you don’t have a twin brother right?” Caramel asked for clarification. Time Turner shook his head. “Well this pony was an inch or two taller than you and his coat was a lighter shade of brown than yours.”
“Well I suppose it’s not impossible that a pony exists that bares a passing resemble to me, I mean I’ve seen my cutie mark on other ponies too,” the clock smith shrugged and continued with his bagel.
“But here comes the weird part.” Caramel wasn’t finished, Time Turner arched his brow.
“I walked over to him because I did think it was you at first, but then he said something about, just missing them, they are probably already gone and he’ll just meet them in Fillydelphia,” the amber pony told him. “He didn’t even speak in your voice and had really odd accent.”
“I uh then followed him from a distance, he went around the train station and then just vanished.” Caramel finished both his explanation and his hay smoothie.
“Caramel, are you sure you weren’t dreaming this?” Turner asked unsure, this sounded really farfetched in his ears.
“Yes,” his employee insisted and pushed his now empty cup away.
“And what makes you think that pony is the reason ponies can’t seem to get my name right?” the clock smith asked.
“Well, who knows, maybe he’s been here before and talked with other ponies, introduced himself and they just didn’t connect that you and him are different ponies,” Caramel suggested.
“I am not convinced you weren’t just dreaming this.” Time Turner remained skeptical of this theory.
“I swear I wasn’t and it makes so much sense, I mean you don’t know why ponies keep calling you that,” the other stallion pointed out.
“True.” Time Turner relented still not convinced. He shrugged it off and decided to just concentrate on finishing his breakfast.
“I am going to keep the shop open today, you can help at the counter if you want,” the clock smith informed Caramel once he was done, the amber pony nodded as he had no fixed plans.
Time Turner had considered just having the store closed today, but then he would usually be relaxing at home. Right now, looking forward to going to dinner at Derpy’s house, he just wasn’t sure if he could stay still. Better then to have the store open and concentrate on fixing clocks, there was small backlog anyway that he needed to catch up on.
The two ponies stood up, paid for their meals and trotted off towards the shop. Many ponies were out and about already on this lovely Sunday morning, many heading to the park or the café or Sugar Cube Corner. The most comical sight was Officer Mulberry, who had been roped by the Cutie Mark Crusaders into helping them rescue their kites out of a tree the stocky stallion was making an attempt to climb.
And in the Golden Oak Library, Twilight Sparkle was startled to learn that Princess Celestia had a test prepared for her.
The End