The Deletions from "Shadow Of A Ghost" · 3:52am Apr 26th, 2014
So when writing that final chapter of "Doctor Whooves: Shadow of a Ghost," I had particular trouble with that opening sequence with Luna, so much so, that I almost cut it out entirely, but after three or so revisions, I finally got something I was satisfied with. But I originally started out with something very different. So much so, that I thought you readers might be interested in seeing for yourselves these alternate takes, and reading why I decided they wouldn't fly.
TAKE ONE:
It had been a rather uneventful night for Princess Luna, but in the long run, she supposed that was preferred. A calm night meant nothing amiss had taken place. No danger had arisen. No problems needed to be resolved. No ponies had been harmed. Ideally, this was what they all wanted to happen all the time. Luna knew this, and certainly did not want to diminish the value of such things in the slightest.
But at the same time…it had been an uneventful night. And Luna wasn’t certain what to do with herself.
Night Court had been held for the first few hours of the evening, but as Luna had become accustomed to, almost no ponies had attended it, and eventually it was closed early. Night Court had long been depressingly unattended since even before Luna’s banishment, but Luna had learned from her past mistakes. She tried to not let it bug her.
After that, she spent some time with her aide doing paperwork and getting all caught up on that. But unlike her sister, Luna had always been pretty good staying on top of her paperwork, and it did not take long before she had that all sorted for the evening. So after that she did a surprise inspection of the Night Guard. Then, a few hours later, did it again out of boredom. She was tempted to do it for a third time, so to kill off the few remaining hours she had left before morning and Celestia took over again. But doing so would probably make the bat ponies of the Night Guard begin to wonder what was up, so she was resisting that temptation.
She had done a little dreamwalking, but the dreamscape was surprisingly calm tonight. Her subjects were all sleeping peacefully tonight. Which was good, of course. But it meant dreamwalking was left rather dull…unless Luna started sitting in on ponies dreams, watching how they turn out. But she had learned long ago that wasn’t as good an idea as one might think. It tended to cause…complications…to arise before long.
The less that was said about the incident of the pony who had thought Luna had been stalking him in his dreams, the better (in truth, Luna had only started watching because she found his dreams amusing and nothing more. But try telling that to the stallion in question).
Ultimately, Luna decided to retire to her bedchambers early and maybe read a book for the rest of the night while she waited for morning. So she directed her course to the royal apartments she and Celestia shared, having been constructed after her return. The journey was a quiet one, and she encountered nopony until arriving at the door of said apartments, finding the usual pair of night guards stationed on either side of it.
“Good evening, Princess,” one of them said as they both bowed their heads in greeting. “Slow night?”
“Indeed,” Luna responded with a nod. She pushed open one of the double doors and started to slip inside. “I will be in my bedchambers reading should my presence be required.”
Though it was doubtful.
Quietly walking through the apartment’s private kitchens and adjoining living area that stood behind the double doors so to not disturb her sister still sleeping in her private bedchambers, Luna stepped through the doors leading into her own bedchambers that sat adjacent of her sister’s and then turned to her bookcase. Selecting an ancient tome she had enjoyed reading in olden times, she took it to her bed and, sprawling out on the covers, began to read.
She had not been reading long when she became aware of a sound starting to ring out from the direction of her balcony, somewhere outside the open patio doors that divided it from her bedchambers.
Whirr…whirr…whirr…
Looking up sharply, Luna listened to the sound for a moment, then closed the tome and rose to her hooves, staring in the direction of her balcony as the sound continued to be generated somewhere just out her sight.
Whirr…whirr…whirr…THUD
With a heavy thump like something had landed outside on her balcony, the sound ended. Luna started slowly towards the balcony, holding her breath, and she tensely waited for what would happen next. Soon she was almost at the doorway of the balcony, getting ready to step out and investigate, wondering if she had just imagined the noise after all.
But she was cut short when a khaki stallion in a top hat suddenly poked his head through the patio door.
“BOO!” he cried.
Luna jumped with a yelp then rolled her eyes. “Doctor!” she cried, part annoyed, part amused.
“Ha!” the Doctor stated, grinning. “Gotcha!”
He then let himself into the bedchambers, but Luna did not stop him. After all, it wasn’t the first time he had unexpectedly visited like this. He knew he was welcomed.
The Doctor looked around the room briefly while Luna closed the patio doors behind him. “You’ve redecorated in here!” he noted brightly. He frowned. “I don’t like it.”
“You simply do not care for change,” Luna pointed out teasingly as she turned to face him. “So Doctor, what brings you here this evening?”
“What, do I really need an excuse to visit a friend, Miss Luna?” the Doctor asked, looking offended.
“You mean you did not come to share stories of your latest adventures, Doctor?” Luna asked, raising an eyebrow in mock surprise.
“Well…” the Doctor began. “I wouldn’t say that…”
Luna grinned. “I thought as much,” she said, and proceeded for her bedchamber doors. “Fortunately for you, I have some leftover daffodil and dandelion sandwiches we can share while you tell your tales.”
The Doctor rubbed his hooves together in anticipation. “Goody!” he declared.
