Chapter Three
The Doctor and Roseluck
Where are they? It’s been… I don’t even know how long! Are they even coming? This is the right place, right? Ugh.
She sulked forward in her seat and blew out a long, deep breath. A day had passed until Muffins promised to meet with her alongside Doctor Hooves for early lunch. Her night remained as restless as the rest of her day; she had shifted all over the place in her bed, eyes wide open.
With so little sleep, she waited with her patience broken by irritation. She sat at an outside restaurant just around the block. A small, quiet place with only a few ponies sitting on wooden stools, and she found the seat with the least amount of ponies nearby. Her eyes looked all around for either Muffins or Doctor Hooves, but at her side, all she saw was an approaching waiter.
“Excuse me, miss.” The bearded unicorn stood in front of her and brought out a notepad at the ready. “Are you ready to order?”
“Oh, uhh, I’m just waiting for some ponies,” she answered. Then she could feel her stomach growl, and she smiled sheepishly. “Actually, a daffodil sandwich would be nice. A-and a water. Please.”
The waiter nodded and walked off, leaving her by herself again.
“Roseluck!”
Rose jumped and felt her spine shiver at the voice right behind her. She couldn’t help but let out a surprised noise; “Yah!” Turning around, she breathed out when she saw Muffins hovering inches from her face, a brown bag slung around her shoulder. Their muzzles practically touched. “H-hey, Muffins.”
Muffins’s cheeks blazed. “Oops! Did I scare ya?”
She just shrugged, but then she looked at the stallion standing to Muffins’s side, who simply smiled at them in silence and waved. “Hi,” she said to him.
“Oh, right!” Muffins’ face lit up as she exchanged looks between the other two. She took Doctor Hooves around the neck and brought him to the seats beside Rose. “Doctor, you’ve met Roseluck before, right?”
Doctor Hooves turned to her, meeting her gaze. While looking back at him, she noticed it wasn’t quite as full of life as the previous day. Tired, probably, she thought.
“Yes, we’ve been acquainted before. At the wedding yesterday, actually. Good to see you again, Roseluck. Good name, too. Roseluck,” he sputtered on, his hoof playing with his ear, eyes drifting to the side.
Roseluck nodded, frowning awkwardly. “O-oh, thanks. But, yeah, I got the letter Muffins, uh, tacked on my door.”
“You couldn’t just knock, Muffins?” the Doctor asked with a hint of disbelief.
“I didn’t want to bother her!”
“These ponies… just disappearing, including my friends, it’s… weird, isn’t it?” Roseluck interrupted their banter.
Doctor Hooves’s eyes flashed, and his face hardened into a more sober expression. “Oh, yes, there’s certainly something strange going on. Though, in this town, when isn’t that the case? Still! Ponies, just vanishing out of thin air. So far, however, I can’t do much. Not without actual, physical evidence.” His jaw set for a second.
Muffins whispered in Rose’s ear, “He’s really into the science-y stuff. He gets annoyed with magic sometimes, too.”
He momentarily shot them a look. “I can handle the magical aspects perfectly fine, but even then, there’s usually a scientific underlining somewhere. I just…” He tapped his hoof on the table and rose his gaze to the side with a sniff. “Haven’t found it yet.”
“So you haven’t found anything?”
He shook his head, and Rose could practically feel her heart sink. “All the ponies we asked, they don’t know what happened. Everyone seemed to be fine before they vanished. Nothing suspicious or anything. Pretty much everyone was at the wedding, but there’s not much to go from that.”
“There was that changeling, right?” Muffins pointed out. She gasped loudly. “What if there’s a changeling army taking our friends? To some sort of hive to-to eat them or something!”
The Doctor, unlike Roseluck, who clutched her hooves together against her chest, was unphased. “If the changelings wanted to take ponies, they would also likely take their place. That includes not letting us know they’re missing.”
“Then maybe they’re changelings that aren’t that smart!” Muffins offered, hiding a smile behind her hooves. She giggled.
Doctor Hooves gave her a small smile back, patting his friend on the back. “Well, we’ll put that one on the backburner, Muffins. You never know. ”
The waiter arrived with Roseluck’s order. While Muffins ordered her lunch, Doctor Hooves’s eyes wandered over to Roseluck, who could only turn away in response as she took a sip of water. He didn’t get anything for himself.
“You live near them, too.” Doctor Hooves leaned onto the table with a quirked brow. “Daisy and Lily. Did anything strange happen before they disappeared?”
“No, not at all. We just got back from the wedding, and it started raining so we went right home. Nothing… weird,” Roseluck explained, thinking of anything that might’ve been strange. But it was all normal, nothing out of place. “So it… someone must’ve taken them at night, because I didn’t see them at all that night.”
“Five ponies at once? With such a clean escape?” Doctor Hooves’s voice rose, and he scoffed. “Oh, I doubt that. That’d require a team of kidnappers, and there would most likely be something to give them away somewhere.”
“How so?” Muffins asked.
“There’s always at least one that’d leave big clues. A tiny slip up, maybe a hair out of place.” Doctor Hooves held his hooves close together, inches apart. “Anything, really. There’s just something we’re missing. It’s probably dangling right over our heads.”
“Let’s go ask some more ponies if they saw something,” said Muffins.
Doctor Hooves rubbed his face. “We’ve already asked about half the town, Muffins. It won’t do any good by now.”
“Let’s go ask the changeling!” said Muffins, beaming. When the waiter arrived with her sandwich, she thanked him. Once he left, she said, “What’re we waiting for? Where do we start today, Doc?”
