Black and Blue and Bloodied

by Sixes_And_Sevens

Black Clouds on the Horizon

The Doctor sighed happily as he sat among the flowers. The summer breeze was fresh and smelled of cut grass and daisies. He liked days like this. He liked daisies, too. He needed more of both of those things. He glanced at his current companion. “Don’t you agree?”

Being a statue, Discord did not reply. The Doctor smiled faintly. “Not a bad place to be stuck for a thousand years,” he observed, reclining and glancing at the flowering bushes. “Mind, there’s no real good place to be stuck for a thousand years, But this is better than some.”

There was silence. The Doctor’s smile faded. “I wish it could’ve been different,” he sighed, hunching forward once more. “Really. If I’d’ve been there… but they did the right thing. They did the best they could do.”

Then he broke into a smile once again. “Don’t worry, though. You’ll be out again soon enough, hey? For good, I believe…”

“Hello?” a voice called. Surprise. Nerves. They’d not been expecting anypony else out here.

“Hello,” the Doctor called back. “Who’s that, then?”

A horn poked warily out of the bushes, followed by the rest of the pony. “I could ask you the same question,” the purple mare said suspiciously. “What are you doing here? This is the princess’s personal garden!”

The Doctor nodded. “Yup.”

“It’s invitation only.”

“I believe so.”

“So…”

“I’ve got a standing invite from Celly to pop in whenever I like.”

The mare frowned. “I find that a little hard to believe…”

The Doctor raised his brows. “Well. S’pose I don’t need you to believe it for it t’ be true. An’ I s’pose you’ve got your invitation on you?”

The mare reddened. “Well— I— that is—”

The Doctor chuckled. “I’ll not tell if you don’t. ‘Ave a seat?”

The purple unicorn eyed him for a moment, then slowly settled into the bench. “I’m Twilight,” she said. “Twilight Sparkle.”

The Doctor glanced at her and his eyebrows rose. “Are you really? Heard good things about you from Celestia. Well done getting Luna back. And dealing with them.” He nodded at Discord's terrified, petrified face.

She flushed. “It was… a team effort,” she said, rubbing at her ear with a hoof.

“Course, right.” He paused. “You spent a lot of time in the castle, then?”

“I… guess? I mostly just stayed in the library all day. But now that I’m living in Ponyville, there just seems to be so much more to—”

“D’you know Blueblood?”

Twilight’s growing smile faded. “Um, a little. I don’t know that much about him, except rumors. I know he’s kind of rude. I know he’s a royal pain. I know he was sent to stay at the castle when he was fourteen, but I don’t know why. Something about his parents, I think? We never really spoke, except for once or twice at fancy dinners. I never really thought about him. Why?”

“Celly’s got me trying to teach ‘im some manners. Long story.”

“Going well?”

The Doctor grunted noncommittally. “I’d like t’ think we’re makin’ progress.”

Twilight opened her mouth to respond, but a sudden crashing sound interrupted them. The Doctor spun around. “What’s that?”

Twilight looked around, concerned. “I don’t know. Then again, I didn’t know you were here, either. It might be one of my friends…”

The crashing drew nearer, the sound of foliage being ripped aside filling the air like a cacophony of crunching leaves. “Get behind me,” the Doctor said, pulling out his screwdriver.

Twilight frowned. “What is that? Look, I’m sure it’s just Dash or somepony—”

“I’m not.”

“And if it is an intruder, I feel pretty confident about my ability to stop practically anything in its tracks,” the unicorn concluded.

The Doctor shrugged. “Right. You do it your way, I’ll do it mine.” He held the screwdriver aloft. Twilight’s horn shone a menacing magenta. The bush in front of them began to shake, and then…

Blueblood was promptly flung horn over hoof back through the hole he had just ripped in the foliage. “Ouch!” he yelped. “You ruffian! As though I hadn’t suffered enough this morning, now you go adding insult to injury? Or rather, injury to insult. This will not stand!”

The green stallion winced. “Well, it’s a work in progress,” he muttered to Twilight. “P’rhaps you’d better hurry off before he realizes more’n one pony had a hoof in that.”

Twilight chuckled nervously, hunching her neck. “You might be right. Good luck.” She quickly turned and galloped away.

“Hello,” Blueblood called. “Are you still there? I may need a hoof up! And a bandage or three! Wait a moment. Is that—” he interrupted himself with a horrified shriek. “Blood! Blood! I’m bleeding! There’s blood everywhere!”

The Doctor’s smirk dropped, and he crashed through the hedge. “What’s that? Where’s the blood?” Other than some slight dishabillement, the prince looked fine.

