[Insert Super-Long Gasp Here]
Even though Tegan hadn't been to a spa in seemingly forever, she was still a little tense and uncomfortable after the visit to the Ponyville Day Spa.
"That was possibly the weirdest thing I have ever been through," said Tegan. "I didn't know that giant hoof-nail filers existed. Makes me miss my fingers and toes."
"It could also possibly be the fact that we're an entirely different species and having hooves in general is weird enough," stated Nyssa. The two, at the moment, were walking back from the Spa and to the Boutique. An hour had passed, yet they walked slow in hopes that if Rarity needed more time, she would receive it.
"I wonder how the Doctor's doing with finding information," Tegan said. "Do you think he will learn anything that will help?"
"I am sure of it, Tegan," Nyssa reassured.
"Do you think we'll be able to find the TARDIS again?" asked Tegan.
"Tegan, relax," Nyssa said with a half-laugh. "The Doctor is figuring what we need to know out and all other situations are out of our hands. . .or hooves. Maybe we should take time to breathe in and just trust in the Doctor. He knows what he's doing."
"Why do I find that so hard to believe? He's always so scatterbrained. You think after he regenerated from a crazy man in that ridiculous scarf that he would be able to gather himself better."
"Apparently not," Nyssa added, stifling a laugh. "Why did he wear that in the first place? I mean, I hadn't known him in that incarnation long but-"
"Oh, like I would know," Tegan sniggled. "I still can't understand why he wears a piece of celery on his lapel!"
"Only the Doctor, I suppose," Nyssa sighed with a smirk.
"He's so odd. It may be that he's a Timelord-"
"Timepony now."
"Yes, that. . .actually have you noticed how he acts with his TARDIS?"
"What? You mean how he talks to it?" asked Nyssa. The two could feel that each one of them was trying to hold back an all-out laughing fit.
"Yes! One time I just happened to wander in the main console room and he was buffing his console and talking to it like it was a person!"
"I think sometimes he believes the TARDIS talks to him," Nyssa replied. "He never uses the manual."
"'The TARDIS knows what it's doing!'" Tegan imitated in a very failed Doctor's voice. "'I'll just let it take us places!'"
"How many times did it take before he got the ship to actually get where it wanted to?" giggled Nyssa.
"I lost count," Tegan laughed. "Once he did, in the far past, remember? 'Only a couple hundred years off, Tegan, but it's still Heathrow Airport!'" Tegan copied again. "'Maybe if you walk a few blocks you'll end up in the right time!'"
"That might have actually worked better than the TARDIS!" Nyssa snickered. The two mares were literally crying of laughter and attempting to keep walking down the road to Rarity's. The uncertainty of the previous moment was replaced with the laughter between the friends, each of them now smiling instead of worrying.
"Oh god, Tegan, how did we get so terrible?" Nyssa joked.
"Maybe when the Doctor put us both in the same room, even when 'The TARDIS is infamous, please try to understand my spacial transcendentalism' or whatever it was," Tegan laughed.
"Well, it worked out, didn't it?"
"Probably was the best thing that happened to us Nyssa. Grant it, months ago I would have never imagined to room with a Trakenite in a million years. . .yet it was a really good thing, I think."
"I think so too, Tegan," Nyssa agreed. "Since I left my planet and traveled with the TARDIS, all of you became my family. You and the Doctor." Nyssa looked at her friend, her eyes sparkling for a moment, yet they instantly turned grey as if something shot through her conscious. Tegan saw it. She knew what it was. Both of the mares were quiet for a moment.
"And Adric. . ." Nyssa added.
[In an earlier adventure:]
The Doctor(5) ran frantically around the console of his TARDIS, turning knobs and pressing buttons. . .trying, just trying, to do the impossible one last time.
"Please hurry Doctor!" Nyssa cried. "We must get Adric off the freighter!" The Doctor glanced quickly at the only window to the outside of the TARDIS, looking at the space freighter Nyssa was referring to. He knew that the ship was headed directly toward the young planet Earth, stuck in time to be the massive crater that would forver change the planet and roll off the rest of it's history. It was inevitable to stop it, and the Doctor knew it.
But his companion, Adric, a boy, was still on board, trying to fix the ship's course from being a catastrophic disaster to taking its proper role in history.
"The console's damaged!" the Doctor's voice broke as still he attempted to work something. . .anything at all.
"We must save Adric, there's so little time!" Nyssa stated most alarmed. For the first time since her planet had been left in rubble she had been so frightened, still holding onto what hope in the Doctor she had. He was able to fix anything, right? Surely he would be able to pull Adric off of the ship.
