Wolf at the Door

by Fedora

Derpy and the Doctor

The Ninth Doctor and Derpy ascended some sort of spiral stone staircase. Shafts of bright daylight poked in through cracks in a wall, illuminating the stone with a crisp golden light. Lining the walls on each side were tiles inscribed with ancient texts, which the Doctor paused to read.

“This is from your world,” he said, “Ancient history to you, but a lot newer than most of what I expected to find here.”

The Doctor paused, sitting himself down on the steps for a moment. His brow furrowed, and he didn’t respond to Derpy’s prodding.

“Doctor,” she said, “What’s the matter?”

He blinked a few times, made eye contact with Derpy once more, and smiled.

“That was myself,” he said, “Ha! That was my past self, making psychic contact with his future me.”

“His future…” Derpy trailed, “That’s a weird way of putting it.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, “What did he have to say.”

“Oh, something about the risk of death here being real and all that, nothing to be too worried about.” he replied with a smile, “Apparently he nearly got killed by a great blob of a creature with gelatinous skin. Imagine that!”

“I’d rather not.” Derpy admitted, “Everyone else alright?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Fantastic.”

“Oi!” the Doctor protested, “That’s my line!”

They reached the uppermost step in the stone staircase, and found themselves on a sort of balcony overlooking a deep chasm. Weeds, fungus, and vines grew up between cracks in the wall and in spaces between stone tiles, lending the place an atmosphere similar to an old set of ruins from a Daring Do novel.

In fact, it looked an awful lot like something out of a Daring Do novel, now that Derpy thought about it. Everything was there, from messages left by an ancient civilization to a chasm of doom.

Looking over to the opposite side of the chasm, Derpy could see another ledge, and on that an entryway into something beyond. The classic death trap for an injured pegasus seeking a precious artifact.

Only Derpy wasn’t injured. Quite effortlessly, she flew across the never-ending chasm and landed on the opposite side.

It was no wonder Daring was always getting her wing injured in the books. That kind of solution was the epitome of an anticlimax.

The Doctor paced back and forth on the other side of the chasm, growing increasingly frustrated with his lack of wings.

“Nine incarnations, and I’ve never been a pegasus. Can you believe that?” he called across, “Not once. I’ve been a unicorn one time, that was nice. I could levitate all sorts of little things in a laboratory.”

“I could try to carry you across,” Derpy offered.

“Nah,” the Doctor replied, “I’m far too heavy.”

“At least you’re not the other Doctor.”

He smiled at that. His eyes scanned the other side, looking for a loose vine to try to jump for. There wasn’t any. All of the plants growing were on his side, while the floor and walls of Derpy’s side of the chasm were bare save for the empty torch holsters attached to the wall.

The Doctor looked around by his hooves, finding a loose bit of floor tile. He kicked at it and knocked it out of position.

“Derpy,” he said, “Listen.”

He kicked the bit of stone over the edge, allowing it to fall down into the chasm. Both he and Derpy waited for a noise to signal the depth of the chasm, but no noise came. All was silent save for the distant chirping of rainforest birds adding to the artificial ambience of the “lost ruins”.

“An endless pit.” the Doctor whispered, “Now how did you manage that?”

Leaving the pit’s edge, the Doctor set to work pulling up tangles of vines that grew up from the floor. He wrapped an end of a particularly long one around his hoof, and gave a sharp tug on the other side. It seemed durable, perhaps even durable enough to hold his weight.

“Derpy, how are you with knot tying?” he asked, “Ever been a foal scout?”

“No,” she admitted, “I can probably figure it out though.”

“Right,” the Doctor said, “I’ve got a length of vine here, I want you to fly it back over to that side and tie it onto that torch holster over there. If this works, I should be able to swing my way across.”

“Good idea.” Derpy agreed. She flew over the seemingly endless chasm and back to the side the Doctor was stuck on, and took one end of the vine in her teeth. The Doctor had the other end wrapped tightly around one hoof.

