Chapters Doctor Whooves and the House of Daring
Chapter 1: State of Decay
Doctor Whooves and the House of Daring
Ditzy Doo's husband (formerly known as “the Doctor,” “the Oncoming Storm,” and “The Lord of the Beepy Thing” and now going by "John Smith" due to his gross misunderstanding of Equestrian naming conventions) always thought the record player hated him.
In the stubbornness with which it kept its secrets, it seemed to mock him. The strange wireless, battery-lacking thing always broke down when he had the largest loads of laundry, leaving John in bored silence. As random events stacked up, his brain assigned a hostile personality to the little object.
It’s a trait shared by every sentient race on the multiverse. Sailors on everything from longships to spacecrafts gave them a personality, anthropomorphizing them (or equimorphizing, or arachnamorphizing, or what have you). The barnacle philosophers of Darwin Seventeen would have understood, saying “Those darn rocks just want to be difficult every time the tide comes in.”
Then again, its easy to be defensive when your reproductive organs are nineteen times the size of your body length.
It’s possible to take it farther than usual. At that point, you don’t have people blaming the oceans or the warp drive for their quirks. Instead, you get a priesthood sharpening their knives and talking about what you can do for your country.
John Doo-Smith kept things in perspective. Having spent centuries with what many suspected was an actual intelligent object, he recognized the signs. John realized that objects that malfunctioned didn’t actually hate him.
Of course, there was one object in Equestria that hated John Doo-Smith with every atom of itself. Sitting in a musty sub-basement museum, it flickered in and out of consciousness for decades. Not alive, it dreamed, proving that even pulp horror writers are correct sometimes if they stop obsessing over tentacles.
To think, John thought later as he ran from that hate-filled thing through places that weren’t places, I thought the in-laws were going to be a headache this weekend.
The Ponyville schoolhouse buzzed with excitement and trepidation. Today was the day on which the foals were separated from the true young adults, the haves distinguished from the have-nots. Every student waited with held breath as their time of judging drew nigh.
Today was Show and Tell.
Applebloom nervously fiddled with a jar of something sugary and fruit-related. Diamond Tiara relaxed in her desk, having as always already volunteered to go first. She cast an occasional amused glance at Scootaloo’s “Awesome Thing,” an irregularly-shaped stick the young pegasus had brought in. Many students assumed she had found it on the playground before school. Scootaloo gave no sign of caring. She played it cool.
Dinky was vibrating in her seat with anticipation. Her hooves fondled a small and slightly worn box. The object inside the box regularly pulsed, mimicking the beat of her heart. She realized it was time to pay attention again as Cheerilee’s voice filtered into her consciousness.
“Truffle, that was a wonderful presentation on your Stalliongrad Ushanka.”
The proud teacher clapped loudly as the largest colt in the class beamed, nodding underneath a gigantic furry hat.
Dinky was aware of Diamond’s commenting to her side. “Is it just me,” she whispered to her friend Silver Spoon, “or does his head look like a buffalo’s rear?”
Dinky ignored the comment. She knew that there was no way her presentation would fail to impress the critical rich girl.
Cheerilee paused carefully as she made eye-contact with the excited young unicorn. “Dinky? Do you have something to show today?”
Dinky nodded. She leapt off of her seat and strode confidently toward the front of the room.
“Uh oh,” Diamond Tiara announced in a stage whisper. “Looks who’s up. Hope she finds her way to the board all right.”
Dinky ignored her. Her entire social standing would change today. She turned to face the class and carefully placed a small box on the ground. Looking at the class, she smiled; none of her fear was allowed to show today. Dinky even stared Diamond Tiara in the eye and nodded.
Let her think she’s scaring me, Dinky thought. I’ve talked alien laser bear thingies down. Why should she scare me? It’s not like she’s the Smooze or anything.
“I-I’ve got something really cool my M-mom and Dad were working on.”
As her hooves tried to open the apparently well-sealed box (she wouldn’t admit to herself that they were slightly shaking), she heard a pony in the audience voice disbelief.
“Your Mom? It’s a picture of a hole in a wall, isn’t it?”
Dinky stared down at the box, pretending not to hear.
Cheerilee looked darkly at Diamond Tiara. “If you have nothing nice to say, please stay quiet.
Bored, Diamond dropped her head to her desk. “Big deal,” she whispered. “I got a warning.”
Silver Spoon giggled.
“A-anyway, this is something my Mom and Dad were working on. My Dad doesn’t get a lot of time to do fun stuff sometimes. He’s really busy, and… ”
“Busy? Isn’t his shop usually empty?”
Truffle sniffed. “Please, do be ladylike,” he remarked to the incredulous heckler. Pipsqueek joined in and shushed her with obvious frustration.
“Diamond,” Cheerilee said with an unnerving smile. “That’s your second consequence. Please move to the back of the room.”
As the sound of hoofbeats retreated, Dinky placed a small metal device covered in wires and buttons onto the floor. “So, this is one of the coolest things my Dad has ever done.”
Diamond Tiara snorted. “Coolest? What has he actually done that’s cool? He’s basically a toaster repair-pony!”
A civil war raged inside Dinky. Her mind reminded her that her Daddy’s Rule Number Point Seventy-Five was “No bragging!” Her heart near breaking at the sound of her classmates ridiculing her Dad, she almost started talking about last summer’s Father and Daughter Fishing Trip...
The exhausted settler wiped his hoof against his sweating forehead. He squinted at his two mysterious strangers.
“Golly,” he said, “I reckon if you two hadn’t-a been here them weird fish ponies mighta et me. Or worse.”
“Don’t mention it, Stinking Rich!” John Doo-Smith preened while adjusting his overly-decorated cowboy hat. He suddenly blinked, turning serious. “I really mean that. Don’t mention it: the mer-princess, the crab castle, none of it. This is a strict ‘No Mentioning Zone!’ Just go back to your wagon and forget you met us.”
Stinking bowed to the Doctor and Dinky. “Well, if’n there’s ever something I can do for you… “
“Y’know,” said Dinky, not realizing she was about to get herself grounded for a week, “Could you make sure that if you ever have a great-granddaughter she doesn’t become a complete and total… ”
Cheerilee leaned over the desk, staring daggers at her class. She turned, her face instantly changing as an emotional mask settled into place. “Dinky? Go on. We’re all listening.” Dinky stared into her warm eyes and nodded.
“All right. Well, my parents like looking at the stars, so they cobbled together some stuff to remind themselves of the ones they really like. So basically, um, they wanted to make something to find stars.”
As Dinky played with buttons on the tiny object, Diamond Tiara raised a hoof. Dinky looked at Cheerilee, who nodded.
“Um. Diamond? What is it?” Dinky relaxed for a moment, the act of calling on someone making her swell with authority.
Diamond stood up. “Why do you need to find stars. They’re up there, right? Shouldn't your Mom try to find people’s mailboxes?”
In the seconds that followed, the only sounds were intakes of breath and Dinky’s rapid hoofsteps out the door.
Pipsqueek glared. “You shouldn't say such things!”
Diamond rolled her eyes.
“Shut up, Pip. No one likes you.”
Out of nowhere, Cheerilee appeared in front of the sarcastic filly while bearing a grin that Nightmare Moon would have been proud of. “Diamond, go to the corner. We’ll discuss this with your parents. Applebloom, could you pick up Dinky’s… thing? You live closest to her, so you can return it.”
Applebloom nodded and trotted to the front of the class. As she picked up the machine in her mouth, it lit up. She fell back in fright as the device flew from her grip. The small widget hovered in mid-air as lines of light emanated in dozens of directions, simulating a spinning globe of the night sky with a bright planet in the center.
The entire class was speechless for seconds on end before someone spoke.
“Um, Miss Cheerilee? Did ah break it?”
____
Lemon Hearts tapped her hoof impatiently as she leaned against one of Ponyville’s merchant stalls. Sniffling, she brushed the wooden stand’s dirt off of her yellow coat and sighed. “This is a waste of our time, Minuette.”
The blue unicorn next to her was nearly vibrating with excitement. “Hush up! You’ll affect the wager.” Minuette looked at Lemon with enough visible admonishment to earn a teaching position.
Lemon sighed. “Can’t we just simply declare it over?”
The returned stare silenced her.
Minuette smiled, turning back to the show. “Hold on. I got ten bits riding on the next three minutes and fifty-three seconds.”
Her attention was focused across the street. Second Chance had always considered himself one of the princes of the Ponyville street venders. His used goods and antiques store drew an occasional Canterlot visitor, and the days he chose to close up shop and work a stall were always lucrative. He was the undisputed king of the wheeler-dealers.
He had also never met Sparkler Doo-Smith.
Her athletic build and well-trimmed purple coat gave most ponies the first impression somewhat equivalent to “jock.” This might work most of the time for pigeon-holing Ponyville residents. In this case, Second Chance had grossly underestimated Sparkler. Where she spent her pre-teen years wasn't anywhere (or anywhen, for that matter) near Ponyville.
“So, I really don’t think I could let this magnificent clock go for less than fifty bits.”
Sparkler smiled. Her horn nearly sparked violet in anticipation.
“Fifty bits!” She stamped on the ground, drawing attention Second didn’t want. “Fifty bits! Why, I would rather throw myself into a manticore’s jaw then admit I paid fifty bits for that. Fifty bits! The shame that I would bring upon my family would last for generations. That clock would become an heirloom, passed down to tell the story of my idiocy! May timber wolves nest in my closet before I pay fifty bits for such an item.”
Second frowned the frown of a cocky leopard seal getting its first sight of a killer whale. Nothing in his business history had ever prepared him for negotiating with Sparkler. On the streets that she was born there were three pastimes. You could take in a show at the theater, which was new enough that every play was a first run. Sparkler’s people performed proper tragedies. You could practice bargaining skills on the streets of the busy marketplace, learning curses that would make a Saddle Arabia merchant cut deals and a camel trader spit in defeat.
Finally, you could keep an eye around the perimeter of the city for giant wooden horses and active volcanoes, but that had unfortunately fallen out of favor in the city of Sparkler’s generation, and geology had assured that hers was the last settlement there except for an occasional archaeologist campsite.
Sparkler smiled the smile her gem merchant biological father had taught her. She almost felt sorry for Second Chance.
“Um,” he opined. “Maybe thirty, but-- “
“Thirty!” Sparkler threw a hoof dramatically across her brow. Across the street Minuette laughed while Lemon blinked in disbelief at the performance her normally quiet friend was giving. “Thirty! May I be banished to the Sun if I waste my family’s money as such. May I be devoured by quarry eels within sight of my parents, for they would rejoice. Why, If you should be so bold to speak such an obscenity again, may your hooves fall off as-- “
Second grabbed her shoulders, breathing heavily. “Twenty.”
She grinned. “Fifteen.”
“Eighteen,” he said like a pony at sea negotiating away half of his life raft for timber.
Sparkler bobbed her head back and forth, eyes looking upwards. Second Chances drew in a breath. She returned her gaze to him. “Throw in the watch chain next to it and its a deal.”
Second collapsed in relief. “Fine! Take it! Take it, please.”
Sparkler counted out the bits with satisfaction. “Thank you kindly, sir. You drive a hard bargain. Would you do me the favor of gift-wrapping the clock?” She asked with batting eyelashes.
By the time she crossed the street Lemon was staring uncomprehendingly while Minuette rolled on the floor laughing. Sparkler deposited her wrapped parcel next to Minuette and winked.
“I told you I could do it.” She shrugged. “Fifty bits. Feh. He could have charged sixty, easy. The merchants of Ponyville are no challenge.”
Minuette raised herself to her hooves with effort. “Wow, Sparky. I could watch you work all day.”
Sparkler blushed as Minuette continued without noticing. Lemon did, and smiled a knowing smile.
“So, where did you learn to barter like that, Sparks? You don’t talk about your homeland much. Heck, you’ve nearly lost that cute accent you used to have.”
Sparkler blushed, looking away. “I am still to be having accent pop up sometimes. It is to never be fully going away.”
Lemon Drop rolled her eyes.
Minuette levitated the parcel with a shimmering blue field gleefully. She nuzzled Sparkler on the cheek. “Thank you! This is a Tick Counter original! My uncle Placeholder will be so jealous. I’m telling you Sparks, when I first met you at the Gala I would've never believe what an awesome friend you were.” She snickered. “Then again,” she said playfully nudging Sparkler with an elbow, “you did try to punch me within four point seven seconds of meeting me.”
Sparkler looked away. “It was being a case of mistaken... Hold on, girls. I’ll be right back.”
She ran off, leaving Minuette hugging her new parcel and Lemon slyly smirking. Sparkler ran across the marketplace, dodging terrified customers as she weaved between them. She skidded to a halt in front of a crying Dinky Doo-Smith, sitting on the side of the Ponyville Cafe.
Sparkler loomed over her sister, getting Dinky’s attention as she blotted out the Sun.
As an aside, many are in the habit of referring to said sky-hung orb as “Celestia’s Sun.” The well-traveled Doo-Smith family knew better. They knew that Princess Celestia was merely renting, and had some idea of the terms.
As Dinky wiped her nose, Sparkler rubbed her sister’s mane. “Tell me, who am I to be hurting for this crying?”
Dinky snorted something wet and colorful out of her nostrils. “S’okay. You don’t need to worry. Why would you want to bother?”
Sparkler lifted Dinky off the ground with her telekinesis. One pony on the street whistled at the ease that Sparkler handled the weight. Dinky was unimpressed. She had seen her sister throw wagons when necessary.
Sparkler pulled Dinky closer to her serious expression. If Second Chances had seen it, he would have paid Sparkler to take away the clock, and quite possibly his stall and gallbladder.
“I am overprotective sister pony,” Sparkler intoned like a judicial sentence. She gently shook Dinky, drawing a laugh out of her. “And this is my sister. It cost a bully ten thousands kicks to the head for making my sister cry for twelve seconds. Now, who hurt my sister?”
Dinky wiped the last of her tears away with a smile.
Ditzy Doo-Smith landed on the street just outside Ponyville proper. She wobbled for a second and sighed. Noises her husband would have described as “adorable” leapt from her mouth as she cracked her wing joints and back. She resolved to herself to take some time off as soon as she was willing to tell John why.
Ditzy walked almost out of sight of the town as her home came into view. The cottage sat on the rolling hills between Ponyville and the Everfree Forest. They had moved there scant days after the sudden and honestly karmically well-deserved death of Ditzy’s first husband and two days after her marriage with John. After Ditzy’s twenty-seven hours of widowhood, many of Ditzy’s friends asked her why her new husband would choose such a place.
When she put that question to the Doctor (No, she reminded herself, he really was John by then), he had gazed at the treeline with a challenging look. “Ponyville’s my family’s town now. Every part of it, and that includes the forest. I swear by the orange skies of Gallopfrey, that woods is going to know it.” He snorted. “Someone has to keep the damn thing honest.”
Ditzy sighed at the memory. It’s a wonder she didn't ask for more vacation time years earlier, she thought.
The cottage was connected to a smaller building. In older years, it might have been a smaller house for the family’s youngest couple to move into. Now upon it hung a sign.
Doo-Smith Repair Shop
Ditzy walked around the shop, nodding to herself as she double-checked the presence of a blue barn in her backyard. She honestly never expected it to spirit away her husband without her knowledge. Still, her thoughts of the barn were similar to what an average mare’s might be if she lived next to another mare with whom her husband was formerly, madly, and passionately in love with.
Truth be told, the barn felt the same way. Still, the two of them had somehow managed to communicate a barely uneasy peace.