Tegan was just as uneasy as she paced around the room, unsure of whether to give the Doctor space or to help him in someway. It was in an instant later that the echo of metal clanging came from inside the TARDIS walls. Still alive from a previous encounter, a Cyberman marched into the console room, fully armed.
"Look out!" Tegan warned. Nyssa darted her eyes to the metal man, but the Doctor kept his hard focus on the controls, as if the enemy wasn't there.
"I must save Adric!" the Doctor said aloud, unsure whether he was telling his companions of his first priority or if he was telling himself not to give up. Nyssa took the Timelord's back and reached for a gun that was left by a previous Cyberman. Acting on tension from the moment, she shot the incoming Cyberman down before it could react. The Doctor turned for a moment to find the robot go down, and he would have said something about it, but his mind was too fixed on his controls. Nothing was working! But something should, just one thing should work! There's was always some part of him, always some part of the TARDIS that came through in the end. How was this different?
Tegan jumped over to Nyssa's side, both of them looking at the fallen Cyberman, Nyssa still gripping the gun in her hand. Tegan looked up at the window, but still, the freighter was moving with tremendous speed.
"Look!" she stated.
"Adric!" Nyssa cried, dropping the gun. For a moment, the Doctor stopped what he was doing. He looked toward the window. It was over.
But it couldn't be over! He was the Doctor! He was able to save everyone! Everyone lived, everyone always lived!
The Doctor watched in sheer horror as the ship descended. He felt so many things run through his mind, the gut-wrenching feeling that everything was wrong and it was all his fault. But in a way he believed it truly was. The stares of regret and dismay looked straight into his eyes, and for the oddest reason, it was if as though he could feel Adric's helpless look as well, still looking up to the Doctor as if he were waiting for the Timelord to save him.
Or possibly worse, they were faithless eyes, eyes that lost hope that the Doctor could be a hero anymore.
And as that hope vanished, so did the freighter, leaving in smoke and fire.
Adric's last words on the ship were unheard, but they still echoed through time, not speaking of mathematical values, or in his personal genius, but about Adric's choice to travel with the Doctor in the first place.
"Now I'll never know if I was right."
"HEY!" shrieked a voice that almost scared the pants off of Nyssa and Tegan. . .if they were wearing pants. The two mares, both wide-eyed, looked around for a source to the squeaky voice. Suddenly a pair of bright blue eyes faced the mares.
"Ah!" they both exclaimed, startled from their personal space being broken by the stranger. The eyes pulled back and the two mares saw a bouncing pink pony in front of them, hey knotted magenta mane poofing around her head like a wad of cotton candy. A ginormous smile stretched across her face.
"Hi hi hi!" she said excitedly. "Who are you two fine ponies?!"
"Um. . ." stuttered Nyssa, a little taken aback. "I'm Nyssa, and this is Tegan. We just came in town today and-"
The pink pony gasped.
[Insert super-long gasp here]
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"This is terrible! This is just totally super-duperly bad!" the pony shouted.
"What?! What is?!" asked Tegan.
"You're new in town and I haven't thrown you a party!" she exclaimed. Nyssa and Tegan just looked at each other.
"I'm Pinkie Pie, by the way!" the pink pony continued. "Welcome to PONYVILLE! Ooh! Wait. . .I need to think of where we should have the 'Welcome to Ponyville' party for you!"
"There's really no need," stated Nyssa.
"'No need'? There's always a need! How about the park! Ooh, no. . .the square! No. . .I know! Sugarcube Corner!"
"What?" asked Tegan. Pinkie Pie grabbed the unsuspecting mare around the shoulder.
"It's down that road, two lefts and a couple of hops and skips, and boom! you're there!" Pinkie chimed as if it were obvious.
"Ri-ght."
"So come when the sun set and whamo! I'll have a wonderful super-duper ally-ooper party for the both of you! Kay?!" Nyssa and Tegan just looked at each other before they both forced themselves to nod.
"YAAYY!" screamed Pinkie. In an instant she was gone, a pink trail following her. Nyssa and Tegan froze in their tracks.
"Well. . .that was mildly frightening," stated Tegan.
"Are we going to this. . .Sugarcube Corner then for this pony's party?" Nyssa asked.
"I don't see how we don't have a choice," said Tegan. "She might try to find us again."
"Well the Doctor's going to have to put up with a party I suppose," said Nyssa. "I hope he doesn't mind. Come on, let's get back to Rarity's."