Ever wonder what Ditzy was doing when Discord was loose?
Ditzellia Esmerelda Doo is an average mare with a long name, and typical job. She also has a not so average eye condition, that brings pain in the form of a name given by other ponies. But when unusual things start to happen, a stranger makes an offer that can turn the tables for our favorite mail mare. Events take place before, during and after "The Return of Harmony" Episodes.
Ditzy Doo stood in her bathroom before a mirror looking at herself, her head turning left and right. She had a brush strapped to her hoof which she ran through her mane one last time to make sure that there were no tangles. Finding none, she smiled at herself.
“OK Ditzellia, you will have a good day today,” she said to herself in a commanding and sure manner. Forcing confidence into every syllable as she stood on the tiled floor, her reflection reassuring her with a knowing look. “You WILL have a good day.”
Quickly unstrapping the brush from her hoof before placing it gently on the porcelain sink, Ditzy then briskly walked to the living room, a smile still on her face as she looked at the simple furnishings of her cottage. It was a one room cottage, with a living room and kitchen only separated by a kitchen bar. The only other room in the cottage was the bathroom she had just left.
Ditzy looked at the couch settled in a corner of the room, blankets thrown haphazardly on the floor beside it. For a few moments she stood there, wishing to simply crawl back onto the couch that was used as a bed, and sleep the rest of her day away. Giving her head a sudden shake, she forced the idea out and went towards the door, grabbing a set of keys on a necklace, placing them around her neck. The pegasus then grabbed her delivery bag from a peg on the door, strapping it to her back securely before heading outside.
“Right on schedule,” Ditzy said to herself as she turned to lock the door. Taking a key she carefully locked the door using her hoof. When she felt the lock click into place, she gave a nod before pulling the key out.
The mare walked out into the front yard, and took observance of the moon glowing softly as it hung low in the sky, bathing all of Equestria in a pearly light. Enchanting her garden with a strange and subtle kind of magic all its own. “Its so pretty, but its only going to last for an hour more.” Ditzy mused out loud to herself.
Looking back up to the sky she took a slow deep breath. Her wings shaking with anticipation, knowing what was about to happen. Her heart began hammer faster as the wind picked up around her. The blood pulsed in her ears as Ditzy spread open her wings.
“Here we go.” Her eyes shut as she gave a strong thrust of her wings to take off into the early morning air.
With the freedom of flight over her now, a smile crept upon Ditzy’s face. Her eyes open wide with a gleam shining in them as she soared above the world. The wind beneath her wings and cool early spring air filling her lungs and running through her mane. It was an indescribable feeling of peace and excitement that felt wonderful.
The mare’s eyes scanned over the open fields surrounding her home as she flew in the direction of Ponyville. The sight of trees doting the landscape here and there, nothing seemed amiss until she noticed that two half moons flooded her vision. “Oh no not now!” she whined.
She felt dizziness begin take her over as she slowed to a stop. Ditzy struggled with her left eye in desperation, hoping that she could force it to straighten out and see straight. But soon enough gave up, closed the eye and did the only thing she could, wait.
Up above the few scattered houses outside of Ponyville Ditzy hovered, but only looked ahead to the town proper. Cautiously she opened her left eye and looked around. “One moon, one town, one river, one clock tower.” She sighed in relief then flew with more determination to the town square.
Looking down, she saw very few ponies heading off to work as well. Almost every one of them had there eyes to the ground and Ditzy was forcibly reminded of a bad zombie pony story. Laughing quietly to herself, she looked over at the town clock tower.
“Four forty five... He should be open by now.”
Landing softly on the dirt road she looked around at all the closed shops, no other ponies were on the road with her. As she observed the darkness of the shops an idea of a dystopian future came to her mind. “At night everypony hides away to huddle in the safety of home from the dreaded zombie ponies... dousing all lights in hopes of tricking them into going away.” She thought to herself absentmindedly.
She took a deep breath and smelled the heavenly sent of coffee, driving all thoughts of something as silly as zombie ponies in a dystopia out of her mind. She turned to her left and saw the one building with lights on, and walked towards towards it with a small smile on her face, feeling almost like the shop was welcoming her with open arms. Ditzy closed her eyes as she took another deep breath walking into “Java Bean’s Coffee Shop”.
The bell gave off a merry ringing sound, as Ditzy walked in. The smell of coffee and baked goods, while strong outside, in here it hit her nose like a delightfully aromatic wall that she was all to happy to run into. She kept her eyes closed, knowing the shop as well as one would an old friend. It wasn't quite Sugar Cube Corner, but this was open, and the coffee here was better anyway.
“Well hey there Ditzy!”
Ditzy’s eyes flew open and looked up to the counter to see Java, a light brown stallion earth pony with amber eyes, dark brown mane and 4 coffee beans as a cutie mark. He was standing on his hind legs with one of his forelegs laying on the counter, a crooked half smile on his face. "The usual?"
“Oh, um. Yeah please.” Ditzy said with a smile. She glanced around the shop, and noticed for the first time that there were other ponies around her. Suddenly it felt as if a vice had tightened around her heart. “Oh no...” She thought to herself. “What if my eye acts up now?”
Java, however, seemed unaware that there was a war being waged in Ditzy’s mind. He merrily hummed to himself as he bit into a coffee pot handle. It was clear to Ditzy that he was in a world of his own as he worked on his art of making the perfect cup of coffee.
“Sweet Luna, why is he moving so slowly today?” Ditzy thought to herself.
She let her eyes quickly scan the small crowd, searching the faces and scrutinizing there pupils hoping that none were set in on hers. It seemed, they were all in there own little worlds, and that was all that mattered to her.
Sighing in relief, Ditzy started to tap her left forehoof impatiently as she waited for Java to finish her order. She watched him sprinkle nutmeg into her cup of coffee, pause and look at the cup for a few moments. Then he shrugged and went to get the cream.
Ditzy rolled her eyes before she let her eyes wander around the room once more, this time out of sheer boredom. Before she knew it, Ditzy started to make mental notes of what the other ponies were doing in the room around her.
There were three pegasi at a table, merrily chatting away about the weather schedule for the week as they had some coffee and doughnuts. “They must be weather ponies.” Ditzy thought to herself before turning her attention away from them.
The mayor was in her usual early morning spot, a tired look on her face as she read an issue of “Equestria Daily”, sipping on a cup of what appeared to be hot tea. Ditzy looked closer at the news paper and read the headline to herself, “Scandal within the staff of this paper! Cereal Velocity and Sethisto found tied in a closet. Phoe charged with pony napping!”
Lastly, Ditzy noted a purple unicorn in a corner booth. She was surrounded by scrolls and books, and was using her magic to write frantically on a piece of paper. A cup of coffee sat, ignored by her.
“Here you go Ditzy!”
Ditzy jumped at the sound of somepony addressing her so suddenly. Her right eye turned to the sound of the voice to see Java had been the one to address her. But her left eye went in the complete opposite direction.
“Um, your order’s ready.” Java said with a smile, pointing out a cup of coffee in a drink carrier sitting next to a white paper bag, a lone blueberry muffin stowed within.
She smiled, out of embarrassment as her eyes focused where they were both supposed to be. “Thank you.” she said in a very soft tone. Ditzy then unstrapped her mail bag and began to search for bits she kept inside.
“Hang on a moment.” she said as she looked around in the bag. Her face scrunched up in frustration as she began to open different flaps on the inside of the bag. She dug her face deeper and found them jammed in a small pocket near the bottom of the bag. Carefully she pulled out five bits and placed them on the counter.
Taking the muffin, she placed it into her mail bag before strapping it onto her back. “See you tomorrow Java.” She said merrily. Then picked up the drink carrier by the handle with her mouth, and turned for the door.
She was half way to the door, when the sound of whispers reached her ears.
“I heard, that she fell out of Cloudsdale as a filly.”
“They could be talking about anypony... just ignore them.” Ditzy thought to herself.
“Why do you think she does that with her eye?”
“Just ignore them.”
“Can you believe that Derpy used to be a weather pony?”
Ditzy stopped dead in her tracks, and looked at the table where the three pegasi sat.“They are talking about me.” she thought to herself. Her mind was racing, she had to say something, or it was going to eat at her for the rest of her day. “Excuse me,”
Before she could say anything more than that, she felt the drink carrier slip out of her now open mouth. Time slowed down as she watched her coffee fall. Desperately she stuck out a hoof and leaned forward in hopes that she could catch it.
The carrier hit the tile floor, and the cup bounced up, lid flying open splashing coffee everywhere. Ditzy closed her eyes and held her breath. A million thoughts flashing through her mind, but the one thought that stuck out most was, “This is going to hurt.” Then it hit her, and she suppressed a yell from the searing pain of being soaked with burning hot coffee.
She opened her eyes, and looked at the damage that was done. Coffee was spilled all over the floor, but a large enough portion had soaked her. Ditzy’s eyes had crossed as she pursed her lips to keep silent from the scream that wanted to force its way out of her.
Ditzy could feel every eye was on her, as she stood frozen in the coffee shop, wishing more than ever that she could become invisible. The deafening sound of silence settled in as nopony moved, or said anything.
Suddenly, the three pegasi began to snicker, then howled with laughter as Ditzy stood there, dripping with the coffee that had splashed her. She looked around, both eyes open wide, going in opposing directions.
The warm sting of tears beginning to form, blurring her vision even further. She did not know what to do, and took the first action that came to her mind, “Run.”
The mare bolted out of the shop and ran up the road, she had to get away from them, from the cruel laughter that was being inflicted on her by those pegasi. Desperately, she tried to hold back the tears that were beginning to blind her, but was failing. “Nopony can see me like this, I wont let them!” she thought to herself as she ran into an alley, just out of sight from the coffee shop window. The torrent of tears begin to fall, now out of her control. Suddenly the ringing of the coffee shop bell struck her ears and she heard shouting.
Cautiously, Ditzy closed one eye before taking a peek around the corner to see what all the commotion was. She gave an audible gasp at what she saw.
Floating in the air before the coffee shop, were the three pegasi, enveloped in a purple aura as the unicorn from the shop held them in place with her magic. Ditzy could see that she was saying something, but was not sure of what. She raised her ears and took a few tentative steps forward until the words became audible to her.
“What is wrong with you? Talking about other ponies like that.I can't believe 3 grown ponies acting like this. Why would you do that?”
“Well, Derpy IS weird looking, what with that one crazy eye,” One of them started as he continued to flap his wings in a futile attempt at getting away.
“That's no reason to make fun of somepony and hurt their feelings.” the unicorn said to him with a look that could probably cause a hydra to think twice about approaching her.
Ditzy smiled a little to hear somepony defending her. Giving off another small sigh, she wiped the remainder of tears off her face with a hoof before slowly trotting back to the shop.
“Why would you call somepony Derpy? Java, is that something ponies actually call her?”
Java looked over at the unicorn then shook his head. “Ponies have called Ditzy that for years. Some even think its her real name and call her that without knowing how much it hurts her.”
Ditzy slowly cantered up closer to the group, and saw now that she was closer, that not only was Java standing in the open door, but Mayor Mare was close behind him.
The unicorn looked as if she was about to say more, when the mayor suddenly trotted out the door past Java, "You three... don't you have somewhere to be today?" She asked in a soft, yet commanding voice.
The weather ponies floated in the air before her, looking down at there hooves in what looked like shame, no longer struggling against the magic keeping them in place. “Yes ma'am” the three spoke in unison.
“Then I suggest you get going, before you are late. Let them go please.”
The unicorn nodded and let them go. The three fell to the ground and sat there stunned for a moment before taking off with not another word spoken between anyone. Everypony stood there in the silence of the morning, not sure of what to do next.
Suddenly, Java’s voice cut through the air, causing the other ponies to jump a little bit. “Ditzy! There you are, I'm so sorry about all that. Here lets get you another coffee, on the house."
“Oh... thank you Java.” Ditzy said softly.
“Not at all, not at all. I can’t leave my best customer without her daily cup of coffee, now can I?”
Java held the door open as everypony else headed inside, Ditzy went over to the counter and saw that the coffee she had spilled was already cleaned off of the floor. The mayor headed back over to her table and resumed her reading of the news paper. Java and the unicorn, came in together as Java headed for the counter, the unicorn went to sit in her booth again.
Ditzy stood before the counter for a few moments, and watched as Java made a fresh cup of coffee, when suddenly she felt something tap her side in a soft but quick jab. Her head spun to her right to see that the unicorn was standing by her now, with a warm smile on her face.
“Hey, why don’t you sit with me while you wait.”
“Oh... Um, sure, I guess. Thank you.”
The two went over to the corner booth, and the unicorn moved a few books on the table so they could see each other better, before she sat down. Ditzy followed suit and sat opposite of her and decided that she should be the first to say something.
“Well, I would like to thank you for um, defending me, miss....?”
“Twilight Sparkle, and you don't need to thank me. It was just the right thing to do.” She said waving a hoof nonchalantly and smiling.
“Oh. Um... Right.” Ditzy said smiling a little bit. She sat there nervously unsure of what to say. Ditzy waited for her to say something, anything to make a conversation happen, but nothing came as the air hung between them both. So she took a breath and tried her best to start the conversation.
“Ive seen you around town, with your friends. And at your welcoming party before the Summer Sun Celebration last year. But I never really got your name before... Cause um, well.. you never get any mail, well, not by name. But I know you stay at the library, and I deliver packages there sometimes, and that's how I know most ponies names, cause I'm a mail mare, and that's what I do.” She smiled feeling accomplishment for starting the conversation. Then, she realised how silly that all really sounded as she repeated the words in her mind. She closed her eyes as she felt her face warm from embarrassment.
Twilight sipped her coffee until Ditzy fell silent, she looked over and saw that her eyes were closed, almost as if she realised that she had done something wrong. Twilight smiled and decided to say something to end the awkwardness that had filled the air. “Oh I don't usually get regular mail, because I have a dragon that sends and receives most of my private letters.”
Ditzy opened her eyes at this, both of them were now finally straightened out. “That is really neat! We have a dragon fire system at the post office, but its for receiving only. It comes in a fire place, but we don’t have an actual dragon so we can’t send letters out like that.”
Twilight sipped on her coffee lightly, then asked, “So, whats it like to be a mail mare?”
That was all it took, Ditzy started to go on about how great it is, how she meets all the wonderful ponies around town, and how she feels that she is helping ponies by bringing letters to them. Java brought over Ditzy’s coffee while she chatted animatedly with Twilight about her job, and some of the short stories about her fellow postal workers.
“... and then,” Ditzy said between laughs. “He placed the package on the counter for her and said, “O.K. miss Pie, here’s your package.” Then, a baby alligator came out of her mane, and bit his muzzle! For no reason, true story!”
She and Twilight laughed for a while over the story. Then, Ditzy looked down at her cup and saw it was empty. Also, the blueberry muffin she had stowed in her bag was eaten.
She then looked at a clock and gasped. “Oh no, its Five Fifteen, I gotta go!” She hastily got up, strapped her mail bag to her back and galloped out the door. “Ill see you later Twilight, It was nice meeting you!”
As she ran out the door, Twilight looked over at Java and saw he was smiling at her from the counter. "You did the right thing there, That mare needs all the friends she can get."
Twilight smiled a little bit, “Well everypony needs friends.” She sighed then pulled out a fresh scroll of paper, she knew it was too early to send now, but she wanted to write this down before the rest of her day caused her to forget about it. She then used her magic to dip the quill into ink, then began to write, “Dear Princess Celestia,”
Ditzy galloped down the road and saw that some more shops were preparing to open, and one or two had customers already going in. “No, no time to look around, you gotta hurry!” she thought to herself. Opening her wings she took flight low over the ground to speed up a little. Then she saw her destination, the Equestria National Postal Service, Ponyville Office.
Ditzy stopped flapping her wings and went back into a gallop as she landed and ran to the door. Slowing down before heading inside, she saw the post office was already busy.
Ditzy looked to her left and saw the punch in clock. She cantered over and searched for her punch in card among all the others. “Where is it, where is it... Ah! There it is.” Her name, “Ditzellia Esmeralda Doo” flashed out to her on the card. She pulled it out of its spot, and grimaced as she saw that there were 2 red marks indicating tardiness in that quarter. Quickly she placed it into the clocks slot and pulled a leaver. The clock gave off a soft chime, and slowly, Ditzy pulled out the card and looked at it, “5:20 A.M.” it said in green letters. She sighed in relief and trotted to her morning station.
She smiled at the other ponies in the sorting room on her way to to the station, when suddenly she found her path blocked by a giant bag floating in front of her. “Good morning Ditzy.” Said a voice from behind the bag.
Ditzy leaned left and right to look behind the bag before the bag lifted up enough that she could see it was Orchid Dew, a sorting pony. “Oh Good morning Orchid. How are you?”
“Fine thanks.” Orchid said with a smile that looked as if it were threatening to break into laughter in any moment.
“Um are you sure your OK Orchid?”
“Oh, yeah I’m fine, just taking these letters over to station B.” She said, waving a hoof from the bag to the general direction of the aforementioned station. “See you later!”
“OK later.” Ditzy said, with a puzzled look on her face, as Orchid started to chuckle softly to herself walking away, The bag of mail following her.
Ditzy made it to her station and rubbed the brass name plate to give it a nice shine, and sighed as she took off her delivery bag and hung it on the cheep cubical style wall separating her station from the next. Then pulled out some twine and a jar of Stick-On (apply directly to forehoof!) from the bag.
She looked up at the wall behind the counter, loaded with cubby holes to fill with letters by address that was to be delivered that day. Then looked back down at the counter and saw a pile of letters and a few packages had already been left there for her to go through.
This was usually the slowest and most boring part of her day, but it made for easier and faster deliveries later. She was about to start separating them, when she heard a crash behind her. Ditzy turned to see a large crate had fallen to the floor as two pegasi hovered in shock at what they have done. The floor master, Boxxy Brown flew over to see what had happened.
“Truly this room is chaos incarnate.” Ditzy thought to herself as she looked around. The sorting room was organized in the most disorganized way imaginable. Pegasi flying everywhere, carrying letters to the delivery pony stations, so they can separate the individual letters by address. Unicorns were separating letters by delivery area in one section. Earth ponies were running about everywhere carrying bags of letters that were coming in to be separated still, and out to a delivery wagon for out of town deliveries. Ditzy smiled a little as she turned back to her own work, and kept out of everyponies way.
“Ditzy... why is your coat so.. dark looking?”
Ditzy stopped what she was doing and looked down at her self, and was shocked to see that she had forgotten to wash off the coffee that splashed up on her, and had stained most of the front of her coat a dark brown. She froze in her work station and turned to face the inquisitor.
It was Boxxy Brown, a look of concern on his face. She smiled a little nervously and tapped her forehooves together as she sat in front of him. “Well you see, this morning I was at Java’s, you know, like I am every morning. And see, these weather ponies, they were talking about my eye and...”
He held up a hoof to stop her. “I don't want to hear about it. Go wash up before you stain any letters.”
“Yes sir.” Ditzy said softly and flew over to the restroom.
Ditzy looked at herself in the mirror as she scrubbed herself with a wash cloth, the brown sticky coffee was coming off, but not without a struggle. It was everywhere on her front, her face and legs. It was even in her mane. It was just all over her in large splotches.
When she finished washing off, Ditzy ran a hoof through her mane. Then sighed as she looked at herself in the mirror, and saw two of everything, her left eye was again set inward.
“Come on... focus.” she said aloud to the offending eye. It slowly slid back into proper position and she smiled. “Alright, there were a few set backs... But I will have a good day for the rest of the day.” she said to herself in the small mirror.
She opened the door and flew back over to her work station. When she arrived she saw that somepony had stuck a note over her name plaque.
She looked closer and saw it said, “Derpy Hooves”. Her face became red as she saw the offending note. She felt fury rise up in her like a dragon, and grabbed the note and tearing it up with her hooves before tossing the pieces into a trash bin. Nopony seemed to notice, or care about this small act of anger.
She huffed as she entered the station and dipped her right hoof into the jar of Stick-On (apply directly to forehoof!) so she can grab letters by hoof with ease, and started to separate and sort the letters by address she was to deliver.
Ditzy looked through the stacks of letters, and placed the letter in the stack for Cherry Tree Lane before looking back at the small pile left to sort through.
And thus was her morning routine. Grab, “Number twelve Mane Street,” stack. Grab, “number four Apple Blossom Road,” stack. Grab, look, stack.
“If time stopped now, would anypony have noticed?” Ditzy thought to herself, as she looked over at her little clock hanging on the divider wall to her right. It did not tick.
“What the?” she looked at the clock and gave it an experimental tap and saw that nothing happened.
A brief wave of panic went through her mind, “Oh Celestia, something has gone awry with everything and times stood still, or maybe something happened to the princess to make time null and void, am I going to be stuck here forever and never make a single bit because time doesn’t exist anymore?”
“What are you doing Ditzy?”
Ditzy looked up and saw Raindrops, another delivery pony, poking her head over the divider, a look of curiosity on her face.
“Oh, um... I think time stopped?” Ditzy said with a sheepish grin on her face before she tapped the clock again. Raindrops giggled as she flew over the wall to look at the clock. “Oh Ditzy, I’m sure time didn’t stop, if it did, we wouldn't be moving.”
“Oh, well, can you see whats wrong with it then?”
Ditzy exited her work station so Raindrops could get a closer look at the clock. Raindrops looked at the clock with a hoof on her chin for a few moments, then her eyes lit up. “I got it! Ditzy, when was the last time you wound this thing up?”
“I’m not sure.” Ditzy started, as she began to think about it Raindrops grabbed one of the decorative chains that hung under the clock, giving it an experimental tug and found that it slid all the way down bringing the other chain all the way up.
