Sepia traveled, pulling along his wagon with the blue door, which acted as his combination home, workshop, and storefront. He wandered about Equestria from town to town, attempting to make a living as a travelling merchant pony, tales of his exploits sprouting in his wake. In the town of Pansy, he found himself assisting a young filly shop owner named Lemon Grass and her Breezy advisor Tear. In return for him helping them retrieve treasures from a nearby cave, they bought all his stock, with mention of waiting for demand to rocket up for the products.
He left Pansy in the company of Spice Craft and his curious mare companion, Wheat Tail, who reminded Sepia of the timberwolves back home. The clocksmith politely nodded along as Spice told of his exploits, and ignored them when the two engaged in irritating flirtations. Eventually they separated ways after a scheme involving, from Sepia’s understanding, gold, a shepherdess and her sheep, and complicated tax laws. Sepia left with the shepherdess, who went to sell her sheep in the chalky portions of Foal Mountains, where the mailmare finally found him chatting to a young unicorn with a witch’s hat.
“You certainly are a precious filly,” Sepia noted idly as he constructed a clock.
“I think you mean precocious,” Flint Heart corrected him, “which means ‘exhibiting mature qualities at an unusually early age.’”
“Yes, that one, good job,” Sepia replied, and slotted in the spring.
“Did I already tell you the story of how I saved my brother from the changeling queen with only my wits, a frying pan, and a small army of ill-tempered…”
“Yes, and the one where you fought some sort of mind thief,” Sepia cut her off, passing her the clock, “here’s your granny’s clock in return for the cheese.”
Flint heart took the clock into her saddle bag, “Thanks, though she not actually my granny as much as…”
In a flurry of envelopes and cloud vapor, a gray pegasus skidded to a stop beside the unicorn witch, “Doctor!”
“Derpy?!”
Flint, sensing her conversation was over, politely left the two to talk.
“Oh man, I finally did it! The others back at the main office were betting against me, but I found you!” Derpy beamed with pride, “Though to be honest, it wasn’t that hard. I just had to follow all the stories popping up about you!”
Derpy nodded towards the departing Flint Heart. “She your new companion?”
Sepia sighed, “Poor thing apparently had to wrap-up winter by herself,” the clockmaker began to short the spare parts into boxes and small containers, “So, what do you need, Derpy?”
“I've got a letter for you, Doctor!” Derpy dug the parcel from her bag, and presented it.
Sepia immediately recognized Colgate's writing on the front, spelling his name and question marks in place of an address. “Return it to sender, please.”
The Mailmare looked completely heart broken. “But I had to fly all over Equestria to find you so I can get that letter to you, Doctor!”
Sepia closed the wagon door, “Well, getting it back to her shouldn't be as hard.”
“But...”
“She's no longer my apprentice,” Sepia said, padlocking the door shut, “I don't require an update on how well she's doing.”
“It's a request for your return,” Derpy said, “you're missed.”
“Really? I'm missed? By who?” Sepia asked darkly, “By the apprentice who out grew me? Or by the few friends I possess? Or the town, who believe me to be somepony I am not?”
Derpy stared, incapable to answer.
“Return the letter to sender, Derpy,” Sepia began walking off, “I'm perfectly okay being alone. Let them find a New Doctor Whoof.”
“Sepia, wait!”
Sepia froze.
He slowly turned to the Mail Mare. “You know my name?”
“Of course I do,” answered Derpy. “It's what's on your bills, after all.”
“You... but... why?” Sepia managed in his bafflement.
Derpy rolled her eyes towards outwards, “How about we talk over lunch. All the flying's made me hungry.”
The diner the two took to was popular for its coffee. A former hardware store, its business model was altered when the original owner's son took over, leaving about artifacts of its former life. The diner's food was generally agreed to be better than Al's Pancake World, which had long ago stopped serving pancakes to focus on world cuisine.
Sepia and Derpy sat at their table in the corner, dining in weighted silence, neither knowing how to start, Colgate's letter lying between them.
