Today's Last Delivery

A Really Derpy Day

“Careful, Derpy!” Rainbow said, floating up to the wall-eyed pegasus, who was bouncing up and down on a thundercloud. “You don’t want to do any more damage than you’ve already done...”

“I just don’t know what went wrong!” Derpy cried. It was her fault, she had to admit – but Dash didn’t have to be so mean about it.

It was all a blur; she’d been on her way to the post office to get today’s deliveries, when something threw her out of control. One moment, she was in the air, the next, she was inside town hall, next to the shattered remains of one of the foundation pillars which held up the building. Thankfully, the whole thing didn’t come down, but it would be a tough job to repair.

Rainbow finished putting up the banner for Applejack’s send-off; Derpy flew over and congratulated her, but bumped into a teetering pole, which fell down. Dash failed to stop it, smashing through the wooden floor below them.

She flew down, poking her head through the new hole in the floorboards. “You okay, Rainbow Dash? Anything I can do to help?”

Exasperated, Rainbow Dash planted herself in front of her, shouting, “No! Nothing! In the name of Celestia, just sit there, and do nothing!”

She did as she was asked, sitting in place... and fell straight through the floor, creating yet another hole. In a desperate attempt not to fall, she grabbed Rainbow’s rear end, dragging the both of them into the space below.

“My bad...” Derpy said.

---

After that, Rainbow Dash had told her to “Just go away!” and she’d remembered the deliveries she still had to make.

She floated up into the sky, looking for the Ponyville Post Office – it seemed to be in a different place every day.

Spotting it off to the side of Town Square, she took off, tearing through the streets with surprising quickness and agility, managing not to crash into anypony today.

“Reporting for duty, Boss!” she cried dutifully, saluting him upside-downedly as she broke through his office window, crashing into the sofa lying against a wall.  

The brown pegasus sighed, greeting her pushing forward a package and a bag of mail as he muttered something about having to replace the window again.

“Thanks Boss!” She looked at the address on the package. Marelin? That’s a long long time without muffins.

“Oh, and here,” her boss said, hoofing over another package. “This is your lunch, for the trip to Marelin.”

Derpy screamed inwardly, ecstatic at Boss’s thoughtfulness, holding the package close with both hooves.

“Thanks Boss again so much! Tell Dinky I said to be good!”

“Bye, Derpy,” he replied gruffly.

She floated out the door, exiting the post office through the actual exit, much to the boss’s annoyance – she couldn't just do that on her way in?

Derpy flared her wings, stretching them while she filled her saddlebags with the packages, then took to the skies, heading quickly to the first of the deliveries.  

---

Boss always organised her mail so well; it made it very easy for her to do her routes that way. The way Boss did it, each stack of letters was put in the bag from top to bottom, so that the first place on the route would be the first stack of letters, and so on.

When Derpy accidentally flew upside-down and tipped all of the letters out of the bag, it had taken her a while to collect them all - but she did. Then she’d picked up the first letter in the bag, just like usual...

...But wait; that wasn’t the first house; that was the twelfth. Had Boss changed the routes?

Oh well, she thought. She’d do her duty, just like she’d promised when she signed up! It was serious work, being a mailmare.

The first delivery went smoothly – so did the second, and the third. It wasn’t like Boss to make her go back and forth along the route so often, but she didn’t complain. She knew the risks involved with being a Mail-Mare, and had taken the job anyway.

After the thirtieth delivery, however, she was finding it difficult to keep up. She thought she must have travelled her usual route’s length about ten times over by now, and her wings were quite tired.

I wish Boss could have made today’s route better, she thought.  

Luckily, that was the last of the mail deliveries – the only one left was the package.

The package to Marelin.

Derpy’s eyes widened as she realised that she had much, much more flying to do before the day was out – and it wasn’t even noon yet!

She flared her wings, stretching them in mid-air as best she could, before taking off towards where the big mountain was – Marelin was that way, she remembered.

---

Derpy soared through the skies, revelling in the scenery and trying to ignore her tired wings.

She didn’t often fly out this far for deliveries, but each time she did, the landscape blew her away.

Through one eye, she saw a never-ending forest, stretching as far as that eye could see – through the other, a bright blue skyline, broken by tall mountains, varying in colour from brown to grey to green, pointing up like giant upside-down ice-cream cones.  

Her tummy rumbled – she looked at the sky and, judging by the angle and trajectory of the sun versus her eye-level and altitude, as well as how loud her tummy rumbled, guessed that it was time for lunch.

She hovered in place for a moment, taking the brown package from her saddlebags. Her wings were given a much needed break for a moment, her mouth already watering as she thought of the muffins Boss had packed for her – he was always so nice when he sent her on really big deliveries like these, when he knew she would get home late.

She was just about to tear it open with her teeth when she realised it wasn’t in her hooves anymore; out of the corner of an eye she saw a swiftly falling brown dot, which was quickly enveloped by the forest below.

Oh, no! Come back!

“Wait for me, muffins!” she cried, diving towards the last place she saw the brown dot.

---

Derpy wandered through the woodlands, searching high and low, far and near, and even middle and sort-of-close, but they just couldn’t be found.

