They say you're supposed to live for the small things in life. For Donovan Lacson, this phrase took on a whole new meaning; one that would change his life for the better and worse.
Donovan was a somewhat average guy; he was twenty years old, a sophomore in college, and although he wasn't much of a conversationalist, or a student; he was able to look past a lot of people's peculiarities, which made him personable to the more colorful characters he met. In fact, it was this permissive quality that gravitated such characters to him. For an unsociable guy, he seemed to keep making friends and acquaintances whether he liked it or not.
He sat in one of the lounge areas of the college as he waited for his class time to start. Most days he would be on his computer surfing the net and reading various news articles or health warnings on what could give you cancer this week. Other days he would catch up on sleep or just sit in silence and meditate, which eventually led to catching up on sleep.
Today, his meditation was interrupted by voices excitedly chattering to each other. He tried his best to block them out and appear asleep, but one voice suddenly addressed him,
"Hey man..."
Don opened his eyes and saw his friend Lewis. Now, out of all the people he knew, he wasn't sure how he met Lewis. In fact, he couldn't even remember ever going up and introducing himself. It was as if he just appeared one day and took Don as a friendship hostage. Seriously, how in the world did he become friends with this guy?
"Uh, Hey Lewis, what's up?"
Lewis only grinned, "I was just talking with the guys on how the community made a character cannon this past weekend."
"Uh, Congratulations?" Don said confusedly.
He wasn't sure what exactly they were talking about, but as long as he could avoid another invitation to do something or sate whatever conversation hankering Lewis had, it would be an okay morning.
"You should join us man, come on over, have some pizza, binge watch a couple of seasons..."
Don shook his head, "No thanks man, as much as I love...TV... no."
"Alright, that's cool, we'll get you eventually though." Lewis said before turning around and heading back to the rambunctious group.
"I need to stop getting in these situations...wait, did he threaten me?" Don asked himself.
The day went on as normal for Don. He went to class, where he tried his best to pay attention, but eventually, that feeling of drowsiness came over him and within a few minutes, he was asleep at his desk for a better portion of his class.
This was just one source of his academic problems; missing information in class. The second was just having virtually no study habits to speak of. When it came to studying, everything else became a hundred times more interesting than the task at hand. Naturally, that's the case with most students, but in Don's case, it was a losing battle; one he wasn't willing to fight.
His days ended at around three, and from the college he headed home. His commutes were mundane and uneventful and a little bit lengthy since they were usually a half-hour drive. Despite this, he enjoyed them since he could just think to himself most of the time. However, there was one problem with his commute, they kind of lonely. Not for the sake of conversation but just for the sake of having someone else there to have as company.
When he finally reached his home after another day of dodging Lewis' invites to watch only God knew what, and sort of making it through class, he stepped in his house and sighed. Another long day over, and he was just ready to forget everything. He looked over to the counter and found a small pile of mail. He leafed through the assorted letters and bills before coming across one addressed to him.
He looked it over and noticed that it had fancy script on it before tearing it open and reading.
"Study abroad- oh its one of these things again." He said before continuing to read,
"Make new, lifelong friends. Learn about new and enchanting worlds?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, that's the stuff they always put on these," He said as he tore up the brochure and threw it away.
"Plus, I doubt they would want a 'barely making it' student like me. Seriously, why do I even get these offers?"
He set his backpack down and headed towards his room. As he clicked on the light, there was a quick flash followed by an audible "pop".
"Great, the light bulb died. Time to change it again." He said to himself, before turning back towards the kitchen area.
He fished out a bulb from the cabinets and returned to his room before realizing he forgot to bring something to boost him to reach the dead bulb. He tried in vain to reach from where he stood, but it was just out of his grasp and it seemed to mock him in some sort of way. He looked around the room for anything to give him that extra boost, before finally settling on his computer chair.
"I really shouldn't be doing this with this chair, but I don't wanna go back to the kitchen for a better stool."
He climbed up and changed the bulb before stopping to look at his handiwork.
"All is well, that ends well, I guess."
He started his descent when he felt the chair roll out from under himself.
"OH, WHAT THE HE-"
There was a loud crash and a heavy thud when Don fell flat on his back. The discombobulating feeling of pain, adrenaline, and wondering what in the world just happened flooded Don's mind. He laid there momentarily with his eyes shut dealing with the entire ordeal before opening his eyes again.
"Well, at least the light works now," He thought to himself, "Also, it's good to know I'm not dead, that would be embarrassing, I can hear the local news now: 'College Student dies changing light bulb, deemed not very bright'".
