18: One Derp Over the Line
“Bag packed?”
“Check!”
“Got your sunglasses?”
“Check!”
“Insured in case we fall into a crack between the universes?”
“Derpy!”
Derpy chuckled, and a moment later she and Karyn were descending in circles over the edge of Ponyville. Karyn was holding on to a duffel bag and her purse, and was a little unnerved to find that Derpy’s stick-on safety spell was concatenative. She couldn’t open her hand even to move the bag.
Once they landed and Karyn was free to move again, she surveyed the station. “I’m so glad that we’re finally going on the train. After what happened last time, I thought it was destined to be a dream unfulfilled.”
“I would have found a way eventually, if you were that into it,” said Derpy.
“I am. You remember how bad that plane trip was. I’m really looking forward to travel the pony way. And speaking of looking, look at this station! It’s so clean!”
The train station had the thatched roof common to Ponyville buildings, but the wood was so polished and stained that it looked liquid. The ticket office was split into two with a walkway between them, and lots of ponies were going into the waiting area. Karyn noticed a retractable awning that could be extended in case of rain. As it was, the sun was shining low in the sky with only a few clouds.
“Derpy, what time is it?” she asked.
“About a quarter to eight.”
“PM?”
“Yeah. Why, is there a problem?”
Karyn pulled out her phone. “There is. I’ve lost the whole day. We left at a quarter to eight in the morning. What happened?”
“First off, you haven’t lost anything. You’re still going back at a quarter to eight in the morning,” Derpy said.
“I will never get that down. Still, why did we jump forward?”
“Because the train’s at eight in the evening.”
Karyn pursed her lips. “Wasn’t the point of the trip to see things from the train? We can’t do that in the dark.”
“Trust me,” said Derpy. “I know this trip like the back of my hoof.”
“Well, the station’s pretty, at least.”
Derpy picked up the bags with her wings. “They’ve really built it up since I came to Ponyville. Back then it was just a stone slab. Some stations are still like that.”
They reached the platform and put down the bags. “Please tell me you have the tickets,” said Karyn.
“Like I said, trust me.” Derpy reached into her saddlebag, but came up empty-hoofed. Karyn looked at her warily. Then Derpy, like a magician doing a conjuring trick, flicked her hoof and made two tickets appear.
“Tee-hee,” she continued. “I put the tickets in magical storage. It’s one of the new spells. I got the idea from some of the things I saw on your computer.”
“Mmhm,” Karyn said. “What would happen if you lost the spell?”
“I’d just get another one, and the tickets would still be there.”
“Couldn’t you just do the same thing if you lost the tickets themselves?”
Derpy blinked. “Oh, look, here comes the train!”
The train was nothing like Karyn remembered from the show’s opening. Although the engine was still the coal-fired pipsqueak that she knew, the cars had grown longer and more luxurious. Each one had two decks. Only the caboose at the other end had the same diminutive size. Despite the upgrade, the train still had the homey charm she expected from Equestria.
“Come on, Karyn!” said Derpy. “We’re first class, so we have a line to ourselves!”
Karyn followed her to a section near the rear of the train where a velvet rope was set up. There were only a few other ponies in line, and Karyn figured that they must be from Canterlot. They were all unicorns and dressed quite fancily.
Derpy passed her a ticket, and Karyn looked it over. It was beautiful, thick, cream-colored paper with a scalloped edge. The bold black printing reminded Karyn of the old West. “It’s a shame to have to give this up to the conductor,” she said. “It’s so pretty.”
“Maybe if you ask nice, they’ll let you keep it.”
The train finally came to a stop, and when the doors opened, half a dozen ponies in blue hats came galloping toward the first-class line. When one of them picked up the bags of the first unicorn couple in line, Karyn figured that they were porters.
The haughty ponies ahead of them took no notice of the porters, but Karyn wanted to be polite. Knowing she would stick out like a sore hoof anyway, she went right up to the next blue-hatted pony in line. He was a big Earth pony stallion.
“Hi, I’m Karyn. Nice to meet you.”
He threw her a funny look. “They call me Smash, Miss. Excuse me, I’ll take the bags.”
Karyn whispered to Derpy, “That’s probably not a good name for a baggage handler.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it sounds like he’ll break everything.”
Derpy laughed. “Oh, Karyn. Smashing baggage is just a euphemism for carrying it. Everypony knows that.”
Karyn shrugged and climbed aboard the train.
The hallway was narrow, and Smash had to hunch his shoulders to make it through, but once he made it to their room, they saw that the space was well-used. Two plush seats faces each other with racks overhead for the bags. The center area could hold a table or be vacated to fold the seats into beds.
