Chapter 1
The outside area in front of the town hall was packed for the Mayor’s monthly meeting. It was something that had been suggested by Celestia, in order for Mayor Mare to keep the townsponies up to date on things that were happening in the community, whether it directly affected them or not. Mayor Mare had found it to be an excellent idea, and three months prior, she had conducted the first meeting. It, and all the meetings that had followed, had gone swimmingly, so she enacted a town ordinance that made it mandatory for herself and all future Mayors to put on these monthly meetings, and to make them open to the general public.
This month’s meeting, as always, was met by a standing-room only crowd. Mayor Mare was shocked at first, and still was to a certain extent, as to how well-received these meetings were. She had expected maybe ten or so ponies to show up to them, but from the very beginning the hall had been filled up by ponies of all walks of life. This was not a small number, either, as the building had been specifically built for events of large attendance, like when a traveling musician like Octavia Melody came into town on one of her mega-concert tours.
So, when Mayor Mare had been tasked by Celestia with finding a place to hold these monthly meetings, naturally the town hall had been her first choice. And judging by the number of ponies that had shown up to these meetings so far, it was proving to be a rather wise decision on the Mayor’s part.
The Mayor waited behind the curtain that separated the main seating area from the backstage portion, where all the prep work for the meetings was done. She peeked her head out from the gap that separated one curtain from another. Normally, she wouldn’t have looked out to see the ponies that had gathered there, but tonight held a very special announcement, and she wanted to see who all had come to hear it first-hoof.
From what she could see, it looked like once again the entire town had come out for the meeting. She could see the Cake family in the left side of the front area, their usual spots for these sorts of events; Mrs. Cake was playing with Pumpkin and Pound Cake, as was Pinkie Pie, the only one of the Elements who was not with the rest of the group.
The others were a few feet ahead of them; Rainbow and Applejack were talking about the upcoming crop season and how much they needed the rain in order for the Apple family’s crops to grow as lusciously as possible. The other two that were there, Fluttershy and Rarity, were deep in discussion about something that they’d heard Aloe and Lotus say during their most recent spa date, and whether or not the spa ponies had been talking about them. Naturally, they hadn’t been, but that didn’t stop them from talking about it all the same.
Mayor Mare smiled and stepped out onto the stage. Immediately, the dull roar began to die down, as the ponies respectfully ceased their conversation in deference to her.
“Welcome, everypony!” She paused for a moment, as polite applause came from the crowd. When they were finished, she continued: “We only have a few matters of minor importance to go over, before we get to my big announcement! Naturally, everypony in the town already knows about it, I think-” A few ponies laughed at this- “but I feel it needs to be said anyways.”
While she was going over the smaller points, Twilight was waiting anxiously behind the curtain. She knew the reason why she wasn’t out there with her friends: the announcement had to do with her in specific. She’d wanted to be sitting out with her friends, but Mayor Mare had insisted that she be up on stage ahead of time, so as to ensure things would go smoothly. Twilight had already prepared a few remarks, just in case Mrs. Mare wanted her to say something about her big project.
She turned her attention back to the stage, where Mayor Mare had wrapped up her small business and was about to introduce her. “And now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Allow me to introduce the pony whose project is the driving force behind all of this: Miss Twilight Sparkle!”
Twilight walked out, a shy smile on her face, as the ponies in the crowd began to cheer her on. She recognized that the biggest portion of the applause was coming from the section that contained her fellow Elements and their guests, and most of that was coming from Pinkie Pie- naturally- and Fluttershy, which surprised her a little bit. She hadn’t known too many occasions when Fluttershy would drop her normally demure mien.
“As many of you know, Miss Sparkle here has been doing a documentary for the past few months, concerning the inhabitants of our fair little town. I am proud to announce here today- and, I am sure, Miss Sparkle is as well- that it is nearing completion and will soon be sent off to Canterlot for publishing!” Again, the crowd broke into applause.
