Derpy was sad.

And because she was sad, she sat on her little gray rain cloud in her little corner of the Everfree Forest and watched all the other clouds go by. She hiccuped every now and then, maybe sniffled some here and there—but she wasn’t crying. Not really. The cool weather ponies didn’t cry. Water just fell from their eyes sometimes.

Of course, a whole bunch of the cool weather ponies were meanies and jerkheads, times eleven thousand, so maybe it was okay to cry anyway. She took a bit of her rain cloud and used it to wipe the tears off her face. It was hard work, since rain clouds were awful at drying things, but it made her feel a little better. At least rain clouds never called her bad names, or yelled at her, or made fun of her for accidentally instigating localized weather anomalies...

They did shock her sometimes, but that probably wasn’t their fault.

“And it’s not my fault either,” Derpy muttered to herself. Because it wasn’t! It wasn’t her fault that her eyes couldn’t focus right, or that she wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box. Flying got pretty hard when she couldn’t see where she was supposed to be flying, and it was kind of hard already because it was flying. Three-dimensional motion in the air wasn’t nearly as easy as navigating two-dimensional spaces on the ground.

She wished the cooler weather ponies could’ve remembered that more often. Their eyes were fine, and they couldn’t even aim their cloudballs right half the time. Maybe if they thought about how hard it must be for her, with her googly eyes, they’d stop teasing her so much… And maybe they’d also stop throwing so many cloudballs, since they seemed to hit her on accident so often.

She wrung all the extra water out of her cloud-piece and wiped her eyes with it again. It was a tiny bit better this time. At least she wasn’t getting any wetter. Maybe after a few more times she could think about getting drier too.  

“Heya, Derps,” said a voice all of a sudden. “Mind if I join you?”

Derpy turned right to the source of the noise and couldn’t see anything except cloudy sky. Then she turned a bit further right, angling her head until Rainbow Dash came into focus. “Hey Rainbow Dash!” she said, putting on her biggest smile. Rainbow Dash was the coolest and least jerkiest pony on the weather team, so it was fine to talk with her. “Sure, you can join me!”

Rainbow Dash grabbed a fluffy white cloud from off to the side and flew it over right beside hers. “So…” said Rainbow Dash. “Really sorry to hear about what happened with the guys. Would’ve stopped ‘em if I hadn’t been busy with… important… weather captain… things.”

“It’s okay,” said Derpy. She understood. Rainbow Dash did have a lot of important jobs to do as Ponyville’s weather captain. She had to keep the skies clear of clouds and make sure everypony was in the right place and keep Derpy’s mistakes from causing too much trouble. How else would she have the energy to do all that without taking so many naps?  

“Well, if you say so,” said Rainbow Dash. She whistled for a few moments. “I mean, I, uh, sorta kinda talked to the guys a little bit about not giving you such a hard time, but y’know they don’t really mean all that, right? They don’t really hate you or anything. It’s all just harmless fun.”

“I dunno...” said Derpy. Some of the pranks the other cool weather ponies played on her didn’t seem very harmless. Or all that fun. Or really like pranks at all.

“Besides the flying tractor, I mean,” said Rainbow Dash. “And the exploding muffin. And the frogstorm. And...” she stopped. “Wow, that’s kind of a lot, isn’t it? Ten, eleventeen, twelvety...” She counted up a few numbers. “Well, there’s probably something that was kind of harmless and fun.”

“There—there was the one time they told me to put a rainstorm over that Ponyville Parade…” Derpy offered. She could feel her eyes watering up again. When Dash put everything together like that, it really did seem like kind of a lot.

“Oh, man, they got you with that one?” said Dash, grinning. “That’s classic!”

“I got in a lot of trouble with the Mayor afterward,” Derpy sniffled.

“...cal music! Classical music. Which I hate.” Rainbow Dash coughed. “I’m trying to say that was pretty scummy of them.”

“I g-guess it was.” Derpy sniffled, sneezing a few times into her soggy wet cloud-piece before she threw it away for good. She didn’t think she could like the cooler weather ponies any less than she already did, but somehow she was starting to. In fact, she was starting to like them less enough that maybe she was even starting to hate them. She knew she shouldn’t hate anypony, but after the frogstorm it was almost hard not to.

Not to mention the flying tractor. And the exploding muffin. And all the twelvety other things they’d done to her.

“So…” said Dash. “I can’t stop the guys from being the guys, but maybe, I dunno, there’s something I could do to help make up for that? Get you a cake from Sugarcube Corner? Day off from weather duty? Anything?”