Smash lifted the bags into the rack as if they weighed nothing at all. On his way out, he said to Karyn, “If you need anything, anything at all, Miss, just ring. The button’s right there.” He pointed at the base of the window.
Once he was gone, Derpy said, “I think he likes you! Wasn’t he a hunk?”
Karyn shrugged. “I really wouldn’t know from stallions. I was just trying to be nice to him.”
“Well, you sure charmed him. Sit down, we’re about to pull out.”
Derpy took the rear-facing seat and let Karyn have the one that was more normal. The window was wide enough so that they both could see. From outside, they heard a pony shout, “All aboard!” A moment later, they were on their way.
What Karyn soon realized was that the towns could be so pleasant because the ponies supply infrastructure was between them. There were lots of farms and manufacturers between the towns. Small stations, some that were no more than the stone slab Derpy had talked about, served these concerns, and the farms often had put up proud banners by the stations. Karyn enjoyed seeing the signs like “Woodpony Tree Farm,” “Cluckworth Chicken Ranch,” and so on.
“Looking at all these farms is making me hungry,” said Derpy.
“Me too. Want to get dinner?”
“Sure. Let me just take care of one thing.” Derpy poked the buzzer with her hoof. As they left the bedroom, Smash came walking up.
“Can I help you, Miss?”
“We’re going to dinner. Could you please make up our room for the night?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Do you know when we will reach Fillydelphia?”
“Nine-eighteen, Miss.”
Derpy thanked him, and she and Karyn walked down the narrow hall to the dining car. When they were seated, Derpy put on a knowing smile.
“Fillydelphia is a big stop. They’ll hold the train for ten or fifteen minutes.”
“I didn’t realize it was so close to Ponyville,” Karyn said.
“Tomorrow, on the way back, it’ll be a good place to stop and stretch our legs before we reach home. But going, well, we’ll want to be back in our room when we stop.”
“OK. I don’t want to rush dinner, though.”
“We shouldn’t have to. They’re generally pretty quick and attentive, even when I’m not going first-class.”
As though to prove her point, a waiter walked over and asked Derpy for her order.
“I’ll have the dandelion green salad, please.”
“And for your companion?” the waiter asked, still looking at Derpy.
“I don’t know what she wants,” Derpy said, gesturing toward Karyn.
“I’ll give you a few minutes.”
“No, no,” said Karyn. “I know what I want. The mushroom special, please.”
The waiter never looked at Karyn, and stomped off.
“The insufferable clod!” said Derpy. “He thought you were some kind of servant. Why couldn’t he be nice to you?”
“I guess not everypony’s used to humans.”
“Maybe, but you’d think a waiter who rides the trains and deals with griffins and minotaurs and all sorts of different people, would be more open-minded.”
Karyn shrugged. “I don’t really mind.”
“But I do. Take out your ticket.”
Confused, Karyn pulled out the beautiful ticket that Derpy had given her. When the waiter came back, Derpy gave him her meanest look.
“Excuse me. I want to show you something. This is a first-class ticket for this train. It belongs to my friend Karyn. Basically what it means is that we’re paying extra to be assured a good time. We can’t have that when our waiter is discriminating. I’d like you to apologize to her. Or send the conductor over.”
The waiter looked as if he had swallowed castor oil, but Derpy maintained her stare. He turned his neck and faced Karyn. “Forgive me, please,” he said.
“Apology accepted,” said Karyn.
“Enjoy your mushrooms.”
He left, and Derpy said, “I wouldn’t mind it so much if he didn’t look at me because of my eyes. But you shouldn’t suffer just for being human.”
“I probably would have taken it exactly the other way,” said Karyn. “But let’s not dwell on it. We’re both here to have a good time, and I plan on doing it.”
They raised their glasses and drank a toast.
When they had finished, the waiter returned. Looking nowhere in particular, he asked if they wanted dessert.
“What time is it?” Derpy asked.
“Ten minutes after nine.”
“Thank you, no. We have to be getting back.”
The food was included in the price of the ticket, so they didn’t have to pay a bill. Back in the bedroom, Karyn barely recognized it. The seats had been swung out and doubled in width. They formed a set of bunk beds right next to the window.
“Which one do you want?” asked Derpy.
“I’ll go ahead and take the lower. If we fall out of bed, you have a chance to recover and fly back in.”
“OK. Hop in and I’ll show you my favorite part of riding the train.”
Even though she wasn’t particularly tired, Karyn took off her day clothes and laid her head down. Derpy flew up and lay in the same direction.