Raindrops then gave a smug smile with her eyes closed as she tapped the pendulum and it started to tick away the minutes again.
“Oh, that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Raindrops exited Ditzy’s work station and trotted over to her own as Ditzy slid into hers, then flapped her wings to look over the separating wall and asked Raindrops, “Hey what time is it anyhow?”
“Oh, its five forty five, sunrise in fifteen minutes.”
Ditzellia gave a nod as she twisted the hands of the clock to match up with what Raindrops had said, “OK I got it, thanks.” “Mhm, no problem.”
With a sigh, Ditzy sorted out the last five letters to there respective piles,, then started to go through the Mane Street addresses.
“Number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine, number eleven, number seven, number seven, number five, number twenty two, number nine, number eighteen,”
The sound of Ditzy’s clock chiming the top of the hour brought an abrupt stop to her work, and she turned to look out one of the high windows facing east. An odd silence came over the entire post office as all looked toward the eastern facing windows and waited.
The sky’s inky blackness of night began to soften, as a glow began to grow on the horizon. Stars faded away as the black of night gave way to purples and pinks, and the sun rose into the sky, bringing forth the dawn and the official start of a new day.
Everypony facing the sun gave a respectful bow to it, as if the princess herself had entered the room. All was silent in the room for exactly thirty more seconds before everypony rose, and Boxxy addressed his employees.
“Mares and stallions, as you know we are a government service. As such, we owe our gratitude to our princesses for giving us the jobs we have. We must always pause to give our thanks to Celestia for bringing us the sun, and our thanks to Luna for every night she brings.”
A few ponies in the room nodded to this, while others only faked there attention untill they could get back to work. Ditzy only listened half heartedly, knowing the speech well by now. Not one given every day, but often enough that she could probably recite the speech by memory alone if asked to.
“Alright, we are officially open for the day. Remember your oath as mail ponies,” and with that everypony in the room raised there right forehoof into the air and recited together.
“Through storm and snow, Darkness and light, Sky and sea, nothing shall stop the Equestrian mail. We as couriers shall make swift completion of our appointed rounds.”
At the end of the oath, everypony in the room lowered there hooves and immediately went back to work, Boxxy went to his office as Baritone opened the front door before sliding behind the counter to take care of any pony needing assistance.
Ditzy kept sorting the letters, pile by pile. Tying letters to the same address together before sliding them into the cubby hole they belonged to and moving on to the next pile.
After fifteen minutes of this, her mind felt numb with the repetitive action, as a glazed look came over her eyes. Every few minutes a new letter or two being dropped on her desk for her to sort out into the piles, sometimes back tracking her to addresses she had already finished.
The sound of a roaring fire suddenly brought everyponies attention to the fire place next to the office. Faster than anypony could think, Boxxy galloped out the door of his office and ran to the fire place to see what has come in.
Ditzy however, payed no mind to him, nor to the fact that everypony else in the room had stopped working. She continued to do as she was supposed to and continued to sort out the letters as quick as possible.
Boxxy held a single scroll in his hoof, “Post master Boxxy” was written on the scroll. He tucked it under one of his wings before he looked back at the room staring at him. “Is this a post office or the world champ staring contest convention?” Everypony in the room looked away and started to go back to there tasks.
Boxxy walked into his office and sat down at his desk littered with paperwork regarding the business end of running a post office. He sat down and pulled the scroll out from under his wing, opened it carefully and read it to himself.
“To the postmaster of Ponyville post office.
We need you to assign your fastest pegasus to deliver a parcel to Miss Cheerilee, of the Ponyville Elementary School. It is important that she receives this before the school day begins at Eight O’clock today. When you have selected your fastest delivery pegasus, please send a response, and you shall receive another scroll along with a parcel.
After he finished reading the letter, Boxxy rolled it up and placed it into a drawer before closing it to open another. Pulling out three folders, he looked at who he had to deliver this the fastest. “Raindrops? No, shes not very quick, maybe Phineas Scrollbottom? No, hes too new, and a unicorn... not a fast one either. Ditzy? Maybe I should just deliver it myself. No, I need to stay here or they would take a break until I get back.”
As Boxxy mulled things over and looked at his three delivery ponies profiles, weighing the pros and cons of each, Ditzy was going through the last of the Second St. Addresses before moving on to Third St.
“Hey, who do you think hes gonna have send it out?”
Ditzy looked up and left and saw Phineas was peaking over the divider with a grin plastered on his face. “Send what out?” she said, pretending to sound interested at the moment.
“You know, the letter, we only ever get things in the fire if its important”
Ditzy looked back at her letters for a moment and tried to get back to them before replying in a flat, uninterested tone, “I don’t know, maybe you?”
“Yeah, maybe. I mean, I'm already done sorting my letters so I should be able to go now.” He said with a grin.
“Mhmm... yeah, glad to know, Ill see you when you get back OK?”
“Well I think Ill get to go, cause I have been working here longer than you have Phineas.”
Ditzy looked over to her right to see Raindrops hovering just high enough to look at Phineas across from her station with a smug grin on her face.
Ditzy looked at the two of them as they started to argue back and forth between each other about who would be best to go, and felt herself get dizzy from looking back and forth between the two of them so fast. She stopped as she felt her anger rise once again.
“Hey, you two... IF you don’t mind, I still have to finish my letters, so why don’t you take your argument to somepony who cares about how great you think you are.”
Raindrops and Phineas looked down at Ditzy in shock and amazement for a moment, not sure how to take that. After a few moments Phineas spoke up. “Wow, I didn't know you could be so, bitter.”
“I am not bitter, just, look I have a lot to do and you two are distracting me is all.”
“Oh, well, I guess Ill go see what else I can do around here then.” Phineas said as he dropped back down into his own station.
“And I guess Ill finish these last few letters before I go take a break.” Raindrops said as she lowered herself down. Ditzy sighed as she rubbed her eyes with her hooves for a moment. She then dipped her hoof into the jar of stick on (apply directly to fore-hoof!) and continued to sort out Third St. addresses.
“Ditzy, we need to talk.”
Ditzy groaned as she spun around, only to find herself face to face with Boxxy standing outside her station.
“Oh, oh my, I’m sorry about that, but its just they just got on my nerves with they’re,”
“I don’t care about what you have to say at the moment, just come to my office.”
“Yes Mr. Brown.” she said as she followed him to the office, head hung low in shame.
Boxxy held the door open for Ditzellia as she went into the office, then looked at her with a stern look on his face. “I’m going to send a reply to the Canterlot office, have a seat and don’t move.Ditzy only nodded as Boxxy grabbed a bottle of dragons flame before shutting the door.
She sat in the office thinking to herself about what could possibly be the reason that she was called in to the office, she never had been before really. “Maybe its because Ive been late too many times... Or maybe he is going to reprimand me for talking to them like that. What if I’m fired?”
“Because I spoke derogatorily to my co workers.”
“No, Ditzy you are not.”
Ditzy looked up, her eyes wide in shock, and crossed from surprise. “Well, what am I in trouble for then? Did I do something wrong, like wrong address or something? I’m usually so thorough, or because I've been late a few times,”
“No, Ditzy. Now, be quiet for a minute so I can talk please.”
The mare closed her mouth instantly and waited with baited breath to hear what Boxxy was about to say.
“I want you to send out this letter.”
“Me? But I mean, surely somepony else would rather do it, I mean, Phineas has finished his sorting, maybe he could do it?
Boxxy looked down at the open folder with Ditzy’s work history and skills that was in her profile, and read out loud, “Placed among the top of the class in summer flight camp, won several Junior Speedsters events as a filly, and according to this you recently placed second in the best young flyer competition.” He looked at her across the table for a moment raising an eyebrow at her. “Do I need to go on?”
“No sir.”
“Ditzy, you are the fastest flyer we got. I need you to make this delivery now.” Boxy said, as he leaned forward and passed a scroll and small package to her.
“Go to your locker, and get your uniform on, you are representing Celestia herself with this delivery, do not fail her.”
Ditzy hated the full uniform.
Most ponies did for different reasons, and usually did not wear it unless told to. Some hated it for the powder blue button up shirt, or the dark blue tie, some hated the matching dark blue skirt, or pants if they were a stallion. And some hated the peaked hat because it was funny looking.
Ditzy didn't mind the hat, she thought it looked rather smart, all black with gold rope styled trim and small ENPS logo pin on the front. She was also rather fond of how professional she looked in the dress shirt with the tie, and thought that the skirt was comfortable enough.Ditzy hated it because of the flight goggles.
Ask any pegasus in ponyville, and chances were that they had a pair of flight goggles with clear glass lenses so they could fly faster and still see clearly. Ditzy had to wear goggles with dark lenses that kept her eyes hidden from sight. The inside of the left lens was painted black to block everything so if that eye were to act up she would not notice.
She hated that it blocked her vision, how they hid her eyes and made her look more threatening. Most of all, she hated that she was told she had to wear them when representing the postal service, be it for a special delivery like now, or photos for special edition stamps or advertisements for the postal service. It made her stick out, with her eyes hidden it made her look colder and inapproachable. But worst of all, it pointed out that she was different from the others.
Ditzy placed the goggles over the brim of her hat before placing it on her head and gave a look at herself in the mirror of her locker, double checking to make sure that her shirt had no wrinkles, and the tie was perfectly straight. She gave herself a quick nod of approval, then shut her locker, grabbed the letter and package, then headed over to her station to grab the delivery bag.
"Oh, Ditzy,"
She turned to look over at Boxxy who was headed over to her at a quickened pace before she could have a chance to get out. "Yes?" she said, without looking at him, as the kept trotting to her station.
"Listen, I told Phineas that you were going to make the delivery, so he finished sorting the rest of your deliveries for you, they are already in your bag so, when you are done, just do the rest of your deliveries OK?"
"Sure, Ill take care of them." Ditzy replied in what she hoped sounded like a casual tone.
She headed over to the station, Dropped the parcel and scroll into a secure part of her bag. She checked the time quickly before heading out, "Six Thirty, OK." She then grabbed her bag, then lowered the goggles over her eyes and trotted out the station only to get stopped by Phineas.
"Ditzy, before you leave, I just wanted to say something."
Ditzy's eyes narrowed. Despite the fact that he couldn't actually see them it gave her a very stern look. "Oh? And what was that?"
"I just wanted to say, that you owe me for covering you on your sorting."
She looked at him for a moment, not sure of what to say or think of that phrase. Finally she asked him "well, what do you want?"
"Oh, nothing really, just you owe me."
"Right, look I gotta go." with that she headed out the door at a quickened pace.
Her wings spread open as she looked to the skies, and she felt a tension rise inside of her. Clearing her mind she flapped her wings and took off into the sky once again and flew over the post office, for the north end of town, to Cheerilee’s apartment.
The town below her was alive with action this morning, as ponies everywhere were bustling about the town in the usual morning manner as Ditzy flew above them. She sped the rhythm of her wings, and hummed to herself.
Before she knew it, she was in the northern district, with its tightly wound alleyways and small apartments. Ditzy held her wings stiff and turned counter clockwise, spiraling into a landing in the center of the road, and started to read numbers.
Ditzy quickly looked at the apartment building, and saw it was one of those smaller styled ones, the kind that has only 4 apartments in one building that probebly used to be one single house at one point. She shrugged to herself before entering the building and climbing the stairs, to the third floor, to get to apartment Three.
KNOCK KNOCK. "Equestrian Mail Service."
Ditzy, stood before the door trying to look as professional as possible, standing perfectly straight and keeping a serious look on her face as she waited for the door to open.
She raised a hoof to knock again, when the door opened to revel Cheerilee behind it.
"Hello, may I help you?"
Ditzy straightened up and coughed into her hoof before reciting the official spiel to her,
"Greetings to you Miss Cheerilee, My name is Ditzy Doo, from the Equestrian National Postal Service. I have brought you a letter and package from Canterlot, on the behalf of her majesties, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna."
"Oh my," Cheerilee said with a puzzled look on her face, "I wonder what they would want."
Ditzy did not answer, nor show much sign that she noticed the question, but instead passed her the scroll and package silently before pulling out a clipboard and pen.
"Sign here please to show that you received your parcel and scroll, without damage."
Cheerilee nodded as she took the pen into her mouth and signed her name on the bottom.
Ditzy looked at the signature a bit before placing it back into her mailbag. While she was busy closing the strap of her bag, she heard Cheerilee cry out suddenly "Oh! This is such wonderful news!"
"Oh? What is what?"
"The letter, is nothing much really, but the box has what I needed. Passes to the castle grounds!"
Ditzy looked at her for a few moments before letting curiosity get the best of her. "Why do you need passes there for?"
"Well you see, I’m taking the class on a field trip to Canterlot today, to see the castle and Royal Gardens. But I applied for the passes almost a month ago and while I got a letter saying I was approved to bring my students there, I never got the passes, I was worried they would not come in time but here they are!"
Ditzy smiled a little bit and tipped her cap, "Well, we at the E.M.S. take pride in our jobs."
Cheerilee nodded a bit as she placed the package on a small table. "I see that! Thank you so much."
"No problem. Well I gotta go, I have lots of mail to deliver."
Cheerilee nodded a bit as she started to open the package, "Ok, I'll see you around. Oh wait! I've got something for you!"
Ditzy stopped in her tracks and waited as Cheerilee ran off to another room as Ditzy stood in the open doorway.
Cheerilee returned with a muffin in a paper bag, "Here, in case you don't have a lunch already."
Ditzy looked at the bag. She tried not to, but as she breathed in she could smell cranberries inside. One of her favorite muffins. She started to reach for the muffin before she remembered something and stopped, and said with a frown,
"I can't take that Cheerilee, the law states that giving a member of any government services an item of sweet, elleet, or desirable status is considered a bribe, and punishable by fine of no less than 200 bits, or 2 months jail time."
Cheerilee stood in shock for a moment, not expecting to hear that. Then nodded and placed the bag into a small box, wrote something on it, and placed a stamp on the box. "Then would you be so kind as to deliver it to this mare please?"
Ditzy looked at the box and read it to herself.
"Ditzy Doo, Number 98 Country Rd. Ponyville, Equestria, 39601"
Ditzy smiled to herself a bit as she turned the box over in her hooves, then pulled out a small rubber stamp, and placed it over the paper stamp to show its been possessed, "Ill see to it she gets this immediately."
Cheerilee smiled at her a bit as she nodded, "Thank you, Ill see you later on then."
Ditzy smiled back at her, "Ill see you around." Then she stepped out the door of the apartment, and started for down the stairs to start her official delivery route.
Ditzy had a certain way of doing things. A fairly logical way, but her way none the less.And that way was start at the top, and work your way down. In her case, north end of town, to the south end of town. Her delivery route started at Sweet Apple Acres, wound its way through town, and finally ended with Carrot Tops place.
Ditzy took her goggles and placed them around her hat, now done with the very formal delivery as she made her way to Sweet Apple Acres. She flapped her wings in a slow pace, stopping and gliding most of the way there. When she saw the wooden fence she spiraled down to land at the front gate, and looked around to see if Big Macintosh, Applejack or little Apple Bloom was close by like they sometimes were to pick up the mail, but discovered they were not there.
The only thing there other than a mailbox was a fence, and a dog.
Ditzy smiled as she looked Winona over, "Hey there girl, who's a good dog? Who's a good dog?"
Winona tilted her head in response, as she sat down and stared at Ditzy, wagging her tail.
Ditzy reached in her bag and grabbed the bundle of mail for the farm in her teeth and spoke to the dog around the letters, "I'm jusht gonna put theash in da mail bawksh."
Winona wagged her tail in response.
Ditzy opened the mail box, and placed the letters inside as she kept watching the dog, "Good girl, now I'm just gonna go now."
Winona wagged her tail for a bit longer, then gave off three barks before she ran and jumped over the fence giving chase to our favorite mail mare.
Ditzy screamed in a very high pitched shriek as she ran away from Winona, her left eye instantly going into doing its own thing, "No, Bad dog, go away I didn't do anything to deserve this!"
Winona kept on chasing her, with a smile on the dogs face as she gleefully barked at her.
Ditzy kept running away from Winona, zig zaging for a while before finally remembering she had wings, and taking flight.
"Goodbye Winona, go home." Ditzy said as she took off, before feeling something tug on her, making her coming to a stop.
She looked back and saw Winona had jumped and bitten her skirt, and was wagging her tail in victory.
"Oh no... not again." Ditzy said as she flew for the farm house in hopes that she would find anypony home.
Ditzy landed on the porch of the house and knocked on the door in three rapid knocks and waited for somepony to answer. "Just a minute, I’m a comin'"
Ditzy sighed as the door opened to reveal Applejack and she gave a smile to her.
"Good morning Miss Applejack, umm... Help?" said Ditzy as she turned to show the dog still clinging to her skirt, now showing rips and tears.
"Oh my stars, Winona! I thought I told ya' to leave her alone!"
Winona simply wagged her tail but showed no sign of letting go.
"Get off 'a her now and go inside, Go on now!"
Winona let go of Ditzy's skirt and wagged her tail as she marched triumphantly inside the house, with a grin plastered on her face.
"I am awful sorry about that Ma'am, did she hurt ya?"
Ditzy smiled a bit, as she stood there awkwardly, "No, I'm fine... Thanks for helping me."
"T'wernt nothin'," Applejack said confidently as she headed out the door.
"I'm surprised to find you still in the house, usually you're already out working the fields."
Applejack nodded as she paced herself down the path to in the direction of the Fields, "Well normally you'd be right, but yeh see, yesterday I checked on the corn, and some look ready to be picked out. I’m a gonna head out and bring a cart and just pick any that's ready and prune the rest for the next few days."
Ditzy nodded slowly to Applejack as she pretended she understood what she was talking about. Truth was, she didn't know anything about growing food, nor how farmers can get corn to come in during the early spring rather than the usual harvest time. Ditzy smiled anyhow, "Thanks Applejack for getting your dog off me."
"No Problem there Miss Doo, I'll see ya around then."
"Right." Ditzy said as she flapped her wings and took off to head for the next delivery.
Three Hours Later, Ditzy was humming merrily to herself as she flew over a field to the southern outskirts of Ponyville, with only a few more letters to go.
For the most part things went pretty well, no major hiccups, just the usual minor ones.
Ditzy counted them off in her head as she flew over a stream "Lets see, I had a total of three dogs chasing me, one of which got my skirt. Only five ponies called me Derpy, but whatever... the muffin from Cheerilee was pretty good, and I managed to see her and her class off when they departed for Canterlot on the train. That was nice."
"So, despite a few negative things, nothing unusual for the life of a delivery pony, and a pretty good day." she said with a smile as she lazily flapped her wings, not caring weather or not her eyes were crossed at the moment.
Up ahead in the sky, she saw an extravagant cloud house, with rainbow pools and falls. Ditzy looked at the house for a few moments before going up to the front door and landing on the cloud.
It was an imposing looking home, not exactly what she would call comforting looking. More like a castle in the sky, or something the ancient pegasus warriors would have designed. Very stately and grand looking, but not too welcoming. Ditzy stopped looking at the house after a while, and finally reached into her mail bag and grabbed the mail for the house and placed them into the mail slot in the door.
She smiled to herself as she took flight once again, her route almost done, when she heard somepony shouting behind her. "Ditzy wait come back here!"
She stopped and turned around to look at the voice, it was Rainbow Dash flying to her from her cloud home. "DItzy, is that really you? I haven't seen you in years! How've you been?"
"Oh, I can't complain." Ditzy said softly.
Dash smiled at her as she flew beside Ditzy, "So, Its been a couple years since you were dropped off of the weather team, what happened since then?"
Ditzy frowned at the thought of that as she searched her mind for the right words to use. "Well, not much really, I had to go to the employment services to get a new job, and I had to retake my flying test at the Department of Winged Equines. Then they, the employment services, set me up to work the ponyville post office and Ive been delivering since then."
Dash nodded as she flew by. "So, are you almost done for the day? I just cleared out the clouds I was supposed to, and we should hang out."
Ditzy smiled a little bit, "Like a couple fillies at summer flight camp?"
"Naw, more like old friends catching up."
"Well, I have only one more place to deliver to, then I usually go to sugar cube corner for a lunch."
Dash rubbed her hooves together as she grinned. "Excellent, I'll head there now, later!"
"Later Dash," Ditzy said as she saw her friend take off in the direction of town. She smiled to herself as she hurried to finish her route as quick as possible. Ditzy lowered her goggles back over her face as she sped up, and headed in a southwestern direction, spotting at last Carrot Tops home sitting on the edge of town, with a small garden around it. Leaning to her left she spiraled down to the earth landing with a thud on the grass in front of Carrots house. Quick as she could she pulled out her bundle of mail and opened the mail box and put them in before taking off again, heading to the post office at top speed, a contrail following behind her as she flew.
Ditzy dove in low as she neared the back of the post office, and folded her wings to the side, she felt contact with the ground after she went past the door and slid her way across the room skidding to a quick stop, garnering herself looks from the other ponies still in the work area of the post office.
Ditzy quickly got up and brushed herself off and ignored the looks from the other ponies as she trotted off to the locker room to change.
Quick as she could she took off her uniform and folded and hung everything up neatly in the locker, placing her cap on the small shelf she smiled to herself, and looked in the small mirror in the inside of her locker door. Her mane was a mess, and she quickly ran a hoof through her mane to try to smooth it out, and her mane went to its usual style. Then Ditzy took off her goggles to put them up, and realised that she was once again wall eyed.
She gave off another small sigh, then placed her goggles on a hook in her locker before closing it and heading back to her station, and to report to Boxxy.