Before he could address the fact that he had made a terrible pun, there was a voice calling out to him:
"Hey, are you okay?! Do you need any help?"
"Mister? Are you okay?" The voice reiterated.
"What the, who's saying that?" Don asked aloud while looking around the room.
"I am!" replied the voice when he felt something land on his chest.
He raised his head and looked. There stood before him was a small grey horse no more than three inches tall with a golden mane.
"I never had any horse figurines in my room, where the hell did I get this?" He asked while reaching for it.
"I'm not a toy, I'm Derpy!"
Don froze as everything that was in his head that was functioning suddenly came to screeching halt. "You... You just talked."
Derpy cocked her head to one side in confusion. "Of course I can talk, I can also sing songs, and dance, but I don't do that very often because I might crash and break things."
He gently put her off to one side before he got up and paced about his room. "Yep, I've died. It's all over, dead at twenty. Game over man. I could've done so many things and seen so many sights..." He continued to ramble on endlessly, "I could've gone to see The Great Wall of Berlin, or the Leaning Tower of China..."
Derpy took flight and looked on somewhat concerned for the poor... whatever this was but it was not having a good day. She tried to speak up every now and then to try and calm it down but to no avail.
"Hey!" She shouted while waving her hooves. No response. "Helloooo?" Still no response nor giving her any sort of acknowledgement that she was there. Deciding that she had had enough she turned around and reared up her hind legs and kicked him in the face. Her efforts were rewarded with an "ow" and silence after that.
Don felt pain on his cheek and was brought back to reality. He turned to Derpy,
"Thanks, I needed that."
He thought everything was okay until he noticed something else. The small horse was flying in front of his face now via a pair of wings.
"And, now you're flying. Well, this proves it, I've died and gone insane."
Before he could go into another mental spiral a thought hit him,
"Wait, if I'm dead, that means I can see my body on the floor. People can see their body when they're a spirit right?" he asked. "I don't see my body, maybe I take it with me to the afterlife then?" He asked while looking around the room.
He stopped his search and looked at Derpy, "Does this mean I'm a spirit now? Are you my Spirit Guide to the afterlife or some sort of agent of Charon to take me to the River Styx? I hope Charon takes debit..."
"I don't know, but a River of Sticks sure does sound weird." The pegasus said while rubbing her chin with a hoof.
Don sighed and sat down at his desk and began to think about this whole situation.
"I still haven't confirmed if I'm dead or not. I'm just going to assume I'm still alive, just having a massive hallucination from when I fell."
He ran a hand over his face and sighed again before noticing the small Pegasus had landed in front of him on his desk.
"Oh hey, you're still here which means I'm still nuts"
The two stared at each other for an awkward ten seconds before Don spoke up,
"What are you staring at?"
She squinted a bit, "I'm trying to figure out just what kind of pony... or dragon you are. I've seen plenty, and you don't look like anything I've ever seen."
"Pony? Dragon? I'm not a pony, or a dragon. I'm a person, well, a human being to be exact." Don said.
"Hmm, hooman... never heard of a hooman before." Derpy said.
Don let out a huff of laughter, "Right, and you're a pegasus. A very small one at that." He stretched out his hand to her, "I mean, look, you can fit in the palm of my hand."
Derpy climbed onto his hand. She was just big enough to fit in the center of his palm with her tail barely reaching the base of his fingers.
"Funny, you're not real yet I can feel your weight on my hand and the throbbing pain from when you kicked me earlier. Man, I must have really hit my head or something."
There was another moment of silence before he spoke up again,
"So, do you have a name or something or do I have to name you?" he asked.
"Like I said, my name is Derpy Hooves, and I'm the best mail-mare in Equestria!" She said standing proudly.
"The best huh? Well, as long as you don't destroy a building or something it's okay I guess." Don said absent mindedly. He then noticed that she had a crestfallen look about her.
"It wasn't my fault that Town Hall sort of fell apart, I was just trying to help." she said while giving a small sniffle.
"Oh no, now you've gone and made her upset, way to go douche-bag. Fix this." His inner conscience said.
"Okay okay, no need to get upset," Don said, "I'm sure you're a great mail....mare.... and a good helper. In fact, I bet you're such a good helper that you could help me somehow."
Derpy looked up, "Really? I could help you?" She asked with hopeful eyes.
"Sure, why not? You're tiny, how much harm could you do?"