It was Nightmare Night in Equestria and in the town of Ponyville the macabre celebrations were in full swing. Decorations of deep blues and midnight black adorned the town and crowds of ponies were enjoying the carnival atmosphere as they tried their hoof at the games that were arranged across the town square. Colts and mares of all ages were laughing, cheering (and sometimes screaming) as the spirit of the night infected them all. Even the distant Princess Luna had come out of her shell and after some initial difficulty was also enjoying, and sometimes causing, the frights of the holiday.
On a distant hillside by the edge of the Everfree forest a tan brown earth pony sat staring at the full moon. To any observer he was just another pony from his spiky brown mane to the hourglass cutie mark on his flank, but if you were to look into his eyes you would immediately know otherwise. Within those eyes you would see all of time and space stretch out before you, an untold power and fury burning across the stars, but tinged with a hint of regret and loneliness.
To the residents he was simply an eccentric who lived in a ramshackle cottage by the edge of the town, to others he was the last of his kind, but to those that knew him, he was a friend.
The pony known as Doctor Whooves, or simply ‘The Doctor’, sighed and hung his head. To him Nightmare Night wasn’t a time for celebration, for it was on this night all those years ago that it had all ended.
His ears pricked at the sound of something crashing into the tree line and he heard a few muttered curses.
‘’You know I could fix that eye for you if you want’’, he said aloud.
Extricating herself from the tangle of branches the Pegasus known as Derpy Hooves glided down and sat by The Doctor. She was known as ‘’Derpy Hooves’’ because of her lazy eye which often made her flying less than graceful.
‘’Not after the last time, I’m still seeing stars you know’’, replied the grey Pegasus.
‘’Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure I know what I did wrong that time, well eighty to ninety percent sure, well more like fifty percent, well more like ten to twenty percent, but that's still a healthy margin for success.’’
He paused as Derpy shook her head.
‘’Still no? well the offer stands.’’
Silence reigned for a few moments, the blue light of Luna’s moon beaming down upon them. Derpy knew why The Doctor came up here every year, because every year he expressed a desire to be left alone. She understood that everypony had a right to grieve when tragedy struck, but what she couldn’t understand was why he did it alone.
It had been several years since she found him unconscious on her doorstep and every time he made this trek she offered to sit with him, but still he would insist that this had to be done alone.
This year would be different.
‘’You come up here every year Doctor’’ she started, ‘’When you told me it was to grieve I understood and let it lie, but after all this time you still haven’t told me who exactly your grieving for. In all the years we’ve known each other you have told me very little about your life before now, and even that took some coaxing. It was months before I even knew you preferred your tea with milk and then it was years before you told me the truth about yourself, Time Colt.’’
The Doctor visibly shrank with the use of his title.
‘’My point is you're so withdrawn that maybe keeping this a secret isn’t the best thing, and no matter what it is I can help you get through it.’’
The Doctor felt her hoof on his and lifted his head, staring into a pair of concerned but determined yellow eyes.
Again silence reigned.
The Doctor looked for a way out as he had done so often in the past. He always found a way out; whether it was from Cybercolts or even the Weeping Mares he had always found an escape. But when faced with those eyes, those beautiful yellow eyes, his resolve finally crumbled.
He knew he had put this off for far too long, he just never had the courage to admit it to himself.
‘’You’ve been planning this haven’t you?’’ he asked.
‘’Yep.’’
‘’And you’re not leaving until I tell you.’’
‘’Nope.’’
He stared into those eyes again. Many dismissed her as an idiot because of them, but the pegasus had a raw brilliance that the Doctor hadn’t seen since... her.
He finally sighed.
‘’I’m not just a Time Colt...I’m the last of the Time Colts’’
Derpy’s expression softened to one of sympathy.
‘’What happened?'' she asked.
''There was a war between chaos and harmony for the fate of Equestria, for the very Spirit of Harmony itself, and we lost, we all lost.'' His voice began to crack as the grief that he buried every day surged forward; Derpy wrapped a hoof around his shoulders.
''You asked me once why I don’t go home?’’ he choked, ‘’it’s because I can’t, it’s because home's not there anymore.''
Finally, he broke.
Derpy did the only thing she could think of and hugged the sobbing ancient pony. The Doctor just buried his head in her shoulder and wept as years of grief and guilt overwhelmed him.
For a while the two just sat there in the pale moonlight as he cried over his lost home.
''What was it like?’ she asked, ''your home...''
