Live and Learn
Chapter 4
Live and Learn
The meal was beginning to get very was awkward for the both of them. As Derpy and Crunch talked over the muffins, it got more and more tense. Crunch was nervous and started to ramble on about Applejack and her family, and Derpy just sat there listening, not sure what to say. Neither was a real conversationalist.
Come on, Derpy. Don't just sit there! Derpy thought. He's losing interest in you!
"So, uh, about Pinkie's party..." Derpy said, finally getting the nerve to say something. "Are you going to be going?"
"I don't know when or where it it is." Crunch said. "She never told us."
"EIGHT TONIGHT! IT'S GONNA BE IN HERE!" they heard a voice yell from inside the bakery. Derpy laughed at the puzzled expression on Crunch's face.
"How did she hear us from there?" Crunch asked.
"Secret tunnels, silly!" Said Pinkie, her head poking through the door, a huge, silly smile on her face.
"Secret... wait, what?" Crunch said, scrunching his eyebrows together. Derpy watched him intently as he learned the quirks and oddities of Pinkie Pie for the first time. His expressions were normal. It didn't seem normal, though. It seemed... odd, like he was doing something he shouldn't. Derpy had only ever seen a changeling look angry, and even then it was only in books.
It's kind of cool, like my coltfriend- she stopped herself. Not a coltfriend. Why would I think that? It's like my friend is a bad boy or something.
Crunch continued to talk to Pinkie about her secret tunnels, oblivious to everything else in his confusion, while Derpy was at war with herself.
What the hay, Derpy? You just met the guy! Why are you thinking of him as your coltfriend? She thought. It's not like...
"Oh, sweet Celestia..." She said aloud, then quickly covered her mouth, blushing. Crunch and Pinkie stopped talking and turned towards her.
"What is it? What happened?" Crunch asked, worried. "Is something wrong?"
"I... I need to go!" She said hurriedly, grabbing her muffin bag and flying off.
"Well that was... strange." Crunch said. "What was that all about?"
"You really can't tell?" Pinkie said, cocking an eyebrow at him.
"Can't tell what?!" Crunch asked, getting frustrated. "What don't I see?!"
Pinkie sighed and turned away. "You have to figure this one out on your own." she said. She walked back into the Sugarcube Corner shaking her head.
What is going on?! Crunch thought. As soon as I make friends, they leave me and confuse me!
He began to think that he was truly repulsive enough to scare away ponies after just having them be with him, but immediately shoved the thought away. He had to find Derpy and figure out what was going on.
Derpy flew quickly and recklessly, tears trying to come but being stopped by sheer willpower.
"No. You are NOT in love with him. You are NOT in love with a changeling." she told herself as she flew. "You just met him. How could you possibly love him?"
"Uh, Derpy? Who are you talking to?" a voice said from next to her. Derpy looked next to her and saw Rainbow Dash flying alongside her.
"Please... I just need some alone time." Derpy whispered, her words lost to the wind as they both flew inconceivably fast. Rainbow Dash yelled something back, but the pair was accelerating quickly. Neither of them could hear each other. Suddenly, Derpy stopped, leaving Rainbow Dash to keep flying. She had stopped in front of the house of the only pony in Ponyville who wasn't afraid of her: Fluttershy.
She landed on her hooves, a rare occurrence for her, and knocked on Fluttershy's door. It was opened by Angel, who looked irked that Derpy had the nerve to be here. He had good reason think that- the last time Derpy came here, she had taken out an entire wall of the house, as well as setting fire to the well. She still couldn't figure out how she did that.
"Is Fluttershy here?" she asked. Angel nodded, but still just stood there, watching her.
"Can I talk to her?" Angel rolled his eyes and hopped into the house. Derpy waited for a few seconds until he returned with the yellow mare.
"What is it, Derpy?" Fluttershy asked. "Is something wrong?"
Controlling her tone and her tear, Derpy said simply "I need to talk to you inside."
Fluttershy nodded and led her into the cottage, motioning towards a chair. Derpy took a seat and finally let the tears come.