“If anypony has any questions about this, feel free to come and ask me after the meeting is over,” Twilight responded. There were a few nods of assent throughout the crowd. After a few more minor points, the meeting broke up, and Twilight hopped down to go back and join her friends.
“I’m so glad to hear this is almost done!” Fluttershy said as she approached, slipping back into her normal presence. “I can’t wait to read it...”
“What all do ya have ta do on it?” Applejack asked.
“Well, I’m just about done with the more prominent members of Ponyville. I’ve done you all, the Mayor, the Cake family...” She rattled off a list of a few more ponies that she’d interviewed for the script.
“Well, what about Derpy?” Rainbow asked after Twilight had gone through her list. Twilight looked at her a bit funny.
“Of course I’d planned on including her as well,” she responded a bit snappishly. “I mean, she is Ponyville’s most dedicated mailpony. Why wouldn’t she be in there?”
“I didn’t think you weren’t going to include her, silly!” There was a bit of a defensive tone in Rainbow’s voice, though. There were quite a few ponies who knew that Rainbow and Derpy had been very close friends since Derpy had started her mail rounds a few years earlier, and some had even insinuated that they had a romantic thing going on. Naturally, these were only rumors; neither of them were involved with anypony at that particular moment.
Applejack, for one, was not in the mood for the pair’s squabbling, so she stepped in. “Dash, dear, nopony was tryin’ to say that ya were gonna leave Miss Hooves out of your book. Ah’m sure the last thing Twilight here would want to do is to leave any stone unturned. This is all in the name of her first published book, after all, and we all know just how much she loves her books.”
Twilight smiled, thankful for Applejack’s running interference on her and Dash’s behalf. “Exactly. Now all I have to do is find some ponies who would be willing to talk about her...” In response, Dash cleared her throat loudly, causing Applejack to look over at her with what could only be described as an attempt at an Evil Eye.
“It’s fine, AJ,” Twilight said quickly. “I had already thought of asking Dash first.” The smug look that Dash gave Applejack absolutely infuriated her, but she bit her tongue in deference to her friend Twilight.
“Ask away!” Dash said, striking a pose that wasn’t at all necessary. Twilight decided to ignore that, though, and ask her questions as though she were sitting normally.
“Okay, so... First question. When did Derpy come to Ponyville?” Her question was met by a pregnant pause. “Did you not hear me?” Twilight asked after a moment.
Dash shook her head. “No. I mean, that’s not what’s the problem. I heard you just fine. The problem is... I don’t exactly know.” Twilight did a quick double-take, and Dash must have noticed her reaction, because she quickly continued: “Yeah, I know, it’s kind of hard to believe. But it’s the truth. I met Derpy after she’d already come here to Ponyville, and she never told me exactly what led her here.”
Twilight frowned. “That’s weird. I mean, you know Derpy better than practically anypony else here in Ponyville. And if you don’t know what led Derpy to come here... Who would?”
“What about her little sister?” asked Rarity. “Dinky, I believe her name is.”
Twilight shook her head. “I think, from what I’ve heard, that Derpy is rather quiet about her family life.” Dash nodded in confirmation. “And plus, I kind of wanted to ask Dinky her questions while Derpy was there, too. Just to get two things done at once, I guess.”
Dash thought for a moment more. “What about her friend from the Weatherpony Patrol? Oh, what’s her name...?” It came to her. “Raindrops! That’s what her name is. Maybe you can go talk to her and find out a bit more.”
“Or...” came a voice from behind them, “why don’t you just go to Derpy herself and ask her? That would be the better option, wouldn’t it?” Twilight turned to see who’d just spoken, and saw Dash’s unofficially-adopted little sister standing there.