Flying back, she set to work fastening the vine to the torch holster. It was a small piece of bronze shaped like a hook and fastened to the stone wall. In use it would have served as something that a wooden torch could be slid into and left against the wall, an ancient version of a light fixture.

Derpy found the knot-tying part a bit harder than she had anticipated. Coupled with her inexperience at working with rope was the unforgiving stubbornness of the vine itself. Vine was not a proper substitute for rope, and tying it into something that wouldn’t slip and come undone was quickly going from being a simple task to a major pain in the hindquarters.

Derpy managed to loop it through the holster and attempted to tie the vine back onto itself in a sort of sloppy-looking half hitch. She gave a tug, and the vine tightened. Thankfully, her makeshift knot didn’t give way, and it seemed to be fastened more or less securely.

“Alright Doctor, I think I’ve got it.” she called over.

The Doctor nodded, and positioned himself on the opposite side with both front hooves together. The vine was still firmly wrapped about one hoof, while the other grasped the line just above.

“You know… I could sort of use a pith helmet and some fanfare right about now,” the Doctor joked. Derpy didn’t seem to hear him.

He jumped off the edge, and felt himself drop down into the chasm. His jacket flared out and the vine pulled taught with stress from his weight. As he swung across, disaster struck. The holster they had tied the rope to snapped in half from the force applied to it, and the vine was no longer fastened to anything. The Doctor let out a cry, and fell into the darkness of the chasm.

Derpy dived for the end of the vine, holding it in her teeth. She felt a violent jerk and her hooves slid out from under her as she was pulled down over the edge with the Doctor, down into the blackness of the neverending chasm.

Air whipped about them, and Derpy screamed. She felt herself tumble over upside down and then right side up, and her head started throbbing while the entire world seemed to spin out of control. Even as the rushing air seemed to dissipate, she felt the mad spinning sensation grown stronger, and she held her hooves to her face and winced.

She didn’t impact with anything, which given the idea of an endless pit didn’t surprise her. What truly surprised her was the loss of that sensation of one’s stomach dropping. She didn’t feel like she was falling anymore. It was more of a floating sensation.

Derpy opened her eyes for a moment, and though it was very dark down in the chasm she could make out the form of the Doctor next to her. He was grinning madly.

“Alright, I have to admit that this isn’t what I expected.” he said, “But what a fantastic turn of events!”

“W-What’s happening?” Derpy sputtered, “Why aren’t I falling?”

“Suspension,” he replied, “You and I, the vine, and that little stone I tossed down here are all suspended. And I think I’ve figured out why.”

Derpy was silent.

“Well, aren’t you gonna ask?” the Doctor said expectantly, “Why I think we’re suspended?”

“Alright, why?”

“Well,” he conjectured, “I can turn myself upside down like this…”

His voice trailed off, and he effortlessly turned himself over on his back, hooves facing toward the distant ceiling.

“... but I don’t feel blood rushing to my head. Gravity’s out of whack.”

“What, somepony’s messed with the gravity,” Derpy asked, “is that what you mean?”

“Possibly.”

The pair was silent for a moment, rotating slowly in the gravity-challenged zone of the chasm. The Doctor tried to maneuver himself to face the bottom of the pit, but in doing so spun too far and did a complete arc in the wrong direction.

“I’m guessing it’s some kind of tractor field.” the Doctor said, “An array meant to harness us in midair like this. I guess the only problem is that we’re not being pulled in anywhere, just… left to float.”

Derpy thought about this, and tried herself to move in the zero-gravity zone. It was effortless, and her movement sent her careening into the stone side of the chasm. She threw her hooves out in front of her to brace the impact, but she still hit the wall rather painfully.

Rubbing her head, Derpy tried another approach. She touched the wall as gingerly as she could, and began to lower herself down beyond the level the Doctor was on.

Noticing this, the Doctor called out to her.

“What are you doing, Derpy?”

“Trying something.” she answered, “I’ve got an idea.”

“It’s a tractor field, Derpy. You get out of it and you’ll just keep falling.” the Doctor warned, “And you’ve got no idea how far down the floor is.”