“You knew my name,” Sepia began.
“Yes,” confirmed Derpy.
“And you always knew?” Sepia continued between bites of his blackbean burger.
“Yes,” confirmed Derpy.
“Why do you always call me 'Doctor', then?”
Derpy gave a casual shrug, “It was our thing,” she took a sip of her soda before elaborating, “I come to deliver your mail, call you Doctor, you correct me, I call you Doctor again, and you give me a muffin. It was the morning routine.”
Sepia no longer ate his burger, “So, you thought it was an in-joke among friends this whole time?”
Derpy, needing to replenish burnt calories, stole his fries. “Well, not quite. I mean, to be honest, I don't count as a friend.”
Sepia just looked baffled.
Derpy sighed, “I never considered you a friend, per se, but a kind face. I don't really know you, and you don't really know me, but we know of each other,” Derpy took the remains of Sepia's burger, “I think that's important to have: somepony who, when you get down to it, is only there for the small talk, for those moments when you want to be heard, but not analyzed. A pony who, no matter what life throws at you, will always be removed and safe. That's how I always considered you: a trustworthy stranger.”
“Trustworthy stranger,” Sepia parroted. “Even when I'm not the Doctor, I am still the Doctor.”
Derpy blinked, “It really bugs you? Doctor Whoof really bothers you?”
“You thought it didn't?” Sepia replied, “Now, with what you tell me, I don't even know if other ponies honestly believe I'm Doctor Whoof, or they think they're just in on the joke!”
“I always thought you were on the same page as me,” Derpy finally halted her consumption. “I never see the fan mail being sent back. You kept every one, every letter.”
“I threw them in a drawer,” Sepia stated, “Threw them in a drawer and ignored them. Most burned, after that watch incident. It just seemed wrong to acknowledge them, the letter not addressed to me. But it also felt wrong to reject them...” Sepia bowed his head.
Derpy sipped at her straw.
“You know, I've been thinking a lot, while on the road;” began the Clockmaker, “about me, about ponies, how I perceive other ponies, and how they perceive me. I've always been so riled up over nopony seeing me, the real me, behind all that time lord hooey,” Sepia looked at the mail carrier. “It just hurt so much, being ignored for myself.” Derpy stopped her drinking, as the movement of her eyes away from Sepia's betrayed her thoughts. Realization dawned on Sepia. “Then again, ponies talk about you much more than me. Heck, they can't even decide on what your name is! At least my false identity is consistent. But it never seems to bother you.”
“It used to,” confessed the wall-eyed one, “the whispers and gossip on either side as I walk down the street. The arguments, the jokes. Then, when I speak up, try to present myself as I really am, I get met with bitter replies, as if ponies were telling me 'How dare you tell us who you are. What right do you have to exist beyond what we want you to be' even though the others can't even decide what they want me to be.”
Sullen silence fell between the two ponies of myth.
“You seem happy, though,” spoke Sepia after a spell.
“At first it was genuine, when I moved to town and started work. Then it became a mask, to guard myself from the burrs of the community. Now, it's genuine again. I have found peace.”
Sepia looked at the Mail Mare as a lost sheep looked to a shepherd. “How?”
“One morning, I just decided: who cares what others ponies think! I know who I am, and where I've been, and at the end of the day, the only pony I need to answer to is me, and no pony else.”
Sepia gave her words careful consideration, looking at the letter on the table. “But what if you had upset a friend?”
“If it is a friendship worth getting upset over, then I would have disappointed myself, and work hard to make things right, so the next night I won't have failed myself as much as the previous night,” answered Derpy with a smile.
Sepia took in her words, and rolled them about in his head, disassembling them, partially reassembling them, substituting parts, and finding where the words fit within the grand clockwork of the universe. Suddenly, everything seemed to run a little bit smoother. It wouldn't quite contain the soul of time itself, but it was closer.
“Thank you, Derpy,” said Sepia.
“You're welcome, Doctor!” Derpy replied with a grin, and slid the envelope towards Sepia, “Will you accept this letter now?”
