Chess
An MLP:FIM fanfiction by SnakeFire
Cover art by Taranasaurus0.0
MLP:FIM© is trademark Hasbro© and Lauren Faust
Doctor Who© is a trademark of the BBC©
Derpy looked at the room. The TARDIS interior was all hexagons and lights and buttons and switches, but every now and again she came across a room that was more old-fashioned and less futuristic. Like this one. The sign on the door said ‘Rec Room’. Inside, rather than metal flooring, Derpy was greeted by the smell of cedar wood and a large billiards table. The table sat upon a polished oak floor, nine ivory billiard balls catching the light from the low crystal chandelier. The soft light of incandescent bulbs cast a warm pallor over the room. Derpy strolled inside. The door closed quietly behind her, carved maple closing with a faint sigh.
Derpy trotted past the billiards table. The rack of pool cues sat resplendent on their wall-stand, ornately furnished with an inlay of ebony and purpleheart. Behind the table, which went about up to Derpy’s shoulder, sat two great chairs and a fireplace. Rusty red brick surrounded a sad empty hollow, no fire yet filling the hearth. The two chairs were a dark green, faded and with the look of the well-loved. Two cushions sat on the chairs, one light brown and the other a pale grey. In between them was a low coffee table, speckled black marble surrounded by a circle of lathed mahogany wood, which came below the table and elegantly spun into three clawed feet. Derpy turned to examine the fireplace, taking note of the ornately furnished bookshelves straddling it on both sides. Derpy peered at the books, and pulled one away curiously. A stiff hoof-poke to the cover revealed it to be a springy, spongy material with which the Derpy-eyed pegasus was unfamiliar. She opened it up and rifled through the yellowing pages. Some story about a lawyer, a dark-coloured pony, and some filly called Scout was all Derpy gleaned of the book’s wealth. She peered in and gave the book a quick sniff…before promptly dropping it in revulsion and fright.
The book was bound with glue. Real glue. And the cover was made of tooled leather- she had seen true leather only once before, adorning a griffon who had come to ponyville asking for directions to Canterlot. Her horror only grew as she realized that these books- judging by the wear and tear, these clearly very well-loved books- were all bound in leather and probably stitched with glue. Derpy squeaked in fear before backing into the brown-cushioned chair. Her hooves made a faint scraping noise on the embroidered hearthrug as she slipped into the chair with a resounding thud that left her eyes rolling in their sockets in opposite directions.
Derpy moaned. She slowly sat up in the chair. Her head swam sickeningly, and she rubbed it with a sigh. She hopped off the chair, keeping her wings rigid. She cast her gaze about the room, where it fell on the macabre book. It sat where it had fallen, pages crinkled and spine open. Disgusting though the book was, it looked so sad and forlorn just laying there. She scooped it up promptly, laying it against the coffee table, and smoothed out the pages with her hooves before carefully re-shelving the book.
Derpy turned so that her side was facing the table. She cautiously unfurled her wing, smiling as a wooden case fell out. The case was made of richly textured wood, with an inscription carved upon the lid. To my beloved Derpy. Happy hearth’s warming sweetheart. Love, Gramps. She smiled as she rested her hooves on the lid to the case and reread the inscription. With a decisive flick of her hooves, she unclasped the lid and lifted it.
Inside, the case was lined with soft, fluffy red velvet, and a selection of playing pieces was laid out. Each one had its own special spot, carved specially to fit that piece. Gramps had carved her all the pieces and made the case all for her, by hoof, a painstaking process taking hours. The board was an alternating pattern of mahogany and maple, in a checkerboard pattern. The rim was ebony, a rare and valuable wood from the zebra highlands. The wooden board was the largest part of the set. It was nicked and chipped, old as the hills. The board was the only bit of the set not made by Derpy’s grandfather- according to him, the board had been made by his great-grandfather, the original Mr. Hooves.
Derpy carefully lifted the board from its carved velvet case, and unfolded it along the line, ancient hinges slowly creaking. Despite its appearance the board was very sturdy- the Hooves line had a genetic tendency towards so-called ‘derp’ eyes, giving them poor depth perception. Derpy herself had dropped the priceless heirloom numerous times, and yet it was still as sturdy as the day her gramps had presented it to her. She rested it on the coffee table, and turned to the case to fish out the pieces. Slowly, and lovingly, she lifted each piece out of its carved groove and looked at it with a fond smile of days gone by spent with gramps and gran, learning to play the game.
Out of force of habit, she rested her favorite piece- the white queen- on the board. She smiled at the piece. It was hoof-carved maple, a wood notorious for being absolutely rock-hard. The queen piece featured a carving of a filly Derpy, smiling on a throne with a crown at a crooked angle. Her favorite piece. Gramps had said the queen was the most powerful piece on the board. She gently rested the tip of a hoof on the piece and smiled at it.