She pushed her front door open, nearly collapsing past it as it sped away from her. Ditzy leapt into the air with as much force as she could muster and landed on the couch with a satisfied sigh.
“Muffin,” she moaned out. “I’m home.”
John’s voice rang out from the kitchen. “That’s nice, dear.”
She rolled onto her side, finding that she had lain on her mailbag’s metal belt buckle. “Celestia, that was a long day.”
“That’s nice, dear.”
Ditzy raised an indignant eyebrow. “Honey, the kids are at Carrot’s for the weekend and I’m wearing the blue-and-gray socks.”
“That’s… ”
John quickly stuck his head out of the kitchen door. His grin of anticipation turned first into confusion and then guilty blushing.
Ditzy flashed a self-satisfied smile. “Did you mow the lawn?” She paused for a second before adding, “Dear?”
“Um.” Only John Doo-Smith could elevate the word “Um” from a conversational statement into a definitive statement that spoke volumes to his wife. Still, she wasn’t going to let him off the hook, and under her mismatched gaze he continued. “Well, love, my love, love of loves, the K-9 lawnmower experimental unit seemed to have kind of got… ”
She waited. “It got unwieldy? It got stuck somewhere?”
“Um. It got philosophical.”
Ditzy groaned. “The dishes, then?”
“Oh!” He smiled. “I did start that. Well, then I paused. Well, I kind of dropped a plate. Maybe two. Well, maybe two-well liked ones.”
She stared at him.
He swallowed. “While singing.”
Ditzy threw her mailbag into the corner of the living room with a tad more force than normal.
“Okay. Last thing. John, did you keep an eye on my hard light photon generator prototype in the garage?”
He nodded animatedly. “Absolutely. Y’know, if you ever wanted to go back to engineering school, I could… ”
“…take care of the lawn and the dishes while I’m away?”
“That’s not fair. No points. Penalty box.”
Ditzy pulled herself further into the couch, collapsing into the cushions. “Just tell me that you didn't alter the prototype.”
There were several seconds of silence.
“John? Tell me you didn't alter the prototype.”
The silence trailed on.
Ditzy pulled herself over the couch arm with her forehooves and glared. “John!”
Her husband started backing into the kitchen. “There was a… minor adjustment in the calibration needed.”
“John!”
“Well, I saved you a week’s work rebuilding it!”
“John.”
He spread his hooves helplessly. “I mean, you would have had to rebuild it from scratch again, and…
“Doctor!”
‘John Doo-Smith’ stopped, very nearly completely. A physician would have been astounded at the amount of bodily processes that slowed or ceased when John’s wife called him by his old title.
Ditzy fluttered off the couch to land next to him. In her anger she clipped the side of the living room. Rubbing her wing, she glared like a eager Krogan executioner handed a fistful of pardons.
“John Doo-Smith,” she said with a tone that had cowed maniacs throughout the cosmos. “What is rule one?”
Without missing a beat, he replied. “Don’t ever fly the TARDIS alone.”
She sighed, and allowed herself a victorious thought. Point one for me, box. “Not Doo-Smith Family Rule One. About my workroom.”
He hung his head low. “No advanced civilization hints.”
She nodded as she walked past him into the kitchen. “For Celestia’s sake, John. It’s not like I have a deadline. I don’t mind rebuilding.” Ditzy rolled her eyes in vastly different directions as she noticed the oven clock and the empty kitchen table. “Just let me get my inner gearhead out with a little tinkering and I’ll be happy. At least you didn’t screw up dinner.” She pulled a tray of zucchini muffins out of the refrigerator, resuming her diatribe after setting it on the kitchen table. “If you have to tinker with something, find a way get more customers at your repair shop. You may say you’re rubbish at money, but even if we don’t need it I’d like the town to think better of my husband.”
She set the entire dinner table, side dishes included, before she realized that he hadn’t responded. Cautiously, she peered out of the kitchen archway.
John was standing in the same position she had left him.
Oh, no, she thought. He’s thinking. Please don’t say something like…
“I’m not very good at being a pony, am I?”
Ditzy sighed. “Listen, I’m sorry.”
“You know,” he said in a neutral tone as he turned around, “you’ve been finding a lot more things wrong with me lately.”
“I’m… ” Ditzy’s heart beat faster. “I’m under a lot of stress, and… ”
The front door burst open, Dinky squealing with glee as she rode in on Sparkler’s back.
Whew. Conversation avoided, Ditzy Doo. You’ll have to finish that sentence at some point…
“Girls!” Ditzy clasped Sparkler around her neck. “It’s good to see you happy.” Dinky jumped down, nuzzling her mother’s side.
The Doctor’s voice stayed low and neutral as he said, “Dinky, what was wrong with your day?”
Ditzy raised an eyebrow. Sparkler and Dinky exchanged glances. Sparkler’s shrugged conveyed the inevitable I-Told-You-So fairly well.
“John, what do you mean?” Ditzy cast a curious glance at her husband.
He sat down on a stool. John slowly pulled a pair of glasses out of his trenchcoat and began polishing them absent-mindedly. “The girl’s usually come home happy, just not like this. If there were good news, they’d have rushed in individually. Sparkler only gives Dinky rides to cheer her up. The last three times were on July seventh, May tenth, and October fifteenth.”
He put on his glasses, weakly smiling at his wife. “I may have been born a Time Charger, but I’m not too bad at being a pony.”
Ditzy's heart raced in her chest. “Um. John. Girls. Now that we’re all here I think we need to… ”
“Mother? Why have you not delivered this letter?”
Interrupted again. Spotted dimple muffins!
Ditzy turned to Sparkler, standing over the opened and harshly deposited mailbag. Her unhelpfully helpful daughter was holding a very professional-looking envelope in her mouth. She walked over to her parents and placed it gently on the family coffee-and-electrical-fires table.
“Oh,” said Ditzy. “I must have missed that one. I guess tomorrow I can… ”
“Mom!” Dinky pulled herself onto the table. “Mom, Dad, look! It’s addressed to us.”
Sparkler sat down. “Please make it opened. I am wanting to know.”
“It’s probably nothing,” her mother responded. “Just a bill, mostly likely. Honey, I haven’t seen any of the power bills around. Please tell me you’ve been dealing with those.”
The two unicorn scientists held each other tightly, marveling at the devastated generators. Regardless of the damage, they were just happy to be alive.
“Livewire,” the mare said, “It’s over. It’s finally over. Hold me. Hold me forever.”
The stallion stared at the stranger in the trench coat. “You saved us. If you hadn’t come, that electro-beast would have killed us all and gotten loose. You saved our lives, the dam, maybe even the entire town!”
John nodded, pulling a sheaf of letters out of his front pocket. “Just lucky I had business here today. Don’t mention it. Really. Serious about the not mentioning, I am. Now, about my family’s bills… ”
“They’re handled,” John said after a moment of reflection. “Paid off. In advance.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “For a while.”
Dinky strained as she weakly raised the letter with her glowing horn. Pulling it closer, her eyes went wide. “Mom, you’re in the Daring Do Fan Club?”
“What?” Ditzy’s face went pale.
Sparkler looked over her sister’s back and nodded. “It is to be directly from Daring Do! Mother, you are a big children!”
John chuckled. “What’s the point of growing up if you can’t be a little childish.” He suddenly stopped smiling as he noticed his wife’s lack of enthusiasm.
Ditzy held the letter in both hooves and carefully pulled it open with her teeth. The Doo-Smith family held their collective breath. After finishing it, Ditzy dropped it to the floor.
John reached out a tentative hoof to caress his wife’s side. “Ditzy?”
“My great-aunt is dying.”
The living room remained silent for several seconds before Sparkler snorted. “That is a most inappropriate thing for a fan club to inform you of.”
Ditzy fell down onto the floor. “It’s not from the fan club, Sparkler.”
Her children’s eyes pleaded for her to continue. John sat on his stool, uncomfortably shuffling around.
“Girls,” Ditzy said as she bit her lip. “My great aunt is Daring Do. Her books are based on a real pony.”
Dinky shook her head. “Wait, what? Famous relative but what now?”
“But parents,” Sparkler said with confusion, “her last name is spelled differing from ours.”
Ditzy weakly nodded. “My family changed their last name at Whoah Nelly’s Island when they came from Trottingham. Your great-grandmother was raised in Manehattan, but she wasn’t born there.”
Her family could hear the story trying to break free, but as they waited the seconds only stretched into a single sentence. “I have to go say goodbye to my auntie.”
John stood up, smoothing out his coat as a way to occupy as many brain cells on something aside from the obvious. “Well, I think you should go alone.”
Ditzy straightened, her eyes reflecting her disbelief. She would have expected cyborgs hiding in the pantry before she heard such a sentence crawl out of her husband. “I’d rather not go without you.”
John ground his teeth. “Ditzy, darling, I just… ”
“I don’t want to hear another word!” As she screamed her daughters’ ears drooped. “She asked to see me and my family, and I assumed you were a part of this family! If you want bubble nose doctor that and can kitchen!”
Ditzy ran up the stairs, leaving her husband and children staring at each other.
Dinky’s nose quivered. “Daddy, is Mommy having a apy… aphy… “
John nodded. “Aphasia attack, dearling. A case of the word scrambles. I think so. Let me see if I’m capable of helping. I’m not sure... ”
John looked at Sparkler. She nodded, enfolding Dinky into her forelimbs. He winked, drawing an uncertain smile out of his teen daughter. With the seriousness of a winner in the Ommnian Matrydom Lottery approaching the Photon Gallows he slowly walked up the stairs.
“Honey?” John stared up at the silence. He found himself half-heartedly wishing for a monster to jump out. He could deal with monsters.
There was silence for the space of several seconds. “Yes, dear?”
He paused. Letting out a long breath, he closed his eyes and prepared himself. “That was cheating.”
Their bedroom door slowing unlocked. Ditzy cautiously poked her nose out. “Was it?”
John nodded.
She licked her lips. “How did you know?”
He sat down on his haunches and took a long breath. “Ditzy, when you have an actual aphasia attack you’re more random and use mainly nouns. That was mostly stuff you can see. I could make a sentence out of that with enough cider in me.”
She slowly pushed the door open and leaned on it. “I’m sorry. I don’t… ”
As she started to sniffle, John pulled her into a hug. “Hush. I’m not mad.”
“You’re not? B-but that was a t-terrible… “
He gently pushed her mouth closed. “Love, you’ve only done it to me three times, and one time you really were wearing the socks. That makes up for it. Heck, you might be owed a few more.”
She giggled. “You knew?”
John rolled his eyes.
“If my lovely, lovely, oh-so-lovely wife is wearing socks, what’s a little watermelon pineapple alfalfa trousers between spouses? Anyway, I’ll get packed. ”
Ditzy closed her eyes, cupped her lips over her husband’s, and pulled him closer. She slowly moved her hoof down his mane until it rested on his shoulder . John stepped closer, pushing her gently back until her wings spread out against the wall. He whispered a single word in a breathy voice that sent warm air against her throat.
“Children.”
Her eyes snapped open. She saw two retreating manes pull themselves backwards down the stairs, shortly followed by the sound of two bottoms hitting the bottom.
Dinky picked herself off of the floor, smirking as her parents laughter echoed through the house. She scratched behind her neck in embarrassment in a gesture her father would have instantly recognized. Regardless of genetics, some things you pick up from your parents. “That was yucky. Hey Sparkler, could you imagine somepony doing that to you?”
“N-n-no,” Sparkler said with an blush, looking away at the grandfather clock to avoid Dinky’s gaze. “I can be thinking of no one.”
John slowly walked down the steps. He knew what he would have to say at the bottom and very nearly started walking every third step backwards just to prolong it. As he finally became level with his children he rubbed his temples.
“So, we’re going.” He strained to say the next sentence cheerfully, mostly failing. “I believe your grandparents will be there.”
“Grammy Topsy!” Dinky skipped in a circle, a habit she picked up from her magic tutor. “Grammy Topsy’s going to be there!”
John swallowed. “Yes.”
Sparkler clapped her hooves. “Grandpapa will be attending! We get to see Granpapa Storm!”
John dropped his head and stared at the floorboards. “Yes, we will,” he whispered. “And, if we’re just lucky enough, he’ll let me live.”
From the landing above Ditzy plummeted on top of her husband, pinning him to the ground. While he sputtered, she cast a look out the back window at the blue barn. Staring at its windows felt like making eye contact.
“D’you hear that,” she whispered. “He’s all mine for the weekend, and we’re traveling without you.”
If a small building’s doors could bristle, Ditzy would have sworn that the TARDIS doors did.
She smiled, ignorant of the monsters, running, and screaming that lay ahead in the next two days. “Get packed kids!” She stifled tears as she resolve to act brave for the children. “We’re going to met Daring Do!”
And in the basement of a hero's house, something started to stir...
Doctor Whooves and the House of Daring
Doctor Whooves and the House of Daring
Ditzy Doo-Smith wondered if her husband was broken.
Husbands could be fickle things. Her life was proof that you had to choose them right. Even if you pick the right one for your needs, sometimes the wear and tear apparently made them act in surprising ways.
On the coach trip through Trottingham, he had been mostly “normal” John Doo-Smith. Admittedly, he seemed to drink an awful lot more than usual. She had thought the inn had a quaint charm. He apparently had thought it had tables worth dancing on. It was a night like she hadn’t had in years. Luckily enough Sparkler had kept Dinky occupied in their room, otherwise Ditzy would have had to blushingly explain quite a few things about John’s somewhat questionable song about hedgehogs.
The trip to the estate had set off some of her alarm bells as well. The girls had gasped in awe as the coach crested the hill, bringing the manor house into view. It stood in the middle of a wide field, the buildings stretched out like a castle laid out sideways. The brick edifice stared back at them through attentive windows. The road meandered through topiary sculptures, dozens of fearsome beasts looming out of the hedge to menace oncoming travelers.
Ditzy had seen many old buildings, and some of them were still standing when she left. She always felt a sense of brooding decay. This one was like a napping lion. She thought it could wake up at any second.
Her wings spread out. “Look at it, John! It’s more than I've ever dreamed!”
His answer was a sigh.
“Oh, yeah. Impressive. Look, that’s a yeti made out of shrubs next to a rose bush of the Lock Nellie Monster.” He yawned. “Yup. Nice use of sticks.”
She looked at the children. Dinky was nearly half out of the wagon, listening to Sparkler rattle off names for the more mythological garden elements. Ditzy nodded, pulling closer to John.
“John Doo-Smith, what’s wrong with you today? I thought you’d be more excited about this than anypony.”
His shoulders briefly tensed. “Don’t mind me. I’m tired, Ditzy. I’m just so so tired.”
John took a breath, and for a hopeful moment she thought that he would confide in her. That was before Dinky jumped into her lap. Ditzy’s surprised squeak at least drew a smile from John.
“Mommy? If Auntie Daring’s a pegasus, why does she live on the ground?”
Ditzy pet her daughter’s mane as she looked out the window. “She always told me that the sky bored her. You don’t find priceless things on top of clouds. They tend to fall right through.”
The straight road turned into a circular driveway wrapped around a gigantic fountain statue of Lord Foamrider of the Seaponies. Under the shadow of the trident the cart lurched to a halt.
There is one clear sign of depression in travelers throughout the multiverse, whether on mammoth chariot or quantum drive skimmer. As his family jumped out of the car into a cloud of activity John moved not a muscle, staring onto the floor of the cart.