Her wings ached, so she stopped flying, searching from the ground instead. There was still a ways to go before Marelin, and despite having to look for her lunch, the break her wings were getting was certainly worth it... Though not really, she rescinded, her tummy grumbling its disagreement.

Where could the muffins have gone? Are they hiding? She squinted her eyes, this new realisation changing the way she searched for her brown bag of goodness – but nothing changed. She still couldn’t find them.  

Why did they leave me? She cried, growing despondent over her loss, but keeping on walking. How did I wrong them? My poor little muffins...

In her sadness, she didn’t notice that a tree was approaching her rapidly, and suddenly it attacked her, hurting her nose with its big mean trunk. She reeled backwards, holding a hoof to her nose, and tripped over a root which jutted out from the ground.

The resulting tumble was far longer than it should have been; the ground became a hill, and she rolled down its steep cliff all the way to the bottom, where her head hit a small rock.

She lay still for a moment, shocked – and then began to cry.

Why was the forest being so mean? Why wouldn’t it just give her muffins back?

With leaves covering her coat, mane and feathers, a variety of small cuts and scrapes adding pinpricks of stinging pain to her aching head, she sat on her haunches and let her tears go free.

They’d really been waiting all day for that opportunity, ever since Rainbow Dash had been so mean to her, and Boss had made her route much bigger than normal.

The forest, however, seemed to take pity on her, ceasing its pranking and producing a small brown paper bag. Derpy cleared her eyes, realising that it wasn’t a trick – the bag was there, right in front of her!

She sniffed and rubbed the tears from her eyes, then scampered over to it, only to curse the day this forest was seeded – its pranking was not done yet.

Derpy glared at the empty bag, holding back a fresh wave of tears; her rule was only one cry a day. Any more would be to dishonour the Postal Service!

More dishonour to those who didn’t deliver their packages just because they didn’t have lunch.

---

The city of Marelin, too, always astounded her. So many buildings, both new and old, made up the city, and the contrast was always fun to look at; an eye for each type!

She dropped into a small marketplace, getting her bearings and asking directions to the street named on the package, trying desperately to ignore both her thundering stomach and the stands full of delicious, delectably digestible goods; it wouldn’t do to eat when it wasn’t her lunch break. That would be bad business.

After being pointed the way, she took off, eager to have this day over and done with. Much longer and it would be evening, and she wanted to be home as soon as possible.

It took her a short while to find the address, but she did. It was a smallish house, but nice and cosy-looking.

She walked up to the door and knocked, waiting patiently as a series of large clanking sounds erupted from within.

A blue colt with a black-and-grey mane poked his head out the door. “Can I help you?” he asked, politely pretending not to notice the sad state Derpy was in.

“Muffin-  um... Mail call!” Derpy cried, saluting, then handing over the package.

“Oh, cool! Thanks, miss... uh...”

“Mail-Mare Derpy Hooves, at your service!” She said proudly.

The colt opened the package, taking out the letter inside, reading it before looking at the rest of the contents.

He smiled, then reached inside the parcel and took out a muffin, offering it to Derpy.

Her eyes widened, but she couldn’t give in.  “No,” she said sadly, her tummy disagreeing with her violently. “It’s against muffiny- uh, company policy.”

“Well it’s against my policy to leave a hungry mare with nothing to eat on the way back home,” he said. “And besides, the sender told me to give you one. Read the post-script.” He passed it to her, but she shook her head slowly. She'd never read somepony else's mail.

"Promise you won't tell?" she asked him. He nodded solemnly, holding the muffin forward again.

She took it, chomping down, despite it being not lunch time... But what could be bad when it tasted so good?

Derpy had gotten to Marelin, finished her delivery before sundown, and even gotten a muffin!

All was right with the world.

She stretched her wings, feeling much better about the flight home than she had been earlier, and took to the skies for the last time that day.

Kiyoshiii smiled, closing the door and heading back to his studio to get to work on his next project. He took a bite of one of the muffins, noting its excellent flavour – everything tasted better when it came of hard work.

---

Derpy landed in front of her house, her knees shaking a little, her body beaten and bruised, wings drooping low - but she felt great! She'd overcome every challenge the day had thrown at her. Everypony had gotten their mail, not a single pony missed.

She walked to the door, opening it slowly - only to be bowled right over by Dinky. "Mommy!" the little unicorn cried, hugging Derpy tightly.

"I'm home, muffin. Were you good?"

"Uh-huh!"

---

Midnight Specter looked out his window, seeing his neighbour Derpy returning home. She looked like a wreck, covered in what was probably half a forest, but she seemed happy. He guessed that the muffin he’d indirectly given her had helped her find the strength to return home with her spirits up; Celestia knew what that would mean for Dinky, with her mum in such bad shape.

He smiled as he watched the mare tumble to the ground, weighed down by a greyish-blonde blur the moment she opened the door. The heart-warming scene lit a warm glow inside him.

He then turned to his book, getting back once more to writing the adventures of his two favourite mares.

THE END

A/N - This story was written in order to ensure that Kiyoshiii@Deviantart gets the muffins promised for his totally AWESOME cover art for Hearts Aflutter.

Thanks so much, Kiyo!!!

:3

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