It was an arrangement that had all started rather peculiarly. The Doctor first met her in a chance encounter not long after Luna’s return from banishment, literally the morning after, during the festivities that took place in Ponyville to celebrate the event. Exactly why he was there, the Doctor had never made entirely clear. He was simply there to “look into something” that he claimed had been entirely unrelated to Luna. Whatever the case, he met up with her, and gave her a few words of encouragement, and gave her some company during what was still a very tumultuous time in her life as she worked to come to terms with what happened.
Why he did it was again not completely clear to Luna; the Doctor had always shirked the subject. But Luna had long suspected he did it out of sympathy for her; that he could relate to her situation. But whatever his intentions had been, it had left its mark on Luna, who had greatly appreciated the support, and the two entered into a curious friendship. Every now and then, at seemingly random times in her life, the Doctor would turn up, they’d sit down, and he’d share his latest adventures with her, Luna having learned of the Doctor’s peculiar lifestyle, and his origins, quite a while ago. Luna would then relate things to the Doctor that he’d find of interest, either about Equestria, its history, or just her life in general. And today seemed to be no different.
“So there I was,” the Doctor was in the middle of relating dramatically, waving around a half-eaten sandwich half in one hoof as he did so, “stranded on the edge of a cliff with these monsters surrounding me on all sides. It’s quite clear they mean business, and by business, I mean, GGRRCK!” He ran the sandwich along his neck in a menacing slicing motion. “So they’ve got me pinned, and of course I remind them that I wasn’t there to cause any harm; I had just stopped to look at the wonderful vistas to be found on that planet. Which, by the way, are absolutely beautiful! Definitely worth a visit…if you can avoid all the alien monsters that live there. But I wasn’t so lucky, and so I had to think fast or become a Time Lord chew toy.”
“So what did you do?” Luna asked calmly, stopping to sip some of the mint tea she had prepared to go with the sandwiches.
“I jumped.”
“Oh my.”
“Oh, but it was okay, there was this really deep pool of water at the bottom remember…I did mention that, right?”
Luna grinned. “No.”
“Oh. Well, considered it mentioned now. Anyway, I jump into this pool of water…at least I think it was water…it did feel notably thicker than I remember water being…and apparently I was braver than those monsters still up on the cliff, because they didn’t dare follow me. Though I can’t blame them. The mother of all belly flops, that jump.”
Luna giggled.
“But as it turned out, I had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, because that pool of water was just filled with the biggest piranha you ever saw! So now I had to get out of that pool of water stat before those fish could take too many bites out of me.”
“And then?” Luna sipped calmly from her cup of mint tea, knowing that the Doctor had obviously gotten out of it safely.
“Well then, once out of that pool I had the long hike back to the TARDIS, because, you know, it was still up on that cliff I had jumped off of. What a hike that was, but I guess it went smoothly enough, especially after I learned the sonic scared off those monsters. Not sure why, I think maybe the noise it makes hurts their ears. Either way, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth—apologies to all horses present of course.”
“Of course.”
“And then, I got back to the TARDIS and hightailed it out of there.” The Doctor leaned back in his seat smugly and bit into his sandwich.
Luna raised her glass to him in a salute. “Congrats, Doctor, on another safe return, then,” she remarked. She then did something that broke their usual routine. “But I must ask, Doctor…have you gotten closer to finding a way back into your universe?”
The Doctor paused for a long moment, and looked at Luna. “No,” he admitted. “Thus far I’ve only figured out that the only way I know of is the same way I got here by.”
“And you do not wish to take that route, due to the dangers,” Luna remarked.
The Doctor nodded, setting aside his sandwich and pulling his own cup of tea closer to him, gazing into the liquid within. “Yes,” he confirmed. “Both dangerous to me, and the inhabitants of this universe, potentially.”
“Then you are not likely going to be leaving anytime soon, I presume?”
The Doctor jerked his head upward, looking hurt. “Miss Luna!” he declared, shocked. “Are you saying you want me gone?”
Luna smiled and shook her head. “Of course not, Doctor,” she assured. “You are, of course, welcomed to stay as long as you desire.”
“Well, I can’t stay forever. I really ought to get back to my universe.”
“And yet,” Luna pressed, setting aside her glass and leaning closer to the Doctor, turning somewhat serious, “for somepony who has been very adamant that he must return home…he seems to be in no hurry to do so.”
The Doctor frowned. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“I am merely thinking of your future, Doctor, and by association, your own well-being. You may not hail from Equestria, or even this universe, but we have been associating long enough that I consider you like unto my own subjects. As such, I have begun taking into consideration your needs.” Luna looked down at her forehooves resting on the table top they sat at. “And I have begun to worry about you, Doctor.”
“Worry about me?” The Doctor repeated then grinned. “Miss Luna, as you should very well know by now, I am more than capable of looking after myself. I can keep myself safe.”
“That is not what I am worried about, Doctor,” Luna said. She tapped the table with one of her hooves briefly. “Doctor, you are aware of my past, the things I had done, and the price I had to pay for it.”
The Doctor turned solemn at this, knowing that Luna did not like talking about her darker past and wouldn’t do it without a reason. “I do,” he assured. “But I thought you had moved on from that.”