“We’re here, John,” a worried voice whispered into his ear.
Nodding, he pulled himself onto the ground. The workhorse leader appear in front of him with a raised hoof, which John stared at in dull incomprehension.
“Tip the stallion, John,” the voice continued.
“Of course.” He cleared his throat. “When running, always worry about the ‘to,’ not the ‘from’.”
The stallion squinted. John shrugged.
“Non-optional economic gratuity, dear,” muttered Ditzy.
John rolled his eyes, passing the pony several bits from his saddlebag. Giving John a last distrustful look, the workhorse returned to the cart.
John stamped on the ground. “Ditzy, that was solid advice! He’ll go farther in life with my advice than those bits.”
Ditzy nodded. “True, dearest. Where he won’t go on that advice is here, to pick us up again. Everybody look good? All right, let’s knock!”
She approached the jackal-headed door knocker. It was covered in ancient hieroglyphics, most of them pertaining to painful ceremonies involving feathers, scales, and alligators. Ditzy grabbed the knocker.
“O-”
Knock.
“-pen-- “
Knock.
“-up please!”
Knock-Knock.
John would have sworn the jackal showed signs of embarrassment as the door swung open, releasing a smell of dust stronger than the Doo-Smith Workshop floor. The door frame was very nearly blocked by the body of a huge, hunched butler. Dinky took a step back as she took in the bulging muscles underneath the tuxedo. A white and brown face like a bulldog stared at Ditzy with long suffering eyes.
“Ah, Mistress Ditzy, welcome back to the-- “
“Molly Moo!”
Ditzy launched herself at him, hugging his muscular neck. She clung to the resigned diamond dog, giving an impression somewhat like a baby monkey hanging off it's mother. The butler stood steadfastly as she dangled there, her legs kicking back and forth. "Molly Moo" looked at John for a silent second before addressing the rest of the family.
“Welcome to the Do estate. I am Molossus, and-- “
“Molly Moo!” Ditzy snuggled into his neck, her wings flapping hard to keep her from falling.
He sighed as he stepped toward the two stunned and silent children. “Please do not be afraid.”
The sisters both returned a offended stare.
“If I am being afraid, you would know and regret it.”
“Yeah, and I’m really good at talking and running!”
At Sparkler’s amused look, Dinky just shrugged.
Molossus stepped backward with his squealing necklace still in place and gestured inside. “If you would care to follow me, the rest of the family are waiting.”
John attempted to make words with his mouth as he watched his wife cuddle nine hooves tall of muscle. He wasn't very successful. As he stepped in front of his children, he shook a hoof in an effort to reclaim his dignity.
“Anything,” he managed to say before snorting and pulling his hoof back. The word was supposed to be wrapped inside a sentence of warning, but John sometimes put more stock in emphasis than verbosity. Sometimes.
Ditzy dropped down from her canine climbing wall. “John, that’s rude!”
“Is it?” asked Molossus. “I wasn’t aware it counted as a complete thought. Well then, Mr. Doo-Smith, I concede the point.” He nodded. “Nothing.”
John gave a very proud look.
Dinky leaned forward and, with a whisper loud enough that the Equestrian Whisper Club would have suspended her membership, said “You’re much better with monsters, Dad.”
Ditzy slightly released her grip, energetically stepping back to John as if the Hearth’s Warming Night drinks were all gone. “This is Molossus!”
“I gathered that, dear,” he said as he nodded for effect.
Ditzy turned and pushed her daughters forward. “You’re going to have such a wonderful time with him, girls. He was my favorite babysitter when I was young. ”
“Yes,” Sparkler agreed. “One could being playing hide-and-seek with him or on him.”
Molossus cleared his throat. “Anyway, it is a pleasure to see you, young mistresses. Your mother has written so much about you. I’d say it's time you went inside and reconnected with the rest of the clan.” He leaned down conspiratorially. “I understand the muffins and pastries have been laid out.”
Two young blurs shot past him. As he lumbered inside the door, John turned to Ditzy.
“You write him often, Love?”
She nodded.
John scratched his mane. “Only, I seem to recall that your mother says you never write her.”
Ditzy gave a pregnant pause as she walked inside without the previous manic energy.
“John,” she softly, “sometimes you can love someone without liking them very much.”
A voice like an opera tenor gargling gravel rang out.
“Announcing the appearance of Dismerelda Daring Doo-Smith, and her daughters Dinkestra and Sparkler.”
As Molossus held the door for the couple, Ditzy gave him a withering look.
“He told you to do that, didn’t he?”
Molossus pointedly moved not an inch.
Ditzy shook her head. “Molly Moo... ”
He drew in a deep breath. “And her beloved husband, John Doo-Smith!”
Forget shattering wine glasses, John thought. He could crack the whole stage.
Ditzy nuzzled Molossus as she walked inside. “See, John? He’s just a big... ”
She stopped when her childhood became real.
Every living being thinks of their childhood as a magical time (with the caveat that not all magic is good). Given time, they’ll talk about the huge toy box they could sit inside, the amazing painting of Commander Hurricane on their wall, and the dark gate to the Monster Dimension. They’ll stare in disbelief years later when presented with photographic evidence of a rickety box, a poorly traced smudge, and a reasonably sized walk-in closet. Even silicon-based life orbiting dim stars talk about how that magma vent was a much bigger slide and their parents must have had renovations. Childhood memories never turn out to be accurate.
Except for Ditzy Doo’s.
She was staggered at the sight of the cavernous entry hall. Along the right wall hung weapons of every country. A minotaur battle-axe balanced over an honorary key to the city of Tartaurus. Nearby were a variety of griffon throwing weapons, including the severed arm of High Eyrie Countess Amalia. The legendary limb was famous for the amount of insurgents it had bludgeoned, and the engraved case bore its owner’s well wishes to Daring Do for deeds done.
Across the hall was a frozen menagerie. A life-sized statue of an okapi sage overlooked a stuffed chimera waiting to pounce, nestled amongst other beasts. Sparkler found herself awestruck at soot-encrusted carvings from a legendary city as Dinky spun an ancient copper astronomical globe. Overhead the ceremonial masks of a dozen zebra tribes hung like watchful curators. Walking through the mansion was like taking a tour inside the world’s greatest museum, and endless summer games of Hide-And-Go seek returned to Ditzy.
She sniffled.
John raised an eyebrow. “Eh, honey?”
Ditzy rubbed her eyes. “Yes, John?”
He pointed to a roaring cave bear on display next to a blue-faced creature with a wry smile and too many limbs. “How can you tell which are real and which are fake?”
“She always said the real ones were divided into two classes: self-donations, and ones who deserved it.”
John walked under a stuffed crocodile that hung from the ceiling and bumped into a rearing manticore. It was an elderly male with a history written in scars, and its face snarled out over the entire hall. “Self-donations?” John asked with an unsure voice.
Ditzy stepped beside him, looking at the beast with tears of pride. “Mister Tawny said near the end that he’d always watch over her, even afterwards. That’s why he’s next to his favorite ball of yarn and scratching post.” A wetter sniffle came. “I want my Auntie, John.”
“Bubbles!”
The voice boomed out across the trophy room. One had the impression that the voice would be capable of asking someone if they’d cleaned their room across the whole of Canterlot Castle. A frizzled mass of an orange hair bun could be seen poking out over the exhibit tops, rapidly approaching.
John saw his daughters held in the grip of an immutable force. Sparkler and Dinky were casting anticipatory smiles to each other, tapping their hooves on the ground rapidly. He had, over the years, watched each of the four fundamental forces of the universe be manipulated, usurped, controlled, and tied in knots. He had never seen anyone overpower the field of control an imminent visit from a grandmother projects.
“My little Bubbly Bubkes!” Two sandy-colored forelimbs swept the girls into a tight grasp. Topsy rubbed her grandchildren’s heads against a blouse so pink it made shades of red embarrassed to be seen near it. The children gazed up at her in adoration, eagerly expecting the next line in the ages-old ritual.
Topsy lifted a hoof to adjust her glasses, eyeing the swaying tip of Dinky’s head with caution. She gently pulled back, and compressed the grandmother field to the point that no other sound could have entered into the girls’ ears.
Ditzy stepped to John and gave him a knowing smile. He sighed.
Here we are, thought John. First we get the ambassador, and now the oncoming...
“Storm,” Topsy bellowed in a voice that could have worn a horned helmet in the Canterlot Opera. “Storm, bring out the presents for the kids!”
From a few feet away, four hooves slammed down hard on the wooden floor followed by a slightly larger impact. A light blue pegasus pulled a large crate with a tether. The muscles of a stallion half his age rippled beneath his sports jacket. Looking at his face, an observer wouldn’t see a single sign of strain. They would also get the feeling that, despite the dark sunglasses, he was boring a hole into John with his stare.
“It’s present time for everypony’s favorite grandkids! So, who’s tough enough to help me pop this baby open?”
A light violet glow surrounded the crate as it spun into the air. Smooth Storm’s dark glasses may have hid his eyes, but the eyebrows and open mouth conveyed his feelings as Sparkler disassembled the box in mid-air. An array of smaller presents presently orbited a single large box.
Sparkler’s horn flicked as she stacked the small boxes in front of her. She turned to Topsy. “This is quite a lot of cosmetics.” She frowned. “Are you trying to tell me something, Grandmama?”
Topsy’s brow knit a sweater of confusion. She carefully slipped a forelimb around Sparkler’s shoulders. “Dearie, you’re well at the age that the boys start noticing you. When I was your age, my favorite toy was make-up. You’ve a lovely coat and mane, but it’s time to accessorize! After all, isn’t there a special stallion somewhere in Ponyville?”
Sparkler’s scratched her head, saying syllables that made a decent try at making words.
John eyed his father-in-law balefully and turned to his wife. An old-fashioned pony, he he lifted his hook to his mouth in the mistaken belief that it concealed his whispering. “Honestly, your father does very little except running around and shouting at people like he’s in charge. Who does he think he is?”
Ditzy just smiled. “Yes, dear.”
A respiratory system that could function in near vacuum was suddenly taxed as a blue hoof slammed into John’s back.
“Johnny-Boy! How’s the repair shop coming?” As the Time Charger coughed, Storm’s smile expanded. “I expect the business is picking up. After all, you finished that little expansion you bragged about, right?”
John’s mind flickered to the unsorted pile of lumber sitting outside his office. He mused that his father-in-law would do well in numerous royal courts throughout history. Years of playing announcer-boy to the rich and fatuous enabled him to cut a soul with a smile. John was certain Smooth Storm could single-hoofedly eliminate several grand viziers he had met over the years.
John stepped back out of Storm’s reached. “You know how it is. Everybody wants to give advice. Nothing more useless than ponies talking without doing. By-the-by, how’s the announcer job treating you? Remarked on anyone else’s interesting accomplishments lately?”
Storm's shoulders shook as he laughed. “That’s a good one, Johnny-Boy! Work out some charisma and you could be a broadcaster.”
Ditzy coughed, staring at her father.
"Eh," John said as he shrugged. "Dunno how much the intellectual challenge of describing people going in straight lines would be fun.”
Ditzy coughed twice, one baleful eye settling on each stallion. A few stuffed monsters away Sparkler raised her head, making at least half eye contact with mother, who smiled and shrugged. Sparkler nodded, returning to the task of unpacking Dinky’s crate.
Years of watching backstage celebrity breakdowns and her own family holiday dinners had given Topsy Turvy a keen sense for impending social disaster. She landed between the feuding stallions just as John stepped towards his foe with a snort.
“Look at alla the kids playin’ so nicely. Storm, Dinky’s about to open her present.” She walked over to her husband and rubbed a nuzzle down his neck. He straightened up silently. Topsy turned to John. “Besides, I’m sure we’re both happy to see John any day.”
“Of course,” John said with a raised eyebrow. She had almost sounded like she meant it.
As Ditzy walked to John, she gave him a scowl. “Did I really just see you playing the jock versus nerd card?”
He leaned close and sighed. “I know it’s unoriginal, but the two viewpoints just cannot-- “
She covered his mouth with a hoof. “Dear, you know the name of every zero-gee football player for three centuries and have an autograph of Jim “Bucking” Speed hidden in your work cabinet.”
John pawed the ground while examining it closely. He only lifted his head at Dinky’s exaggerated squeals. With one hoof she slowly spun around a telescope taller than she was, anchored to central pole housed on an decorated elaborate base.
“Grandpapa!” Dinky was vibrating with joy. “It’s a Celestia Sky Searcher Telescope with Zodiacal Carved Base with a compass and a thing that tells time! Grandpapa, how did you know?”
Storm coughed into his hoof, cantering over to his beaming grandchild. “Easy peasy, kiddo. After all, you talked about it all night on Hearth’s Warming Eve. I’m sure good old dad’s just been too busy to shop for it. I’m quite certain he noticed, after all.”
Ditzy looked at John. He was shaking.
She trotted over to Storm, energetically whispering to him. He shook his head, pointed a hoof at John and the telescope. Storm threw a hoof around her neck, pulling her away from the eyes of John and the girls. It didn’t work.
Ditzy sprung several hoof-lengths into the air, grabbing her father’s ear with her teeth as she hovered. She dragged Storm to the arched roof of the gigantic room and harsh words came down to John’s ear. He felt someone nuzzle his leg.
“Daddy?” Dinky looked up to him with eyes that pricked at his hearts. “Daddy, why is Mommy mad at Grandpapa?”
“Um. Ah.” John sniffed. “Ah.”
Topsy rolled her eyes. Making pleasant lies to children was, in her eyes, an inevitable responsibility of parenting. She had heard about the principle of honesty to kids, and wondered if their parents ever expected them to stop crying.
“My pointy little Bubbele, your Mom just wanted to save the telescope thing for your birthday.” Topsy rubbed a hoof along Dinky’s cheek. “Now she’s just going to have to get you something else. Let Grammy go give her some suggestions.” With a pat on Dinky’s head, Topsy flung herself into the air. Soon three pegasi hovered just under the ceiling, maneuvering over and under each other as they pointed and argued.
Sparkler walked over to her father as the aerial conversation continued. She leaned her head against his neck. John sighed.
“Yup, I remember this.” He turned to her with a smile. “At least I have you two to talk with. You should have seen me at families dinners while Dinky was a baby. It was just me and good old Mister Mashed Potatoes.”
As they stared at the aerodynamic argument, Dinky approached.
“Dad,” she said, “does Grandmama think I’m stupid?”
John sighed as he pulled her close. “No, dear. She just assumes you want to hear nice things rather than true things.”
She considered this. “That’s dumb.”
He nodded with pride.
The gesture of a gentle cough into a fist (or hoof, claw, or plasmic manipulator) arises throughout the cosmos wherever you have sentients with a desire for politeness and the approximation of a respiratory system. Something vaguely recognizable as that sound mixed with the deepness of a gong falling down a well echoed throughout the museum floor. When the cough is delivered by a nine-hoof tall bulldog who could tear the Manehattan phone book in half, the effect is somewhat changed.
“A-hem,” Molossus gently said. “Mistress Do has awoken. She requests the private presence of Mistress Ditzy and Master John, and will be down shortly after.”
Ditzy turned to the pleading puppy dog eyes of her daughters and winced. She gently ruffled Dinky’s hair.
“Little Muffins, Mommy will be right back.”
Dinky sniffled.
“Daring Do’s upstairs, Mom. I wanna go meet her.”
“Soon,” said Ditzy before kissing her forehead. She turned to Sparkler, who fretfully looked back at the ancient heat-scorched carvings.