“That is true, Scootaloo, and eventually I will get around to asking her. However, I want to get other ponies’ input on her as well. I’ve been doing this for just about all of the ponies that I’ve been featuring in my book. Don’t you remember when I came to you and asked you all that stuff about Rainbow Dash?” The light went on over Scootaloo’s head, and she nodded enthusiastically, a grin spreading over her face that she reserved only for when she was either talking about, or thinking about, her famous pony big sister.... Which was just about all the time, really.
Twilight turned back to Dash. “Do you have any idea where I can find Raindrops at this time?” Dash didn’t say a word, but simply pointed in the direction of the Cake family bakery. At first, Twilight thought she was talking about Pinkie Pie, and was about to tell her that she already knew that wasn’t Raindrops, when she saw who Dash was actually pointing at: a pony with an off-yellow colored fur and a mane the color of the sky itself. Twilight smiled and thanked Dash before trotting over to where Raindrops was.
When Twilight reached where Raindrops was, her subject had already struck up a conversation with another pony that Twilight recognized as being Berry Punch. Twilight had talked to Berry when she was doing the portion of her book on the spa ponies, having seen Berry at the spa a few times when she had joined Fluttershy and Rarity for a few of their spa dates and a few other times there, while just in passing. Twilight waited patiently for their conversation to be over, and when Berry had finally meandered off, she cleared her throat, hoping Raindrops would see that it was meant for her.
Raindrops turned, and her smile grew even wider than it had been before she’d seen Twilight. “Hey... You’re Twilight, aren’t you? The one that Mayor Mare had said was writing that book about Ponyville’s history and important ponies.”
Twilight smiled. “Yeah, that’s me. I was actually wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions about the pony that I’m trying to write about in my current section.” Raindrops blushed a little bit, and Twilight could tell that she thought it was quite a high honor that she would come to her for source material.
“Sure, I’d love to tell you anything I can! Berry Punch was just telling me how you’d interviewed her for your section on Aloe and Lotus, and I was telling her that I was really jealous. She sounded like she was happy that she’d gotten interviewed and I didn’t...” Raindrops grinned. “Now look at me.”
Twilight smiled politely. “Okay, so I’m going to be asking you some questions about Derpy Hooves.”
Raindrops’ eyes lit up. “Oh, cool! Me and Derpy have been friends for quite awhile. I was up there with her when she accidentally dropped all that stuff on this one pony. We were helping move a whole bunch of stuff across town and... well you probably heard about that anyways.” Twilight’s eye twitched a bit; no wonder she’d thought she’d recognized Raindrops from somewhere. Twilight was the pony Raindrops was talking about, that Derpy had dropped all that stuff on her head. I really should have listened to that whole Pinkie Sense thing the first time...
“Yeah... you could say that. Anyways, I guess from what you’ve told me already that you and Derpy are pretty close to each other. So maybe you can tell me this: when did Derpy come to Ponyville, and why?”
Raindrops was already opening her mouth to answer the question, but as soon as Twilight had asked it, she very quickly shut it. “Um... Oh wow, why would you have to choose that as your first question?”
Twilight couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You don’t know either?”
“Nope. I met Derpy after she’d already been in Ponyville for a while. She never told me about anything having to do with her coming here.”
Twilight furrowed her brow a bit. “That’s just about exactly what Rainbow Dash told me when I asked her...”
“How many ponies have you asked?” Raindrops asked, curious.
“Right now... just you and Rainbow Dash. Say, you wouldn’t be able to point me in the direction of any other ponies who might be able to give me the information that I’m looking for, would you?”
“Well... there was that stallion that she was seeing for a little bit. I think his name was... Time Turner! Or something like that. Maybe he can be of some help to you. Anyways, I’ve gotta head out. Berry Punch and I have a lunch date. Wish me luck!” Raindrops trotted away, waving excitedly at Berry Punch. Twilight smiled and waved back at her, wondering just what in Equestria she would need luck with.
