//------------------------------//
// [Z] A Lovely New Life Starring Ditzy Doo! 
// Story: The Last Illusion 
// by ScientistWD 
//------------------------------//

	Somepony. Is. Talking.
What. Was. She. Saying?
Pages. Scribe?
Hello?
Ah. Oh!

That’s better.
“Thanks, but I think it’ll be okay!” chirped Miss Doo. It was late. Late afternoon. There was a room. The room, it was modest, but still cozy. Carpeted floor in a sitting room. And there was a little tiled kitchen. Likely a bathroom and bedroom nearby. It’s nice. The kitchen light was on. Miss Doo was in the kitchen!
“Oh Ditzy,” doted a new, caring voice. “Are you sure you don’t need anything else? I packed all the silverware, the towels… I think there’s a grocery nearby, do you want to get more sweets?”
“I’m fine, mom! Really, I’ve moved into my own place before. This one is especially good. You don’t have to worry!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, okay, I won’t keep cramping your style. I should fly back to Cloudsdale. Um…”
The older mare, she meandered on her way to the door, gazing worriedly at the corners of the room. She turned back to her daughter. “Ditzy, are you sure you’re sure about this? You’re always welcome to come back to Cloudsdale, your room is still all made up. The weather plant seemed like such a good fit for you, and I know that your cousins would appreciate having you around, too.”
“I know, but I wanna make it on my own!”
Mother Doo hid a worried glance. Her eyes perked up at the sight of a cardboard box by the door. “Oh, that’s right!” she scooped it up in her hooves, migrating back into the small apartment. “Your clothes! Come on, let’s put them in your closet.”
“Mom! I can unpack my stuff by myself. It’s getting late. It’s dangerous to fly in the dark!”
“I know, just real fast. I want to make sure everything’s hanging up properly.”
She hurried to the bedroom, Miss Doo dragging hooves a bit behind. Bedroom. The bedroom.
Oh dear. Out of range? With a visible struggle, a page wriggle-wormed from beneath the flaps of the saddlebags hanging on the hat rack. A few followed, managing to float on air to the bottom of the bedroom door. Earshot at last. For one with no ears. One?
Oh. They were carefully removing a few articles from the box. A few accessories. A fluffy, navy coat for cold weather. “There’s not that much in here,” commented Miss Doo.
“This is your hat for your new job,” said Mother Doo, setting a proud blue cap on the dresser. “Don’t lose it, okay? Your boss is an old friend of mine, and he might ask you to pay for it if you do.”
“That… seems fair,” Miss Doo returned, quizzically. She was looking at her mother.
“And this…!” Mother Doo pulled a white bag out of the box, allowing it to crinkle and sheen as she let it spread flat. “Your dress from the Flight Camp graduation party! Remember this old thing?” She hung it gently on a rod in the small closet.
“Y…yeah…”
Hoofbeats came toward the bedroom door. “Okay, is there anything else you need before I go?” Crinkle. She stepped on some paper on the floor. “Gee, it’s a mess already…” she whispered to herself, picking up the papers. She started to crumple them ouch. Ow! Ow ow ow ow! Oof!
Trashcan.
“Nope! I can settle in. My first day is the day after tomorrow, right?”
“Yes, and you have to be at work at six in the morning, so set your alarm for five or even four thirty if you think you need more time. And I took care of your first rent payment, but you need to pay the landlord next month, and every month after, okay? I put a reminder on your fridge so you wouldn’t forget.”
Miss Doo opened the door for her mother. “Thanks a bunch, mom! Fly safely, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll be back to visit in a week or two. Have fun!”
Miss Doo somewhat loudly shut the door behind her mother. Now quiet, she let her hoof fall from the knob. The lovely pegasus drooped, sighing and gently lowering to her haunches. “Phew!” she breathed.
Okay, that had been quite enough. The papers in the trash glowed slightly, best they could, and began to rise and unfold before unceremoniously falling to the ground again. Light flickered among them. Work, magic! Work!
“Oh!” sang surprise from Miss Doo. “Scribe!”
Scribe! Yes! Composure regained, the scribe slowly became aware enough to regain its hovering capabilities while—
“My gosh, I’m so glad to see you!” Miss Doo quickly rose to her hooves, cradling the few pages that had become free. “I didn’t realize the pages that ripped out would still write stuff. All of ‘em blank, wouldn’t you know? Good thing I forgot to recycle them, huh!”
That had indeed been a good thing. It was very likely that the presence of Miss Doo’s dialogue in the first place had woken the scribe, so to speak.
“Yeah, that makes sense!” Miss Doo looked toward her saddlebags, and retrieved the remaining pile of pages. They seemed inert. “Um, how does this work?” She added the active scribe to the stack, and  the lot of them began to float haphazardly. A few could not make it, and fell to the floor, too torn and malformed. But the others could manage just fine, and a stack of paper was left gratefully floating there. Much better.
“Oh gosh, what am I gonna do with you?” Miss Doo gushed. “I’m just gonna be living a normal life, after all! Nothing exciting or glamourous. Just me. Just Ditzy Doo, making it in Canterlot.”
It would seem that Miss Doo had been under the impression that her life was boring.
Miss Doo blushed a little, shying. “Well… yeah!”
As much could not be further from the truth. Miss Doo was a charming, clever, up-and-coming and pretty mare, about to begin a new chapter of her life. She was to be a mail carrier, and take important parcels to important ponies. Imagine who she was going to meet! Friends, opportunities, new experiences were right around the corner.
An adorable grin had been growing on the lovely mare. “Aw, shucks! That does sound exciting!”
It had in fact been very exciting!
“Yeah! A new life, who know’s what’s around the corner?”
Precisely!
“Things are gonna be different this time!”




