//------------------------------// // 3. The Warnings of Two Horizons // Story: Frozen Shadows // by Hail King Sombra //------------------------------// “Where is the Doctor?” Derpy looked up from where she was minding the Tardis console for the Time Pony while he was away. “I think he said he went to the library,” she replied to Luna's guard, Dark Watch, moving Nyx's cloak aside from where she had left it to go in search of a meditation area to clear her mind. “Good, and where is the library?” he asked her. The mail mare bit her lip, tilting her head from side to side. “Well...depends on where the Tardis wants to keep it from day to day...to day...” she finished slowly, knowing he wouldn't like the answer. The stoic guard raised an eyebrow, it disappearing underneath the top part of his helmet's edge. “You said the same thing about the mess hall - “ “ - the kitchen? Yeah,” she nodded. “ - and the observation lounge and the lavatories and the cricket pitch, and what the Tartarus even is a cricket pitch!” She shrugged. “Yeah, they all kinda move around like that.” “ - and the engine room!” he finished, scowling, tired of her evasiveness. She brightened. “Oh, no, the Eye stays in the same place. It can be approached from many different directions, though.” “You sound like that blasted time creature,” he complained, tired and aggravated. “The Doctor? Yeah. You stay here with him too long and he kinda tends to rub off on you,” she fidgeted. She put out a hoof to touch his arm, but stopped midway. She wasn't sure guards liked to be touched, especially Luna's guards. “You, well, you sound hungry.” “And tired and in need of the...facilities,” he finished awkwardly. “Well, wander around long enough in here and we find them all...eventually. I'll go with you. We're bound to run into one of them, at least.” They walked towards the entrance to the rest of the ship. “Are you not supposed to be minding this – contraption?” he asked, gesturing back towards the console. “She doesn't really pay much attention to me,” Derpy half-laughed. “or to the Doctor sometimes. She'll be okay until he gets back. And I'm kinda needing two of the places you mentioned myself.” He was still hesitant to leave. “What if we cannot find our way back?” “I have a trick to that,” she smiled. “Works every time, so don't worry. Let's go.” The moment they left, the Doctor came through another door into the console room, carrying several books in his mouth. He set them down along the railing. “Derpy? I found the volumes on the Crystal Empire, but coordinates in this time zone for the castle don’t match...“ he trailed off, seeing no one else about. “Derpy? Every time!” he snorted. “I tell them not to wander off...no, wait...that's when we're outside exploring. Well,” he raised his voice, addressing the empty room. “I'm instituting a new rule here, too! No wandering around the Tardis!” He looked up as the interior lights flickered, turned yellow and the console beeped a low, warning tone. At that moment, Nyx came in from another direction, her cloak sweeping around her as she walked over to him while the Doctor was heading for the console. She looked up at the strange lighting coming from the walls. “What is going on?” she asked, then added, “Oh, right. This.” “A time anomaly,” he answered her question, peering closer at a readout. “No. Worse. A loop!” He did a double take as it changed. “I think.” “It would be,” she nodded. She caught sight of the cloak on the edge of the console. She backed up, touching the one she was wearing. “Uh oh,” she breathed, backing up slightly. “Can't pinpoint it. I'm scanning,” he frowned. “Strange. It's not anywhere outside the ship.” Nyx came back to the business at hand. “It wouldn't be,” she shook her head. The Tardis shuddered. The Doctor tried to grab onto the console, but there was something in his way. It was Nyx's cloak. He pushed it aside and grabbed onto the metal underneath. “He's here, isn't he?” Nyx stated rather than asked. “Who's here?” Nyx ignored him, scanning the room with her dark gaze. “There's nothing to be accomplished by this!” She seemingly addressed the room, then turned back to the Doctor. “You can't let him go!” she said, distressed. “What's wrong with your voice?” the time pony asked, struggling to keep the ship stable. “It's all – wobbly.” “I'd explain earlier, but you'll have already figured it out while I was unconscious.” She clicked her tongue. “Derpy and Dark Watch will need an explanation, though, so you might as well.” “You are making less sense than usual,” Whooves grunted, shifting with the growing instability that was tossing his beloved ship around. Nyx paused, thinking, trying to remember where she was in time. Her thoughts were fuzzy and it was hard to concentrate as she slipped between two time zones. She stumbled when she tried to take a step. Looking down she wasn’t surprised to find her hoof was transparent. “Crap baskets!” she cursed. “Not now!” She tried to get the Time Pony's attention. “Doctor? Doctor! Listen to me, please!” “Yes, what?” he said, listening not at all. “I haven't much time - “ “Got all the time in the world in here, Nyx.” He flipped a switch, which had the opposite effect of what he had intended, causing the alarm to grow louder. “What are you talking about?” “Ugh! Listen, he is going to get out and when he does, it will kill me,” she urged. “Literally?” “No, you time-hopping fool!” she snapped, losing her patience, and part of the foreleg her hoof had already disappeared from. “I will be so distraught. I can't take much more of this, Doctor!” He wanted to spare the second to look at her, the ache in her voice was hard