It’d taken her a bit more time than it probably should have to get to Time Turner’s house, but she could blame that on the fact that she hadn’t known in the slightest where he lived. It took her having to ask a few ponies, and eventually she’d found one who’d known where to find him.Twilight knocked on the door; there was no response for a few moments, so she knocked again. Still, nopony came to the door.
“Hmm... I wonder if he’s not at home...” She went over to the window and peered inside. What she saw caused a huge grin to form on her face. There was all sorts of technological devices and contraptions scattered all over the place, some as tall as the house itself. She even noticed a miniature sculpture over by the coffee table, an odd building-like thing that was painted blue and had the word “POLICE” printed in big block letters near the top. “What on earth is all of this? I’ve never seen any of these things before. Time Turner must be some sort of tech genius-”
“Well, I wouldn’t quite go that far, but thank you anyways for the compliment.”
Twilight turned to look at him, and her eyes went wide a bit. “Hey, I know you. You’re one of the ones who helped me move all my books out of the library when it got flooded and we had to clean the whole thing out!”
He smiled. “Yeah, that was me. Tell me, how did that turn out? Did you get everything back into working order?”
“I sure did. It took a lot of extra help, not to mention myself and Rarity just about running ourself ragged trying to magically dry all those books... But eventually we did get everything back up properly.” She smiled. “But as you could have probably guessed, I didn’t come all the way out here just to reminisce about good times.”
“I would think not. So... what brings you out to my humble abode, friend?” Before Twilight could even get a word out, he continued: “Oh no wait, let me guess. This has something to do with that book everypony’s all abuzz about you writing, isn’t it?”
Twilight blushed a bit. “So... The word really has gotten out about it, hasn’t it?”
“Oh yes, quite naturally. Nopony has really even attempted to write such a comprehensive history of this town, contenting themselves to merely mentioning it in passing- relatively speaking, of course- in history books of Equestria at large. Not to mention you are a bit of a local celebrity, with you being Princess Celestia’s personal protege and all.” Twilight could feel her blush growing across her face; she knew that a lot of Ponyville- and Equestria as a whole, for that mattter- felt very similarly about her, but she had never quite gotten used to ponies actually speaking things like this aloud about her, much less in face-to-face conversations like this one.
“So... What is it that you were going to ask me?”
Twilight forced herself to get back onto track. “Well, I wanted to-”
“Oh my, I almost forgot my manners for a moment there.” He opened the door and stepped inside, moving off to the side to allow for Twilight to get past him. “Please, come in. Would you like anything to drink?”
“Oh no, that’s quite fine,” Twilight responded, stepping inside. When they’d gotten themselves situated in the living room, amongst all of his contraptions, Twilight continued what she was going to say earlier: “I wanted to ask you about Miss Hooves.”
Time Turner smiled. “Ah yes, mon cher amour. What do you wish to know about her? What role will she play in this book?”
“No more or less important of a role than everypony else I’ve interviewed so far. I just wanted to know if you knew anything about the reason why she came to Ponyville to begin with. I’ve already asked Rainbow Dash and Raindrops, and neither of them had any clue at all.”
His smile faltered. “Miss Twilight... I can tell that you are taking great pains to make this as detailed as you possibly can, and I am quite sure that Miss Hooves will be very appreciative of that. Unfortunately... I cannot answer your question, either. Not because I do not know, though, but because she asked me not to. If you wish to find that out... You must ask her yourself.”
Twilight was silent for a moment. Eventually, she found her words again. “Is it a bad thing? Or is it-”
“I am dearly sorry, Miss Sparkle, but I will comment no further on this matter. If you wish to ask me anything else about... well, anything else, really, then I would be glad to talk more. But on this issue, I will remain in Miss Hooves’ good graces and not speak further of.” Twilight thought for a long moment, wondering just what on earth could have caused this to begin with. Before she could even stop herself, she practically blurted out the next question that was on her mind.
“What’s up with that blue police box?”
