Lily screamed, and that was enough to bring the possessed ponies up short. Quickly, Rose joined in, while Romana spun toward her work bench. Fancy lit his horn and bodily flung the invading pegasus out the window. “The crown will, of course cover damages in this instance,” he said, looking up at the hole in the thatched roof.
Romana held out a hoof testily. “Scootaloo, my sonic. Ruby, go get the radio. A frequency modulator won’t work quite as well as an organic, but it’ll hold out for a bit. And someone— ‘scuse me, somepony— get Berry and Civil back into their bodies, if you can.”
Ponies are, by nature, herd animals. This is, they will often insist, very different from a swarm or pack mentality. To some extent, this is true. The swarm is of one mind about everything. The pack is a complex and often bloody hierarchy. The herd is about following someone that seems like they know what they’re doing. This is more or less how Celestia and Luna have been able to lead Equestria for so long. They learned how to look like they know what they are doing, even when they don’t, from the Doctor, who mastered the art near the end of his first regeneration.
However, ponies are more than just herd animals. Interestingly enough, the self-same psychological mechanism that causes the absent following of authority figures can also result in outright rebellion under certain conditions. While not quite flying in the face of authority, what Daisy did next was still mildly surprising. Rather than follow Romana’s orders to help the two controlled ponies, she fell to the ground beside her sister. “Hyacinth?” she gasped, tears welling in her eyes. “Hyacinth, are you alright?”
Pinkie examined the scene for a moment, then pulled something out of her mane. “Use these,” she urged Daisy.
The florist took the object. Her brows lowered. “Are these… these aren’t smelling salts.” she said, perplexed.
“Nope! Gorgonzola cheese cookies. I made them for Maud’s birthday present, but fresher would be better anyway.”
Daisy blinked. “...Thanks. I think.” Carefully, she wafted the noxious treat under Hyacinth’s nostrils, which quivered slightly, while Pinkie leapt over to help Fancy Pants handle the matter of ponies-turned-crabs-and-vice-versa.
After a moment, Hyacinth’s nostrils froze. Her eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright. “Why, Daisy! What fine cheese, you shouldn’t have, dear…” She took the cookie from her sister’s hooves and took a refined bite. Then, she paused. “Why are Rose and Lily screaming?”
“Robot crabs.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Hyacinth?”
“Yes, dear?”
Daisy stared at Hyacinth. The elder mare’s eyes were, for once, full of open, honest curiosity. Or maybe they had been before, and Daisy had just never seen. Or she had never looked hard enough. “I’m sorry. What happened to Carrot wasn’t your fault. None of this was your fault. I—”
“Daisy.” Hyacinth smiled. “You were right. I was wrong. I suppose I’ve been a dreadful guest, haven’t I?”
Daisy stared. “What?”
“It’s just, oh you know, when you’re so out of your element…” Hyacinth said quietly. “Out of your little garden…”
Daisy breathed in, then sighed. “Yeah. I know how it is,” she said quietly. Her garden was the part of the world that she could control, the only part that she really could. Alien crabs, body-swapping robots, stampedes of rabbits, all were out of her hooves. In that moment, just for a second, she understood Hyacinth.
A hyacinth is bulbous, hardy, mildly toxic. A hyacinth is of the lily family, stronger than an ordinary lily, but still a lily. A hyacinth is spiky. A hyacinth is not always a pleasant flower, but it is a beautiful one. And a hyacinth is still a flower, stuck in the dirt and a pawn of the sun and rain, subservient to conditions outside of its power. Goodness, thought Daisy. Mummy didn’t half know what she was doing when she named us. Wish I’d been able to think of something better than ‘Tree Hugger’ for mine…
“There,” Romana said with an air of supreme satisfaction. “That’ll do for a time. Lily, Rose, you can stop screaming now.”
Rose did as she was told. Lily did not. It was quite supremely uncomfortable. “How long can she go on for?” Ruby asked.
“Indefinitely,” Daisy replied absently. “She learned to circular breathe when she was seven.”
“We’ve got things handled over here,” Fancy called, while Pinkie wrangled the two Brachyura onto their backs.
“Er,” said Berry. “Actually, I’m not quite sure you have.”
Rainbow Dash looked up from her position on the couch and burst out laughing. The two ponies, looking incredibly uncomfortable, had switched cutie marks.”
“Huh,” said Berry from Civil’s body. “So this is what being a stallion is like. Not really a fan, but to be honest, I was expecting a little more difference.”
Civil in Berry’s body sat down heavily, face contorted in a mixture of horror, shock, and profound discomfort. “Oh,” he said weakly. “Were you? More than this? Gosh.”