Derpy slowly set up the chessboard. With the queen in position, she removed the next piece- the king. The game of chess was an ancient one, and had been played since the times when the royal sisters did not reign and there was a male monarch. Derpy sighed deeply at the piece. Her grandfather had carved a generic king piece for the white side, for reasons known only to him. She really wondered what his motivation was. He’d said something cryptic about her ”finding the king” before he would carve that piece. She rolled her eyes. Gramps was the best, but he could be a bit strange.
The next piece was the bishop. The bishop pieces were carvings of her father and adopted mother, both wearing these weird, tilted diamond-shaped hats. After that came the knight pieces, which were carvings of her Gramps and Gran. They wore a guard’s helmet on their heads. The rook pieces were the only matched pieces; an identical set of Ms. sweeties. Ms. sweetie was Derpy’s childhood toy, a stuffed patchwork doll, old and raggedy, but very much beloved. Like many ponies, that first stuffy had been kept into adulthood. The stuffed pony wore a strange notched crown- “crenelated” her grandfather had called it. All the pieces were carved of unpainted maple, polished to a shine with minute facial details. The row of pawns were carved to resemble the royal guards. Even they had minor variations in their face and costuming that made each one unique.
The black side had the same amount of care put into it. It was not a mirror image of the white side; rather the black had been specially carved as well. However, the key differences were that the paired pieces were identical. The king and queen had been carved before the release of nightmare moon and discord, but were very much based on legends and stories her gramps had heard of the two. The bishops were monstrous manticores, perfect in every detail; the knights were twin snarling dragons. And the almighty rooks had….well….they were these actually really adorable little round bug-things.
Derpy set up the board as she had been taught, knights and pawns and rooks and kings all arranged in their proper positions on both sides. She shivered. The room was actually rather chilly, and after casting a quick glance about the room for an open window, she turned to the fireplace. A pile of freshly chopped logs lay next to the bricks. Resting atop the pile, and seated next to some pokers was a book of matches. Derpy set to work getting a fire going. First she made a little pile of kindling out of some newspaper, followed by a little wigwam of sticks in overtop of it. She struck a match, and carefully lit the flame before dropping the matchstick in.
Her vision impairment meant that a dangerous activity like lighting a fire took up most of her concentration. She was completely oblivious to the outside world- until she felt a tap on the shoulder. Derpy spun, focusing her good eye on the pony behind her. The fuzzy brown blob quickly refocused into the face of the Doctor, right behind her. He looked glad to see her.
“Where were you, Derpy? I’ve been looking everywhere. This is a big ship you know!” he said. In response Derpy rolled her eyes.
“No, I hadn’t noticed,” she snarked right back. Derpy wrapped a hoof around a cool iron poker and stabbed at the logs. The fire roared brighter, banishing the chill from the air.
The Doctor looked about the room. His eyes fell on the chess set. “Where did you find that?” he asked pointedly.
Derpy smiled warmly. She trotted to the chair with the grey cushion and began to turn it towards the chess set. The chair rotated with a groaning screech, but did not tear rents in the aged oak floor. She hopped up on the chair and absentmindedly began adjusting the pieces. Her head turned and looked up at the Doctor.
“It’s mine,” she said in a calm voice, “My gramps made it for me when I was just a little filly.” She placed a hoof on the black pieces. “I used to get nightmares a lot after I was old enough to understand what my mother had done to me. My gramps figured that by making this chess set, I could take on a representation of my fears and hopefully conquer them. It worked, and I actually got pretty good at chess, too.”
The Doctor looked at the board. “ So…why did you set them up? Are you playing against someone?”
Derpy just looked at the queen. “I’m simply...how to put this…simply visiting some friends, more or less.”
The Doctor made a little ah noise. He turned his attention to the chair with the brown cushion. He braced his hooves against it and, grunting from the effort, slowly turned it to face Derpy, who was realigning the pawns.
“Do you want to play me, Doctor?” she asked.
The Doctor just smiled. “Ah, chess. I’d love to play you Derpy. But…uh…I have to ask… would you get upset…when-IF! you lose?” he got a rather guilty grin on his face.
Derpy just smiled. “Of course not. Have a seat. I’ll play white…I always play white.”
The Doctor hopped up into the chair, sinking into the worn cushion. He poked a few of the pieces, and then noticed the age of the board. Leaning in, he gave it a quick sniff before straightening up to a quizzical look from Derpy.
“This board…it smells really, really old. How old is it?” he asked curiously.
“It was made by my grandfather’s grandfather.” She stated with a small smile.
“Ah. Shall we begin?” the Doctor asked.
Derpy moved a pawn.
