We're Gonna Get There Soon

by Cranberry Muffin

Waiting

“Surprise!” Surprise came bouncing into the distribution center one morning, flapping her wings and prancing through the air, exuberant and cheery, even in the face of the tedious, boring work ahead. She had a poofy purple bow tied at the base of her tail that day, and her mane looked curlier than usual. A pastel polka dotted bakery box was balanced precariously on her back, somehow defying gravity and staying firmly in place, despite her jaunty movements. “I brought donuts for everypony!”

With a smooth roll of her hindquarters, the box went sailing through the air, landing neatly on the small table used by Packing and Distribution for meal breaks. Derpy shook her head, smiling fondly. Only Surprise could manage to pull off a move like that without utterly destroying the treats within the box.

The other pegasi in their department flocked towards the table, stamping happily and cheering in glee. Surprise, not really needing the money the job provided, oftentimes did nice things like that to make the day better for her coworkers; it was just one of the things that made everypony love her.

“What’s the occasion?” It wasn’t often that Derpy managed to get the drop on Surprise, but when she appeared beside her friend –who was watching their coworkers paw excitedly at the donuts with a smile on her face- and spoke, the other mare jumped slightly, the jerky motion causing her curly tail to bounce wildly.

Everypony else thought Surprise just liked to, well, surprise the rest of the division when she brought them treats or pumped music through the room or came in armed with balloons or whatever other thing tickled her fancy. But after years of friendship, Derpy knew…there was always some rhyme or reason for the white mare’s seemingly erratic behavior.

Surprise whirled to face her, an almost manic glow lighting her violet eyes. “It’s next week!” She chirped, prancing a little in place, the riotous curls of her mane bobbing around her face with her every movement. “Next week…” A dreamy look crossed her face, “ And I’m so super-extra-excited that I had to do something nice for everypony today!”

“…Oh.” Derpy didn’t need to ask what was next week; she already knew that the only thing Surprise could be talking about were the annual Wonderbolt tryouts. How had the year flown by so quickly? Work was so boring that she often had a hard time telling when one day ended and another began and suddenly, here they were, on the verge of everything changing. “Wow. Already?”

“Yeah!” Surprise beamed, her eyes growing even more sparkly, “I know this week is just going to drag because I’m looking forward to next Wednesday, so I figured making it fun would help it go buy quicker.” She tossed back her mane, glancing again at the rest of their department happily munching the sprinkle-covered confections, “And…I’ll be gone soon. I wanted to do something nice for everypony.”

There was an undeniable sense of sadness that crept into her tone at that and some of the dazzle disappeared from her eyes. Derpy stepped closer, nudging gently at her friend’s side. “It’ll be okay…You know they’re all gonna be excited to say they knew you before you were famous.” She knew she had to be reassuring; after all of the support Surprise had offered her over the years, how could she not? But her heart was twisting painfully at the thought of her best friend leaving.

“Yeah…” Surprise shook her head, shuffling her wings restlessly, “I guess they will. And it’s not like I won’t be able to come back and visit.”

“Right!” Derpy grinned, pleased to see her friend rallying once again, “And you had better come back, or everypony will think you’ve turned into a Canterlot snob or something.” She teased, elbowing the other mare in the ribs, “Or maybe you will get too good for us lowly weather ponies.”

Surprise widened her eyes to almost comical proportions, gasping out loud. “I would never!” She squawked, feigning horror, her mane and tail seeming to curl even more at the very thought.

“All right, everypony!” Their laughter was interrupted by the foreman’s entrance, “Let’s get some work done! A lot of ponies are counting on us to ship their weather!”

~~

For Surprise, the week may indeed have dragged, but to Derpy –who usually found her days stretching on to infinity due to boredom- it flew by in the blink of an eye.

The days were filled with the same tedious tasks as always, with almost no change in routine. When she clocked in, Derpy received her daily schedule, which listed her tasks for the day. They ranged from anything as simple as inspecting an order before it was shuttled off by a delivery pony to harder jobs like actually filling clouds with the requisite precipitation in the proper amount. Some days she was pulled for clean-up, when a particularly large order resulted in wet floors, or for quality control, which usually meant hunting down members of the production crew to inform them their snow was less than top-notch or their rain was salty or some other thing that would result in major complaints.

Evenings were spent with Surprise, who was amazingly not getting any more nervous as the day fast approached.

She wasn’t really practicing, either, which DID surprise Derpy. She’d heard through the grapevine that a few other Weather Control Bureau employees and factory workers had attended Wonderbolt tryouts in past years and that the screening was tough. Not many pegasi were called back for the second part of the audition and even fewer actually earned the coveted spots on the team. Those who had made it as far as the first cut had practiced their routines rigorously, some even going so far as to hire personal trainers to help them improve their form.

