//------------------------------//
// Heartstrings  
// Story: Killing Time 
// by JohnnyNorthrain 
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	When I was a boy I spent a summer with my aunt and uncle in a coal mining community in eastern Utah. They were poor people and it was the type of poor that you don’t see in the slums in a city. They lived out among the sage brush and rock barely scratching a living from the earth in the form of black dust. Some of the local boys decided to go exploring the old unused mine shafts and I went with them. I was separated from them in the labyrinth of tunnels and ended up alone in the dark for a couple days. By the time they found me I was half crazed and shivering. There was the better part of a year recovering from that back at my mother’s one bedroom apartment in Chicago. I always had to sleep with a light on for fear that the dark would come and take me back down to that cavern. 
Here I was a grown man of thirty years and I stood with shivers running down my spine. There was a soft light that permeated the walls made of crystals. It was not dark but it was still a cave under the ground and I was trapped. I tried to steady my nerves from shaking. It had been twenty years before that I had my last encounter with a cave. I thought I had gotten over it. I was wrong. I silently prayed for a way out or for someone to show up so I did not have to brave this place alone.
There was a mirthless laugh that echoed off the crystals and filled the cavern. Her face… Chrysalis’ face appeared on several of the crystals and she pulled her lips back in a menacing grin. “I’m going to keep you down here for my personal service after I am done with everypony above. Don’t go wandering now these caves are treacherous and full of obstacles.” She resumed her laugh and the face disappeared. I sat down trying not to shake. It was just a stupid cave I kept telling myself. Nothing to be afraid of. 
According to my watch I was there forty minutes before a bouquet of flowers landed at my feet. In the moments shortly after it hit cave floor I tried to think of all the reasons that it would be here. Where had it come from and why was it in this place. My thoughts were interrupted as three unicorns slammed into me and knocked me to the ground. I tumbled with them and skidded across the floor. I pushed myself up off the ground and retrieved my fedora before looking at the three would be attackers. Much to my surprise and delight my partner was shaking her head. Flowers fell from her mane and when she turned her gaze to me her eyes became very wide and she jumped towards me. 
“Oh my gosh! It’s true! It’s really true!” She was saying quickly moving her head up and down looking at every part of me. 
“Heartstrings calm down, yeah it’s me. What are you doing here?” I said dancing around with her erratic movements. 
“You know my name? Wait how do you know my name?” She stopped short rising on her hind legs and looking me directly in the eyes. 
“We’re partners. Of course I know your name.” I raised a brow thinking that the impact messed up her memories. 
“I’ve never seen you before but it’s true. Humans do exist! You have to tell me everything. You have hands, let me see your hands!” 
“Hold on, stop it.” I raised my hands and she stared at them. “I saw you this morning in Ponyville. Remember I asked you to follow up on some leads about the murdered mare with the hourglass cutie mark?”
“What did she look like?” I had not noticed the others stirring but a blue unicorn with white in her mane stepped over to me. “What did the mare look like?” She asked again when I was too slow to answer.
“White coat and red mane. Earth pony.” Lyra touched my hands with the tip of her nose and grinned. 
“So Ali is dead. Give me details on the scene. Describe to me exactly what you saw.” The blue unicorn demanded. 
“You know her? There wasn’t much to go on. She’d been stabbed and there was cake stuffed into the wound.” I had to push away Lyra when she started licking my hands. 
The blue unicorn looked down at her hooves for a moment in thought. There was that same distant comprehending look in her eyes that I had seen in the Doctor’s. I was on the verge of telling her about the Cakes when Lyra nudged my side with her horn hard enough to hurt. That was the last straw; I was not going to be a punching bag for her. I balled my fist and narrowed my eyes until I saw that she was motioning to something else beyond them.
My apprehension came back full force as two figures were slowly approaching from the murky darkness. For the second time I found myself wishing I had maintained hold of my gun. The soft light reflecting from the crystals illuminated the figures and my fear became relief as Derpy and the Doctor approached from the gloom. They were both covered in scratches and dirt but looked mostly intact. 
“Ah Johnny I see you’ve met the Dentist.” He smiled towards the blue unicorn. “Right now on the surface there are hundreds of changelings causing a mess but it will all be cleaned up by my past self and some valued friends.”
