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Lyra's Human 2: Derpy's Human

by pjabrony

Chapter 128: 121: Efficiently Derperationalize our Strategies

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The day had not been spent on any particular activity of note. Karyn and Derpy had met up and followed their routine. The weather had not been bad, but neither one felt like a special event, and besides, Karyn’s wallet was lighter than she hoped it would be. So it was that they had hung around the apartment watching movies and videos online, chatting about pleasantries; and so it was that Karyn had brought them for dinner at the canteen attached to her school, where she still had credit and the food was cheaper.

“This takes me back to when I was living at the dorms,” Karyn said as she bit into her wrap.

“Yes, although we didn’t eat here often.”

“Well, I have to keep my back to everyone so that they don’t see you eating and the food disappearing. So it’s not the most pleasant. But that’s not your fault.”

Derpy concentrated on eating. She finished first, but that let Karyn relax and eat in peace without having to worry.

On the walk back, they were halfway home when Derpy said, “Thanks for dinner.”

“You don’t have to thank me. It’s my pleasure to have you here.”

And then Derpy let that go until they were almost home. “It’s my pleasure too.”

“Is something wrong?”

“What? No, nothing’s wrong. I’m sorry, I’m a little distracted. I should be focusing more on us.”

Karyn let them into the apartment, and Derpy was finally able to be visible again. “If you’ve had something on your mind, I haven’t noticed. So I think you’ve been very good about keeping focus.”

“Thanks.”

They settled in. Normally, they had subtle signals that indicated the end of a visit, changes in inflection when they spoke or gestures of separation, but Derpy was giving no sign that she was ready to go, so Karyn decided to push the issue.

“What are you distracted by?”

“Back to work tomorrow.”

Karyn eyed her laptop, thinking of her own impending week, but not wanting to talk when she should be listening. “Anxious to get a hold of the mailbag again?”

“Anxious, yes, but not eager.”

“I always get those two words confused. But what anxiety do you have then?”

Derpy licked her lips, as she was hoping that Karyn would ask about it. “Because tomorrow we’re not carrying mail. We do this one day a year, and everypony has to plan ahead for it and mail their letters ahead of time. Or wait until Tuesday.”

“Yeah? Why? So that they’ll appreciate it more when you do?”

“I think that’s part of it, but more than that it’s for us. Every post office does it in rotation, so it’s only local mail that isn’t delivered. But we carriers don’t get a day off. We have to go and listen to a lecture by the boss. Although, that’s the cool thing this year. Usually it’s like a district manager or such, but this year we get the postmaster general for all of Equestria!”

Karyn didn’t quite understand, but she was duly impressed. “I guess he probably doesn’t get out to small towns like Ponyville very often.”

“She. But she does speak in a lot of small towns, just not us because we’re so close to Canterlot. In theory, we could go there any time if we have some business with her, and Mr. Mintsugar probably has her ear on certain things. But the ponies on the street, we don’t get to see her often.”

“That makes a kind of sense. So close to home for her, she wouldn’t want to go there so often. Well, I certainly hope you enjoy it.”

“I think I will.” Derpy gave Karyn a look like she was trying to imply something more. “I would certainly enjoy it more if I had a good friend with me.”

“You don’t have any friends at the post office?”

“Some, but, well, you know, I like to have fun on the job and gab with all the ponies I deliver too, and everypony else is all about work, work, work. So they’re friends, but not the kind that I would hang out with. Especially when it’s a work function. I mean, it’s cool that she’s coming, but if it were up to me, she would just wave and say hi and then we’d all go eat dessert.”

“So, what you’re saying is that you’d like me there.”

“Yeah.”

Karyn gave it some long thought. She bounced her hands as if she was weighing the decision by physically balancing the options. Derpy wondered if she wouldn’t bring out a coin and decide that way. Instead, she said, “I think I might like to do that, actually.”

“Really? Great. What I figure is, I can get to bed early tonight, swing by here early in the morning, and then we’ll go and see the lecture.”

“Well, I hate to impose...”

Derpy didn’t pick up what Karyn was trying to say, so she had to be more explicit. “...but what if I stayed over at your place? I won’t be too much trouble and I’ll bring food so you don’t have to make breakfast—“

Derpy cut her off. “I would love to have you stay over! I didn’t want to ask because I know how you get about spending too much time in Equestria. And I’ll take care of breakfast.”