~~~
As they played, the Doctor was taken aback. Derpy was good- scary good. It was only simple 2D chess, with only four cardinal directions, but even so the Doctor found all his flawless moves being utterly decimated by a grey pegasus with a crooked eye. It was fairly humbling, especially considering that he was holding nothing back. He had orchestrated a textbook scholar’s mate, believing it to be a move unknown to ponies, only to have it rebuffed, and lose his queen in the process. A humiliating experience for a chessmaster of his caliber.
Despite his failings, he felt a sense he hadn’t felt in a long time- true joy. The TARDIS was parked safely in an alley in Canterlot, and the scanner detected no immediate threat. There was no risk, no danger- no threat. Nothing could spoil this, this one solitary game of chess. As he played, the Doctor felt himself relax. Just this once. Just this once. Just this once all would be well. Just this once. Just this once he could spend some time with his dear friend Derpy without running or danger or monsters. Just this once.
But sometimes, when things are at their best, it often seems that your brain is deliberately performing an overt act of sabotage. Like refusing to let you sleep when you are drop-dead tired. As they traded tactics like two old war horses, insidious thoughts crept their way- oh so slowly- into the back of the Doctor’s mind. He asked himself, why am I losing? Is this just how I am now? The game began to slowly change before his eyes. His subconscious converted these nagging thoughts of doubt- oh-so-slowly- into his worst fears personified. The Doctor’s subconscious warped the white pieces, from happy carvings of his companion’s family to the things that populated the Doctor’s nightmares.
He watched, horrified, as the pawns warped into Cybermen. The pawns were identical. uniform. A living brain, all emotions suppressed jammed inside a metal suit. The black pieces were thinning out now. The rooks warped into terrifying Silents. Suited and tall. Erasing the memory of seeing them the second you looked away. They two rooks flashed, position to position, no indication of how they got there. Am I going insane? The Doctor wondered. The knights, the pawns, and the bishops…his terror only grew as the queen slowly warped into a Dalek. The creature of his nightmares. They were savage, tower-shaped aliens hell-bent on destroying all non-Dalek life in the universe.
But then…then the king changed. The king piece was strange, a blank piece in a throne, wearing a crown amidst a crowd of individual maple figurines. Even the guardsmen were different, each one made unique through minor details. But the king had no expression. Had no face, no mane, no tail…. And still it changed. The king, the general, the piece that commanded all the others and drove them to their deaths….
Warped into a perfect likeness of a certain brown-coated time lord. He looked into the corner where Derpy put the pile of captured black pieces…
They warped into his friends. His companions. All that had gone before, all that he- he, the Doctor, the oncoming storm, the savior of planets- had allowed to die, had left behind, had failed to save…and they all just looked at him. Unforgiving. Murmuring. Telling each other what they had done, what had happened, what he had let happen to them.
And all he could do was stare.
He stared at his failures, looked down at this pieces…companions yet to come. Those still alive but not much longer, all because of him.
People to fail.
Planets that would burn.
All his fault.
The Doctor numbly moved his pieces; numbly played the game... numbness slowly gave way to annoyance, and anger. He would win. He always won. He had to win. For them. He had to. Not one more piece would fall. He wasn’t losing another. He could calculate all possible moves, 10, 20 turns in advance. He would win in six moves. No matter what she did, Derpy’s brain couldn’t hold a candle to that kind of computational-
“Checkmate.”
~~~~
Time froze.
Derpy’s hoof moved the rook in slow-motion towards the king. The rook changed now. Now it was him. And the king changed too. It warped into Derpy. The rook…he…kept moving, he just kept moving…. The piece slowly made contact with the king…
The piece fell in slow motion.
Boom.
~~~
The Doctor sat. Stunned. Unable to even talk. His brain had just shut down. He wasn’t about to start getting angry, oh no, but he was absolutely dumbstruck. Finally he found his tounge.
“H…how in God’s name did you beat me?” he said, giving his head a quick shake. “I was seeing all possible moves…ten moves in advance! How did you beat me!???”
Don’t let on you were having an “episode”. This happens every now and again, it’s normal for me, don’t let on, she’ll only worry, focus on the obvious, how-did-you-beat-me-at-chess, don’t let on…. He thought. The Doctor ran a hoof through his mane autonomously-an old habit of his- only to find the dark brown hairs were spiked at odd angles and slick with perspiration. He took off his tie and used it to mop up the sweat on his face- it was sticky with it. Oh God, what happened?
Again the Doctor’s eyes fell on the pile of captured chesspeices. He picked on up and examined it- just a chesspeice. Not an old friend, not an old companion, just a chesspeice. A simple wooden figurine. A lunar guard in fact, in full armour.