“I believe I have,” Luna agreed. “And there is much I have to thank you for that, Doctor, especially for your support as I sought to overcome it. Become a better pony than I was before. But the solitude I had to face before reaching that point…” she heaved a heavy sigh. “I am no stranger to loneliness, Doctor.” She turned her gaze to the khaki pony. “And I have noticed you are becoming very lonely, Doctor.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Do I, now, Miss Luna?” He adjusted his top hat so to seem casual. “And why do you think that I am lonely?”
“I will answer with another question, Doctor.” Luna leaned closer. “Why do you keep coming back to visit me, not that it is not appreciated, to…basically…brag of your exploits?”
The Doctor’s expression made it quite clear that he had no good answer to that.
So Luna pressed on. “Doctor, you are many things,” she said. “A hero. An explorer. And no doubt more. But like any other living thing, you desire companionship. More than that, you need companionship. And I think you know that. This leads me to bring up perhaps the one thing that has always puzzled me the most about you, Doctor.” She tilted her head, giving him a puzzled gaze. “The fact that you seem to be adamantly avoiding it.”
“I’m not avoiding it,” the Doctor persisted, looking annoyed. “I’m here now with you, aren’t I?”
“It is not enough. Just the barest minimum to get by with. You do not visit me all that often. Only once or twice a year, in my time…although lately you have begun to visit more frequently.”
“I have not.”
“I have been keeping track Doctor. Trust me. You have.”
The Doctor turned away from her, looking grumpy. “Don’t mince words then, Miss Luna,” he said. “What are you getting at?”
“You need someone, Doctor. At least as a friend. Someone who can be at your side much more readily than I can, waiting for you to choose to sporadically come to me whenever you can no longer stand the solitude you no doubt face traveling as you do. Someone who can be there to see those great and wondrous things you see with you. Someone you can share all of that with.”
Luna’s words seemed to have struck a cord with the Doctor. “I can’t,” he said. “You know that. I don’t plan on staying in this universe that long.”
“And yet you have.”
“Not by choice.”
“Is it?”
The Doctor did not respond.
Luna thought for a moment, debating her options. “Doctor, if it would help, I am willing to come with you on your travels.”
The Doctor shot her a look. “You will do no such thing, Princess Luna,” he stated firmly, the rare use of her proper royal title—despite her discouraging him to use it—indicating he was very annoyed by the idea. “You have a country to help rule. You can’t go abandoning it or your subjects. And you know that. Otherwise I know you would have asked well before now.”
“I do know, Doctor.” Luna leveled a firm gaze back at him. “But I fear if I do not, you will never do it yourself.”
“Miss Luna, you are starting to sound like you are trying to set me up with somepony.”
Luna grinned a little. “That is not my intent,” she said. “But I would not stop you if you feel the need. I would believe it to be beneficial for you in the end.”
The Doctor stood his ground, though. “I can’t.”
“And why not, Doctor? You have said it yourself. You could still be here in our universe for a while longer, until you find that safe way back you claim to be searching for. So could you not just…visit for a while in the meantime?”
The Doctor was quiet for a moment. “I’d rather not risk it, Miss Luna,” he said. “It’s complicated.”
“You say that about a great many things. But that is not why you say it, is it? It is just your way of avoiding something you do not want to talk about…is it not?”
“Miss Luna…” the Doctor began, looking her in the eye. “If things were different…” he trailed off. “No…” he finally concluded. “I can’t. I have my own universe I need to get back to, and the longer I stay here, the more it is going to show. I don’t like it either, but…I need to do this.” He looked at the princess of the night. “Surely you can understand that, Miss Luna.”
Luna still was not convinced. “You have a time machine, Doctor,” she stated firmly. “A device that can take you to any time you desire whenever you wish. I am not suggesting you put off your search for another way back to your universe, but I do not see how time is relevant otherwise. You are more than capable of returning to your universe at the same moment you left. Besides…” she gave the Doctor a knowing look. “Gallifrey is not where the flow of time will be bothering it anyway.”
The Doctor was quiet for a long moment. “I am the only one who can bring them back,” he said.
Luna was familiar with the details already. “Yet you know of no way of doing it that will not cause disaster in the process.”
“There has to be a way. I’m certain of it.”
“Much like your problem of trying to get back to your own universe.”
The Doctor fell silent again.
“Doctor, I understand your argument, and I do not wish to undermine its importance,” Luna assured him. “But that is not the problem that has made you feel so obligated to keep yourself secluded from everypony else, something that would stop you from seeking the company of others so. That is caused by something else entirely. Now I can only spec—”
“It’s because I don’t want to become too attached, all right?” the Doctor finally admitted abruptly. He looked at Luna. “You know I don’t plan to stay forever. One day I will have to go back. I know this. You know this. But will everypony else?”
Luna’s eyes blinked with understanding. “You fear we will not want to see you leave,” she observed.
“I know you won’t.”
“Is that why you have been minimizing your interactions with others?”
“Mostly.” The Doctor hung his head. “Obviously, you are an exception Miss Luna, because you understand this. You have been around for a long time, longer than me even. You know and understand that everything does not last forever. That someday I’ll have to leave and never come back, and you’ll be prepared for that day. But you are also not like everypony else. They, though they always mean well, just can’t understand it like you and I do. They are going to want me to stay forever, to always be there for them. So they can have somepony to depend on.” The Doctor slumped down in his chair, depressed. “And I can’t bear to disappoint them.”