Karyn had slept in Derpy’s guest room once before, but it was long ago when she was ill to near delirium, and so it was only now that she could appreciate how much fun it would be to sleep over at Derpy’s. She put on her warmest flannel nightclothes and got into the bed. As she lay there, she thought of the other times that she had slept in Equestria, whether it was on the train to the beach or on the cloud in Derpy’s other house in Cloudsdale. Each of those times, she thought, was a special kind of sleep, either a nap or a travelling sleep. This would be the first time that she had actually run the routine of getting ready for bed and waking up to a morning just like anypony in Equestria would. It was the last thing she remembered for the night.

When the sun rose, Karyn felt more awake than she normally was for school, and she thought that a good thing, since she had to be at work with Derpy on the morning shift, whereas in school the earliest classes she took didn’t start until ten.

Already she could hear the shower going, and thought it funny that ponies had morning routines the same as humans. To the best of her knowledge, ponies didn’t sweat unless working hard, and even then they never stank. But they still probably got dirty, and in that case they would want to clean themselves. Toweling off all that fur, though, struck her as a difficulty.

When the water turned off, she gave a hoarse, “Morning, Derpy!” only to see her friend running out with her mane still wet and wrapped in a towel.

“Hi. I’ve already had my coffee, but there’s a cup for you there. I think we should go in about a half hour.”

That didn’t give Karyn the time that she usually wanted in the morning, but she knew the schedule was tight. She decided against any actual ablutions and just went with changeling magic to look her best. Then she thought again. “Do you think I should go as a pony? It would probably be distracting if everypony knows there’s a human there.”

“Oh, yeah. You totally have to. I mean, it’s only for postal employees, so if you’re there as yourself, everyone will know you’re not.”

“Wait, what?! I have to pretend to work for the post office?”

“Just don’t say that you don’t. Everypony will think that you’re supposed to be there, that you’re from another branch or something.” Derpy stuck her head in and grinned. “Either that or you could be invisible.”

“I’ll go as a pony.”

Derpy went back to brushing her teeth.

Karyn picked her usual pony look, something a little similar to Derpy, and with wings, but with her own coloring and hairstyle. It was a bland enough pony that no one else would ask about her, unless they were confused by her keyboard cutie mark.

They started on the way to work. Derpy was happy for the companionship to take her out of the zombie walk that usually was her commute.

“Of course, what’s bad about this,” said Derpy, “is how much more work it’s going to mean tomorrow. Everything will get backed up. It’ll probably take us the rest of the week to catch up.”

“Funny that the postmaster general, whose job it is to make sure the work goes as efficiently as possible, is going to be the cause of a major slowdown.”

“Yeah, funny. But not for us. Here we are, just next to the usual office.”

Already ponies wearing the postal uniform were milling on the grass, and Karyn realized that at least the meeting would be held outdoors. That made sense. If they had ponies who worked different routes and shifts, they probably would never fit in the office all at once. A tent had been set up for shade, but with the pitch of the hill and the early-morning angle of the sun, the shade was actually beyond the tent.

Derpy went off to greet a few of her colleagues, and Karyn realized that she was out of uniform. She hadn’t counted on that, and was still thinking of herself as an invited guest instead of an interloper. She needed a private spot, and conjectured—hoped—that nopony would be in the building itself. The doors were locked, but they were recessed into the wall, and she had to count on that being enough. She pressed herself against the wall and conjured up a blue hat and jacket.

“You there!”

Great, she thought, she was caught after all. Now she would have to lie her way out of another hairy situation.

“We’re just about ready to start. Go and join the others.”

Relieved, Karyn found Derpy and they took a spot at the back. The only thing that prevented it from looking like a gathering on Earth—other than the ponies—was their chairs. Resembling more the ergonomic attempts at back-straightening, the ponies only had angled stools for resting their flanks on. Most of them didn’t even bother to use these, and they only served to mark the places where they should stand. Karyn was more comfortable with her backside up against something.

The murmur of conversation petered out as Mr. Mintsugar, Derpy’s boss, took position at the front.

“Thank you everypony for coming out today to join us on this occasion.”