She exited the locker room and flew quickly with her bag to her station, and grabbed her jar of "Stick-On" (Apply directly to forehoof!) and twine, placing them in her bag. She then pulled out the letters she had picked up throughout her day and took them to the processing center, dropping them off into the pile then headed to Boxxy's office.
Ditzy adjusted her bag carefully, then knocked three times on the door, immediately she heard the gruff voice of Boxxy answer "Enter."
Ditzellia pushed open the door, and found Boxxy sitting behind his desk, checking on reports, "Well, did you do it?"
"Oh, yes Boxxy, umm sir. I delivered her package on time."
"Excellent, is there anything else I should know about then?"
Ditzy suffled her hooves for a few moments, then spoke her mind "I got my skirt ripped, when a dog bit it."
Boxxy reacted the way that anypony would have, He threw his right hoof into his forehead and face hoofed.
Ditzy sat there quietly, not sure if Boxxy had knocked himself out or not. Then he spoke up. "Did this happen before or after you delivered the package."
"Oh, after, way after."
"That’s good. Ditzy, did you finish the rest of your route?"
"Yes sir."
"Then you can go home for the day, your shift is over."
"Thank you sir." Ditzy said with a small smile as she headed out the door. Once the door shut, Boxxy looked around to make sure nopony was looking, opened a drawer to his right and pulled out a bottle of Applejack Daniel's super sweet Whisky, poured himself a shot and downed it.
Ditzy meanwhile punched out on the clock and ran out the door headed to Sugar Cube Corner as fast as she could, blissfully ignorant of how she drives her boss to drink.
Rainbow Dash sat inside Sugar Cube Corner, waiting for Ditzy to show up.
Pinkie Pie was on shift working in the kitchen at the moment, every few moments she could hear her hum or even belt out a song in full as she mixed and baked treats.
Dash heard the sound of the door opening and looked up quickly only to find it was Raindrops and Phineas heading into the shop talking about something boring about there work day.
The cobalt pegasus groaned as she laid her head on the table and started to tap out a rhythm on the table with her hooves, waiting impatiently for Ditzy to come in.
Carrot Cake was working the counter today, and he smiled kindly as he filled out the orders for customers.
Suddenly there was a loud crashing noise.
"Oh, I'm so sorry I didn't see you there."
Rainbow Dash, along with everypony else in sugar cube corner, looked outside the bakery windows and doors to see what was going on.
Two ponies were entangled in each other, trying to get up off the street. One was a butter yellow pegasus with pink hair, the other was a grey pegasus with blonde hair.
"No, I’m sorry, I should really watch where I am going."
"Its O.K., you didn't do anything wrong miss, I just was rushing so fast I didn't realize I wasn't focusing right." Ditzy said as she finally got up and offered a hoof to the other pegasus.
"I was just on my way to see an old friend, Rainbow Dash, and I wasn't paying attention,"
"Really? I was just looking for her myself, do you know where she is?"
Ditzy nodded as she helped the yellow pegasus to her hooves, "Yeah, shes inside Sugar Cube Corner, she said to meet her there, I'm Ditzellia by the way."
"Oh, I didn't introduce myself, I'm sorry. My name is Fluttershy."
Ditzy smiled kindly at Fluttershy as they both trotted into the bakery together, and looked around for Dash. "There you are, I've been waiting here for like, forever!"
Ditzy looked for the source of the sound and found Rainbow Dash sitting over at a table in the far corner of the bakery, looking as though she wanted to leave a while ago from simply being in one place for too long.
"Sorry I took longer than I thought to get finished." Ditzy said with an apologetic smile.
"Geez, I saw your little crash there, were you and Fluttershy having a kindness contest out there or something?"
Ditzy sat down across from Dash and smiled a little bit, "No I wasn't. I was just correcting my folly."
The speedsters face went flat as she frowned a bit before speaking, "Yeah. Well, Fluttershy care to join us?"
"Oh, I don't want to impose,"
"Its no imposure, come and join us." Ditzy said with a smile.
"Well, If its O.K. with Dash,"
"I'm fine with it. Just, have a seat."
"O.K." Fluttershy squeaked out as she sat.
The three mares looked at each other for a moment, then a few moments more before Dash coughed into her hoof. "Sooo... what do you want to eat?"
Ditzy thought for a few moments about it before saying, "I don't know, you guys like muffins?"
Rainbow and Fluttershy nodded a bit.
"O.K., Ill just get three Blueberry muffins then." with that Ditzy got up and went to the counter.
"Well, shes nice." Fluttershy said with a smile.
"Yeah, she always has been." Dash agreed, "She's a little clumsy sometimes, and well..." the speedster stopped and screwed her face in concentration.
"Well what?" Fluttershy inquired.
"Well, she has an eye condition, and that sometimes makes her accident prone, and Ditzy is kinda well ditsy."
Fluttershy looked at Rainbow Dash with a puzzling look, as Dash felt her face flush a little with guilt. "I'm not saying she's, you know mentally not all there or something, She just sometimes doesn’t think about things before doing it."
Fluttershy nodded a little bit as she took this information in, "Well, I don't want to hurt her feelings or anything so, maybe we should talk about something else."
"No, It's fine. You two can keep going."
Fluttershy jumped and gave off a squeak as her irises shrank to pinprick points before looking around to see Ditzy was standing by them with a tray of muffins and drinks on her back. "Ummm, Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you Fluttershy."
Fluttershy looked up cautiously, and spoke barely above a whisper. "It's okay"
Ditzy smiled as she spread out her right wing and tilted her body to let the tray slide off her onto the table."So, I didn't ask you what you wanted to drink, but, I wanted coffee, so I figured I would get you two something to drink too."
The other two mares nodded a bit before Ditzy continued to talk. "So, I figured Dash would want one of these new energy drinks, so I got you a can of 'Wonderbolts Energy', and Fluttershy seems a little, nervous, no offence, so I got you a cup of tea, with a lemon slice on the side."
Dash and Fluttershy smiled at Ditzy, and thanked her. They all grabbed a muffin and ate them in between moments of talking.
Ditzy looked at the other two and smiled a little bit, "So Dash, you were talking about my eye."
Dash almost spat out her drink as she quickly racked her brain to figure out what to say to that.
"Well, she was, but only for a brief moment." Fluttershy stated, "I didn't notice anything wrong with your eyes, are you blind in one?"
"Thank Celestia no." Ditzy said quickly, "No, I have 'Sudden Bozemares Simplex'."
Fluttershy tilted her head as she listened, and even Dash was quietly listening. Ditzy almost never talked about her eye condition, and now that she was, both mares sat in silence.
"Everypony can get it, and usually has at one point or another. Have you ever seen a pony have something smack into them and there eyes spin around?"
The other pegasi nodded at this statement before Ditzy continued, "Well, basically its like this, when I was a filly, back in summer flight camp, I was flying by myself, practicing tricks. I remembered I used to want to be a Wonderbolt then, and was always trying to improve myself during my free time. Anyhow, I was trying to do a stunt, when I felt the air shift around me, there was an explosion of color, knocked me out. I woke up a week later, with my eyes all, messed up. It took time, but they went back to normal, but sometimes they go back, like if I'm startled, or nervous."
"SURPRISE!"
Ditzy was immediately assaulted by a sudden shower of confetti, as her left eye quickly went inward as her right eye spun around to try and find the source of the voice. "Wha? Who did that?"
Laughter filled the room as everypony looked to see Pinkie joyfully giving off her contagious giggles, "Sorry girls, but you were so serious, so I was thinking, Hey you know what we need? A way to cut the tension! So, I just yelled SURPRISE really loud! Did it work?"
Rainbow Dash and Ditzy had nearly the same looks on their faces. A state of shock, and general what-the-hay-is-going-on-here-ness. The only thing different about Ditzy, was that her eyes were still trying to get back to a normal alignment. Meanwhile, Fluttershy was lying on her back, legs straight in the air with her eyes wide open. A look of pure terror plastered on her face like a fainting goat.
Pinkie Pie laughed as she looked at the three of them, then looked at Ditzy, "Oooh, are we making faces? How do you do that with your eyes, OOH OOH let me try!"
Before anypony could follow Pinkies train of thought, she started to try to imitate the way Ditzy’s eyes were looking in opposing directions (unsuccessfully) bringing up a general round of laughter from everypony, including Ditzy and Fluttershy now that she was recovered.
“So wait, you mean you basically have, what is that word called, Derpression?” Dash asked out of her fit of laughter.
Ditzy stopped laughing when she heard that and made as serious of a face you can with crossed eyes, “Well, yeah I guess you can call it that, its just I really don't like that name for it.”
Everypony at the table stopped laughing, as they looked at Ditzy, her eyes straightened and a look of slight anger across her features, “Everypony knows that phrase, and they all use it against me. I don’t like it. Sorry.”
Dash coughed into her hoof, and looked at an interesting spot on the ceiling, as Fluttershy stared at her tea. Pinkie Pie meanwhile scrunched her face into mock seriousness and stood up, knocking her hoof on the table like a gavel, bringing all attention to her. “I have an excellent idea. Lets change the subject.”
Ditzy looked at Pinkie for a few moments, not sure how to take the randomness suddenly brought upon her. Suddenly Pinkie popped up behind her to her right, and was looking at her flank, “Oooh bubbles! How did you get those for a cutie mark?”
Ditzy looked at the pink earth pony for a few moments before looking back at where she was a second ago. “Weren’t you, Didn't you just? Oh, never mind.” Ditzy shook her head then continued, “Yeah, well, I got it after my accident. I was in a rehabilitation program, and I was upset, thinking I would never fly again. But I learned that no matter what, I should always be as positive as possible, and not feel sorry for myself. I worked hard to get myself to be able to fly again, little at first but eventually, I came to a point where it was almost like I never had the accident. When I flew on my own again these appeared. The bubbles signify that I don’t have to be down, just having a good attitude can help even in the worst of times.”
Pinkie smiled at Ditzy, “Wow, that's really neat! I got mine when I discovered I like to make ponies smile!”
“Mine are for the love I have of animals.”
“Well I got mine for being awesome and making a sonic rainboom!”
Ditzy tilted her head a little, “But Dash, you only did that last year, you had that mark a lot longer than that.”
Dash smiled and shook her head, “No, not that time. The first time, when I was a filly at summer flight camp! I was racing these two jerks who insulted Fluttershy here, and I challenged them to a race, that’s when I pulled my first sonic rainboom! And that one was so awesome, I mean, it bursted clouds, and it caused things to happen to make five of my friends get there cutie marks before I even met them. Rarity even told me that it split a rock in half!”
Ditzy sat at the table, a serious look on her face as she started to put things together. “Excuse me, but I need to go home now.”
“Now? But we just got here.” the cyan pegasus said as Ditzy started to make her way for the exit.
“Yeah, I gotta go clean my cottage, or something.” And with that Ditzy was out the door and flying off towards home.
“I wonder whats wrong with her?” Dash said to the others.
“Maybe she’s tired, or maybe we upset her, OOOH I know, we can throw a party for her to make her feel better, I bet that would help!” Pinkie said as she bounced and started to list things she would need for a cheering up party.
“I think, you upset her Rainbow Dash. I mean, I saw her expression change after you started talking about your first rainboom.”
“I don’t get that mare.” Dash said. Suddenly Pinkie Pie was standing next to her with a generals helmet on. “O.K. Listen up, I gotta battle plan ready for this.”
Dash and Fluttershy looked at each other and shrugged as they looked at the pink mare roll out a map of Ponyville.
“Now, Fluttershy will go here, to Sweet Apple Acres to ask Applejack if we can use her barn for the party. If she says no, we will instead converge here at Sugar Cube Corner at thirteen hundred.”
“Got it.” Fluttershy said with a salute.
“Dash, you will go here, to inform Twilight about the plans so she can help with general organisation of the party, then collect Rarity to help with decorations. Got it?”
“Yeah I got it.” Dash replied with a smile.
“O.K. I will remain here to make treats and drinks for the party,” Pinkie said as she pointed to Sugar Cube Corner on the map with what looked like a riders crop, “If Fluttershy fails to return at thirteen hundred I will assume that the party will be held at the barn. Any questions?”
Fluttershy and Dash both shook there heads.
“Good, and lastly, Dash, you will collect Ditzy at fourteen hundred hours, to bring her to the party. Clear?”
“I got it.”
“That should leave plenty of time for her to calm down and be ready enough to go somewhere. Now lets move out!”
And all three left the table to enact a plan to make Ditzy feel at least a little bit better.
Ditzy was laying on her couch, thinking about her life, and what she has just learned.
“An explosion of color that the world has never seen before knocks me out of the sky and gives me a permanent disability. And Rainbow Dash caused it.”
Ditzy rolled over off the couch and trotted over to a mirror that hung on the wall, and sighed. “It’s all her fault, if it wasn’t for her I could have been something great! I used to be able to see right, I used to be able to do stunt flying too, now look at me. I deliver letters and get laughed at by other pegasi.”
The mare in the mirror looked back at her with crossed eyes, “Now Ditzy don’t say things like that. She didn’t know, and she did not mean to cause harm.”
Ditzy looked back at herself, and started to mutter, as she sat on the floor. “They have no idea what I have been through.”
Ditzy laid down on the floor and covered her eyes with her hooves, as the tears began to pour like rain, soaking her fur and dripping onto the carpet. “The way I see it, the only way to stop this mockery, is to close my eyes. Forever.”
Ditzy kept crying to herself on the floor of her living room, feeling so lost that all she could do now was cry. “Now Ditzy, you surely don’t mean that.”
“I do, I can’t stand to live this way any more!”
Ditzy looked into the mirror and found her reflection grinning manically at her, walking closer to her on its own. “You haven’t got what it takes to end it all, you are just being a drama queen.”
“SHUT UP!” Ditzy said as she yelled at the mirror, then paused as she looked at the smug reflection, and realised she wasn't making that face. “Oh Celestia, Ive finally gone and snapped. I’m arguing with my reflection.”
The reflection did a back flip in her backwards living room, “Well looks like the last horse to cross the finish line today is you!”
“This makes no sense, How can you do things on your own?”
Suddenly a joyous laugh echoed through the room followed by a voice, dripping in mirth and a decidedly dangerous undertones. “Awww, what fun is there really in making sense of anything?”
Ditzy’s wings flared, as she looked around for the cause of the voice, “Who’s there, show yourself!”
Ditzy looked around the room, and saw nopony, and was about to shrug it off as her mind playing with her again when she spotted the mirror on the wall.
Ditzy went up to the mirror and stared at her reflection, and saw she had yellow eyes with red dots in the center.
Ditzy shrieked and rubbed her eyes, and looked again and saw that her reflection was behaving normal, only to see those same eyes staring at her in the dark doorway of her bathroom, floating on there own with a snaggletoothed grin floating below.
Ditzy turned around and looked at the door, only to find nothing, she looked again at the mirror and saw the eyes were still there in the reflection, along with the toothy grin that was all she could see of the intruder, no body, or anything, just eyes and a grin, in the mirror.
“Well that does it, Ive lost my mind completely, I knew this day was coming.”
The entity in the mirror laughed and stepped out of the shadows, showing it had an equine head with bushy eye brows and a beard, but it had miss matched horns, one of a goat and one of a deer. The rest of the body did not make any sense at all either, it had an eagle claw for one hand, and a lions paw for the other, the leg of a lizard like thing, and another that looked like it came from a goat. Its body was pony like enough, but the wings were miss matched, one a blue pegasus wing, the other a dragons wing, lastly a long snakes tail with a tuft of hair on the end made up the last of the creature in the mirror.
Ditzy stood shaking in place at the reflection, to scared to move, her eyes crossed enough that she could see it wasn't in the room with her, but the reflection made it seem real enough to frighten her out of her wits.
“Well, aren't you going to say something? Its very rude to treat a guest in your house this way. Offer me a drink, or a chair or a snack of some sort. Honestly, ponies these days, your stoned for a thousand or so years and suddenly manners go right out the window.”
Ditzy shook her head to make sure that she was seeing things right, then nodded, went to her fridge and grabbed a muffin and a bottle of apple juice. When she looked back at the mirror her reflection also held the tray in her teeth, sharing the same shocked expression as she did at the moment.
“Ah I thank you, I am so parched you just would not believe it if I told you.” the thing in the mirror said as he grabbed the bottle and drank it, leaving the contents behind, Ditzy watched in awe as the items in the mirror did this, but the ones on her tray remained stationary, as if it didn’t happen at all.
Ditzy placed the tray on her coffee table and watched as the thing in the mirror sat down and began to eat at the muffin by sucking it like a noodle, the one on her table stayed in place, not effected by its reflective counterpart. Finally Ditzy found her voice and said the first thing that came to her mind.
“What are you?”
“Ugh you back ground ponies are so boring.” the thing said with an unamused look glazed over his face. “You never say anything interesting, its like someone fell asleep at the sound booth!”
“What?”
The thing in the mirror rolled its eyes and made a swooshing sound as he sliced the air over his head with his lion paw. “Right over your head that one, anyhow, I am a draconequus, but you may call me Discord. Spirit of chaos and disharmony, and until about twenty minutes ago, thousand time winner of must handsome statue of Celestia’s royal garden, at your service.” he said with a grin.
Ditzy just stared at awe at him, silently wondering where she heard about Discord before. Her mind drew a blank as she watched the spirit in her mirror grin at her. “My service?”
“You called me, whether you know it or not, your troubled mind called to me like a siren does to the sailors at sea, and I just had to meet you.”
“Me? But I never called you.”
“Oh but you did.” Discord said as he floated above the couch in the mirror, “If I may,”
Discord touched Ditzy’s reflection in the mirror and it started to move backwards, going through everything she did the last few minutes until it showed her on the couch lamenting out loud. “It’s all her fault, if it wasn’t for her I could have been something great! I used to be able to see right, I used to be able to do stunt flying too, now look at me. I deliver letters and get laughed at by other pegasi!”
Ditzy looked at the mirror in awe and then looked at Discord in the mirror, “Am I really that melodramatic?”
“Yes you are! And now would you like to ask me the million bit question?”
“Umm, what do you really want with me?”
“Oh we have a winner Johnny, tell her what she’s won!” Discord exclaimed as another, smaller discord showed in the mirror, “Well Discord, she wins One deal of a lifetime!”
“A deal? What kind of a deal?”
Discord laughed as he floated closer in the mirror until he filled the image, as if he were leaning against the glass on the other side. “Oh its simple, I make it as if you never had your accident. Your precious cutie mark will of course remain the same, but you will have a new life, new house, new carrier and best of all for you, normal eyes. That's what you really want, isn't it?”
Ditzy looked at him in wonder, and thought to herself, “Can he really do all that? And if he can, what is the catch?”
Discord chuckled softly “The catch as you put it is simple, I want just one small thing, I mean come on this is a big deal, Monty Hall ain't got nothing on me!”
Ditzy stood there for a moment, wondering how he knew what she was thinking and who in Equestria was Monty Hall before asking, “Fine, what do you want.”
“What I want is very simple, I want you to stay out of Canterlot for the next forty eight hours, let me carry on my plans without disturbance. The moment you start to head over there for any reason, I will call a breach of contract and you go back to the life you have now.”
Ditzy shook her head as she listened to all of this information being pelted at her, “Wait, how would you know if I went there? Why can’t I go there anyhow?”
Discord raised an eyebrow as he looked back at her, “One, I wouldn’t but the spell I place on you would break. Two, because those are the rules to my game, and I say so.”
Ditzy looked at Discord for a few moments before saying something. “Well, I don’t know, I mean what about my friends?”
“Friends?” Discord said with a laugh, “You think you have friends? Here let me show you what they are doing right now.”
The image on the mirror changed to show Applejack on her farm with Fluttershy, the two of them talking about something. “So, Pinkie asked me if I would ask you if it’s O.K. to through the party here. So is it?”
“Yeah, we can have a party here tonight if ya really want to. Jus' I gotta go and collect some o' the corn thats ready for picken, you wanna help?”
The image shifted to show Rainbow Dash inside of Carousel Boutique talking to the store owner. Rarity if Ditzy remembered right. “So, we are going to have this big party at Sweet Apple Acres, do you think you can help with decorations?”
Rarity looked around the shop and sighed. “Well, I suppose that I should, after all who else could possibly help to make sure that the decor is to die for? After all, I haven't had a customer all day.”
The image shifted again to show Twilight in her library writing a check list. “So, according to my calculations we should have the maximum room for about twenty ponies, so we need approximately four gallons of punch, and forty plates, twenty cups, and enough snacks to go around. But wait, what if somepony drops a cup?” The mare went on for a while before the image went away to show Discord in the mirror, again reflecting her living room.
“Looks to me that your so called friends are throwing a party tonight, did you know about this?”
“No.” Ditzy said as her ears fell back.
“And they don’t seem to know how upset you are do they?”
“No, no they didn't”
Ditzy started to cry, and watched as Discord placed his hand on her shoulder in the reflection, and Ditzy felt a weight on her shoulder. She looked to her right and Discord was right by her side, outside of the mirror and just as real and solid as anypony else.
“Now why don’t you shake my paw, and you can have everything you ever deserved, and more.”
Ditzy looked at him, as she dried her eyes, “Your right. Who needs friends if that's how they are!”
Discord smiled wide, with his eyes narrowed, “So we have an agreement? You stay out of Canterlot for the next 48 hours and the new life is yours to keep.”
Discord stuck out his lion paw to Ditzy, and she looked at it for a few moments before placing her hoof in his paw. “Deal.” They shook once, and Discord started to laugh, softly at first, then harder as if he had just witnessed the funniest thing ever.
The darkness filled Ditzy’s vision as she felt the world spin around her.
