Dr Whooves and the Missing Companion

by Paganbrony

Part Five: The Lost the Forgotten and the Newly Found.

Part Five: The Lost the Forgotten and the Newly Found.

Even as Octavia and Vinyl stood silent unsure what to say upon Octavia’s plight, the garden around them stirred gently in the breeze as the clouds above Canterlot darkened slowly causing the breeze to drop in temperature.

Deep in the bushes and all through the trees a presence noticed the pair, since the opera house had pretty much consumed itself in fire resulting in little more than burnt beams and rafters collapsed upon it’s foundations it hadn’t taken much to recreate the space into a garden that two centuries later continued to be the home of a dark spirit.

This energy had barely escaped being obliterated when the other entity like it had ceased to exist, itself had been trapped upon the others death but through sheer will to survive had eventually escaped or at least some of it had.

Despite its return to reality costing almost all of its energy and its physical form the malevolence had retained the instinct to hunt to kill…

It had taken a long time but staying hidden and as the monument park began to be neglected by others, patient it had grown in strength and slowly the garden itself had become his, all his.

Sensing something about the intruders into his space the entity dug through its memory since its arrival in the garden so long ago; puzzled it stretched further back before the garden before the banishment from reality.

Vinyl and Octavia were slowly making their way out of the garden without a word; Vinyl followed the grey mare but a few hoof steps behind her.

The entity watched them leave through the gate as his memory as jumbled and hazy as it was finally kicked in, one of them he recognized, the scent was unmistakable.

Stepping out onto the street the pair waited as a few ponies passed by, “I want to go to the library and then my old home.”

Vinyl shrugged as the sun dipped behind a grey cloud and the scenery darkened slightly around them.

“We can, I think I still have my library card.”

As her blue mane and tailed white coated companion rummaged around in her wallet, Octavia realized she had no idea what to do after, if the Doctor didn’t return then she would be stranded, but was she…

Up until this point she had always known the path her life would take, but in came the Doctor and with a match had wrecked all of it, and now she had met Vinyl and having seen only a fraction of this future, Octavia wondered what could be achieved now she no longer had the binding rules and etiquette of her time to worry about.

Octavia of course lamented the loss of her parents and her butler and… She then lamented the fact she had no one left to lament, but while this hurt, it was accepted that she had never made the connections to others due to her sole diligence to her art and love of it.

Staring at Vinyl she blurted out rather suddenly, “Are you my friend, I mean are we friends.”

“I found it!”

Octavia noted the crumpled piece of card Vinyl pulled from her wallet as the mare took in her words, sizing Octavia up she thought about everything up until now.

“Uh I guess, I mean yes… We’re friends it’s just all this is kinda still freaking me out, you’re a time traveler from the past who is supposed to be dead but you’re here talking to me and I guess that’s about it, accept...”

Vinyl shuffled a little as she tried to nervously continue seeing the hopeful look disappear from Octavia face.

“It’s been fun having you around and there are all kinds of things you haven’t seen yet! I still have loads of things to show you… So yes I like you… As a friend I mean… Yes you’re my friend.”

The classical mare first frowned then nodded in agreement at the situation then slowly smiled as the warmth Vinyl’s statement brought to her cheered her up even as Vinyl stood looking sheepish at her fumbling her words.

Oblivious Octavia in her moment of happiness at this newly found feeling motioned in the direction of the library as she perceived it still to be.

“Is that the way to the Library we had better get there before the Doctor at some point manages to burn that down as well.”

Laughing at Octavia’s attempt at humor and a distraction Vinyl nodded and followed side by side her friend down the street and onto their next stop.

Behind them the garden and its malevolent presence disappeared into the distance but as the pair strode far out of sight a long malingering howl rent the air sending shivers down the souls of all that heard it.

It was late afternoon by the time the pair reached the library, and as it turned out it wasn’t a wasted trip, Octavia learned her family history consisted of the death of her parents some years after she’d disappeared, her uncle had then taken control of the family and it’s business interests and after his grandson ran the family estate and fortune into the ground with booze gambling and lousy investment, the sole remaining evidence of her family was a apparently run down mansion and a bunch of crumbling gravestones.

Of the Opera house fire there seemed to be little more than tabloid reports and a few reviews of it’s performances before the fire, the rest gave her nothing, no report of murders or Timberwolves just the fire having been caused by a faulty lamp.

After nearly five hours of research and much fidgeting by Vinyl whose dislike of libraries she made clearly apparent sat across a sea of books on a table from Octavia who leaned back to stretch as she yawned and closed the book in front of her.

“I think I have all I need, my parents didn’t have anymore foals, and they were never really a loving couple, strict and decent… The crème de la crème of high society but they got me whatever I needed, and they were very supportive… If a little insistent that I look for a suitor once I had graduated.”

Vinyl choked back a scoff at the description fighting her rebellious nature and her aversion to ‘Toffs’ as she called them, and asked the most obvious and potentially painful question.

“I know you will miss your parents in your own way, but was there any pony who, y’know you’ll miss especially a friend or a suitor?”

Octavia blushed a little as she shook her head, as she told Vinyl she was her first real friend and certainly the only one in this time, and the complete lack of a suitor at least one she was interested in or even had noticed Octavia realized was something that had never really crossed her mind.

The discussion turned to more pressing matters as a librarian appeared for not the first time to urge them or at least Vinyl to be quiet; the pair continued onto their last stop the Melody Mansion.

