Doctor's Journey without the TARDIS

by TimeLord_Whooves

Into the Forest

The Doctor was waking up in his room, the butler who stood over his bed ran out of the room as he noticed. The Doctor slowly sat up in his bed and looked around at the room. The butler came back with Serenity.

"Time Turner! Thank goodness you're alright, you've been out for two days." she said as she hugged him.

"Serenity? What happened?" he asked as she let go of him.

"Don't you remember? The party was attacked by bandits, they took our Sweetness among others and killed several guests including Bright Shield." Serenity started to cry, dropping her head into the Doctor's covers.

"What? But... what?" the Doctor said, bemused. Tears filled his eyes.

"Turner, you need to save Sweetness. The bandits are surely quite a ways away." Serenity said, her head jerking up from the blankets. "Please, I don't know what I'd do if I lost her too."

The Doctor jumped out of his bed and walked over to the window. "I promise I'll bring her back, and make the ponies responsible for this pay!" he said angrily.

***

"You won't get away with this! The Doctor will save me!" Derpy said as her captors removed her gag to feed her. "He won't forgive you for this!"

"Somepony put that gag back on her!" somepony called from the sky. "Seeing as how she decided to act out, she doesn't get any food today."

"Yes sir!" the stallion who was attempting to feed the struggling pegasus.

He put her gag back over her mouth and moved on to the next captive. The leader of the bandits stood over Derpy and said, "You really think that he'll come rescue you? You have a lot of faith in this Doctor, we'll see just how well placed that faith is in the end."

The grey pegasus glared at him. "Even if he did find us, we'll be at the castle before he can reach us, it's not far away, another day's walk."

He walked away laughing to himself. Derpy gave the ground a sad look, a tear fell from her eye.

There was a small glint of light on the ground in front of her. She examined it closely, a small knife had been buried there. She didn't think about how a knife got buried there, she picked it up and cut her bonds. She looked around to make sure nopony was watching her and ran off into the thick wood.

***

The Doctor was wandering through the forest, following the tracks that the bandits had left behind. He ran as fast as he felt comfortable with, not wanting to lose the trail. It didn't take long before he came across a campsite that had been vacated recently. He investigated the camp and found a trail of thin, light yellow, hair. He instantly recognized it as Derpy's. The Doctor set off at a run, following the trail his love had left for him.

***

Derpy was running as fast as she could, the foliage overhead preventing her from flying. She could hear the hoofbeat of several ponies behind her, closing in. She came to a clearing in the trees and immediately took flight, leaving the earthbound ponies behind. There were still other pegasi in the air chasing her.

She did everything she could think of to get rid of them but they remained on her tail. A rock came from the forest below, hitting one of the pegasi chasing Derpy, he fell from the sky and the other pegasi scattered, all except their leader who persisted.

"Cowards!" he shouted back at his fellows.

Derpy dived into the forest again in an attempt to lose him. Before she could land however, she caught a tree on her way to the ground and snapped off a few branches. She was able to keep going but she was injured, the falling branches caught the bandit leader beneath them and he fell hard into the ground.

Derpy turned at the sound of the heavy pony thudding to the ground with the clattering branches and saw that he had one of his hind legs stuck beneath a large branch. She walked back over to him.

"Are you okay?" she asked, circling around to look at his trapped leg. "Oh my! You're not alright at all. Here let me help you."

She began to move the branch before something clicked in her head. "Wait, you gotta promise me that if I help you that you will let me go, okay?"

The stallion looked over at her with contempt. "Fine." he said gruffly.

Derpy continued to move the branch enough for him to get his leg out and dropped it when he was free.

"Thank you." he said as he stumbled from trying to get up.

"Here." Derpy offered her hoof to help him up.

He smacked it away saying, "You've already helped enough, now get outta here before I change my mind about letting you go."

She gave him a worried look, both of her eyes managing to focus on the struggling stallion in front of her. He managed to stand, shakily, and attempted to fly back to the others. Before his wings could extend to their full length however, he dropped again in pain, his wing was broken.

Derpy grabbed him and lifted him up onto her back, she wasn't going to leave him here all alone and injured. 'He might never make it back to his friends.' she thought. She started walking back to the camp which she had escaped from earlier.

"What are you doing?" he said incredulously, "You know if you go back then they will just tie you up and drag you with them, don't you?"

"I can't leave you behind. After all, all living things are precious no matter their nature." she said, straining from his weight, her fore legs hurt a bit but she kept on going.

The stallion on her back sighed. "You are a strange one, I'm indebted to you miss but I still serve my master. I can make sure you aren't mistreated but I still have to bring you to him..." he said, pausing, considering something before continuing, "My name is Thunderclash by the way, if you need something just ask for me."

She smiled back at him, "Will do."

Thunderous hoofbeats came from all around them, the earth pony bandits had caught up to them and surrounded them. One of them stepped forward and relieved her of the injured pony on her back. Two more stepped over, bound her wings and began escorting her back to the camp. They stayed silent but the were fidgeting, before long, they both gave her a bright smile and said, "Thank you for bringing our captain back miss."

Comments

[TimeLord_Whooves]

This is going to be on hiatus for a while, until I actually finish the book that this story is based off of or I come up with ideas for this story and convert them to the book. Either way it will be some time before I actually have a chapter to put up. I've just been inspired to do other things lately and I'm even coming up with a new, and in my own opinion, better (that's kind of sad when it's said by the author...) Doctor Whooves story soon. I may even end up deciding to scrap this story completely.