Nothing made sense anymore, there was no clear up or down, no sky or land, only the darkness.
Ditzy screamed into the nothingness as she flapped her wings trying desperately to keep the spinning feeling under control, and to hopefully keep from crashing into an invisible object.
A flash of white light appeared in front of Ditzy, blinding her for a moment. She began to blink her eyes to readjust them to the darkness from the sudden flash, when she stopped Discord was floating before her, with what could only be described as a face that was trying to be serious, but had the underlining of a dangerous smile trying to break free.
“Now, lets see what we have to work with here,” Discord stated as he adjusted a pair of red rimmed spectacles with blue with green polka dot lenses, “I need to check your file, if I may,”
Ditzy tilted her head in confusion at the being before her, her wings flared out to her sides as she tried to figure out what he would need those for. “Sure, I think I left them somewhere back in my cottage, you know, that place that made sense.”
Discord looked at her and tsked, “Really, you act like the laws of physics apply to me or something,” he reached down to Ditzy’s head and stuck his paw in her ear, pulling out an over sized file. Discord flipped through the pages as he adjusted his glasses with a smirk.
“What’s in there?” Ditzy asked as curiosity took hold of her.
“Oh, only everything that matters, your hopes, and dreams for openers, your fears and nightmares for finishers.”
Ditzy swallowed with an audible gulp, that somehow managed to echo across the nothingness, as Discord smiled wider and wider at what he was finding in the folder.
Discord looked back at Ditzy with his eyes narrowed and a grin on his face. “Well, in the words of somepony great I’m sure, 'Let's get this over with!'”
Everything around Ditzy flashed again in a bright white light. She shielded her eyes once again to try to protect her eyes from blindness. She was not sure of what to expect, but one thing she knew for sure was that next time she opened them, everything would be different.
Rainbow Dash trotted from the library with Rarity, Twilight and Spike beside her as she talked things over.
“So, right now I’m gonna go over to Ditzy’s cottage, you two go on and get what you need for the party, I’ll meet you guys at A.J.’s place.”
Rarity and Twilight nodded in agreement, and the three friends split off, with Spike trailing after Twilight.
Neither Twilight, nor Spike noticed what happened next as they entered a store. Nor did Rarity see it coming, Rainbow Dash flew over Ponyville, with her forelegs streched out in front of her. Dash pulled up with a smile on her face as she looked straight up to the sky thinking about how awesome this was going to be.
Something suddenly ran into her left side at an accelerated speed, causing her to spin circles in the air for a moment.
Her eyes spun as she hovered in the air. When her eyes adjusted, Dash saw the cloud that flew so quickly past her. “Come back here you!” Dash gave chase after the cloud, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be doing something else, intent on catching and taming, or perhaps bucking the cloud out of existence.
It only took a moment for her to catch the rogue cloud. She dove head over hooves into its soft, sticky, pink texture. “Gotcha!”
Suddenly an alarm clicked inside of Rainbow Dash’s brain, as she realised that clouds are usually far from sticky, or pink. Immediately, she began to shake off as much as she could as quick as possible. “EWW! What is this?”
She looked at a bit of the cloud sticking to her hoof, and gave it a cautionary lick, only to find out it was made of, “Cotton candy?”
She looked around herself, and saw more of the clouds flying at breakneck speed all around her. Suddenly, a thunderclap brought her attention to one lone cloud above her.
Dash looked up at it and felt a drop of liquid hit the end of her muzzle, “Hey wait a minute, its not supposed to rain until tomorrow! You can’t just...” her sentence was stoppted short when suddenly the cloud began to pour a brownish liquid all over her. “You did.”
Rarity looked up at the strange display in the air, with a strange sense of awe and caution.
“I don’t fully know what those clouds are doing, but that rain looks simply horrid,” she said with disgust in her voice. Rarity looked up to the sky as Rainbow Dash chased after another group of pink clouds, brown liquid pouring out of them like rain toward Sweet Apple Acres.
“I think, I need my rain gear,”
Ditzy still held her eyes closed to shield them from the bright white light.
She could feel she was laying on something very soft, but was not sure of what it was, and that she was warm. Almost like she had been sleeping on her couch at home again.
Ditzy opened one eye slowly and felt the bright light sting her eyes and quickly shut them again, she moved her hoof to act as a visor against whatever the offending source of light was, and felt something fluffy shift over her.
She turned her head left, and opened her eyes again, very little this time, and waited for her eyes to adjust little by little. “This is not my beautiful house.” she thought to herself as she really began to look around.
Everything was made of clouds, with very few exceptions like lamps and books that were on the shelves.
Ditzy quickly jumped out of the soft cumulus bed, and began to examine her surroundings more closely.
She crossed the room, and read over some of the titles on the bookshelves to herself, “Advanced Flight Techniques by Spitfire, Equestrian Tax Laws by Princess Luna, So You Think You Are a Background Character in a Children's Television Show and Other Physiological Issues by Black Shadows, who reads this stuff? Oh, wait, I do.”
Ditzy felt a small smile creep upon her face as she looked around the sparsely, yet elegantly designed bedroom, before letting her emotions overcome her, and began bouncing up and down with a huge grin on her face.
“I wonder what the rest of the place looks like.” Ditzy wondered out loud to herself, as she ran out the bedroom door and into the hallway. She froze where she stood, her eyes growing wide and jaw heading for the floor.
It was obvious to her now that she was on the second floor of a massive house. If she looked to the right, she would have seen a row of doors for the other rooms. Her eyes however were preoccupied with the sight in front of her. A balcony overlooking the main room, over which hung a great chandelier with hundreds of crystals and dozens of electric lights shining brightly over the room.
Ditzy slowly trotted forward to peer over the railing and saw a large sitting room below her. Tastefully decorated in plush red couches and chairs with gold trim, sitting over a large carpet with an intricate design.
Ditzy walked down the stairs to the sitting room, and proceeded to take a closer look around, she walked up to one of the chairs and touched it carefully, “It’s real material, not cloud. It must have cost a fortune to furnish so much of this place with solid items.”
Ditzy eyed a bronze lamp on a marble end table, and ran her hoof over it as she eyed the detail of how it looked just like Celestia raising the sun the way that it was molded that she held the light above her horn. “So intricate.” At last she turned and eyed the tapestry on the wall, “No way, I don’t believe it...”
The tapestry stretched from the floor to the ceiling, depicting in great detail the Wonderbolts soaring through the air, and in the forefront, Ditzy herself stood in the full splendor of a Wonderbolt outfit, with a heroic pose. A pair of dark goggles rested over her eyes, and her wings were flared open, a serious look on her face.
She sputtered some non words for a moment, before finally falling onto her flank as her mind tried to process everything she has just seen.
“Spike, you're in charge of the library until I get back, understand?”
Spike threw his claws up over his eyes in a salute to Twilight. “You got it!”
“Okay,” Twilight said as she grabbed her saddlebag with her magic and strapped it onto her. “If you have an emergency, go over to Bon Bon and Lyra’s place, and they will help you out, if you really need me send a letter as soon as possible, alright Spike?”
Spike nodded again as he opened the door for Twilight, “Will do, but only if its a real emergency.”
Twilight trotted out the door, spewing last minute instructions to her assistant, “Alright, I don’t know how long the Princess will need us, but there's some bits in the drawer by my bed for you if you need them. Oh and also,”
“Twilight! Calm down, I'll be ok. Now hurry up before you miss the carriage the Princess sent for you.”
“Oh, right, see you later!” Twilight called out as she quickly galloped down the road to the edge of town, where a pegasus carriage would be arriving for her and her friends in a few minutes.
Spike sighed to himself as he watched Twilight go, then casually closed the door and looked to the left and right to make sure that he was indeed all alone. He quickly dashed into the kitchen and opened the fridge to make himself a sandwich that would have had Twilight in fits over the sheer amount of stuff used to make such a “snack”.
Suddenly a knock came on the library door, sharp and fast. Spike froze from what he was doing, and looked over his shoulder nervously, “Is that Bon Bon, or Lyra? Did Twilight send them to watch me?” He bit his lower lip, then three more sharp knocks came at the door. He called out, “Just a minute! before quickly shoving the towering monstrosity of a sandwich into the fridge, and ran for the door.
Spike quickly brushed himself off to make sure that no crumbs betrayed him by sticking to his scales before opening the door. “Sorry about that, I was doing the, thing, with a mop, at the place, with the food in it, and...” Spike trailed off as he looked at the pony at the door.
He was big, not as big as Big Macintosh, but big none the less. His coat was a dull slate grey, his black mane was cut very short so that it stood straight up like a brush, making his crooked horn quite visible. His mane might have been black, but his tail was paper white, and as wild as if it had been in a wind tunnel.
But what struck spike the most about him were his eyes. Behind a pair of glasses, Spike could see that they were yellow, with mismatched red irises, and no pupils whatsoever.
“Son, you know that it is most impolite to stare I assume.” he spoke, with a dark voice, a dangerous voice that dripped with authority.
Spike shook his head to clear it before refocusing his eyes on the pony before him. “Sorry about that mister, welcome to the Ponyville Library, can I help you?” Spike said as he opened the door more to let him in.
“Thank you, very kind of you to ask.” the strange pony said with a much lighter tone to his voice, giving him an almost approachable atmosphere about him. “I am looking for an, unusual book.”
Spike nodded a bit and quickly found a copy of An Unusual Book, unusual stories for unusual ponies “Alright then, now if you would just sign here on the card, with today's date and your current address,”
The pony held up a hoof and smiled a little to stop him mid sentence. “I think you misunderstood me. The book I want is a very rare book, not too many places would have it. Copies are extremely hard to come by, and quite expensive.”
Spike’s eyes lit up as he jumped “OH I know just what you're looking for! Hold that thought and stay right there!” He then ran off through a door and down some stairs. He soon came back with a solid gold book, encrusted with gems, gleaming in the bright sunshine within the main room of the library.
“Only Two copies in all of Equestria,” Spike proclaimed proudly, as he set it down on the checkout counter for the pony to see the title, A Very Rare Book, so rare and expensive you will never be able to afford it, heck even look at it to know what is inside. By A. Troll.
The other pony looked at the book for a moment before breaking out in laughter, “Kid, I like your style. Even though I would love to watch you bring me the wrong books all day, I’m only here for a limited time, so how about I just browse a bit?”
Spike picked up the book as he walked toward the basement he came out of, “Well, Ok. This room is all non fiction, back room there is fiction, this room to the left is the colts and fillies section. Upstairs is private, downstairs are rare books and must be handled by a librarian. Restrooms can be found in the fiction section, way back. And keep out of the kitchen.”
The pony nodded as he took all this in. “Wonderful. Why don't you go ahead and finish that delectable sandwich you were about to demolish while I fiddle about.”
“Oh you bet, I've been wanting one all day!” Spike went into the kitchen and shut the door. He opened the fridge to see his meal sitting there, just waiting for him.
He picked it up, opened his mouth, and was about to take his first bite when a white flash of light caught his attention through the keyhole.
He stared at the door with an inquisitive stare. Finally, begrudgingly, he put the sandwich down on the table and opened the door to check on the guy. “Hey, I saw a flash, did a bulb burn out or something?”
“Oh, no nothing of the sort, Don’t know what it was.”
“Oh, well, is everything alright?”
The stallion nodded as he trotted up to the counter, “Yeah, anywho... I looked around and I did not find what I wanted, so I'll just check this out like you recommended.”
Spike went into autopilot as he pulled the card out of An Unusual Book and passed it over to the pony. Horn alight with a magic glow he wrote neatly on the top line for a few moments before passing it back to him.
Spike then pulled out a stamp, and stamped out todays date, and a later date on the card, and again on a piece of paper taped to the inside of the book's binding. “This book will be expected back in two weeks time. Have a good day sir.”
“Thank you young drake, you were more of a help than you will ever know.” with that the unicorn took hold of the book in his magic to place into a bag at his side. He pulled out some coins and smiled slyly, “Here, a donation to help expand your collection.” He then dumped what looked like a hundred bits into a vase on the counter before heading out the door.
Spike stared with awe at what just happened, and watched as the door shut before he suddenly yelled “Thank you!” as he waved to the stallion out the window. Spike watched as he galloped down the dirt road and turned into an alleyway.
Spike looked at the coins in the jar absentmindedly before sighing to himself, “I never even asked for his name.” Quickly he scrambled for the checkout card and held it close to his face to read what his name was. As he read, confusion settled deeper into his brain than he thought was possible. “What kind of a name for a pony is that?”
On the first line of the card it simply stated.
Name, Q __Address,_Number One Equestria Ave, Canterlot Garden Apartments Apt.#1 Checkout 4/1 Due 4/15
“What an odd name for a pony.” Spike thought aloud to himself. After thinking about it he corrected himself, “Fits him as an odd pony.”
“Nope, Nah, Negatory, Nyet.”
Ditzy casually threw another outfit onto the floor as she rummaged through her walk in closet.
“Wow, all these clothes and I have nothing to wear,” she thought to herself as she slid a row of clothes down the rack.
“When there's nothing to wear, wear nothing!” she finally exclaimed as she turned to head out of the closet, before she spotted a rather elegant looking dress saddle.
“Hmm, I wonder...”
Ditzellia walked out of the closet with her head held high. She had settled on the fancy saddle and a pearl necklace to be the outfit she would make her grand appearance to the world in.
She grabbed a bag of bits and checkbook, placed it into her pocket before leaving the room at an easy going pace. Ditzy had a natural easy going smile about her as she fluttered down to the main room and headed out the door.
Only to be greeted by the tail end of chaos.
Pegasus ponies were running and flying all over Cloudsdale, in various states of shock and awe. Some were carrying brooms and mops, or other cleaning equipment in hopes of getting rid of the sticky mess that had covered the fluffy streets and homes of most areas.
Ditzy flew across the way to the nearest pony she could get to and tapped him on his back with her hoof, “Excuse me, but what happened here?”
The blue pegasus turned around and looked at Ditzy for a moment, looked her up and down and gasped as he dropped his squeegee to the cloud below him, and tried to straighten his mane. “Oh, Miss Doo, well, I suppose you must have slept through it eh? It was bad, I mean it came outta nowhere!”
The grey mare looked the blue stallion in the eyes for a moment or two as she waited for him to continue.
After a few moments of him not saying anything else, but just looking at her, she made a motion for him to continue, “What came out of nowhere?”
“Oh, well... these clouds, they were dark and heavy looking. Nopony knows where they came from or who made them, but when they came over the city we tried to move them, but it was pointless! The clouds would dodge us the moment we came in range, before we knew it they began to pour out cola!”
“Cola? You mean, like the soda pop?”
The stallion nodded excitedly, like this was the best day of his life or something, “Yeah exactly like that, It only lasted for a few minutes but as you can see,” he waved his hoof about the general area, “It did some pretty bad damage, all the cloud structure sucked up the cola and now we are trying to get it out before the interior of our homes becomes ruined from flat soda.”
Ditzy nodded to the other pegasus and took another look around. “Are you a part of the weather team?”
He gave off a smile as he snapped a salute, “Ma’am yes ma'am! Private Thunderclap, Royal Air Defence Weather Team, First Division, Cloudsdale.”
Ditzy smiled at him, as he stood in as rigid a pose as possible, before she realized that because she was a Wonderbolt, she probably outranked him in the R.A.D. “At ease Private.”
Thunderclap relaxed instantly as Ditzy hovered in front of him, and gave off a sigh. “Well, I’m just going to go now, and get something to eat. I guess I will see you around.”
The blue pegasus nodded as he looked down for his squeegee, and noticed that it had fallen through the cloud, and was currently plummeting to the earth below at a rapid pace, about to hit who knows what.
“Oh pony feathers.”
After a light lunch, Ditzy flew around Cloudsdale for a while, looking around the city. She was amazed at how quickly the pegasi had cleared the city from the mess caused by the cola storm. By the time she reached the downtown area, everything was back to normal.
The blonde mare landed on the side of the thoroughfare of the bustling city, and began to trot on the firm clouds that made up the road, looking for a new way to waste cash.
She walked down the avenue, past several shops, occasionally stopping to look at something that would catch her eye for a moment, before moving on to another one.
‘Click’
Ditzy’s ears flicked back, as she tried to hone in on the sound, trying to figure out where it came from, “What was that?”
‘Click- whirr click’
“Ok, I definitely heard something that time, what is it?"
“Miss Doo, over here!”
Ditzy turned to the voice, and saw a stallion with a camera mounted around his neck, flashing a few times in rapid succession. “Oh yes, this is great. Tell me, what do you think of the recent mysterious weather plaguing Equestria?”
“Uh, well...”
“Ditzellia, over here! Tell us what are the Wonderbolts stance in all of this?”
She turned around and saw another photographer was now on her other side flashing pictures as well. Soon enough another one popped up.
“What brand saddle are you wearing?”
“Is that genuine pearl?”
“Over here, can you tell me if it’s true that you are planning to retire from the Wonderbolts?”
“Smile, this is for the Equestria Enquirer!”
Ditzy smiled quickly, as she found that a veritable wall of photographers had began to follow her down the road, flashing a new picture every few seconds. She started to back away, “I am sorry, I do not have anything to say about the strange weather, and I can't stay for an interview because I have to go...” She looked around to her left and right quickly, trying to find a way to escape the press. She found a shop with a pair of goggles painted on the window. “Buy new goggles! Yes, that's what I need. A new pair of goggles!”
Ditzy slid open the door, and quickly darted inside, shutting the door behind her. The photographers took a few more photos and shouted some questions at her before a set of curtains closed over the window.
“Darn vultures! They think that just because a Wonderbolt walks down town that they have to photograph her in case she picks out a pinion or something!”
Ditzy turned to the source of the new voice and found an orange pegasus grumbling to herself as she fluttered over the counter and began to fiddle with the display case. After a moment, she closed the sliding door behind the counter shut and put on her most professional looking smile for Ditzy, “Welcome to Skyview Goggles, I’m Skyview how can I help you today Miss?”
Ditzy looked around, nervously and kept her body tense in case she had to make a break for it, “I don’t suppose that you have a back door to this place, do you?”
The other mare’s smile faltered for a moment, before she pointed a hoof toward the back of the building, “Yeah, its in the back.”
Ditzy relaxed a little bit, “O.K., cause when I’m done here, I just want to make a clean escape.”
The shopkeeper smiled at that phrase, “Oh, so would you like to have a look around, perhaps you need an accessory, or a new pair of goggles?”
The blonde mare nodded as she gave off a genuine smile, “Yes. As you know, I always wear dark goggles, and I was thinking I would like to get a pair of clear ones.”
Skyview gave off a warm smile as she waved her forehoof over the display case before her, “Well, over here behind the glass is our top of the line racing goggles! Perfect for aeronauts, stunt pegasi, and tornado team work. I carry a large variety of brands, and and styles. Feel free to ask if you want to try a pair on.”
Ditzellia leaned forward and looked at the display case with interest, the well lit environment made the goggles lenses and rings shine with a high polished sheen. After a few moments, she pointed out a pair and said, “Let me try those on, please.” Skyview gave a nod, as she pulled out the goggles and placed them on the counter. “These are the Dura-Flight Five Thousand. These come with a one year guarantee to keep debris out of your eyes, and the wind completely blocked out.”
Ditzy adjusted the strap before placing them over her eyes, and looking at herself in the small mirror. She smiled a little bit as she turned her head, enjoying how her eyes looked with the goggles on. She grinned to herself again realising that they haven’t messed up once since the deal was struck. Then she noticed that condensation began to fill the glass. “Hey, are they supposed to fog up?”
The shopkeeper frowned slightly, “Well, that is one of the downsides to this particular brand. The company tries to make as airtight as possible. However it does cause fogging of the lenses if the wearer is into extreme sport, or has a high amount of moisture in or around the eye area.”
“So basically, if It's warm outside, or I actually use these in flight I can’t see?”
“I am afraid so Miss.”
Ditzy slid the goggles off her face and placed them back on the counter. “Pass.”
Skyview put the goggles back, as Ditzellia looked through the display some more. Finally, she looked over at the mare behind the counter, “Miss, Skyview, was it?”
“Yes it is, would you like to see something?”
Ditzy shook her head, “No, not really. None of these seem to be catching my eye, and I don’t know enough about goggles to know what I want. Tell me what do you recommend?”
Skyview looked at the display case for a few moments, before she gave off a sigh, “Miss Doo, I am so sorry to say this, but most of these brands here have a high emphasis on style or general safety. You need something that breathes well for what you do, so the glass won’t fog up.”
Ditzy looked at her, and frowned a bit. “So you don’t have anything at all?”
“Now I didn’t say that. Give me a moment.” Skyview ducked under the counter and dug around for a few moments, before pulling out a box, “These are my own brand, I make them in a shop in the back, but nopony ever buys them.”
Curious, Ditzy tilted her head at the box before her, “Why not?”
Skyview reached in the box with a hoof and began to pull out the cases and laying them on the counter, “Because everypony wants a name brand, or what a certain Wonderbolt is sponsored to wear, you know how ponies are.”
The grey pegasus nodded a bit as she looked at the little goggle case holders, they were bright orange, like sky view was, and in bold black art deco style lettering it proclaimed, “Skyview Stunt Goggles.”
“I wonder what they look like.” Ditzy wondered to herself.
Finally, Skyview had emptied the box, and slid it further down the counter before picking out a case. “Ah, this pair might suit you.”
Ditzy pulled the lid off the box, a gasp escaped her lips as she took in how they looked. The goggles had brass rings holding the lenses in place, hoof engraved swirls decorated the rims with intricate detail of mathematical perfection. The straps were of a brown, stretchy material, but most amazing of all, was that in the space between the rings, and where the goggles would rest on someponies face, was a brass mesh material, that had holes so fine, it almost looked like woven silk, rather than the gleaming metal it was made from.
