//------------------------------//
// Home Alone 
// Story: Closer to the Void 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

Back in the console room, everypony waited disconsolately, sullenly sitting and staring at the console, or the manual, or Pinkie Pie’s increasingly erratic jittering. Suddenly, the hair at the base of Dinky’s mane prickled. Standing abruptly, she made for the door. “We need to go,” she said. 
Twilight, looking away from the shaking pink pony that had been the subject of her scrutiny, gave Dinky a peculiar glance. “...What’s the matter?”
“Don’t know. Just get out!”
Ditzy was the first after her daughter. Twilight merely shrugged and rose to follow, pulling Pinkie along with her. Once out in the hallway, they stood awkwardly, staring back into the room. “...Right…” said Twilight, making her way toward the door. “I’m just going to go back—”
She leapt back, startled by the doors in front of her slamming shut. There was a moment of stunned silence. “What the hay?” Twilight finally asked.
“Language!” Ditzy admonished, gesturing to her daughter’s innocent ears.
Murmuring apologies, Twilight peered through the porthole at the top of the door. She let out a slight gasp as she took in the view. “What is it?” Dinky asked, balancing on her back legs to get a better look through the window.
The TARDIS doors had opened, revealing a swirling vortex of pulsating golden light. In the distance, if one were to squint, the TARDIS handbook could be seen spinning away, its pages burning as they scattered as confetti into the infinite golden swirls. It did not take much imagination to think what it could do to a pony. Twilight turned to Dinky in astonishment. “How did you know that that was going to happen?”
The filly blinked in confusion. “I… don’t know. It just felt like… I don’t know. Someone was telling me that we needed to get out.”
“Maybe we should move along…” Ditzy said. “All of a sudden, I'm very aware that the only thing between us and the vortex is a door…”
Pinkie hiccuped and fell into a dead faint. Twilight gasped and hurried to her side. After a moment of intense concentration, she sighed in relief. “She’ll be alright. At least she isn’t vibrating anymore.”
“Do you think that that was the doozy?” Ditzy asked, nodding to the swirling vortex.
“Well, it could—” Twilight’s reply was cut off as Pinkie began to violently shake again. “...No. I guess not.”
Glancing at each other and their surroundings nervously, the group moved down the hall, a doozy-detecting Pinkie Pie unconscious in Twilight’s magic.


***


Applejack was fairly good at navigation. She had never gotten lost a day in her life, not even in the Everfree. And yet, she was absolutely certain that she had already passed that set of bagpipes at least twice now. Well, maybe not. Hadn’t there been some kind of metal ball sitting on the one she had gone by? Best not to worry about it. Probably a better idea to worry about those hoofsteps in the next aisle. “Hello?”
There was a pause. A familiarly raspy voice replied, “Oh. Hey AJ. I’ve been looking for you.”
Her heart skipped faintly. “Why’s that, then?” she asked, as casually as she could.
“The console room basically blacked out. We…” she sighed. “We need the Doc to fix it,” she grumbled reluctantly.
Well what had she expected, Applejack thought. ‘Course it was the Doctor that Dash was looking for. Why would anyone want to find her? She snorted faintly.
“...AJ? You okay there?”
“Yep! Ah’m feelin’ better’n a fresh apple pie, sugarcube!” she managed to say with a cheer she didn’t feel.
There was a long pause. “...Alright, then. So, where’s the Doc?”
“Well, I don’t rightly know that myself,” Applejack admitted. “Ah lost him in th’ halls, just before th’ blackout.”
“Nuts. Still, at least I found you, yeah?”
Applejack was about to reply, when the hair on the back of her neck prickled. “Shush!”
A beat. "Excuse me?"
“Ah said to shush!” Applejack whispered, perhaps a little more fiercely than she might have intended. “Ah think Ah heard somethin’!”
Both mares fell silent. A heavy thumping noise echoed from somewhere to the rear. “Right,” Rainbow whispered. “Now, when I say ‘run’—”
“Way ahead of ya’, sugarcube. RUN!”


***


Meanwhile, in the halls of the TARDIS, the small group of ponies was still wandering aimlessly along. It seemed as though they had been walking for hours and miles. Twilight knew that that idea was preposterous, but on the other hoof, preposterous things had turned out to be true before. Suddenly, Ditzy stopped in her tracks. “What time is it?” she asked.
Twilight blinked. “Um. We’re outside of time and space. I think that question might be kind of academic.”
Ditzy gave her the sort of thousand-mile stare (made all the more intimidating by her off-kilter eyes)  she normally reserved for ponies trying to send aerosol through the post and those who didn’t fill out change-of-address cards. “Lunchtime. Lunchtime was where I was going with that,” she said flatly.
“...Oh. Well, I guess I could eat,” Twilight said, slightly awkwardly.
“Great!” Ditzy said, smiling. “I brought a picnic!”
“Dare I ask why?”
Ditzy shrugged. “Who knows what kind of food humans eat?” she asked. “I mean, really, who knows?”
“...I do. I have literally been to a dimension populated with humans.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Ditzy frowned. “What kind of food DO they eat?”
“Um.” Visions of hamburgers and bacon flashed through Twilight’s head. She coughed. “Well, they have muffins,” she said after a long moment.
Ditzy raised an eyebrow. For a moment Twilight was afraid she was going to have to explain the concept of a sapient omnivore to the others (which had NOT gone over very well the last time she had tried. Applejack had locked herself in her room and refused to come out for four hours). Ditzy, however, merely asked, “GOOD muffins?”
Twilight blinked, mentally switching gears. “...Yes? I guess?”
Ditzy smiled. “That’s good to hear. Anywhere that has good muffins is worth visiting.”
Internally, Twilight breathed a long sigh of relief. “Talking of muffins, how about that picnic?”
“Oh! Right, sorry,” Ditzy giggled, blushing. “I put it in Pinkie’s mane for safekeeping,” she said, rummaging around in the other mare’s curly mane.
“Satyrs!” Pinkie gasped, sitting up suddenly, “Perverting the course of Gaean history!”
She blinked once. “Oh. Hello,” she said, glancing around. Her eyes were mildly glassy.
“...You okay there, Pinkie?” Dinky asked cautiously.
“Yepperepperepperepperoonie!” Pinkie responded. “Abso-doodly fantastic!” Her smile was fixed, and her head lolled like a marionette with cut strings. "Let's eat!"
And so, feeling slightly discomforted, the travellers sat down to eat their lunch.


***


The Doctor opened his eyes. It didn’t really make much difference. He waved a hoof in front of his face. “Nope,” he sighed. The old adage held true. He really couldn't see it.
Struggling to stand, he banged against a wooden table. Grunting in pain, he fumbled onwards, hoping to find a light switch. Finding nothing, he pulled out the sonic— where was the sonic screwdriver? He felt around desperately in the stygian blackness, but it was nowhere to be found. “Aw, NO.” he whined. “I can’t have lost my sonic screwdriver. I LOVE my sonic screwdriver…”
A noise in the darkness caused him to pause and glance around ineffectually. A door was flung open, the light causing him to wince and flinch away from the shadowy silhouettes that stood on the threshold.