“Good thing I’ve got wings.” she called back. Derpy was now much lower than the space occupied by the Doctor, and she started to feel her body moving unwillingly. It was an odd sensation, like being pulled by the hooves.

Her link to the wall ended and she found herself springing back to where she had just came from, nearly bowling over the Doctor in the process.

“Interesting,” he said, “You might have a point there.”

“It pulled me back here.” Derpy said, “That felt really weird.”

She tried again, this time making a break for the floor using her wings to carry herself along. As before she felt a pulling sensation, but it didn’t hinder her flight more than she was used to. In fact, the upwards pull and the lack of blood rushing to her head gave Derpy the disconcerting sensation of typical flight.

She was flying up towards the bottom of the pit.

“I think I’ve figured it out,” she called back to the Doctor, reaching the stone floor-roof and feeling around for something in the darkness, “Gravity reversed itself. I flew up toward the bottom of this thing.”

There was a brief pause. Derpy found a spot near the edge that did not have a solid rock wall lining it. Instead, there was an open space large enough for her to fit into. She did so, and felt herself resting on a ledge not unlike the one at the very top of the chasm. She was willing to bet it was some sort of passageway.

“Are you there now?” the Doctor called back.

“I found something,” Derpy replied, “I think it’s a passageway.”

“Fantastic!” exclaimed the Doctor, “See if there’s anything for me to attach the vine to and I can climb my way up… or is it down?”

****

Derpy and the Doctor walked along a darkened tunnel lit only by the blue glow of the sonic screwdriver. The tunnel was rocky, cold, and moist. In a way it felt less like an intentional path and more like a natural cave; a notion the Doctor would almost certainly dismiss based on the day’s events so far.

“You know, it’s funny,” the Doctor said, breaking the silence, “This reminds me of an arcade game I once played.”

“This face, or another one?” Derpy asked, “Because I can’t picture you playing an arcade game.”

“Oi!” cried the Doctor, “This one. I’m great at the video arcade, you know. What I was trying to say was that this reminded me of a secret passage. A warp zone. Some little out-of-the-way secret that acts as a shortcut through some of the difficult parts of the game.”

“Or skips the easy parts and brings you to the harder stuff.” Derpy stated. “I’ve played a few too. I wasn’t very good at them.”

A dim light appeared somewhere up ahead, apart from the light of the sonic. Crawling over jagged rocks and cramped spaces, the Doctor and Derpy could make out a roughly pony-sized gap leading out into daylight. The Doctor crawled through first, and reached back to help Derpy return to the surface

They emerged onto a sandy surface in broad daylight. Unlike the sand at the beach they had started at this was finer, and much drier. The landscape was one of rolling dunes and distant rock mountains. The heat was intense, coupled with the burning glare of the sun’s rays.

Derpy took the chance to fly a bit higher in hopes of spotting something they should aim for, to see if this route was even worth pursuing. From a greater altitude the dunes and rock mountains became smaller in magnitude, and she could see the expanse of canyons and a small greenish zone of vegetation to the South. Or maybe it was West. Her navigation had always been a bit off.

Just beyond the distant vegetation was a stone castle, sides bleached white from exposure to the sun. Four turrets stood at corners of a great wall around the outside, while a fifth turret in the center of the fortress stood tallest.

Derpy returned to ground level to explain what she had seen to the waiting Doctor. The directions she gave were vague. She couldn’t tell which way was north, south, east or west, but she could point the Doctor in the general direction of the oasis and the castle beyond.

“Let’s get moving, then.” the Doctor said, “No interruptions, should take us about an hour max. You thirsty?”

“A little.” Derpy replied, “Do you have any water?”

“No.” said the Doctor, “Tell you what, though.”

He reached into his jacket, and tried searching around for something with a single hoof. This search produced nothing, and he tried looking around through the other side.

“I…had a flask in here somewhere,” he muttered, “Can’t remember what was in it.”

“Don’t bother,” Derpy said, raising a hoof, “I’ll just wait until we reach the oasis. You said it was an hour’s walk?”

