With a wrinkle to her nose and a squint to her eye, Derpy attacked her bookshelf.

She’d already finished her other chores on the higher-up parts of the room, and she couldn’t mop the floor until she’d taken care of every other task that might rain a little more dust onto the hardwood surface. So, the last target: built-in shelving that stretched along one entire wall, up to the chair rail.

She whisked her feather duster over the dark-stained surfaces and evicted families of dust bunnies who’d gathered in warrens wherever they found a small gap or corner to congregate. Out with them! They could fend for themselves in the wild.

Her efforts also erased the little telltale streaks and tracks, the gray-striped evidence of which books she’d slid out and later replaced. Down at the left end, where she kept books she’d long since finished, fewer of them had made their mark through time’s blanket. Some reference books, a few anthologies where she’d gotten a taste for a particular short story on a quiet afternoon, her old textbook from her final year of weather school, her first cookbook of muffin recipes—its cover admonishing her to get a parent’s help before using the oven, no less—and a green folio where she kept pressings of interesting flowers she found on her mail route. On the shelf beneath, an entire row of biographies sat undisturbed, since their last tidying-up, at least.

Ever since her childhood, history had fascinated Derpy. The events themselves, the ponies who made it, the places, the artifacts… but living in the past had never suited her well, not for her own life. Not her early school days, where her eyes obviously made her defective and unworthy to interact with the other children. Most of them anyway—she’d met Carrot Top back then, and the two remained as inseparable as ever.

Still, always moving forward. She didn’t have any more troubles than the next pony, but she’d carried them around like a lead weight, new lumped on old. Jeez, why would she continue to feel guilty about something inconsequential like that window she’d broken seventeen years ago? And every other little infraction she’d ever committed, tallied up in her head, even though they’d long since faded away from everypony else’s memories.

She huffed out a breath and disturbed a few more particles of dust. No, she needed to look ahead at what was to come. Tomorrow night, she had her regular card game with Raindrops, Fluttershy, and Thunderlane. For next week, Twilight had organized a luncheon at Sugarcube Corner for all the civil servants getting promoted. Wow, ten years on the job already! Derpy paused a moment to look around at the family photos on the walls, the sturdy ceiling beams overhead, the small vegetable garden visible out the back window. It had all turned out pretty well. Still, ten years! Where did the time go?

With pursed lips, she turned back to her task and swept the exposed edges of the shelves free. Top level first, all the way down, then she stretched her neck to the middle shelf and ran the other direction. Crouched to the floor now, she made one last trip, until she got to the end.

There, in the corner, with the thickest coat piled against it… She left it. For now, she left it. Every year, the same thing—she’d promise herself that this time, this time, she’d finally deal with that book. And then she’d find some excuse to put it off. Other things to do, no time, no time for this. For another year, it would sit. So, this year. She’d get to it. Just not now.

From across the room, Derpy pulled over the recycling bin, already half full of months-old greeting cards, junk mail, Dinky’s completed worksheets from school. And her usual pile of—well, “debris” would describe it best—sat in the corner, behind her reclining chair. One by one, Derpy sifted through the stack. Magazines she’d never catch up on and had managed to live without so far. Into the bin they went.

Next, a sheaf of newspaper clippings stuffed into a folder. She flipped through each in turn, and now that she looked through them, she couldn’t even remember what had interested her about them. Something about last year’s elections, a character piece on one of the ponies who guided tours through the Everfree, a series on weather outside the pegasus-controlled areas, and… it went on. Dozens of them. All into the bin, except one: an adorable photo of Dinky from an article showing the students in their Nightmare Night costumes.

Then flyers, expired coupons, a bank calendar she’d never use… so much junk! Good riddance to all of it. Derpy nodded at the tiny stack that remained and lugged the bin over to the door. Last of the dusty things in the room, she noted as she brushed her hooves off.