"I don't know what to do!" she said. "I finally met a great guy and I really like him but I can't like him because he's a changeling and if I tel him he'll probably hate me anyways and if he likes me everyone else will hate me because he's a changeling and-"
"Stop right there." Fluttershy said, putting a hoof on Derpy's mouth. "So, you have a crush- not anything else, a crush- on a changeling?"
Derpy nodded, the hoof still on her mouth. "Would this changeling be Crunch, the one Twilight told me about?"
"Yeah. Why?" Derpy said, freeing her mouth.
"Twilight wants to talk to him about something." Fluttershy explained.
"I'll... I'll try and find him." Derpy said. "But what should I do about my problem?"
"You'll have to ask Rarity about that. She the relationship expert."
"Okay. Well, I'm off to find Crunch." Derpy said, already at the door. "Goodbye!"
"Goodbye, Derpy." Fluttershy said. Derpy slammed the door, shaking the wall and knocking a flowerpot off of a shelf. Fluttershy sighed and went to clean it up.
Why am I always so shy around everypony else but her? It's... weird. Fluttershy thought to herself.
Crunch had been sitting on the same bench he met Derpy at for less than half and hour when Derpy came crashing into him.
"Careful Derpy!" Crunch told her. "You do't want to hurt yourself, do you?"
"Sorry. But that's not important. Twilight wants to see you." she said hurriedly.
"Okay, but why?" He asked.
"Never mind that, let's go!" She said, grabbing him by his hoof and running towards the library. He followed behind, still hoof-in-hoof with her. He was too confused to actually form a complete thought, so he just ran. They enter the library to be greeted by Twilight holding up a huge book with her magic. I was a book dedicated just to changelings.
"Okay, we need to talk. Now." she said. "You know how you said that you could just eat food instead of emotions?"
"Yeah? What about it?" he said, raising an eyebrow.
"You were wrong. You have to eat emotions at least every three days or you'll die." she explained worriedly. "Crunch... when's the last time you ate somepony's emotions?"
Crunch paled. The last time he had eaten emotions was three days ago at the hive. He had eaten squirrel joy. That's something he noticed- animal n the hive weren't afraid of changelings, but all of the ones outside were. It had been filling, but it was three days ago.
"Um... three days ago." he answered.
"Oh Celestia... you need somepony's emotions. It says that love is the strongest and that you need less of it. Does anypony here have any love for anything?" Twilight asked the room. The ponies around her, Applejack, Spike, Rarity, and Fluttershy (who had finished cleaning the flowerpot mess) all shook their heads.
Derpy knew what she had to do. "I do." She said. "I love something."
"Great! What is it?" Twilight asked. "We need it NOW."
This is it...Derpy. thought to herself
"It's... Muffins." she said.
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Oh god my sides...
Its crunch OH LORD MY SIDES
1809819
Why do you find that funny?
well that escalated quickly (i need a gif of an escalator
1809819>>1809823
Whoops, I mean to put muffins. Fixed it!
1809827
FUNNY SHIT, MAN!
Twilights "ready to get you a golden plated silver apple" reaction
good thing you're the auther 
And derpys response is "it's...crunch"
I don't know how to reply since the update
Derpy you blew it.
this chapter gets 4 mustaches out of 5.
1809881
I see I'm getting more mustaches every chapter. Let's try and get 6/5 next time.
You didn't send me the before draft for a revision. 100 points off of Griffindoor
1809889
I was rushed, I'm sorry! And don't worry, Dumbledore is biased. I'll get a shitload of points back for going on AN ADVENTURE!
Pretty good so far. I'd recommend that in future chapters you re-read them a day or so after finishing them and look for places where the flow of things gets a little awkward, but the storyline itself is solid. I'll be looking forward to more updates. Have a like.
1809831 funny enough thats what i thought she was going to say lol
(Joke) Alt. Title: Unchange?! Ya Got Unchange?!
No, don't take Derpy's LOVE!
Next you'll take away her slanted eyes! THE HORROR!
1810108
NEVER! DERPY'S EYES WILL ALWAYS BE SLANTED! ALWAYS!