“Based on what you told me.”

Derpy nodded.

“I can wait until then.” she stated.

The pair set off over the sandy slopes of the erg, making idle conversation to pass the time. Behind them stretched a growing trail of hoof prints left in the sand.

Time passed. Stories told by the Doctor tended to flow into the next, and Derpy felt like she was having a hard time telling what was one story and what was bits of another one leaking through. She tried to imagine what it must be like for the Doctor. She found it hard to remember back to when she was a little filly sometimes, and that was just more than a decade and a half ago for her. Judging from what the Doctor had said of himself, he had been around for centuries. How did he remember all of that? Did his distant memory just fade away into nothingness, and what she was hearing was just the greatest hits of the most recent 100 years of space-time?

Derpy took her turns telling stories as well. To her, even her most exciting retelling of her childhood and teenage years seemed mundane sided with the Doctor’s life. Surprisingly, the Doctor seemed much more interested in hearing about her life than she had been about his. At first she suspected that his interest was feigned, but the questions he would ask revealed that he had been paying much closer attention than she had thought.

“...so you’re telling me that your father spotted an Orca whale on a whale-watch that went out of Baltimare seaport?” he asked.

“That’s right. He pointed it out to me, black body with a white spot behind the eye.” Derpy said, “They’re not usually that far south.”

“No, no they’re not.” the Doctor replied, “It’s not unheard of, just unusual. Fantastic creatures, the Orcas. They’re very intelligent predators.”

They walked on. The conversations continued for a time, then began to dwindle. The gaps of silence lengthened, and soon the Doctor and Derpy stopped speaking altogether.

It was just as well for Derpy, her mouth was getting dry. She could only hope they reached the oasis soon.

That thought made Derpy stop for a moment, and look at her surroundings. It had definitely been an hour, and they seemed to have made little progress. There was still quite a lot of desert to cover.

The Doctor was having similar thoughts. He halted just a few steps beyond Derpy, and rolled up his sleeve to look at the watch around his left hoof.

“It’s been 67 minutes.” the Doctor said, “This isn’t good… oh, this is not good.”

He withdrew the sonic screwdriver, and held it up to take some sort of scan. It’s whirring noise intensified, and when he brought it back to his face to examine the readings his placid face turned into a scowl.

“We’ve covered roughly a quarter of the total distance between the hole in the ground and the large stone structure the sonic’s picked up.”

“Maybe it’s detecting mountains by accident?” Derpy suggested.

“It can distinguish between a castle and mountains, Derpy.”

Something beneath them rumbled. Derpy felt a surge of dread, recalling their encounter with the land eel in Starswirl’s time.

The Doctor felt the rumble too. Hastily stowing the sonic back in his coat pocket, he backed up from a certain point on the ground. The sand over that point started shifting and bulging. A surprised Derpy stumbled backwards from it.

“Doctor, what is it?” Derpy cried.

“Something sensitive to sonic energy, I’m guessing.” He said, “This isn’t good.”

The ground gave way in a burst of sand and soil, and a gargantuan worm burst up, screeching loudly. It’s skin was mottled whitish gray, and the head had four hinged ‘jaws’ lined with broken teeth used for tunnelling.

“Run!” the Doctor yelled, taking off over the nearest sand Dune. Derpy took off into the air and zoomed after him, matching his speed on hoof with her fatigued flight.

“Is it a meat-eater?” she shouted down to the Doctor, “Like the land eel?”

“No!” the Doctor yelled back, “It’s very protective of territory, though, and it will kill you!”

The worm dove back into the ground, only to spring up ahead of the pair of terrified ponies in the direction they had been fleeing. A glob of venom shot out of the head of the creature, clipping Derpy’s hindquarters and bringing her down. It stung, and she hastily tried rubbing it off on the sandy ground.

The Doctor had skidded to a halt. The worm was in mid-spit, so he took his momentary opportunity to strike at it with his back hooves.

The worm reeled backwards, and retracted back down into the soil. Moments passed, and though the ground rumbled below them the worm didn’t break the surface right away.