Derpy didn’t say anything. She knew Rainbow Dash was just trying to make her feel better, but it was hard to cheer up when the cool weather ponies were all so mean all the time.

“We could even, um… Well, if you really want to, we could hang out, I guess?”

Derpy looked up at her. “R-really?” Rainbow Dash had never offered to hang out with her before. They were friends, she thought. Or close to that. She’d known Rainbow Dash for a really long time, and she was always nice when they talked, but they’d never really hung out before. Not like Dash did with her other friends... or the other cool weather ponies. “Y-you mean it?”

“Sure,” said Dash, puffing her chest up. “I’ve got a pretty busy and intense schedule, but I could cut you in after weather duty sometime later this week if you want. We could do whatever. Not really a big deal.” She made a cloudball out of her fluffy white cloud and threw it at one of the passing-by storm clouds. “Whaddaya say?”

“Yes!” said Derpy, and for the first time since she ran away from weather duty, she smiled. “We could throw frisbees in the park and fly around and stuff!”

“The park?” said Rainbow Dash, frowning. “But that’s where Thunderlane plays hoofball after—” She made a face, like Derpy’s whenever she ate steamed broccoli. “I dunno if I can do the park with you,” she said. “I’ve got, uh, allergies.” She sneezed. “Anything else?”

“Oh,” said Derpy, a little disappointed. She’d really wanted to have somepony to throw frisbees with, but it was okay if Dash couldn’t. “What about coloring? I just got a new crayon box with purple mountain majesty, so we could do one of my coloring books together!”

“Gee, Derpy, I dunno,” said Dash. “I don’t really think I should let Purple Mountain Majesty know I do crayon coloring. She’s kind of a huge gossip.” She coughed again. “And if any of that got out, the guys would... Y’know..."

“Oh,” said Derpy, a lot disappointed. She’d only meant her favorite crayon color and not the pony, but she could sort of understand that Dash didn’t want anyone else to know about coloring with her. The cool weather ponies didn’t color with crayons. They all used colored pencils.

It probably wouldn’t be fair of her to make Dash uncool too...

“So, I mean, if we could do it inside, alone, maybe in a cave a couple dozen miles from Ponyville, that’d be great,” Dash grinned. “You game for that? It could be like our thing! Derpy and Dash: Secret Cave Coloring… Spectrum... Guerilla Artists. Or something. I can work on the title.”

“I guess so…” said Derpy, trying to swallow the lump growing in her throat. “I guess we could do that.”

“Great,” said Dash, nodding. “Great, that’s perfect. Does Thursday work for you?”

“I guess…”

“Awesome.”

Rainbow Dash didn’t say anything more for a couple minutes after that, so they sat quietly together, just watching all the other clouds go by. At least, they did until they heard a soft trumpet sound from all the way back in Ponyville: the closing call for weather duty.

“All right,” said Dash. She sat up and stretched her wings out. “I gotta go now so I can get the roll call in order. Make sure everything got done right.” She put out her hoof to help Derpy up too, but she didn’t take it. “So, yeah. You might want to get back too, whenever you’re ready, so I can count you in the roll.”

“Okay,” said Derpy, lying down and rolling over. She didn’t feel all that much like getting counted in the roll. That would mean she’d be present at the same time all the other dumb weather ponies who made fun of her were present, and if that was going to be the case, then they could just count her absent.

“Listen,” said Dash. “I know it’s not easy for you to do weather duty, and I know the guys don’t make it any easier... but just keep at it, okay? Be the best weather pony you can be, and don’t let them get to you. If anypony’s stupid enough to keep messing with you, just tell me, and I’ll make sure they get the awful jobs.” She thumped her chest. “Us Junior Flight Camp Crashers have gotta stick together, y’know?”

“If you say so…” said Derpy, not really listening anymore. She just wanted to be left alone right now more than anything. Maybe she’d feel better about talking to Dash on Thursday, but she wasn’t even sure about that much. Coloring in a cave two miles away from Ponyville where nobody would ever see her hanging out with the coolest weather pony in town didn’t seem like much fun.

She didn’t even like caves!

“All you have to do is keep getting better,” said Dash. “You’ll show them! They won’t be laughing at you anymore once you’re flying circles ‘round them.”

“If you say so…”

“So chin up and keep working at it! You just have to keep your eyes on the prize. Ha! Haha! Ha. Haaaaa...” Dash grimaced. “That, uh… That seemed like a much better idea in my head.”

