Duskfall

by Celestial Swordsman

Bubbles

Chapter 6

Ditzy Doo returned after a frantic shift. Some mail was misdelivered in the chaotic influx and stubborn darkness, but at times like these ponies should be happy the postal service ran at all. Ditzy undid her saddle bag on the porch and stepped inside. To her surprise the light was on, and Dusk was nervously wiping up a mess on the kitchen side of the room. “Uh, hello?” she said, unsure how to react.

“Oh, hey, you’re back!” Dusk exclaimed, turning her head to look at Ditzy halfway. Dusk leaned down and pulled a pan out of the oven. “I made some muffins for you! The first ones were really burnt, though, so I ate them,” she said with a sheepish smile. “Turns out I don’t mind burnt stuff, weird, huh?”

Ditzy’s jaw dropped and her mail bag flopped to the floor. “You made MUFFINS?!” she squealed. “How did you know?”

“Well,” Dusk replied, “it’s practically the only recipe you have. I’m really sorry about the whole… fruit thing, I guess I’m really sensitive about some things.”

Ditzy flew across the room and hugged a very startled Dusk. “Ohthankyou, Dusk! Muffins are my favorite!” Dusk didn’t know how to take the gesture.

“Um, you’re welcome, Ditzy. I just thought it was the least I could do after you took me in and everything and I was such an as…, a f…, a bi…,” Dusk fumbled apologetically through her blacklisted vocabulary, “a bad pony.”

“Aw, it’s okay,” the blonde assured. “Please, call me Derpy Hooves.”

“Score,” Dusk thought. It felt good to be in the inner circle, but she really shouldn’t be. Was Derpy a little shallow? Muffins can take her from betrayal to BFF? Well, actually, it didn’t look that bad from Derpy’s perspective. All she knew about was the bananas, not the nocturnal creepiness or the hater graffiti. It wouldn’t do any good to bring that up.

Derpy took a warm muffin, held it up, and took a big sniff. Her lazy eye slowly settled into rare alignment on the treasured pastry. She took a bite and savored it. “Mmm, nom, nom, it’s so good!” Derpy was in total bliss with every bite. Dusk was happy just to watch her be happy. She finished cleaning up while Miss Hooves enjoyed every single muffin. But when Dusk was done, there was one left standing in the muffin pan in front of the blond Pegasus. Derpy seemed lost in thought.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to save one for me, I already had the burnt ones, remember?” Dusk insisted, but by the time she finished she knew that wasn’t it.

A solitary tear fell into a muffin cup. Derpy set the tray down and picked up the last muffin gingerly. She studied it longingly, obviously no longer looking at a pastry. Dusk followed her as she walked out onto the porch. Derpy turned the corner onto the edge of the house facing north. She scooped out a hoof-sized dollop of cloud and placed the muffin on it. Sitting and holding the cloud muffin in both hooves, she said softly, “This one’s for you, Dinky.” A gentle push sent it drifting away into the shadowy sky. They watched it wordlessly until it was out of sight.

Dusk didn’t want to intrude but she had to ask, “Who’s Dinky?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you?” Derpy realized out loud. “She’s my filly. I love that little Dinky Doo.”

“What happened to her?” Dusk had to know.

“She’s okay,” Derpy said with a little relief. “She’s staying with my cousin till I can get back on my hooves. I didn’t want to move here but this was the only place I could get a job. I didn’t want to weigh down my cousin any more. He’s not too well-off either. I was supposed make us a home and then have Dinky brought up here. That was two months ago. Now, with the economy and everything, I can’t pay the bills. I need a raise, but my boss is always mad at me. It looks like I derped up again. I miss my Dinky.”

They went back inside. This time Dusk noticed a picture of Derpy holding a tiny gray-and-blond unicorn with a googly smile. Dusk looked at herself in the mirror. Derpy chimed lyrically, “Time to tuck you in for bed.” Dusk wasn’t afraid tonight, but she let Derpy wrap her up tight in a cloud again. She could see in Derpy’s smile that the sweet pegasus took pleasure in mothering. Dusk, a pitiful and helpless gray pegasus, had appeared while the lonely mail carrier was wishing for her little gray filly.