to miss, but only dared spare the time after the Tardis had ceased shaking itself apart. The Marazon Seeress moved to the other side of the console to see what the readouts were saying. They were not promising. “Doctor, have you invented the portable time stabilization field yet?” she asked. “Why would I invent something like that?” he asked. “Once you see where we're going, you'll be glad you did, but I am telling you – DON'T BUILD IT!” “Okay, for the sake of argument,” he said, head spinning at her insane talk, but feeling the controls had stabilized for the moment enough he could spare the second. Looking up, he blinked. “Where are you? Oh, behind the console. Right.” He tried to glance around it, but every time he did, left to right, she did the same, looking right to left, always the opposite way from him. Giving up, he continued, “for the sake of argument,” he repeated. “I take it we will need this ‘field’?” Something occurred to him. “Wait this is a very detailed vision of the future you’ve had!” She sighed. “You could say that,” she muttered. “What?” “Nothing.” “Okay, so we need this – what did you call it?” the Doctor asked. “'Portable time stabilization field,” she repeated. “What an awful name!” he made a face. “Your name, not mine,” she replied. “Not if you just told it to me because of a vision you had of our future,” Whooves reminded her. “Oh, right,” she mumbled. “So why don't you want me to make this device?” he asked. “Because, he'll get out if you do,” she said urgently. “You won't want him to. None of you will!” None of us? He blinked at the strange wording she was using. The ship shook again, this time harder than ever. “Look, Nyx, I'd love to indulge your eccentric sense for speaking in riddles, but I am rather busy right now.” He grabbed what he now recognized as her cloak from the console and threw it her way. “Here, get this off my console!” She jumped out of the way, letting it fall to the floor. “That was close!” The light changed from yellow to orange around them. “Oh, this is bad!” he said a little more urgently. “It's not that bad,” the TimeWitch shook her head. “Yet.” The door Derpy and Dark Watch had previously left from, opened and someone came in. The light in the room turned blood red. “Now it's that bad,” the Seeress groaned, part of her hoof disappearing. She came around the console, hobbling on her three remaining legs. “What is?” he asked at last, feeling a monster headache coming on from her double talk, glancing down at the fallen cloak...then to Nyx's hooves, one of which was gone...and to the edges of the cloak she was wearing. He looked up and all he said was, “Oh. Uh oh!” “Yes, right!” Nyx scolded – another Nyx in the doorway - the one who had removed her cloak and draped it over the console before she had left the room hours ago to meditate and whose limbs were also disappearing! Her time double at his side looked to the doorway and addressed the younger version of herself that had just come in. “Don't let him out!” was all she said. The mare at the doorway stared back at herself, standing by the Doctor. “Doctor, this is bad,” she said. “It would be - “ the cloaked Nyx standing by the Doctor began to say. “Why are you...me...I here?” the Nyx by the door without the cloak asked. “Did you really think it necessary to screw up time worse by doing this?!?” “It was not my intent!“ the cloaked Marazon TimeWitch snapped. “Listen to me, because this idiot won't!” she inclined her head at the Doctor. “You HAVE to save him! He shouldn't be here!” There was an urgency in her voice that cut through the alarms going off around them. “Get him away from here, PLEASE!” “But you just said...oh that is IT!” the Doctor yelled, turning to the first Nyx, the one next to him. “Don't go to the Crystal Empire's suburbs. Go directly to the throne room,” she told both of them. “Not with him here! He'll - “ “Who?!?” both the Doctor and the uncloaked Nyx standing by the doorway asked in utter confusion. Whooves stepped closer to her. “Sombra?” “Finally found the lavatories, Doctor,” Derpy said from where she came in from the other entrance. “Dark Watch - “ she trailed off, looking at both Nyxs and a cross Doctor. “Yes!” the Doctor's Nyx said firmly. The shaking got worse, as if the ship were going to tear itself apart. “Sorry about this, Nyx,” he mumbled, striding back to her, lifting up the cloak and throwing it on the mare next to him. There was a blinding flash, the lights went rapidly from red to orange to yellow and by the time the flash cleared, they were normal again and the TimeWitch next to him was gone. Dark Watch came in at that moment from the door Derpy was standing by. “What is all the commotion?” he asked. “Don't ask!” Derpy said firmly, her head spinning from what had just taken place. “Nyx - “ She glanced over at the other door. “Nyx?” They found her on the floor by the door, unconscious. Dark Watch and Whooves lifted her up, getting her over to the couch by the railing. Derpy held her breath as they checked for a pulse, noticing her cutie mark at the same time. “That's an unusual mark,” Dark Watch voiced what the mail mare had wanted to say, nodding to the rounded, black serpent eating its own tail. Though she had set aside the cloak before leaving to meditate, none had noticed it in detail or even that she had had one before. “I've never seen anything like that either,” Derpy agreed. “What is it?” “It is - “ Dark Watch started to explain, but was cut off by the Time Pony’s sound of relief. “She's okay,” the Doctor told them. “Just stunned, though I'm surprised she survived.” “Survived what?” the mare asked. “What happened, Doctor? Why