“These are, fantastic!” Ditzy pulled them out of the box and strapped them to her head, and looked in the mirror, the lenses were crystal clear and the goggles fit snug, but not too close to her face. “How much are these?”
Skyview smiled awkwardly, “Well they are hoof made in the back of my shop, and I have to import the materials from Canterlot. I am afraid to say, that they are one hundred bits each, and thats only covering the cost of making them. Part of the reason why I never sold any.”
Ditzy took the goggles off and looked them over, then placed them back into the box, “I’m afraid I can’t take these.”
Skyview nodded in an understanding manner as she started to put the cases back inside of the box. “It’s ok, I know they are too expensive,”
“You misunderstand, I want these in silver, not brass.”
“I mean I figured, sure maybe she would like them, but... What did you say?”
Ditzy gave off a cocky smile as she leaned on the counter, “I said, I would like a pair if you have them in silver.”
Skyview’s jaw fell open, and if it were not for the restrictions nature provided, it probably would have fallen to the floor. “Oh, uh YES! I mean, yes, I have some silver framed ones over here!
Skyview fumbled about with several of the cases, until she pulled out a case with a black sticker on the side of the cover. “Ok, this one costs more because of the silver, does two hundred bits sound fair?”
Ditzy looked the goggles over and slid them over her eyes, and carefully examined them on her face in the mirror, finally she nodded her approval. “Yes, I think that price will do just fine.”
The blonde mare pulled out her checkbook, and quickly wrote the amount that was due before passing it off to Skyview. The shopkeeper then placed the check into her cash register, still smiling with genuine happy shock.
“Well, I’m going to head out the back door, if you can just, point the way.” Ditzy started with a nervous smile.
“Oh, before you go, can I ask you a favor?”
Ditzellia looked at Skyview with a bit of caution before she gave off a shrug with her wings, “Sure, what would you like?”
Skyview blushed slightly through her orange coat, as she pulled out a magazine with Ditzy’s picture on the cover, “Would you sign this, for my little sister? She’s almost as mad about the Wonderbolts as her idol.”
Ditzy looked at the magazine and nodded a bit, “Sure, just let me borrow that pen there, what's your sisters name?”
Skyview passed a felt marker over the counter to Ditzy, “Scootaloo, she lives in Ponyville with our parents until her she can fly better.”
Ditzy paused at the familiar sounding name before she continued and wrote out on the magazine, ‘Never give up on your dreams, fly high and fast, and soon you will leave the competition behind!
Ditzellia Esmerelda Doo’
Skyview quickly put the magazine on a shelf behind the counter and began bouncing up and down really quickly, “Oh thank you thank you thank you thank you! You have no clue how much she is going to love that!”
“It’s nothing really,” Ditzy said with a nervous grin, “So... about using that back door.”
“Oh,” Skyview stopped jumping as she walked over to the back of the building, “Yeah it's right over here, follow me please.”
Skyview lead Ditzy back into a small room full of boxes, and signs proclaiming specials that have yet to happen. She opened the door leading into one of Cloudsdale’s strangely dirty alleyways. “Here you go, hope you come back soon!”
Ditzy nodded as she took off, “I’ll be sure to tell ponies about this place!”
As Ditzy flew off over the fluffy buildings of the city, Skyview walked back into her shop and proceeded to faint at the idea of the number of customers this alone will bring.
Meanwhile, in the story you already know and love, in progress...
Rarity wandered through the seemingly endless maze in search of the center. She turned about the corner of a path that ran parallel to the sky, defying gravity.
She kept her eyes closed as she wandered about the hedge maze that grew out of a shear vertical wall, mumbling her complaints to herself, “I was expecting an audience with the princess. Not, out door sports.”
Rarity, if asked about it later would have simply laughed it off and said that she was too focused on reaching the center of the maze to have noticed the stone wall before her. The truth of the matter was that she was so intent on trying to figure out who she would send a complaint letter to about the filthiness of the maze, among other things, to bother paying attention to the fact that a wall had materialized before her as she rounded a corner.
Her eyes flew open as she took in the bright light glimmering off of three diamonds set into the solid granite wall before her. “Oh my!”
She looked into the diamonds as a trio of Discords appeared within the stones. “Welcome to your lucky day Rarity, you found the one thing in Equestria that can rival my face for sheer beauty. What do you think? You like?” Discord said with an oily smile, as his eyes began to swirl with a multitude of color.
Rarity nearly swooned over as her eyes reflected his, swirling as the greedy desire for the diamonds began to take hold of her, “Yes, I like very much...” Before she could enact on her wishes for treasure, a small voice in Rarity’s mind seemed to be screaming at her, “This isn't you!” She shook her head hard to come to her senses, remembering that she was an element of harmony! The very embodiment of Generosity itself!
“NO! I shan't succumb to such fabulousness!” Rarity turned about, and began to walk away, but it felt like every step she took was laborious, as if she were trying to run with an anchor tied behind her, dragging her back to the diamonds. “Must, get to the center to meet the others...” Then she made the mistake of looking back.
Pure greed took a hold of her as she zoomed forward to the wall and stood up on her hind legs, and raised her forehooves. She shouted out, “MINE!” as the color left her. Rarity then began to forcibly dig into the wall to get out the diamonds.
Discord chuckled to himself as he watched her labor from above, and with a snap of his fingers he was gone, off to meet up with where Fluttershy was timidly making her way through the maze, to continue his plan of divide and conquer.
Ditzellia gave off an air of confidence as she flew through Cloudsdale, laden down with several shopping bags.
She had already been to several of the famous Cloudsdale stores along Rodeo Drive, and had bought several new outfits, and was currently wearing a particularly daring red dress with a slit going up to her cutie mark on her side. The top part of the dress was set up as two strips of fabric that crossed with each other on her front and back, leaving her wings exposed.
As she flew over the street, she noticed that stallions were not so subtly staring at her. A few tried to act like they were not looking, but it was so obvious to her.
Ditzy slowed as she touched down to land on the walkway, and gave her head a turn to a mare and stallion that were walking the other way on the opposite end of the street. The valley mare was talking to the stallion as he nodded in agreement robotically and carried her prize of big game shopping that she has caught with her trusty credit card.
Ditzellia looked at them both out of the corner of her eye, and noticed that the stallion had began to look back over at her, a small embarrassed smile drifting across his face.
She turned to look directly at the couple. Ditzy let her face fall into a sultry look and gave the stallion a wink and a smile before trotting off.
POMF
The stallions wings opened up immediately as a blush ran across his face, scattering the mare’s trophies of the day all over the place, where they proceeded to fall below the clouds to meet with the rest of Equestria below. The valley mare quickly turned to her colt friend.
The stallion at least had the good graces to look ashamed for what had just happened as she began to verbally tear into the poor stallion before making him go down to retrieve the fallen items.
Ditzy smiled to herself as she walked down the road with a little bit of a wiggle in her flank holding her wings up and open, ready to play a new game with the stallions.
She strutted her stuff down the road, looking into the shop windows, giving looks at the guys now and then. She was feeling pretty good for herself.
As she was looking into a window at a display of perfume, she began to feel the strain of all the bags on her back. A new idea struck her, and she wistfully said to herself, loud enough for everyone around her to hear, “Wish I didn't buy so much, these are getting heavy.”
At once three stallions that were flying or walking around her suddenly rushed to her side. A chocolate colored pegasus quickly put on his smoothest looking face to try and get her attention as he tried to casually lean against the nearest building, “Sup, I’m Bebop.I couldn't help but hear you, and thought maybe you need a strong stallion to carry your stuff for you?”
A yellow one flared his wings open as he stood next to Ditzy and cocked his head to the side, “Hey no way bro, I saw her first! Now, I mean.” He coughed into his hoof before continuing, “He might be strong, but he trips over his own hooves, let alone when he is flying. I mean, come on if it's in his path he runs into it. Now if you want to make sure you keep your stuff, how about you let me, Rock Steady, carry that all for you, huh?”
The third just stood awkwardly, rubbing his forehoof behind his head. Ditzy raised an eyebrow at him before he made his opening line, “Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, but here's my number so... call me maybe?” He then passed a piece of paper with the number one written on it.
Ditzy wanted to face hoof at how ridiculous this all was, “By the sisters, so cheesy. I guess I’ll pick one for the day.” She smiled at the three, before going over to Rock Steady, “I trust you won’t drop any of these?”
“Who me? You kiddin? I can carry fifty of those things!”
Ditzy smiled at him and leaned against his side for a moment, “Oh, you're such a gentlecolt! Thank you so much for helping me out, I shall have to, reward you when we get back to my place.” Ditzellia then gave him a sultry look with her eyes half lidded as she leaned close to him.
That was all it took for the pegasus stallion to quickly unload the bags of high end clothes off of Ditzy, and onto his own back so he could follow her like a puppy. “Alright boys, the rest of you can go on now, shoo.”
The other two ponies grumbled as they flew away one even remarked “Lucky.” as he headed off to do something else.
Ditzy looked back at Rock Steady, and nodded her head in the general direction she wanted to go in, “Well come along. I’ve got a few more places I want to get to before I go home.”
Rock Steady had a dopey grin on his face as he nodded eagerly and followed her down the road with his wings flared as open as they could get.
Ditzy turned down the road, and heard a few camera clicks follow her and the stallion. She paid it no mind as she entered another shop.
A few moments later she came out, and held the door open so Rock Steady could follow, with even more bags than before. “Thanks again for helping me Rock Steady.”
“Oh its nothing Miss Doo, I love to help a mare that needs it.”
Ditzellia smiled softly at him, “Well, I’m going to go get a hay smoothie, then head for home. Do you want anything?”
Rock Steady scrunched up his face as he thought about it for a moment, “Maybe a boysenberry smoothie would be nice?” Ditzy smiled very genuinely at him, “O.K. I’ll get you one, since you've been a great help to me so far.”
They trotted a block down the road until they came to a little restaurant with outdoor service. Ditzy walked up to the window and tapped on the counter to get the vendor's attention.
“Excuse me, could I get one hay smoothie, and a boysenberry smoothie?”
The mare behind the counter nodded, as she wrote the order down with her hoof onto a piece of paper and passed it to someone in the back. The roar of a blender came to life followed by another, in a few moments they both stopped, and the drinks were brought to the counter. “That'll be five bits.”
Ditzy paid for the drinks and carried them in a box on her back. She trotted over to Rock Steady and placed the drinks on one of the tables that were scattered about the area. “Go on, place the bags on one of the empty tables, they'll hold up. Take a moment and relax.”
The yellow stallion did so before taking a seat across from Ditzy, she passed him his smoothie before taking a long drag of hers and settling down, folding her wings delicately. Then she started looking around for the source of the near constant clicking of cameras.
“What are you looking for?”
Ditzy looked back at the stallion and smiled politely at him, “Sorry, but I keep hearing cameras clicking.”
The stallion shrugged, “Well I would have thought that you would have been used to this sort of thing by now, I mean, you’re only in the world famous Wonderbolts!”
Ditzy sighed to herself before she sipped on the smoothie. “I don't think I could ever get used to that.” She continued to sip on her smoothie before drawing her attention back to Rock Steady, who was quickly slurping his own drink down while looking through a hole in the floor, viewing the land below. “Whatcha lookin at?”
The stallion took the straw out of his mouth to reply, but kept his eyes on the ground below him. “Something funny is going on down there. Mostly centered around Ponyville by the look of things.”
Ditzy couldn’t help but feel the twinge run across her features, “Do you mean like ha ha funny, or somepony has brought the end of the world funny?”
The stallion looked her in the eyes, then looked back down, then back at her before answering. “Yes.”
Ditzy snorted at him, “Oh really what kind of answer is that?” She took her hoof and hit the cloud hard enough to poke a peep hole through to see for herself. “Oh, its a good answer.”
The usually blue stream that ran into Ponyville, had decided to take on a bright purple hue, as the grass in the village itself and rolling hills surrounding it had decided to take on a black and blue checker board pattern. A few buildings had even joined in on the randomness and were floating a few feet above the ground.
Ditzy quickly zipped shut the cloud, “Oh... kay, this is bad.” She quickly got up and threw away her smoothie, “Quickly, grab the stuff I gotta get home and report to the rest of my team on what I just saw.”
The yellow stallion nodded as he grabbed everything as quick as he could and galloped after her before they both (he rather shakily) took off for the skies for her home to the south.
Discord was feeling pretty good with himself.
Actually, he was feeling fantastic with all that he has accomplished.
Five of the bearers for the elements of harmony were effectively out of business, with one abandoning the rest. Ponyville was quickly becoming his own private utopian playland of chaos, and with the improvements he had made to the railroad, if the bearers tried to take it to get home it would take them a week!
Discord smiled to himself as he watched Twilight Sparkle try to convince the four other ponies with her to follow her back to Ponyville. He reached into the nothingness and pulled out an over sized melting pocket watch. “Hmm, at this rate, I think I have time to check up on the bronies' favorite mail mare. That's right, I know you're out there. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make sure that my little ditz is still following according to my plan.”
Discord then disappeared with a snap of his fingers, as Twilight tried to convince what remained of her friends to follow her home.
Ditzy was coming in for a landing a little ways from her home, when she spotted somepony by her front door.
“Well well well, look who finally showed up. You know I have been looking for you, do you realize what is going on?”
Ditzy ran up to the other pony and looked her up and down, she was wearing a Wonderbolt outfit, and had an angry expression on her face, what little she could see of the coat was yellow, and she had orange and yellow hair that looked like a blazing fire.
“Captain Spitfire!” Ditzy realized as she threw her hoof into a salute, “Ma'am I can explain, I rushed here as soon as I found out!”
Spitfire looked Ditzy over, then looked behind her to see Rock Steady was busy swatting at a rather large horse fly. “Yeah, well get into your outfit, and meet me at the facility. We are going to go over a few exercises until everypony that is available can show up. Just a few advanced flight for fight patterns before we go and see what we can do to help. Can I count on you Ditzellia?”
Ditzy nodded, “Yes Ma’am you can!”
“Good, I expect you to be ready in ten minutes. Get going.” Spitfire then took off for the skies and headed to the center of Cloudsdale.
Ditzy opened the door and walked in, “Make yourself at home Rock Steady, I gotta change. Oh and just put those bags anywhere.”
Ditzy flew to the second floor and quickly went into her room to change into her Wonderbolts outfit.
Rock Steady placed the bags on a table and sighed to himself as he stretched his back, hoping to pop the bones back into place. “Wish this emergency wasn’t going on, then maybe I could have gotten to know her better.”
The horse fly buzzed around closer to his ear. He raised his hoof to smack it away when a small voice came out of it. “Wait, don’t hit me!”
Rock Steady stopped, as he looked at the fly. “You can talk? Oh, I’m so sorry I didn't know flys could talk.”
The fly landed on the edge of Rock’s left ear and leaned his head in to speak easier to him, “No worries. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Discord, I know what you want, and I can make it happen.”
“Oh, and what do I want?”
The fly chuckled a little bit, “You want to impress that Wonderbolt of course. Well listen to me, and you can, and maybe even have her for your own.”
The stallion intently listened to the words as sweet as honey that Discord spoke. And as he nodded, his eyes began to turn into a colored pattern, and the yellow of his coat and blue from his mane quickly faded.
“Now go wow her kid.”
The tainted pegasus went up the stairs with a smooth confident look on his face.
Ditzy finally lowered the goggles over her head, covering her eyes with the protective glass. “Well that wasn't so bad. Now I’ll just go down and give Rock Steady this bag of bits, thank him and head over to the Wonderbolts facility.”
Suddenly she heard a knock on her door, “Can I come in?”
“Oh, hang on.” Ditzy said, as she quickly picked up the bag of bits and went over to the door to open it, “What is it.”
The faded looking stallion walked with some swagger in his step. “I just wanted to show you how much I appreciated being able to help you today.”
He walked over to Ditzy with a cocky half grin. For some reason, Ditzy did not trust the look in his eye and backed away. “You flatter me, really... But, listen I have some bits here for you for helping me out, and I gotta leave.”
Rock Steady winked at her in what looked like a playful manner, “We have a few minutes, remember?” He then quickly rushed her and gave Ditzy a deep kiss.
Ditzy’s eyes shot open, as the realisation of what he just did struck her, and she bit down on his tongue before shoving him back as hard as she could. Anger rose in her chest as she stared him down, “What the hoof is the matter with you?! Get out of my house this instant or you're going to be in a lot of trouble!”
Rock Steady looked hurt for a moment as he rubbed his chest where she struck him before a mad grin grew across his face, “Oh so you like to be rough? I can be rough too.” He began to get closer to her as he made to grab her.
Ditzy backed off from him, a fear began to grow in her heart, blocking her better judgement. Quickly she grabbed a heavy looking trophy. “When a lady says get out, it means get out.”
The mad stallion tilted his head as he looked at her, for a moment, it looked like he recovered from whatever madness had taken hold of him. Then he leapt forward and dive bombed down towards her.
Without thinking Ditzellia swung the trophy and landed a blow to the stallions eye!
Rocky shook his head as his eyes spun in circles, while he was out of it, Ditzy made to jump over him and run out the door.
She leapt in a high sweeping arc over him, when her hooves made contact with the floor she began to gallop out, when she felt something tug at her tail.
Ditzy looked back to see the face of a truly insane pony.
“I am going to have you for my own, and there is nothing you can do to stop me!”
Ditzy bucked as hard as she could hoping to hit his face, but to no avail. He ducked and quickly leapt and pinned her under him. “You will be mine!”
Ditzy looked up at him, as fear took hold of her mind, “Oh Celestia, it can’t end this way, don’t let me die like this!” He slammed his hooves down onto her chest, pinning her to the floor with no escape. She punched him as hard as she could as she screamed as loud as possible, “NO YOU WILL NOT! NO! SOMEPONY, ANYPONY, HELP ME!”
Ditzellia felt as though her heart would explode from her chest, as she tried desperately to kick Rock Steady off of her body. He leaned down and whispered in a commanding tone, “Come on, show me some of those famous moves.”
Ditzy reared back her hooves “You asked for it!” She bucked the stallion in his groin as hard as she could, causing him to writhe in pain.
“THATS IT! No more mister nicey nice!” Ditzy flapped her wings to try to escape, but it was to no avail. With Ditzy still flat on her back, she was an easy target for him to land on with all his weight, and slap her across the face. “Now I have to punish you.”
“No, it can’t end for me like this. Stuck between a violent stallion and the floor.” Ditzy felt her eyes water, and the tears streamed down her face. As she turned away, she saw the tears were quickly absorbed by the cloud floor beneath her turning the puffy white clouds into a darker grey color.
Suddenly Ditzy felt a light bulb go off in her mind. She turned to look above, Rock Steady leered over her with a maniacal grin. Either prepared to force a kiss out of her, or do something much worse.
Ditzy closed her eyes and breathed in. Then, faster than her oppressor could react, Ditzy slammed her skull into Rock Steady’s, followed quickly by several hard jabs into his muzzle, temple, and wings.
He stumbled, and fell to the ground as he tried to shake the dizziness away. Ditzy quickly punched the floor with a hoof and fell into the kitchen below her, leaving him behind to piece where she had gone. Ditzy opened her wings and slowed her descent, she looked up, and sure enough the hole that she had punched in the cloud floor was already sealed up.
Quickly as she could, Ditzy scanned the room to see that she was in the kitchen to defend herself with. As she did, Rock Steady finally shook the last of the confusion from his mind. He tried to flap his wings, only to find them useless. “WHERE DID YOU GO!”
Ditzy’s ears swiveled to the source of the sound. Her eyes glued on the ceiling above her, waiting for the stallion to come after her. She grew silent, hoping that he wouldn't find her before she could find something, or make an escape.
“Ditzellia! Where are you?” The shout sounded as if it was on the move. Ditzy couldn't help but panic as she began to open drawers for anything of use. “Come back here! I can show mercy and forgive you, if you come out before I find you.”
Ditzy shuddered, the sound of his voice was much closer than before. For a few moments, her eyes lingered on the knife in a drawer. “Come on Ditzellia! There’s no door in here, and the walls, and floor are all enchanted to keep heavy objects in here! Only escape is the living room and he’ll see you there! Grab the knife and bluff your way out!”
“Wonderbolt! Come on, I was only having some fun with ya! Come on back to me. Don't make me find you.” This call came from just outside the kitchen doors to the living room, and Ditzy felt her heart nearly explode.
She shook her head, and placed the knife back in the drawer. “I can't kill him, I’ll have to think of something else.” That’s when she grabbed onto the handle of a frying pan, and snuck her way to the only door into the kitchen. She waited with her hooves wrapped around the handle of the frying pan. Her breath was held as she listened for any sign of the pursuing pegasus. Sure enough, the rattle of a stallion trying to silence his breathing came from the other side of the door. Ditzy felt her heart flutter and waited by the kitchen door.
The door suddenly flew open, and the grey stallion charged into the room. Ditzy swung with all her might and bludgeoned the stallion with a five pound chunk of iron.The stallion’s eyes crossed as he fell to the floor. “Frying pan, who knew that would actually make a good weapon?”
Ditzy looked at the knocked out pegasus, and noticed that the grey washed out of his coat and mane, leaving him a bright yellow with blue mane and tail once more. “How curious,” Ditzy mused out loud to herself, “Maybe it means he is back to normal. Then again, a girl can never be too safe.” She opened a drawer and began to look for one of the things that no home should be without.