He rolled his eyes, but he was grinning back anyway. Roseluck noticed, though, his smile didn’t meet with his eyes. Like he smiled simply for his friend’s sake. It worked for Muffins, who started giggling again.
Getting up, he said, “What we need to do is check the ponies’ houses from last night. Might be something in them if we search. A sign of a struggle or a note they might’ve left behind. I know where we can start.” The Doctor stood, and Muffins was quick to rise as well and stuffed her sandwich in the bag.
“Bwa—Muffins, there were notes in there!”
Blush rose in Muffins’s cheeks. “Hehe, oops,” she apologized as they started walking away. The Doctor took point, while Muffins flew right behind him. Roseluck took the opportunity and joined his side.
“Hey, umm, are you okay?” Roseluck asked, grimacing.
Doctor Hooves shot her a gaze before looking forward. “Right as rain, don’t you worry. Let’s focus on the task at hand, why don’t we?”
Roseluck stared at him for a moment. She even opened her mouth to speak up, a few things on her mind. Did I do something? Did I upset you somehow? Why’re you so awkward? were among a few questions she wished to bring up but couldn’t. After a bit of pondering to herself, she shook her head. He’s probably just awkward all the time, when he’s not rambling on.
Then it hit her. She smiled and said, “So, uhh, Doctor Hooves?”
“Just the Doctor is fine.”
“Alright… the Doctor.” Roseluck shot him a look at that. “How have you been? It’s, umm, been a while. Remember the incident with those flower creatures?”
He chuckled. “‘Course I do! The Runaway Flora, with the Isos using your flowers as little mini-spaceships to fly back home. They seemed to take the path with those Breezies because they were not familiar with the environment. Just about any flower and its stem can be used for their transportation as far as away from their planet. Little antennas,” he added, making a gesture with a hoof pointing at his head as if to demonstrate, “that have magic to use the pollen—almost like oil for gas! Obviously, after taking them to the Everfree Forest, rather than using yours, they find plenty to choose from.”
“I saw those!” Muffins exclaimed from behind, eyes lighting up. “They looked so cute. And they could fit right in your hoof.”
“Ooh, but don’t let their looks deceive you,” Doctor Hooves warned her. “They have mouths like a sailor, if you listened in well enough. I didn’t think I’d ever hear those words around here.”
Roseluck’s lips twitched. “They probably really just wanted to get home.”
The Doctor’s eyes shined when he glanced at her. “Yes, that’s probably it. And apparently, they’re known to try and bite strangers, but all you get is a little pinch—not even that, more like a tickle on the hoof. And look at you, Miss Luck.”
Rose blinked and almost stumbled at the mention of her name. He was even pointing a hoof at her, altogether stopping their walk. Roseluck exchanged a look at Muffins, who just shrugged.
“Good! That’s a smile right there. I haven’t seen you smile since we met up today.”
“Doc.” Muffins stuck out her upper lip, her eyebrows curved down slightly. “You know why she’s sad.”
His expression was blank for a moment before it clicked. When it did, he pulled on his tie and muttered, “Err, I didn’t think that. Right, sorry. Muffins, why don’t you talk to some neighbors around here about checking Amethyst Star’s house?”
“Alrighty, Doc!” she said. She gave Roseluck an energetic wave before flying off in a buzz.
Roseluck watched her approach a pair of ponies standing in the street. Muffins was quick to join whatever conversation they were going on about with her wings beating rapidly and wearing a giant beam, which Roseluck couldn’t help but smile at. Glancing through her peripheral vision, she caught the Doctor standing beside her.
“I do know about your friends, which I’m terribly sorry about. But a smile means you have something to, well, smile about. If you pardon the cheesy line.”
A small grin broke out across her face. “If we’ve learned anything from Pinkie Pie, that is true.”
He nodded solemnly. “And I know you’ll be smiling big time once we find them all.”
“I hope we do,” she said, her head tilting to the side.
“Oh, we will.” Doctor Hooves gave her a look full of confidence and something else she couldn’t quite describe. He turned to the right before she could decipher it. Whatever it was began to eat her away, as curiosity was a funny thing.
“You sound… pretty sure of yourself. That we’ll find them.” Roseluck’s smile faded. Visions of empty neighboring houses entered her mind. Empty, dusty, and oh so lonely. Shaking her head, she blurted out, “What if they’re gone, Doctor? What if-what if they’re just… gone forever, like something even worse happened to them?”
Doctor Hooves glanced over his shoulder at her, and suddenly, she could feel tears stinging her eyes. She shifted her head away from him and, when she returned, Muffins, who whispered something to the Doctor, and brushed her face of the wet, warm stains.
She wanted to vanish. To wallow in her house again by herself. Not cry in front of these ponies. But here she was, nonetheless.
Embarrassing.
“Roseluck?” He waited, and she knew why. She lifted her head back up to him, but she never quite met his gaze, finding his too intense against her. He sighed and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Listen to me. I’ll do everything I can to find those missing ponies. I won’t leave you and your friends suffering like this. Wherever they are, I will bring them back safe. Everyone.”
She finally looked him in the eye, and she finally found the other thing behind his confidence.
Compassion.
How could I doubt that, of all things?
Gulping away any doubt, she nodded. “Okay, okay. So, uhh, where do we start?”
That confidence arrived again, like a spark of lightning in his eyes. “I believe we’re here. It’s, well, one house we failed to check yesterday.”
Roseluck glanced at where he pointed and frowned. Oh crud.
Lily and Daisy’s houses.