Sepia shook his head, “Not yet, there's still one more thing I want from you, if you don't mind.”
“Yes?”
“I would love to buy you a Muffin, Ms. Doo,” Sepia said with a smirk, “and hear your story.”
“It's Ms. Hooves, Doctor,” replied Derpy in kind, “and only if I may hear yours.”
The two came to an agreement, and kept the diner's table until closing, chatting to their trustworthy stranger, and leaving with a lifelong friend.
Sepia finally accepted the letter when they returned to his wagon before watching Derpy fly off into the night and towards Ponyville. Sepia unlocked the blue door of his wagon, woke up the fireflies in his lantern, then opened the letter:
Dear Sepia,
I forgive you. Things escalated severely, and I know you didn’t mean I’m inferior for using magic. Please come back. I don’t know where to get supplies, the ledger confounds me, Trixie, though she tries, isn’t much help. Also, I am apparently Doctor Whoof now. I don’t like being Doctor Whoof. Please come home.
With Love,
Colgate
“Good enough for me,” Sepia said, then glanced about, “Let’s pack up.” He stood smiling for a moment, then sighed, “This is exactly why I got myself an assistant in the first place…”
In Ponyville, two unicorns sat motionless, one behind the sales counter of her clock shop, the other on the floor. For the most part, they were in a state of meditation, totally devoid of thought. There was nothing thinking could do at this point.
“Alright, let’s go over the stock again,” Colgate said, eye twitching at a measured pace, mane-care long abandoned.
Trixie sighed from her position on the sales floor, “One pocket watch, silver, with chain.”
Colgate put an eighth check next to it on her stock list, “Got it, next item?”
“That’s it. Everything else has either been sold or disassembled for parts,” Trixie answered, “and it’s going to stay that way, no matter how many times we do inventory.”
Colgate lowered her head into her hooves, then was struck inspiration, “Dust! Yes! Let’s get to dusting!”
“I just finished for the second time!” Trixie whined.
“Dusting three times in a day’s not going to hurt anypony.” Colgate replied diplomatically.
“I meant second time this hour.”
“Oh,” Colgate remarked idly. Her head returned to its position in her hooves. “Go over the ledger again?”
“I hid it for your own good.”
“Organize the workshop?”
“The gears have been sorted by material, size, then alphabetically, the rods the same, along with the glass, wood, chains, scrap metal, the trash, the workbenches, and I had to stop you from prying up the brick flooring.”
Colgate’s eye twitched a little more, “What happened to… that thing you do?”
“Magic?” suggested Trixie.
“The speech pattern thing.”
“Trixie is too tired to refer to herself in the third person,” explained the unicorn assistant. “Look, why don’t we just close early today?”
“We’ve only been open two hours!”
The unicorns sat, Colgate fidgeting, Trixie casting her eyes towards the distance, her mind bubbling with irritation. “That’s it!” Trixie finally exploded, “Trixie has had fun, but she’s afraid she must now tender her resignation, effective immediately.”
Colgate shot up from her lean on the sales counter, “You can’t quit! I need you!”
Trixie scoffed, “Need me? For what? You have one, I repeat, one watch left sitting on your shelves! Actually, you know what?” Trixie trotted over to the hat hanging from a hook that once held a cuckoo clock, fished in a hidden pocket within, and threw three bits at Colgate, “There! I’m buying the watch! Now you got nothing left to stress over! You’re sold out! Close the store and relax!”
“I can’t close the store! What will I do? How will I make my living?” Colgate cried, “I can make more clocks, there’s still parts left!”
“You told me you needed those in case somepomy needs their clock repaired.”
“Buck repair! This store no longer does repairs!” Colgate chuckled madly, “Got a broken clock? Then get a new one!”
“Fantastic, then what?” screamed Trixie. “Eventually you’ll be out of parts, and stock, and have nothing left to sell but hooks and shelves!”
“Maybe if somepony would stop be a coward and go to the library to research where to get supplies!” Colgate returned.