Rock Steady felt as if an anvil had landed on his cranium. “Ow, my head. What happened?” He tried to lift a hoof up to soothe his head, only to discover that it was restrained. “Oh I am going to hate this! What happened? Come on, open your eyes and see what happened.” Slowly, Rock Steady opened his eyes and let them adjust to the light, and wished that he never had.Rock Steady looked up and saw that his captor was none other than Ditzellia Doo, and he was duct taped to the refrigerator. “What’s going on?”
“Oh look who’s awake.” She replied with a sneer as she looked down at him. “Thought that you could take advantage of me? I think you’ll think twice before you try that again!”
Rock Steady tried to tilt his head in confusion. Many thoughts ran across his mind, and he tried to come up with a response, only for his eyesight to be interrupted by a bright light being flashed in his eyes, “So tell me again, you said that he had been in shades of grey when he attacked?”
Ditzy nodded to the officer, “Yes, that is correct.”
The blue pegasus nodded at this statement as he wrote something down in his pad, “And you never met this pony before?”
“No just earlier today, he was helping me carry my shopping when I was called in to work. I went upstairs to change when he suddenly came up and attacked me.”
Rock Steady struggled against the tape binding him to the fridge, and it suddenly dawned upon him what was going on. “What are you talking about? I never could do a thing like that!”
Ditzy started to argue the point, only for the police officer to hold a wing up to silence her. He looked at the bound pegasus with a frown, and looked him in the eyes. “Please enlighten us then. What do you remember?”
The yellow pegasus looked up as he tried to think past his headache before speaking, “Last thing I remember, she let me in and I sat on the couch, then I fell asleep. Next thing I know I’m tied to a fridge!”
The police officer looked at the two ponies for a few moments before writing something else down on his notepad, “Miss Doo, may I look at your eyes for just a moment?”
The mare tilted her head, “Whatever for?”
“Please, this might help out with the case.”
The grey pegasus gave off a sigh as she lowered her flight goggles down to her chest. Rock noticed from where he was that her flight suit was ripped all over, as if she flew through tree branches. The officer picked up a flashlight in his mouth and aimed it at Ditzy’s right eye, “Hmm your eyes are gold, correct?”
“Of course, what else would they be?” the mare said with a slight hint of annoyance in her voice.
“Well, if I did not know any better, I would assume that your eye color has faded.” The officer scratched at his chin for a few moments before shining the light in the other eye. “But, I suppose that it is only my imagination.” He dropped the light into a pouch on his side before turning back to the notepad. “There have been calls all day about ponies suddenly changing behavior, always accompanied by the changed personalities is a distinct loss of color.. Since your coat is grey I wanted to check your eyes, but they seem to be alright.”
She thought about it for a few moments, how he was grey, strange events around Equestria, how her own eyes had lost their color. Suddenly, it hit her, the one common event that must be behind everything. “I need to find a way to contact Discord! He must know what’s going on,” she thought to herself. “If that’s the case, then I’ll drop all charges, if he can’t pay for the hospital, send me the bill. Now, please excuse me. I need to get to Wonderbolt H.Q. as quickly as possible.”
The police officer raised an eyebrow at this, but simply nodded to himself. “Alright Miss Doo, I know that you're going to have a very busy ahead of you. Go on ahead and report for duty. I’m going to untie mister,”
“Steady,” He interjected for the officer, “Rock Steady.”
“Mister Steady, and take him to Cloudsdale Medical Center. They'll take a look at his head and make sure he’s alright.” Ditzy nodded numbly and left the kitchen, even as the officer cut the duct tape and helped Rock Steady up. “There, can you walk on your own son?”
“I think so,” he replied. As they made their way out of the living room, Rock Steady turned back one last time at Ditzy, eyes watering as he came to grips with what he did, even if he wasn't himself. “Miss Doo, I am so sorry.”
Ditzy did not look at him as he and the officer headed out the door. Instead, she continued to look out the window and watched as a pig flew by, chasing a singing ice cream cloud cake. “It’s alright. Go to the hospital, I have business to take care of.”
The two stallions exited the front door, and as soon as it slammed shut, she looked up at the clock on the mantel and frowned deeply. “I need to hurry!”
Ditzy galloped through the house as quickly as she could to the bedroom, and grabbed a fresh Wonderbolts uniform. “I can’t believe I am almost an hour late, how did this manage to take an hour!” She kept yelling out loud as she stripped down and started to suit up in the fresh outfit. “All this random stuff going on, ponies suddenly changing personality? I have to find Discord, I have to know if he’s behind everything!”
“Really Ditzy Doo, is that how you thank me for my bountiful gift? By insulting my good name and pointing hooves at me?” Ditzy turned to the voice just as she finished pulling on the flight suit. “Who else could it be? You have to know, I have to tell the other Wonderbolts!”
Discord grinned as a piece of paper appeared out of thin air before him. “Well let’s see here, Star Swirl the bearded could have, but being dead kinda limits ponies on what they can do. Celestia could wreak chaos of this magnitude several times over, but we all know she’s too good for any fun like this.”
Ditzy looked the draconequus over, “The short list, who is doing all this?!”
Discord paused and looked Ditzy over with a smirk, “Oh it’s me.” He paused and picked up a book from the shelf to thumb through it. “I just don’t like it when I’m under accusation.”
Ditzy looked at Discord with a look of shock, “Why? Why are you doing this?”
“Frankly my little pony, I don’t know! Mostly because it’s fun! Oh but wait until you have seen my latest work!”
Everything disappeared in a flash of light, and when Ditzy looked she was somewhere else, somewhere she has never seen before. “Where are we?”
“Isn't it wonderful?” Discord asked as a bright fuchsia paper hat appeared on his head, like some sort of cheap crown. “Such a lovely chaotic gift that we have brought forth! This used to be just, boring old Ponyville but now look! The chaos capitol of the world! Oh but why settle for listening to me talk, please explore! Have fun, there’s plenty to go around! I even made you a special hat.” Discord then placed a turquoise paper hat over Ditzy’s head. “I hope you like it, it’s a special hat. Why, without you, none of this would be possible!”
Ditzy backed away from Discord as she threw the hat on the ground, only for it to become a swan and fly away. “How is any of this my fault? I never wanted this!”
Discord’s grin grew ever wider, as it wrapped around to touch behind his head. He quickly grabbed a cocktail sausage from a galloping side table and popped it in his mouth before continuing. “Oh how easily ponies forget their own dreams!” With a snap of his fingers, Discord brought forth a familiar file. “Let’s see here, AH! Here we are, Nightmare number 467, this one was truly a doozy! A world where everything is backwards from how it normally is. Kind ponies become cruel, the strong become weak. Up is down, and short is long.” Discord then snapped the file closed as it disappeared. “And everything you used to think was so important doesn’t matter anymore because everything you know is wrong!”
Ditzy stood in shock as she backed away from Discord. “No, this isn’t me, I couldn’t have done this!”
“Well, not all of it’s you. I mean, I did add a few touches of my own.” Discord said with a smirk as the sun quickly disappeared, only to be instantly replaced by a moon with an image of a face with a loupe in it’s eye. “Oh, and I made sure to handle those ponies for you, your so called ‘friends’ that showed no remorse for making you so upset.
Ditzy looked at the madness around her, and sunk as more guilt filled her like an overfilled water balloon. “Oh yes, I couldn't believe my luck when I found you. Such anger, and chaos just waiting to be released! But wait, there’s more! You knew the ponies that control the Elements of Harmony! Oh, I knew if I made my grand entrance without a good plan, Celestia would call on those goodie four shoes to do her dirty work. But thanks to a combination of your emotions, and a naturally chaotic mind when you dream, I've become unstoppable!”
Discord continued to laugh as he watched a pony run away from a rampaging building,, only for it to swallow her through the door and run away to gobble up another pony. Finally, Ditzy spoke, “Discord, this is wrong.”
“If this is wrong, then I don’t want to be right!” He said with a chuckle. “What are you going to do? You can’t stop me! I am an old god! I've seen this universe’s creation, and I’ll be here at it’s destruction. You are just a wall eyed mail mare, and that’s all you will ever be without me!”
“He’s right, I’m nothing!” Ditzy thought as she began to turn away.
“That’s right, fly away Derpy. Go back to the Wonderbolts and live the dream! Everypony in Cloudsdale thinks it’s all real, but someday, you’ll come back! I’ll be here, waiting for you to join in on the fun!”
For a moment, Ditzy froze as she heard Discord call her by that name. She turned around only to find that he was gone. After a few moments she shook her head and took off in a random direction.
“I just don't know what I am supposed to do.” Ditzy’s mind kept looping that thought again and again in her mind as she watched a tub of pudding devour a literal gravy train. “Where would I even go? Or turn to? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to my old life, can I live with the guilt of this new one if I just sit back and do nothing?”
She continued to wander around the remains of, what was until recently, Ponyville. As she looked into the distance, she noticed that farther away, things became slightly more normal. However, the illusion would be shattered whenever something strange would happen. Despite everything, all she wanted to do was continue walking, somewhere, anywhere that would let her pause and make sense of things.
That’s when she spotted the Library, a shining beacon of normalcy in the randomness around her. “Maybe that’s what I need, advice from Twilight. She would know what to do.”
As she got closer she noticed something was off. The lights were out, and curtains drawn as if nopony were home. She came up to the front door, and lightly tapped on it with a hoof. “Hello? Anypony home?”
No response. Ditzy waited for a few moments before trying again, harder this time. “Anypony here? I need to speak with Twilight!”
Suddenly, a series of clicks emitted from the other side of the door, and it flew open to reveal a small purple dragon. “I’m not exactly a pony you know.”
Ditzy looked down at the dragon and tried to give her best smile. “Well hey there, you must be Spike! Twilight told me all about you this morning.”
Spike looked her up and down with a frown as he leaned the mop against a wall. “I thought that she helped a mail mare this morning, not a Wonderbolt.”
She frowned in some confusion as she looked back at herself, and realized she was still in the Wonderbolts uniform. “Ugh, I’m not really a Wonderbolt, this is something that Discord did, it’s a long story. I need to talk to Twilight, is she here?”
“No, she’s in Canterlot still. I've been trying to keep this place in order all day, but every time my back is turned, a new mess appears!”
Ditzy stepped inside, and sure enough, there was a large pile of books in the middle of the floor. “Well, maybe you need some help.”
Spike gave a small smile at the offer as he went to grab his mop, only to find it had moved itself onto the growing pile in the center of the room. “ARGH! What is going on here?” Spike whined as he kicked one of the books. “All I want to do is finish this job and go to sleep! Is that too much to ask?” He stomped off to the far end of the room where a pair of buckets sat, when he suddenly fell over and started snoring, still clutching the mop.
“Uh, Spike?” Ditzy stood puzzled for a few moments, but there was no response. “Umm, okay, I’m just gonna browse around a bit okay?”
The sleeping dragon simply snored in reply as he clutched his mop tighter, making Ditzy’s muzzle scrunch in disgust as he began snapping at the little fibers. “Right, there has to be something in here about Discord.”
It was hard to tell how much time had passed with the sun and moon constantly taking over the sky, but judging from how often she was yawning, Ditzy figured that it must be at least nine o'clock, if not later at night. After discarding the Wonderbolts uniform, she tidied up the giant pile of books. While she did, Ditzy had found a few books that seemed worth looking into, only to find they were all dead ends. Worse still, she was beginning to feel hungry.
“Great, I've still got five more books to look through, and now my stomach wants food.” She slammed the copy of, A History of Obscure Leaders, Dictators, and Old Gods From The Pre-Celestial Era, shut. “Well, I can’t eat anything here,” she continued aloud. “And I wouldn’t dare eat anything from town. Who knows what Discord’s been doing to it.” At first, Ditzy decided to just ignore the hunger and press on, only for her stomach to protest loudly. “Alright,” she grumbled to herself. “I’ll check my house.”
Ditzy picked up the book, and went to put it in her bag like she normally would, only to remember that she had left it at home before everything started happening. “Maybe I should grab that too.”
As she left the library, the sun burst out into the sky, unleashing a storm of bagpipes upon the insane town. “I better hurry back, who knows what can happen while I’m away!”
Not too much later, Ditzy was flying back to the library with her delivery bag full of some things from her fridge, a slightly stale muffin, and a stalk of celery. “Oh great, what happened to the library?”
Ditzy made her descent under a nearby tree, and noticed that a giant hole was where the front door used to be, and ponies were piling out of it. Then suddenly, a rather angry shout filled the air. “LOOKOUT! HERE COMES TOM!”
The whole tree shook as Twilight threw the boulder out an upper floor window, attracting Ditzy’s attention. “What is going on here?” She flew up to the lowest branches of the tree, finding a secluded branch where nopony could see her as she watched what was going on below.
Pinkie, Fluttershy and Applejack were standing in shock as Twilight hopped out the opening the boulder made to meet with them. Rarity walked out of the hole that used to be the front door. The next thing that Ditzy noticed, was that everypony, besides Twilight, had lost their colors, and became a dull grey.
“Well well well, I see you found the Elements of Harmony, how terrifying!” Ditzy looked around for where Discord was, only to find him standing under the very tree she was hiding in. As she watched, she couldn’t help but feel a wave of panic at how close he was to her again.
Twilight began to walk closer to him, and a look of impatience, and anger was displayed on her face. “Discord! I figured out your lame riddle, you’re in for it now!”
Discord landed on the teal ground as he inspected his claws with a melodramatic look on his face. “I certainly am, you clearly outdueled me, and now it’s time to meet my fate!”
Ditzy’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as she watched the scene. “Something’s not right here,” she thought to herself.
A pair of red framed sunglasses appeared in Discord’s lion’s paw and he placed it over his eyes as he continued to monologue. “I’m ready to be defeated now ladies! Fire when ready!” As he spoke, Discord waved his tallon over his body and a red and white target appeared in his center.
“This can’t be right, it looks too easy.” Ditzy watched as Twilight called for formation, and the four other ponies lined up behind her.
“Rainbow Dash! Get over here!”
Ditzy watched as Spike ran to the rest of the group, and slapped her forehead with a hoof. “This is wrong.”
“Maybe it will work,” another part of her mind suggested.
“Maybe, but… Odds are not in their favor.”
Ditzy watched as the five mares began to rise, and a humming sound filled the air. “Oh my, it’s working! This will all be over, and I can just pretend I never had anything to do with this day! Wait, why isn’t Spike’s working?”
True enough, the Element of Loyalty hadn’t activated at all, leaving ‘the new Rainbow Dash’ earthbound. Spike was left watching in awe as the five mares began to cast off a heavenly glow. It only lasted a few seconds before the light flickered out, and all five ponies fell to the earth.
Twilight quickly got up and looked around her, nothing had changed since she attempted to activate the elements. “What’s going on?”
“Mine’s workin’.” Applejack commented. “There must be somethin’ wrong with yours.” She pointed at Twilight as she said this, making her frown with anger.
Fluttershy took her necklace off and shook it slightly as she flew closer to Pinkie Pie. “I hate the Elements of Harmony!” Pinkie yelled.
“Humph, garbage!” Fluttershy said as she threw hers away.
Rarity then dashed up and grabbed it from the floor. “MINE!”
Ditzy watched as Spike put down the element of loyalty beside Twilight. “Sorry Twilight, I guess I better get back upstairs and clean the library.” As he ran back to the library, he turned back to look at Twilight instead of watching where he was going, and Fluttershy lowered herself right in his path. “Good luck with all this- WHOA!” Spike never finished what he was going to say as he tripped over Fluttershy’s tail.
“Whoops! Sorry Rainbow Crash!” She then stopped to snicker as Discord began walking closer to them.
“Bravo ponies, bravo!” Discord called out as he clapped his mismatched hands, making strange noises on each clap. “Harmony in Equestria is officially dead! Discord rules, Celestia drools!” He then made a sing-song laugh while tapping Twilight’s muzzle with the tip of his scaley eagle’s claw, making Twilight growl with anger as he skated down the soap road, still giving off his sing-song laughter.
Pinkie Pie looked straight at the tree Ditzy was hiding in with a look of anger. “It’s your fault it didn’t work!”
Twilight then leaned towards Pinkie as she addressed her. “Who are you talking to?”
“Any of you! All of you! I’m out of here!” Pinkie exploded before she began to pronk off.
“I’d better go too,” Applejack suddenly shouted as she trotted off. “I’ve got new, better friends waiting for me at the farm!” As she left, Rarity began pushing her boulder away.
“Yeah, I’m sick of you losers!” Fluttershy commented as she flew off.
Twilight stood alone on the checkerboard ground as she waved a hoof after the ponies that left her. “FINE! See what I care! I don’t need you guys either! With friends like you, who needs… enemies.” The last word came out soft, almost in a whisper. She hung her head in sadness, and suddenly was changed into a monochromatic scheme as she let a single tear fall.
Ditzy sat on the tree branch in silence, unsure of what to do as Twilight began to walk away. “She helped you once. Now it’s your turn!”
“But, what about earlier today? Don’t you still feel hurt because of it?”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t matter any more. Now move Ditzellia! Before you lose sight of her!” With both sides of her mind quieted, Ditzy flew down from the tree, and ran to catch up with Twilight. “Hey, Twilight, are you alright? Smooth move, of course she doesn't!”
Twilight did not even look up to answer as she kept walking in a straight line. “Hi Ditzy. I’m…” She paused, as if she wasn't sure how to respond to the question. After a few moments, Twilight gave up and went back to staring at the ground.
“Wait, please listen to me Sparkle.” Ditzy ran ahead of her, and walked backwards to try to make Twilight look at her. “You gotta try again, I mean, what would Princess Celestia think if she just saw you give up like this?”
“The Princess?” Twilight’s face light up for a moment, and a tinge of color returned for a brief flicker. Then faded away as Twilight turned to walk away in a different direction. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all over.”
“Well what are you going to do now huh? You can’t just give up! All of Equestria depends on you!”
Twilight turned around for a short moment, and looked Ditzy in the eyes and gave a sad smile. “Well, it looks like you found your voice. If you don’t need me anymore, then I guess nopony needs me.”
She turned back and continued walking at this point, and Ditzy flew ahead to stop her. “Wait, what do you mean nopony needs you? Everypony is counting on you right now! The entire world could fall to this chaos!”
“SO LET IT FALL!” Twilight reared up and breathed heavily for a few moments before she continued to yell. “Do you think I wanted this?! Do you think I wanted the world to depend on me?! I’m just a pony, not some sort of end all be all weapon for Equestria!” As she yelled, tears began to stream down her face, and traces of color began to show through. But the color faded all too quickly as a neutral frown overtook Twilight Sparkle’s features. “Now leave me alone. There’s nothing that you, or I can do about it anymore.”
Ditzy looked around her as Twilight walked off, and watched as a hailstorm of jawbreakers began to fall over the floating town hall, and a flash flood of coffee poured out of Java Bean’s shop. She opened her bag, and tucked away inside, was her delivery pony hat.. “She’s wrong, there’s one thing that I can do.”
She pulled out a pen and paper, and quickly scrawled a note, and sealed it in an envelope. She placed a royal seal upon the envelope, then put the letter back in the bag. She then put on her hat as she took off into the sky, as she flew above Ponyville, she saw ponies running helplessly beneath her in the chaos. Guilt, and anger clashed within her soul as she flew north and east of Ponyville. “Through storm and snow, darkness and light, sky and sea, nothing shall stop the Equestrian mail. As a courier, I will make a swift completion of this delivery. Even if it’s my final round.”
Even with her ears laying as flat as she could get them, the wind roared as Ditzy continued to fly further away from what used to be Ponyville, leaving the blue blur of her wonderbolts uniform behind her. As she flew closer to her destination, Ditzy replayed her lose plan in her mind over and over again.
“Okay, all I have to do is get to Celestia, she knows Twilight best, and would have some way to save her! If she can save her, maybe there’s hope for all of Equestria! Maybe if I break my contract, Discord will undo this, or maybe it won’t be as bad!” As far as plans go, Ditzy had a feeling of doubt growing in the pit of her stomach, yet pushed her wings to force her to fly faster than she ever moved in her life.
“I have to try! The least that I can do is let Celestia know what happened! Maybe she can save them? Maybe there’s hope?”
“There is no hope, just give up.”
“NO! I have to tell the Princess!”
Ditzy was beginning to tire, after hours of nonstop flight her wings felt as if they were about to fall off. Normally, every pegasus knows that in a situation like this, they should rest, or at least grab a cloud to stay afloat if they really needed to keep moving. Ditzy’s eyes scanned around her, but there were no clouds to be found. “I must keep moving, I must!”
She kept flying, through the random storms and past the floating obstacles she moved toward Canterlot. “There it is! Just another mile or so, and I’m in!” She gained a second wind, and pushed her wings with all her might.
An image of Discord’s head appeared before her, with a wide grin on it’s face. “Greetings Ditzy, this is a prerecorded message.” The image coughed and licked the roof of his mouth a few times as it floated ahead of Ditzy. “I knew that you would try to breach our deal at some point, so I set a reminder for you. Should you continue on the course you are on, then you will be in violation of the contract. However, turn around now, and I can guarantee that I’ll act like I pretended this never happened.”
Ditzy growled at the image and swiped a hoof at it, only for it to bob and weave away. “Very well, do what you want, I don’t care anyway. But I warn you, once you enter Canterlot, everything goes back to how it was before.” The head then disappeared in a puff of marmalade that quickly fell up towards the dancing moon.
“I’m counting on it,” Ditzy mumbled to herself as she pressed onwards. She was just a few more feet away from the walls of the city, when suddenly she felt a strange sensation run through her body. “What was that? It felt like I just flew through an electric field!”