One more glance at the bookshelf—that thin paperback glanced out at her from the shadowed corner again. But for now, better to get the floor clean before she tracked any of this dust into other rooms. So she got her mop and bucket, already filled from when she’d prepared all her cleaning supplies first thing this morning. And for another nice little distraction, she smiled up toward the ceiling, where a few bumps and bangs sounded from the upstairs bathroom. Dinky must have finished straightening her bedroom and moved on to the tub. She never complained about spring cleaning day—probably because she always found a couple of toys in the process she’d forgotten about, so she could look forward to a few surprises. Though if she’d finished her room, she’d likely found all of them already.

With a sigh, Derpy swished her mop back and forth. A couple dozen times in each direction, then a dip in the bucket and a good wringing before going back at it. And wow, did that floor ever shine once she’d cut through the dull film to let the wood gleam! Nice and bright, but… she’d finished awfully fast. It only took another couple minutes to empty the bucket in the backyard, a little torrent of gray water meandering through the grass and weeds. A rather similar gray to her own coat, she noted as it rushed over the dirt and ran…

As the gray ran from her. She clenched her jaw. Fine. This gray wouldn’t run anymore.

Derpy left the bucket and mop on the back porch to dry, then stood in the doorway and stared at the book. She could put it off until she’d finished a few more chores around the house, those weeds outside, for instance. She could put it off another month or so until she did her regular housekeeping again. She could put it off yet another year until she threw open all her windows, unleashed the full fury of her broom closet, and got the house ready for summer.

No. She’d let that stupid book intimidate her for far too long. Year after year, she’d gingerly dust around it and build up her nerve, only to retreat and break her vow yet another time. This year. This year, she’d finally be rid of it.

“You okay, Mom?” Dinky called from upstairs. If she’d noticed… Gray again, but the stone of a statue this time, not running away anymore, but not moving forward either. Frozen in place, watching the world pass her by. For minutes on end, while Dinky moved on without her. “Mom?”

Derpy shook her head to clear out the dust of winter’s dead thoughts. “Yeah, keep going on the bathroom. I’ll come up and help you in a minute.” Nothing could give her that warm, tingly feeling in her chest quite like Dinky.

With that sensation girding her resolve, she strode over and yanked that book out from its hiding place. She gave it a shake, as if to show it she meant business. Small, soft-cover, and with a simple watercolor illustration of a rainbow and some trees on the front. Very bright and inviting, at least by appearances, and it must have felt that way long ago, but now the pit in her stomach begged to differ.

Derpy bit her lip and opened the cover. Only a blank page, a false start. She held her breath, turned one more page, and—

Like leaping off a cloud, her eyes watching the ground rush closer, but her mind knowing she’d done it a thousand times before, and her stomach caught in the middle, and then her wings, after gathering enough speed to tame the wind to her purposes, bearing her through the sky, finally sent those butterflies away in a euphoric rush. Wonderful poetry, about the thrill of flight, air whistling through her feathers as she dove for the lake’s surface, only to pull up at the last minute and trace a fine spray off the still waters with her hooftips. A waterfall’s mist, the taste of autumn air, the tingle of frost on her coat.

Another watercolor of sheep’s-wool clouds and mountains, then on from nature’s creation to the creation of ponykind. A new life, nestled within, impossibly small, yet stronger than she could comprehend. She’d nurtured that life until she finally met her tiny miracle, welcomed her with a soft touch and the thrill of discovery. This little wonder, for whom she’d change the world, cradled in her hooves and looking up at her as if no harm could ever penetrate that motherly aegis. Such trust.

Derpy’s hooves shook. And she grinned. She never would have expected to. Some good can come out of anything. Sometimes, the most valuable things in the world can result from bad choices.

With a cleansing breath, she turned the last page, and tucked inside the back cover: letters. They stared at her, surprised that somepony had disturbed them after so long. They bared their teeth and eyed her hungrily.

The first ones started off innocently enough, going on about nothing: teachers, homework, graduation, getting a first job, which clothes looked cool, which ponies had grown apart. Months of prattle and banter and the kind of empty words that fill the time between friends who didn’t really need to fill it with anything but companionship.