He felt a hoof resting upon his shoulder. He placed his own on top of it and turned to face Derpy. Her eyes, initially brimming with joy and excitement now only showed concern. the crackling of the fire, the chesspeice in his hooves, his matted coat coalescing into clumps below his shirt- it all faded into the background.
“I’ll tell you why I won, Doctor.” She said, “but first…”She hopped out of her chair and carefully walked around the coffee table. She hopped up into the Doctor’s chair and extended a wing and draped it on his back. The Doctor’s jaw dropped.
Pegasi, like many winged creatures, value their wings very highly. They protect their wings fiercely, and attempting to grab a pony’s wings without their permission is akin to grabbing them someplace very inappropriate, and the law treats it as such. To have Derpy lay a wing on the Doctor’s shoulder indicated a level of trust on a near-spousal level. He stiffened, and opened his mouth to inform her that he was fine, his usual retort, when she spoke.
The wing was soft and fluffy, and Derpy gently patted him on the back, like she was comforting a crying filly. “Doctor, I can see. I may not be able to see 10 moves in advance, but these funny eyes can see things that you can’t. You’re hurting, and to deal with it you’re lying to yourself. You cover it up with a façade of show and bluster and excitement, and dashing about and exploring space and time and everything, but beneath it all is just this black emptiness. But you pretend it’s okay and you run away from it. You run and you run. Always…always with the running with you, isn’t it?”
The Doctor stiffened his jaw. He swallowed tears. He was NOT going to cry. Just keep on going, ignore this little incident. All he had to do was convince Derpy he was all right. A trivial task, he had duped countless others more prepared than her. The urge to cry left him, and he opened his mouth. He put on his best fake smile, and looked down at Derpy, already mentally rehearsing his don’t worry your head about me, I’m all right speech. He opened his mouth to start talking- only to have the words die in his throat as his gaze was met by an incredibly hard stare.
“No.” she said, with a stamp of her hoof, “I know what you want to say, and no you are not alright. Look at you. I saw what was happening. At first you were calm and cheerful, but I know my friends and you, Doctor, are not the sort to begin sweating like you’re losing a chess game over the lives of-“ the words died in her throat. “Other….ponies….” Derpy’s voice petered out as she looked at the Doctor. His head was hung in shame, gaze firmly locked on the prancing flames.
“I’m going to tell you a story, Doctor.” she said. “Once….there was a little filly. A little grey filly that everyone thought was retarded. Her mother was a pony who suffered from chronic depression and her father worked hard and loved her very very much. Her mother did not share his love for her filly; in fact, the mother resented that she had a filly to take care of. he was mad, because though she loved her husband, he also loved the filly. The mother thought this was love that should have been directed at her. So, one day she decided to take matters into her own hooves. She made her poor filly muffins, special muffins. And she force-fed her those muffins until she was very very sick. Her father came home, and they fought. He rushed her to hospital, and she was discharged a week later."
“When she got home, the family went out and played in the park. The mother was very very sorry for what she'd done, but her daughter forgave her. They had so much fun that day, so much fun! But then they went home. The next day, the mother took the filly out in the family carriage. She flew that filly all the way to a mountainside and left her there. Abandoned, forgotten. Nothing but bubble liquid and a stuffed toy. The filly blew bubbles, oh so many colorful bubbles, but was too young to possibly understand. So she waved that bubble wand and filled the sky with those bubbles.
“She was found a few hours later by a young filly called Raindrops. Raindrops knew just what to do. She led her new friend home, and they played while Raindrops’ mother called the filly’s father. Her father came, and then he stayed.”
“That little filly was me.”
“Years later, when I had grown up and learnt to fly and learnt to understand what my mother had done, I began to wonder if it wasn’t actually my fault, somehow? How could someone be that cruel without reason? There’s a logical explanation for most everything, Doctor, and to me the only answer that made sense was that I had done something. This was a very bad time for me. Because then, shortly after that realization, Raindrops and I fought for the first time ever. I won’t tell you what about- it’s unimportant- but we fought. And I assumed it was my fault. From that moment on, every mistake I made I assumed I was the guilty party. Every crash landing, every fight, or argument, I internalized all that pain. And one day…I couldn’t take it anymore. The blackness of being guilty of everything weighed down so much, I started to get nightmares.
“Oh, such horrid nightmares…every major problem in my life came to me in my sleep, wearing a skin of some dreadful monster from myth or legend. It got to the point where I lived on coffee and refused sleep.”
Derpy smiled at the Doctor and kept rubbing the wing.
“And then what did you do?” he asked.
“I went to my father.”
“He didn’t know what to do. So he took me to his father, and he did. Gramps made me that chess set and taught me to play. And he told me something important.” Derpy leaned towards the Doctor. “It’s not your fault.” the Doctor looked at Derpy blankly. How could she possibly go out and say that? Did she have any idea what he’d done….. he opened his mouth to protest.
