A Mad Pony in a Box

by EchoWing

Prologue - Beware of Falling Objects

“Okay, let me make sure I have all of this straight.” Quiver Quill gave the mare beside him a disbelieving look even as he held off a laugh. “This friend of yours got her entire head stuck in some glassware?”

Lyra Heartstring’s giggles were barely constrained as the two continued on their way. “Yeah, you should’ve seen it! Lemon Hearts was running around the classroom, Twinkleshine and Minuette chasing after her, with her head stuck in a flask! Minuette’ll swear up and down it was a beaker, but trust me, it was a flask!”

“Beaker, flask, whatever!” The stallion stopped and laughed, no longer able to restrain himself. “How’d that happen?!”

“That’s the crazy thing! Twilight and Moondancer had been testing elasticity spells before class on the glassware, and didn’t tell anyone! Miss Hackney wasn’t sure if she should punish them or give them high marks!” Laughter flowed free from the unicorn mare until she took a breath. “In the end, she delayed their recommendation letters for the School for Gifted Unicorns. Didn’t work out too badly, seeing as the rest of us missed our first deadline, but still, we were a trimester behind everypony else.”

“You made up for it, though.”

“Yeah, but…” A wistful smile crossed her face before she shook it away. “Doesn’t matter. We all made it through, some better than others. And today, Moondancer makes her first visit to Ponyville.”

“And thanks to special circumstances, I get to be along for the ride.” Quiver smirked. “Not complaining, of course. It sounds like they and I will get on like a house on fire. Moondancer especially sounds like somepony I’d like to talk to now and again.”

“Well don’t get your hopes up, you’re not her type.” At the stallion’s quirked eyebrow, she amended, “Right, yeah, you’re not on the market. Still, if you were, something tells me she wouldn’t be interested in that kind of relationship, at least with you.” She turned sad as she noted, “After Twilight brushed off her party and moved to Ponyville, she pretty much cut herself off from everyone else, hardly even took care of herself. Maybe it’s just personal bias, but I think there’s the chance that she might’ve, I dunno, had feelings for her. I never asked about it for myself though, didn’t think it was my place.”

“Just as well you didn’t. Two mares hanging out together doesn’t instantly equal a relationship. I mean, look at Vinyl and Octavia. They live together, argue every other day, and a casual observer would think they were a couple. But they’re not.” He shrugged and noted, “If ponies didn’t know better, they’d think we were a couple too, but after that big party…”

“Yeah, no kidding. The town’s going to be talking about that for a while.” She gave him a friendly nudge and said, “I am happy for you, Quiver. I wish everypony could have your good fortune.”

“Hey, you’re not doing so bad yourself.” He paused and looked around. “Anyway, what’s up? This is a little too far out of the way for our usual little talks about legends.” A teasing grin formed on his muzzle as he suggested, “You’re not wanting to graduate to conspiracy theories and coming out here to gab about them unnoticed, are you?”

The two ponies found themselves on the outskirts of Ponyville, far from the hustle and bustle of town and in a small wooded area a quarter of the way between the town itself and the nearby warehouse for Amazing Booksellers. The only thing keeping Quiver from feeling totally at ease was the concern that one of his coworkers, Leading Rose for instance, might pop up and intrude upon their conversation. And the less time he spent with that gadfly of a stallion, the better, especially after recent events.

Lyra laughed. “No! I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re a hobby of mine too, but if I was going to have a talk like that, it’d be a crowded restaurant.”

“Good mare. Never hurts to be paranoid.”

“Actually, I came out here to ask about relationship advice. Before I start, there’s something you need to…” An odd sound reached her ears from high above, and Lyra’s ears flicked towards it on instinct. “What’s that?”

Quiver’s automatically followed, and he looked up to scan the nearby area. Nothing looked to be out of the ordinary, birds flying and squirrels darting about and so on, but an odd, faint sound reached his ears. “You’re hearing that too? That groaning, wheezing noise?”