Blueblood, trembling with horror, raised a hoof to his face. One of the brambles had scratched just above his eyebrow, leaving the thinnest line of blood that the Doctor had ever seen. “Will it— will it heal?” he asked haltingly.

Face, meet hoof. Hoof, meet face. A pleasure. I’m certain we’ll meet again soon.

***

“I cannot believe that you spat on my wound,” Blueblood groused, reaching up to rub off whatever traces of saliva might have been left there.

"I didn't spit on it."

“No. You spat on your unwashed hoof and rubbed it on my face! Now it’s certain to be infected! How you manage to pose as any sort of medical official is beyond me.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “It’s been ten minutes. If you hadn’t insisted that I do something to stop the bleeding, it would’ve stopped on its own by now.”

“What if I had bled out?” Blueblood snapped.

“Please. That wouldn’t’ve satisfied a peckish mosquito.”

Blueblood opened his mouth to retort, but the Doctor interrupted. “Why are you here?”

The prince shrugged one eyebrow raised in a supercilious manner. “Well, philosophers disagree…”

The Doctor gave him a hard look. “I saw something in the paper,” Blueblood said quickly. “I think it might be where those monsters strike next.”

“Monsters?” The Doctor snorted. “Bit harsh, I’d say. If it weren’t for all those folk slackin’ on safety standards, they’d’ve been alright.”

“Gargoyles, whatever. Is now really the time to wax philosophical about social strata?”

The Doctor’s facial muscles twitched, unsure of whether to grin, scowl, or shout. In the end, he simply nodded the point. “Go on.”

Blueblood pulled out a copy of the paper. “No,” the Doctor groaned. “The society pages? They don’t even have knitting patterns in there anymore!”

“Knitting patterns?”

“If you must know, I started a knitting circle some centuries back. Madame Nostradamus, Mary Todd Lincoln, Alpha Centauri, and David Suchet. You should’ve seen the scarf I made…”

“Never mind that now,” Blueblood said, pointing a hoof at the page. “Read this.”

The Doctor looked. The Doctor read. His face darkened. “I see. ‘Everypony who’s anypony’ is gonna be there. Easy pickings for a bunch of gargoyles with a chip on their shoulders about the elite of Canterlot.”

“Exactly.”

“So. What shall we do about that?”

Blueblood sighed. “Unfortunately, ‘running away’ does not appear to be an option in this instance. Unless we arrive before the party starts, that is.”

“Yeah, no. Running away never works for long.”

“And I do have a friend or two who most certainly do not deserve such a grisly end,” Blueblood continued. “As such, I propose that we… stop it.”

The Doctor waited. “...and you know how to do that?”

“Of course not,” Blueblood returned, rolling his eyes. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have needed to come get you, would I? Though I am far superior to you in terms of savoir faire, sartorial expertise, and table manners, I am willing to concede that you are far better suited to “day-saving” than am I.”

Hoof, my old friend, we meet again!

Oh, the pleasure’s all mine, face!

“Right,” the Doctor sighed through the hoof that was currently mashed against his cranium. “We’re going to save a garden party from stone ponies. Dead stone ponies. Fine. I just saved London from the invasion of the shop dummies, so I dunno why this is any different. Actually, yes I do. It’s a garden party.”

Blueblood looked at the Doctor with mild concern. “A garden party,” the Time Lord repeated, setting down his hoof. “Not good for this face. Big Nose 'n' Frills, that was in their wheel’ouse. Crickety McCelery, he could’ve pulled it off right enough. Even Lord Byron could’ve done, amnesia or nah. But me? At a garden party?”

Blueblood coughed. “I only understood about half of that,” he said slowly. “But I believe I grasped the salient points. You feel that you may be somewhat… out of place in the surroundings, correct? I think I may have a solution.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? How?”

Blueblood scrutinized him closely. “We’ll need coveralls. And a straw hat. Possibly…” he shuddered. “Plaid.”

The Doctor frowned. “Wait. What?” Then he realized what the unicorn had in mind.

Hoof, I can contain my feelings no longer! I love you.

Oh, Face-senpai! Take me!

But what about ground?

Forget ground! Right now, it’s just you, me, and that idiot unicorn…

Comments

[Efadd]

Personification of face-hooving is glorious! I ship it!

[Coyote de La Mancha]

Hoof, I can contain my feelings no longer! I love you.

Oh, Face-senpai! Take me!

But what about ground?

Forget ground! Right now, it’s just you, me, and that idiot unicorn…

This is now my OTP.

[SunflowerSwirl]

They did they best they could do.”

'the'

[SunflowerSwirl]

Garden gnomes?