It was almost two hours later when Twilight walked into her room at the library. She quietly passed Spike, who was- as usual- sound asleep in his bed. Her mind was still running a million miles a minute. As per her request, Time Turner had launched into a rather lengthy explanation of the symbolism of that statue.
The stunning thing was, Twilight hadn’t been able to wrap her mind around ninety percent of it, though that was because it had all flown right in the face of her logical, rational mind. He had spoken of universes infinite in number and being able to travel in both time and space via the use of that box. He had even made mention of at least one adventure that had taken place with Derpy alongside him, though he confessed to having at least partial memory loss of how in Equestria they’d managed to get out of the danger that (in his own words) they’d “inevitably made their way into.”
All in all, it was a very confusing conversation, and she desperately wanted to just push it out of her mind long enough to concentrate on the task she’d been putting off since her library got flooded: putting all her books back into the order they’d originally been in. Unfortunately, that seemed to not be coming easily. So when she stepped into the library, she inhaled deeply, savoring the smell of her precious books.
She had just resolved that she was finally going to get around to re-organizing everything, when she heard a knock at the door. “Who is it?” she called out, making her way there. When she peeked out the window, she saw a familiar grey pony, making a rather weird face at the door that involved sticking her tongue out, for some reason. Twilight couldn’t help but giggle as she opened the door.
“Hi, Derpy!” she said with a smile. “What brings you out here? You just missed the new volume of Daring Do, if that’s what you’re here for. I only have one copy, and Rainbow Dash checked it out the day before yesterday-”
“I heard you wanted to know why I came to Ponyville for the first time.” Twilight fell silent, remembering the words that Time Turner had told her.
“Well... yes. I wanted it to go into my history of Ponyville that I’m writing.”
Derpy thought for a moment, then spoke again: “Do you mind if I come in? I haven’t quite decided if I want to tell you yet, but if I do end up doing that... I don’t want anypony’s prying ears to potentially listen on it. I want privacy.”
“Of course. Please come in.” Twilight stepped aside to allow Derpy in, and it struck her as odd that she was repeating the same actions that Time Turner had done for her. When Derpy was inside, she shut the door. “Do you want some tea or anything?”
“Some tea would be great, thanks.”
Twilight went towards the kitchen, taking one last look over her shoulder before she went in. She saw Derpy idly browsing through the lower book titles, not picking any of them out but simply soaking them up from the outside. She smiled and went all the way in. A few minutes later, she came out, magically carrying two steaming hot cups of tea. She set them down on the coffee table in the center of the room, and she and Derpy sat down on opposite sides of the table.
When Derpy had finished taking her first few sips of the tea, she looked Twilight straight in the eyes. “Nice tea, by the way. Now, before we get started, let me get something out of the way first. There is a very good reason why I’ve told nopony about why I came to Ponyville, and that’s because it was a very trying time for myself and Dinky. I know that you’re probably going insane not knowing, though, so I’m going to tell you. Only on one condition, though.”
“Okay, name it.”
Derpy fixed an intensely serious gaze upon her. “You cannot, under any circumstances, print it in your book.”
This was the last thing that Twilight had expected her to say, and it threw her for a rather large loop. “But... the whole reason why I wanted to know was for the book.”
“I realize this, and technically I can’t stop you from printing it. I would hope, though, that you would have enough respect for me to honor my wishes.” She bent her head to take another sip of her tea. “This really is excellent tea. It reminds me of the kind my mother used to make me.”
Twilight looked down at the quill and tablet that was laying on the table. She hated that she had already made up her mind, but she couldn’t go against what Derpy wanted. She magick-ed the quill and paper away, putting it in her desk drawer.
When she looked back up at Derpy, there was such a sincere smile on the pegasus’ face that she wondered if she’d ever seen that on anypony before. “Thank you...” Derpy said quietly. “Now, if you’d still like, I’ll tell you about the reason why I came here to Ponyville.” Twilight was silent, so Derpy took that as an indication to move forward.