She landed beside the soap road just outside of Canterlot, and the feeling intensified. Ditzy laid down as a wave of nausea hit her so hard, that she thought she was going to be sick. When she looked up, everything had been doubled, her eyes were back to the way they were before Discord had come to her.
She looked around herself, and covered her left eye to focus. “That’s it! I broke the contract, everything should turn back to normal now, right?”
Nothing changed. The roads were still soap, the sky was still sending down a barrage of random items, and the moon and sun kept fighting for dominance in the sky. “But, I broke the contract! I thought that if I did this, it would all be over!”
“You know, you really are as dense as you look.” Ditzy turned around and saw Discord leaning against the face of a cliff. “You broke your end of the bargain, I broke mine. It’s really as simple as that.”
“Discord! Change everything back!”
“Why should I? I’m having the time of my life! I have a thousand years of pent of chaos to get out, so why not try it all at once?” Discord’s grin got wider as he watched a flock of chickens attack somepony wearing a green hat. “Keep at it! You’ll get ‘em eventually!”
“Are you talking to that colt, or the chickens?” Ditzy then shook her head and narrowed her eyes at him as she realized what she was doing. “Hey wait! Why should I care?”
Discord simply shrugged in reply before he made an avalanche of lampshades fall down the mountain. “I don’t know anymore, I just really like my voice. Blah. Bleughudy eh me-haw.
Ditzy just stood there in shock, as tears began to fall down her face. “But, but I broke the contract. That should have ended this.”
Discord’s grin got wider as he patted Ditzy on her back. “Don’t feel so bad, you couldn't have known.” He then clapped his mismatched hands and rubbed them together. “Well, I would love to stay, but I have some ponies to gloat over! Enjoy the sights of Canterlot, it was nice working with you!” He then did a pirouette and disappeared.
“DISCORD! COME BACK HERE AND FIX EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW!” She yelled with all her might, expelling every last bit of air from her lungs before breaking down and crying. She cried for a few minutes, and still no sign of Discord whatsoever.
Finally, after almost five minutes, and seven movements between the sun and moon, Ditzy stood up and looked around her. Nothing had changed, and there was no sign of Discord to be found. She smiled as she looked in her delivery bag, and found the note that she had written earlier, still exactly as she left it. “I can’t believe it worked. He actually believed me. How stupid does he think I am anyway? Wait, better test to make sure he really isn’t listening to me any more.”
She cleared her throat a few times before yelling off into the distance, “DISCORD IS A SLIMY DIP THAT CAN’T SEE THE OBVIOUS THINGS IN FRONT OF HIM!” She paused for a few seconds as she thought it out before adding, “I BET HE CAN’T EVEN SEE WHY FOALS LOVE CINNAMON TOAST CEREAL!”
She waited, a few seconds, then a minute, then several more and still nothing happened. Ditzy smiled as she opened her wings and flew up over the wall into the city, confident that she was finally out from under Discord’s watchful eye.
The city of Canterlot, unlike Ponyville, seemed totally abandoned, and mostly untouched. Other than the occasional chocolate milk spewing cotton candy cloud, bad paint jobs, candy growing out of the ground like flowers, and maybe a few statues of Discord in rude gestures, it seemed practically normal.
She flew over the multicolored buildings with her bad eye closed, getting closer and closer to the castle. “I see the castle, but where’s the gate?”
As Ditzy continued to fly around the castle’s wall, she was getting more, and more frustrated as each minute passed. “You know what, Tatarus with this, I’ll just fly over the wall.” As she lifted herself up, she reached a hoof forward, planning to use it to help pull her forward over the wall. Suddenly, it smacked into an invisible barrier, one that hurt. “OW! Sweet Celestia that HURT!”
She stared at the invisible barrier for a few more moments before flying off in hopes of finding the main gate again. After a few moments, she finally landed on the road and began walking the perimeter. “Ditzy Doo, fearless hero mail mare of Ponyville. Watch in awe as she walks circles around a wall,” she mumbled sarcastically.
“Easy, keep an eye on it.”
Ditzy raised her ears to the source of the sound. “Could have sworn I heard somepony.”
“Easy… EASY! Look out, it’s on the move again!” Around the corner of the castle’s walls, a group of guards flew and galloped after the gate as it slid down the wall like a portable hole. “Somepony stop that gate!”
Ditzy watched in awe as the opening slid along the wall, past her, then continued down and around one of the defensive turrets. As she watched it continue down the curving wall, she started following it without thinking, and then heard hooves skidding against the cobblestone pavement. “LOOK OUT!”
Somepony slammed into her side, knocking Ditzy head over hoof several times before they skidded to a stop. Ditzy rubbed her head with a hoof as the guard that slammed into her checked himself over, then offered a hoof to help her up. “Are you alright citizen? Do you need medical attention?”
Ditzy rubbed the back of her head as she stood up, and watched the rest of the guards chase after the gate. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little dizzy is all." The guard nodded and began to take off, but Ditzy held a hoof out to stop him. "Wait, I need your help!”
“Everypony needs help right now ma’am, but me and my platoon were told to guard that castle gate, and it’s been moving along the wall all day.”
The guard began to fly off to catch up with his troop, but Ditzy flew after him. “But I need to get into the castle!” Ditzy exclaimed as she pulled the letter out of her bag. “I must let the princess know what is happening back in Ponyville with her student and her friends!”
The guard stopped and looked back at Ditzy holding the letter in between her fore hooves as a frown crossed his face. “The element bearers are in trouble?”
Ditzy nodded as she placed the letter back in the bag. “That is correct, something has gone wrong and I have vital information for her! Please, you have got to let me in!”
The guard turned and watched as the gate began to come closer again, and the other guards were still following it. He finally gave a gesture for Ditzy to follow and flew towards the other guards. “Sir, this pony needs to see the princess immediately sir!”
One of the guards looked at him, then Ditzy for a few moments before coming to a halt. “Private! We were ordered by Captain Aquilinus to guard this gate, and that’s just what we are going to do!”
“And what a fine job you four bunglers are doing.” Everypony in the group turned and saw the captain of the guard, had somehow snuck up to them without anypony noticing. “First Lieutenant Shining Armor, I gave you one task, one simple task. How can you manage to mess this up?”
The unicorn guard took his helmet off and held it under his arm as he scratched his head. “We are trying captain, but it keeps sliding away!”
The captain looked at the gate as it sat perfectly still, exactly where it’s supposed to be. “I see… Well, you four continue to stand guard. If it moves again, just have somepony stand inside the gate to keep it still.” He then turned to Ditzy and gave as kind of a smile as he could manage. “Sorry about all that, you said you have a message for the princess miss…?”
“Ditzellia Doo,” she replied as she pulled the letter back out. “I’m from the Equestrian National Postal Service in Ponyville. And yes, I have an important message regarding her student Twilight Sparkle, and the rest of the element bearers.”
He looked the letter over a few times before passing it back to Ditzy. “Well Ditzellia, I can take you to Celestia, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.” He lead the way into the gateway, and Ditzy followed him. “Now stallions! I want you to guard this gate, stay within the archway, and let me know if somepony else needs help.”
Three of the four guards saluted as they stood in a row in the gate’s entrance. The unicorn in the group however galloped after the pair as they began walking away from the gate. "Sir, permission to leave my post sir."
The captain stopped to look at Shining Armor for a few moments before frowning deeply at him. "Permission denied. We need you here in Canterlot."
Shining Armor began to chase after him as Aquilinus and Ditzy continued through the gate. "But sir! My sister is one of the element bearers. Please, what if she needs help?"
Aquilinus kept walking as Ditzy followed. "I'm sorry son, but if she's in any sort of danger, I'm afraid that it's beyond anything you could do. Now do like I said, we need you on hoof in case things get worse here to help lead the platoon. Do you understand First Lieutenant?"
Shining Armor looked as if he was going to protest before closing his eyes and nodding. "Yes sir, I understand." He then saluted and stood with the rest of the guards.
Aquilinus nodded and continued on. As soon as Ditzy and Aquilinus got through to the other side, they heard a yell of surprise and turned around to see the gate moving again, taking the guards with it for a joy ride.
The captain shook his head as he continued on, and Ditzy followed him into the castle. “Do you mind if I call you Ditzy for short?”
She shook her head as they walked into the grand entryway. “No, I don’t mind.”
The guard nodded as he continued to lead the way. “I assume you wanted to speak with Princess Celestia?”
“Well, she would know more about Twilight and her friends than Princess Luna, right?”
The guard simply nodded as he lead the way down a hall. “You might have to deal with Luna instead. I hope you will understand.”
“What’s with all this dramatic tension? Is something wrong with Princess Celestia?”
The guard stopped outside the double doors to the throne room, and a repetitive beat seemed to seep out into the hallway. “I think it’s best that you just see this for yourself.” He then threw the doors open, and Ditzy’s jaw dropped at what she saw.
The usually calm and reserved Princess Celestia was standing in the middle of the throne room on her hind legs, dancing under a giant disco ball. Her usually flowing mane was done up in a perfect spherical ‘fro.
Princess Luna however, was trying desperately to get her attention in any way that she could. “Sister! This is most unbecoming of thee! Halt thine boogie fever!”
Celestia ignored Luna, and pushed her away in the face as she kept shaking her tail back and forth. As she did, she was singing her own lyrics along with the song. “I can dance, I can jive, having the time of my life! See this mare! Watch this scene, diggin' the dancing queen!”
Ditzy continued to watch as Celestia danced to the music. She felt as though she should shield her eyes, and yet was entranced with how she swayed with the hypnotic beat. "It's like a train wreck, I want to look away, but I just can't..."
Aquilinus quickly shook his head and moved his hooves back and forth to silently silence Ditzy, when Luna began marching over to them. "What hast thou just spoken about our sister?!"
Ditzy stood still as she started to tried to come up with anything other than the truth, as Aquilinus slammed a hoof into his helmet. "I, er, that is to say, that I said..."
"We are not hard of hearing! We herd what thou hast spake!" Princess Luna shouted back, "What do you think gives thee the right to speak ill of our sister! In my time, we would hast hung thee to have fruit thrown at from a cage!"
Ditzy shook her head and tried to clear her ears from the deafening blast of Princess Luna's voice for a few moments. "I'm sorry your majesty, I couldn't hear anything past that you are not hard of hearing!" She stumbled for a few moments as she tried to get her breath back from shouting to hear herself, then pulled the envelope out of her delivery bag. "I have news about Twilight Sparkle and her friends for Princess Celestia!"
Princess Luna leaned back from Ditzy and the envelope, she took it in her magic and turned it over a few times and saw that it had a proper seal for an emergency delivery to the castle before nodding and opening it up. "Let us see here, all six defeated, under Discord's spell, Ponyville in ruin, Discord claims victory?! GUARDS!" Aquilinus stepped forward, along with a few others from various divisions, and ranks. "We need volunteers to help in Ponyville while we try to find another way to defeat Discord without the elements of harmony, or try to recover them. Gather anypony you can, even civilians if you must!"
Celestia continued to sing with the music, grabbing a guard as her dance partner and pulling him into a Manehatten Hustle. "Oh come on Lulu! Join in on the fun!"
"Sister, now is not the time for," she stopped, and looked around her at the guards, the few ministers and advisers that stayed at their posts, and finally at Ditzy Doo. Luna sighed deeply as she straightened her crown and walked away. "Guardians, keep an eye on our sister. She can dance if she want's to."
A guard stepped forward and saluted before addressing his question. "You'll leave Celestia behind?"
"We are afraid so. For we don't dance, and she's in a trance."
"Well you're no friend of mine!" Celestia piped in before she continued singing with a new song.
A guard threw a hoof to his face, as did a few others before the rest of the room followed suit, making the slap echo across the room over the loud music. "Princess Luna," Aquilinus said as he lowered his hoof, "I can't believe that you walked into that one."
Luna looked as confused as ever before continuing to leave the room. "Walked into what? Ponies these days, we just don't understand them." She muttered a few things under her breath about the youth of today before noticing Ditzy was still watching Celestia dance. "YOU! Mail mare! News is slow coming in from outside these walls. Walk with us to our library, so you may tell us everything that thou knowest."
Ditzy tilted her head at Luna's archaic speech before Captain Aquilinus tapped her in the side. "Follow her and tell her everything you know."
"Oh!" Ditzy exclaimed as she followed Luna out of the throne room. "Why didn't you say so?"
"We believe that we had."
The princess lead the way into the hall, followed by Ditzy Doo and finally trailed by Captain Aquilinus, still shouting orders to a few of his guards. "You, I want you to gather the night guards, I don't care if they are still rookies, get those bat ponies to straighten up and fly right. You! Get a hold of Sergeant Skyfall and have him gather his platoon for Ponyville. I want those troops there yesterday! MOVE!"
The guards following him saluted before running off, leaving Luna and Ditzy able to talk. "So tell us, how did thou come across with such vital information."
"It's a very long story Princess."
Luna turned down another hall before ascending a staircase. "We are short of time, please give us a very brief description of everything you know."
"Well, I was having a bad day, but after work, Discord came forward to me with a deal saying he would fix my life if I promised to stay out of Canterlot. Next thing I knew, my eyes were normal, and I was a member of the Wonderbolts living in Cloudsdale. But Discord did something to shatter my illusion, he went too far when he cast a spell on a pony that was helping me out."
"He cast a capitulation spell on somepony near you?" Luna asked as she lead the ponies behind a tapestry. "That is one of his oldest tricks, and most common. As you may have noticed, our sister has fallen prey to his capitulation."
"If by capitulation spell you mean changed who he was entirely, then you would be right," Ditzy said as she followed the twisting secret passage. "Anyhow, he seemed to go back to normal when I struck him hard enough."
They exited the passageway through a bookshelf, they looked around and discovered a very cluttered library with no windows or other visible doors. "If that's the case, then there may be hope yet for Twilight Sparkle and her friends. However, unless you can manage to strike all six ponies at the same time, it may prove to be hopeless." As she spoke, several scrolls and books flew to Luna's side and she began checking them. "Discord's magic is unlike anything anypony can cast, he may have been careless with the pony in your case, but with the elements, or our sister..." She trailed off as she read a scroll for a few moments before casting it aside. "We doubt that he would not have contingencies in place."
As Luna continued to search the shelves, Ditzy and Aquilinus began looking through the shelves as well in hopes of being able to help at all. "Come on Captain, help me find something about Discord or capture, er, capitu, whatever that spell is called spells."
The captain grunted in response before he went to another shelf to dig through the massive archives. Luna continued to mutter under her breath as she would read, and toss aside information that lead nowhere, leaving Ditzy Doo to search on her own. After several moments of searching, she came across several bound books with different dates written on them. Curious, Ditzy picked one up and saw it was filled with old newspapers. "Princess, what is this place, and why are there old newspapers here?"
"This is the castle's private archive. Few ponies know about it, but within we try to have a comprehensive history of our country's most important spells, weapons, and events so that we may use them later if need be. Some of it seems useless to most, but may be of use in the future. Some are forbidden to most ponies now, but may be free knowledge some day."
"Oh," Ditzy replied before she placed the book back on the shelf. She started to leave for another set of shelves, when she noticed a book with a familiar year on it. "That's the year I fell out of Cloudsdale, when Rainbow Dash caused that accident."
She looked around the bookshelves to the center clearing of the room, and saw Aquilinus passing a few scrolls to Luna, only for her to slap them away. "No! These war plans would not be useful against Discord! Now please, keep trying to find some sort of a counterspell."
Ditzy turned back to the bound tome, fully within curiosity's grip, she opened the cover and began searching. "Something as grand as a sonic rainboom by a filly should be covered by the papers. I need closure, I have to know for sure if she is the reason I wound up the way I am today."
After going through several months worth of newspapers, there was still no mention yet of the rainboom. Finally, a headline caught her eye, with an image of Cloudsdale's weather factory on fire. "I don't remember this happening." She pulled the paper out of it's holder, unfolded it. and began to read.
Cloudsdale's weather factory disaster!
Today, the jewel of the Equestrian Weather Corperation, Cloudsdale's weather factory suffered a terrible disaster. During a company wide strike, that has been ongoing for this past week, a group of young pegasus stallions broke into the part of the factory where Rainbows are chemically made for special events, and decided to create some of their own.
The three ponies, not named or shown to protect their identities, had mixed two very volatile chemicals resulting in a small fire. Shortly after several failed attempts to put out the fire on their own, these young ponies left the spreading fire, saving their own lives. However, the unchecked fire spread, causing an explosion that could be seen and felt for hundreds of leagues around Cloudsdale, costing millions of bits in damage, and injuries.
"It was like nothing I had ever seen before," eye witness Thunderstrike said on the incident. "It was like the sky was alight with an explosion of color. Nopony could have seen this accident coming."
Ditzy quickly folded the paper and placed it back into the book, and began to desperately search through the rest of the papers. When she found one from a week later, she discovered a picture of Rainbow Dash. A very old one, but one none the less as the second half of the front page.
Could this filly really have been the first one to break the color barrier? Experts try to debunk this filly's tall tale.
She pulled the paper out, and read what it had to say, and followed through to another page to finish reading, as she did another article caught her attention.
Heir to the house of Doo still in Canterlot ER.
Ditzellia Doo, daughter of Baroness Esmerelda, and Baron Von Doo, and heir to the Doo fortune is still in an unconscious state. Experts claim that she may never recover, even as Von Doo empties his banks in a bid to keep his daughter alive.
As mentioned previously, Ditzellia was one of the few ponies that was caught by the blast wave of the explosion at the Cloudsdale Weather Factory last week. She was discovered by a passing stallion on the road below the Cloudsdale Summer Flight Camp several hours after the fires had already been put out.
It is unknown at this time if she will ever awake, and if she does how deep the damage extends to. Ditzellia Doo, is of course the heir to the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation, owned by Baron Von Doo. Both Esmerelda and Baron Von Doo spoke about to the Los Pegasus Times about the status of their daughter, quote, "Even if we exhaust every bit we have, we will do whatever it takes for our little girl to recover."
She dropped the paper, and hastily threw it back into the book as a flood of memories came back to her, causing her eyes to pool with tears. "Father, he was a strong stallion. I remember what happened when I woke up. Before the accident, we lived in Cloudsdale, very near the factory. When I woke up though, the house was gone, and we moved from one cheep hotel to the next. I remember that he lost the factory, but he never told me why. He worked so hard to keep us happy."
Everything suddenly clicked into place for her, and Ditzy felt both her sense of sadness for figuring out a missing piece of her life, and the unbridled joy of realizing the solution to the current problem. "That's it. That's it! Princess Luna! Quick! Look into the effects of strong emotional ties on ponies with that spell on them!"
Luna and Aquilinus dropped what they were doing as Luna scrambled for a set of scrolls on a shelf. After looking at, and tossing several of them away, she finally came across something that seemed hopeful. "Yes! Here it is, Capitulation spells, even the strongest one can be broken fully, ONLY by the caster undoing the spell, a counter spell, blow to the head, or very strong personal memories! There are measures that a caster may use against all methods of breaking a capitulation spell, except for emotional responses to personal memories! Ditzellia you are a genius!"
Ditzy smiled as she followed Luna out through the same passage behind the bookshelf. Soon enough, the three of them were flying through the hallways behind Princess Luna. "First, we must break our sister of Discord's spell, then we can use her connections with the element bearers to undo this curse upon them!"
"Huzzah! Chocks away!" Ditzy and Luna then looked at Captain Aquilinus in confusion. "No? I can't use ye oldie caps lock?"
Luna raised an eyebrow before continuing on down the halls. "Thou art not refined enough for the Traditional Canterlot Tongue."
"I would like to think I'm plenty refined for that."
"Silence, we are here." Luna quickly threw open the door to Celestia's bedroom and began searching everywhere. "We must find something that looks personal that would strike an emotional response." Ditzy and the Captain started looking on a shelf and grabbing some small items and framed pictures, while Luna slid open a drawer, only to slam it shut again and turn bright red. "Not that personal," she mumbled before looking elsewhere in the room.
Soon between the three of them, there was a small pile of things, ranging from letters to jewelry. There was a small collection of things that only somepony that lives as long as the princesses could manage to find value in, such as a simple yo-yo, or a rusty sword and shield. Luna quickly levitated the items and made for the exit. "Make haste my ponies, we must break the spell over our sister, so she may help us do the same for the element bearers!"
Aquilinus nodded and galloped out the door after her, and Ditzy began to do the same, when she noticed a great double door cabinet, hidden in the corner of the room. "What's so special that Princess Celestia would lock it inside there?" She silently made her way to the cabinet, and pulled open the doors, only to find it filled with scrolls. "These look important, maybe I shouldn't touch them. But then again-"
"Mail Mare! Where art thou? Hurry back, we must not delay!"
"Coming!" Ditzy looked back at the scrolls for a few seconds, then grabbed one and found that the seal was broken. She unrolled the paper and began to silently read it. "Dear Princess Celestia, I am writing to you from the most delightful party. I'm not only having a great time with my friends, but also was given the opportunity to learn a valuable lesson about friendship. Always expect the best from your friends and never assume the worst. Rest assured that a good friend always has your best interests at heart. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle. This is one of Twilight's letters to Celestia!" Without a second thought, Ditzy rolled the letter back up, and went running after the princess, and guard.
The journey from Celestia's room to the throne room was a very short, and direct path, and soon the repetitive thrum of disco music filled their ears. "We hope that there is still time, and that our sister has not done anything foolish since our leave." They stopped before the doors, and Luna signaled for the other two to halt. "Be on your guard my little ponies, for our sister, may become rash after we begin our work."
