Blind

Ditzy Doo shook her head as she continued to chop fresh onions for the stew already boiling on the stove. She sniffled and tried to bat away the tears that stung her misaligned yellow eyes. She never got affected this badly before whenever she chopped the sweet vegetables. Maybe it was just her being tired from a long day of mail delivery all over Equestria. In fact, the past couple of days had been pretty busy for all the mail ponies as the seasonal holidays drew closer. Everything from stacks the holiday cards the giant bundles of gifts come to and from the ponyville post office. All the pegasi, including Ditzy, have been working extra shifts to get the precious parcels to their destinations on time. But even though Ditzy Doo would rather be resting her wings after such a long day, she still had dinner to prepare for her family and busily shuffled around the kitchen to check on different pieces of the meal.

After chopping up the last onion, she trotted around over to the sink and rinsed her hooves off before bringing a washrag to her face and clear her eyes. Refreshed from the minor annoyance, Ditzy went back to the cutting board which held the diced onions and took a short breath before picking it up in her mouth. She tipped the board over sideways over the stove where the stew bubbled with life, but instead of dropping the pieces of vegetable inside the stew like she intended, most of it fell off to the side of the counter or floor. Ditzy gasped as she realized what she was doing and worked quickly to pick up the dropped pieces. With most of the sweet vegetable inside the stew now instead of on the floor, Ditzy sighed and went to a separate cupboard on the other side of the kitchen. Inside were not kitchen ingredients, but an assortment of vitamins and medicine. She shook her head once more to regain some clarity before reaching in and plucking up one of the bottles. She squinted at it a little bit and frowned before putting back the wrong bottle and picking another. Back when she a just a filly, she always had trouble with her eyesight. Ditzy came to be known as a bit of a klutz or 'derpy', but she had learn to compensate for that over time and didn't have quite as many accidents.

She took out two more bottles and replaced them before she found one particular one; her prescription of medicine. She had already taken her daily dose of the day, but her eyes kept bothering her all afternoon so she knocked back another pill for the day. Of course she never had to deal with such a bothersome routine up until a few weeks ago when she went to a physician about some discomfort in her eyes. The physician had written Ditzy a prescription for up until now reassuring that it wasn't anything too serious. Though as of late, the discomfort had grown further into an irritation and was causing other eyesight problems that were starting to interfere with her job as a mailpony. But she kept up her spirits and hopes in that it would pass soon and she would have no more problems. For now though, she had to focus on the dinner or it would burn.

Just then, a small filly unicorn with a light purple coat and blonde mane and tail came into the kitchen, smiling broadly with a piece of paper in her mouth.

She transferred the piece of paper to her hooves to speak, "Mommy, look at my drawing. Isn't it pretty?"

Ditzy recognized the voice of her daughter, Dinky Doo, instantly and felt a smile creep up on her as it always did whenever she saw her.

She turned around and stared for a moment before proclaiming, "Yes muffin, it's a masterpiece!"

Dinky giggled, "Hehe, mom you're so silly. My drawing is over here."

Realizing that what she was staring at was not her daughter's drawing, but the fridge that had been too blurred to tell the difference, Ditzy blushed in embarrassment and tried again.

"Oh, I'm sorry muffin," Ditzy said as she looked around the room again, focusing on different objects until she realized what they were.

Dinky found it funny how she thought her mother kept up the little joke and played along, "No mom, over here. Where I am."

Finally Ditzy was facing the right direction thanks to her daughter's guidance and started to focus on the filly's drawing. That is, until the drawing and the kitchen itself began to twist and spin awkwardly, derailing the mare's focus.

"Dinky, can you hold your picture still please?"

Dinky's smile and mirth slowly started to fade away to a frown, "Mommy, are you okay?"

Dinky felt a growing lump of worry in the pit of her stomach as she watched her mother blink furiously as if something was caught in her eyes. The worry grew even more as Ditzy began to look around the room in confusion.

"Dinky…did you turn out the lights?" Ditzy asked nervously.

Dinky couldn't understand; the afternoon sun was still out and filtering through the kitchen window. A few candles had even been lit to help illuminate some of the shadowed parts of the room as well. Ditzy's face began to contort in fear as she carelessly bumped into random objects and walls.

"Mommy…"

She heard her little filly's voice in the darkness, but no matter which way she turned she couldn't find her.

--One trip to the hospital later--

It had been a long walk from their home, coupled with silence save for when Dinky had to guide her mother around certain obstacles which she kept bumping into.

The door to their hospital room opened with a creak. Ditzy, who had been trying to reassure her daughter that everything was okay, felt her chest tighten as she could only hear the gentle hoof steps of the approaching caretaker. There was the sound of some flipping papers and uneasy shuffling, until the doctor sighed deeply.

"Ditzy Doo," the doctor started out softly, "I'm sorry. What we thought was just a minor case of Retinitis; turned out to be a symptom of Melanomas…You're blind..."