“If you say so…”

“Well then, that’s what I say!” said Dash. “I’ll just go ahead and count you present for the full shift. Come back when you feel like it, all right?” She turned and took off for Ponyville, and soon enough she was just a little blue dot in the big blue sky.

“All right...” said Derpy, five minutes too late. She buried her head in her rain cloud and sighed. It would be a long, long time before she felt like going back. Probably a whole hour, at least.

The sky around her got darker and darker as time went by, ‘til the sun itself set and she was surrounded by shades of mango tango and atomic tangerine. But even the pretty crayon colors of the sunset couldn’t make her feel any better, or any more likely to get off her cloud. Eventually the sun also passed out of view, and the sky shifted again into midnight blue.

It was getting late.

She could have gone back to her house, if she’d really wanted to. Probably nopony would even notice if she stayed out here, so she might as well have gone back and moped in her warm, comfy bed, but she was still sad enough that moving at all was an effort. Maybe in another five minutes, she would get up. Or sit up. Or at least kind of roll to the side so she could get comfy...

“Deeeeerrrpy,” a voice whispered.  

She looked around. “Rainbow Dash?” But no, there was no Rainbow Dash nearby. She looked over the edge of her cloud, checking if maybe it was something below her. No luck there, either. All she could see was the Everfree Forest, just being dark and mysterious and spooky. Nothing out of the ordinary there. “Who said that?”  

“I go by many, many names,” said the voice, soft and gentle, like it was right in her ear. “Some of them are very long and magnificent, but you, Derpy, can simply call me Nightmare.”

“Where are you, then, Nightmare?” She looked every which way, trying to get a view of whoever it was that was talking to her, but all she could see was a weird sort of shadow hanging around her cloud like a thick pea-soup fog. Shadows didn’t talk, though, so that couldn’t have been Nightmare… Could it?

“Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head about seeing me,” said Nightmare, the shadow shifting with every word it spoke. “What’s really important here is that I’d like to be… your friend.”

“My friend?” She didn’t have a lot of—any—friends. Even Rainbow Dash, she’d decided, was a kindasortamaybe friend. Only really nice to her when there wasn’t anypony else around to see it. “I dunno. I don’t think you want to be my friend...”

“Oh, but I do.” The shadow wiggled around in the air, like it was laughing. “You underestimate yourself, my dear. Why would I not want to be friends with such a smart, funny, and coordinated pony as yourself?”  

“‘Cause I’m none of those things...” said Derpy. It didn’t take a smart, funny, and coordinated pony to see that much. Not even a pony with eyes that actually worked right. “So I think you’re lying to me.”

“Come, come,” said Nightmare. “Do I seem like the sort who would lie to you?”

“Well—”

“Don’t answer that. My point is that I have seen your troubles, your sadness, your... despair. I think it’s a very dreadful situation you’re in, Derpy. And I would like to… help you. If you’d help me too, of course.”

“Help me?” she asked. “Help me how?” She gasped, thinking about all the ways a magic talking shadow could help her out. “You mean you could fix my eyes?”

“No,” said Nightmare. “But I could give you the power to revenge yourself upon all who have ever wronged you... Which would be as fulfilling.”

Derpy’s mouth gaped open wider as she thought about what that would mean. Nightmare could probably give her a lot of power—almost as much as the Mayor had, even. More! The Mayor didn’t have a magic talking shadow helping her out, after all—or, at least, Derpy didn’t think she did.  

“Imagine!” Nightmare continued, the shadow wriggling even faster. “Your enemies bound before you, groveling at your hooves. Oh, how they shall beg  for mercy and forgiveness, lest you smite them on the spot! And you, Derpy, shall stand supreme over all!”

“And, and,” said Derpy, getting more and more excited by the second, “I could throw cloudballs at them for once! And I could call them mean names too, like… Straight-Eyes!”

“Well, yes...” said Nightmare, sounding much less excited. “That too. So what do you say, Derpy? All you have to do is agree to let me… help you. In return, I shall give you all you have ever desired, and dominion over Equestria shall at last be mine—and also ours!”

“Yes!” cheered Derpy. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” Finally, she wouldn’t have to be bullied for once! No, even better than that—this time, she would be the bully, and she was going to let all the cool weather ponies know how awful it felt. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, ye—”

Before she could say another yes, the shadow drew itself up and shot straight at her. She didn’t have time to gasp or shout or scream before Nightmare fell on her like… well, a shadow. She tensed and stretched as jolts of energy ran through her body. Storm cloud shocks were nothing compared to this. Derpy could almost feel the bones cracking and popping as her legs grew longer and her wingspan grew wider. This was the power Nightmare had promised her.