“I’m not done. It was hard, but I learned to accept my mistakes for what they were. I leaned on family and friends, and those who wouldn’t help me- well, they weren’t very good friends to begin with, now were they? I worked my way through my nightmares, and my problems, by telling myself, it’s not your fault.”
The Doctor snorted. “Then whose fault is it?”
“Could be somepony. Could be nopony. If someone is at fault, then go to the heart of the problem and say, “I forgive you.” Just say it. Forgiveness is a powerful thing, Doctor.”
“One day I saw a mare. She was aged a lot, sitting on a bench, but nonetheless there. She was my mother. My biological mother. You know what? She started all my problems. I wanted to go up to her and rub her nose in my success. I wanted to tell that old crone who I was. What I was. I had a loving, caring family, I had a job, and I was saving for a house. I was successful in spite of all her efforts.”
“And yet…..I didn’t. I walked up to her slowly and sat down beside her. I called her by her first name, and made sure she couldn’t see my lazy eye. I asked her how she’d been, how was she doing. The answer was: terribly. She stank of alcohol and cried every night, she said. She cried and cried and cried. And you know what I saw? I saw, not a crone in need of hate, but a deeply troubled pony in dire need of forgiveness. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I told her who I was. And Doctor? I forgave her for what she did. I thanked her, even. If not for her….well….my life would be nothing like it is now.”
Derpy smiled. The fire had burnt itself to smoldering coals. Derpy hopped off the chair, and hefted a few rough logs into the ash pile. The smolders grew brighter. She turned around and flapped, the breeze rekindling the fire. Presently, it was licking at the logs and crackling merrily. She trotted back to the Doctor, sitting and thinking. She hopped back up on the chair, wrapping him in her wing again. Derpy followed the Doctor’s gaze. The fire reflected in his eyes, and mirrored his thoughts. He sighed deeply.
“Derpy…your mother needed forgiveness. And so you gave it, and love too. But I’ve hurt many, many people and I can’t go back to see them, to say I’m sorry, will you forgive me. I can’t. I simply can’t.”
Derpy looked at him. “Doctor. Are…were your friends good people?”
He stared. “The best.”
“Then tell me,” she said, “if I were to write them a letter, saying, may I forgive him on your behalf, what would they say? I’d say he needs it very very much, and….” Her voice trailed off as he turned his head away. “Well? What would they say?”
The Doctor remained silent for a very long time. He looked about the room. He turned to stare at the flames once again, but only briefly- finding memories there he did not want to revisit. He looked at a dartboard- look away. He looked at a yellow water pistol- look away. He looked at a stethoscope- look away. Strange, alien lettering-look away. He cast his eyes all abut the room and found them resting on his hooves. Memories stirred, long-suppressed, of their own volition.
Derpy leaned in and asked,
“Well? Would they?”
There was a very long pause. The silence seemed to become a tangible thing, had almost become completely unbearable when the Doctor slowly nodded. Derpy smiled. Then she spoke the words that any guilty soul craves to hear.
“I forgive you.”
~~~
Derpy leaned against the TARDIS doorframe. She looked out upon the miasma of stars laid out before her in all their sprawling glory. The vista was breathtaking, almost as much as the TARDIS herself was bizarre. The TARDIS exterior was a big wooden box, with a slanted roof and a square base, and the height of two ponies. It wasn’t very big. According to the Doctor, its exterior was a copy of a booth from another world, designed to hold one of those little hoofheld communicators that were recently becoming popular for home use.
Derpy smiled and gently rubbed the exterior of the ship before turning on the spot. No matter how many times she saw the console room compared to the outer shell, she was still in awe. The interior of the TARDIS was far larger that the exterior- bigger on the inside. The console room was where the door to the outside was located. The console itself was very much the centre of the ship- sometimes she thought the whole universe. At the centre of the universe’s centre stood large hexagonal roundel, with gently sloped sides coated with buttons and switches and levers; the controls for the ship. From the console sprouted the time rotors- a large flowing glass column, glowing a comforting green. Inside the tube was a knobby green pillar that moved up and down when the ship was in flight; this tube went all the way up to the ceiling, where it connected to a nest of wires.
The console’s seat was on a raised glass floor, support struts arranged at all angles. Beneath it was a pit, filled to the brim with golden light. The golden light was raw magic in liquid form, Derpy had decided. Certainly if magic took solid form, it would resemble the TARDIS. The pegasus went up a set of steps up to the glass platform. The platform was ringed with a railing; against that a yellow-cushioned metal chair was leaned. She sat in the chair. It was a fairly bizarre chair- certainly it was uncomfortable. The chair forced her to sit like Lyra often did, a position that was extremely painful. Derpy rapidly sat up from the chair- it was compacting her wings, anyway and making it unpleasant.