Sparkler bit her lower lip. “Mother, I will wait. I do wish to be discussing her archaeology projects.”
Everyone turned at the sound of John’s snort.
“The things, she does,” he said with a roll of the eyes, “you call that archaeology?”
The assembly stared at him. He shuffled back and forth.
“What? I... um... had to read the books. I am a parent, you know. Always share your kids’ interests.”
His further protests went unheard as Ditzy’s almost gently hoof dragged him up the stairs. Topsy stepped next to Molossus, whispering with imploring eyes as she let Storm distract the Doo-Smith children with aerial flips.
“Mister Molossus, do you think Ditzy can convince her to write the kids into the will?”
His gaze betrayed enough emotion to call a potted plant excited by comparison.
“Not something I’d know, madam.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Well, it’s not like she’s my great aunt! You know her better than I. I still don’t know why she cut off Storm.” With a deep breath, Topsy settled on a more comfortable topic. “Did you see the swagger on that stallion, Molly? I swear he’s almost made her think he’s really the magic doctor she grew up fantasizing about.”
His face remained impassive as his gaze turned toward John’s ascending back. “Really, Miss?”
Topsy nodded. “Taking advantage of a poor young widow with mental issues. Who does he think he is?
Molossus’ poker face would have been legendary in Las Pegasus. “I have no idea, Miss.”
________________________________________________________________________
Ditzy’s hoof hovered over the knob. Thoughts about cats in boxes flew through her head.
“Love?” John stepped forward. “She’s waiting for you. She may not have time.”
Ditzy’s breath caught in her throat.
“Not true, John,” she said in a weak voice. “Until I open this door, she’s only potentially sick. She’s still the aunt I know until then.”
A moment passed in silence.
“You know, the aunt you knew had excellent hearing,” the voice inside proclaimed.
Ditzy and John stared at each momentarily before opening the door. John lingered in the hallway just a second longer.
Many civilizations entomb their warriors with treasures. Daring Do’s room certainly would have satisfied any future archaeologist. The desk held decades of journals and photographs, records of some places thought lost and others rather recently lost through collapsing ceilings, volcanoes, or islands sinking beneath the waves. Sunlight streamed through an open window, casting light on a vase of red and white flowers. Over the bed hung a pair of well-kept and well used wing blades from the Pre-classical period.
Beneath shimmered the gold.
“Gold” was the only thought John Smith could hold in his head as she pushed herself up from the bed. Her movements were quick, eyes eager and unaffected by age. Some wrinkles were visible and feathers were missing, but John could see it wasn't age claiming her body.
And after all her years, her coat still glimmered like gold in the sun.
“Auntie.” Ditzy momentarily choked. “Auntie, I’m bubble barrel crenelation fizzywog... “
Daring leaned forward and placed a hoof on DItzy’s quivering lips. “Pitter patter fizzle-glob bip blob beep.”
Ditzy’s eyes widen as Daring smiled.
“Don’t worry, Loveling,” Daring said. “I can still speak Ditzy. Some of my favorite ponies do. Calm down for a second, ride it out, and give me the words you want.”
A sobbing Ditzy collapsed into Daring’s forelimbs as her great aunt’s wings enfolded around her
“I wrote.”
Daring rocked her back and forth. “Yes, you did. Every month.” Daring turned her glance to John. “So, I think you must be John Smith of Ponyville.”
He nodded.
“Well,” she said while John felt her stare pierce through him, “I look forward to learning more about the stallion who’s responsible for my favorite grand-niece.”
He nodded again. Ditzy and Daring spoke, and more tears were shed, but John’s mind was elsewhere. If asked he could perfectly restate the conversation, but he’d be hearing it for the first time, as it were. Eventually Daring put her hooves on Ditzy’s shoulders and steadied her.
“Ditzy, be a dear and ask your mother where the photo album for the last reunion is. I’d love to show my great-grandnieces their family. It just may be in the library”
John felt a hoof try to pull him away.
“Oh, no. Leave him here, my Muffin. I’d quite like to chat for a moment.”
John felt a kiss on his cheek as he heard the door open. Centuries of instinct and discipline melted away as a sparse decade of relearning kicked in. John spun on his wife and threw his forelimbs around her wordlessly. Daring watched them for a while with a content smile before Ditzy walked off.
The two ponies stood in silence as they heard hoofbeats retreat downstairs.
Daring’s smile widened. “I think we’re alone now.”
“Yup,” agreed John. “ Doesn't seem to be anyone around.” He swayed back and forth to an imaginary beat, then stopped at her look. “Cheerilee’s rubbing off on me. By the way, is the photo album in question the one shoved between the dresser and the wall?”
She nodded. His hearts nearly stopped in anticipation of her next words.
“Well, I’m glad you actually came, Doctor. I bet you almost didn’t.”
John Smith nodded sheepishly, raising a hoof to his lips. He tiptoed to the door and gently pushed it shut. He locked it. He also aimed a tiny beeping thing from his trenchcoat at it. Satisfied, he spun toward the bed with a beaming smile and open forelimbs.
“Dorothea “Daring” Dinkestra Do! Come over here and hug an old stallion, you brilliant thing!”
She sighed as she gingerly returned the embrace. Daring suddenly shuddered with a cough and saw the Doctor freeze. He gently pulled back, staring at her with the eyes of a foal looking at a coffin for the first time.
The aged mare drew a long sigh. “In all the years I knew you, you never did deal with death well, Doctor.”
His brows knit. “I seem to remember dealing with it quite a lot.”
Daring pulled herself off the bed and began rummaging through several drawers. “Yes, you did. Quick, sudden deaths. Galvanizing, anger-inspiring deaths. You prefer a fait accompli. You were never comfortable with it as an expected appointment.” She paused. “You were older, I recall. Mostly.”
He waved a hoof in the air. “I was half a millennium younger when we first began gallivanting through time. I just looked older. Fine, I was younger and “older” then.”
Daring’s search produced a small jewelry box. After a brief click, she passed him a oddly-shaped key that he solemnly pocketed. “Here, I won’t need this very longer. Take it back to the bloody old thing, and lock her up tightly.” A trembling hoof caressed his chin. “I fondly remember you when you were a little older than that and looked much younger. You were the righteously angry firebrand crusading across the universe.”
He sighed. “My dear Daring, angry young stallions quickly become bitter, controlling old stallions.” He shrugged. “With umbrellas. Happens with me rather regularly.”
Her hoof withdrew as she turned away. “Yes, it didn’t last long enough. So many opportunities missed. Is it unusual to be jealous of my grand-niece?”
“More ponies would be, if they had any idea how special she was." John smiled. "Ditzy has a mind wired for performance levels far beyond the norm for ponykind.”
Years of experience helped Daring recognize John’s lecturing tone. She sat back onto the bed and straightened attentively, like an ancient and obedient schoolgirl. He picked up the mockery right away, but even before he was “John Smith,” the Doctor never could resist delivering a talk. Her knowing smile just made him all the more embarrassed.
“Go on, Doctor,” she said in a tone that could still make hairs stand up on a stallion a third her age.
He gave in. “She’s got at least half again as many neural connections as you do. A normal pony’s brain is like an apartment building of ideas. The thoughts have to run down the hall and knock to communicate. Ditzy’s cells live in a building made of windows on a never-ending conference call. Her unusually efficient brain comes with a few side effects, I admit, but its a small price to pay for being able to visualize fifth dimensional constructs. Or doing that thing... ”
Daring cocked her head in confusion.
“Ah, you know,” John said. “That thing, where she... “ He blew a breath out in thought, then pinched his nose with both hooves and wiggled it in different directions.
After a few attempts, Daring giggled and laid back down onto the bed. “She’s been doing that since she was a foal. Never needed to use her hooves, though.” She smiled before coughing into a hoofkerchief long-stained past its original colors. “It’s funny. They all failed to kill us. Mfalme, the Commandant, the Serpent King. Yet this gets me in the end. Doctor, you do realize that one day she will be in this bed. Is your marriage, your life together, really fair to her?”
His pupils contracted slightly. Daring sighed, waiting for his response. She remembered the signs that the Doctor was thinking at much more than pony cerebral speed. The last time she had allowed him to think like that for a minute he had a novel to dictate and was incorrigible for days before getting it down.
She let him think for three minutes. Then he sat down.
John Smith gave Daring Do a look that was still partly far away, and then locked eyes with her. She held her breath as long as her ancient lungs would allow, waiting for the answer.
“No,” he replied. “It’s not fair.”
Daring Do blinked.
“It’s not fair,” he continued as he scratched the back of his mane, “but it’s as much time as I can possibly spend with her. A mare like her doesn't deserve to get her heart’s desire. She deserves to get it at least four times. Still, making her happy for the rest of her life is the best I can do to make the universe almost fair for a while.”
Daring pulled the covers up to her neck and smiled. “I think my grand-niece is luckier than anyone in the universe.”
“Anypony.”
“What?” She blinked.
John Smith cocked his head and looked away. “Um. Around here they say anypony, remember? I get corrected about it a lot.”
The giggle of a much younger mare rose out of Daring Do. “I must have picked it up from you. My dear Doctor, I sometimes think traveling with you absolutely ruined me.”
She looked to John to see his reaction. Instead of laughing, he was staring at the floor.
Ponies downplay thoughts. Sometimes they’re happily married but daily consider the mare down the street. Perhaps they compose in their heads the letter they’d always wish to send to their boss. Ponies generally assume that thoughts can’t hurt them.
They couldn't be more wrong.
Thoughts spread outward in waves, much like light particles or all-night take-out restaurants. As the particularly strong thought waves of two ponies (well, one pony and one almost-pony) spread out, something heard a familiar word. Grabbing ahold of a name, something in the basement that wasn’t something a moment before woke up.
It started thinking. There was no one down there to hear those thoughts except mice, which promptly dropped dead of aneurysms from the intensity. If there had been something with a more evolutionarily complex cerebral cortex down there, it would have had a thought forced into every corner of its mind.
As two glowing red pinpricks appeared in the eye-holes of a striped wooden mask, it broadcasted one word with enough hate to psychically shred the minds of anyone within several hoofs.
It’s truly hard to describe pure thoughts with language. It might be compared to trying to remember how a song smells. The only races in the galaxy who had developed a language suited for the emotional concepts the quickly-existing entity was thinking tended to murder themselves before achieving agriculture.
It thought, simply, “Doctor.”
That was enough to let the hate break the world.
As he came downstairs, John saw Ditzy’s parents holding her in a comfortable winged hug. Their eyes quickly flew up to meet his. Topsy's were angry and accusing. John shrugged; water was also wet. Storm’s eyes were concealed, but the face framing it seemed to be less angry and more curious. John filed that away for later as Ditzy broke their hold and ran to him.
Her feathers wrapped around his midsection as she laid her head across his neck. “She’s so alive, John.”
He snorted. “Is that good? I mean, if she were drooling into her pillows we’d all nod our heads and say, ‘Yep, we knew it was coming.’ That’s not happening. There is a vibrant brain trapped in that body, waiting for... ” He gestured uselessly with his hoof.
“A regeneration?” She pulled back, her eyes searching his for clues.
John looked at Ditzy with pride. So many would-be conquerors had underestimated the mind behind those crazy eyes, and he hoped he hadn’t picked up the habit. “Ditzy, it’s not fair.”
She nodded, kissing his nose. “We know. We don’t blame you, John. You didn’t get this old by taking away our years. It’s just how they were passed out.”
“Old! Why, I’m barely a thousand.” He shuffled his feet, watching Daring slowly walk down the stairs with a walk that plainly told all viewers that descending stairs was no great difficulty, thank you very much for asking.
And then he noticed the twinkle.
It was there in Daring’s eye, as if it had never left. It was Daring herself, in a way. He’d recognized her once by it when she was shunted into another mare’s body. It was the gleam that shown before she snowballed the hat off of the yeti general. It sparkled right before she grabbed the Most Sacred Scepter of Scarman while they were pretending to be altar ponies. He had seen Daring’s eyes light up right before a hundred moments where everything became frantic.
Ah, well. John breathed out without noticing that he had been holding his breath. What could she do at a dinner table? Well, aside from that time in the Griffon Revolution...
She stopped in front of the couple and smiled. Daring Do leaned in and whispered before walking off, her wings lifted up in pride. Topsy hadn't noticed, but Storm stared at his aunt quizzically. He wondered what Daring said to make Ditzy turn pale.
He hadn’t heard her whisper to John, “You old liar, you’ve been ‘barely a thousand’ for at least three hundred years.”
As Ditzy stayed frozen, Storm tried to offer a wing underneath Daring’s in support. She rolled her eyes.
“Very well, my dear nephew.” She visibly relaxed onto the wing with a resigned look, and only Storm felt her weight nearly collapse onto him. “If you insist. I’m perfectly fine, you know.” Her eyes both dared and pleaded with him.
“Of course, Auntie,” Smooth Storm said softly. “Thanks for humoring me.”
Daring nuzzled his cheek before he escorted her to the table, Ditzy whispering forcefully to her husband behind him.
___
You’ve probably felt an odd presence while you’re alone. Most races evolved from prey animals developed a keen sense of aware paranoia. At times, we assume that it goes off for no reason. Most sentients are blissfully unaware of the incorrectness of that comforting statement. They're not reacting to things that aren’t there. They're merely developed enough to sense things that are almost there.
If all the world’s a stage, you’d better believe there’s a backstage. Thing is, it has much nastier things than tangled electrical wiring and crying actresses.
Something was watching you. This is the viewing room.
Call it limbo. Call it the astral plane. Call it E-Space. It acts as the cartilage of the multiverse, keeping bordering universes from scraping against each other. Theoretical physicists thought that it held the secrets of creation. Philosophers assumed perfected mortal concepts floated inside it. Similarly, folks from the country makes remarks about New York City such as “This is is amazing!” and “Look at the buildings!” and “Who are those men at either side of this alley?”
Imagine the unhygienic man sitting in a subway corner, staring at you with dead eyes that regard humanity in the same way a butcher regards pig parts. There are things like that in the astral plane.
They’re looking at you right now. Try not to think about it.
Things that shouldn’t be sensed the existence of the Daring mansion, and heard the dimensional equivalent of a back door unlocking.
Daring Do carefully lowered herself onto the cushion at the head of the table. Dishes appeared as Molossus moved back and forth from the kitchen at a speed that belied his size. Turning to her left, she saw Dinky’s expectant face. A look of pride flicker in the back of Daring Do’s eyes.
“Well, I’m probably supposed to say something like ‘Hello, little one,’ but I always thought that was a bit daft and twee.” Fully knowing the answer, Daring couldn’t resist asking the question. “What’s your name, girl?”
Dinky swallowed. She looked to her mother, and Ditzy turned her attention away from John for a second. She smiled warmly and nodded.
“Dinky.”
Ditzy coughed as Daring raised her eyebrows.
“Um, Dinky, Ma’am.”
Ditzy coughed twice. Dinky saw her father gesturing with his hoof frantically to keep going.
Daring placed her elbow on the table, resting her head on it. She gave Dinky an expectant look. Topsy and Storm were silent, hopeful expressions on their faces.
Dinky breathed in and closed her eyes.
Her great-great aunt was still. “Dinkestra’s a silly name, isn’t it?”
Ditzy tried to speak before John kicked her under the table. She glared at him, adding another tally to a column that was already overflowing. He placed a hoof in from of his lips. He had seen the gleam.
Dinky sighed. “Yeah.”
