"Is it time to go, Mommy?" asked Derpy Hooves, her tiny wings buzzing as she stood beside the door.

Behind the counter, Skydancer sighed and ran a hoof through her rainbow mane. "I suppose we could close up a few minutes early," she said. "You're probably ready for—"

Skydancer winced and held her hoof over her chest. The pain had returned.

Derpy ran over to the counter. "Mommy? Are you okay?"

Nodding, Skydancer forced a smile. "Just a bit of indigestion," she lied.

The bell at the top of the door tinkled.

"We're..." said Skydancer, but she stopped short of saying "closed" when she saw her customers. It was the Apple foals, trotting slowly up to the counter. They weren't smiling, but considering recent events, that was expected.

"We wanna mail this, Ma'am," said Applejack, as she pushed a letter up onto the counter. The letter had a stamp on it, but no address. It simply said, "Ma and Pa", written in crayon.

Now Skydancer's heart hurt in two different ways. "Oh, sweetie. I don't know if we can deliver this," she said.

"It pro'lly needs more stamps," the lanky colt said to his sister.

"But Granny only gave us one," said Applejack.

Skydancer shook her head. "I mean, I don't think I can fly... that high."

Big Macintosh frowned and pointed at a sign mounted on the wall:

[quote][b]The Mail Always Goes Through[/b][/quote]

Pausing for a moment, Skydancer drew in a big breath. "I'll see that it gets there, okay?"

Both foals smiled and left the post office. Skydancer looked down and saw little Derpy examining the envelope.

"Mommy, where do ponies go when they die?" asked Derpy.

"Nopony really knows, dear. Probably nowhere at all," she said. "Maybe beyond the stars, but nopony can fly that high."

A serious look crossed Derpy's face. "If you can't do it, I will! Someday I'll get there."

Skydancer smiled and held back tears. "You can hold on to the letter, then. Just don't tell the Apple foals, okay?"

[hr]

Derpy pounded her wings with all her might, pushing higher and higher, but it wasn't working. The sky was too blurry and she couldn't keep track of the ground while climbing.

It wasn't her wing strength or her resolve that stopped her. It was her eyes. At one time, she'd broken altitude records for her age bracket, but for the past three years her ceiling steadily dropped as her vision worsened.

Derpy closed her eyes and cried a few tears, then flew back down toward Cloudsdale. She finally had to admit defeat. She just didn't know what to do with the two letters in her bag.

[hr]

Sitting beside the lit fireplace, Derpy regarded the letters in her hoof. One was labeled "Ma and Pa", the crayon barely visible. The other, equally weathered, bore the word "Mommy" in her own hoofwriting.

She looked back and forth between the roaring fire and the false hopes of foals, unable to decide.

"Mommy?" said Dinky Hooves as she trotted up. "What are those?"

"Weren't you in bed?" asked Derpy.

Dinky shrugged. "Yeah, but something kept me awake."

Derpy smiled at her daughter and petted her mane. "These are the only two letters I haven't been able to deliver," she said. "One is to Applejack's parents, and one to your Grandma, who you never got to meet."

"Oh. But they're not anywhere, anymore," said Dinky, frowning.

Derpy nodded. "I used to think that maybe if I flew beyond the stars I could find them again, waiting up there for us," she said. "I tried for years, but I never made it that high."

Dinky took the letters in hoof and looked up to her mother. "Are they really up there?"

"I don't think so, no," said Derpy. "But the world is strange and wonderful, so who knows?"

"Maybe I can do it," said the little unicorn. "I'm not a pegasus like you, but Starlight Glimmer can fly with her horn. I bet I could learn to go even higher than a pegasus."

For the briefest moment, Derpy believed her daughter might succeed. She brushed the wishful thought aside along with a tear on her cheek. "You're welcome to try. Those letters are yours now."

"Don't cry, Mommy," said Dinky, hugging her mother close. "I'll get these letters to where they belong, I promise."

Derpy held her daughter in her wings and smiled as a few more tears escaped.

[i]Maybe they're already there,[/i] she thought to herself.