Symbiosis

by Fedora

The Wooden Box

“Sorry for being late girls,” Derpy said honestly as she came to the picnic spot in the middle of Ponyville Park. Two of her friends were there, a bright aquamarine unicorn and a pale yellow earth pony with a ginger mane.

“Where’d you go off to?” Lyra asked, looking a bit cross, “Did you lose your direction again? Oh, clumsy, clumsy Derpy!”

“I didn’t!” Derpy insisted, setting the food down on the picnic blanket sitting atop a grassy hill.

“You left us waiting for a long time,” Carrot Top said, being a bit more tactful in her approach.

“Yeah.... I don’t know.... I kinda got held up by somepony else.”

They made sandwiches, and in a matter of minutes Derpy’s tardiness was all but forgotten as the group of friends conversed.

“So, Written Script and I are thinking about it,” Carrot Top boasted, eliciting a girlish giggle from her companions.

“You’re a bit young, fresh out of school and all,” Lyras said, “but a nineteen year old mare getting hitched isn’t that bad.”

“We haven’t made any kind of plans yet,” she said, looking down at a newspaper. Carrot Top usually did the crosswords in the paper while at picnics.

“This one’s ten letters long, and I can’t get it,” she noted reproachfully, asking for help.

“What’s the hint?” Derpy asked, looking over the paper with a crooked gaze.

“Big-toothed huff-puffer,” said Carrot Top, “I’m thinking of one of those Puffer Fishes, but that’s too many letters.”

“It’s not supposed to be obvious like that,” Lyra commented, flicking her shades down, “Though big teeth and huffing and puffing sounds like the Big Bad Wolf to me.”

“Oh.... duh.”

“Wow Carrot,” Derpy said, shaking her head. She glanced back at the paper, noticing an illustration of a carriage at the top of the page, connected to an article.

“What’s the headline of that article at the top?” Derpy asked, “I can’t read from this angle.”

“It says ‘Ponies Missing After Wave of Carriage Abductions’.”

“I heard about that,” gasped Lyra, “Ponies getting onto carriages and then disappearing totally... it’s scary stuff!”

“Nopony’s doing anything about this?” Carrot Top said with a raise of her eyebrow, “You’d think the princess would put a stop to this sort of thing.”

Derpy remained silent. She couldn’t possibly begin to talk about all that had happened to her, about the carriage and the robot and The Doctor. He had expressly forbid her from talking to anypony else about him.

“I suppose they’d have to know who they’re dealing with. There could be a royal investigation going on right now, all secretive, to try to figure out who’s behind the disappearances.”

“What if they’re robots?” Derpy blurted out, not able to stop herself.

“Robots?” Lyra snorted. Carrot Top buried her face in her paper, her head shaking slightly. She was laughing.

“I mean.... uh...”

“Derpy, you seriously think that ponies are getting scooped up by robot invaders?”

“I didn’t mean-”

“Robot invaders from planet Mars.”

“Stop picking on me girls! I just meant-”

“Sorry,” Carrot Top said, leaning back, “If you’re gonna get upset over a little joke, then I’ll stop.”

“Imagine if she was right though,” Lyra said, suddenly serious, “If there were really aliens under our nose, nopony would believe it.”

****

Derpy stood at the corner of two streets, looking about in the crowd. She was searching for a face, the face of The Doctor out of the mass of ponies milling about. She squinted her lopsided gaze, but could not pick him out.

Maybe he didn’t live in town. That would have made sense; she had never seen the pony before their brief meeting. Perhaps he had just been passing through the area.

Derpy made her way to Carrot Top’s later that afternoon. Having no family in Ponyville, Derpy had taken up residence in her friend’s small cottage, working various jobs to help pay the rent.

While Carrot Top tended to her gardens out back, Derpy sat on a cushioned sofa in the living room, reading over the article in the paper from earlier.

“Celestia promises to find and put a stop to these disappearances, and she asks anypony with information to contact the Canterlot Investigative Agency,” Derpy read to herself. She pondered that for a moment. She was the only pony who had escaped from the abduction carriages that she knew of, so her story could offer key details.

“The carriage took me away from Ponyville, and to the north,” Derpy muttered to herself, “Toward Canterlot.”

She decided that she would need to write a letter and send it to the authorities at once. Grabbing a pencil in her mouth and a scrap of paper off of one of Carrot Top’s tables, she began to write.

Dear Canterlot Investigative Agency,

After reading an article in today’s (April 4th, 1999) edition of The Ponyville Enquirer, I have decided to come forward with my story regarding the odd disappearances.

I was approached by a carriage offering me a free ride. Being in a hurry and rather weary of walking on my hooves, I accepted the offer. Instead of taking me to my destination, the carriage went north towards Canterlot.

I was unable to escape, but a strange stallion who called himself “The Doctor” intervened, kicking the cart driver over and twisting it’s head off. The driver looked like some kind of robot. It is because of this “Doctor’s” actions that I am alive and able to send you this letter.

I hope that my testimony can be of use, and that the perpetrators can be caught before anypony else gets taken away.

Sincerely,

Derpy Hooves

Sealing her letter in an envelope, Derpy prepared to go to the post office to mail it to Canterlot. She threw on a bag over her withers and wings, slipping the letter inside one of the exterior pockets.

As soon as she opened the door, she was greeted by the sight of one of the Taxi Carriages from earlier, with an identical driver standing outside of it. It had parked itself on the road to Carrot Top’s cottage.

Derpy backed away from the taxi slowly, though she had already caught the driver’s attention. It began to creep towards her, forcing the pony to back herself up against the wall of the cottage. Automatically, the doors of the taxi carriage sprung open, and the driver reared back, dashing towards her.

Derpy did the only thing she could think of, which was to take off flying, swooping up and nearly crashing into the branch of a tree before landing on the tiled roof of Carrot Top’s cottage.

At that moment, a loud noise began to sound to her side, and a blue box faded in from nothingness. Derpy stared, her mouth agape, as a blue box labeled “Police Public Call Box” appeared on top of her friend’s roof.

The robotic driver and carriage appeared as well, looming over the edge of the roof.

“The carriage flies?!” Derpy shouted, backing up against the blue box now as the carriage landed atop the tiled roof.

The door of the box swung open to her side, with The Doctor himself poking his head outside.

“Get in quick, before it charges at you again!”

Derpy complied, dashing into the strange box and slamming the door shut behind her. As the pegasus turned around, she was greeted by the sight of tall bronze walls covered in roundish bumps, and a hexagonal surface at the center of it all, against which the strange stallion leaned.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked, beaming.

“It’s.... it’s.... it’s a spaceship,” Derpy stuttered, backing up, “inside a wooden box....”

Comments

[Classy Fox]

Darn she didn't say it's bigger on the inside