“Let’s go, Dinky! The park won’t wait for us all day!”

Derpy Hooves called up the stairs to her young filly who was busy grabbing various toys with her teeth and putting them into a pail. She bit on the handle and carried it down to where her mother was waiting.

“You’re silly, Mommy! Sure it will.”

“Nuh-uh. I bet it’s crying to itself now, saying, ‘Little Dinky doesn’t want to come play in me any more. I should pick myself up and find a new town.’ And then it’ll blow its nose.”

Dinky laughed. “Parks don’t have noses!”

“You’re right. It’ll blow its swing-set. And it won’t find a tissue big enough for it, so we should get there so it’s doesn’t get to that point.”

Dinky was doubled over. “You’re really silly, Mommy.” Then she got up and picked up the pail and trotted after Derpy

The little unicorn was much too small for magic, and moving things around required teeth, so she had become quite adept at speaking with her mouth full. As the two arrived at Ponyville Park, she looked up at Derpy and said, “I wanna go play in the sandbox!”

“Ok, but then you’re getting a bath when we get home!”

“That’s fine!” Bath time for Dinky was play time.

She trotted over to the sand pit and spat out her pail, spilling tiny shovels and rakes all over. She dove in and a cloud of sand flew around her. She started piling sand into little mountains, pretending that they were home to desert caves.

It was then that she noticed another young filly sitting on the side of the sandbox, looking at her a bit nervously. Dinky stopped her building and called out, “Hey! You wanna come in and play Arabian ponies?”

The other filly was a light gray earth pony with short legs and a long mane that made her look like she was always too close to the ground. She said, “I don’t know, don’t you get awfully dirty? My mom doesn’t like it if I get dirty.”

“Can you ask?”

“My mom’s not here now, I came with grandam.”

“Oh. Then come on in! Grammas never say no.”

“I guess you’re right. What’s your name?”

“I’m Dinky Hooves! What’s yours?”

“Sue.”

“Just Sue?”

“My last name is Pie. Grandam calls me Suzie Cutie Pie.”

“That’s a nice name.”

“Yeah, it’s my Grandam’s name too.”

Dinky climbed out of the pit and saw a pony with laugh lines around her eyes wearing half-glasses on a chain, her gray-white mane tied up in a bun. She called out, “Hi, Missus Sue’s Grandma!”

The elderly mare smiled and waved back.

Dinky turned back to Sue. “Come on, let’s play!”

They went back into the sandbox. Sue had never been allowed in and fumbled with her hooves trying to pile the sand.

Dinky said, “Here, you can borrow my shovel. It’s easier that way.”

“Thanks!”

******

Derpy flew overhead lazily, flapping her wings only every two or three seconds and relying on glide and headwinds to keep her aloft. Sundays were for both Dinky and for her to relax.

Derpy loved flying. As a filly she had remarked to other ponies that when she was flying, she never had to do any hard thinking, just let go and soar. One had smirked and said that she never did any hard thinking on the ground either. That had made her run off crying.

When she had Dinky, she was so overjoyed at bearing a healthy foal that she didn’t care that she had a unicorn instead of a pegasus. She never once regretted that she wouldn’t be able to give flying lessons to her filly. When things went bad and she had to work, the delivery job was a Celestia-send, as it let her fly all over town without embarrassing or confusing Dinky.

But over the years the luster had faded. Derpy thought hard about why, and Derpy didn’t think hard very often. She concluded that flying to a place you wanted to go was fun, flying to a place you had to go was stress. It also seemed to her that ponies were sending ten times as many letters as they used to. She refused to believe the rumors that this was because only ten percent of the letters actually reached their destination.

Circling back to the park, she saw little Dinky making sandcastles with an Earth filly. Dinky made friends so fast, she thought. Not like when she was young, and couldn’t seem to approach anyone. The eyes had put off the first few, and then she stopped trying.

******

The elder Sue was having similar thoughts as she trotted over to a bench and sat down. It was good that Little Sue was making friends at such an early age. Her own daughters had been so busy then, they barely had time to be friends with each other.

It was right then that her daughter, a dark gray mare with a very straight mane and tail, trotted up saying, “Hello, dam, where is your namesake?”

“Playing there in the sandpit.”

“The sandpit?!”

Sue and Dinky had assembled a fortress of two towers, and were preparing to assail it with ten-thousand of the strongest earth ponies and unicorns Equestria had ever known, cunningly disguised as a shovel and rake, when a yell came from across the park.

“Suzanna Zenobia Quentin Tiberius Pie!”

Sue turned white. “Uh oh, that’s my mom. All those names means I’m in trouble. At least she didn’t use both my last names.”

“You have more names?”

“Yeah, my daddy is a mustang pony, they always have lots of names. If Mom’s real mad she’ll say all that plus Pie-De Masdedos. Last time she had to say that, everyone thought I got my cutie mark.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, it was red and in the shape of Mom’s hoof.”

Her mother had reached the sandpit and steam was coming out of her nose. “What are you doing in there! You’re a sandy mess!”

“Aw, mom!”

“Don’t you ‘Aw mom’ me. Your father hates sand! He’s always saying how it’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere! Now I’ve got to get you home and in a bath before your dressage practice. Out at once!”

Dinky looked on, feeling sorry for her new friend. She called after her, “Buh-bye, Suzie! Come back soon!”

Since the climax of the game was to knock over the sandcastles, Dinky felt it was wrong to do it alone. She left them there, hoping that next week Suzie would be back and they could finish. She went over to the swingset and leaped on. After a few seconds, her momentum ran out, so she got off, trotted around behind, and dove on again.

Derpy was returning to the park after her flight. She landed next to the swingset where Dinky was slowing down once more.

“Mommy, push me!” Dinky called.

Derpy ran over and gave the swing a mighty shove with her hooves, then hovered by and kept it going by sending gales of wind from her wings.

Dinky was cheering with delight. Her mother just smiled. It was always fun at the playground. Buck, it was always fun anywhere with her filly. She heard of others who said the worst thing for a child was a pegasus parent, but she was going to work as hard as she could so that her wings wouldn’t hold Dinky back.

When the Sun started getting low, Derpy and Dinky trotted home. Dinky said, “Say, mommy, I met a really nice little filly at the park, her name’s Suzie and she has a gramma and we played Arabian ponies in the sandbox until her mommy came and said she had to go practice how to dress. I should show her how to dress, you let me dress myself all the time!”