“We need to get out of here,” the Doctor said, “Derpy, fly high as you can and keep out of range.”

Derpy tried to open her mouth to reply, but felt something other than words trying to force its way up her throat. She felt a burning sensation, and her insides felt like they had flipped upside down. Her legs wobbled, and gave way. The pony buckled over and despite her best efforts, threw up.

The worm resurfaced, making a swipe at the Doctor in the process. He was thrown off his hooves, tumbling into a heap in the sand. Venom-spit splattered down very near to his face, sizzling against the hot sand. The Doctor moved into action again, trying to keep the worm focused on him rather than his sick companion.

For Derpy, the world was starting to spin. Dehydration and heat sickness was sitting in, and she knew she couldn’t keep this up for long. Despite trying to assure the Doctor that she would make it to the oasis, she knew she wouldn’t last that long.

Turning her attention to the nearby shouting of the Doctor and the cries of the worm, Derpy caught sight of the Timelord being side-swiped and thrown to the ground. The worm’s head reared back and lashed at the Doctor, who rolled to the side to avoid getting bitten. Derpy stretched her wings, and despite feeling horrible made an abrupt dash to the sky. It was a reckless, spontaneous decision and it might just save the Doctor from getting killed.

She sank her kind hooves into the head of the creature with considerable force, cracking the cartilage underneath and causing the creature to double over. Derpy hurtled out of control at breakneck speed and crashed nearby, faceplanting into the sand. The stricken worm writhed in shock and from the damage sustained by Derpy’s blow. It slunk back down into the hole it had created and remained there, unwilling to attack again.

Derpy rolled over, spitting sand out of her mouth. She looked up into the bright blue of the sky. Though adrenaline surged through her system from her counterattack, she felt the heat sickness, dehydration, and shock from the impact threatening to seize control.

A face looked over her, drawing a shadow that covered her eyes. This face was blue, and had a very close-cut brown mane that made his ears stick out. It was almost comical. Almost.

“Derpy… are you alright?” a distant voice called out, “That was a nasty crash.”

The sky grew dark. No… her vision was going dark. Derpy couldn’t stop it any longer. Unconsciousness drew over her like a thick blanket.

The Doctor stood over his companion, waving his hand in front of her face. When she didn’t respond, his hearts started to beat faster.

“Don’t do this to me…” he said to no-one, “Not now. Oh, come on Derpy.”

He listened for her heart. Still thumping. The Doctor leaned in over her, feeling her forehead with a hoof. Figuring that they couldn’t stay here and that if Derpy was this sick she wasn’t going to be able to walk, he put Derpy’s limp form over his back, and pressed on.

****

Derpy’s vision slowly returned from blackness, but her surroundings were still dark. Beneath her was cool grass, and above the tops of sparse trees and a clear star-filled sky. A dim orange light flickered among blades of grass, and a sense of warmth came from somewhere behind her. The temperature was much cooler now that night had fallen, and she was glad to have something blanket-like draped over her back.

She felt the blanket for a moment, starting to roll over. The inside was smooth, but the outside of it was a bit rougher, and well worn. She hadn’t really ever felt real leather before; it wasn’t particularly common in Equestria. This was the Doctor’s jacket.

She tried swallowing. Surprisingly, she didn’t feel very sick anymore, nor was her mouth and throat parched. Somepony had given her water to drink.

She shifted to face the warmth coming from behind, and was startled by the sudden bright orange glow greeting her. The Doctor sat across from her on the other end of a small fire, wearing only a black jumper over his bare fur. He smiled upon noticing that she was awake.

“How are you feeling?” he inquired, “Head hurt?”

“No.” Derpy answered honestly, “I just feel… oh I dunno, sort of drained of energy.”

The Doctor added another branch of wood to the fire.

“You were out of it for hours. It’s gone on night time now,” he said.

Derpy was quiet for a moment. Despite the fire and the Doctor’s jacket covering her, the night air sent a chill down her spine. She suppressed a shiver.