Karyn had never had an extended conversation with the head of the Ponyville post office, but she hadn’t realized what a droning voice he had. She was glad that he wasn’t making the speech; she would be asleep within five minutes.

“And now let me introduce our guest speaker, postmaster general of all of Equestria, Urgent Express.”

The clopping of hooves on the ground was more polite than excited.

Craning her neck to see the stand, Karyn finally got a look at the pony everyone else worked for. Remembering Derpy’s correction of her assumption, she knew that it was a mare, but without that, she would have been hard pressed to tell. In a world of bright colors and pretty designs, this pony was downright homely.

She was elderly, but that in and of itself meant nothing; Granny Smith was old, but she could smile through the wrinkles. Her face was misshapen, her body twisted, her ears ragged. Her wings looked like paper, and Karyn doubted if she could fly. She wanted to say as much to Derpy, but had to phrase it diplomatically.

“Looks like she’s had a rough time.”

The old pony pulled out a series of index cards and prepared to give her speech. Karyn was grateful that at least the assembly would be spared a slideshow presentation like that which accompanied every speech on Earth. That was the up side. But they also had no microphone, only the megaphone to project her voice. It didn’t matter for ponies with their directional hearing, but Karyn’s ears were only part of her disguise.

The speaker cleared her throat and began. “What motivates you to do a better job?”

Oh, thought Karyn, it was going to be one of those speeches. She had heard them at college, and heard her parents talking about hearing them at work. She knew the model, even though she hadn’t been subjected to many. Leaning down on her chair, Karyn let out a bored sigh.

“What is it?” asked Derpy.

“I’ve got nothing against motivation, but I’ve got two problems with this kind of speech. First, I think it’s a shame to waste your motivational energy on drudgery, and that makes the whole speech disingenuous. They don’t care about you being happy in your work as an end in itself, only as a means to being more productive. Second, I don’t think it works all that well. Yes, there are things that you can do to prompt you to do things you know need to be done, but a speech doesn’t bring those about. It’s not a course you can teach. It’e something inside you that you have to choose to use.”

Derpy listened to her, but then faced back to the front. “I’m going to listen anyway.”

Karyn shrugged and, with nothing better to do, followed along. She remained cynical as to the speech’s purpose, but she did notice that never once during the talk did the postmaster general mention mail, or routes, or flying, or sorting, or anything having to do with their actual job. She got an image in her head of this pony having kicked the assignment down the calendar over and over until, frantically, she had gone yesterday to the library and cribbed some nice sounding words onto the index cards.

Searching for something nice to think about it, Karyn concluded that at least she moved well from one topic to another, never staying too long on any one point. She wondered if there would be a question and answer period when it was over.

With all these thoughts in mind, she leaned over to whisper to Derpy, but to her amazement Derpy was staring forward and nodding, apparently riveted by the speech. She even saw a small notebook in her hooves, and with a pencil that she had gotten from somewhere, was taking notes.

“Is this really interesting to you?” Karyn asked.

“I’ve heard it before, but never so well.”

It didn’t make sense, and Karyn tried to listen again. To her it seemed trite. But then she reconsidered. In schools, she listened to lectures all the time; they were part of almost every day. But Derpy had never had higher education, and school for foals rarely consisted of long talks. The teachers had to work within the students’ attention spans. She tried to think of how Derpy would be perceiving this. Her co-workers all had their own assignments to take care of, so they could never spare the time to lay out a comprehensive concept, even if it was an old one.

But now, someone important was taking the time out of their day to talk to her. To Derpy. Yes, there were a hundred or so other ponies in the audience, but so was Derpy. Probably for the first time she was hearing an extended talk dedicated to helping her do her job. All of the things about mail that Karyn hoped to hear, Derpy was filling in for herself. And it occurred to her that, after all, the speech wasn’t meant for her. Maybe, she thought, this postmaster general knew what she was doing.

The speech finally wound down, but there was no question session. Derpy clapped her hooves more enthusiatically than the other ponies, but they had all thought it a good speech.

In among the noise of the speaker leaving the podium, Mr. Mintsugar taking the place back as emcee, and the shuffling of hooves and wings as everypony relaxed came the first murmurs of conversation. The ponies talked as people will do during a meeting when they think there is a lull and no one is listening, in low tones, not projecting enough to shout over the speaker on their own, but as a collective making a lot of interference.