There was a clattering of hooves against the floor as the Doctor trotted in. He seemed…contemplative. He blankly stared into space, maintaining a blank thousand-mile-stare even while trotting forward, hefting himself atop the console, and fiddling with the controls. Derpy hopped off her seat and trotted up to him. She rested a hoof on his shoulder and stroked it gently. The earth pony looked up at her. He sucked in a deep breath, and blew it out. Slowly, he smiled. A true, happy smile for the first time in a very long time.
He sprang up from that position, almost giddy. Hooves on a glass floor generally don’t have the best traction, and the Doctor proved this by slipping and sliding as he pranced all around the console. He hit a few levers, pressed a few buttons, and then clung on for dear life. The TARDIS took off, rattling the two ponies inside like dice in a box on the floor in Las Haygas. Derpy would never forget her time in the TARDIS, she decided. I’ll certainly have the bruises to remember it by!
After what seemed like an eternity of herking and jerking like a cart driven by a drunk, the TARDIS finally shuddered to a stop. The Doctor released his grip on the handles ringing the console, and gave it a fond pat before trotting to the door. he leaped down the steps, charged, and slid across the floor, before using his excess momentum to pirouette and stop neatly next to the phone without crashing. He faced Derpy, who was rubbing her bruises on the console floor.
“Miss Derpy.” He smiled, “ I have a surprise for you.”
~~~
“Hold on tight, Derpy! Mind you don’t let go of that rope!” the Doctor mumbled through tightly gritted teeth. His jaw was firmly clamped around a rough fibrous old coil of rope, the uneven strands leaving little imprints on the inside of his mouth. The end away from him was pulled taut, with excess rope in the coil on the floor. With an extreme effort, grunting and sweating from the exertion, he hauled the end of the rope to the console itself and tied it tightly underneath.
The Doctor paused to breathe a sigh of relief. He fondly rubbed the console with a hoof, before walking towards the door.
He reached the doorframe and looked out.
All around the ship was the beautiful, starry blackness of deep space. But the sparkling black curtain was merely a backdrop for the splendor of the spectacle in the foreground. A massive gaseous nebula was forming into a star and all her planets. There was a glow surrounding the TARDIS from thousands of golden particles, like a sea of fireflies. A bright speck in the centre of the nebula was the heart of the star, with the golden particles slowly spiraling towards it, mass and size and radiance growing every second. And adrift in this ocean miracle, restrained by a jury-rigged chest harness and tied to the ship by a rope, was Derpy.
“You be careful, Derpy!” The Doctor called out to her, “I’ve made an oxygen bubble around the ship, but if you leave it-”
“My head will explode, I know!” the look on Derpy’s face was one of such pure joy that the Doctor couldn’t be bothered correcting her. He stuck a hoof out, the oxygen curtain allowing harmless particles through. Golden specs surrounded his hoof, and he rolled his wrist a bit. The dust slowly collected into a tiny ball, and the Doctor raised it up to eye level. He gently blew on it, and the ball hardened, cooling into stone, before he casually flung it into space. Derpy watched in awe as the dust collected around the ball, swirling and growing, a second point of light created from absentminded fidgeting.
The Doctor gently tugged on the rope connecting Derpy to the ship. She floated in slowly, padding the air a few times before alighting on the TARDIS floor. She turned, not taking off the harness, as they stood, side-by-side looking out. The second stone cast was starting a chain reaction, now. The rock had collected enough dust that it was slowly growing. The Doctor smiled a little, and pointed at the newborn star, and asked her,
“What do you see?”
She reached out and scooped up a hoof-full of golden dust. Magic. This was raw, solid, tangible magic. She threw it up, and the golden dust floated down upon them from the celling. “Magic. The wellspring of magic, and life, and friendship. All starting here. That’s what I see. it’s beautiful. Oh sweet Luna, it’s beautiful...” She said with a sigh of true contentment.
They stood thus for a very long time. Derpy began to get a bit antsy as time wore on. The Doctor may have been content to just stare into space, but she had something that she felt had to be done. Derpy began to squirm in her nylon rope-and-duct-tape harness. The Doctor turned, confused, as Derpy wriggled and squirmed and only succeeded in getting herself tied up in knots. Somehow she had contrived to get her mouth clamped shut between her forelegs, and one wing jutted out awkwardly from the twisted tangle of torpidly twitching pegasus pony. The look in her good eye was a death glare, which she fixed upon him. It plainly said WELL? Don’t just stand there, help me! The Doctor bit the inside of his cheek and snorted. The snorts turned into chortles, then he stopped biting his cheek and it turned into a chuckle, and before Derpy knew it, there was a brown earth pony laughing so hard he was almost walleyed.