Later, the letters moved on to vague compliments about how neat she kept her feathers, how her smile brightened a room, how her bubbles just made the most adorable cutie mark. She should have seen it coming. It wasn’t—

Derpy exhaled sharply. It wasn’t like she’d never considered the possibility. Friends have romantic thoughts sometimes—they wonder whether anything deeper might result but worry about the risk. Doubling down in a high-stakes game, or at least what seemed like one at the time.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at the bumps and thumps sounding through the ceiling. Kids, even older ones, think the most ordinary things are so important.

She should have seen it coming.

Near the bottom of the stack, one letter that compared her mane to most precious gold. Nopony had ever said anything like that to her before. She’d nearly cried—to… to think that somepony could actually feel that way. She hadn’t even given it a moment’s consideration before. Of course she found him cute, but even entertaining the possibility meant acknowledging that she might deserve it.

One last letter, only now beginning to show the yellow touch of age. She didn’t have to read any of them to remember exactly what they said, word for word, but she unfolded this one and scanned down the page, her eyes settling on the last paragraph.

I really think it would be a good idea. We should give it a try, and if it doesn’t work out well, at least we won’t have to wonder anymore. And we can just go back to being friends. I promise, no matter what happens, we’ll always be friends.

The last phrase of the last sentence of the last letter. It wasn’t the last time she’d ever seen him, of course, but it might as well have been. For a time, they’d remained so close and enamored that they didn’t need letters. For a time.

She should have seen it coming. She should have known better.

She’d ended up with Dinky, though, and she wouldn’t change a thing.

No. She didn’t need that book. Why’d she even keep it? Just another way to torture herself, another way to remind herself of all the times she’d screwed up, all her fault. She didn’t need it, didn’t want it, so why!?

Quickly, she strode over to the recycle bin and leaned over it. She clutched one end of the book between her hooves, grabbed the other with her teeth, ready to tear it in half and drop it in. But only her tears fell onto the heap of trash. The minutes crawled on, and still that book trembled, an amalgam of paper and ink like any other, except the particular arrangement of words in this one called her a failure and an outcast.

Derpy gritted her teeth, and her hoof steadied.

No. It wasn’t her fault. She’d done nothing wrong, except succumbing to her own naïveté. It wouldn’t control her anymore. Her hooves trembled as that stupid book hovered over the bin.

With a sharp breath, Derpy opened the back cover and dumped the letters in. She didn’t deserve those, she noted with a fierce smile, didn’t deserve how she’d been treated. But that poetry? All those verses about life and love and what it meant to become a mother… she’d earned those. She’d earned them many times over. That and Dinky were the only honest things she’d gotten from him, but she’d never defined her daughter through him, so not the book, either. Not anymore. Her friends had made that for her—Carrot Top did the paintings, and Raindrops wrote the poems, once they’d learned she was pregnant. They’d smiled so big. Not fair to them either. How could she even think of throwing that away? They’d given her a wonderful gift, a piece of themselves, and Derpy wouldn’t waste it because of him.

Derpy wiped away her tears, sat on the sofa, and turned back to the first poem. The splendor of soaring, the expectation of things to come. Yeah. Maybe she’d treat Dinky to a flight later today.

“Why don’t you take a break?” she shouted. The scrubbing noises stopped, and the faucet shut off upstairs.

“Huh?”

“Take a break and come down here,” Derpy said. A thin book like this could fit just about anywhere on her shelf. No need to let it sink down to the bottom like a millstone, dragging her with it. Right up top, maybe even turned outward, propped against the rest, so that nice watercolor would brighten her room. It might not even collect any dust this year.

She glanced up the stairs, where Dinky peeked around the corner from the hallway and raised an eyebrow. Derpy took a seat at one end of the sofa and patted the empty cushion next to her. “C’mon,” she said, waggling the book as Dinky bounded down the stairs. “I have something I’d like to read to you.”