“Not all of us go by those silly pet names you keep trying to use.” She looked up from her thoughts and scoffed. “Before going by the Doctor what was that name you wanted us to use…”
“It’s not important. Everyone’s forgotten it.” He shrugged. 
“I haven’t.” A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. 
“You wouldn’t dare.” He stopped cold and stared at her.
As they were talking Derpy had walked around us and gone to the silent unicorn making sure she was alright. Until now she had just been sitting there watching everyone. It looked like she was having trouble accepting that any of this had happened. Lyra Heartstrings assisted Derpy having forgotten about me and my Humanity for a brief moment.  
“No I won’t say the name yet. Ali’s dead.” She reached up and pulled out a flower from her mane with her teeth. 
“The Corsair is dead as well. Someone is killing us and in a most gruesome way. Honestly what is with the cake though? Who uses cake in a murder? Fantastic as it is.” He shrugged his shoulders again. 
“The cake… Of course the cake.” I rubbed my forehead having forgotten about it completely. “Derpy, the Cakes said that you had bought a Yellow vanilla… orange… crème… frosted… mint… That you had bought a fancy cake for somepony’s birthday. Who was the cake going to?”
“Oh… yeah the cake was for you.” She smiled and licked her lips. “I don’t know your birthday and you never said so I bought the cake for you and figured if it was not your birthday we could eat it anyways. But… well I only had one slice of it until the cake was taken from me.”
“Who would steal a cake?” The Doctor turned his focus on Derpy.
“Oh she did not steal it exactly. She just ran off with it.” Derpy tilted her head slightly. 
“Who did?” I asked stepping towards her. 
“Alissa. It was a delicious cake and I guess she got greedy.” 
“This brings about even more questions. It’s not like the Monk was a thief. She wouldn’t have taken the cake under normal circumstances. If certain probabilities are eliminated than what is left however impossible must be the truth.” The Doctor raised his nose in the air and confidently walked towards the blue unicorn… the Dentist.
“What remains?” The Dentist asked bluntly. 
“I haven’t a clue.” He turned and walked back the way he had come. 
“That really takes the cake.” Derpy said and the two of them burst into laughter. 
“Fat lot of help you both are.” The blue unicorn focused upon me and inclined her head. “I’m Minuette Colgate, a Time Lord as is our fair Doctor here. Just call me Colgate.”
“So you are Human looking but a pony right now?” I asked her. 
“No I’ve always been a pony. Oh… right I see… He’s the Human looking one who just happens to be a pony right now. I’m the pony that’ll always be a pony. Time Lords come in different shapes and sizes but we all share one key trait in common.”
“Running.” The Doctor looked back over his shoulder. 
“Not that. Although there is a lot of running. We all have two hearts and a personal connection to the time vortex.” 
“That’s two traits.” Lyra spoke as she rejoined us. “So what’s your name?” She nudged me with her horn again much lighter this time. “I’m Lyra, Lyra…”
“Heartstrings yeah I know.” I stopped her then scratched behind her ear a favorite place for her. “I don’t get why you don’t recognize me. We are partners. Did somepony screw with your brain kiddo?” 
“Yes some princess did.” Colgate narrowed her eyes. “The princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Lyra and Twinkle were helping me investigate when the princess cornered us and hit us with a mind control spell.” 
“Don’t stop… right there…” Lyra was mumbling and thumping her hoof. 
“You know her but she does not yet know you. The time lines have crossed.” Derpy spoke while she and Twinkle came towards us. 
“They’ve crossed?” I raised a brow in confusion.
“You weren’t going to meet until later in the future or you were destined to meet now. It’s never linear when dealing with time. So you’ve met but you already know her and she has no idea who you are so she’s just meeting you now for the first time.” The Doctor nodded. 
There are moments in life that cause someone to halt everything and assess the situation. Usually these are associated with asking a girl to marry you or making that big decision to put down most of your life savings on a horse that you are pretty sure won’t pan out but the odds are too great not to try and you need the money to fix whatever in your life that can be fixed with more money. There I was standing giving the old finger scratch to a pastel pony with four others inside a cave and my anxiety was forgotten for the moment. I couldn’t remember when I had felt less troubled in the past few years. It was fleeting but I kept hold of that feeling for as long as I could while the Doctor and the Dentist talked among themselves. 