But Surprise…was having none of that. She simply did what she had always done, sometimes flying in the evening hours in the dark and silent Cloudiseum, never altering her routine in any way.

She seemed too composed, too sure of herself. Derpy often found herself distracted watching Surprise, wondering if she was setting herself up nicely to fail. It was her experience that the higher you flew, the further you had to fall, after all, and Surprise was setting her sights almost higher than the sun.

She still believed in her friend’s incredible skill. The white mare had been born with an unparalleled zeal for life and she channeled her boundless energy into her flying, making herself incredibly fast and powerful. She also had incredible stamina; she was able to push herself past the average pony’s breaking point and still soar through the sky as if she didn’t have a care.

Her spontaneity lent itself nicely to performance; she could improvise a routine without breaking a sweat. Once, when they were younger, Derpy had seen her showing off for a group of foals at her nephew’s birthday party, only to lose control of herself mid-backflip. Instead of spinning wildly out of control like Derpy herself would have, Surprise had pulled herself into a barrel roll, skimming over the clouds so low that her stomach brushed the fluffy white surface. Only Derpy had known she had erred; the spectating fillies and colts cheered wildly, certain the near-crash was simply a part of the routine, meant to build up suspense. Surprise was not a quitter and she could make a near disaster work to her favor, something which was bound to help her at her tryout and in her future career as a Wonderbolt.

It still struck the grey mare as odd, though, that Surprise wasn’t putting in any extra effort to train. She was so calm and collected; the only thing that seemed to be worrying her was leaving Cloudsdale. She didn’t seem overly concerned at the prospect of wowing the judges and current Wonderbolts. She didn’t seem worried about messing up.

But any time anypony mentioned her leaving…

She got really, really, quiet.

It was hard to imagine that Surprise was scared of anything. She had been so desperate to get out and leave what her family considered their life’s work behind that Derpy had never thought the prospect of leaving would frighten her so. And besides that, Surprise defied gravity, openly laughed in the face of physics, frequently courted both danger and disaster. She was fearless in her flying, reckless to the point of stupidity.

How could she possibly be scared of a little thing like moving away?

~~

“Do you think she’s going to make it?”

“I don’t know. She’s awfully cocky…Thinks she’s better than the rest of us.”

“Have you ever seen her fly? She’s amazing! Just on the way home, she’s always doing all kinds of fancy tricks.”

“I heard her dad is a storm chaser. They’re superstrong and have a lot of endurance. She’s practically bred to be a Wonderbolt!”

“Oh, that’s a load of hay! Just because her dad is a strong flyer doesn’t mean she is. Surprise is so full of herself; I bet she’s already messed up. I bet she’ll come flying home with her tail between her legs.”

“Hey, Derpy Hooves is, like, her best friend in the world. Let’s see what she thinks!”

Suddenly, all eyes in the packing and distribution center were focused squarely on Derpy.

The grey mare had been trying to ignore all of the gossip and focus on her work; she’d already been nervous enough on her friend’s behalf without all of the not-so-quiet whispers and chatter about whether or not Surprise was going to make the cut. Given that tryouts were going on at that very moment, Surprise and her chances of success were the hot topic of discussion, much to Derpy’s distress.

She was worried sick; fretting over what would happen if Surprise didn’t make it – And what would happen if she did. She couldn’t bear the thought that her friend might have her dreams crushed; that Surprise might be stuck there in the factory after all, where she would be nothing but miserable. But she was equally worried about how much things would change, if Surprise were accepted on the team.

With everypony suddenly looking at her, Derpy took an uneasy step back, colliding with a storm cloud in the process. She didn’t bump it hard enough to cause a forced discharge of lightning, but the cloud did rumble ominously and she swallowed hard, ruffling her wings and pawing uncertainly at the floor.

“Well?”

Derpy was still prancing in place anxiously; she hated being put on the spot. And whatever answer she gave, some ponies were bound to be upset with her. Not all of them agreed about Surprise’s skill level and chances of becoming a Wonderbolt and whomever Derpy didn’t side with would likely be annoyed with her.

One of her eyes swiveled upwards, her gaze coming to rest of the self-proclaimed spokespony of the gossips. She was a sort of periwinkle-colored mare with a multi-toned pink mane and tail. Derpy didn’t really know her, beyond the fact that she was a little bit older than herself and Surprise and had been working at the factory for a couple years. She had a reputation of being bossy and rude, as well as a bit of a know-it-all.

