As you know, my name is Time Turner. Um... What should I say? Should I introduce myself? Well, I was born in Vanhoover, moved to Ponyville a year ago. Until recently I'd never thought much about Ditzy. She was always around, but nopony really spoke to her. Not that anypony disliked her, necessarily, except she did tend to cause problems when she was around. A bit of drama. Needless to say, everypony decided to leave her alone out of instinct. I think that she almost preferred it that way. She always laughed it off, but when she injured somepony or made a mule of herself in front of others it really hurt her. In the end she'd come to me for comfort. I heard a lot of stories from her. She tried not to tell me anything you wouldn't want her to, but despite everything she's only a pony, with pony needs and pony feelings.

But before that, we didn't really speak to one another until forty-six days before you and I met. I was passing the time at one of Ponyville's coffee shops, this one being a rather new location owned by a young entrepreneur named Star Buck. Shortly after I took my seat somepony tripped through the doorway, causing a small commotion when she bumped into the stallion at the back of the line. A minute later there was a bit of a ruckus at the counter, and I heard something shatter. When I turned to look I saw Ditzy Doo. Her right wing was extended over the counter, and she was surrounded by broken glass and cinnamon rolls. We were all staring at her. She stared right back with a little blush burning through the gray on her cheeks, then smiled awkwardly at the mare at the counter. “Oops,” she muttered as she folded her cumbersome wing against her side.

“Ditzy!” the little brown clerk whined. “You haven't even paid off the napkin dispenser!”

“I'll clean it up!” she offered, but the other mare waved her away as she cleaned the mess by horn. Probably didn't want to risk her getting broken glass in the coffee filters or something like that. I can't say I blame her. Anything could happen when Ditzy lent a hoof. Ditzy shrugged uneasily and wandered away, leaving the cashier alone with her scathing words.

Miraculously Ditzy managed to wind her way through the tables to her chosen seat without spilling her coffee or dropping her muffin. The thing that really surprised me, though, is that she chose to sit right across from me at my little table. “Hello” is all she said, and then she set her coffee down, gingerly rested her muffin next to it, and pulled out her stool with a noise like a hoof being dragged down a blackboard.

When I uncovered my ears and opened my eyes she was sitting on her stool, resting on one thigh with her opposite hindleg dangling off of it at an angle that couldn't have been comfortable, and she was staring at me with those big yellow eyes. The pegasus chewed thoughtfully as hers bore into mine. “Hi,” I replied warily.

Ditzy tried to ask me something, but there's only so much a pony can say with a mouth full of muffin.

“What's that?” I asked.

She let out a little snort, embarrassed. A moment and a sip of coffee later she tried again. “Your special talent is keeping track of time, right?”

I looked down at my cutie mark, the hourglass upon my flank proudly proclaiming just that. “That's not the best description, but it works. Why? What do you need to know?”

“Would you know how long it takes to get here from the westernmost point of Rambling Rock Ridge?”

She was right; if I knew the distance and the speed, I could time just about anything. “About three hours and seventeen minutes at a comfortable walk,” I said after a second's thought, “or about an hour and fourteen minutes at a trot, not including any stops.”

She nodded as she chewed a bit of muffin she'd found in her cheek and swallowed another mouthful of cappuccino. “But what if you're a big hulking robot made of stone and clay held together by the residual magical energies of a necromancer's botched ritual spell, intent on exacting revenge upon the ponies who slighted its recently-deceased creator in the most violent way a pony could imagine?”

I stared at her like she'd just told me she loved me.

Her smile faltered. “Not that there's actually a big magical stone robot intent on exacting revenge,” she said with a forced chuckle, “but if there was, how long would it take one - if they existed - to get from the ridge to Ponyville?”

I cleared my throat. “How quickly would it be moving?”

“I don't know!” she laughed. “How fast does a giant robot usually run?”

“Um... I don't know either?”

The redder her cheeks turned, the wider her smile became. “Right,” she chuckled. “Um, I know this is kind of a weird question to ask, but–” She reached toward her cappuccino, but her hoof was shaking enough to throw off her grip. The styrofoam cup bounced off of her hoof to the table. Luckily it was only half-full and didn't spill more than a drop. Unluckily her other hoof darted forward to grab it, but she only succeeded in punching it hard enough that it went sailing across the table and disappeared under a happy couple.

Ditzy sighed, and it was as if her happiness blew away with the air in her lungs. “Look.” She picked up her snack with a hoof and leaned forward to rest her chin on the other, holding the treat close enough for me to take in its scent. “Want a bite?”

I looked at that muffin for a long moment, a bit blown away by the sudden change of pace. “No thank you, Miss Doo,” I said. I'll admit I was a bit standoffish. Rude, even.

“Please,” she insisted. “I've been having a really bad day. I keep making myself look like an idiot. I just can't seem to do anything right today. I'm sorry I'm confusing you, but I'll feel better if I can make it up to you. You look hungry. At the very least I can share what I have with you. So please,” she said again. “Have a bite of my muffin.”

The smell of apple streusel was intoxicating. I'd been trying to wait until a lunch appointment I'd had that day, but I had decided on a small breakfast the morning of and was already regretting it. “I'm not really comfortable with–”

The muffin crept closer. “It's really goo-ood!” she sang. It began to bob from side to side.

Well, with her insisting and that sad expression she was wearing I supposed it'd be impolite to refuse. I leaned forward to take a dainty nibble. I didn't expect her to push it forward into my muzzle and get brown sugar all over my nose, but that's how things went with old Ditzy.

