“ Equestria…” the Doctor spoke to himself, stepping out of the Tardis yet again. He scraped a hoof on the grass and eyed the dirt particles. “About one year, five months, give or take three days after my last visit.” Yeah, he was good at the unordinary, unexplainably good. He looked up at the darkened sky. “And looks like good English weather too,” he joked. He stepped out from between two derelict buildings.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he interrupted a passerby. “Where exactly am I?”
“Leave me be!” she exclaimed, continuing on her way. Her tattered cloak showed her red coat; it looked greyed out as if she had been rolling in dust. Actually, all of the ponies had a similar look about them, all with frowns and grimaces upon their faces. They were going about their everyday business, but it looked like none of them had any amount of happiness.
A young filly that had not been watching where she was going suddenly bumped into the doctor. “S.. sorry.” She gave a startled jump , moving around him while keeping her head down under a cloak.
There was something different about her, he could tell. He trailed her off the street and down an alleyway. A poster gained his attention. It looked old, but on it was scrawled in shaky letters, “Down with Discord.” Could it be the same Discord? He accidentally kicked a small stone, and the girl had noticed him following. As she looked back at him her eyes widened.
“You aren’t grayed?” The young pony asked from behind her hood.
“If you are mentioning all the unhappy dusty looking ponies back on the street, no.”
“But how? Have you hidden from Discord all this time?”
“Tell me. This Discord. Tall fellow, walks on two legs, part dragon, part everything else?” She nodded “You can say I defeated him once… in a sense. Not well enough it seems. How is it that you haven’t been… greyed?”
“I don’t know. Discord only comes to gray the older ponies. The kids are usually left alone.” She was hiding something, he could tell it, but what she said was most of the truth.
“ Yes… Yes of course, Children are resilient, amazing, and so full of dreams. He can’t possibly hope to take them all away. I would hazard a guess that Discord is in charge of the land now?” she nodded, “But how? It shouldn’t be possible for him to have that much power...” The Doctor mumbled to himself.
“We should g—” The young filly stopped, noticing something.
A growl resonated through the alleyway and made the Doctor scramble for his sonic screwdriver, knowing he could at least stun the dog long enough to get away. The device slipped from his teeth onto the dirty cobble street. “Curse these non-handed appendages,” he mumbled as a second dog joined, forcing him to back away.
“Someone hiding from Discord?” the first dog taunted. “He doesn’t like that, but he doesn’t have to know, does he, brother? We could kill the old one and take the girl.”
The Doctor backed away slowly with the girl saying, “You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine, but you really think they're lying to make you feel better?”
“Yeah...” She responded
“Everything's going to be fine.”
The dogs advanced upon them as they backed away.
The girl let out a short scream as one of the dogs caught the edge her cloak, ripping it away. She escaped the grasp and retreated further, pressing herself against the wall.
“The Alicorn! Where is your older sister, girl?”
The Doctor’s retreat was stopped as his flank pressed against the wall. He felt a strange sensation wash over him as time seemed to slow. A dog lunging to grab the screaming Alicorn child stopped mid air. She looked up, noticing that the snarling beast hadn’t captured her. She then looked upon the Doctor with a wonder in her eyes.
The Doctor, too, was surprised. He looked back to his flank, where he had felt the strange sensation, and saw that his hourglass cutie mark was draining sand quite rapidly into its lower half. “Well that’s certainly new... Let’s get out of here,” he said, watching the sand drain away.
“This way!” the girl called back to him,already out of the alleyway, quickly breaking him out of the almost hypnotic trance of watching his mark. He dashed out of the alleyway quickly catching the young pony. It seemed his ability lasted only in the short area around him as when he had cleared the alley by a good 30 feet the dogs started to make confused noises and began the hunt. For the next bit of time, as he ran by, people would slow to a halt as they entered the moving bubble of distorted time, yet somehow the young Alicorn was unaffected. After about a minute, he could feel the effects wear off as the world returned to full speed around him.