They felt the train slow and then come to a stop. The doors opened and steps extended themselves. Down the length of the platform, some of the porters helped more ponies on, while others removed trash from the train and stocked it with supplies.
“So what’s the big deal about this?”
Derpy spoke in a distant voice. “I’ve always had a peculiar feeling when I’m lying abed in a conveyance. A train. . . or a boat, as I’ve done it there too. Take a look. Everypony is running around, the porters working, the passengers climbing on. They’re all on time pressure, trying to get the train back on the road as soon as possible. Other ponies are in the dining car putting food in their mouths. Or getting dressed for bed. But not us.
“The day’s work is done. We have literally nothing to do, no tasks ahead. It’s complete freedom. We can be completely idle. I can’t do that when there’s mail to be delivered, or when I have to help my friends, or when I have to work around the house. But right now, I’m free to stop and wait.
“Beyond that, once we go to sleep, the train’s going to keep moving. Our goal is to get to the destination, and we’ll be accomplishing that goal while we sleep. That’s something that doesn’t happen every day. Usually sleep is wasted time. Tonight it’s useful time.
“Accomplishment without effort. It’s the lazy pony’s dream world.”
Karyn watched the activity and thought about what Derpy had said. “I think I know the feeling you’re talking about. I remember one time when I was going on a car trip with my folks. I got in the car with both of them, but my father forgot something, so he went back in the house. It took him a while, so my mother followed. I was all alone. It was a beautiful day, sun shining and hot. They hadn’t turned the car on, so if I had just sat there, I would have baked in the heat. But they left the doors open, both of them. And that’s when I felt it.
“There’s something about a vehicle, a thing that’s designed to be moved, when its doors are open and it’s just sitting still. You feel a connection between the car and the road. You realize that you’re sitting on a piece of metal and plastic and cloth. You feel every atom that makes up the car, and not just what it is. It’s a moment of contemplation. Then everyone comes back, the doors close, and you’re on your way.”
They both looked at the stairs down to the platform.
“I wonder if it’s the same reason that people like fancy doors on their cars. Gull-wings, suicide doors, that kind of thing,” Karyn said.
“Suicide? Those poor doors.”
Karyn laughed, which shook them out of their reflective mood. “No, it’s not the doors. The idea is that their doors that open the other way from how you saw my car doors are. If you tried to open mine while driving on the highway, the force of the wind would just close it. But if it opened backwards, the wind would make it fly open and you’d fall out and die.”
“Why would you open the doors on the road?”
“No idea.”
They spoke with long pauses in between, the kind of conversation that two friends have in bed when they can’t see each other, and neither of them know if what they have to say is important enough to keep it going, or if the other wants to drift off. They listened to the knock of the wheels on the rails. In the fading daylight, the trees moved past like ghosts, whipping into a gray-green wind.
Derpy was mumbling something. “What did you say, Derpy?” asked Karyn.
“Oh. . . never mind.”
“No, come on, tell me.”
“You’ll think it’s silly,” said Derpy.
“No, I won’t. Please.”
Derpy sighed. “It’s something I say every night. I didn’t want to bother you with it. I said, ‘Princess Luna, keeper of the night, please watch over me as I sleep. Don’t let anything happen to me while I can’t protect myself. Make sure all the ponies are safe from monsters and that all the little foals have their mommies and daddies to care for them. Thanks.’ Like I said, silly. Princess Luna is all the way in Canterlot, and she can’t hear me. Even if she could, she does all that anyway. She doesn’t need some dumb pegasus pony telling her what to do.”
Karyn never said prayers herself, and at any other time would have agreed with Derpy’s assessment. At that moment, she said, “It’s not silly. I’m sure that she can hear you, and that it is important. Princess Luna’s seen a lot over a thousand years. She probably has magic that can hear everypony, and is happy that somepony acknowledges her. Maybe if you had been around at that time over a thousand years ago to do that, she wouldn’t have turned into Nightmare Moon.”
She put her head back down. Derpy shifted in her bunk. As the train’s rhythm became background noise, Karyn listened to Derpy’s mumbling. “. . . and keep a special watch over my friend Karyn. She’s a human in a strange world to her, and sometimes ponies don’t treat her right. Don’t let her be sad or angry. Even when she goes home to her world, keep an eye on her, please?”
Karyn smiled and went to sleep.
*******************************************
In the morning, they were traveling over an open prairie. Small scrub grasses dotted the land, and the ground was getting sandier. Karyn woke up and noticed Derpy still asleep. She went into the attached bathroom. It was cramped, but not so much as it could have been, since it had to accommodate a pony. She arranged her hair as best as she could and brushed her teeth. Then she went back and sat on the bunk watching the scenery until she heard Derpy raise her head and give a small grunt.