And it was definitely more than the Mayor’s.

She blinked a few times as the tingling, shocky sensation died down. The world around her seemed a little bit darker, like somepony had scribbled over it with black crayon… Or like somepony had just made a deal with a magic talking shadow. She grinned, running her new forked tongue over her new pointy teeth. “Ooooh.”

Fly now, whispered Nightmare’s voice, no longer in her ear but in her head. Fly to Ponyville, and let all the ponies there know they have a new queen!

Derpy flapped her wings experimentally, testing out how strong they’d grown, then took off for Ponyville as fast as she could. The night sky blurred around her as she picked up speed, flying faster than she’d ever been allowed to fly before.

And she hardly even crashed at all.

She landed at the center of Ponyville square, looking around for some meany jerkheads she could get revenge on. The ones that weren’t in bed right now, at least, since it was already kind of late.

Now, said Nightmare. Announce your presence! Tell them who it is they must now bow before!

“Hey, Ponyville!” she shouted, screaming at the absolute top of her lungs. “Wake up! Come out now, and tell all your bullies to be afraid of getting punished by… Nightmerpy!”

Nightmare Derpy.

“Nightmare Derpy!”

All throughout town, the lights flickered on in windows, and ponies walked sleepily out of their doors. She watched the crowd carefully for signs of any of the ponies she knew from weather duty. So far, everything was going exactly as she wanted. Except for all the ponies gasping in fear and screaming in terror, but that was normal when she was around.

“Gather round, all ye lesser ponyfolk!” she continued, echoing Nightmare’s words in her head. “And gaze at the glory of Nightmerp—Nightmorp—Nightmare Derpy!”

And they did gather round. A lot of them. Almost every pony in the whole town, so far as she could tell. She grinned. That meant the bullies were all here too.  

“What do you want from us, oh g-great Nightmerpy?” asked a pony from the crowd. It was Roseluck, who’d never really been a meanie pants and had sometimes even given Derpy free flowers to eat. “We’ll do anything you a-ask. Please, don’t hurt us!”

“Y-yes!” said Caramel, who’d given her a really nice coloring book once on her birthday. “W-we live to serve your every whim! And also not die!”

“Wait? Is that Derpy?” said Silverwing, who’d once pushed her and never even said sorry, and also done a lot of other mean things. “Are we supposed to be afraid of her? C’mon, I bet she can’t even see us.” He pushed his way through the crowd and walked straight up to her. “Hey, Derpy!” he said, waving his hoof in her face. “Betcha can’t see me!”

But she could see him just fine. With a flick of her wing, she sent him flying so far that he’d probably land in next week. Hopefully by then he’d learn it was rude to make fun of other ponies for the way they look. She scanned the crowd, looking for any faces she might have recognized. “Anypony else wanna make fun of my eyes?”

Silence.

“A-all hail the great and extraordinarily merciful Nightmerpy!” shouted the Mayor, and everypony in the crowd bowed before her. “May she remember those who supported the advent of her glorious reign when it comes time to delegate leadership!”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” said Derpy, still focusing on finding more jerkheads. Bowing and ruling and stuff wasn’t important to her so much as getting revenge on more cool weather ponies. She wasn’t done with them all yet, and when she finally found one, she’d… do… something! She’d think about what, exactly, when she found one.

Excellent, Nightmare whispered. You have subjugated all those who have wronged you. Your revenge is total. Now let us move on to Canterlot, where we may—

“Thunderlane!” she shouted, finally spotting another bully. That was him all right, thinking he was so cool with his mohawk mane and his friends and his eyes that didn’t go off in weird directions. Well, she’d show him! “You liked to scare me a whole bunch with thunder, didn’t you?”

Wait… said Nightmare. 

“So how would you like some thunder up in your lane?”

What?

She closed her eyes and concentrated, drawing on all of Nightmare’s power to summon up a flock of storm clouds. There were so many that they covered up the night sky, replacing the stars with little crackles of lightning. There was gonna be thunder all right…

“Boo!” Derpy shouted, and all the storm clouds let loose at once, raining lightning down on the entire town. Half a second later, the massive boom of thunder cracked, shaking everything like an earthquake. Thunderlane jumped six feet in the air when it happened, spooked at least twice as hard as he’d ever spooked her. If not a bit more.