A long moment of silence fell between them.
“But Doctor,” Luna said softly. “Can you bear to disappoint yourself by keeping away and never meeting them?”
The Doctor glanced in Luna’s direction. “I don’t know if I have a choice,” he pointed out. “I don’t know if they’ll understand that, as much as I’d want to, I really can’t be there always for them to depend on like that. Not here.”
“Then make them understand, Doctor. Show more faith in them than you’ve been letting yourself do.” Luna grinned. “If you can show so much faith in me, believing I could recover from my past mistakes…you can do so for others.”
The Doctor did not respond. But he did look like he was considering it.
Luna sipped her tea again. “I am still willing to accompany you on your travels, if you will have me,” she offered again.
The Doctor shook his head. “You and I both know it wouldn’t work out,” he pointed out. “You have your own duties here and time machine or not, leaving with me would still mean you’d be shirking them. And the time machine is not perfect. There would still be discrepancies. Minor ones. But they build up the more you do it. If you did come with me, Miss Luna, eventually you would reach the day where you would not be able to keep up with both lives; the life as a princess of Equestria, and life in the TARDIS. You can have one or the other, but you can’t have both.” The Doctor swallowed. “I have had companions in the past who have tried before. It just doesn’t work out that way, though.”
Luna nodded in understanding. “Then I urge you to find a different companion, one who would not have to face this problem as much as I. Surely you’ve encountered one during your travels in our universe.”
The Doctor grinned. “I suppose I have,” he said, one coming to mind.
Luna grinned back, bringing her cup up to her lips. “Then to quote a modern phrase I have heard be used on the streets,” she said. She paused to sip her tea then gazed over the lip of the cup at the Doctor, giving him a smirk. “Go get them, tiger.”
There are many reasons why this take didn't work out, but basically I recognized almost right away that it had too many problems. It felt too campy and conflicted, starting out happy, but quickly delving into depressing. The Doctor's story felt cheesy and unoriginal. I didn't like the characterization as Luna felt too manipulative and awestruck and the Doctor too sullen and negative. The talk of Gallifrey was touching, but ultimately unimportant to the story and the topic, which I felt I was approaching from the wrong angle anyway. Plus I noticed that I was bringing up many of the same subjects that Spike and Rainbow had already brought up in the chapter previous, and were redundant. And it overall was just too dang long.
But the real clincher that got this take scrapped was this realization: why is it okay for the Doctor to associate with Luna and interact with her like she's a companion, but not Rainbow? Annnd I couldn't give a good answer for that. Which meant this whole scene was wrecked anyway, so I scrapped it, and started over to try again.
TAKE TWO:
It had been a rather uneventful night for Princess Luna, but in the long run, she supposed that was preferred. A calm night meant nothing amiss had taken place. No danger had arisen. No problems needed to be resolved. No ponies had been harmed. Ideally, this was what they all wanted to happen all the time. Luna knew this, and certainly did not want to diminish the value of such things in the slightest.
But at the same time…it had been an uneventful night. And Luna wasn’t certain what to do with herself.
Night Court had been held for the first few hours of the evening, but as Luna had become accustomed to, almost no ponies had attended it, and eventually it was closed early. She tried to not let it bug her. After that, she spent some time doing paperwork. But unlike her sister, Luna had always been pretty good staying on top of her paperwork, and it did not take long before she was finished. So after that she did a surprise inspection of the Night Guard. Then, a few hours later, did it again out of boredom. She was tempted to do it for a third time, so to kill off the few remaining hours she had left before morning and Celestia took over again. But doing so would probably make the bat ponies of the Night Guard begin to wonder what was up, so she was resisting that temptation.
She had done a little dreamwalking, but the dreamscape was surprisingly calm tonight. Her subjects were all sleeping peacefully tonight. Which was good, of course. But it meant dreamwalking was left rather dull…unless Luna started sitting in on ponies dreams, watching how they turn out. But she had learned long ago that wasn’t as good an idea as one might think. It tended to cause…complications…to arise before long.
Ultimately, Luna decided to retire to her bedchambers early and maybe read a book for the rest of the night. So she started the walk across the castle towards them. Along the way, she passed the entryway leading into the staircase for the castle’s tallest tower. But then she doubled back and looked at it again when she noticed said doorway was missing something vitally important.
Guards. The two guards that should have been stationed here were missing, and the door itself was open ajar. Like somepony had slipped through recently. Alarmed and worried there might be an intruder, Luna decided to investigate, looking around for the missing guards. They were not in the immediate vicinity of the door, though. So Luna started on up the stairs, wondering if her missing guards were up there investigating something themselves.
She was soon convinced that they had when she heard a soft, electric hum and a faint pounding of what sounded like a hammer begin to echo down the staircase. Then, as she neared the top, she found the two missing guards, both slumped on the steps and, curiously, fast asleep. Though they were otherwise unharmed, Luna quickly saw it was not a natural sleep but rather an artificially induced one, and her worry grew. Proceeding more cautiously, she continued on up the staircase towards its eventual end.