He took out his sonic screwdriver and- still in stitches- hit the button. There was a small bzzzzzz and the ropes immediately separated, allowing Derpy to squirm free. She frowned at him, as his peals of laughter slowly died. The Doctor averted his gaze slowly, glancing back at the floor. The sound of hooves clip-clopping, slowly growing fainter, and told him Derpy had left, and in a huff too. He looked at the floor. This was all his fault.....
The Doctor would have been content just shoving his mistake into the corner of his mind where he kept them all, if not for Derpy. He looked at the floor. Is this really your fault? he asked himself. No, no it’s not. Apologize....and ask for forgiveness. Forgive....yourself. Don’t let old wounds fester. Don’t let old hurts keep you from seeing what is yet to come. He slowly lifted his head. His face remained expressionless as he got to his hooves. It was a minor mistake, he reasoned. No reason to get upset over it. The brown pony absentmindedly reached up a hoof to re-adjust his bowtie. He smiled, and hopped up on the console. It’s not your fault. How novel. And yet, somehow, I don’t know how, it works, he thought.
Derpy trotted down the various corridors. She found that a lazy eye was more beneficial to her for navigating the convoluted corridors of the TARDIS. She trotted quickly- no telling how the Doctor would respond to her leaving at such an inoppourtune time- to the room she wanted. The sign on the door assured her that yes, this was still the Rec Room, and yes, upon opening the door Derpy discovered that her most treasured possession was still there. She trotted towards it. The fire had burnt low now, smoldering coals providing the most feeble glow. Derpy trotted towards a small bucket in the corner. Someone had thoughtfully filled it up already- the ‘taps’ in all the TARDIS bathrooms were notoriously difficult to work with hooves. She carefully grabbed the handle in her mouth, before lifting it up and pouring it over the smoking coals of the fire. The last coals turned to soggy ash with a loud hiss of smoky steam, and Derpy retreated, placing the bucket in it’s proper spot.
She trotted back to the table, and frowned at the state of the board. The jerky flight of the TARDIS had knocked several of the pieces to the floor. She slowly gathered them up, and gently slotted them back into their proper positions in their velvet travelling case. She carefully closed up the board, and slid it into the large depression cut to fit, before closing the case with a decisive snap. Derpy carefully stowed the whole thing under her wing as she trotted back to the console room. The maze of corridors was long, winding, complicated, and convoluted, and she often wondered how in Equestria the Doctor kept himself from getting lost. It’s probably some Time lord thing, she reasoned.
When she arrived, Derpy trotted towards the Doctor, who was leaning on the console with his back to it. He was smiling about something, and the when he noticed her, the Doctor hopped off his spot, spun, and trotted over to Derpy. He smiled, and then started gabbing on about how he was sorry for laughing at her earlier. The grey pegasus silenced his mile-a-minute motormouth by putting her hoof to his lips.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I would have done the same in your horseshoes.” Derpy said in a soft voice. “Oh, and Doctor, I need a favour. Can you take me somewhere? Somewhere specific, though. I gotta go home for a quick visit.”
~~~
Derpy swallowed nervously. She stepped out of the TARDIS, boldly striding out into the sun. Leaves fell, telling her just this once, the TARDIS had gotten the date right. She sniffed deeply, closing her eyes and focusing on her other senses. The leaves beneath her hooves had the feel of the freshly fallen. There was a creak of protesting metal from the swing in the yard. There should be a house before me, she thought. Hooves Manor. The smell of fresh leaves, the sound of Vinyl Scratch’s fresh jams (Gramma) mixing with the classical chords of Octavia’s finest (Grampa) mingled with the smell of sizzling hay-bacon strips on the griddle, and the smell of sawdust. Gramma sang along to “Party Rock Anthem” meaning the TARDIS had gotten the date exactly right. A loud “AHEM” caused Derpy to snap her eyes open. The interruption to her little sensory sabbatical had been supplied by the Doctor, keen to finish with this little side stop and get going on another adventure. He leaned in the TARDIS’s doorframe, looking out. The Doctor’s jaw dropped.
“Why did you want to come here?” He asked, looking around incredulously. “There’s nothing…no…we’re in Equestria, Derpy. And that’s a house. An old house. With an old, cock-eyed pony grandma cook-” the Doctor stopped abruptly when he realized what he’d just said. “Oh….”