In fact, it looked like the entire town had been scared by her little prank. Everypony in the crowd was running away from her now, as fast as their hooves or wings could take them. That was all right, though. No bully could hide from her.

"Who’s being a little scaredy foal now?” Derpy laughed. “Bet it’s not me this time!”

She looked around to see what other bullies might’ve been caught in the storm, only to see that a bunch of houses had caught on fire when the lightning struck. Derpy frowned. She hadn’t really been going for fire… but then again, Thunderlane was probably scared by that too. Maybe he’d learn not to prank her so much if his house burned down.

Maybe.

Derpy! hissed Nightmare. Control yourself! My—our—goal is to subjugate, not destroy! It will be a hollow victory if we end up ruling over a barren and desolate land! Don’t you, uh, want to be Queen of a nice, new Equestria? Not a yucky, burned-down one?

But Derpy was having way too much fun to care about hollow victories or barren and desolate lands. She could feel Nightmare trying to take its power from her, to shut off the lightning storm she’d made over Ponyville, but she focused and tugged back twice as hard. Nightmare had promised, after all, to help her get revenge on the bullies, and it was going to keep that promise! From now on, everypony would keep their promises to her!

Derpy! I command you, at once to relinquish my power and—

“Wait until twice!” she shouted out loud. “We’ve got meanies to punish!”

“We sure do!” said a single unicorn, walking up to her. “Starting with the biggest one around.”

Derpy squinted, trying to make out who the unicorn was through all the fire and flames surrounding her. It looked a little like… “Twilight Sparkle?”

“That’s right, Derpy!” said Twilight. “And your time is up! I don’t know what sort of dark magic has possessed you, but I’ve already written to Princess Celestia. She’ll be here any minute now with the Elements of Harmony. Surrender now, or else!”

Okay, Nightmare whispered to her. Abuse my power… if you must... But strike this one down quickly! She’s been a persistent thorn in my side, and you should not allow her the opportunity to continue being so. I… I  demand vengeance of my own!

Derpy thought about that. She didn’t really know Twilight Sparkle all that well. She didn’t read books without pictures very often, and Twilight’s library didn’t have a whole lot of books with pictures in them, so they didn’t talk all that much. Still, Twilight had never really said anything rude or mean to her, even if she did use a lot of big and complicated words...

“If you won’t surrender immediately,” said Twilight Sparkle, stomping the ground, “then I’ll have to be the holding action until the Princess arrives.” She took a stance, horn glowing with razzle dazzle rose-colored light. “C’mon! Hooves up! Let’s go!”

“Nah,” said Derpy, turning away. She flapped her wings and flew off, leaving Twilight Sparkle behind. Fancy and complicated as Twilight’s words were, she had real bullies to deal with.

“Wait!” said Twilight, her voice getting quieter as Derpy flew further and further away. “We were supposed to have a big dramatic battle! You can’t just—”

But Derpy could, so she did.

Why, why, why? the Nightmare whined. It too got quieter as she flew higher, but mostly because she was ignoring it now. Why did I have to hitch my cart to the one horse who won’t obey me? I can’t even imagine where I went wrong…  

Higher and higher she flew, until at last she could see all of Ponyville. Most of it was in flames, and the rest of it was getting struck by lightning, but she could see all of what had used to be Ponyville, and that was pretty good. Some ponies were still hanging about the streets, trying to escape from her storm. She thought she might have seen a few more bullies getting scared by all the lightning and fire, but from this height she couldn’t be sure.

If it was them, though, they deserved it.

“For everyone who was ever mean to me,” she boomed, “I hope you’re thinking really hard now about how wrong that was!”

“We are!” said a familiar sort of voice. She turned and saw Rainbow Dash flying behind her, looking as sorry as Derpy had ever seen another pony. “Or, at least... I am.”

This one, Nightmare whispered in her head. Torch this one. She’s a bully too, remember? She didn’t even want to be seen with you.

“But Dash is…” For a minute, Derpy wasn’t really sure what to do. She could punish Rainbow Dash, like she’d punished all the other cool weather ponies, but… did she really deserve it? Dash had never really been mean to her. Not in the way Thunderlane and Silverwing had been. She’d even kind of helped her out sometimes with weather duty, which almost counted as being nice.

Derpy and Dash, Nightmare sang. Secret Cave Coloring Spectrum Guerilla Artists. What a catchy little name.