It was morning.
Gentle light streamed through the cheap curtains between the window and Miss Doo’s face. Slowly, it grew in length as it gently kissed her on the cheek, then poked her in the eye. She struggled, and groaned them open. One of her golden eyes took a thoughtful look at the ceiling, and the other at the scribe on her nightstand. She turned her head. “Good morning, scribe! Writing so early?”
Perhaps the scribe had begun writing so early as to capture the onset of Miss Doo’s morning routine. The sunrise marked her first day at work as a mail carrier.
She crawled across her bed to observe the scribe’s words. “No,” she puzzled. “That’s tomorrow, isn’t it? I was going to spend today… doing…”
No, the day before had been mostly sitting around and unpacking. Miss Doo had prepared waffles for lunch.
“Oh yeah…”
Miss Doo’s alarm had neglected to go off this morning. It was likely that it had not been set.
“Wait a minute, what time is…?”
It was fifty two minutes past five in the morning.
“Oh no…!”
Miss Doo shot out of bed, swiftly displacing the covers onto the floor. The sink was turned on in the bathroom. “Oh gosh, I can’t be late on the first day!” she remarked, now brushing her teeth.
The scribe took the opportunity to float into the other room, likely with a certain destination.
She spat into the sink, and looked into the mirror. “But at least I have a chance!” she affirmed. “You can do this Ditzy Doo!”
The scribe landed in her saddlebags just in time for her to hastily don them and scurry out the door.




Miss Doo squinted to the ground in the early morning light. But after dodging a few buildings, she found whom she was looking for. She decended to meet him. “Careful…” she cautioned, slowing down to land as well as she could. And she did. Just outside the post office, a grumpy stallion dressed in blue was waiting for her.
“I’m not late, am I? I’m sorry.”
“Nope. Right on time. You must be Ditzy Doo.”
“Whew! Thank goodness!”
“Come on in,” commanded Miss Doo’s superior. Perhaps he was the postmaster.
She followed him inside, past the waiting area an into an office. “You’re job’s gonna be helping out with the daily and weekly stuff. Stamps’ll show you the schedule and get’cha all suited up.”
The office was brown, and small. Or, it was not small, and instead had been cramped with so many shelves, drawers, and paper that no more than three ponies could ever fit inside at once. Still, the space above was high and clear, stacked with even more shelves. A true pegasus working environment.
“You’ll make the same deliveries every week,” he continued, snapping Miss Doo back to attention. “Businesses and sometimes residences get some of the same things all the time, and some of them go through us. It’s a simple job, but somepony’s got to do it. We’re still a little short-staffed around here, so you’ll probably be on your own most of the day. You should be punctual for the morning deliveries. Afternoons, you’ll get the hang of. Any questions?” he asked. 
“Um… um…!” her hooves fiddled a bit. “Oh! How do you know my mom?”
“Flight camp,” he answered, curtly. “Anything else?”
“Um… I…! I just want to say that I’m really excited to work here!” she popped. “I moved in just two days ago, and I know I’ve only been here for a little while, but I think this job’s gonna be a really cool experience!”
He gave a short chuckle, and a crinkled old pony smile. “Sure kid.” He looked up. “Where’s your hat?”
“My hat!” Miss Doo set a hoof on her head. Empty. She felt the pockets of her saddlebags. Only paper. “Um…”
She had forgotten it.