Daring idly picked up her silverware with her primary feathers. “And Dorothy seems a bit commonplace. Seems like someone named like that would wrack their brain for a nickname.”
Dinky nodded, staring at the floor. Sparkler glared at Daring Do.
Daring sighed. “Well, this won’t do.” She breathed in before calling out. “Molossus, are you in the kitchen?”
A gigantic head with equally gigantic and attentive ears stuck itself out of the kitchen. “Yes, Mistress Dorothea Dinkestra?”
Dinky’s heart skipped.
“Could you please bring us some of the peppered sunflower dressing?”
Molossus nodded. “Yes, Mistress Daring.”
Dorothea Do nodded. “Thank you.” She smiled at Dinky. “I’m glad to see you here. You and your sister. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Dinky turned to her parents and cocked her head. Ditzy nodded as John shrugged.
“You know,” Dinky said thoughtfully, “in the books your parents named you Daring.”
Daring nodded as she finished a mouthful. “Editorial control is wonderful.”
Topsy beamed. “Isn’t that nice? Why, she’s-- ”
Smooth Storm tapped his wife on the shoulder with a wingtip. In pegasus marriages, half of all communication was pokes, prods, and caresses. “Don’t."
Topsy blinked. “Honey,” she whispered forcefully, “if we mention that... ”
Storm looked over his shades at his wife. “Tops, I know show business. The script was good. Don’t ruin the moment.”
Topsy looked down at her plate, her wing-held fork stabbing with slightly more force than usual. “Fine, but we have to work with what we have. It’s for their sakes, after all.” She called out down the table, her booming voice interrupting Daring and Dinky’s soft conversation.
“So, I saw little Sparkler staring at some of your rock carvings! I think we have an art fan!”
Daring sighed. She remembered the day Smooth had told his aunt he was marrying someone who spoke in exclamation points. “What were you looking at, Sparkler?”
Sparkler moved her food around her plate with a glowing fork that showed no intent of making the inevitable mouth journey anytime soon. “I was being interested in the burnt carving. I was wondering what could have done that to worked stone.”
Daring reached across the table for the dressing. John and Ditzy exclaimed nervous glances.
“It’s from Pombrey,” Daring finally said. “The marks are grooves and channels cut out by lava. Rather like the city, I’d expect. I’m surprised anything actually made it out.”
Sparkler breathed slowly, both hooves on the table. “I am, too.”
Daring stared at her. A very quickly look passed between her and John. He nodded. Her eyes went wide as she leaned forward. He shrugged and nodded again.
Daring put down her utensils, placing her hooves together. She carefully considered her words. Topsy nearly interrupted again, momentarily terrified by the sound of silence at the dinner table.
“So,” Daring said just in time. “Are you more interested in the first Pombreyan period or the second one?”
Sparkler blinked. “Second period?”
Daring smiled as she picked up her fork. “Yes, the second one. I understand the only survivors were a single cart of children who managed to somehow jump it over a lava stream and make their way to the docks. Well, the one sailor on the ship they made it to also survived, I suppose.”
Silence flowed out of Sparkler, covering the table with it for several seconds.
“What happened to them?”
Daring looked to John and Ditzy incredulously. He shook his head, and Daring gasped. Ditzy smiled nervously. Topsy looked at the three of them in confusion.
Daring Do coughed into her hoof. “Your history teachers have been lax, my dear. I understood that they were taken in by a nearby city. They managed to hold onto part of their culture until years later, when they formed New Pombrey. Never heard of it, Sparkler?” She lifted a glass to her lips.
Sparkler raised glistening eyes. “I did not research the period very closely. They settled back in the old city, then?”
Daring nearly spat out her drink. “Certainly not! They settled in the middle of a large, flat plain. Great place, New Pombrey. Smaller in recent years, but full of history. City motto on the gates reads ‘Idiota solitus.”
Smooth reached out a hoof to his granddaughter’s shoulder. Something important was going on, and he didn’t like being sidelined during the big plays. She was quivering as Dinky hugged her tightly.
“Um, Auntie?” He asked with concern. “What does that mean?”
“It’s part of an old saying,” John said with a snicker. Ditzy elbowed him.
“So, Ditzy,” Topsy loudly said as she tried to interrupt.
Sparkler’s forehead was on the table. She shook with laughter as her tears fell. “Idiota solitus, regretia mon. Grandpapa, the full thing is ‘Fool me once, shame-- ”
“So, Ditzy,” Topsy’s voice boomed down the table. “Did you tell John about the operation, yet?”
John slowly turned to his wife. “Dear?”
Ditzy shivered. She recognized that soft, unassuming tone. “There’s not going to be any operation, Mother.”
Smooth leaned in to his wife. “Tops, maybe this isn’t-- “
“Smooth, honey, please go fetch me some ketchup!” Her smile was fearsome.
He passed Sparkler a napkin and turned to Topsy. “I’m sure if you just asked Molossus-- “
Topsy poked him in the back of his head with a feathertip.
“Yes dear,” he agreed.
Everyone at the table was staring at Topsy. Even Sparkler raised her head after blowing her nose into a napkin.
“Mother,” she always, “what else are you not telling me?”
“Hurricane fidget because was not was,” Ditzy said gruffly as she threw down her cutlery. “Mother, there’s not going to be an operation.”
Daring studied Ditzy’s face. “Dismerelda?”
Topsy smiled as she took control of the conversation. “There’s a Doctor in Canterlot who’s done some wonderful work with brains. I was thinking that we might be able to go get an estimate.”
“My mom is fine,” Dinky said quietly as she lowered her fork, her horn still glowing.
Ditzy breathed out slowly. “Mom, there’s no money for a high-paid Canterlot surgery even if I had the slightest urge to do it.”
“Stop,” John said to Topsy. “Please.”
Topsy stared at Daring and grinned the way a detective does at a just-revealed murderer. “But if we could get the money, do you think we could maybe look into it, Ditzy? You’ve got three major issues, Bubbeleh.”
“Two,” Ditzy corrected automatically.
Daring had the best dagger collection in the world. She stared all of them at Topsy.
“I mean,” Topsy continued, headless of her audience’s wishes. “If he could just check your eyes, and your speech, and the thing with your brain.”
Ditzy lifted herself up from her cushion. “The thing with my brain, Mom?”
Topsy breathed in. “You know, the...” She looked at Sparkler and Dinky. “The thoughts about the ‘Doctor.’ I just want a good life for you, and if we fix-- “
A plate shattered against the wall inches away from Topsy’s head. Dinky’s horn still glowed as she screamed, “There is nothing wrong with my Mommy!” Crying, she ran off into the kitchen.
Seconds past. Topsy shook.
John stood up with a smile. “Oh, look! Storm needs some help in the kitchen! I’ll just go have a bonding experience, won’t I?” He stared into Topsy’s eyes. “I’m sure this whole conversation will be over when I get back.”
Ditzy breathed heavily, staring at her mother. Sparkler looked at Topsy and walked to the other side of the table, next to Ditzy. Daring Do contemplated her soup as Topsy started to cry.
None of them saw the darkness start to surround them.
As John rushed after his daughter, he was too concerned to look down the hallway he passed. If he had, it would have changed everything that followed. Stars were twinkling at the end of it.
Inside the kitchen, Storm nursed an opened bottle of cider as Dinky hugged him, crying. Molossus had wisely found some other place to be. Storm looked up at John and smiled, not kindly.
“Hey, Johnny Boy! Welcome to the kitchen! If you’re here, I expect everything’s solved out there, right?”
John grunted, kneeling down to pet Dinky’s mane.
“So, John,” Smooth Storm said with a cheerful bent, “what did Ditzy say to you about the doctor?”
The sentence uttered confused John Doo-Smith until he thought of the dinner conversation. He picked up Dinky into his forelegs and pulled her close. “We haven’t discussed the,” he said with a snort, “doctor, point of fact.”
Smooth smiled, putting down his drink. He ruffled the hair of his sniffling granddaughter. “Y’know, I may not think she needs the operation, but I’d want her to make up her own mind. I mean, she’d talk to you if she thought it was a possibility, right?”
John held Dinky and said nothing.
Storm’s wing snagged the bottle again, and he took a sip. “So, Johnny Boy. How’s your business doing? Have you considered another occupation?”
The universe broke then. It was the only thing that could have prevented John’s angry reply. He lifted his head, and as his gaze passed the door John saw the dining room fall away as darkness and sickly starlight filled the archway.
Storm followed his stare. There was a crash as his bottle hit the ground.
John gently lowered Dinky to the ground and walked toward the gaping void. “Hmm. Don’t recognize those star patterns.” He grabbed a fork and dropped it over the edge. It floated away slowly. He nodded in self-congratulation.
Dinky rubbed her eyes and looked at her father. “Daddy? What is it?”
John Doo-Smith spun on his hooves, staring into into his father-in-law’s shades with a look of triumph. “This is it, Smooth Storm! This is my occupation. Now, watch me at work!”
“Doctor,” it thought. “Finally.”
Elsewhere in the mansion, nothing stirred. In one well-decorated hallway, nothing stirred angrily and visibly. As it pulled itself into reality, it assembled a form appropriate for its job. Two parts of the nothing pulled itself downwards into bipedal legs. A pair of long, lanky arms made of nonexistence stretched out from a spindly torso. The was nothing at the top of its shoulders, and it eagerly scanned the hallway for what was there.
It reached forward a hand. It was was long, and it was nothing. It touched an ancient vase. The vase became nothing. At that moment in time, it had always been nothing.
Molossus entered the opposite end of the hallway. He hesitated as he beheld the thing that wasn’t in front of him. For a second, he got the impression that the hallway was a painting, and a somewhat diamond dog shaped tear was staring back at him.
“Oh, dear me.” He quickly grabbed a spear off the wall and pointed it in the direction of the intruder. “Stay where you are! Who are you, I say?”
WE... AREN’T.
Molossus heard the voice inside his head as three more of the things pulled out of the walls like rats tearing through wallpaper.
NOW... YOU... WON’T.
Molossus back up, spear tip at the ready. “Won’t what?”
The first not-thing began to stride down the corridor
WON’T... ANYTHING.
The claws reached out for him.
EVER.
Looking like rips in the film strip of reality, the Nothing Men went to work.
Doctor Whooves and the House of Daring
Chapter 3: The Face of Evil
Doctor Whooves and the House of Daring
Long ago, on the edge of the magical land of Equestria...
The sound drew the girl out of hiding, and she crept between the rows of meticulously organized crates as the ear-tearing noise filled the cargo hold. She briefly cast a backwards glance at the door, only to be rewarded by an errant nail tearing some the lace of her dress. The girl sighed as she crept around a container as stealthily as she could.
On the other side of the hold, a blue box had appeared. It looked like one of the cutting edge Trottingham phone booths. The stallion outside, however, resembled a policepony not at all.
It was true that he wore a suit, but it hung on him with a carelessness that reminded her of father’s look after late nights to the pub. A bowl-cut mane flopped around his head. He was whistling as he locked the phone box.
“Sir?” She stepped forward, curiosity overcoming good sense. It wouldn’t be the last time. “You don’t happen to be a soldier, do you?”
He turned with a theatrical spin, his eyes alight. “No, my dear. And unless Celestia has radically changed military dress codes in favor of petticoats, I doubt you are either.” His inquisitive eyes searched the area quickly.
That’s peculiar, thought the girl. He’s in the middle of the room. He has to have seen it before.
“A ship,” he said carefully. “Listen to that almost inaudible propeller hum. We’re on a military airship.” He stuck his tongue out for a second before giggling. “Dear me, is that jungle air I taste?”
The girl stepped backwards. He might be an eccentric officer, but more likely he was some crazy pony with a box.
“That’s right. We’re over zebra territory now.”
The stallion did a small dance and sat down on a barrel. “Ah. The Bountiful Lands. The caravans of the giraffe merchants. The ruins of the kingdom of Mfalme the Cruel.” He cast a look at his blue box. “It’s been so long for me, my girl.”
She snorted. “Point of fact, I’m not your girl.”
He giggled as a smile played across his lips. “Point of fact, I was not in fact talking to you.”
“Well, you’re certainly not polite," the girl said with a huff. "Also, rather uninformed. The ruler of the zebra lands is called Mfalme the Just.”
He nodded. “The Princess Mailaika hasn’t snuck the rebels into the castle yet, I suppose.”
She shook her head with growing confusion. “Sir, you speak so very eccentrically and dress worse. Pardon my rudeness, but do you happen to be a hobo?"
He paused. “Well, yes indeed. However, the scale in question is quite a bit bigger. I say, what are you doing here?”
The girl raised her nose proudly. “I happen to be traveling on this ship as a passenger.”
The stallion smiled. “Hah! Not officially, most likely. Aside from this being a military ship, your dress and accent contrast with the amount of dirt you’ve accumulated. Not very promising accommodations here, I must say.” A flat smile spread across his face. “Also, I do hope the navy isn’t so hard up that it admits soldiers who’ve barely earned their cutie mark.”
“I... haven’t yet, actually,” she said with a dropped gaze. Suddenly the girl raised eyes flashing defiance. “I will any day now!”
“Really?” He paused. “Has the captain made a guess as to what it will be?”
She sighed, turning away. “All right. The captain is indeed ignorant of my presence. I’m a stowaway.” As she turned back to the funny little stallion, her eyes flashed. “What do you intend to do about it?”
He paused, examining the girl’s face. She felt like his eyes were cataloging the corners of her soul. Without warning, he stood up and offered a hoof to her.
“The Doctor, Official Ambassador of the Hobos, is honored to meet the Royal Queen of Stowaways. Let this meeting bring fortune to our kingdoms.”
She giggled, shaking hooves. “Dorothea Dinkestra Do, Your Royal Homelessness.”
After pulling his hoof away, the Doctor bowed. “Let me play for you the song of my people.” He immediately produced an enormous slide-whistle, performing while raising and lowering his eyebrows. Dorothea applauded.
The Doctor put his instrument back inside his voluminous coat. “So, what brings you to this lovely place, my dear Dorothea?”
She leaned back against the barrel. “Boundaries. Wherever I turn, its ‘Do this, Dorothea,’ or ‘Behave properly, Dorothea.’ It’s getting to the point where I can’t even stand to hear my own name.”
The Doctor stepped closer, lowering himself onto one knee. “My Lady, you could change it.”
“What?”
“Change your name! Trust me, it works wonders. You forget who you were afraid of becoming, and remember who you want to be.”
She stared at him for a moment in silence before the tolling of bells filled the room. Dorothea covered her ears.
“What is that confounding din?”
The Doctor sighed, his eyes playing along the walls of the ship. “Those would be the sounds of an alarm.”
Dorothea flinched as a stallion’s scream sounded out. She turned back to the Doctor.
He nodded. “The Zebra Air Navy's gliders have landed. We must be on the H.M.S. Courageous , no doubt.”
Dorothea’s eyes widened. “How did you manage to get on board, Doctor? And why does the ship’s name matter?”
The door of the cargo compartment buckled, then opened forcefully. The Doctor quickly pulled Dorothea into a shadowy corner as fiercely-painted armed zebra warriors filled the room, escorted several injured crewmembers at spearpoint.
He leaned over to her ear. “We happen to be in a very important historical event, my dear. I do believe this is one that might require my intervention. Be a good girl, and find yourself a place to-- ”
“No,” she whispered forcefully. “I’ll not sit back while these savage ruffians attack our good sailors.”