Derpy set off for the porch at a brisk trot. The path was herringbone brick, leading in a straight line up to a large wooden manor. The house was a cheerful yellow- the Hooveses tended to have yellow manes. (except Derpy’s eighth cousin twice removed Artie, his was tan.) The house had been refurbished recently, a fresh coat of paint keeping the home looking sharp. Derpy rarely paid attention to her bad eye, perpetually pointed skywards as it was, but just this once it proved to be invaluable. Derpy looked skywards and saw a drop-dead gorgeous grey pegasus, working hard to deliver everyone’s mail. Diving for cover, Ground!Derpy hid herself away. The Doctor had driven home the incredible importance of not allowing past you to see future you. This could create a paradox which- from what she had gleaned from his babbling- would cause bad stuff to happen. Very bad stuff.
As soon as her past self had flown out of sight, Derpy clambered out of the bush and resumed trotting down the path. The house had a large, open-air porch, with columns supporting the roof jutting from the decorative railing surrounding the porch. The porch was made of polished mahogany, and from the ceiling hung a wooden, two-pony loveseat, swaying gently in the breeze. She put a hoof on the first step , before turning ninety degrees and proceeding past the front door and onto the side path wrapping around the home.
Around back of the home, the path lead to a small garage. The garage was about thirty foot long and twenty foot wide, with a door painted cheerful sky-blue and brick sides. Derpy stood before the door and smiled. From behind it she could hear the sound of her grandfather’s deep tenor voice singing acapella along with Octavia, mingling with the sound of a handsaw running over wood. Derpy reached up and tapped the doorknocker a few times. The singing stopped, and Derpy heard footsteps followed by a scratching noise as he took the record off the phonograph. The footsteps got louder as he walked towards the door. There was a click, and the door swung open.
Derpy beamed. “Hello, Gramps.”
~~~
The Doctor moaned. Derpy had been gone whole…half hour, and he was terminally bored. He had wrapped a few rubber bands around an old paddleball of his, using the elastic cords to affix it to his hoof, before attempting once again to get the infernal device to work. He leaned back in his chair, and angrily swung and batted and fruitlessly clawed at the air, paddle arcing and scything but never once connecting with the ball. The session ended the way all the others did- with the Doctor getting hopelessly entangled in the string. Somehow he had contrived to get all four of his hooves tied into a knot, string from the toy keeping them tied up tighter than a pair of handcuffs. The Doctor grunted, struggling against his bonds like a bird in a net. If this isn’t karma I don’t know what is, he thought. Finally he surrendered to the cords of steel-like string holding him prisoner and decided to wait for Derpy. He glanced around the room. Turning his head too quickly caused his weight to shift, and the Doctor lost his balance. Perched precariously on his yellow chair, the Doctor wobbled a bit, before the glass floor was suddenly rushing up to meet him. He hit the ground with a resounding thud. Yeap. Definitely karma.
One eternity of lying on the floor later, the TARDIS doors creaked open. Derpy trotted in, and the Doctor desperately rolled over and cried out for help. Derpy trotted up the steps to the console, saw him laying there, and calmly placed her chess case on the recently-vacated yellow chair. Then she tumbled over in peals of laughter. Derpy laughed and laughed and laughed, rolling over and over on the floor, the sounds of rollicking revelry ringing off the TARDIS walls in righteous peals. She shakily got to her hooves after laughing thusly, and still snickering, cut the Doctor free.
The Doctor sprang to his hooves without a moment's delay. He rotated his hooves a few times each, to get the blood flow back into them before grinning sheepishly at Derpy. The infernal paddleball of doom lay on the TARDIS floor, neutered without its accompanying ball-and-string, a harmless curiosity instead of a diabolical toy. the Doctor grinned weakly, and Derpy bit the inside of her cheek to stop from snickering. Eager to change the subject, he said, “So, what took you so long?”
Derpy responded in a jovial voice, “I found the king.”
She opened the chess case with a decisive Snap before slowly lowering the lid to rest on the chair’s back. Smiling, Derpy carefully plucked a piece from its seat. She carefully rested it in her hooves, as though it were made of delicate crystal instead of durable wood. She raised the piece to eye view to admire it.
The piece was the king. Instead of a blank pony, reclining arrogantly in his throne, the piece had been carved anew. The slot in the case had been remolded, and the velvet lining stuffed afresh. The piece itself was a likeness of the Doctor. He sat in a throne, but not arrogantly. Instead his pose was one of a compassionate monarch who cares for his people. Derpy placed it next to her queen piece- their height matched. The king’s crown was also askew, at the opposite angle to the carving of her royal highness princess Derpy.
“Well? What do you think?” she asked.
“I think…” he said, and after a pause, “I think it’s perfect.” He paused. “But….Derpy…hold on. You still haven’t told me…. how in God’s name did you beat me at chess?”
The grey pegasus gave a wicked grin. “A good general knows how to read his enemy’s weaknesses- and exploit them. Oh, and you were subconsciously mouthing what move you were going to make next.” And with that, she trotted off.
~~~~~
Fin
Audio version here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYuU8LFPShQ&feature=youtube
