Rarity has Dyed

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 12: Somepony Derped

Starlight, not being an idiot, was able to discern the origin of the advertisement concerning Rarity’s apparent demise within a matter of an hour. Most of the advertisements in any of the Ponyville papers were created by the pony placing them and submitted directly. This one, however, had been assembled at a local print shop before submission. It was professional. And there was only one professional in town who specialized in print preparation.

“I don’t get it,” said Trixie. “What’s her job, anyway?”

“Printing and mailing,” replied Starlight.

“Wait, mail? But don’t we have a mailpony? That grey-brown guy. The tall one that ruins Trixie’s self-esteem about her figure?”

“Your figure’s fine. You would look really weird tall. He does ground mail. Derpy does air mail, plus printing.”

“Mailing air? That’s stupid. Who would want to mail air? It must be a Pegasus thing. They really like air, don’t they? They probably bottle it up and smell it or something…”

Starlight shook her head. Although this conversation was mildly amusing, she was not happy about having had to sleep in a hospital waiting room the night before. She had done worse in her life, of course, having often slept in bushes or mud in wait for Twilight Sparkle during her vengeance phase, but castle life had made her comparatively soft.

“Hello Starlight.”

Starlight and Trixie both jumped in surprise, with Trixie squealing loudly. Maud had appeared within inches of them; her naturally gray color had camouflaged her, causing neither of them to detect her until it was too late. She was holding a large sack over her back. The sack appeared to be struggling slightly.

“Um…your bag is…moving.”

Maud blinked, and then she slowly turned her head toward the bag. She poked it sharply, and the bag whimpered before going still again. “Yeah. It does that.”

“What’s in there?” asked Trixie. Her eyes lit up. “Is it food?”

“No. It’s a witness.”

“Oh. That’s a weird joke.”

“It’s not a joke,” whispered Starlight.

“Oh.”

“Have you seen a ditch I could use? I was thinking a chasm, but Pinkie said ‘no’…”

“There’s a good one over on eighth street,” suggested Starlight.

“Oh! I know that one!” exclaimed Trixie, “I’ve woken up in it more than once!”

Maud paused for a long time, and then blinked very slowly. “Sure. I’ll try that one.”

“Maud,” said Starlight.

“Yes. I am.”

“I know that. Do you know where the post office is? I’ve never used it. I usually just use Spike.”

Maud stared at Starlight blankly before slowly lifting her hoof and pointing.

The post office was exactly where Maud had said it was, which was not a surprise. Starlight tended to find that Maud’s descriptions were- -despite their brevity- -incredibly accurate. As she and Trixie approached, they saw that the building was largely silent- -save for a sudden slam of the back door, and then a flash of red near the rear of the building as Big Macintosh nervously beat a hasty retreat.

Starlight and Trixie paused, looking at each other confused. “Oh…kay?”

The two of them then entered the post office. A small bell on the door rang, and there was a sound of rapid shuffling from across the room. Derpy stood up suddenly and assumed a position that implied she had been sitting at the desk the whole time, waiting. The appearance was convincing, too- -save for the fact that her wings were fully erect and fluffy, with the down highly visible.

“Welcome to the post office!” she said, cheerfully, staring at both Starlight and Trixie at the same time despite the fact that they were standing on opposite sides of the room. “How can I make your day derp-tastic?”

Trixie looked at her and frowned, somewhat disgusted. “Um, what happened to your wings?”

“Wings?” Derpy’s face scrunched. “I don’t have any wings.”

“So you’re an earth-pony?”

Derpy’s face continued to scrunch. “Yes.”

“Well could you put them down? It’s kind of freaking me out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Starlight. “This sort of thing happens to Twilight all the time. Usually around fresh, unread books. Just try to ignore it.” She turned to Derpy and approached the counter. She ignited her horn, summoning a copy of the previous day’s newspaper from whatever parallel dimension she tended to use to store stuff. It flopped on the table. Derpy gasped.

“Oh! I love magic tricks!”

“Then pay to attend one of my shows,” muttered Trixie.

Derpy’s expression fell. “I can’t. Because I spent all my money.” She lowered her head in shame. “On muffins.”