“These ‘savage ruffians,’" the Doctor said with a sigh, "my dear Dotty, have a history longer than Equestria’s, and most likely detest their orders. Still, you’ve been well and truly caught up in this one, I admit. Well, let’s see if we can sneak out onto the deck, maybe commandeer an escape glider. If all else fails, surrender. That’s a quick way to get the inside scoop on things. Are you ready?”
She nodded, an eager smile on her face, and he quickly returned it.
“Well then, my dear. It’s time for some danger and derring do!”
Dorothea froze as the Doctor crept off into a shadow. As she lightly stepped behind him, she dared to whisper into the darkness. “Wait. What was that last part, Doctor?”
___
Just now, in a magical land of Equestria being slowly disassembled...
John Doo-Smith looked into the abyss. He was gratified to find it not staring back.
The abyss in question used to be the kitchen door. Now, it looked out over a long drop into nothing. Lights in the distance suggested stars, if it wasn’t for the occasional burst of movement. John gave the retreating heavens a skeptical look. Are they moving, or are we?
Smooth Storm sidled up to his son-in-law, balancing a mug of cider. “So, looking at this thing-- “
Wordlessly, John grabbed the cider with his teeth and threw it into the void. As it slowly floated away, the liquid spread out of the vessel, spreading out in a sparkling cloud of droplets.
“See?” John pointed, eyebrows raised. “It’s not an optical-- ”
“I know, John.”
John’s explanatory brain circuits ground to a halt. “Buhwut?”
Storm peered out after his floating drink, expanding toward freedom in the void. “I saw your experiment with the pencil. You threw it in. It floated. I decided something weird was happening and grabbed a drink. I accepted the evidence of my eyes, John.”
“Dad? Grandpapa? What’s wrong?”
John’s quickly turned away from Storm’s unyielding covered glare to Dinky. She sat in the middle of the floor, staring between the two stallions and the starfield.
John swallowed, throwing on the confident smile. “Well, Muffin... “
Storm pushed in front of him. “Everything’s fine. Grauntie Daring is probably playing some kind of trick.”
Dinky blinked, then narrowed her eyes. “That is a no-gravity place,” she said, pointing her hoof. “Stuff is floating. Daddy, is space broken?”
John turned to the door and shrugged. “It’s some localized space-time disjunction, I would suspect.”
Storm’s gaze moved between the two, his mouth open.
Dinky nodded. “You mean a magic door to nowhere?”
“Um. Sure, we’ll go with that.”
Dinky beamed. “Okay. So, we should see if every door is a magic door now, right?”
Her answer was a ruffled hoof-noogie. “That’s my Little Muffin! Let’s grab some food and look about!”
As he stuck his head in the fridge, Dinky stared at Storm. She shook her head. “Celestia, why does every grown-up think I’m stupid?” Dinky walked over to her father, keeping him between her and Storm.
Storm sighed and poked his head out of the opposite doorway, scanning the corridor. A long hallway stretched before him, dozens of closed doors along its way. At the end of the hallway a portrait of a stern stallion in a kilt stared back at Storm, regarding all viewers with an amused smirk.
As Dinky‘s curiosity overcame her indignation, she went to join her grandfather. John nodded, dropping all pretense of scavenging food. Finally alone, he went back to the door.
Things started coming into view.
Far below him, some kind of funhouse floated in the void. He could barely make out a light violet filly running around on the roof. John thought he recognized her, but his brain was sidetracked by the draconequus which pulled itself out of the shadows behind her.
John blinked. “What?”
A voice broke through the void. “Twilight, I think someone’s watching us.”
John looked up in shock. A misty cloud had floated into view just a hundred paces away. Through the fog, John could just make out the silhouette of a minotaur wielding an axe and a necktie. The well-dressed warrior stared back in his direction. John swallowed, waving a hoof and smiling.
The minotaur leaned out of the cloud, peering at John like a displeased drill instructor. Just as quickly, a familiar lavender hoof tapped him on his back. The beast snorted, shrugged and turned away.
“Well, this can’t get any weirder,” John said as he wiped his brow.
Discord leaned out of the same cloud, waved at John with a grin, and disappeared back into the fog.
John blinked. He stared at the cloud. He cast a glance downwards, checking that the first Discord was still also below him the entire time on the floating funhouse. Nodding, he slammed the door.
“Feh. Alternative timelines. Possible futures. Gingerbread houses.” He sighed as he stared at the closed door. For very justified reasons, he felt a universe away from the rest of his family.
An uncomfortable silence had settled over the dining room. Daring Do moved a spoon idly through her soup, scrutinizing the floating vegetables intently. This had the comforting side effect of avoiding Ditzy’s livid gaze. Next to Ditzy, Sparkler sat with her head on her hooves, her mind in a time and place far away.
“Hey, Sparky! Did you want your dinner?”
Topsy sat with an entire side of the table to herself. She waved a bread basket at Sparkler, shaking it like a marooned castaway signaling to boats on the horizon. “I have your breee-aaad. You oughta eat somethin’ more!”
Sparkler flickered her gaze up for a second, snorting.
Topsy bit her lip. “Muffin, dear, would you like-- “
“Not now, mother,” Ditzy interrupted. She kept her eyes on Daring. “I’m trying to talk to my beloved aunt.”
Examining Daring, Topsy saw little hope. She pushed herself up from the table suddenly. “Fine. I can tell when I’m not wanted. I’m sorry for caring so much about everyone. I’ll find a canal somewhere to kill myself in.”
She ran off, generations of Bronxian mothers subconsciously culminating in the perfect guilt trot. Topsy would deny deliberately acting theatrically the same way a volcano would deny wanting to mess up the neighborhood. It was in her DNA, possibly literally. A geneticist might see the familiar bases of her spiral helix spell out the words “Would it kill you to write me?”
Ditzy rubbed her eyes. “Sparkler, please go after your grandmother. Try to make her feel better.”
Ditzy heard her daughter’s outtake of breath.
“Mother, I am not liking grandmother much at the moment.”
Ditzy stared into her salad, taking inventory of her soul. Yup, the badge says Mom. That means I do the things that suck.
She turned to Sparkler, willing the stone weight in her height to start rolling. “Sparks, I don’t like my Mom very much right now. I love her, though. You know that song I sing to Dinky when she’s scared of bed monsters?”
Tentatively, Sparkler scooted her chair back to face her mother. Curiosity overcame emotions in the Doo children most every time. “She taught you the song, Mother?”
Ditzy shook her head, a smile wandering out unbidden. She turned and gently massaged Sparkler’s shoulder.
“Sparks, she wrote that song.” Ditzy shook her head. “Mom said it was specially sent by Princess Celestia, but I was a scared, young insomniac. I heard her staying up late, writing that song and practicing the melody. She sang it to me every night.”
Daring Do was listening intently, elbows on the table and head on her hooves. Sparkler lifted a cucumber slice into her mouth and bite down, chewing over both vegetables and implications.
“So, you knew the song wouldn’t work, Mother?”
Ditzy giggled into a coffee mug. “Not at all. But I did know I had a mother who’d do anything for me.”
“Topsy did that?” Daring asked incredulously.
“Yes,” Ditzy said proudly. “She’s a horribly manipulative, neurotic mess, but she’ll bite the head off a puma if it looked sideways at me.”
Hailing from a time of famous last stands and battles, Sparkler understood the honor of the suicide mission. She stood up silently, marching off to the far hallway but turned just before passing out of sight. “Father was much more straightforward with the monsters in the closet.”
Daring arched a brow as she turned to Ditzy. “Do tell, my niece. What did John do?”
Ditzy savored the taste of the story to come.
“John turned off the light and marched through the shadow-portal right into Closetland. He kidnapped the thirteen Kings of Torment, dragged them back into Dinky’s room, and forced them to apologize on the spot. She hasn’t spotted a monster since.”
Laughter echoed throughout the dining room for the first time in years. As it petered out, Ditzy’s brow furrowed. Her smile disappeared as she pointed an accusing hoof at Daring Do.
“You knew John! You knew John, and neither of you even told me!”
“Yes, I did. I knew ‘John.’ I remember the Doctor, with his ridiculous recorder playing, tramping around the universe like some aged cosmic hobo.” She drew in a breath. “Of course, the next incarnation I encountered him in appeared much younger.” Daring performed her best tiger growl impression, improved by years of running from actual tigers.
Ditzy went pale. “Auntie Daring, don’t you dare!”
Daring blinked. “Oh, stop being a sore winner. Ditzy, my dear, he married you. Contemplate that. He married you. Out of all the girls who tried, myself included, he’s settled down for you for a lifetime.” She sighed. “By all rights, I should be the jealous one. Point of fact, I’m proud of you.”
Ditzy clapped, leaping into the air with quivering wings. “Really?”
A joyful buzzing grey blur pirouetted over the dinner table, reminding Daring of babysitting days long past. She took a sip of champagne and watched her niece twirl in the old familiar patterns. “Well, just a bit jealous,” she whispered to herself. “What’s a bit of jealousy between relatives?”
Years of listening for a groaning blue box had stretched Ditzy’s hearing to the limit. She slowed to a hover, biting her lip. “Auntie? What did happen between you and John?”
“Mother?” Sparkler’s voiced called out from the hallway. “Something is not right. Where is Father?”
Daring nodded, slammed back the rest of her champagne, and threw the glass into the fireplace. “Time happened, Ditzy. Time always happens. Now let’s see what your little girl has found.”
She stretched her wings but kept to the ground as she walked off.
An irritated sigh rushed out of Ditzy. “No one really likes a cliffhanger, you know!”
The two adventurers rushed down the hallway. Ditzy’s mind was focused on her daughter’s safety, but she still had enough abnormal mental power to make an observation. Despite the need to hurry and her excited smile, Daring still hadn’t taken to the air.
At the end of the hallway stood Topsy and Sparkler. The plaque over the open doorway read “Artifact Storage: Keep Locked.” The sign was no longer accurate. A sweeping starfield stretched out as far as the eyes could see.
The four mares considered this for a moment. Daring Do leaned over to her grand-niece.
“My darling Ditzy, this was supposed to be a vacation. Your husband didn’t bring some work along, did he?”
___
Elsewhere, in arguably the same house, Dinky sighed in exasperation. Storm and John walked ahead of her. As a matter of fact, the two were competing to see whom would be walking in front, and every so often one would try to speed up or turn the corner quickly. If she wasn’t so worried, the time they both became stuck in the same arch would have amused her quite a bit.
Ever the diplomat, John tried to fan the embers of polite conversation.
“Hopefully Ditzy and the rest landed in a similarly pleasant area.”
“Oh, my daughter will be fine.” Storm opened up a door, peering into another void. He nodded with a smile as he continued walking. “We should be worried.”
The two Doo-Smiths shared a look, and John wiggled a hoof at his in-law. “Did he just sound like me?” His daughter nodded, drawing out a roll of his eyes.
“Daddy, you have to do it.” She shrugged.
For a moment, John wished he could be in his boring repair shop. He covered his eyes. “All right, fair’s fair. I’ll bite.” He coughed into his hoof, readying himself to deliver the line.
“Why is that?”
A career of announcing had given Storm a fine sense of drama, and as he basked in the attention his primary feathers lifted in an unconscious preen. “She’s a well-toned young genius. You’re a washed up toaster-repair pony. They have all the assets.”
A minuscule kick to Storm’s well-toned leg did absolutely nothing. Dinky growled. “You have no idea what my Daddy can do!”
“Dinky,” John said in a flat tone, “stop abusing your grandfather.”
She sighed.
“Leave that to the adults,” John continued with a snarl. His voice dropped to a whisper. “My dear Storm, why don’t you come out and finally say what you’ve been holding back all those years?”
In a life that ran on manufactured emotion, Smooth Storm was never scarier than when he showed none. “My daughter,” he whispered back, “was going to be somebody before she made some bad choices. You were bad choice number two. I would have never approved her marrying a second-rate tinker.”
Dinky looked at the two soft-spoken stallions with frustration. “We really should go!”
John raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s mighty interesting considering what your approved choice did to her.”
Storm flinched as if slapped. He snorted and pawed the ground. Over his career, Smooth Storm had seen many underdogs. Rarely do they pull off the spectacular win, and he thought of those imbalanced odds now. “John, are you really going to do this now?”
“Yes, I will. Let’s start with your secret.” John smiled, and Storm shivered. “Here’s what I do. I think. I notice things. What I find fascinating is the fact that you seem fine with your Aunt even after she cut you off. The lovely and loud Misses Storm is the one most put out. Considering the Smooth-Daring family argument is legendary, one wonders why you’re not more upset. So, logically... “
Storm moved not a muscle, at least not until Dinky whispered “What are those, Daddy?”
Both stallions obediently turned. Down the long corridor sat a landing. Nothing was there. It happened to be jerkily stalking between the furniture. The hunched, flickering figure was at least twice as tall as a pony, and it’s claws dragged along the ground as it walked.
John’s face went pale as he took a step back. “Oh, no,” he whispered. “Not those. Not here.”
Stepping next to his son-in-law, Storm whispered cautiously. “What, that thing? Okay, the flickering is weird. One point in my favor, my aunt’s Daring Do. Not the weirdest thing I’ve seen. Well, not by much. Still, it looks like a big monkey. Monkeys are funny.”
At his hooves, Dinky tensed as the Nothing Man jerkily leapt over an inconvenient couch, moving like a badly controlled marionette.
Carefully, John opened a door while keeping the thing in sight. He was gratified to see a billiard room with a door leading elsewhere, and stepped inside, waving to Storm.
“Well,” he said softly with some consideration. “Yes. Well, no. More like things based on other things based on monkeys. Met those monkeys once, on a far-off blue world no one goes to. Well, mostly blue. Um, mostly no one.”
“Other... world?” Storm snorted as Dinky tried to shush him. As he looked down, she shook her head.
“Trust Daddy,” she whispered imploringly. “He knows about monsters.”
As Storm and Dinky entered, John carefully closed and locked the door. Storm cracked his neck, punching one hoof into another. “So,” he said conversationally, “why should I be afraid of monkey-things? Heck, they’re things imitating monkeys. Why would you choose a monkey to imitate?”
“Sticks,” said John as he pulled Storm away from the door while not taking his eyes off of it. “My dear Storm, monkeys use sticks. Advanced post-monkeys use... well, advanced sticks.” He swallowed. “Not every race in the universe fights their wars with pies, Storm.”
Dinky walked under the pool table, keeping her father in sight. The most terrifying thing in the worlds to her was the fear in her father’s voice.
By now, Storm was unconsciously keeping his front to the door they had entered through. “Sticks? That’s ridiculous. Someone could get hurt.”
The Doctor shook his head with a smile. “Remind me to congratulate Celestia when we get out of here on a thousand years of culture-shaping practical psychohistory well done.” He reached to open the far door just as its top became nothing. Splinters of wood showered through the room as the nothing stared at them. Then it reached through the hole and placed a flickering hand on the doorknob.
While he would beat himself up about it for the rest of his life, Smooth Storm could be forgiven for freezing. Having evolved from a herd animal, his DNA carried the legacy of untold ancient proto-equines who froze at the sight of a predator. His heritage whispered into his brain, suggesting that maybe the nasty thing hadn’t spotted him yet. While ponies could overcome this reaction, it has been noted that even the brave Elements of Harmony seemed to pause or run occasionally from foes they markedly outclassed. There was no shame in Storm’s reaction, considering his heritage.
John Doo-Smith’s heritage wasn’t Equestrian. While they weren’t normally proud of him, the Time Chargers of Gallopfrey would have nodded approvingly had they watched John instantly reach into his trench coat for a beeping tool, glaring at the monster with eyes of hate.