The Doctor took a shaking breath in an effort to compose himself.
''To the old travellers our island was a paradise. Some called it the shining jewel of the seven seas, it was said the Light of Harmony that burned at the very peak of our tallest tower could be seen from anywhere in Equestria, silently guiding travellers home, no matter where they were.’’
He paused, a faraway look in his eye as the memories surfaced. Gently he uncoiled her hoof from his shoulders and placed his hooves onto her face.
‘’Close your eyes’’, he whispered, and she did.
‘’As the sun rose over the horizon its light would strike snow capped peaks of the purest bronze, turning the skies a burnt orange.’’
In the darkness Derpy saw the sun break across an endless ocean of crystal clear water, orange light painting the sky a fiery red. A single landmass stood out on the pristine waters, an ethereal rainbow of light shimmering from its highest peak.
Her view shifted and suddenly she was at the base of a mountain range, snow gently falling around her, as the sun crested the valley walls she saw the mountains were made of polished bronze and as the light struck the metallic peaks the sky was transformed into a deep burning orange.
''Deep red grass would spill out across plains that you could run on for miles and feel like you would never reach the other side, and when they caught the breeze it looked like it was a vast red sea.’’
The Doctors voice echoed in her mind and the scene faded into another.
She was in a field of dark, ruby red grass, a gentle breeze blowing around her. The grass almost came up to her shoulders and she was entranced as it swayed in the wind, great waves of red crashing against one another their colours shifting from soft pinks to deep purples.
''Rising above it all, a mighty citadel encased inside a giant glass dome, surrounded by the mountains of Solace and Solitude, forever standing sentinel.’’
Her view changed again.
She was at the base of another mountain range, snow once again falling around her. The sun was breaking across the skyline as something moved her gaze towards the horizon.
She gasped.
Before her silhouetted under the burning sky, was a city. A gigantic dome of crystal clear glass protected it from the snowfall and it appeared to glitter as the sunlight struck the surface. Inside the spires of multiple buildings towered over one another in a conical fashion circling upwards from the centre. Thousands of cathedrals of flawless bronze shining in the light, and at its centre a single tower speared its way through the dome into the sky, a shimmering rainbow of light at its tip that seemed to pierce the heavens themselves.
''It beautiful'', she whispered.
''I know'', echoed The Doctor.
Slowly the vision blurred and began to fade until it had disappeared entirely. Ditzy’s eyes fluttered open to reveal The Doctors kind face; fresh tear tracks had stained his fur.
''But it’s all gone now, the mountains, the fields, the city, even that sky.’’
He began to choke up again.
''My people are dead, my TARDIS is dead, I have nothing left’’
He began to weep once more, and Derpy pulled him close.
''That’s not true and you know it,'' she said gently, ''you have friends, friends that will always be there for you, even when you can’t admit it. Friends who will make you laugh and forget your troubles, friends who will always be true to their word, and will always give of themselves for you.''
She paused as The Doctor thought on her words.
He remembered the surprise party Pinkie Pie threw him shortly after he arrived, helping the Apple family repair their tools and even assisting with the harvest. He thought about when they returned the favour and helped him build his home, about the Housewarming Party where he got so utterly plastered it took three ponies to get him upstairs and how Blues Noteworthy, Caramel and Big Macintosh had become his first real friends since he arrived in Ponyville.
Derpy spoke again.
''Then there’s me...you’ve got me, and my daughter'',she said, giving him a soft smile.
The Doctor looked at that smile and more memories surfaced.
Meeting Dinky for the first time and how her childish innocence had made him smile, helping Derpy with a difficult mail route after she spilled the letters all over town. Helping Dinky practice her magic by having her lift water from a bowl; the end result had left him possibly the wettest he had been in his life.
Then he remembered when he was seriously ill and Derpy had come around every day to check up on him, how they had both talked and laughed and grown close.
How he had finally admitted his feelings to her.
For the first time in years his grief seemed to melt away, if only slightly.
''That I do,'' he said with smile of his own. ''That I do.''
With that, he pulled the Pegasus mare into a soft kiss.
The two sat there in the warm glow of Luna’s moon, and finally, Doctor Whooves realised that maybe he wasn’t quite as lonely as he had thought.
Author's Note
This was written a while ago but never published so I'm unsure as to it's quality. I was attempting to adapt the character of Doctor Whooves into the MLP universe, without him simply being a ponified Doctor. Any constructive criticism is welcomed as it was my first attempt and a fiction with 'feels'.