1810085
Indeed, good sir.
Great, Now i'm interested in another story... Can't wait for the next chapter!
Ahahaha cute and looking forward to more.
Honestly though the idea that Derpy loves him right after meeting him falls completely flat. You cannot fall in love with someone after meeting and chatting for a half hour. It's not long enoughto get to know them. You may love the traits you see in them but to say you love them feels really disingenuous. I'm really hoping this gets cleared up in the story because her flitting around saying she's in love with him and vice versa would really grate for me. Other than that I can't think of anything bad to say about this story. THe characters are cute and endearing, i'm enjoying the plot turns and I love Pinkie's secret tunnels.
Saw a few typos in there you may want to tak to your pre-reader
1810341
She's not in love, it's just an overreaction to a crush. Women, huh?
And about the pre-reader... I kinda brushed him off and published this one without his consent. So.... yeah.
1810240
Well, you won't be disappointed. Maybe.
1810356 I'm never disappointed with FIMFiction.
1810367
I am sometimes. But good moods always bring good spirits and I have no clue where I'm going with this.
1810356 *grins* Alright then I shall amend my statement to point out that this doesn't feel like the case. Fluttershy makes one small mention that Derpy has a crush rather than love and then nothing is made of it. I feel like Flutters would've been more likely to help calm her by pointing out that she doesn't love him.
1810205
My Little Alicorn by Insertauthorhere. It's not exactly a bad story either, 1700 likes and all. 180,000 words as well.
1810799
Nope? Why nope?
Okay. I'm going to go through a couple specific instances here.
First off: NEVER, NEVER, NEVER start a chapter with "it." "It" is a pronoun, which means it needs an antecedent to refer to. When you start a chapter with a pronoun, there is no possible antecedent! What is "it" supposed to be referring to?
Better yet, completely dump these sentences and rewrite them. If you show us their nervous ticks, you can do all sorts of fun things with them! "Showing" has more benefits than just "not telling." In the beginning, like here, you can tall us what the "ticks" mean, then include them later in a more subtle manner--this will in turn help develop depth to the characters.
You're doing tons better with inserting little bits in between dialogue, but it could still be better. For example, something like:
Which also shows what I mean above: give us the "signs" and tell us what they mean, then when you use them later, they can be used as "shorthand" to the character's state of mind.
Next, dialogue can be used as one of the best forms of "showing," and one of the worst forms of "telling." You use dialogue generally well here, except for the point where Derpy comments on Fluttershy not being so shy around her. I think it would be better to have them both think this as Derpy leaves. This form of two characters thinking the same thing at the same time, but not voicing it, is very common for a reason: it's good at communicating something about those characters and their relationship.
I definitely see some growth from the last chapter (and this is apparently without editing), so I still have hope for you and this story! (Otherwise I wouldn't have written this, of course!)
1810976
Yay! Semi-approval! And, yeah, I do realize I could have done better, but I had to rush this like crazy. Thank the gods I'm ADHD and can type fast an shit. So, thanks. I'll try and make it much better next chapter. And as for the "it" at the beginning... Poof! Gone!
1810997
A Derpy X Changeling ? Interesting...
1795183
I see you took my suggestion anyway, and the more I think about it, the better an idea it seems...
Unchangling combines the words 'unchanging' and 'changeling' in a way that VERY nicely encapsulates the story... The main character is defined by the ability he lacks... and is he really a changeling if he can't transform?
Yeah, this is mostly me saying 'aren't I clever' but seriously, this is a refreshing twist on the somewhat overdone 'changeling leaves his people to live among ponies' idea.
1824145
Yeah, I thought about for a while after you suggested. I realized then, however, that I needed both a catchier name and a better cover photo to get popular.
"It shall be done!" I said to myself. I sat at my computer, furiously writing e-mails and messages to my commissioned artist, scouring the comments to try and find yours once more. As my finger blurred across the keyboard, I almost fainted from sheer exhaustion. BUT I KEPT TYPING! And then I changed the name!
1827284
Meh, AppleDash is to overused anyways.
Dammit Derpy! XD What a cop-out!