The staircase eventually terminated with an open trap door that led into a large attic space at the top of the tower. The room was mostly empty save for a number of wooden crates that lined the edges. However there was now a new object in the tower that Luna knew had never been there before. One that was very much out of place and from which the humming sound she had heard before was coming from.
But Luna recognized the object and knew what it was. “Of course,” she mumbled with a grin, beginning to understand what was going on.
Her eyes then traced the wiring that was attached to the object, on up to where said wiring attached to the base of the tower’s thick, metal lightning rod positioned at the center of its conical roof, protruding on through it to join with a network of wooden beams that provided it with added support. At this base was a collection of various electronics and other devices, many of which Luna had not seen the likes of before. Though she could not see the pony from here, standing somewhere on the wooden catwalk that ran around the base of the lightning rod was the source of the pounding, the sound of somepony using a hammer, no doubt installing more electronic devices to the rod.
Luna took a few steps into the room, shaking her head in good humor, before turning her snout up towards the tower’s rafters. “Greetings!” she called up.
There was a sudden clunking sound of a hammer dropping onto the wooden catwalk, followed by what sounded like a hushed curse, but otherwise the presumed intruder remained silent, possibly in a desperate ploy to pretend he was not actually there at all.
Luna was unconvinced. “I know you are up there!” she called loudly. “I expect a response!”
But no response was given. Whoever it was, and Luna had a good hunch who, he was determined to not give any more evidence of his presence.
“If you do not answer soon, I will be forced to take action accordingly!” the princess of the night warned next, hoping this would spur a response. After all, the evidence suggested this pony had assaulted members of her Night Guard (if putting them to sleep could be considered assault).
But though she could hear the pony shift positions, probably debating his options, he still made no attempt to respond to Luna’s calls.
Luna grinned. “All right then, you have left me with no choice!” she called, and lit her horn.
The moment she did was when the pony finally broke his silence. “No wait—!”
But too late, Luna had already grabbed him with her magic, and, deliberately being a little rough, she yanked him off the catwalk and levitated him on down until he floated, upside down, before her.
Luna regarded the vested stallion wearing a top hat that was only still on his bronze mane because her magic kept it there. “Doctor,” she greeted with a polite, and slightly amused, nod.
The Doctor made a sheepish, and somewhat embarrassed, grin at her. “Miss Luna,” he greeted back.
Luna raised an eyebrow. “Care to explain what is happening this time, Doctor?”
The Doctor sighed. “All right,” he relented. “Time’s of the essence anyway.” He motioned to the ground with his hooves. “You wanna put me down?”
Luna flipped him over with her magic, and then gently set him down on his hooves again and released him. The Doctor paused long enough to adjust his top hat and pull down the sleeves of the white shirt he wore under his vest before quickly heading back for the ladder that led back up into the rafters.
“I need to finish this first before I do that, though!” he stated in a hurry, no doubt neglecting to mention this until after Luna had released him from her magic on purpose.
By the time he had returned to the catwalk, though, Luna had beaten him there, having flown up. “You can explain it to me while you work,” she stated.
The Doctor frowned, turning to resume work on the electronics strung around the lightning rod. “You’re not going to let me get out of this, are you, Miss Luna?” he noted.
“No.” This time the princess’s blunt response lacked the cheer and humor of before.
“Well, if you must know,” the Doctor muttered as he worked. “I’m trying to save all of Equestria here.”
“You usually are, Doctor. Do you care to be more specific?”
“It’s complicated, Miss Luna.”
“Yet it involves the country I help rule over and the subduing of my guards. That would make me entitled to know, would it not?”
The Doctor glanced at Luna briefly then back at the wiring in his hooves. “An asteroid is about to hit Canterlot,” he explained simply.
Luna raised an eyebrow again. “As Princess of the Night, I am aware of everything that transpires in the sky at night,” she pointed out. “This would include any asteroids that threaten this land.”
“This one is special, and I’m not surprised you didn’t notice,” the Doctor explained. “It’s a dark matter asteroid, see. Hard to detect, and very much immune to your magic.”
“I believe you underestimate the power of my magic, Doctor,” Luna stated, watching as the Doctor ran his sonic screwdriver briefly over the wiring he had been working on, the electronics suddenly coming to life.
“Oh trust me, I’ve been studying what you call “magic” since our last encounter, Luna,” the Doctor assured her a little grumpily as he worked. “I know what it can and cannot do. It’s not even really magic, not truly. It’s really just a sort of a highly refined and precise sonic-based energy emission. That’s why it makes that chime-y sound when it activates. Basically, your “magic” and my sonic screwdriver are one and the same.”
Luna furrowed her brow. “I know of plenty of magician ponies who would take great offense to your…demeaning…description of their trade, Doctor. To say nothing of your comparison of it to your magic wand.”
“It’s not a magic wand, it’s a sonic screwdriver, I’ve told you this before Miss Luna!” the Doctor snapped, despite knowing Luna had only called it as such because it bugged him. “And it makes sense anyway, because your universe seems more susceptible to the influence of sonic energy than any other I’ve seen…”
He mumbled on for a few moments in frustration. When he finally ceased, Luna’s stern gaze turned into a pleased grin. “It is good to see you again, Doctor,” she said truthfully.