Derpy frowned. “What do you want?” she said, turning away from Dash. She focused on making more storm clouds, covering Ponyville with even more lightning. “Aren’t you afraid your cool friends are going to see you here with me?”

“I know, I know,” said Rainbow Dash. “And I wanted to say I’m really... sorry about that.”

“Hmph,” Derpy hmphed. “Well, you can tell me that in a cave on Thursday.”  

“Fair.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Listen, Derpy, I know I was a pretty crummy friend back there. I should’ve stuck up for you, but I didn’t. The guys… they’re jerks. I know they are, ‘cause they’ve always been jerks. They picked on us back on Junior Flight Camp, remember?” She paused. “I guess that’s what being cool does to you.”

“I guess it does!” said Derpy, throwing some more lightning at a pony who looked sort of like Prism Glider. “I bet you’d know.”

“I do,” Dash admitted. “I got better, until everyone was too busy eating my dust to make fun of me. I got cool. Too cool, even. I—I was so busy thinking about staying that way that I forgot what it was like to be a Junior Flight Camp Crasher.” She laughed bitterly. “And for what? Respect from some guys who think it’s fine to pick on other ponies?” She laughed again. “It all sounds really dumb when I say it out loud like that, so believe me: it sounds even dumber in my head. I should’ve known it’s more important to stick with another Junior Flight Camp Crasher than with a bunch of jerks.”

“R-really?” said Derpy, almost looking back.

She should have thought about that before she shunned you!

She hmphed again. “W-well, you should’ve thought about that when you said you didn’t want to be seen coloring with me!”

“I know,” said Rainbow Dash. She flew in front of Derpy, so fast that Derpy could hardly turn back away again, and held out a green-wrapped rectangle. “I guess I can’t ever make up for that, but I wanted to give you this anyway, as an apology.”

“What’s…” Derpy tilted her head, trying to figure out what the rectangle was and why Dash thought it would be a good apology. “What’s that?”

Torch her! Nightmare screamed. Punish her now! She had her chance to apologize! She does not deserve your mercy! Smite her, Derpy! I command you! Do not disobey—  

“It’s…” Dash shut her eyes tight and shouted at the top of her lungs: “It’s my limited-edition Daring Do collectible crayon coloring book, for ages four and up!” She turned to Ponyville and all the screaming ponies below. “And if any of you guys have got a problem with that, you can tell it to my face, so I’ll know to break yours!”

Derpy’s eyes opened up wide. She took the rectangle gently from Dash’s hooves and tore off the wrapping. It was, in fact, a Daring Do collectible crayon coloring book…

For ages four and up!

And, sitting on the cover was a little white card. There was only one word on it, written in purple mountain majesty crayon, but it was exactly the word she wanted to see:

“You... really mean it?” she asked.

“‘Course I do,” said Dash. “And we can work on it in the park too, if you want.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she said, tackling Dash with extra-giant hooves. She hugged Rainbow Dash as tight as she could, until she heard bones cracking. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Don’t… mention… it…” said Rainbow Dash, doing her best to hug Derpy back.

And, in that moment, Derpy hardly even noticed Nightmare escaping from her head. She hardly even cared that she was suddenly shrinking from big scary Nightmerpy into regular old Derpy. She had a real friend now that she could count on, which was better than the power she could get from a magic talking shadow any day.

She would kind of miss the lightning, though.

“Oh... Right.” Derpy loosened her hug just enough to get a good look around. The storm clouds had all vanished, and there was no more lightning or thunder raining down on Ponyville… but most of it was still on fire. That was probably a problem. A problem she’d caused. “Am I going to get punished? Will I have to rebuild the town? ‘Cause I’m really sorry about everything I did, and I’ll rebuild the town myself if that’s what it’ll take to make up for this. I promise I’ll make it even betterer than it was befo—”

“Shhh,” said Dash, putting her hoof up to Derpy’s lips. “We’re having a friend moment here.”

“Okay.” Derpy nodded, snuggling just a little closer to Rainbow Dash. It was a strange and scary thought, having a real friend who’d help stick up for her against the bullies and the bad guys, without using a whole bunch of lightning to do it. It was even stranger and scarier that she’d finally have another pony to talk and play and color with, but Derpy guessed she’d get used to that soon enough. She smiled and hugged Dash as tight as she could, excited for what things would be like, now that she was really truly friends with the coolest weather pony in Ponyville.

And, for the first time in a long time, Derpy was happy.