Fixer Upper: A Derpy and Doctor fanfic

by graceyadorable

Anything I can do to help?

Derpy felt like she had just been kicked. “What?”

“I’m sorry, miss, but you’re not in the register and, I’m afraid, cannot be admitted.”

“But I’ve registered!” Derpy exclaimed, blushing with embarrassment as hot tears pricked at her eyes like little claws.

“Well, you don’t show up here,” the brown mare said patiently. “I’m sorry. Next!”

“No, you don’t understand!” Derpy cried, rearing onto her back legs and putting her forehooves on the desk. “I’ve registered! I’m supposed to be here!”

The brown mare nudged her away with an impatient snort. “I’m sorry, miss, but you’re not registered and therefore are not allowed inside. You’re holding up the line, so please go home.”

Derpy stood in the snow, her face hot with embarrassment and her eyes swimming with unshed tears. A stallion, big and brawny and black, shoved past her, and she tripped on the hem of her dress and fell in the snow.

Some of the ponies started to laugh, and some pointed at her. Others looked like they weren’t sure to laugh or not, and others just ignored her, but not a single one stepped out of line to help her.

She got to her feet and fled, her hooves crunching in the snow and her breath coming in pale, smoky clouds as she put as much distance between herself and the despicable line as she could before finding a rock under a tree, clambering up on it, and finally letting the tears flow.

They streamed down her burning face and fell into the snow, sending up the faintest swirls of steam. Derpy cried and cried, and she knew that she was probably overreacting, but she had been looking forward to this for weeks and weeks, and now she had been told that she couldn’t even go inside! All those dreams for nothing. She had spent days imagining out what she would say to the mysterious colt who had saved her mother while she was still expecting, had doodled for hours pictures of her ideal dress, which Rarity had so kindly made. She might as well return the dress; she would never have an excuse to wear it again. It was much too fine and precious a thing to wear on any day, and Derpy had never been invited to a party in her life because she was just so clumsy!

At last, her sobs quieted and she got the courage to lift her head and look at the castle. It looked like a picture out of a fairy tale; ablaze with lights and frosted by the crystalline white snow that fell from the sky like dancing lazy rain, sparkling in the firelight like blankets of the finest diamond dust. She could hear the music, a lively rock and roll tune that moved even the most reluctant hooves to dance, and she found herself flicking her tail to the beat. Indistinct buzzings of chatter seasoned the air like pepper and cinnamon, and Derpy heaved a heavy sigh that came from the very bottom of her little broken heart. Twilight had had to go early to speak with the Princess; otherwise, Derpy was sure that her friend would help her get in.

But no. Twilight was there, in the heart of the warmth and dancing and enchantment and lighthearted frivolity, and Derpy was out here, in the cold, in the snow, shivering and wet with tears. It wasn’t fair!

Derpy had always been so careful not to let any pony see anything besides a cheerful smile on her face, but really, she knew what the others said about her. She had heard every remark about her clumsiness, knew every snide comment that had been whispered behind a hoof. But this….

She slowly pulled off her dress. There was no need for finery anymore. Besides, her cursed clumsiness would probably mean that she’d trip on the perfect hemline and fall in the mud or something like that. She would give it back to Rarity later.

Slowly flapping her beautiful gray wings, she rose into the sky and flew away, letting the tears continue to flow. As she soared sadly through the snowy white sky, however, she could feel the salty tears freezing on her face, hardening in her coat. She was so lost in her own thoughts of sadness and anger at somebody’s fool headed mistake that she didn’t realize that she had flown into a thunder blizzard until she felt the sky rock with an unbelievably loud KABOOM!

Derpy screamed and dropped the dress as she beat her wings as fast and hard as she could, trying to find a way out of the black clouds that rained sleet and snow and icy hail down on her, stinging her wings and coat, striking her face and neck. She ducked and dodged and plummeted, but nothing helped. She was stuck in the storm.

Lightning flashed around her and illuminated the ominous and dangerous--perhaps deadly--shapes of the billowing clouds around her, all of them black bleached silver by the flash of lightning that gave her a half a second of sight before she went blind again.

“Help me!” Derpy screamed, though she knew that nobody would hear her. Folding in her wings, she dove down toward the earth, racing the rain and going perhaps fast enough to create a sonic rainboom were there sun to make a rainbow.

There were lights on the ground below her. Were they somehow prolonged reflections of the lightning? Was it the snow? A fire? Ponyville? Where was she?

At that moment, a sudden and violent gust of wind snatched her in a freezing and insubstantial fist, rolling her head over heels and around and around and around like she was a wooden block in a dryer. She was shaken and joggled and tossed around for so long that she lost all sense of direction and didn’t know if she were falling or being hurled up toward the heavens.

The dark clouds above her whirled and she closed her eyes tightly and shook her head, trying to regain control, but her wings were pinned to her sides.

At last, she realized that she was falling.

She fainted just before she crashed through the roof of the palace in Canterlot.