Ditzy and Aquilinus nodded, he then threw open the doors and they galloped in only to find that Celestia was no longer alone on the dance floor. "Do the hustle! Boop do doop ba do ba doo boop! Do the hustle!" Everypony that was left to look after Celestia, had decided to join her on the dance floor, and were all dancing with her, as she sang along to the lyrics.
"Alright, we have had enough. This party is OVER!" The full force of the Royal Canterlot Voice shook the room, causing the needle to skip off the record.
The combined groan of everypony resounded through the room as they cleared the center of the throne room, leaving a distraught looking Celestia. "But, we just were having some fun."
"Sister, I am sorry, but you are not yourself."
"Do you know how long it's been since I had any fun?" As she spoke, her mane, which had been a dull streak of flowing monochromatic hues, suddenly caught ablaze. "I SHALL DESTROY YOU!" Celestia suddenly screeched like some sort of primordial monster before thrusting herself at Luna. "Give me back my music!"
"Everypony, RUN!" Luna quickly tossed the objects aside as she tried to cast a shield to block Celestia's attack. Celestia was fast, but sloppy as she threw herself over Luna, and rather than cast spells, simply jabbed at her with her flaming hooves, or attempted to drive her horn into Luna.
The room was quickly cleared out of almost everypony. Other than Luna and Celestia themselves, only Aquilinus and Ditzy Doo themselves stayed behind, taking various stances to prepare to fight if they had to.
Luna cast a spell, and quickly threw Celestia back against the far wall of the room, shattering one of the stained glass windows and letting in the chocolate rain. "You will regret that little sister, nopony throws the dancing queen!"
"You are not a queen! Article 2 clearly states, no queens allowed!"
Celestia quickly got up and lowered her horn to charge. "You forgot about sub article b two, Queens of Dance and or Drag are permitted!"
The three ponies looked at Celestia with confusion, and as they were shrugging their wings, Celestia charged. Luna and Aquilinus saw it coming and dodged. Ditzy however, soon found just how hard Princess Celestia could ram into her, sending her, and the scroll flying into the air. "I start with you little pegasus. You shall learn what I do with ponies that side with my traitorous sister."
"This is it, the end of the line for me," Ditzy thought as the flaming Celestia pressed down on her. Just as her vision began to fade, she suddenly felt the pressure disappear, as Luna and Aquilinus both threw Celestia off of Ditzy.
"You would have to go through us if you wish to harm this delivery pegasus!" Luna yelled as Celestia slid across the floor. As Ditzy got up, she noticed something, the flames that were radiating off of Celestia began to lick the letter on the floor next to her.
Ditzy got up as quickly as she could, but was too late, the letter was fully engulfed in flame. "Well that's one thing burnt away, what else do we have that could jar her memory?"
Aquilinus looked at the pile of random things behind them, as Celestia began to make her way closer. That's when Ditzy noticed something. "That smoke curl, it looks like whenever we send something out with dragon's fire." Sure enough, the smoke curl had a distinct green sparkle of magic around it, and flew quickly out the open window. "The flames must be connected to Spike still." She suddenly got an idea. "Princess Luna, get Celestia into her bedroom."
"Why would you wish to bring her there delivery pony? There is no room to protect ourselves if she should attack!"
"Trust me, bring her, all of us there, now!"
Luna raised an eyebrow at the demand, and looked at Princess Celestia as she charged the three of them once again. Quickly, Luna did as she was bade, and cast the teleportation spell, sending all four of them into Celestia's chambers.
When Ditzy's vision cleared from the flash, Celestia was still running toward them. Quickly, the three ponies ducked away from the charging princess as she screeched once again, and ran headfirst into the open cabinet full of letters Twilight had sent to her. The effect was instantaneous, as the letters burnt, sending out the mist of letters out the open door as fast as they could go. "WHAT IS THIS?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
Ditzy grinned wide as Princess Celestia began to break down, finally realizing what she had done. "It's a special delivery."
Celestia's flames began to die down, and her normal colors returned as she scrambled out of the cabinet, and tried to put out the burning scrolls before they disappeared entirely. "Somepony, help me put them out!"
Luna stepped forward, but Ditzy held a hoof out and shook her head. "Let them burn, I think somepony else could use them better."
Spike had finally got the library as neat and orderly as he possibly could, short of getting a construction crew to fill in the two new holes that the Library had acquired. As he finally went upstairs to relax, a familiar feeling of nausea suddenly struck him as he belched out a letter. "Oh, is Celestia asking for a progress report?" He reached forward to check, when suddenly the nausea struck him again as he belched out another letter, then another, then several more.
Spike quickly fell doubled over in pain as the nausea grew stronger and he continued to belch letters out. Spike barely registered what was going on around him as Twilight came into the bedroom. "Pack your things Spike we're leaving." He responded simply by groaning as he tried not to belch out the next letter. "And don't ask where we're going cause, I don't know yet. Just not here."
Spike groaned as he turned over and tried to explain to Twilight what was going on. "Can't, move! The Princess, has been sending these, since I came back upstairs!" He then belched out another letter and felt that he reached the breaking point. "Make it stop!"
Twilight quickly picked one up and looked it over. "These are all the letters I've written to the Princess since I've lived in Ponyville. But, why would she send them back?"
Spike groaned in response before belching out another letter, and she began to read them out loud. As she continued to read the letters, hope started to creep its way back into Twilight's heart. As hope found it's way back to her, so did her normal colors, and an understanding of how to save her friends to defeat Discord!
"So that last thing that you knew of, Twilight and her friends fell victim to Discord's spell?"
Ditzy Doo nodded at Princess Celestia as Princess Luna passed another box of tissues to her sister. "That's right. When I found out that your letter from Twilight returned to sender when burnt, we had you lead back here to see if that would help."
All three of the mares looked out the window at the deep purple sky as it continued to rain candy upon the castle at this. "I only hope that Twilight actually managed to receive the letters, or that your plan actually worked."
Aquilinus trotted back into the room and gave a sharp salute to the princesses. "Your majesties, I just received a report that the troops are at the border of Ponyville, and are ready to evacuate citizens if needed. What are your orders?"
Celestia thought about it for a few moments, not sure how to respond when suddenly a wave of bright white light radiated from Ponyville, destroying the chaos and leaving harmony in its wake, as if Discord had never existed. Celestia smiled softly as she raised a hoof. "Tell the troops to make sure they have chariots ready to transport Discord's statue back to Canterlot, along with the element bearers."
The celebration lasted all throughout the week in Canterlot. But one for one pony, all she wanted to do was hide away. Ditzy Doo was offered a private room in Canterlot Castle, she tried to turn it down, wishing to just return to Ponyville and her usual job at the post office. "Ditzellia, I'm afraid to say that I want you here, and your job is not available to go back to. There are a few matters of business we must attend to."
"But Princess, If it's all the same to you, I just want to leave this all behind me. I don't ever wish to think about that day ever again."
Ditzy turned in the unwanted room and looked out the window as the celebrations continued on in the streets. "I'm sorry to have to say it, but you are going to have to remember that day. The ministry of the justice has ordered that you be put on trial."
"Trial? For what?"
Celestia sighed as she hung her head low to the ground before summoning the court orders. "The high court of Canterlot demands that Ditzellia Esmerelda Doo, also known to some as Derpy Hooves, to respond to the following crimes. Associating with a known enemy of Equestria is only the top of their list."
Ditzy twitched slightly as she continued to look out the window. "So I'm a prisoner here?"
Celestia stepped forward and gave a comforting smile before wrapping her wing around Ditzy. "Have faith my loyal subject. The High Court of Canterlot is headed by Luna and myself, along with the minister of justice. Everything will turn out alright. I'm sure of it."
Ditzy continued to look down at the city with a frown, she sighed heavily as Celestia turned away. "I wish that I never let my emotions get to me that day."
"Is that what you think started it all? Your emotions? Or was there something more?"
"Almost everypony in Ponyville calls me Derpy," she started before turning around to look Celestia in the face. "Because of my eyes. I never wanted to suffer that accident, nopony knows what I had been through growing up and they throw that name around not knowing how much it hurts me."
Celestia lie down on the floor and looked Ditzy in the eyes. "Do you really think that everypony is trying to hurt you?"
Ditzy folded her wings before looking down as best as she could. "No, I think that they just don't know."
"Then ignore it." Celestia said with a smile. "If I let everypony's insults get to me, I probably wouldn't be the pony I am today. You have to learn not to let it get to you, and that words are just that. You can either go through your entire life correcting everypony, or you can learn to accept it, and just not let it hurt you any more."
Ditzy looked down as she contemplated her words. "Alright, I'll try."
On the final day of the week, there was a big final celebration, where the bearers of the elements came back to the city to see the reveal of a stained glass window in honor of their defeat of Discord. Ditzy was there of course, and was quickly swept away from the festive mood, and for the moment had forgotten about the upcoming trial.
As soon as it was all over however, reality came crashing back as a page gave her a piece of paper, reading as follows.
Miss Ditzellia Esmerelda Doo, Your presence is requested in the throne room at precisely three o'clock this afternoon to review your involvement in the latest attempt against Equestria by Discord. A guard will escort you to the throne room to make sure that you are on time. Please do not attempt to leave the castle grounds. Sincerely, Hard Time. Minister of Justice.
Ditzy frowned as she looked up at the clock and discovered that there was only an hour left until her trial, and instantly felt her stomach tie up into a bundle of nerves. "Great, only an hour of freedom left. Maybe I should just leave anyway, I'm sure that it's not that hard to hide from the most powerful ponies in the world that can raise the sun and moon at will." She looked down the hall to the exit as the other ponies left, passing a pair of guards holding spears. "Or not."
For the final hour before the trial, Ditzy sat on a bench in the garden behind the castle. T cranberry muffin sitting next to her remained untouched as she watched different ponies laughing as they enjoyed the last of the festive feelings still lingering in the air. "What's wrong Ditzellia?" Ditzy looked to her right to find Captain Aquilinus looking at her in confusion. "You should be happy you know, everything is back to normal."
She sighed as she went back to staring at the blossoms of the nearby cherry tree. "I am happy about that. But, I guess it's hard to enjoy a peaceful moment like this when it might be your last taste of freedom."
"Don't be so pessimistic." The captain sat down next to her and took his helmet off, giving her as genuine a smile as he could. "All you have to do is tell them the truth, it will work out, you'll see."
"Can you guarantee that?" Ditzy looked at him with tears in her misaligned eyes. "Can you tell me right now that I won't spend my life in prison? Or that I won't be banished from Equestria?"
Aquilinus looked at her, he started to say something before he turned away. "You know that I can't."
The two ponies sat akwardly on the bench, looking at the same cherry tree, raining it's blossoms down into a small patch of grass. "You know," Ditzy suddenly said, "My eyes haven't been aligned since I flew into Canterlot last week." Aquilinus looked at her and raised an eyebrow at this. "This is the longest that I couldn't see properly."
The guard gave her a small smile before looking back at the tree. "It's funny, I never really noticed that you were wall eyed. Not unless you pointed it out."
Ditzy sniffled back her tears, and gave him a small smile before standing up. "I suppose that you aren't really here just to make me feel better."
Aquilinus stood up as well, and put his helmet on before pulling out a piece of paper. "According to this paper, I'm here to collect you for court." He then crumpled it up and tossed it aside. "Well I collected you, but I think that they can wait long enough for you to enjoy your muffin."
Ditzy turned back to the bench, and stared at the muffin for a few seconds before finally picking it up. "I wonder how good it is."
"It's from the royal kitchen. So, good enough for the princesses."
Ditzy looked the muffin over for a while longer before taking a small bite. Her pupils opened wide as a smile grew wider across her face. "I think I found heaven, and it's in a muffin."
There was a general murmur of ponies talking back and forth as the doors opened, letting in a lone grey mare and the captain of the guard. As she walked in, she kept her eyes closed and her head held high, walking a straight path to the accused box at the base of the throne's dais.
Atop the dais, instead of a single throne, was a table, behind which sat two thrones, one for each princess. But wedged between them was a third, much smaller chair for the minister of the justice. The three mares talked to each other for a few moments before Princess Celestia tapped her hoof on the table. "Attention everypony, I call this session of High Court to session."
A hush fell over the crowd as the minister of the justice stood up from her chair and placed a pair of glasses over the end of her muzzle. "Ditzellia Esmerelda Doo, formerly known as the barroness and heir to the Von Doo fortune, alias Derpy Hooves. You stand here accused of making deals with a known enemy of Equestria, known by the name of Discord. You are also formally being accused of impersonating a Wonderbolt, and of committing banking fraud while you were doing so. Do you deny these charges?"
Ditzy looked at the three ponies sitting up at the table and frowned deeply before giving her answer. "No, I do not deny these charges."
The court room roared with ponies talking back and forth about her brazen response. Shocked that she would admit to such crimes at all. Luna banged her hoof against the table to get everyponies attention calling for silence. Once calm order had returned, Princess Luna stood up to address her. "These are very serious crimes to admit to, art thou sure that thee wishes to continue with that statement?"
Ditzy looked around her, and saw all the glares that the ponies in the room gave her, and began to feel doubt creep into her. She then looked back at the three mares above her and realized something. "This is a kangaroo court, they have already decided what to do with me." She then nodded and looked straight at the floor. "Yes your majesty. I do wish to continue with the previous statement that I am guilty."
Again the buzzing of whispers filled the room, as it did, the three mares whispered and talked to each other quietly. Finally, after several minutes of talking, the minister of the justice slammed her hoof against the table. "Silence please! Ditzellia Esmerelda Doo, please rise and look at us while we talk." Ditzy did as she was asked as the minister carried on. "It is my belief as the minister of the justice, that because of your admission to the crimes you have committed, the court shall agree with me that you should be banished from Equestria, with no possibility to return. Living the rest of your days marked as a traitor and wanderer, without the aid of any country."
Princess Luna then stood up from her seat as the minister sat back down. "As the princess of the night, many things fall upon our shoulders. When Princess Celestia had fallen under Discord's spell, there seemed to be no hope, or solution that we could think of. When this mare standing before us came, and seemed to have all the answers, we should have been more skeptical than we were. However, without her, this country would still be under the control of Discord as he spread his influence across the globe. Therefore, I vote that despite her crimes, banishment should not be implemented."
Everypony then turned to Princess Celestia, only she could make a final decision on Ditzy's fate. "It is my opinion, that without Ditzellia's efforts, the world could have fallen into ruin." Everypony stood with baited breath as they waited in anticipation for Celestia to decide which way to go. She frowned before she picked up a glass of water and took a drink before continuing. "However, from what we were able to gather, this pony is partially responsible for how bad things got out of hoof with Discord. Therefore, since you have already admitted your guilt, I call forth a half hour recess so we, the judges can deliberate."
Celestia slammed her hoof against the table, and Hard Time and Luna stood to follow her out a back door of the throne room. As they left, everypony started talking so much that the room buzzed like it was filled with angry bees.
For Ditzy, the half hour flew by way too quickly. She made several trips to the restroom only to stare at herself in the mirror, then leave and stand in the hallway. That half hour was sucked up so quickly, that she felt dizzy with how quick she found herself back in front of the three mares judging upon her.
Ditzy stood as upright and proud as she could as she looked the three of them in their eyes as best as her eyes would allow. Finally after a few moments, Celestia tapped her hoof. "This court is in session. We, the tribunal of the high court, have made our decision. Minister Hard Time."
The minister of the justice stood up and looked down at Ditzy with a harsh look. "Ditzellia Esmerelda Doo, with the evidence given to this court, and your admission, this court sentences you to banishment from Equestria, and to wander the world all your natural days."
Ditzy Doo simply hung her head, and nodded. "I accept this punishment your honor."
"However," Princess Celestia interrupted. Because of your acts of valor, and being a key part in the saving of Equestria, it is my honor as the Princess of the Sun, to give you a full pardon, with all charges dropped and all promised debts payed in full by my own private funds."
A collective gasp echoed across the room, and Hard Time gave Celestia a particularly dirty look before folding her forelegs together. Princess Luna now stood up to address Ditzy. "It is our belief, as an eye witness to some of the events, that thou should have been honored as a hero, just as much as Twilight and her friends were earlier today. However, you have already been rewarded for your actions with a pardon from our sister. Therefore, it is our personal gift to you, as Princess of the Moon, to declare you, the Royal Delivery Pony representing our sister, and ourselves. As such, you shall receive a pay rise from our coffers, a special uniform, and a small room in Canterlot, free of cost."
Ditzy stood in shock at this news before Luna leaned forward to continue. "You will be responsible for delivery of mail between Ponyville, and this castle. Doth thou need anything else to be able to complete this task?"
She thought about it for a few moments before looking up and pointing at her own eyes. "Your highness, I am extremely grateful for this opportunity that you have given me, and I accept the job. All I really wish for, is that I could see straight."
Luna and Celestia both frowned at the statement. This time Celestia took control to speak. "I'm sorry Ditzellia, but not even our magic can solve the neurological damage that you have suffered as a youth." Ditzy began to frown again as the hope was sapped away. "However, we might have an idea that could be of some help. This court is adjourned!" Celestia then tapped her hoof on the table and everypony cleared the room.
Ditzy headed out the door to her guest room, and felt as if a huge weight had been taken off of her. "This is it, the beginning of a new life for me!" She almost felt like singing she was so elated, not just to be pardoned, but to also receive a pay raise, and a new job title!
As she opened the door to her room, she found Celestia and Luna already within. "Miss Doo, would you be a dear and fetch me those lovely goggles you got in Cloudsdale?"
Spike and Twilight collapsed onto the nearest comfortable seats they could find as soon as they entered the library. "Wow, that train took forever! Why couldn't we have had one of the guards fly us back in a chariot?"
"Spike, for the last time, it's not their job to take us everywhere like some sort of taxi!" Twilight then sighed as she unstrapped her saddle bags off of her back. "I'm just glad that it's all over."
Spike nodded as he looked around the library from his seat. "Yeah, me too. This whole week has been crazy. I'm just glad that the elements of harmony fixed the holes in this place."
"I'm surprised that it did to be honest, but then again, if it did that, who knows what else they may have accidentally undone."
Spike shrugged in reply, then spotted the checkout desk and remembered something. "Oh! Twilight, I almost forgot, well I did forget, for a whole week, but now I remembered!"
"What's that all about? What is it that you just remembered?"
Spike quickly hopped out of his seat and climbed up the desk and grabbed the vase full of bits. "While you were away in Canterlot, somepony came over here and checked out a book. He left a huge tip in this vase!" He shook it a few times, just to let the coins jingle loudly in Twilight's ears.
Twilight quickly took it out of Spike's claws and began to investigate. "Hmm, there must be a few hundred bits in here. Maybe we could expand our library a bit, update some of our history books, or expand our foals section!"
"Hey wait, that pony said that it was for me!"
"Spike, it's for the library, and as head librarian here, it's my job to spend them as I see fit." She then started to dump the bits on the couch so she could count them. After several seconds she stopped and looked back at Spike. "Uhh, Spike, how closely did you look at these coins?"
Spike scratched his head as he got closer. "I didn't really have the chance to. Why?"
"Well either these coins are very old, or very fake. Every single one of them has a picture of Discord on them!" Twilight held one up. Sure enough the golden coin, rather than having the image of Princess Celestia on one side, and the Equestrian Coat of Arms on the other, had a picture of Discord's face on one side, and a picture of cotton candy on the other.
Twilight continued to turn the coin over, finally she bit into it, only to tear through the gold foil and into the chocolate in the middle. "They're chocolate coins! These are all candy!"
Spike looked in horror as grabbed a few more, only to easilly tear the foil off the chocolate. Distraught he fell to his knees, and screamed to the heavens. "NNNNNOOOOOOOOO!"
Ditzy Doo opened the door to her cottage outside of Ponyville and sighed as she took off her goggles. As she did her eyes went back to what she has accepted as normal for her. She took off her new delivery bag and placed it on a hook with her old one and finally made her way across the living room to her couch.
She sat down and placed her forelegs behind her head, and smiled. After a while she turned and looked at herself in the mirror across the room. "Look at you Ditzy, a hero. Who would have believed that I would have ever been claimed as such?"
"I would have," a familiar voice echoed out in the dark. "Why do you think I tried to distract you so much?"
Ditzy quickly stood up and grabbed her goggles so she could see straight. "Discord, show yourself. I'm not going to fall for your tricks again!"
Ditzy waited for several minutes before a very small picture of Discord appeared in the mirror. It looked like a stained glass picture, and moved in very jerky motions. "My tricks? Pah, I'm still in stone back at Canterlot. What could I possibly do to you."
"I thought you were defeated," Ditzy said with a frown. "How could you even talk to me?"
"You think that because those ponies encased me in stone that you were rid of me forever?" Discord said with a slight chuckle. "You can never truly get rid of Discord, chaos is just a part of nature. Just remember this my little pony, any time that there is panic in the streets, I'm there. If there are two ponies or more arguing about something, be it great or small, I'll be there. Any time a monster attacks the city, I'm there." Discord then narrowed his eye at Ditzy Doo and smiled even wider. "And mark my words, Derpy. Some day, I will be let out again, and on that day, I will reign chaos across the land once again!"
Ditzy looked down at the small image of Discord and gave her own sadistic smile. "And if I ever see you in Ponyville again, you had best be prepared. You think that you can hurt me by calling me Derpy? It's just a name. It doesn't even hurt me any more. But if I hear that you are roaming free again, free to hurt ponies because you think it's fun, I will be first in line to buck you in the face before I do everything in my power to stop you!" She then grabbed the mirror and took it off the wall before throwing it outside in the trash.
Ditzy then looked around her cottage and smiled once again. "Everything back to normal." She then grabbed her blanket and lay down on the couch, finally able to rest in her own home. Now a wiser pony than she was a week ago.