Trotting down the street, a light pant on her tongue, Miss Doo adjusted her hat. She had gone home, gone back to the post office, met Stamps, put her blue shirt on, got her schedule; all in about half an hour. She must have been very determined! Her saddlebags now, these owned by the city of Canterlot, were stuffed with a few packages as well as the pages of a scribe. It was cramped. And heavy. Too much a danger for Miss Doo to fly with so much inertia.
“H-hello!” she barged through the door of Doughnut Joe’s. “Doughnut Joe? I have your sprinkles!”
Pungent quiet followed, as the currently mellow restaurant was occupied only by ponies that were awake at six thirty in the morning. If a few heavy eyed glares made it to Miss Doo, she did not respond to them.
“Um…” spoke the pony behind the counter. “Okay… why didn’t you come in the back…?”
“Oh…!” And the door closed, the little bell ringing behind it.
The diner was quiet for about two minutes before the bell sharply rang again.
“Um…” she shied. “Where’s the back…?”




But no! Miss Doo managed to stay optimistic!
“Whew…!” she huffed, taking a short break on an uncrowded street corner. The parcel she had this time was quite heavy. “Today’s not so… not so bad…! I’m getting like a big workout. I wonder… what the scribe is writing down?” She put a hoof to her saddlebags, looking for the paper underneath. Unfortunately, it was indisposed along the underside of a cardboard box. “I guess who knows…”
She began walking again, then took off to a low glide. Faster, and still safe.
“Okay! Let’s go, Ditzy Doo!”
She rounded a corner. This time, it had not been the wrong corner.
“Let’s see. Fifth street, 414.” She looked up from her schedule, and saw a pony standing down the walkway at the door of her destination. “Oh. I wonder if that’s who it’s for?”
A gray earth pony. With a navy frock.
“You’re late,” droned the drab Maud Pie. “My rocks were supposed to come in seventeen minutes ago.”
“Oh…! I know yo—…! Sorry, um, I’m new today! I promise I’ll be on time next time! Plus, flying with all these heavy things kinda hurts my back. I’m still getting used to things!”
“Okay. Please get here on time. I have a strict rock schedule.”
Miss Doo hoisted the package over her shoulder. “Whew! Okay, um, yeah I’ll do my best Maud!”
“Whoa,” said Maud Pie. “How did you know my name.”
“Oh! You fought Trixie at the Hoovesvale Music Festival, remember? I was there, I saw you!”
“I see. Okay then.”
“What? You don’t remember?”
“I remember fighting Trixie, but I don’t remember you.”
“Oh! Um, I’m Ditzy Doo, I—“
“I have work and I cannot talk right now. Goodbye.”
And with that, Maud single-hoofedly carried her package indoors and shut the door abruptly.
This left Miss Doo alone. “Oh. Um… s-see you next time, Maud…”




