A Stranger In Ponyville (OR, A Genre Shift in Three Acts)

It felt a little like falling forever, slowly. I had once read a book in which the main character followed a white rabbit into a hole that had the same kind of effect, this feeling of slowly entering an eternity-fall. For a second I humored myself by wondering if there would be growth serums and talking doorknobs as well. (That book was weird.)

Suddenly, I felt my horn give a jolt, almost as if it were struck by something invisible. I gasped as I felt gravity beginning to reclaim me, falling faster and faster. The Feather Fall spell had worn off sooner than I thought it was supposed to, and at a loss for anything productive I could do, I screamed.

The elevator below me, like a coffin at the bottom of its grave, rushed up to meet me and introduced itself with a crash. I lost consciousness upon impact, only recollecting pain in my legs and body as I came to.

That’s when everything began to grow brighter. Everything became a blank light, and everything became very, very cold. Suddenly, I felt somepony near me. Was it the Doctor?

“Hey,” it said, “Get up, Twilight! Don’t make me have to push you!”

I looked up slowly, my vision blurry, likely from the impact. I could see a blue-ish blob, with red on top. It fluttered its wings. “Come on, we’re gonna be late,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Yeah, sugarcube,” said Applejack from someplace nearby, “We got ourselves a trail to blaze!”

Rarity, from where Applejack’s voice came from: “Darling, really, we must be going now. Come on!”

Pinkie Pie was nearby, too. “Come on, Twilight! You don’t wanna miss my super-duper party I’m throwing, do you?”

I smiled. “Oh, thank goodness,” I breathed in relief. “Girls, you won’t believe it, but I had this really weird…”

And then all at once, they evaporated. I was in the elevator shaft, talking to no one at all.

“…Dream."

It was just a dream. This was the reality. I was at the bottom of an elevator in the middle of a warzone in an alternate dimension of my making, while my friends—all the ones who’d died in this dimension—were just a dream.

What a screwed-up, terrible joke.

What I’d give to be home again! To be among my friends, who would be alive and well! What I’d give to be with my brother and sister-in-law, with my parents, with you, Celestia, all alive and well and happy! This dream was like a carrot being dangled in front of my nose, then cruelly whipped away.

For a few minutes, I just sat there, on top of that elevator, my legs aching from the fall, confused. Suddenly, I felt it come up from deep in my soul, this feeling of icy sadness. I put my head down on the cold metal of the elevator ceiling and wept. And not the silent tears rolling off my cheeks as I did earlier: my deep and heaving sobs bounced off the walls of the dark elevator shaft as the tears fell from my eyes in droves.

“Twilight?” I heard a voice whisper from below. “Twilight, are you up there?”

I snapped my head upward, then looked down the maintenance door on top of the elevator. I found the Doctor looking up at me, looking ncerned. He looked as if he'd just walked away from a terrible fight, bruises all over him, a little blood coming from his lip. “Are you all right?” he asked.

I turned my head away and wiped away my tears. “I-I’m fine,” I lied.

“You don’t sound fine.”

After a second, I looked back down the shaft, half-expecting to find that the Doctor was just a dream too, but there he was, his golden eyes looking back up at me. “You’re blaming yourself again, aren’t you?” he asked.

I said nothing and tried to look away. I shivered, feeling cold and violated.

“Why do you keep doing that?” he asked. “Look, Twilight, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. If you keep blaming yourself and breaking down, we might not be able to complete our mission and save everypony.”

“Why does it matter?” I asked. “I’ve already ruined everything.”

I heard him groan from below, his patience finally at its end. “Oh, for God’s sake, Twilight! Get down from there and let’s get going! You haven’t ruined anything, not yet!”

“If I haven't ruined anything, what are we trying to fix?”

The Doctor made a sound similar to the ones I make when Spike gives me attitude (and he’s been doing it more often these days. I suspect adolescence). “Don’t make me come up there!”

I curled up into a ball. “Doctor, just go. You don’t need me. You’re the one who saves whole worlds and dimensions. It’s like your job.”

“And it’s yours too! You're a hero, Twilight! How many times have you saved Equestria?!” his whisper had become nearly a shout. “You saved not only Equestria, but at the same time rescued Celestia’s sister from Nightmare Moon. You saved the entire kingdom from Discord, and played a huge part in saving it from the Changelings! You’re a talented magician! You never give up!”

“I never gave up before because I knew my friends would always be there,” I admitted. “But now they’re not. Besides Fluttershy, they’re all dead, and Fluttershy’s not even the Fluttershy I know.”

For a second or two there was silence.

“...Twilight, how many friends do you think I’ve lost over the years?”

I perked up my ears when he asked this question. His voice was back down to almost a whisper, but it carried with it an immense sadness.

“I’m old, Twilight. I’ve lived longer than most other living things. And in those many years I’ve lived, I’ve lost so many friends. I’ll never see them again unless I travel through time to observe them and their happy futures. It’s a grim irony that their futures are only as happy because I’m not there to screw it up.”

I looked down the maintenance door to see that the Doctor wasn’t looking up, and was sitting down. His voice sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

“I screwed up your life too, Twilight. I understand why you don’t want to continue anymore. You’re not like me, you’re not used to losing a friend. You’re not used to the idea that your friends are…  are better off without you.”

I felt a tear roll down my cheek.

“And it doesn’t matter how often I make friends or fall in love, it doesn’t ever cause the hurting to stop. Maybe you’re right, Twilight, maybe we should just give up and let ourselves fade into nothingness. Maybe the whole world is better off without the two of us.” He rested his head on the floor, defeated.

The tear fell off my face and landed on his back. The Doctor looked up and his eyes met mine. Not knowing what else I could say, I merely said, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

I thought over my answer carefully. I crawled down the maintenance shaft and landed in front of the Doctor, my legs aching from the impact. I remembered my conversation with Spider-Colt from before, and his opinion on grief. How it turned wounded people to selfishness, how it caused suffering. “For being a weepy little coward. For thinking I was the only one who was suffering. I don’t know what’s come over me lately, all these feelings of grief and frustration and helplessness. Maybe it’s just the general situation, but you’re right.”

I put a hoof on his shoulder as he stood up. “We made a mess and we gotta clean it up. So no more tears. You with me?”

A strong smile spread over the Doctor’s face as he grabbed my hoof and shook it.

“Always!”