were there two of her?” “Two of her?” the guard echoed. “Yes, two.” Whooves went over to retrieve the one cloak he found, brought it back and laid it over Nyx to keep her warm, thinking how he was going to explain what had just happened. “Apparently another Nyx, one from somewhere else in her time stream, probably the future, ended up here in our time,” he began. “Normally that is a very bad thing - “ “ - that's why the lights went red and the alarms went off,” Derpy guessed. She had witnessed such a thing in her travels and that part was nothing new, but the thought of two of the same person in the same time so far had never happened in her travels with the Doctor. “An event like that, when it happens inside the Tardis, can tear it apart under the right circumstances,” Whooves continued. “and it was heading towards that direction, unfortunately.” He picked up a corner of the cloak. “The cloak she was wearing when she came here and the one I picked up off the floor were the same cloak, but from different points in its own time stream. Bringing them into contact with each other shorted out the anomaly, sending the other Nyx back and canceling out the paradox so it didn't create a time loop, which - “ he glanced over at the monitor. “ - kept popping up as a threat on the readouts before all this started.” “So we're okay now?” the mare asked him. “We should be, but what the future Nyx said bothers me,” he shook his head. “What did she say?” Watch asked. “She said to me, 'You can't let him out' and 'Don't let him go',” he quoted. “But when this - our Nyx came in, the other Nyx suddenly changed her tune, begging her earlier self to ‘get him away from here’.” “‘Him’?” his companion asked. “‘Him’ who? King Sombra?” “That's what she said,” the Doctor nodded. He sighed. “Perhaps I was a fool to think she wanted to set time right. It is impossible to know now for certain.” “Why is that, Doctor?” Watch asked him. “She was in flux with time itself,” he explained. “She could have been going through multiple times in the same instant, or changing times. On one hoof, she came back to warn us not to let him out, then she wants him away from here.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Her time-hopping has given me such a headache!” They looked at each other with a knowing look that Luna's guard finally put to words. “She is not going to aid in King Sombra’s escape, Doctor. He is going to serve out his sentence, be it a thousand years or eternity, which ever be correct and true. I will not permit her to release him.” Whooves rubbed his muzzle. “Yes, I know. And we cannot allow her to, either. Not if our time is to be set to rights. All we know for certain is that he is fated in the correct time stream to be imprisoned for 1,000 years.” He checked her. She was still out cold. “ She couldn't have known when we would be at Canterlot Palace, so I don't believe she manipulated us into taking her with us, but - “ “Why not?” This was from Derpy and got both their attentions. “What?” the Time Pony asked. “Well, why not, Doctor?” she shrugged. “You said she can travel through time. Maybe she knows us from her past?“ “Our future,” he added, a look of concern crossing his face. “And she showed up on just the right day,” she finished. “Well, not exactly. The Tardis took us there - and to her,” he clarified. “This is massively confusing,” the guard said, shaking his head. “I am not following any of what you are saying!” “It is possible,” Whooves mused aloud. “From what little we know of her association with King Sombra, he can't have been a good influence on her if she were his consort.” “That's a little unfair, Doctor,” Derpy frowned. “Maybe she was threatened by him. We don't know.” “I tend to agree with the Doctor on this,” Dark Watch nodded. “Her speech and mannerism suggests she is an ardent follower of his.” “She is certainly dressed for it,” Whooves said thoughtfully. “and she wields a weapon the Princesses did say was originally King Sombra's. Her entire attitude towards him is of devotion, or at the very least brainwashing, hypnotism or Stockhoof Syndrome.” “What is Stockhoof Syndrome?” “It is a situation wherein a captive starts to sympathize with their kidnapper at the best, or fall in love, in the worse scenario,” Whooves explained to Derpy. Derpy shook her head. “I didn't ask you, Doctor.” “Well then - “ he looked down. Nyx was awake and watching him, her face a mask of impassiveness. “oh, uh, hello. Have a nice – nap?” “I would have if I had not just felt like the time vortex was pulled through one ear and out the other,” she answered. Then her voice turned cold. “And if I had not woken up to this conversation.” “Oh, yes, well,” Whooves fumbled. “we do have some legitimate concerns, Nyx. Um, how much did you hear?” She sat up slowly. “Enough to know I do not like you, Doctor. Not in the least.” She turned to Derpy. “and that I was mistaken in my earlier assessment of your character as well, Miss Derpy.” She shot Dark Watch a look, reminding him of their earlier conversation that her innocence would save her one day from Sombra's wrath. He looked nonplussed about her opinions. “Is that supposed to be an insult?” Derpy asked, unsure whether she should be offended. Nyx got up, barely managing to stand on her own, shrugging off both stallion’s assistance. Gathering the cloak around her, she slowly made her way to the door back into the Tardis's interior. She looked back over her shoulder before exiting. “No. Take it as a warning.” The TimeWitch left in search of a place away from them to lay down and recover from her ordeal, leaving them to ponder the meaning of her words.