“Actually, I’m leaving today, so you can just cancel all my deliveries alright?” An aloof blue unicorn, one with an hourglass cutie mark, was locking her door on her way out of her residence. She was oddly familiar. “Or just bring them and leave them outside. I don’t actually care. Do what you gotta do, right?”
“Um… okay then?” from Miss Doo. “I’ll…” she looked about herself confusingly. “Oh! I’ll write a note!” She dove into her saddlebags. She must have seen the pages glowing, because she stopped. “Or maybe a note will write itself… heh heh…!”
“Tssfff…” the unicorn giggled. “Uh, I mean, Whatever, Miss Doo. I won’t be here anymore, and I’m not gonna take any more packages, okay?.”
“Sure, okay! But how long?”
The deep blue pony walked hoof by hoof down the sidewalk, almost as if she had ignored the question. She hadn’t.
“Probably forever,” she hummed. “See you later then! Ha!”
She kept walking until Miss Doo could see her no longer. “She seemed nice! But kind of weird… but those are the kinds of ponies you meet, you know? I think today is starting to look up!”




That afternoon, Miss Doo had only two packages left. She trot up the paved walkway, alongside a carriage for awhile. Though she may not have noticed at the time, in spite of her earlier hiccups, she was actually ahead of schedule!
“Whew, okay…” she huffed. “Two more… just two more! One for Crystal Corner… on eighth street… and one for 622 on ninth!” It was actually 662 on ninth. But regardless, Crystal Corner was a few paces ahead.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, seeing her destination. In excited haste, air pushed beneath her wings as she took off in a burst of speed. “There it is!”
But a mare came out the front door, to her surprise. It had a less-than-desirable effect on her trajectory.
Though it was not as if the world began to move in slow motion. More that the scribe wrote exceptionally quickly.
Miss Doo’s eyes widened. Her right wing jerked, avoiding one obstacle but creating another as the air pressure on that side spiked. As a result, she veered to the left, barreling. She avoided the pony she had been careening towards. But the left side of her body, of which the package was stored on within her saddlebags, was nigh to hit the pavement. She knew this, it seems, as she worked her hoof to save it. Barreling further to the left, she pulled her bags to her chest to keep the parcel safe. Leading to an unfortunate scrape with the walkway as she slid along a few feet. Her gray wing and legs had ground on the pavement, loosing a few feathers in the process, but, with an exasperated “Safe!”, Miss Doo was pleased as ever to see that her rescue was successful.
“My word!” the distinguished mare began. “Are you okay, Miss…?”
“Doo!”
“Uhm… do what, Miss?”
“Doo! My name, I’m Ditzy Doo!”
“Oh, heavens! Very funny!”
“Heh heh! Isn’t it?”
The fallen pony rose to her hooves, parcel in tow, and dusted her wings off a tad. She gave a small hiss from the store, but otherwise she was okay.
“Sorry about that,” she conceded. “I didn’t think that anypony would come out the door, and I was really excited.”
“Well, do keep it down next time, hm?”
“Y-yeah, uhh… I’m really sorry…” Her ears almost drooped.
“I wouldn’t want you to crash into my store! The crystals might really hurt you, Ditzy Doo! Now, I take it that’s my parcel?”
“Oh! Yes it is.” Miss Doo held it to the pretty white unicorn. She caught it with her magic.
She bobbed it up and down, listening to its contents jingle. “Ah yes, these sound perfectly divine.” She turned back to the door of her small shop. “Amy, darling, can you bring these indoors?”
A familiar young unicorn hopped out the front door. “Yes, ma’am!”
“Amy?” perked Miss Doo. And sure enough, it had been young Amethyst Star! What an absurd coincidence.
“Oh, do you two know each other?”
“Oh good darn grief…”
“Amy oh my gosh I didn’t think I’d see you up here!” Miss Doo exclaimed. She practically flew up to the young unicorn, who backed up cautiously. “I can’t believe it! I thought you lived in Hoovesvale Did you get in trouble Did you get a job up here My gosh that’s so—“
“Ditzy, can you lay off!?” she blurted.
“Oh no no no, Amy, you gotta tell me everything!”
“I’m at work!”
“I am also at work, Amy!”
The pretty unicorn interrupted. “All right, all right you two, let’s both get back to work then, hm? I’m sure we can all arrange a time to catch up later, can’t we? I know that at least one Amethyst Star has a few sparkling gems to organize.”
“Yeah, so seeya, Ditzy,” spurned the little ruffian. With a hint of raspberry, she hoisted the package with her own magic inside.
“Aw…” cooed the mail carrier. “I guess I am at work, so...“
“Now, if we may get back to business, Ditzy Doo? I do have one question, if you’d care to do your job?”
“O-o-oh!” Miss Doo shied, a tad ashamed. “I-I-I’m sorry, you’re completely right.”
“Oh it’s fine, dear,” the unicorn smiled. “I know what it’s like to meet an old friend. Now, I believe I had ordered a routine two boxes per delivery, not just one.”
Miss Doo raised an eyebrow quizzically. She reached into her saddlebags for the schedule to find that “Oh! Yeah, you are supposed to get two! I must have left one at the post office by mistake. I can go back and get it, I’m really sorry, um…”
“Rarity, dear,” the kind mare bowed her head, allowing her alluring purple mane to swathe gorgeously. “And it’s quite alright, kind mail carrier, I can wait until tomorrow for the package if that is to your convenience.”
“Oh, it is! Thank you, thanks a lot Rarity. I’ll definitely bring it by tomorrow. It’s my first day today, so I’ve still been getting used to things.”
“I completely understand, dear. I’m sure you’ll do wonderfully moving forward. Now, I do have one more matter to ask you about.”
“Sure.”
“I do recognize you from Ponyville, don’t I?”
Miss Doo cocked her head. “Do you?”
“I ‘Doo’, as it were. Like I said, perhaps all three of us, Amy, you and I should catch up sometime soon! I would be very curious to know how a pony like you found her way to Canterlot; I’m sure it’s nothing less than riveting!”
“R-r-right! Yeah!” Miss Doo beamed, giving a cheerful salute and standing up her wings. “I guess… we can set something up later. I still have one more delivery!”