Derpy circled her blue bed puff before settling down. Before she laid her head, she noticed that her adopted house guest was staring sadly out the door. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Dusk didn’t turn from the horizon, but answered, “I just can’t believe the sun won’t come up. We’ll be in darkness forever. Till we’re gone, anyway.”

The resilient Derpy Hooves remarked, “I’m surprised we have as much sunlight as we do. This way it won’t get much too cold. We have light enough to see and dark enough to sleep. I think the sun would fall all the way if no one was holding it up, you know. That means someone is helping, someone cares about us. That means there’s still hope.”

Dusk was surprised that underneath her silly exterior Derpy was so perceptive. Who was holding the sun? There was only one answer. The moon had been full and floating in the middle of the sky the whole time. Now she was impressed with another pony. “Luna, you would do that?” she thought. Didn’t the night Princess want endless darkness? Now she must be breaking all the laws of the heavens to hold her moon up and keep the sun from disappearing completely. She was holding out as much light as she could as long as she could to help her ponies and her world. Even now she must be straining herself to hold on to the massive sun while Solar forces marched to kill her. Dusk was finally learning to pick her heroes.

“Good night, Duskie.”

Duskie? Oh well. “Good night, Derpy.”

After hours of deep sleep, a small wet impact on her nose woke Dusk. She opened her big black eyes but saw nothing. A few seconds later an indistinct and unreal shape glided out the door. Small dots of light appeared as it departed out into the air beyond. There was a low breath and a flutter behind her, but she remained motionless. Another shape moved into view. It was more outline than object, a round distortion in reality. “Oh,” Dusk thought, breaking the suspense. “It’s a bubble.”

The bubble rose, almost hit the doorframe, but with a quick dip and a bob it was out of view. It was soon replaced by a slower bubble that floated straight out the middle of the door and hovered in the light outside. The city cast neon specks onto it from below and the moon reflected off the top. Its shimmering surface spun, rolling ethereal waves over the reflected panorama. The green and pink ripples flowed over the globe and broke into eddies and whorls. Her huge eyes took in every ray of light.

She followed a green wave out onto the bubble’s horizon, where it refracted into the sky. As if in a trance she was immediately aware of the spinning of the heavens. The tiny, drab city was a speck in a velvety surface of translucent green as the wave blew from pole to pole of the microscopic world, flowing through time and space from Derpy to Dinky, to Luna, and back over the world to herself. Half-real, it drifted from one pony who cared to the other like a thin ray of foolish hope as it traversed an ornate tapestry creased by distance, time, and unstoppable events which held them apart.

Dusk gasped. The unexpected gust sent the fragile microcosm crashing into the porch. It lay there limp, its ripples bouncing insignificantly off the surface of the cloud until it finally burst.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Derpy said noticing Dusk’s extreme reaction. “Are my”—she tilted her head and rolled her eyes around in confusion—“bubbles bothering you?”

“No!” Dusk glanced at her and stammered, “More, I need more—“and spun her head back to the door and stared out, straining her huge eyes expectantly.

Miss Hooves, pleased with the impact of her playful masterpiece let out a pleasant “Okay, here we go.” With a dip and a puff of the bubble blower, the translucent orbs poured out once again over the dim stars on the hazy sky. Now that she had an audience she was putting on a real show. Three bubbles, four bubbles, ten bubbles made a procession out the door. As long as Dusk respired very calmly, not a one fell on the cloud or strayed into the rest of the apartment. With a quick twitch of her wingtips or odd little huffs, Derpy seemed to have some influence on their flight. Scores of bubbles swirled by in erratic patterns. Next a solitary bubble swung lazily just above the floor before hitting some updraft near the doorway. Another bubble that Dusk hadn’t seen descended and met it in midair. The two flattened against each other as they exited together. Was that supposed to happen? It happened again.