The Doctor sighed then grinned too. “Likewise, Miss Luna,” he said, but then abruptly turned to climb down from the catwalk again. “But I can’t stay and talk. Got lots to do, see.”
When he reached the bottom, he found Luna had beaten him there again. “I do not mind,” she assured him. “I am willing to listen while you work.”
The Doctor walked past her and towards the tall blue object where all the wiring hooked together. “I mind,” he stated as he approached the TARDIS. “And you know it too.”
Luna followed him, glancing around at the roomier interior of the craft as she did so. The stylistic interior with its columns, trim, and stained-glass décor all seemed largely unchanged since the last time she had seen it. It was still an impressive sight, though.
Luna focused her attention on the Doctor though, who proceeded to the TARDIS control panel, flipping switches and adjusting some of the wires that had been connected directly to it. She leaned on the wooden railing that ran around the control panel’s small platform. “You have not explained why you subdued my guards.”
“They were trying to interfere and I didn’t want to try and explain it to them. I didn’t hurt them though, you know I wouldn’t. I just did a little trick I picked up recently with my sonic. Mimics a certain sleeping spell that causes the production of a special chemical in a pony’s body that causes sleepiness. They’ll be fine in about a half hour or less, and be well rested, too. Plenty of time to carry out my plan.”
Luna regarded him for a moment. “So what is your plan, Doctor?”
“Extend the TARDIS’s shield, using that lightning rod out there as a makeshift transmitter,” the Doctor explained as he worked. “That way the asteroid will hit the shield and not Canterlot. Should reduce it into rubble and make for a nice and safe meteor shower later for all the astronomers to enjoy.”
Luna considered this for a moment. “I could create a similar shield with my magic,” she offered.
“Not the same. Your shield will be more like a bubble around Canterlot. Mine will be more like a column…thing that will stretch on out into space, and…you know what, it’s complicated. And anyway, I already told you, it’s a dark matter asteroid. It’s immune to your magic, so your shield probably wouldn’t do anything to stop it.”
“I still do not understand why. I have never encountered such an object before.”
“Well, usually dark matter stays away from normal matter,” The Doctor explained as he started to gather up a long cable. “A collision like this is a bit rare. I’d actually be kind of excited to witness it if it wasn’t for the fact that it was threatening so many lives.”
Luna frowned, looking puzzled. “So why do you think that has suddenly changed?”
“I don’t know, something probably just bumped it out of position,” the Doctor muttered, plugging in one end of the cable into the control panel. “Might look into why later.”
“I had thought you were busy searching for a way back into your universe.”
The Doctor glanced in Luna’s direction as he looped the rest of the cable around one shoulder. “That too,” he confirmed, and proceeded to head up one of the staircases leading onto the balcony above the control panel, trailing a cable behind him as he went.
Arriving there, he was unsurprised to see Luna had, again, beaten him there. He raised an eyebrow at her. “You know Miss Luna, not to sound rude, but another pony might consider your tagging-along rather annoying.”
“I simply came to enjoy the view from your balcony, Doctor,” Luna responded simply. It was an obvious lie because she wasn’t even paying attention to the view the balcony had of the control room.
But the Doctor opted not to argue that point. “Technically, it’s more of a mezzanine than a balcony,” he corrected instead, taking his cable and plugging it into the glowing cone-like structure that stood in the center of the balcony, then proceeding to make other adjustments to the device itself. “And I’m trying to work here, Miss Luna. Now isn’t exactly the time for me to be all that…talky.”
“Are you certain it is not because you do not wish for me to have the chance to bring up a certain subject?” Luna asked, approaching the Doctor, half of her face awash with the blue glow of the cone structure.
The Doctor paused for a long moment. “No.”
Luna paused for a long moment as well then brought it up anyway. “I notice you are still traveling alone.”
The Doctor made a frustrated wince. “Yeah, I am,” he admitted. “We’ve already been through why, though.”
“You said you do not intend to stay in this universe that long,” Luna summarized. She motioned to the Doctor with one hoof. “And yet…you have.”
The Doctor did not respond.
“Tell me Doctor, have you gotten closer to finding a way back into your universe?”
The Doctor looked at Luna for a long moment. “No,” he admitted. “Thus far I’ve figured out that the only way I know of is the same way I got here by. A route that would be both dangerous to me and the inhabitants of this universe, potentially.” He shook his head, rubbing his brow with one hoof. “But so it’s taken longer than I expected. Plans change, Miss Luna.”
“Then I must also ask; why do you keep returning to Equestria?”
“The answer, Miss Luna, is mostly because Equestria keeps getting into danger. Speaking of, I was in the middle of getting it out of danger yet again.” The Doctor finished his work and proceeded for the balcony staircase again. But he couldn’t help but ask. “Why do you ask, anyway?”
“Because I believe the reason you keep coming back is more for the friends you know you have here.”
The khaki stallion paused at the top of the stairs, glancing back at the blue alicorn. “I’ve been trying to avoid making too many friends in this universe, Miss Luna,” he pointed out.
Luna grinned solemnly. “Exactly my point.”
