"Say, Ditzy, I don't suppose you've been to the castle of the two sisters?" the Doctor inquired.
"Sorry, Doc," Ditzy replied. "I didn't even know there was a castle in the Everfree Forest."
"Well, I suppose that explains a few things."
"Like what, Doc?"
"Like how we got so completely and utterly lost."
The Doctor and his new friend looked around them once again, trying to determine which way to go. After a moment, Ditzy walked over to a nearby tree and looked closely at its trunk.
"Ditzy, what could you possibly be doing right now?" asked the Doctor.
"I think this tree looks familiar, Doc," she explained. "Do you have anything we could use to mark it or something?"
"I'm afraid the only thing I brought along was my sonic screwdriver," the Doctor replied, slipping the sonic out of the pocket he'd sewn into the back of his necktie.
"Well, can't we use that?" Ditzy asked.
"It doesn't do wood," the Doctor stated bluntly.
"That sound like a very glaring issue, Doc."
"Oy, don't diss the sonic!"
"But Doc-"
"Shush!" the Doctor exclaimed loudly enough for his order for silence to be ironic. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what, Doc?" Ditzy asked, cocking her head to the side.
The Doctor held a hoof to her mouth and held perfectly still listening to his surroundings. There was something he'd thought he heard, and sure enough he heard it again after several seconds.
SPLASH!
"There's water nearby, and it's not uninhabited," he whispered. "If whatever's there is friendly, we might be able to ask directions. This way!"
And so the Doctor set off towards whatever body of water was here in the dreaded Everfree Forest, hoping for some kind of lucky break. As he and Ditzy reached the foliage by the side of what appeared to be a river, the Doctor took note of his surroundings.
The river wasn't too wide and could easily be waded across by the looks of it. There were also an abundance of rocks sticking out above the waters surface that could possibly be used as an even easier path across the river. He couldn't trace hide nor hair of whatever had been splashing around in the river, but he could see what seemed to be the top of an old ruin over the treetops on the opposite side. If he were to guess, the ruins that lie beyond the river were most likely the remains of the castle they sought.
"OK, Ditzy," he said to his companion, "I believe it's safe."
"Alrighty, Doc!" Ditzy chimed happily, walking up to the river's edge.
The Doctor followed closely behind. Upon reaching the riverbank, he hopped to the rock nearest the bank. He held a hoof out to Ditzy, but as she was reaching out to grab it the rock under him moved slightly. The sudden motion caused the Doctor to tip forward and fall into the water right in front of Ditzy. He grumbled to himself as he wiped the grimy water from his eyes. Ditzy just laughed, but the Doctor became worried when the laughter suddenly stopped.
As he opened his eyes, he froze in shock. Out of the water in front of him rose a reptilian monstrosity with razor sharp teeth jutting from its vice-like jaw. Upon its back were several rock-like protrusions that could easily be mistaken for large stones if the rest of the creature were submerged in murky water.
"A cragodile?!" the Doctor both screamed and questioned. "Why didn't anypony tell me there were cragodiles in the era? They were supposed to be extinct 200 years ago!"
His rant ended when the cragodile in question lunged towards him. The Doctor felt a tug on the back of his neck as Ditzy just barely managed to drag him out of the way of the cragodile's strike.
"I don't thuppothe your thonic threwdrither workth on thtone," Ditzy asked with a mouth full of the Doctor's mane as she continued dragging him further away from the river.
"Well, it does work on stone," stated the Doctor, "but there's a problem."
"What's that?" Ditzy asked, having finally dropped his mane.
"You see, a cragodile looks to be a crocodile-like creature with rocks on its back, but those rocks are actually made of the creature's own biological material," the Doctor calmly explained as the two scrambled to evade another lunge by the now land-bound cragodile.
"In Ponish, please, Doc!" Ditzy screamed as she ducked under a snapping set of jaws that could crush a pony's head in an instant.
"It's not actually stone, so it won't work."
"And how exactly is that thing so useful, again?"
"If we weren't in mortal peril right now, I would be very offended!" the Doctor yelled as he evaded the rocky tail of the cragodile.
'Calm down' he thought. 'Think. How can we both get out of this?'
He looked frantically from Ditzy, to the cragodile, and back to Ditzy. Then, he facehoofed.
"Ditzy, get this thing's attention. While it's chasing you, I'll get away."
"WHAT?!" Ditzy screamed, obviously not pleased with this.
"Ditzy, you're forgetting something," the Doctor said. "It won't catch you."
"How do you know that?" she asked, clearly panicking.
"You have wings!" the Doctor stated before making a beeline for the river.
Ditzy froze in place for a moment. The gears in her brain slowly turned until something clicked.
"Oh," she said with a light chuckle. "Yeah, duh."
With that, she jumped over another cragodile lunge and spread her wings. She saw that the Doctor had already waded into the water and was slowly making his way across the river. However, due to her eyes facing different directions, she could simultaneously see the cragodile turning its attention from her back towards him.
Fast as an arrow, and as inaccurately as a bent arrow, she flew towards the Doctor. Instead of reaching him, she crashed into the water about five feet ahead of him. Both the Doctor and the cragodile winced at the SPLAT! sound the impact made.
In both pain and a panic, Derpy scrambled to her hooves and ran to the Doctor's side. Grabbing hold of his torso, she took off once again. The cragodile now seemed to be watching them with one rock-like eyebrow raised slightly. Ditzy flapped with all of her might towards the castle ruins.
Less than a minute later, Ditzy was running on fumes. Seeing the state she was in, the Doctor looked around. They were now significantly closer to the castle, about to go over a canyon. Not trusting that Ditzy's wings could last long enough, he looked closer until he spotted a bridge.
"Ditzy," he called, "do you think you can get us near this side of that bridge?"
He gestured his hoof towards the bridge, and Ditzy followed his gesture with one of her eyes.
"Sure... thing... Doc," she managed to say through labored breaths.
Well, she didn't get them near this side of the bridge. In fact, she overshot the entire canyon. The pair ended up crashing to the ground at the very edge of the other side of the canyon. As they crashed, they slammed forcefully into one of the wooden poles this side of the bridge was tied to. As the Doctor stood up and made a mental list of every part of his body that hurt (chest, right foreleg, rear left hoof, tailbone, crown of the head, and one heart), he noticed that the rope holding this side of the bridge up had loosened when he and Ditzy hit the pole. He cautiously went to go secure the rope, but as soon as he took a step towards the bridge, the rope snapped. The entire side of the bridge nearest the castle fell, leaving only the opposite end connected to anything.
"Well, that'll be fun for Caballeron," he said, smiling slightly at the thought.
He then joined Ditzy and once again started making his way towards the castle of the two sisters.
[Not Long After]
"We're almost there!" exclaimed the purple unicorn on a mission.
Her exclamation was cut short, however, as she almost fell from a cliff for the second time tonight.
Luckily, a pony who would soon become a close friend was nearby, and pulled her back onto solid ground by yanking her tail.
"What's with you and falling off cliffs today?" the rainbow-maned pegasus asked sarcastically.