Dusk looked in shock at Derpy, who was concentrating heavily on her freshly-dipped bubble loop. She blew once to make two bubbles, and again to make a large one. She lit up with joy and wonder as her little creations went forth. Her eyes spun with the twirling spheres as they dipped and bobbed past Dusk. The two bubbles lightly touched and fused near the top of the door and fell down onto the larger orb, which sank under the weight and fell off the edge of the cloud. Derpy readied herself again and blew. As two more bubbles emerged her “derpy” eyes swirled, she tilted her head, and with a calculated breath of her nostrils sent one tiny balloon shooting right past the other. The second was pulled into its wake and as they slowed down they orbited each other an inch apart. They danced around each other, and Dusk held her breath as they did loops over her head before following all the others out into the dim of the evening.

Realizing a sudden craving, Dusk asked, “How high can they go?”

“Let’s see!” Derpy asked. It had been awhile since anyone was interested. She used extra soap to make a huge, relatively solid bubble. Dusk got up to follow it outside. The orb floated up and she watched it hopefully. However, in the open air it was beyond Derpy’s influence. To Dusk’s disappointment it was intercepted by another cloud home. Seeing her sudden dejection, Derpy knew what had happened. Without being asked, the bubble master launched a second glistening bubble. It got much higher but popped too soon. A third lofted up straight and true. Rising above the cloud homes, the mountain and the world, it shrank out of view. A continued stare paid off; it reappeared as it struck sunlight, reflecting a tiny glimpse of the sun itself.

This is what Dusk had been waiting for. Real sunlight had always brought her joy. This time, however, that one glint of pure white light burned into her eyes and sent a painful prick down her spine. She yelped and jumped back.

“Are you okay? Do I need to stop?” Derpy said, confused but concerned.

“No,” Dusk said, lowering herself back into her cloud blanket, “don’t stop.”

Derpy didn’t need to be told twice and continued her show, but now with smaller and more sensitive bubbles to avoid any incidents.

Derpy’s twisted vision somehow allowed her to see the random, twisting movements before they happened. To her, it was as if they moved in straight lines. Dusk knew the feeling. The happenings of the bubble world played out with cause and effect that controlled the uncontrollable, seemed to defy belief but were still there. Random acts hid patterns, and each bubble was sent out with the purpose to achieve objectives of which it was unaware. It was just like the real world that way. Dusk had made her own chain reactions, which floated out one after the other out of sight to reach their goals. Hers had never been as beautiful or innocent as Derpy’s. They had been more important, but not better. Watching the carefree, unimportant, beautiful display, she concluded that Derpy’s were on another level far beyond hers. Why had she done so many things to cause so much pain? She sighed. “I wish I could undo a lot of my life. It’s like a bubble, though: you can send it out but you can’t take it back.”

Derpy paused but said nothing. She sighed as well, blowing out one mournful bubble. It drifted toward the exit to be forever lost. She raised up her hind end and spread her wings out very slowly and carefully. With her chest still on the bed and her front hooves bracing her against the bed, she looked like a playful puppy. As the orb slipped through the doorframe, she jerked her wings back against her sides, pulling the air past her. The bubble tumbled back into the room and nearly collided with the ceiling. It was now a full-body exercise as Derpy twitched her tail artfully, flapped a stray wing, and took odd breaths through pursed lips. The bubble circled about and wandered by the oven before gently hovering in front of Derpy Hooves. The pony held out her bubble-blower and the bubble obediently landed on its source. She brought it to her mouth and breathed in gently. It collapsed back onto the soapy loop without popping.

“What was that?” Dusk said with disbelief.

Derpy grinned. “I just took back a bubble. There’s always hope for a bubble until it pops.”

They went back to sleep, but Dusk knew the morning would not be the same. It would not be safe or easy, but that didn’t matter now. You can take a bubble back.