The Doctor frowned and proceeded back down the staircase to the control panel. Luna was already there waiting for him by the time he arrived.
“Are you implying that I am not being true to my claims, Miss Luna?” he asked, without looking at her, working at the TARDIS controls.
“I am implying that you are lonely, Doctor,” Luna stated.
“Do I, now? And what makes you think that, Miss Luna?”
“Do you remember the first time we met?”
The Doctor stopped, remembering. “We had mint tea, at your request,” he noted. “We were in Ponyville. And we just…talked.”
“Whilst everypony else celebrated the defeat of Nightmare Moon and my return from banishment earlier that same morning,” Luna added softly. She started to approach the stallion. “Doctor, I cannot tell you how much that “talk” meant to me at that time. How much it still means to me. I had just spent a thousand years sealed in the moon. And I come back to a drastically different and alien Equestria. With everypony I had known previously, save Celestia, now long gone. I was…lost. Confused. Feeling extremely guilty for my actions and hating myself for them. Struggling to come to terms with what had happened. And I was alone. So very alone.” She looked the Doctor in the eye. “I was very glad to meet somepony who could understand that and…comfort me. Convince me that all was not lost. That life would still go on. Doctor, that little “talk” of ours was a turning point in my recovery from my past.”
“I know all of this, Miss Luna,” the Doctor responded quietly, having become very still. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because there was one thing I never did find out about that day, Doctor. Why you were even there.”
The Doctor avoided her gaze. “I was looking into something,” he stated. “Entirely unrelated.”
“Then why bother with a broken mare you had never before met, Doctor?”
The Doctor closed his eyes sadly. “You weren’t broken, Miss Luna. I could just…relate to your situation.”
Luna placed a hoof on his shoulder and turned him to face her. “Doctor, you are many things,” she said. “A hero. An explorer. And no doubt more. But like any other living thing, you desire companionship. More than that, you need companionship. And I think you know that. This leads me to bring up perhaps the one thing that has always puzzled me the most about you, Doctor.” She tilted her head, giving him a puzzled gaze. “The fact that you seem to be adamantly avoiding it.”
“I’m not avoiding it. I’m here with you now, aren’t I?”
“It is not enough. Just the barest minimum to get by with. We barely see each other. Mostly only through chance encounters such as today’s. You deserve more than that, Doctor. Nay, you need more.”
The Doctor turned away from her. “Don’t mince words then, Miss Luna,” he said. “What are you getting at?”
“You need someone, Doctor. Someone who can be at your side. Someone who can be there to see those great and wondrous things you see with you. Someone you can share all of that with. Someone to travel with you.” Luna thought for a moment, debating her options. “Doctor, if it would help, I am willing to go with you.”
The Doctor shot her a look. “You will do no such thing, Princess Luna,” he stated firmly, the rare use of her proper royal title indicating he was very annoyed by the idea. “You have a country to help rule. You can’t go abandoning it or your subjects. And you know that.”
“I do know, Doctor.” Luna leveled a firm gaze back at him. “But if not I, then please, stop staying away from the other one and let her come with you instead.”
The Doctor frowned. “Her who?”
“The other pony you have met before.”
The Doctor went still again and avoided Luna’s gaze. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“I am not blind, Doctor. It has not escaped my attention that whenever we meet, there is another pony present in the general area. One who you have always been watching for. Why I believe you were truly there the day we first met.” Luna turned the stallion to face her again. “I have not figured out specifically which one she is. But I have narrowed it down to six. Who, as it happens, were just here at the castle earlier in the month, so to celebrate the coronation of one of them as a princess.” Luna tilted her head again. “But, if I were to guess, I do not believe it is Twilight Sparkle. Rather, it is one of her friends.”
The Doctor gazed at the TARDIS controls before him, but he had stopped working with them. “You are very perceptive, Miss Luna.”
Luna took it as a confession that she was right. “So why, Doctor? Why are you avoiding her when you quite clearly want her companionship?”
“It’s complicated.”
“You say that about a great many things. But that is not why you say it. It is just your way of avoiding something you do not want to discuss…is it not?”
The Doctor was silent for a moment, but was about to respond when an alarm began to ring on the control panel before them. The Doctor quickly checked the displays. “The asteroid is about to hit,” he announced urgently. “I need to get that shield up now, or Canterlot is about to become one big hole in the ground!”
“Did you get everything set up properly?” Luna asked, also urgently, hoping she hadn’t distracted the Doctor too long in their discussion.
“We’re about to find out, Miss Luna,” the Doctor exclaimed as he grabbed a lever with his hoof and threw it. “Tally ho!”
The wires connecting the TARDIS to the lightning rod suddenly sparked, but held. The TARDIS then hummed for a moment before the console started to beep a more heartwarming tone.
The Doctor checked the readouts again. He grinned. “The shield’s up and working. And…”
A sudden shudder rippled through the TARDIS as the wires sparked again.
“…the asteroid has struck the shield exactly as planned.” The Doctor checked the readouts for a few moments longer before his grin grew bigger still. “It’s breaking up. It’s not going to be hurting anypony now.” He looked up at Luna. “There’s probably a very pretty meteor shower taking place right now.” He paused for a moment. “If we find a window…we could watch.”