Starlight ignored that information. Instead, she opened the paper and pointed to the ad. Derpy looked down at it, and her wings immediately folded neatly behind her.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re here about that. Oh, it’s so sad! I cried myself to sleep last night! Rarity was so pretty! And so generous! She would bring me little hats sometimes…I can’t hardly believe she’s gone!” Tears welled in Derpy’s mismatched eyes.

“Did you do the print preparation for this ad?” asked Starlight.

Derpy looked at the paper again, or at least turned her head in its general direction. “This one? Oh yes! I did this! It’s even in comic sans, my favorite font! Because I don’t like serifs very much…”

“And who told you Rarity had died?”

Derpy looked up. “Oh! Rarity did of course! She came in here the other day. She wanted me to prep an ad to explain that she was dyeing her mane, so everypony wouldn’t be surprised and freak out. So that’s what I did!”

“Wait a minute. You knew she had dyed her mane…and printed this ad…but you still think she’s dead?”

“She isn’t?” Derpy looked immensely confused. “But I read it in the paper.”

“You read the ad. That you printed. Look.” Starlight pointed. “You spelled ‘dyed’ as ‘died’.”

Derpy stared at the paper, or at least in its general direction. She did not appear to understand at first, but then a vague look of confused realization crossed her face. Derpy looked up at Starlight. “I just don’t know what went wrong!”

“You misspelled- -”

“You’re completely incompetent!” cried Trixie. She suddenly rushed the counter, causing Derpy to nearly fall over in surprise.

“But the doctor said that was fixed- -”

“Well clearly he lied! I am incredibly offended by this gross display of ineptitude!”

“I don’t know what that means- -”

“I DEMAND compensatory muffins! Right NOW!”

Derpy blinked. She did seem to understand what that meant. She reached behind the counter and hesitantly produced a basket of them. “Muffins make everything better?”

Trixie squinted angrily. “We’ll see about that.” She then proceeded to begin rapidly devouring the contents of the basket.

“Can you retract the ad?” asked Starlight, ignoring Trixie.

“You’d have to talk to the paper,” said Derpy. She thought for a moment. “But it only ran until today, so it’s not really a problem, right?”

“Except that the whole town thinks she’s dead.”

Derpy’s eyes widened. “She isn’t?!”

“We just went over this.”

“Yef!” agreed Trixie through a mouth full of muffins. “Yuff bnf dwfkn dff weff painf?”

“Not recently…”

“Okay,” said Starlight. “Then we just need to print a retraction. To say that the initial statement was wrong.”

“I can do that!” said Derpy. She took out a marker and put it in her mouth, then started writing. It only took her half a minute to realize that the marker was backward, and she flipped it around. She wrote again for a moment, and then lifted the paper.

“‘Rarity has not dyed’,” read Starlight.

“Inf perfctf cfomic safns!” added Trixie, her mouth still filled with muffins.

“Um, yeah,” said Starlight. “I’ll contact the paper directly.”

Derpy looked crestfallen. “Oh…okay…”

Starlight sent her copy of the newspaper back to its dimension and turned to leave. “Thanks for your help. Even if you did cause this whole mess. But it’s an honest mistake, I guess, so don’t feel bad.”

“Yeah,” said Trixie, swallowing her mouthful of muffins and pushing the empty basket across the counter. “If Trixie had a bit for every mistake she’d made, she’d have, like, two bits or something. And those muffins were way too dry.”

“Oh,” said Derpy, looking even sadder. She took the basket, but paused as she looked into it. “Um…what did you do with the wrappers?”

Trixie looked in the basket, and then at Derpy. “Wrappers?”

“Yes. You know. The little paper things. You have to undress muffins before enjoying.”

Trixie’s eyes widened. Shen she slowly turned her head, looking over her shoulder. “Starlight! Starlight, it happened again!”

Trixie then raced out of the room, leaving Derpy all alone. She stared for a long moment.

“I don’t know what just happened,” she eventually admitted to herself. “So I’m just going to pretend it didn’t…”

Comments

[Ri2]

Everyone in this town is an idiot. Yay!