Heartstrings of The Doctor

The TARDIS shook violently, as Lyra dove for cover under a chair. The Doctor ran around the control panel, pulling levers, mashing buttons, and hitting things with a hammer, a frantic look in his eye. Suddenly he ran down a hall, returning a couple seconds later with a roll of duct tape. He quickly ran to the place where the lever snapped off, and duct-taped it back on. He pushed the lever back up and everything stopped shaking. He slowly walked over to a screen, and let out a sigh of relief.

"I love you duct tape!” He laughed, planting a kiss on the silvery tape, then remembered his assistant, currently taking cover. “Oh, you can come out now, Lyra," he said, collapsing onto a chair. "We're good. Just tell me one thing, how do you know about Doctor Who? I only discovered it about a month before becoming a pony, and even now I'm stumbling upon hidden cameras."

"I'm an anthropologist, remember?" Lyra said, squirming out from under the seat beside him. "Doctor Who is like, one of the most well known science fictions on the planet Earth. Well, I guess it's a science non-fiction now." She sat down beside him. "So, when do we get to Canterlot? There are some weeping angels we need to beat."

"Well, I'd say roundabout an hour," The Doctor shrugged. "Seeing as the snapped lever threw us off a little bit." Lyra's ears folded down.

"I probably shouldn'tve told you," she muttered, turning her gaze away from him.

"Nah, now was just as much of a good time as any," he dismissed, ruffling up her mane a bit. "I would've been angrier if you told me later. I'm glad you got that out. Is there anything else that you might want to ask?"

"Where's Ditzy?" An innocent question in itself, but one that packed too much of a punch for the weary time lord.

"Ditzy.." he sighed. "She's.. gone. Just.. gone."

"Dead?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry. I.."

"I understand."

"Thank you." They sat in silence for a couple minutes, the whirring of the TARDIS keeping it from getting too awkward.

“She must’ve been important to you,” Lyra spoke up, again turned away from his gaze.

“Yeah, she was. I should’ve told her to stay back,” he stood up off the chair and began walking around the control panel of the TARDIS. “But no, I had her come along with me, and now she’s gone. Just.. Gone.”

“What happened?” Lyra asked.

“I don’t exactly know, to be certain. It wasn’t the Vashta Nerada, or any other sort of monster, I don’t think. She sorta was just.. taken. I dunno, one second she was beside me, the next.. A note.” He sounded like he was about to break down crying.

“A note?” As much as Lyra didn’t want to put the Doctor through this, she was too curious.

“All it said was I’ll be fine.” A sound echoed throughout the TARDIS. “We’re here.”

“That was a quick hour,” Lyra remarked, getting up from her seat.

“Time passes quickly here,” the Doctor shrugged, put on a coat, and opened the door. “Lyra Heartstrings, I give you Canterlot, 1745.” Lyra stepped out of the doors, to a Canterlot far less developed than what she remembered. There was not as much houses than back in the present, heck, they weren’t even houses, more of.. huts. The castle was still under construction, ropes and platforms sitting around it, or hanging off of halfway finished towers.

“Whoah,” she gasped. “Its so..”

“New?” The Doctor suggested.

“..Yeah,” she responded, still in awe of the lack of development in the capital city of which she knew. “Does Ponyville exist yet?”

“Not for another twenty or so years, once the castle is finished its construction,” he shrugged nonchalantly, forgetting that this was his new assistant’s first travel in time.

“So, how many angels are we going against?” Lyra asked, a blaze of determination in her eye. “And how are we going to beat them? Sending them to oblivion? A paradox?”

“A rock.” Lyra was confused.

“A rock?” She asked. The Doctor nodded, reaching into a pocket of his coat and pulling out a green glow-y rock.

“Well, not a rock exactly, more of a.. crystal. Its a part of the TARDIS, which I took from an unused area. It should reverse the energy of an angel’s touch, setting them into regular statues. We just need to put it on the pedestal of the angel who is making all the other angels,” he replied. Lyra looked at the rock with a mixture of confusement and awe.

“Who is the head weeping angel?” She questioned.

“Discord,” the Doctor grinned, while a look of horror flashed across Lyra’s features. “I know, isn’t it great!?”

“Doctor, I think you have a weird concept of great.” They began the walk to their date with the angels.

“You know the rules with the angels, right?” He asked.

“Yeah, don’t blink, and don’t look one in the eye.”

“Good girl,” he smiled, phrasing the words almost teasingly, and ruffling up her mane.

“I try,” she smiled. “And the fact that I have somewhat experienced them before helps.” Soon they found themselves at the outskirts of the already vast Canterlot gardens.

“Why don’t the weeping angels just leave the vicinity of the gardens?” Lyra asked.

“Have I ever said they don’t?” The Doctor asked back, in which Lyra had to take a glance behind her, and froze.

“Um.. Doctor..?” She stammered. “Turn around.” He did so, coming face to face with a rather angry looking stone statue, a hoof outstretched coming within centimeters from his nose.

“See, they do come out of the garden,” he grinned, slowly walking backwards. He seemed a bit too calm about this, but possibly all his experience in the field left him calm in the face of danger. “Run Lyra. Take the stone, its in my front left pocket, and the sonic screwdriver as well, same pocket. Put it on Discord’s podium and everything will be back to normal.”

“But I can’t just leave you here, what if another angel comes behind you?” Lyra gasped.

“If you put the stone down, there will be no worry, you would’ve saved me. GO!” He shouted, waving her off. She quickly levitated the two items out of his pocket, and ran off down the winding hedge maze.

“So, hello again you annoying stone statues. You actually think that you are going to catch me? How many times have you tried before?” He blinked, causing the angel to move forward. “Ha! Gotcha again!” He ran down the hedge maze, laughing wildly.

“Ok, I have to do this, I have to save the Doctor..” Lyra muttered, trying to find it to Discord’s pedestal, checking behind her back every so often, when suddenly she realized something. “What if he is off his pedestal?” She questioned out loud. This was going to be harder than she thought.

“Stupid angels, thinking they can catch the Doctor,” he laughed again. “I just hope Lyra can find the pedestal.. It should be easy, seeing as it is the one with the humongous fancy ‘Discord’ carved into it.” He felt another body present beside him, and turned to face it, expecting a weeping angel.

“Ditzy?!” He questioned, in shock.

“Doctor!” She gasped, then looked around, and froze. The Doctor did the same.

“Angels!” They both shouted in unison.