We left the chamber heading out the way that Derpy and the Doctor came in. An hour of walking through winding stone corridors with intense crystal formations and listening to the Doctor prattle on about whatever the hell it was he meant. Lyra stayed by my side the entire way asking me questions about where I was from and what kind of things I had done. It almost seemed like she was crushing hard on me and perhaps she was. The two of us in her future and my past had only been partners for a couple weeks yet in that time we had grown close as friends. 
There was that moment three weeks before that I awoke covered in mud half in a pond that I was found by that first pony. Heartstrings bless her heart had been passing by or was doing something around there and had seen me appear rather suddenly and violently heading into the ground from a hundred feet in the clouds. She’d helped me up and pushed me over towards Fluttershy’s cottage. 
From the first time Lyra Heartstrings had laid eyes on me she knew me and I never really cared to dig deeper into it because she was tight lipped. It was just a confirmation of something to her. It was as if we were old lovers reconnecting after a hundred years apart. There was just that sense of knowing somepony deep within my soul without having ever met her before. 
The six of us emerged into the twilight a couple miles from the castle in the edge of the city of Canterlot. Reconstruction was under way after an attack that had left several buildings damaged and ponies were slowly picking up the pieces of their lives. I crouched and grasped something silvery in the dirt. Holding onto it I stood and brushed away the grime revealing a large locket. Pressing the latch big enough for a hoof it opened showing pictures of two ponies I’d never seen before. Something like this hit hard for me. Somepony out there was missing it and here I was standing with it like an idiot not knowing if they were dead or alive. I dropped it back into the spot I had picked it up from for them to find it if they were looking. 
“Chrysalis really made a mess of this place.” Twinkle spoke for the first time in my presence.
“It’ll all be taken care of. There’s still a wedding and all the ponies of Canterlot will be there to enjoy the fun and forget the attack. Oh in fact right now Derpy and myself are there watching the real princess be married.” The Doctor pulled out his sonic… thing… from where I still don’t know and activated it. 
“You running off again?” Colgate sighed. 
“Always on the move. We’re running a couple months ahead of you and need to get back. This was supposed to be a quick hop to show Johnny Northrain here that Chrysalis was assuming the role of the princess.” He hit a switch and the pitch rose beyond my hearing. 
“Nothing with you is ever a quick hop.” Colgate nudged him with her nose then stepped away to Twinkle and Lyra. “The three of us need to get going and help the people recover but first lets go to the real wedding.” She trotted away and Twinkle followed her with Lyra hanging back looking at me. 
“Go, I’ll see you soon.” I told her with a smile. 
“I won’t see you for a while.” She said with tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes.
“Hey kiddo, you and I are going to do great things together. You are the very reason that I’m even alive in the first place. Go on now.” 
“Okay Johnny…” She turned on her heels and started walking away. 
“Hey Heartstrings…” She turned her head to look at me and I removed my fedora and got down on one knee to her eye level then I put the hat on her head. “Enjoy the party.”
She jumped at me throwing her front legs around my neck and kissing my ear. I returned the hug and ran my fingers through her mane while patting her shoulders. There was something she whispered… something so slight I couldn’t quite make out the words over the groaning of the Tardis as it appeared. I thought for a moment she said I’ll be there for you yet the words weren’t loud enough for me to be sure. She broke the hug and I wiped a tear from the corner of her eye with my thumb. Turning once more she ran hard with her new fedora towards Colgate and Twinkle catching up with them. I pushed myself up to both legs and turned around towards the Tarids, Derpy and the Doctor. 
“Ready to go back?” He asked as Derpy opened the door and walked inside. 
“Yeah but I have one burning question.” I said. 
“Ask away.” He walked inside with me following and the door closed behind us. 
“If you could summon the Tardis at any point why the hell did we walk out of the caves?” 
“Because sometimes doing the easy thing isn’t always the right thing.” He smiled and started pressing buttons on the console again. 
“Happy birthday Johnny.” Derpy grinned and kissed the tip of my chin.
“It’s not my birthday.” I couldn’t help but smile. 
“You gave Lyra hope and friendship. That’s more important than any birthday present.” She sat down on her hind legs and watched the Doctor work. 
Friendship being more important than a birthday present. That was one concept I stood behind. Most of the friends I had made in childhood had died or moved away by the time I was in my mid-twenties. Before coming here I could count no one as a trusted friend anymore. The utter absurdity of life caused us all to drift apart. If Equestria had taught me anything it was that friends, true friends are more important than anything else.