He ducked into another alley with the girl and helped her pry off the drainage grate she was fumbling with. It looked like it had been removed a few times before. He swiftly followed her in pulling it shut behind them. They stayed there silently as one of the dogs ran by. In the distance a high-pitched whir was heard and the other dog howled out, seemingly in pain.
“My sonic… how could I have forgotten it.” The Doctor mumbled, awarding himself a proper facehoof. He quieted as he heard footsteps, the dog with his sonic screwdriver walked into view holding it in his paw and the other one ran up on all fours tongue hanging from his mouth.
“Discord told us to look for the doctor with the noisy metal stick, we will receive many gems for bringing this to him even though the Alicorn escaped us.” The first said showing the item.
The other dog spoke for the first time.“Yesp gembz.”
“Brother, do not speak. You embarrass us.”
The two dogs lumbered off, the less articulate one looking downtrodden, having given up on the search.
The Doctor was finally able to get a good look at the uncloaked filly. She had a light purple, almost indigo coat with a mane of a lighter shade. Yet the most distinguishing part of her was the fact that she had wings and a horn. Her flank was accented with a dark splash of blue with a white moon in the center.
“Thank you for saving me” She gave a quick hug and then continued, “Can I tell you something?” she asked as the Doctor slid the grate away.
“Why not? I think I could use a bit of insight on the situation.” She led him down all back alleys, out of sight from prying eyes.
“Before Discord took over… My sister and I were discovered. The fact is we have no memory before that day. All the people of the land took this as as a sign to go along with an old prophecy. We were meant to be the princesses of a new era, and it was prophesied that we would have to face great challenges to unite the land. But before we could come of age, Discord arrived. This year alone he has conquered nearly all of Equestria, and at the same time King Sombra has seized control of the Crystal Empire. The forests are filled with rouge changelings, for their current queen has died, and they …provide for the few ponies that haven’t been changed by Discord.”
“Then why haven’t more ponies escaped to live in the forest? Why are you still here?”
“The changelings ask only one thing from you. It seems innocent at first, but soon it drains you of your very life. Going to the changelings may let you live in happiness for a time, it can even cure those affected by Discord, but it is a death sentence. They change form into someone you love or care about, and they feed off of you until there is nothing left.”
“A dark time indeed. No place for children. But you sound as if you have grown considerably wise for someone your age.”
“We were told by our tutors that we must remember the past, or we would be doomed to repeat it.”
The Doctor smirked, he had stolen that classic line from an old pal and given it to the ponies after helping them defeat the Windigoes so long ago. The smirk fell from his face quickly… If only that era of peace could have lasted… No matter, he would do what he could to right this.
The young Alicorn stopped at the side of an abandoned building and knocked her hoof against a wall in a quick, distinct pattern. Magic enveloped a wooden board near the floor as it pried itself away from the boarded up door frame. She slipped in and the Doctor squeezed in after her.
“Sister! I’m glad you are all right. I heard the dogs were around today, and when I returned from gathering supplies to find you gone…” The second Alicorn, a pure white with a pastel pink mane, stopped as she caught sight of the Doctor.
The Doctor looked at the two young girls, saying, “It seems that a great deal of help is needed here.”
“Sister? Who is this?” The elder of the two asked.
“The pony that saved me today, though I do not know his name.”
“You can call me The Doctor,” he said, straightening his bowtie.
“And… what’s with the bowtie?” The elder of the two continued her questioning.
“Because bowties are cool.”
“How did you even get that on?”
“Oh dear… that would be a problem won’t it,” the Doctor mumbled bringing a hoof into sight. “No more fingers…” He continued audibly a few seconds latter with “Never mind that, I need facts, history, information. I don’t know enough about Equestria to go blindly rushing in. Wait... no, you can tell me on the way. To the Tardis!”
The two Alicorn sisters looked at him silently for a few seconds before the younger got another cloak, the older did so as well. The Doctor shimmied out of the dusty broken down house, this time leading the way.