After backtracking from 622 on ninth, Miss Doo was at her last destination on her first day. A formerly elegant house, decorated purple and black, was perched carefully at the address. Between the tinted windows, aching walls, and lack of mailbox, the abode held a real fixer-upper kind of vibe. It looked much like a house to be moved out of.
Nonetheless, Miss Doo had an envelope to be delivered to this address. And she would have another one to take here every business day, according to her schedule. The brave pegasus only hesitated for a moment. It was her duty to advance.
Hoofbeats crackled slowly along the graveled path to the door, until Miss Doo rapped gently on the door.
Knock, knock.
Then came the waiting. Leaving her eyes to wander around the peeling doorframe, dingy woodwork, and blurry peephole before somepony unexpected opened the door.
An off-yellow pegasus opened the top half of what was apparently a stable door. The mane on his head was, to say the least, ruffled. But not in a manner that was apathetic, more that it was carefree. Carefree and blue as a morning sky. His eyes, a stunning shade of meadow green, sparked to life upon meeting those of Miss Doo. His lips curved, a smile grew until he cutely covered his mouth with a hoof.
“Ditzy Doo!” he almost screamed. “Gadzooks! I…! Wow…! I can’t believe it…! She’s alive!!”
At that time, Miss Doo found herself suspended in a similar disbelief. The look on her face had gone almost blank. Her breath, quite still. The envelope gripped awkwardly in her hoof as she took a small gasp. Even her eyes, normally disjointed in their quest for distractions, slowly found themselves aligning like stars on this fine pegasus.
“S…! S-s….!” she stuttered. “Sonny you goofball I’m not dead!” At that, the mare almost doubled over in laughter, clutching the envelope to her chest. She giggled so hard that her hat fell off. And when she brought her head back to his level, she met the friendly surprise of his face, grinning with swagger. As if he had just won a game. He wiggled his eyebrows comically, making himself even smugger.
At which Miss Doo nearly fell to the walkway, laughing all the way. Her smiling cheeks grew pink with joy. And tears streamed from her eyes.
“Heh heh! My gosh, Sonny Weathers,” she began at the end of her fit. “You gotta stop that! What if I died laughing? Then you’d feel terrible, because I would have died when you said ‘she’s alive’.”
“Oh, come on, wouldn’t that be a fun way to die?” he sang. “Then on your tombstone you could just say ‘he jinxed it’.”
“Pffft! Okay, that’d be pretty funny…”
Miss Doo suddenly found the eyes of Sonny Weathers quite difficult to focus on.
“…so you’re a mail pony now?” Sonny asked. “Whatcha got for me, Doo?”
“Oh!” with real surprise. “Um…!” She took a look at the envelope she had apparently dropped. “I guess this is for you?”
He took it. “Thank ya!”
Her mouth tightened and eyes flickered. Scanning around the nearby doorframe and featureless ground, Miss Doo had taken the appearance of a pony who was distracted by her sudden lack of distractions. For a moment, she was taken by Sonny Weathers. Though without wandering, his mouth was a little bit tight, too. With all these closed mouths, there must have been something between these ponies that they were not saying.
“Gotta go, Sonny, I’ll see you later!” She trotted away from the door a bit flustered. Later, indeed, Miss Doo, as this address was listed for delivery at this time every business day.
“Hey, Ditzy Doo!” he called, surprising his target to almost a full halt.
“Y-yeah?”
“It’s really good to see you again. And I hope it’s not…all bad to see me again!”
“Y-yeah! It’s nice to… it’s nice to see you, Sonny Weathers! I’m glad, I’m glad, I really am!”
Ditzy Doo smiled. She smiled all the way back to the post office.