Luna thought for a moment. “I know just the place.”
So, leaving everything else where it was, the two left the tower and went to a private balcony to watch glowing streaks of broken asteroid burn up in Equestria’s atmosphere. They did so for several minutes in silence, simply savoring the view and enjoying the chance to relax.
But finally, Luna broke the silence. “Doctor, you did not answer the question,” she pointed out. “Why are you keeping yourself so alone when you clearly do not need to be?”
The Doctor hesitated. “I’m not that alone.”
“I am no stranger to loneliness, Doctor. You are very alone. Trust me.”
“Normally I’m the one telling others to trust me.”
A long moment of silence fell. Finally, the Doctor sighed.
“It’s because I don’t want to become too attached,” he finally admitted abruptly. “Or rather, for her to become too attached to me.” He looked at Luna. “You know I don’t plan to stay forever. One day I will have to go back to my universe. I know this. You know this. But will everypony else?”
Luna’s eyes blinked with understanding. “You fear we will not want to see you leave,” she observed.
“I know you won’t.”
“Is that why you have been minimizing your interactions with others?”
“Mostly.” The Doctor hung his head. “Obviously, you are an exception Miss Luna, because you understand this. You have been around for a long time, longer than me even. You know and understand that everything does not last forever. That someday I’ll have to leave and never come back, and you’ll be prepared for that day. But you are also not like everypony else. They, though they always mean well, just can’t understand it like you and I do. They are going to want me to stay forever, to always be there for them. So they can have somepony to depend on.” The Doctor sighed again, depressed. “And I can’t bear to disappoint them.”
A long moment of silence fell between them.
“But Doctor,” Luna said softly. “Can you bear to disappoint yourself by keeping away and never meeting them?”
The Doctor glanced in Luna’s direction. “I don’t know if I have a choice,” he pointed out. “I don’t know if they’ll understand that, as much as I’d want to, I really can’t be there always for them to depend on like that. Not here.”
“Then make them understand, Doctor. Show more faith in them than you’ve been letting yourself do.”
The Doctor considered this for a moment. “Suppose I did,” he said. “Do you really think it would make that much of a difference?”
“Doctor, I think you will not be happy with yourself until you do. One day you will return to your universe. Of this I have little doubt. But until then, I believe you have something to achieve in this one. It would be a pity if you achieved it without having someone to share the victory with.”
The Doctor grinned. “That does sound pretty good,” he admitted softly.
Luna grinned back. “Then all I have left to say to you tonight is to quote a modern phrase I have heard used on the streets.” Her grin turned into a teasing smirk. “Go get them, tiger.”
As you can probably tell, this one is already much closer to what appears in the final chapter, which I was much happier with, but still with some notable differences, ones that I soon realized were still problematic. First and foremost, I saw I still hadn't fixed the original problem of the first take; that the relationship between the Doctor and Luna was still too companiony with the implication that they still crossed paths from time to time. Worse still is that the characterization got even poorer; Luna became even more confrontational and the Doctor became even more negative, bitter, and even angry, all of which I felt there was no just cause for him to need to. Yet giving him a Doctory act for him to need to do (stopping the asteroid) helped make him feel more like the Doctor...only now they were pressed for time. And what do they do? Not take the time to eliminate the immediate danger, but sit and talk, which didn't seem logical, something I strove to fix in the final version by lessening that time limit greatly.
I also didn't like how they crossed paths (though it was a leap in the right direction) and the reasons why, nor that they relocate to a whole new location for that last bit which ultimately felt unneeded. I also liked the bit where Luna calls the Doc out on his appearing wherever Rainbow was, but decided that made him seem like he was stalking her and I didn't like the sound of that. It didn't seem in the Doc's character. It was also too long still, if not more so than before. I also had considered an idea where it was revealed Luna had actually been the one who moved the asteroid herself (proving she did INDEED have magical control over it) with the hope it'd draw the Doctor out so to have the talk, but I nixed that idea before even writing it because it would've dragged things on, made Luna too manipulative still, and made it seem like she was risking lives just to interfere with one, which wasn't Luna at all IMO.
So I made changes, and finally got the final version you see in the final chapter...omitting some details. It was still too long, so I cut stuff out, namely a much longer introduction of Luna finding the Doctor, including a conversation with her Night Guards about finding the Doctor and the fact she had given them standing orders to look out for him, as well a few additional lines in the conversation that ensues between Luna and the Doc. And even then I wasn't completely satisfied, and was now considering removing the asteriod-about-to-hit plot device and replace it with the Doc just being there to watch a meteor shower, and Luna catches him there. But by that point in time, I had decided I had dragged this on long enough I decided to not go into that would-be fourth revision...but I'll probably be forever thinking I probably should've.
I also cut a few other lines from the sequence with Spike immediately following it, including a longer conversation with Twilight about wing preening and a discussion about how other pegasi did it, and why Twilight would not do it that way. Humorous, but detracted from the story, so I cut it. Pinkie also had a few extra lines, as well as a few minor bits to set up for a would-be sequel, but since that's not happening, they got cut.
But yeah, hopefully this was enlightening in some manner and not a total waste of time on both out parts. At least it provides insight into the writing process that should be helpful for somebody I figure...