“Why haven’t you done it?” Trixie replied.
“I did, but the charter of local businesses has been updated since Ponyville was founded,” yelled back the stripe-maned unicorn.
“Oh, well, I see why I’d need to visit Twilight.”
The two fell silent and glared at one another.
A reluctant knock tapped the door.
Colgate walked to the door and swung it open violently, “What is it?”
A timid stallion stood outside, eyes wide in terror, “Uh… excuse me, Doctor? There’s been an incident. The gates of Tartarus have…”
The door slammed in his face.
“Okay, we need a plan,” Colgate said to Trixie.
“Okay, here’s a suggestion:” Trixie held up her hooves, “I’ll get mad at an unintended insult from you, go make my own clock shop with supplies raided from here, never bother do any research into how to actually run a business. Then you, in a petty show of superiority, challenge me to some deranged contest, lose, then flee town for parts unknown, vanishing off the face of Equestria forever!”
“I’m following you, but one problem,” Colgate stifled a giggle, “There’s no door to massively sabotage any attempts to flee my unearned reputation.”
The two unicorns smirked at one another, then broke down laughing, the cries of desperate merriment filling the empty clock shop, vibrating back in a barely audible echo. Tears streamed on their cheeks as they collapsed on the floor.
Trixie finally found some composure, “So, what is it like, being Doctor Whoof anyways?”
Colgate giggled for a spell before answering, “Oh, it’s great, I get to fly around in a box, fight overturned trash cans and pegasus statues, the whole time utilizing a screwdriver that can everything except actually drive a screw!”
“Well, Doctor, I must say, being your companion is certainly a thrill!” Trixie shot back, “Adventures in running a business into the ground has been quite the experience!”
“If that was fun, maybe next week we can take flying classes!”
The two continued laughing. “Hey, sure. You can just whip up wings down in that workshop of yours!” Trixie suggested
“Oh sure, then we can put them on and jump off the clock tower,” Colgate elaborated, “Be a much more glorious disaster than what we did to this place!”
“What, we don’t even have a chance?” Trixie said with a cocked eyebrow.
“Nah, no way we could get the necessary lift,” Colgate answered, “if we were meant to fly, we’d have been born pegasii.”
“Still, clouds do look comfy,” Trixie said distantly.
The two unicorns stared at the ceiling.
“You think Sepia ever got the letter?” asked Trixie.
“Can’t say for sure,” answered Colgate, “it’s always a gamble with Derpy. At least, that’s what I hear.” Colgate sighed, “Still, even if he did get the letter, why should he come back? He owes me nothing. He taught me the best he could, and look how I ended up. My mistakes are mine alone at this point. At some point, I need to stop relying on another pony to rescue me and live for myself.”
“Still, he’d help a friend,” Trixie said, “he wouldn’t even hesitate. Complain, sure, but he’d help. Only reason he didn’t hire me is because I turned him down.”
“Well, yes, he wouldn’t hesitate for a friend,” Colgate agreed, “too bad I’m just his former student.”
Trixie righted herself and looked at the pony beside her, “You’re joking right?”
Colgate sullen shook her head, “Just business, the two of us. I needed education, he needed a pony to nod politely as he’d monologue. All ending when I was ready to move forward with my life, with barely a nod. You saw how it was when I set up the tent. All he was worried about was I that I had threatened his territory.”
“Still,” Trixie stood up, and began to idly dust with a plume of feathers, “he might come.”
“Maybe,” agreed Colgate, standing up, “but I doubt it.” An aura opened the door, “Go on home, Trixie. I’m closing for the day. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have an idea of what to do.”
Trixie put down the duster, and paused in the doorway, “You sure?”
Colgate nodded, and closed the door behind Trixie. The clockmaker began up the stairs, when a panicked Trixie rushed in.
“Turns out that Tartarus thing wasn’t a joke,” Trixie explained, legs spread to bar the door, “mind if I stay here until the outside is less on fire?”