“As they’ve probably already told you, I’ve been here in Ponyville for about three years. You actually got to see me very shortly after I came here, about a month or so. What happened to bring me here... Well, it’s not a very nice story. You’ve met Dinky, haven’t you?” Twilight nodded; she’d been rather taken with Derpy’s little sister since they’d first met happenstance.
“Well, the real reason why I’d come here to Ponyville to begin with...” She seemed to be mentally bracing herself, and a moment later, she finished her sentence: “...was to find the stallion who’d pony-napped Dinky.”
Twilight couldn’t help but let an audible gasp escape her lips. Of all the things that she could have been expecting Derpy to say... This was most certainly not in that list. “H...how in the world did that happen?”
Derpy sighed. “I wish I could say it was just a random occurrence, but in a way... it’s my fault. The stallion that I was seeing at the time had turned out to be nothing but a heartless bastard, but me being the naive mare that I was... I wanted to see the good in him. I wanted to see the good in everypony, really.”
“That seems to be something that hasn’t changed.”
Derpy smiled warmly. “Thank you for that... In any case, though, one night he and I had gotten into a rather big argument, and I decided I was just going to go to sleep and deal with him in the morning. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I tried to hear if Dinky was crying, but I couldn’t hear anything. And when I got up to see if she was alright... I found her gone.”
Twilight could feel a tear forming in the corner of her eye. “I can’t imagine how you must have felt...”
“No, you can’t. I was all that she had, besides that worthless stallion, and he didn’t amount to much anyways. I’ve basically been her caretaker since her mother passed away and her father decided he didn’t want to take care of her...” She laughed dryly. “Guess that much got passed down in the family, didn’t it?”
“So how did you end up finding her?”
“It was really just by a stroke of luck. Or maybe the higher powers were smiling down on me that day, I don’t know. Anyways, I was frantically searching around for anypony who knew what had happened. It turned out that he’d let slip to one of his other ex-marefriends where he was going to be taking somepony- naturally, he didn’t tell her who. It took me a few days to scrape up the bits to take the train out here, seeing as I was having to come all the way down from Manehattan.
“Once I got down here, I immediately got in touch with the local police, and explained my situation to them. They accompanied me to the house he was staying at, and arrested him. Lucky for me, he still had Dinky with him.” She sighed. “This was still when Dinky was just a baby, and as far as I know, she doesn’t remember any of it. At least, I hope she doesn’t...”
Twilight didn’t really know what to say then. Derpy had opened up to her like she hadn’t done to anypony else besides Time Turner. And now that she knew the full story, she could see why she’d kept it to herself... and why she hadn’t wanted it in print.
“Derpy... I just want you to know, this isn’t going to be put into the book. I can see why you didn’t want it published, and I’m going to respect your wishes.”
She smiled. “I knew you would be understanding of that, Twilight. That’s why in the end, I agreed to tell you.” She bent her head and drank the rest of her tea, then stood. “I really must be going, though. Dinky’s probably wondering where I am.” She began to make her way to the door, then stopped. “You know... I’m kind of glad I told you. It feels good to get it off my chest.”
Something occurred to Twilight just then. “Hey, Derpy, before you leave... What was Time Turner talking about when he said mon cher amour?”
Derpy gave her the biggest smile she’d ever seen. “Is he still calling me that? He said it was a phrase he picked up on one of his traveling expeditions. It means ‘my dear love’, and it would appear he really hasn't changed one bit... I think I’ll stop by his house when I get done with Dinky tonight. Something tells me he’d be happy to see me.”
Twilight opened the door with her magic, and Derpy walked out, looking back behind her and making the same face she’d made when she’d first arrived, before going on her way. Twilight shut the door behind her.
Just then, Spike walked in from the other room, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “Hmm...? What’d I miss?”
Twilight continued looking out the door and smiled. “Oh, not much. I just had a talk with a very good pony.”