She laughed at her mistake. I crossed my eyes to look at my nose; my light brown coat seemed to sparkle under the coffee shop's soft light. “How sweet!” she said, reaching forward to brush the powder from my lip.

My tongue beat her to it. “It's a very good muffin, Miss Doo,” I said honestly.

“Want another bite?” she said, her grin returning.

“No thank you, I'm meeting a friend for lunch soon.”

“Okay!” And that was that. She settled back onto her stool and straightened her shoulders. “So, about that golem.”

“Golem, eh?” I asked. “Is this for a roleplaying game or something?”

“Sure!” she said.

Her choice of words notwithstanding, it seemed like a good enough reason. “So while an exact answer isn't really necessary, it'd be better to have a sense of realism.”

“Just make it as close to reality as you possibly can!” she insisted, holding her hooves in front of her with almost no room between them. That seemed to remind her she still had a third of a muffin left in one hoof, and in no time at all it was gone.

“Well...” It wasn't as if I'd never been asked a hypothetical question before. “How long are its legs?”

“It's exactly seventeen hands at the shoulder,” she said certainly.

I smiled at her. “In that case, factoring in its size, the length of its legs, assumed magical endurance, et cetera, let's say it'd move at about... um... fourteen miles per hour. I'd say it should take this thing between thirty and forty minutes to get here from there.”

For some reason she paled. “Oh.”

“What, doesn't that work for you?”

I heard hoofsteps behind me. “Oh, thank Celestia!” Ditzy sighed as a shadow fell over my shoulder.

“Special delivery!” a sweet voice sang. I twisted to see a mane like hot pink cotton candy bobbing toward our table. Pinkie Pie, everypony's favorite little baker, held one of the Cakes' cake boxes in her hooves. “Here you go, Derpy!”

I frowned, but I didn't say anything. She was just a filly, after all. For her part, Ditzy took the box like it was the most precious thing in the world, all smiles and gratitude.

Pinkie was looking at me, though. “Hey, Time Turner,” she said. “I didn't know you were Derpy's friend!” She leaned her cannons on the table and bent over my coffee. “So do you two go way back? Like, as far back as you and me, Derpy?”

“We just met,” Ditzy said firmly. “He doesn't know me very well.”

The way she said it, I figured there was something I was missing. I'd heard enough of Pinkie's behavior, and seen enough with my own eyes, to figure Pinkie was trying to set her up with somepony and I happened to be the stallion caught in the crossfire!

“Oh,” Pinkie said. “”Well, if you're asking him, maybe he'd be a good fit for...” She waggled her eyebrows.

“For my roleplaying group!” the pegasus said loudly. “Yes, that! Maybe! I don't know.”

“Think about it,” the pink pony said. “We could always use a hoof. I mean...” She leaned in conspiratorily. “The two of us can't do it all ourselves, right?” she said in a stage whisper.

As if the conversation wasn't awkward already. Pinkie's just a filly!

Ditzy's eyes jumped from me to the box to Pinkie when she saw me looking at her like that. “Thanks a lot, Pinkie,” she said; whether it was for the package or the awkward turn the conversation had take was up for debate. “I'd better...”

“Yeah, me too,” she agreed. At least she recognized a dismissal when she heard one. “See you next time, Derpy!”

“Ditzy,” I said.

“Ditzy!” Pinkie called back as she trotted happily away.

Der– Ditzy looked down at the box. “I don't mind, you know,” she said quietly.

“But it's mean,” I argued.

“Not when Pinkie says it,” the pegasus insisted. “She calls me that because to her, that's my name. She's not trying to...” She shook her head again. “Thirty to forty minutes?” Ditzy asked, toying with her crumb-dusted plate. She glanced at the doorway. “I think I can work with that.”

“Oh! Maybe the golem could have a fractured leg,” I said helpfully. “That'd slow it down, and make it a more interesting character to boot!”

“You like to roleplay too, huh?” she said. She seemed nervous.

“Not really,” I shrugged.

“Um... Yeah, that would be easier, but...” Her shoulders trembled as she peered about for a clock. “Say, um, you wouldn't know how long I've been here, would you?”

“I'd say...” My eyes spun slowly to my right as I mulled it over. “...just under six minutes. Why? Do you have an appointment?”

“I did, but my friend... Um, ten... six–” Her stool crashed to the floor as she burst into motion. “Horseapples!” she yelped.

“Ditzy Doo!” barked a matron at another table. “Watch your mouth. There are foals here!”

She was already through the door. She stumbled once as she clipped a wing on the doorframe; the box rattled in her jaws and its carrier squeaked and winced. “I need more time!” she pleaded to the ether; then, leaving me at my table with confusion and a latte for company, she sped off into the sky.

I didn't see her again for a while. Nopony did, until she reappeared two days later with a limp and a grin. I'd never seen somepony look so happy. Her eyes were wide and bright and sparkled like shooting stars, and her grin could have swallowed the darkness of the world whole. Despite her limp she had a spring in her step that made her bounce up and down with every fourth footfall, each time fluttering her wings a little to keep her head in the clouds just a moment longer. I caught myself grinning a goofy grin as I looked on.

Then she saw me... Her eyes before were black clouds in comparison. They gleamed like two sunrises when they found me, golden halos rising over the hills of her dimpled cheeks. She was honestly, truly happy to see me. Ecstatic, even. She showed her teeth and waved madly.“Two minutes fast, Time Turner!” she laughed as she bounced away across the park.

That, I believe, is the moment I fell for Ditzy Doo.