Derpy tended to avoid her, but at that moment, Starsong was making such quite impossible. “Well what?” She countered, stalling for time as she waffled over what she wanted to say to the waiting throng. She, of course, was Surprise’s biggest cheerleader, though she didn’t think many of the other pegasi would actually care about what she had to say.

Starsong rolled her eyes dramatically, turning to give a couple of the other ponies a ‘can you believe this dope?’ sort of look. “What do you think,” when she spoke again, she was speaking slowly, the words enunciated and dragged out in a dramatic fashion, as if Derpy was incapable of understanding her, “about Surprise’s chance of getting accepted by the Wonderbolts?”

The grey mare took a moment to glance about, looking from face to face at the assembled weather ponies. They were all eagerly awaiting her answer, waiting to see if she would agree with the naysayers or defend her best friend. Everypony seemed to have forgotten they were at work and all Derpy really wanted to do was get back to inspecting the shipment of storm clouds she’d been prepping for delivery to Baltimare.

“I think…” She was quiet at first, uncertain how her coworkers would react to her. Derpy had never been good at speaking in public, especially not to a large crowd. It didn’t matter that she worked with these other mares and stallions every day. It didn’t matter that they were ponies who knew her; ponies who were used to her. They still teased her plenty about her imperfections and laughed at her unintentional mishaps around the department. “I think Surprise is gonna get in.”

“Oh, of course you think that!” Starsong scoffed, tossing back her mane and turning once more to meet the gaze of the other ponies, “You’re her best friend. Why wouldn’t you think she’d get accepted?” When she looked at Derpy again, a smirk was stretched across her face, her eyes glittering dangerously. “But you better watch yourself, featherbrain, ‘cause if she leaves, there’ll be nopony to clean up after your mistakes.”

Derpy did her best not to wilt under the other mare’s stare, though she couldn’t help shrinking back the tiniest bit. She hated being the center of attention, whether it was for good or bad reasons, and Starsong’s intimidation was causing a tendril of unease to curl in the pit of her stomach. She struggled with herself for a moment, squelching the nervousness before it could get the better of her. “She will so get in!” The grey pony stamped a hoof, eyes narrowing, one focused on Starsong, the other looking over the rest of her coworkers, “And I can take care of myself.”

Starsong snorted, “Sure you can,” and turned her back on the other mare. “C’mon, guys, it’s time for a lunch break.”

And without further preamble, they trotted off, leaving Derpy standing alone in the large distribution center.

Author's Note:

We're back, everypony!

And Derpy is supereager to get the rest of her story told

Comments

[Lucky424]

I find myself wanting to give a lot of swift back of the hoof to ponies muzzles lately. As you no doubt know.
And Starsong is now on the list!!

[Cranberry Muffin]

1887013

It's getting to be a long list, huh?

Starsong is unhappy with her life, so she's gotta pick on somepony smaller and weaker to feel like a big shot.

[Lucky424]

1887025 So why doesn't she go to a bar and meet a stallion??? Or a mare, if she wants.

And yeah, currently got about 8 ponies on it. Starsong is currently number one. Two is taken by an OC's dad in another story, who called Vinyl a "whorse".

Graham has dropped to the bottom, but we'll have to see how things go on that end!!

[Cranberry Muffin]

1887056

Who would want a special somepony that's a bitch?

Good for Graham! He's not really all that bad, he's just...Uh. Yeah. I got nothing

[Lucky424]

1887071 Maybe she's a bitch because that's just what she needs, and doesn't know it herself!!!
Even then, I'm sure there's somepony around would enjoy having a mare friend like that!!

[Cranberry Muffin]

1887082

She's a bitch because she needs a little some'in' some'in'? It's possible. She's not going to be appearing in the story again, though, so her fate will forever remain unknown.

Also, interesting fact: I did not make her up, she's a background pony I gave a mean personality to.

[Lucky424]

1887103 A background pony in a Cranberry Muffin story that isn't a G1 pony???

And her expression there really makes me want to slap her!!!

[Cranberry Muffin]

1887122

Hey, I have a lot of background/one ep ponies in this story! I was writing it way before I went G1 crazy; the only G1 pony that was meant to be in it was Surprise. Gusty and Gingerbread's cameo just...wrote itself.

[challenge_king]

Derpy ain't the only one... Either way, great chapter, and it's good to see you back in the swing of things!

[Cranberry Muffin]

1887163

Thanks! I'm already hard at work on the next part

[BBkat]

Oh, I like this. *waits for more*

[Cranberry Muffin]

1888031

Thank you! I hope you continue to like it