Fancy’s face fell. “Right. Hold on.”
Hyacinth glared. “Civil! Get out of that mare’s body this instant!”
Berry’s face twisted into an embarrassed cringe. “Just a moment, Hyacinth.”
“You can borrow it for a little bit,” Berry in Civil’s body offered. “I don’t mind.”
“...No, I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Pinkie said. “We’ve got enough problems without this turning into a full on Freaky Friday story.”
Scootaloo frowned. “A what?”
“Never mind,” Pinkie said, waving a hoof dismissively. “Let’s just hurry and switch them back before any more Earpluggy McDeafersons fly in.”
“You mean like ze squadron rapidly approaching?” Fleur asked drily, gesturing to the sky.
Every pair of eyes in the room fixed on the model, who was pointing a pair of binoculars toward the sky. In the distance, a flurry of black dots were highlighted against the horizon. They were growing steadily larger. “Oh, cloverbuds,” Rose groaned.
“Language,” Hyacinth reprimanded, though without much heat, as she rose unsteadily to her hooves. Daisy grabbed her firmly around the barrel. “What would Daddy say?”
“The same thing that Rose did, but louder,” Daisy snarked.
“Downstairs, everypony,” Romana said firmly, straining to maintain her authority and to be heard over Lily’s continuous screaming. “Daisy, help Hyacinth. Pinkie, bring the crabs. And would somepony please make her shut up?”
Lily’s lips snapped shut, her expression one of affront. Now, only the continuous, shifting whine of the frequency modulator echoed through the burnt and battered room as the party moved toward the stairs. “They’re changing tack,” said Fancy grimly as he lifted the badly bruised Rainbow Dash into the air. “Developing. I wish the Doctor had stayed a little longer to tell us about them.”
The Doctor, meanwhile, was rather wishing he knew a bit more about the Brachyura himself. “It was only a quick affair,” he shouted, over the rushing wind to his inattentive audience. “The crustaceans had sort of set themselves up as an authoritarian government, the biggest fish in the ocean. I don’t remember much about it. I think I ran into another me.”
“Another you?” shouted the female guard. “How do you do that?”
“Time Lord!”
“And you don’t remember running into yourself? Sounds like it would stick in the mind,” the male guard reasoned.
“Blinovitch Limitation Effect! You can’t remember meeting your future self, or the timeline goes screwy!”
“Why?”
“Just… do you really want a lecture on quantum physics right now?!”
Neither guard replied, choosing to fly straight on. The Doctor went back to watching Ditzy corkscrew wildly through the air, the Brachyura spiraling after her. “Get closer!” he ordered. “The screwdriver’s near useless at this range.”
The guards did as they were told, leaning in, chasing after the chase. The mare frowned. “What in the— is that the schoolhouse? What’s at the schoolhouse?”
The stallion squinted. “She’s making for the belfry…”
The Doctor’s eyes went wide. “Oh! Oh, that’s clever. Closer, closer, fast as you can!”
The carriage shot forward, the two guards straining to accelerate. The Doctor steadied himself against the side, gripping the screwdriver tightly in his mouth. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the schoolhouse bell to the exclusion of all else. Ditzy zoomed beneath it, sending the massive bell swinging and clanging. The Doctor bit down hard on the activator button of the screwdriver, and as the pursuing pegasi flew under the bell, the rope snapped while the bell was at the height of its period. It flew through the air, plummeting to the schoolyard and trapping the trio beneath. Ditzy half flew and half plummeted to the ground. The Doctor nodded. “Land down there.”
“Gladly,” the male guard gasped. “I don’t think I’ve had to fly like that since drill sergeant Battering Ram retired.”
They coasted along on a light updraft until the schoolyard lay below. Ditzy was lying spread-eagle on the slide, her eyes closed. The Doctor was on the ground before the pegasi were. “Ditzy! Ditzy, are you alright? Ditzy!”
The grey pegasus smiled slightly, her eyes still shut. “Yes, I’m fine,” she said, sitting up. “Good plan.”
“Wasn’t it? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you, Ditzy Doo, are absolutely brilliant. Hooves down, the cleverest pony in town. Well, except maybe Romana. Maybe. But she’s had years more practice, so, y’know, it’s… Y’know what, I’m just gonna shut up now.”
Ditzy smiled, showing all of her teeth. “I know what you meant. Thanks.”
The Doctor’s smile faltered slightly, but he bounced back gamely. “Right. Let’s all keep going. Allons-y, to the train station!”
He turned and trotted back to the chariot. Ditzy watched after him for a long moment before she followed. The smile had not faded from her face, as though it was a billboard put up which someone had forgotten to take down. Her eyes were focused and perfectly straight.