Leaving the library the pair walked at a swift pace as the darkening skies of night time fast approached and with her head throbbing from all the exertion Octavia fell silent.

Vinyl began humming after a while and Octavia listened to the mare as they stared straight ahead not looking at each other just walking lost in their own thoughts.

Feeling more and more depressed by the minute as the same thoughts began to race around Octavia’s mind, she tried to think of something to distract her and as her eyes settled on her companion Octavia smiled as she made her decision.

“There’s something I want to do, that’s been nagging at me for a while now.”

Vinyl stopped humming and came to an abrupt halt as Octavia skipped uncharacteristically like a little filly ahead of her and sitting down held her hoof up which ended up against Vinyl’s chest as she too stopped then sat.

“Uh ok what’s that?”

Vinyl shifted nervously as Octavia closed the gap between them.

“I want to try your sunglasses, I mean you always wear them and I’ve never seen you without them.”

“That’s random.”

“I know but I’ve itching to try them on, and I haven’t seen any other ponies today wearing them, do they let you see in the dark, I mean you said sunglasses are supposed to shield your eyes from the sun, if so it’s getting really dark out here how do you see where your going?”

Octavia looking about as she spoke realized how much darker the evening had gotten as they’d walked, Vinyl however reacted defensively as she looked away from Octavia, raising her hoof and awkwardly scratching the back of her mane she replied.

“Sorta… I mean they help me see at night but normal ones wouldn’t, like I said before I had them especially made…”

Confused Octavia backed off a little, it was true she hadn’t ever seen Vinyl without them, and in the week or so since meeting her she had gathered that even in the future no pony wore them as much as Vinyl.

“No you can’t try them on, sorry but it’s kinda my thing.”

A little disappointed Octavia nodded and motioned they should continue on, Vinyl agreed with an awkward ‘sure’ as they started walking again.

It wasn’t long before Octavia began to recognize her surroundings more clearly before at last seeing the great gate that opened up to her families’ city mansion or what remained at least.

Scratch watched helpless for what to say or do as Octavia reached the gate at a run and after a second or two collapsed back on her haunches in complete shock, her home was a shell of its former glory.

The walls that surrounded the estate were old brick crumbling in places collapsed in others, the ornate garden a dumping ground for local refuse and more than few mattresses and worn out sofa’s, the once great mansion itself was totally derelict with the great double doors at the front and centre of the town house smashed and hanging off, row after row of windows smashed with only a hoofs worth intact.

Vinyl moved to put a comforting hoof around the distraught mare but she’d moved before the gesture could be completed, Octavia stood up and began running towards the house through the open rusty gates through the littered garden and only stopping briefly to take a breath before striding into the house itself.

Shocked by her sudden movement and uncertain what to do Vinyl heard a snickering voice from nearby, turning that direction she noticed a trio of young stallions who were maybe twenty hooves away from the gate sat on some rubble from the collapsing border walls.

“You going in the big bad house after her, or are you chicken!”

Vinyl took stock of their brightly colored manes and their leather jackets and cigarettes hanging from the sides of their mouths just like the movies, the biggest one was leering at her as he spoke trying to sound tough.

“Well? Two mares all alone in that big house after dark… You want us stallions to come keep you company?”

The trio of teens were all smirking at her, their obvious thoughts written plainly on their faces.

“No thanks, if I need a job babysitting I’ll ask my neighbors.”

Vinyl followed after her friend as did the raucous laughter and catcalling from the trio who continued smoking and harassing any pony who passed, as she made her way towards the doors Octavia had entered Vinyl tried to resist shouting back a few choice words and garnering any more attention from the little idiots.

As Vinyl reached the threshold she too breathed deeply and entered, a quick scan of her surroundings told her the house was as dilapidated inside as out, the wooden floors were rotten and broken littered with debris of all kinds, it seemed as if the homeless and the disenfranchised and all kinds of youths and hoodlums had used it as a doss house.

Stepping over discarded beer bottles drug paraphernalia moldy mattresses and porn magazines Vinyl continued further on more and more concerned at the lack of any sign of Octavia.

Ancient curtains or what remained of them fluttered slowly in the wind coming through shattered windows as Vinyl wandered out of the entrance hall and began searching for the grey mare through room after room.

Calling her name Vinyl began to get worried as in the pitch dark of the house meant Octavia couldn’t possibly see where she was? So where had she gone?

Somewhere Else Entirely…
The Doctor was peeling bits of goo from his jacket gingerly with his teeth as sat wondering what to do next, the ponies he’d been sent to get had been a fat lot of good in helping him as he’d battled that tentacle monster.

Having successfully caused it to explode with a mixture of jelly babies and baking powder he’d found in his pockets the Doctor had resumed his attempts to retrieve the lost device needed for safe return.

Behind him his unwanted charges descended from the tree they’d been perched in and sat watching as he tried to fashion a stick with a hook on the end attached to a magnet that also happened to be in his pocket.

Cheerilee and her students started yawning and muttering dark thoughts about the Doctor, as time wore on eventually luck and perseverance won out and triumphantly the Doctor held aloft the device.

His triumph was however short lived as a small creature flew down from the canopy above them and snatched it off the hook and ascended back into the canopy.

Swearing in every language he knew (Which took a while mind) the Doctor ignored the following derisive laughter and insults from his charges and began to slowly scramble up the nearest tree in pursuit…