“Um… how did I get here? Last thing I remember was a great big worm, and we were in the middle of the desert.”

“I carried you.” The Doctor said, “On my back. Took twice as long getting here, night had almost fallen. I got you drinking water and set up a little fire for us out of what trees there were.”

“Thank you.” responded Derpy, “For saving my life. Again.”

“Nah, don’t mention it.”

Derpy thought about what the Doctor had told her for a few minutes. She couldn’t think of anything to say to him about it. It probably didn’t make much of a difference if she said anything or not, the Doctor didn’t seem keen on dwelling on the subject.

“What about the others?” she asked, “If it’s been hours…”

“I’ve thought about it quite a bit,” he admitted, “and I haven’t heard anything from my past self. No psychic contact. Obviously he’s not dead, as I haven’t ceased to exist. My guess is that time is moving at different rates for the two groups of us.”

“What do you make of this place?”

The Doctor took a moment to reply. He placed another piece of wood onto the fire, collecting his thoughts in the meantime. When he did reply, he leaned in and spoke in a low voice.

“The scenarios we’ve been facing… would you agree that they’re contrived?”

Derpy nodded. The situations and threats had been coming out of nowhere, and were all disjointed. There was no way any one of them could have occurred naturally with the other.

“I’ve narrowed it down to a shorter list of possible places.” The Doctor admitted, “The effects of the weather, the way time moves and your recovery give me a couple of clues that could narrow it down even further. Now, what the point of it all is… you’ve got me there. I think that something intelligent is putting these obstacles in our way, but I’ve noticed that they haven’t been too hard to deal with. Dangerous, yes. But the solutions haven’t been much of a stretch.”

“A collection of annoyances.” Derpy suggested.

“Maybe, yeah, maybe.” replied the Doctor. “I’m thinking more of half-hearted attempts at killing one of us.”

The Doctor knew that was false. The venom of the worm probably was lethal to a pony, but his immune system would have been able to recover. The desert took it’s toll on Derpy first. Even the gelatinous creature faced by his prior self served as more of a threat to his companions than it would have to a Timelord with respiratory bypass. He knew the truth behind what was happening here. Whoever was in charge was out to kill off his companions. They wanted the Doctor alive, but the companions dead. He had known this since they had first emerged onto the desert.

“You should get some rest,” he finally said, “I’d like to be up and moving before the sun rises, so we can make use of the cooler temperatures. It shouldn’t be too far to the castle, but you never know.”

Derpy couldn’t keep her shiver contained this time, and her teeth noticeably chattered.

“Doctor?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m cold.” Derpy stated.

The Doctor nodded. He went to go for another branch to add to the fire in an attempt to build it up, but Derpy spoke again.

“Doctor?” she called.

“Yes Derpy?”

“Can you lie down over here by me?”

The Doctor hesitated for a moment, but obliged. He sat himself down next to the curled up Derpy. She moved his leather jacket partway off from her back, and partially covered his. With one jacket acting as a makeshift blanket over the pair of them, she rested her head down on his shoulder and closed her eyes. Within minutes, her breathing had evened out and she drifted off into a slumber. The Doctor blinked slowly. After a while, he rested his own head against Derpy’s and let his thoughts wander inward.

He felt strange. Ever since the beginning of this incarnation he had felt nothing but guilt. He was truly a haunted being, despite how he tried to present himself otherwise. No amount of grinning or gleeful cries of ‘fantastic’ could cover the deep trauma he felt. Behind the facade of the whimsical adventurer in a blue box was a tortured soul who couldn’t forgive himself for his own actions. Faced with the reality of what he was capable of, he lived in constant fear of what might happen if his darker side took over.

Yet despite all that, amid the non stop torrent of negative emotions, the Doctor felt something else. Sitting here next to Derpy, feeling the nonverbal trust and gratitude she had for him, he felt happy. Really, truly happy for possibly the first time in this life. A small smile crossed over his face, unobserved by anyone else.

Comments

[Meridian Prime]

I knew there was a reason I liked 9.

[Fedora]

3558146

Good catch, will fix.