“Run,” he said with a voice like iron right before he threw the gadget in his mouth. As it lit up, the doorknob clicked. A nonexistent claw wiggled the now-immobilized doorknob as John stared at it like a wrecking-ball driver examining a condemned building.
The ponies John descended from had developed a much harsher habit for dealing with predators. Shortly after meeting the Time Chargers, their predators tended to retroactively stop existing.
At John’s order, Storm ‘s herd-mentality propelled him into the air. As he took off he pulled a pained squeak out of Dinky by grabbing her tail in his teeth.
John was still sizing up the frustrated not-thing when it gave up on the knob. Two arms made of vortex extended fully through the hole, and the angry void tensed shoulders it didn’t have. The door split into two halves.
“We,” said John to the advancing uncreature, “are not done here.” He turned and galloped hard. “I am nowhere near done with you!” He called out as he ran out of the room.
The nearby nowhere nodded. It wasn’t done with John, either.
____
A shimmering unicorn in a golden coat and a three-toned mane flew across the wide expanse of space with magically extended wings. Daring Do clicked her tongue in irritation and slammed the door.
“No,” she said as she turned to the hopeful-looking crowd behind her. “That’s just another abyss, and far too silly to boot.”
She backpedalled as a sobbing Topsy grabbed her with both hooves.
“Where is Dinky? She has to be here! She was just in the kitchen.” Topsy’s red-rimmed eyes stared out unkindly. “This is your awful cash pit of a house! Can’t you find your own kitchen?”
The trophy-studded hallway was silent as Daring slowly placed her hoof on top of Topsy’s.
“My dear Topsy,” she said with dripping implied threat, “please remove your hooves. Before I do.”
Topsy collapsed onto the floor, and Daring shook her head, looking between Ditzy and Topsy several times. As Ditzy helped Topsy to her feet, Daring could only shrug. She turned away, keeping on hoof along the right wall. “Listen carefully, Topsy. We should be in the conservatory now. Whatever is doing this in not just taking away rooms, but rearranging them as well.” She turned back as the sound of a heavy object being pulled across the floor.
A gigantic stone sun hovered in the air, its grinning skull centerpiece glittering in the purple aura that held it in front of Sparkler.
Daring addressed her in a tone that suggested reprimanding a child taking an extra cookie. “My dear little girl, that relic is over a millennium old and priceless.”
Sparkler nodded. “I can tell. I know old things. I am also knowing it is heavy, many pointed, and being perfectly shaped as a shield. It’s wide enough to provide cover for my mother and grandmother at all simultaneous.” She returned an unwavering glare at Daring Do. “I am also no one’s little girl .”
Topsy ran to Sparkler’s side, feebly trying to pull the object down with the strength of a lifetime of event organization. Despite her recent breakdown, Topsy was always willing to talk down to a minor, and as she strained on the stone disc suddenly nothing happened. “Come on, Sparkly-Spoo,” Topsy said through gritted teeth. “Listen to your Auntie Dar-Dar.”
“Mother,” Ditzy said while tapping the ground and mentally counting prime numbers, “don’t patronize her.”
“Forget it, Topsy,” came the relaxed voice of Daring.
Breathing heavily, Topsy turned to see Daring’s proud smile. The aged adventurer walked over to Ditzy, hooking a wing around her shoulders. With her other wingtip, she pointed at Sparkler.
“Ditzy, my dear and darling muffin, did you do that?”
Sparkler coolly watched Daring.
Ditzy Doo-Smith straightened, nodding. “I can only take some of the credit. A lot of that is John, and even more is Sparkler.”
“I definitely approve.” Daring gave a wing-pat to Ditzy’s back as she trotted over to the slack-jawed Topsy. “Let Sparkler keep the big rock, Tops. It sounds like her priorities are in order. She may not be family in blood, but she’s definitely ours in spirit!” Looking away from Topsy’s blank stare, she turned back to Sparkler. “My dear niece who is definitely no little girl, your auntie would like to know if you could use that in a fight.”
Sparkler bit her lip. “It is not exactly balanced like a cart or lamppost, but similar to sweeping at slime monsters with a bench.”
In response, Daring extended her wing to put a brief, firm grip on Sparkler’s shoulder. “Let’s see what’s out there then.”
“Lead on, old one,” said Sparkler with a nod.
Topsy gasped.
Daring took a determined step towards the grinning teen wielding the quarter-ton stone weapon. “Pardon me,” she whispered, “but I happen to be a professor in dead languages, and if I place your accent right, you’re older than I am, Granny.”
She said something to Sparkler in words Topsy didn’t understand. For a second, Sparkler trembled, and the sundial wobbled in the air. Daring pointed her wing down the corridor with a raised eyebrow. Sparkler nodded, walking side by side with her smug-looking great aunt. Topsy could hear the two whispering, but all the words sounded like waterfalls serenading each other.
Topsy gasped as the skull-faced sundial suddenly swooped in front of her. It then slid sideways through the air as it made a circular patrol around her and her daughter. She bit her lip and turned to Ditzy, who was smiling and wiping her eyes with a wingtip. Sighing, Topsy put on the face she wore at every backstage breakdown. “Come on Little Bubbles! Let’s keep up!”
Ditzy obediently followed. “Mom?”
Anything was a more welcome conversation topic than the stony sentinel that encircled her. Topsy eagerly turned her attention to Ditzy. “Yes, dear?”
“You know that feeling you get as a mother when your daughter makes you proud?”
“Oh yes,” Topsy lied with a grin, “absolutely.”
The two Nothing Men stalked through the library. Huge oak shelves filled over two quarters of the magnificent room. Just above them, John and his family hid. The flickers stalked them, having started on the empty side of the room.
Storm considered it luck. John had a terrible suspicion.
Storm pulled himself forward slowly and deliberately. He moved as much as he dared to as he placed his mouth next to John’s ear. Risking a whisper, Storm breathed out a question. “Why are they here?”
John’s eyebrows shot up. “Asking me? Admitting I have some expertise?” Realizing the futility of staring down Storm’s sunglasses, John shrugged. “Well. Hmm. Um. Well. To get rid of us.”
As the Nothing Men advanced across the half empty library, Storm bit his lip. “Why us, specifically?” He felt Dinky tense as the not-things drew near, and gave her a reassuring hug.
Trying to keep his eyes one the two uncreatures as they split up within the bookshelves, John continued. “When I say us, I mean all of us. The continent, maybe the planet. Very thorough. Kind of like the universe’s defense system. They’re-- ”
“Antibodies!” Storm whispered in victory. “I’m not stupid, John. They’re antibodies. So why should they attack us? We’re not the problem!”
“Smooth,” John started.
“I prefer Storm.”
“I would, too. Listen, they’re more like your body’s killer cells. When you first get a nasty infection the body needs time to develop antibodies. First, it sends out the killer cells. They don’t seek out the intruders. They kill everything near where the intruders are.”
Storm shivered. He wondered what his aunt was thinking, using a huge room like this to store such a small library. The bookshelves only took up the middle quarter of the room. He’d have to ask her about that.
“What are you saying, John?”
“I’m saying that there’s been a breach in the universe so nasty something noticed, and the Nothing Men are here to wipe the planet out of history.”
Storm ran his hoof down Dinky’s mane. “Should she be hearing this?”
John gave him a barely-patient look. “Information increases her chance of survival.”
“They’re not my first monsters, Grandpapa,” Dinky whispered into her grandfather’s ear.
Storm was silent a second. “What are... ‘men,’ John?”
John sighed. “Well, ‘truly good at heart’ to quote one of them. I ended up on their planet once. Briefly. They have incredible potential.”
“So, why pick them--”
“As the form of the destroyer? Well, I didn’t say potential for what. Potential goes both ways. If I had to pick a form for the universal eradicator... well, I’m old-fashion and would personally prefer something with scales and a tail, but there’s no accounting for taste.”
“Ooh, next time can it have horns, Dad?”
“I’ll check the store, Little Muffin. We might be in trouble, though. I think they do more than destroy objects. I think they erase them from time.”
Storm almost started to scoff, but after a second of inner struggle he gestured for John to continue.
“We wouldn’t remember it,” John said carefully, the Nothing Men mere feet away. “I have the sneaking feeling they’re erasing things as they look for us. Making them always nothing and never something, as it were. After all, why would Daring have a library with only one shelf, and why would we ever decide to hide on it?”
___
A look of confusion crossed Daring’s face as she sniffed the ground. “Yes, they definitely came through the billiard hall,” she declared as she pawed through the splintered remains of the door. “The only question remain is, ‘what was chasing them?’ I’d like to know what’s destroying my home.” She ran a contemplative hoof down the damaged door frame.
The hallway glowed noticeably purple as the stone disc spun faster around Ditzy and Topsy. Swallowing, Topsy caught a glimpse at Sparkler’s look of seething anger.
“Sparky-Spoo,” she said with barely a stammer, “Grandmama wants you to put the big stone thingy down, please. Somepony may get hurt.”
Years of time travel had gave Ditzy a great predictive instinct, but it was years of mothering that made her place a hoof on her mother’s shoulder. “Mom, I’d lay off the nicknames right now,” she whispered. “I warned you about talking down to her.”
The disc slowed down, but maintained its course. “Someone will get hurt,” Sparkler responded, “if they are threatening my sister.”
“Oh,” Topsy said with eyes of pity, “I understand. You’re just worried about Dinky. You poor thing!”
Ditzy rolled her eyes in a pattern that would have made geometry professors applaud. “Oh, boy. Okay, Mom, you get to learn your lesson now.”
Every object in the hallway lifted upwards a few centimeters.
“No! You will not call me that!"
Sparkler’s shout and a spray of dust from behind her drew Daring’s attention. Turning with a sigh, Daring prepared for the expected. “It never fails,” she said under her breath. “Bring more than two mares on an adventure and you might as well pack the mud-pit and popcorn.”
A snapped in half stone calendar levitated over Topsy. A quick glance reassured Daring that Topsy was still in fact breathing, and the stone had thankfully not been broken on her. Sighing, she moved to mediate. “Sparkler?”
The telekinetic teen was past listening, having pushed her nose against her grandmother's while baring her teeth. Ditzy Doo watched both of them carefully, wings outstretched to interpose if needed. In any case, Ditzy looked like she was enjoying herself.
“I have had enough,” Sparkler declared in perfectly unaccented Equestrian. “I have lost both mother, father, sisters and a brother. I have watched the land of my birth burn! I may be far from where I started, but I have protected the ones who are now my family, and I am no one’s poor thing!”
Blinking was the best Topsy’s nervous system could manage in response.
Ditzy was about to jump in when Daring nonchalantly said, “Sparkler, do you like me?”
The young mare turned, anger deflected into confusion. A second of consideration brought her back to rationality. “I do, Grauntie Do.”
A pair of wings stretched out backwards from Daring’s back, showcasing the noticeable pride she took in Sparkler’s answer. “Well,” she explained calmly, “you currently happen to be lifting an urn my husband and I found on our honeymoon trip to the highlands of Scoltland. It’s one of his family heirlooms, and I hold it very dear since his passing. I’m sure you understand remembering those you miss. Please put it down.”
Wordlessly, Sparkler carefully lowered a multitude of glowing objects. Daring Do kissed her nose in thanks.
“Excellent. Let’s keep looking for the rest of the clan.”
As they passed through the billiard hall, Daring made sure that Sparkler was out of earshot before whispering to Ditzy. “Quick question, my muffin. If Sparkler speaks perfectly fine normally, why does she still talk like that?”
A smile greeted Daring’s curiosity. “That’s ancient Pombreyan syntax, Auntie. It’s the last thing she has of the place she comes from.” Ditzy huffed. “I got a question for you. That was a show at the door, right? You can’t really track by scent?”
Daring snorted into her wing and raised an eyebrow towards Ditzy. “All right, I admit I haven’t been fair at it in years. I was just making sure I wasn’t crazy.” She leaned in closer to Ditzy. “Is that actually... ‘John’s’ cologne I smell? As in, ‘John’ now wears cologne?”
A giggle followed by a cascade of spread feathers advertised Ditzy’s pride. “He cleans up well, doesn’t he? You wouldn’t believe what he’s capable of now.”
Daring gave her grandniece a contemplative silent inspection. “You know, I think I can,” she concluded with a smile.
Before Ditzy could respond with more than a gasp, two halves of a stone calendar flew over her head. They slammed into the shimmering void that had stepped around the corner. Unprepared for the assault, the not-thing flew backwards like a rag doll before slamming into a wall. Two claws didn’t pull themselves out of the new indoor window. It didn’t look like many things, but it did look angry.
Daring sighed. “Monster?”
“Monster,” Ditzy confirmed with a nod.
Daring cocked her head as the unthing pulled itself out of the wall. “Time/reality manipulator, I suppose?”
Ditzy lifted a hoof and cracked her neck. “Most likely.”
The uncreated stood up, throwing its arm to the side as it roared like static on a dead radio station.
Daring nodded. She turned to look at Ditzy as they both said, “Run.”
Storm screamed as he felt himself being torn apart.
“Hang on!” The edges of his vision turned red as he strained under the dual weight of Dinky on his back and John in forelimbs. He flew like a thrown brick, but as he sailed over the clutching nothings he managed to clear their grasp.
Mostly.
“Must go higher!” The struggling bundle beneath Storm screamed, his passenger’s twin hearts beating fast as the Nothing Men ran after them like murderous children trying to catch a ball. “Must go higher!”
A gentle field of pink particles twinkled under Storm as Dinky noisily strained, her horn glowing feebly. She heard a crack as her grandfather’s wing beat down in desperation. Dinky could feel Storm’s labored breath as he cleared the door, primaries bent backwards as they clipped the frame. The trio slid along the floor at a rapid (and for two of them, painful) pace before a wall disagreed with the idea of acceleration.
A full second passed in groaning immobility.
“They couldn’t have erased you, John. I’m still irritated.” He quickly grabbed for a fallen pair of glasses and re-positioned them.
The baggage in question pushed Storm to the side and reluctantly stood. “Okay. Good. They’re clearing the door, Storm. We need to get airborne again.”
As Dinky jumped off Storm’s back he attempted to stand, grunting the whole time. “Not gonna happen. Wings won’t be good for more than passing the salt for a while.”
John couldn’t help grinning despite the closing void-things. “Ah, the family tradition. Well, let’s count our resources. Sixty feet of distance. The end of a T-corridor. Wonderful daughter. Grumpy old mess. Thirty feet of distance.”
John kissed Dinky on her forehead as he placed her on Storm. “I’ll be back, Littlest Muffin. I promise.”
His daughter’s eyes could have swallowed his soul. “Really?”
“Can’t... fly... John.”
“Well then, be an earth pony. H’yaah!” Storm whinnied away as John bucked him hard at the rear. He nodded in satisfaction before turning to the speedy shimmerings.
“Catch me if you can,” the Doctor shouted as he ran away from the monsters and his daughter, dashing into the unknown.
___
Galloping for her life, Sparkler voiced the thought Ditzy was currently trying to suppress.
“Where could father be?”
Must be Mommy. Mommy shows no fear.
“Somewhere close by, Precious, and I guarantee he’s thinking of us. I know your father, and he’d do anything to save us.”
Her mother’s answer did notthing to comfort Sparkler. She’d seen firsthoof what happened to ponies who’d do anything to save others. They all had tended to only manage to do one thing, in the long run.