Karyn and Derpy joined this trend, and Mr. Mintsugar didn’t have the patience to wait it out with stern looks to bring the meeting back to order.

“So what happens now?” asked Karyn.

“Well, normally when it’s just us here, we take care of general housekeeping, welcoming new employees or giving thanks to anypony who’s left or retired. But we had one of these a couple of months ago, so there shouldn’t be too much of that.”

“You did? I thought this was the first.”

Derpy pulled her eyes away from the front of the gathering to face Karyn head on. “We have them often, but they’re shorter and staggered in among work. They’re not big affairs like this, which is why I never thought to bring you.”

That made sense to Karyn, but before she could respond again, she heard the megaphone say, “...py Hooves!” and it sounded like it was not the first time that it was said. She looked up to see Mr. Mintsugar scanning the crowd, and other ponies, closer to them, said, “Derpy! Derpy Hooves, he’s calling you!”

“What?!” Derpy said. “What for? What did I do?”

“Go on up, Derpy!”

Still slightly panicked, Derpy got up from her seat. One other unusual thing about a meeting of pegasi occurred to Karyn, which was that it was unncessary to have aisles to get seating, since anyone could just fly to where they needed to be. In this case it was Derpy going up near the megaphone. The other ponies were listening now, and Karyn was grateful for it, since she wanted to hear too.

“Derpy Hooves,” said the supervisor, “for all you long years of faithful service, and for a perfect attendance record, we at the Equestrian Postal Service would like to present you with this plaque.”

Derpy seemed still shocked by having been called up there in the first place, and that led her to think before she spoke. “But my dentist says I shouldn’t have plaque!”

Everypony had a good laugh at that, but it was quickly cut off as they saw how it embarrassed Derpy. The crowd grew silent, but then somepony clapped their hooves, and then someone else, and soon Derpy was definitively the recipient of a Slow Clap.

She returned to her seat, and the meeting continued. Other awards were being given out, but Derpy was too focused on hers. Karyn waited until everypony else had congratulated her so as to not be noticed, then got closer.

“You deserve that.”

“I—maybe I do, but I still never thought I would actually get it.”

Karyn had another laugh at that. Then they looked over the plaque. It was wood base with some sort of ebony on top, with Derpy’s name and everything that Mr. Mintsugar had said carved into it. The grooves for the letters had then been painted in gold. “Where do you think you’ll put it? At home or at work?”

“At home, definitely. I wouldn’t want to be showing off at work. But, as nice as it is, I wish that they had just given me a day off tomorrow.”

Karyn looked at the plaque one more time. “Hey, is there something on the back?”

Derpy turned it over. There, taped to the wood was a small folded paper. Taking it off and reading it, she said, “Hey, it’s a voucher for fifty bits extra pay this week! Not bad!”

“Well, that’s almost like a day off. You could take one off and just spend that instead.”

“But then I wouldn’t have perfect attendance!”

The meeting came to an ending soon after, and it was still earlier than Derpy would usually get out of work. She waved goodbye to everypony and accepted a few more congratulations, then trotted off with Karyn, who was glad to use her magic to go back human.

“That was very sweet. I doubt I’ll ever get to work for a place that does things like that.”

“You don’t know. There might be a place where you get to do that but still work in IT and not have to hustle carrying mail.”

“Could be. But not if I don’t get back home and hit the books.”

Derpy took the hint and put Karyn on her back. Once home, with time started up again, Derpy gave her a hug.

“See you next week, then?”

“Yes. Though, I have something particular in mind that I’d like you to accompany me on.”

Derpy cocked her head to invite more information.

“There’s a movie I want you to see.”

“Oh, that’ll be great! We haven’t gone out to the theater in forever. In fact, I think that was the first time I went out among humans.”

“But,” Karyn said, “this one might be a little weird.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, for one, you’re in it. Kind of. It’s hard to explain. But next week I’ll figure out how to tell you.”

Author's Notes:

You're all going to watch Rainbow Rocks next week when it comes on the ex-Hub, right? Or view it online, right? Because it's going to be helpful for next week. That's going to be a very...different kind of chapter. Not what you're used to, but if you don't like it, it's only one week.

Next Chapter: F04: The Balcony is Derped Estimated time remaining: 10 Hours, 9 Minutes
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