Bonk!
Miss Doo’s forehead met the door to her small Drury Lane apartment. “Whew!” she sighed, eyes heavy after her first day. “That wasn’t so bad at all!” She fiddled with her keys and let herself inside. “I could totally do that every day forever.”
Wump! went her saddlebags on the hat rack, followed soon by her blue hat. She hopped into an exasperated slump onto her couch, laying out lazily. The pages of the scribe poked out of her bags, hovering over to a comfortable position on the coffee table.
The sun was setting. The only window was opposite the door, in the kitchen. Light poured over the pasteled room, soaking only some of the sitting area in yellow and weak red. The light almost called. As if there was more to it.
“Scribe! What did you write down today?” Miss Doo asked cheerfully yet lazily. She stretched out a hoof to the coffee table. But clumsiness got the better of them, and they were spilled to the floor with a jostle. “Oops!” she called, coming to attention. She scooped them up, scanning the bottoms of some and the tops of others. The blanks were set in a pile, as were those with writing. “Heh. Sorry. Let me see…” She read. Her eyes could take many minutes to read a few lines at a time. But sometimes, she would smile at what had transpired so far. Other times, she would frown. “You wrote a lot of random stuff, didn’t you?”
To be fair, Miss Doo had done a lot of random stuff.
“I wonder where Maud Pie works?” she posed, still leafing through pages. “I bet that she works with rocks. Ha. But for real. She really likes rocks, I’m kind of jealous of her.” She set that page aside. Actually, some of the pages had more written on them than others. The scribe, too, must have been having difficulty keeping track. “Because she gets to do what she loves, you know? I wonder if Doughnut Joe likes doughnuts. He probably does because who doesn’t? But does he really really like doughnuts? Is that even his real name? Did he like, change his name from whatever it was before?” She was reading the same page again. Had she forgotten? Or was she distracted? They slid along the table, making a bit of a map. “I think I remember Rarity…” she muttered. “She had a shop in Ponyville… selling… clothes? I don’t have a lot of clothes. Maybe I should get some more, but I feel like I don’t have any good occasions to wear any.” The pages kept moving around. They were lost.
“You know… maybe Doughnut Joe really likes doughnuts… but you know what I really like?”
Eloquent, self-sufficient narrative?
“Haha! Besides that…?”
Sonny Weathers?
“Ahgum—!” Miss Doo choked at those words. Both her eyes looked away and her cheeks reddened. “I was gonna say ‘muffins’! I like muffins, I used to make them all the time. Let’s make some!”
Interesting.
“Let me see…” Miss Doo began. “Let’s keep it simple for the first time, huh?”
The recipe was prepared as follows:

two cups flour
tablespoon baking powder
half tablespoon salt
two and one half tablespoons sugar
one egg
one cup milk
quarter cup butter
bake 375 degrees for thirty three minutes
sugar on top


She burned them a little. But she still ate them.