She tumbled out of the bunk and hovered, trying to get her bearings. Karyn looked at her tangled mane and her eyes that were still filled with sleep.
“Mornin’” Derpy said, scratching her flank with a hoof.
“Good morning to you, sleepy head.”
Derpy looked out the window. “I think we’re nearly there. The end of the line.”
“So I finally get to know where we’re going?”
“Take a look.”
Derpy went off to attend to her own toilet, and Karyn felt the train slow down. It was her sense of smell that tipped her off first. A salt breeze came faintly into the train.
“The ocean?” Karyn said, but there was no response.
They were pulling to a stop when Derpy came out. Karyn had pulled her bag down from the rack over the objections of Smash, who had wanted to carry everything by himself. He was contented with hauling Derpy’s luggage.
“Well, this is our stop,” said Derpy. “Welcome to Mountauk Point beach.”
Karyn looked over where they were. Just across the tracks was a boardwalk, and beyond that was a spreading expanse of white sand, cresting in dunes and slanting down to the water. Small waves lapped at the beach and kept the slow rhythm that the train had had as it came to a stop.
“This is what we’re doing?” she said.
“Yeah. You don’t like the beach?”
“I love the beach. It’s perfect. Let’s go.”
Next week: the beach and what happens there!
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Wait a minute...bronycon and mountain beach... Are you from jersey? I am just being curious right now and you don't have to answer. Anyway great chapter, short sweet and just...simple. The best things in life are the simple one
R
Very nice chapter!
1138045 Naw, if I were from Jersey I would have said the shore instead of the beach. I'm from Long Island.
1138066 sorry for some reason I thought you were from the jersey area.
well at least you live in an area by the jersey shore cast
another fantastic chapter from one of my fave fics :3 woot ya know not sure why but i think smash be pretty cool not sure why maybe because he was a gentlecolt to karyn? @w@ (shrugs) ah well
Ooo the beach. nice chapter btw
Hrm, does this mean we get a BEACH EPISODE?! :D
Bikini babes everywhere! XD
1138066 I'm in Queens!
1138066
Long Island. Nice. I'm from Cologne/Germany.
Oh one thing about the sucide doors. I think I heared that they are also called that, because when you park on the side of the road and get out of your car and another one drives by and is not able to dodge away fast enough, it may cut your head and other body parts off, while you get out of it. Saw a pic of it one time. A guy wanted to get out of his car too fast, another car drove in the door, smashed it shut and he lost his left leg. Now he has no choice but to drive automatic. Outch.
Bronydragon
Hail from Delaware!
Hi from texas! Hey, could you pass some cold down here? It was 103 out today. We need it.
1144136 Delaware? Do you know Torri and Mike?
1144949 That's cute, you think we have cold. It's in the eighties, but the humidity is so much that you sweat all the time.
1145036
pshhh. You think you have humidity? Try running in 110 weather with 98% humidity, I don't even break a sweat.
80s is cold in the summer. duh
1145036
Doubtful. I've only encountered one Brony round here, and it was while I was working and I haven't seen him since. Funnily enough, he was wearing a 'Derpy Is Best Pony' shirt.
I know there's at least one fan of it in Dover, because someone put a piece of loose-leaf on a corkboard in a study-room that read 'Twilight is Best Pony, Brohoof if you agree!' and had a drawing of a horseshoe on it.
1145305
Heh. I don't think they're bronies. I was just joking, as if all Delawarians (Delawareites? Delaweenies?*) know each other.
*Anyone who gets this reference gets six points and a bro-hoof.
1138066
Nice to see another Brony from New York State
1145305 Here in S.C., I saw a Pinkie Pie is watching you sticker someone put up in a Wal-mart about a month or so back. That would have been pretty cool, except for the fact that it was on the inside of a bathroom stall door. not to sure I want Pinkie watching me in there....
1138066
THE ISLANDER POWERS! Which part are you from?
Hey there from Arkansas! Even though there are no beaches over here, i've been to a couple and hope the next chapter is something really good, but of course it will be
This is now my favorite Derpy
1140564
Ummm
Don't most ponies have no clothes on anyway
2783263 never know, they do have socks
Karen should have a dream where luna speaks with her. That would be cool
1144949
Team Texas Bronies UNITE!
2/16/14 3:47pm
How am I only on chapter 18!? I'm ashamed. ?..
Also I wanna go to the beach now.....and I'm in Minnesota! Thanks a lot
3429970
Derpy: It's Karyn with a y
Me: Yes it would