“Yeah. Where’s it…?” She saw something in the air, an odd shift in the atmosphere above, and shouted, “Look out!” Both dropped to the ground as something large tore into the skies above them at high speed, but neither could see it as they’d instinctively covered their eyes. The noise they’d heard had only grown louder until a thundering crash reached their ears. They regained their footing as Lyra asked, “What was that?”

“No clue, but somepony might’ve been hurt in that crash.” Quiver prompted her to follow as he went off to find the cause of the disturbance. “Come on. Let’s have a look.”

The two ponies immediately darted off in the direction that they’d heard the crash, neither quite certain of what they expected to see or what they might find, but having little trouble finding it in the brush and debris left in the wake of what they were looking for. The trail made it easy to follow, and once they found it, the two stood in shock at the sight.

Before them was the object that crashed, gashes left in the earth by its harsh landing but the object itself fully intact. It was taller than either of them, somewhere close to eight feet tall and four feet wide at each side, on a base slightly wider than the sides. It looked identical on all four sides save one, which looked as if it had a pair of doors between the two differently-sized handles and what looked like a door lock, but all four had a pair of segmented windows. What looked like a light fixture sat atop the object, which either could call a box, but the light wasn’t on. The box itself looked to be made of wood, colored blue and bearing signs on each side, an identical one on all four near the top and a second small sign on one of the doors, the door opposite bearing a circular emblem featuring an unfamiliar cross. The signs were legible, but what they read offered no explanation.

“‘Police Public Call Box’?” Lyra read aloud. Her gaze went to the other sign as she continued, “‘Free for use of public’? ‘Pull to open’?”

Not sure of what else to say, Quiver nonetheless felt like he had to break the silence. “Okay, you don’t see something like this every day.”

Author's Note:

Apologies for the brevity of this first installment, but I was trying to evoke the opening teaser for a modern episode of "Doctor Who". Hopefully, I've succeeded. In any case, future chapters will be much longer than this.

Comments

[RQK]

I've got cursory experience with Doctor Who but I could probably manage, I think. Let's see where this goes~

[jacen]

Ah, yes, the obligatory "meet the companion(s)" scene. Now we just need to wait to find out which of 13 madmen (and one mad woman) is in the box....

(If you couldn't tell, I've been a fan of the good Doctor since Tom Baker filled the role . I'm lukewarm abut 1 and 2, so-so on 6, War, and 11(who should have been 12), disliked the stories for 12 (though the actor was good; he just needed better material to work with), and have not seen enough to judge Her yet. My favorites were 4 (of course) and 10 (Again, if we don't count the War Doctor.) Time Turner For The Win.)

[EchoWing]

8567908
Be warned, it's going to be a while.

8568165
I haven't been a fan for that long - my first real exposure to it was in college when I caught a Sci-Fi Channel airing of Eccleston's only year in the role. It hooked me, though, and I took the first chance I could get to catch up on everything - thanks to my local library, I was able to see every surviving serial up to that point except for Timelash. Now I own the whole series on DVD (save the most recent one and its preceding Christmas special) and can rewatch individual episodes at my leisure.

But yeah, Tom Baker and David Tennant were both fantastic in the role. I'm also fond of Jon Pertwee's portrayal, and you can count me among the masses who think Colin Baker got screwed by the people in charge. Which, frankly, he was.

Anyway, as for which incarnation of the Doctor's in the TARDIS, well, I will rule out 13 simply because there haven't been any stories with her yet. And there might be flashbacks, so other incarnations could get a little time in the spotlight beyond the main one this story will cover.

[Azure Wolf 227]

Awesome, I don't really watch Doctor Who but I have a general understanding of certain things.

[EchoWing]

8568526
Well hopefully, as the story goes on, you won't be too confused by it all. Continuity junkie that I am, I'll have a number of references to the show's history throughout.

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

Looks like a solid start to me! I really enjoyed the opening conversation between Quiver and Lyra, that was a lot of fun and well-put-together. Definitely curious to see where this goes from here.