Ditzy kept her gaze on Daring’s bobbing tail as the older mare tried to navigate the changing manor. Her brain kept driving in maternal mode, where she was allowed to consider everyone’s feelings and fears but her own.
“Mother? Are you all right? Can you keep up?”
An orange-topped blur zipped past as an answer. “Ditzy, your father’s never complained.”
“Mother!”
Unpleasantly distracted, Ditzy nearly crashing into Daring’s rear as the older mare stopped in the middle of the trophy museum. Daring stepped sideways, allowing Ditzy to turn a suit of armor into a facsimile of bouncing, metal bowling pins. A helmet rose out of the pile, looking frantically around until hooves turn it fully around.
“Oh. Ow. Yup, I think I know what went wrong there. We all accounted for?”
A tender hoof caressed Ditzy’s face. “Of course, Bubbeleh. Lucky for us, your auntie is so calm under danger.”
As Topsy flew off to commune with nearly prostate Daring, Sparkler swore she could see steam coming out of the helmet. A few quick purple flashes and Ditzy was free from the armor, if not from embarrassment.
“Argh! Horsefaddle fetlock and then then magazine! I don’t know why she treats me like-- “
“Her child, mother?”
That drew a brief nicker out of her mother before Ditzy continued. “It’s just, I mean, I can rattle off dimensional theory from centuries to come, and-- “
Sparkler leaned her head on Ditzy’s shoulder, apparently right on the trigger button to release a sigh long in coming.
“Mother, adults ignore the parts they are not understanding. She may assume you are being silly or making things up. After all, you do make up the words of silly all the time.”
Ditzy slowly turned to look at Sparkler before gently running a hoof down her daughter’s cheek. “My Precious Jewel. How did you ever grow up so fast?”
Sparkler blinked. “There was a pop quiz in geology.”
Their attention was drawn by Topsy’s clapping. “Well, well,” she said smiling, “I’m glad to see we’re all holding up wonderfully.” She cast a glance at Daring, still heaving and staring at the floor. “Right? Right, Daring, Bubbeleh?”
Eyes shot up from the floor that had not yet had defiance aged out of them. “No, Topsy. Not right. I’m not dead yet though.” She shivered as she stepped into the hall of dusty artifacts and preserved corpses. “Not yet a museum piece.”
An observer would need a freeze frame camera to capture the frown that proceeded Topsy’s professional working smile. “All righty then! Girls, let’s see if we can figure out how we can get out of the house and call the police.”
After Daring didn’t respond, Ditzy shrugged to herself. “Mom, we don’t even know if leaving the house is possible. This might be... ” Dozens of high-level physics term passed through Ditzy’s head before she settled on “...magic.”
“Besides, Grandmama,” Sparkler said while inspecting a now-opened weapons cabinet, “the police having better things to do than die.”
Topsy deflated like a punctured opera diva. Coincidentally, Daring Do smiled, although she hadn’t noticed Topsy’s defeat. If she had, she would have only smiled wider.
“Well, girls, at least I know who’s behind this.”
A long-suffering sigh escaped from Topsy. “Does it really matter-- ”
“Shush, Mom.”
“Please, not to be interrupting the explanation. This is being best part.”
With decades of practice, Daring flip her mane around and smiled at her family. Stallions of all ages had melted at the gesture, and even Sparkler looked away with a blush. “Well,” Daring said with relish. "It’s obvious. Knowing every exhibit display in every museum in Equestria, I would never have that awful thing on display.”
Her hoof pointed at a long and wooden zebra tribal mask hanging surreptitiously under a torch sconce.
As the Doo-Smith’s tensed for action, Topsy rolled her eyes. “That’s a piece of wood.”
The gruesome-faced piece of art flashed as it levitated into the air. As Ditzy’s wings spread and a suit of armor animated with a purple aura, Daring Do simply stepped forward and slowly clapped.
“Congratulations, Mfalme. Coming back from the dead is one thing, but leaving Topsy Turvy speechless is an entirely new accomplishment. That can’t be your real form, by the way. It’s still sealed downstairs.”
The mask flickered, then bobbed midair in an approximation of bowing. It talked, which is to say that sound emanated from it. It’s lips didn’t move, which part of Ditzy’s brain registered as a minor disappointment.
“Ah, your memory is remarkable, my old foe. True, I have not yet found a host for my consciousness. Still, when the storm I have gathered scours this mansion of life, it will not be too long before an errant scavenger inspects your artifacts.” Two orbs of angry green flared into life behind the mask’s eye holes. “To one such as I, it is a minor wait.”
“Mfalme!” Sparkler stamped on the floor. “Mfalme the Unjust! The Curse of the Zebras! Mfalme the sorcerer! Oh, mothers, I know this one!”
Topsy walked next to Daring and whispered as low as her life experiences could allow her. “How is the mask talking?”
Daring rolled her eyes. “Because it’s not... ”
“It is not the mask, peasant worm!” The disembodied voice roared at Topsy.
Daring Do made clicking sounds with her tongue. “What a hammy actor.”
The assembled mares covered their ears ineffectually as the voice boomed in their head.
“To one such as I-- ”
“Theweaknessofthebodyisnothingcomparedtothestrengthofthemind!” Daring drew a breath after delivering the rapid sentence.
There was an uncomfortable silence as the mask hovered motionlessly.
“I was going to say that,” Mfalme said.
“I know. You used to shout it all the time.” Daring blew an errant lock of hair out of her face and grinned.
Ditzy giggled.
The mask floated closer to Daring Do. “I hate you.”
“Given. Deal with it.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
The mood of tension completely collapsed as Daring Do dropped to the floor and started laughing. Ditzy and Sparkler were helpless to resist, and even Topsy started giggling nervously.
The mask of Mfalme soared into the air. “For your crimes against my kingdom and family, I intend to kill you! I see nothing funny about that!”
Daring somehow managed to stand. Ditzy prepared for another burst of the sniggles before her great-aunt ruined the mood completely by saying, “Go ahead.”
Mfalme hesitated. “What?”
The avatar of Mfalme was only a thought construct. Its destruction was barely plausible under most rules of magic and mysticism, and would have only given the source intelligence a fleeting pain similar to a bad ice cream headache. Still, the incorporeal entity doubled its distance from the ground as a livid Daring Do screamed into the air, “Kill me!”
The room was dead silent as Daring continued, all her mirth vanished.
“Kill me, you impotent old specter. You missed your deadline, my dear simple king. You should have tried harder in the jungle so long ago. Your nap was long enough to give me time for a long and happy life." She flung her wings out defiantly. “Go on, then! End the life a terminally ill old nag whose husband passed long ago. Get as much jollies out of that as you can with my bucking blessing."
An uncontrollable giggle rose out of Daring. For a second, Mfalme felt the presence of the young mare that spent years thwarting him. It ended and she coughed something of an unidentifiable color into her sleeve.
“At the very least, I’d never have to swallow those nasty pills again. Savor your revenge. I hope you choke on it.”
The mind-entity paused for several seconds. Ditzy turned to Sparkler.
“Now, if auntie’s got lucky, the whole id creature will just collapse. Pay attention.”
“Ah,” it said at last. “I see.”
Ditzy sighed.
The mask lowered until its flaring eyes stared directly into Daring’s own. “Death is only the end to your sufferings. Such it is with decrepit warriors of my own people.”
“Hey,” Daring shouted. “Terminally ill is one thing, but decrepit... ”
“But,” the mask continued, “if I give off a high level psychic pulse... ”
Nothing happen for several seconds as Ditzy scanned the room in anticipation. Then several very angry nothings barreled out from every door. Sighting the ponies, they slowly made a tightening circle. Sparkler moved her suit of armor between her family and the not-things as best she could, grinding her teeth as she turned in a circle with wide eyes.
WE COME. WE END.
“...I get to be rid of you, once and for all time.”
Ditzy flapped into the air. “That’s not fair! You broke the rules of mind, life, space, and stuff! They’re here for you!”
The mask had no real variable features except for the eye lights. Still, Ditzy thought she heard a wry grin.
“Ah, but they detect life, not minds. I’m completely invisible to them, so you’ll get the blame. In other words,” it said with relish, “deal with it.”
___
Why did I ever think this was a good idea?
John Doo-Smith nearly slid off his hooves as he turned a corner, his hearts straining to escape his chest. Behind him he heard the absence of the Nothing Men, silence ringing with every step they didn’t take.
He drank breath like water in a desert. “This one... never works well,” he muttered to himself.
Down the hallway in front of him doors opened onto endless Otherwheres. He skipped to a stop as a giant black form flew out of it, burning red eyes set in the chest of a headless body. The dark, winged biped glided across the hall, sailing into a door that showed a long metal bridge over a rushing river.
John stopped to catch his breath. “That’s a problem for another day.” He heard the nothing getting closer, and swallowed hard. Carefully, he walked to an open door. “Well, better me than them.”
Looking back revealed the flickering freaks almost upon him.
“Always suspected I’d do something like this. Never thought it would be alone.”
The talons of oblivion reached out for him.
“All right, then! Come on you never-has-beens! See if you can succeed where half the universe failed!”
He allowed himself a second longer than prudent to whisper, “I love you, Ditzy,” and then John Doo-Smith leapt through the doorway into the void whilst the Nothing Men tumbled after him.
Doctor Whooves and the House of Daring
Chapter 4: The Mind of Evil
Doctor Whooves and the House of Daring
Once upon a time, near the magical land of Equestria.
The smoke-stained stallion walked out of the jungle tree line. He was dressed in wreckage from head to hoof, his once-white suit blackened, his collar garnished with a now-fried and unrecognizable vegetable. Holding on to the pile of used kindling that could arguably be called a hat, he walked to the edge of a sparkling crystal pool. A river-like torrent fed the lake from the rocks towering above him. Aside from the sound of the spray, the only other noise was the gentle rustling of trees, their fragrant red and white flowers slowly dancing in the wind. Surrounding by crimson blooms and the crash of water, the pony finally began to sit and compose his thoughts.
He was called the Doctor, and although he was younger than he had been in years, he felt old.
Long minutes passed as he stared into the glistening lagoon. As hoofbeats approached, his eyes stared into the shifting pool, watching the currents along the bottom carry things away. Reality suddenly intruded on him as deft feathers yanked his hat remnant from his head and skipped it into the waterfall. It skimmed along the surface, lodging into a rocky crevice near the cascading tide.
He cast an irritated glance at the golden-coated mare smirking above him to little effect. Daring Do regularly suffered glares from the kind of people who employed capable underlings of questionable morals, often employing them in her direction. Considered along that spectrum, an irritated stare from the Doctor was a reward.
“I can’t take you anywhere, Dorothea Do.”
Soot scattered as her wing ruffled his mane.
“And yet,” she said with a smile, “you take me everywhere. Cheer up, you silly boy.”
He sagged, staring into the water. “That was my hat.”
“You have twenty like it,” Daring replied with a snort. As she spoke, Daring’s primary feathers unbuttoned her jacket.
Staring at an incurious fish, the Doctor wondered if sentience was overrated.
“That was my favorite hat.”
As Daring rolled her eyes, she folded her vest and placed it on the ground, weighing it against the wind with her pith helmet. He’s in one of those moods, she thought with a sigh. “It could barely be called a hat anymore, Doctor! Cheer up. You’re alive, you’ve stopped a lunatic, and you’re with a famous and beautiful mare about to go for a swim in a lagoon. I know a dozen stallions who would knife-fight to be in your place. Geronimo, by the way.”
The Doctor’s eyes stayed unfocused as a torrent of water caught him squarely in the face. Gradually he returned his attention to his surroundings, thoughts swimming in his head as he watched Daring sit under the waterfall, her feathers nimbly washing ash out of her hair.
“I want wings,” he finally announced. “I’ve had horns, but never wings. They’re so useful. It’s not fair.”
Her answer started with another splash to his face, punctuated by her pointing hoof.
“You got youth this time. Try enjoying it. I certainly do.”
“And you,” he replied with a tentative smile, “are both washing your hair and gesturing accusatively. Still jealous.”
The minutes passed in quiet contentment, sunlight scattering over the still water
“We interfered again,” he said finally. ”We came for your treasure map and we still found trouble. Why did we become involved again?”
Daring pulled herself through the lagoon, stopping to fold her forelimbs on a rock while she rested her head upon them. She gave the Doctor a long look before speaking.
“Because you spoke up. You stood in the middle of everything, shook your hooves in your endearing little way, and said ‘This is Something Wrong. This Ends Today.’ I saw a good stallion filled with energy and righteousness do what he does best. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t the Doctor I know and... admire.”
Centuries of focusing on the bigger picture allowed the Doctor to see the large vistas while missing the small, vitally important parts. He sighed as he composed himself, Daring’s words fading without remark.
“One day you’ll be a ruined mare because of me, Dorothea Do.”
A flick of her wing answered him with a wet spray. He almost managed not to smile as he wiped his face.
“My dear Doctor,” Daring said with a wiggle of her feathered water weapons, “I’m positively looking forward to it.”
Swimming over to shore, Daring lifted herself on her front hooves as her wings extended. Nimble feathers wrapped around a flower-covered branch, drawing it down within smelling range. She breathed in the sweet aroma of the red and white petals.
“Incidentally,” the Doctor said as he proved his innate ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. “I think your treasure map is off, I don’t know of any hidden gold here.”
“It’s very well hidden, apparently,” she replied while rolling her eyes. “This Scarlet Bloom blossom is gorgeous. Would I be ruining my image as a liberated mare if I put a flower in my hair, Doctor?”
Smirking, he stood and gently bit a flower from a low-hanging branch. Daring silently inclined her head as he furled its stem through her mane, setting it just above her right ear. He gently ran his hoof down her mane once unconsciously, staring into her eyes as her wings straightened up.
“Dorothy, I think the whole point of being liberated is being free to choose what you are without worrying about categories. Don’t worry about being a ‘proper’ adventurer; be who you want to be. What’s the use of liberation if you can’t be a mare as well?”
She watched him stare at her mane.
“Besides,” he concluded, “the red really shines against the grey. I like it.”
They sat there for a while until the Doctor raised his litany of crimes to committed multiple murder of quiet moments.
“That statue of Princess Mailaika they’ve put in front of the hospital is really something, no? You have to admire zebra art for tugging your hearts’ strings.”
Daring stiffened.
“When I think of what she could have done,” she started to say before closing her mouth. Looking up, she saw the Doctor’s eyes resting on her. Daring knew he’d give her the entire afternoon to compose her next sentence if she needed it.
“Tell me why, Doctor?” she finally asked. “How did a monster like Mfalme get to have a daughter like that?”
He stirred the waters of the pond with a hoof as he stared down and far away.
“He tried to grind the world under his hoof, yes,” the Doctor finally offered. “Always remember that he did it for her. He kept the nightingale in a cage, and tried to expand the cage to every horizon.”
He sneezed as Daring’s wing tickled his nose.
“So, if you love something,” she concluded, “you have to let it run free.”
Daring Do sighed. Paddling over to him, she rested her head on his crossed forelimbs. This time, the Doctor could sense her need for quiet. Thoughts collided in his head while he watched the shadows of the day lengthened. Every so often his hoof would rest on Daring’s mane, and she would freeze the way a naturalist does when not wishing to spook a timid, rare wild animal. Finally his long and meandering train of thought arrived at the station of his mouth.
“There’s something coming, Dorothy.”
Daring snorted. “There’s no wildlife or ponies around this lagoon. Trust me, I’ve scouted this place pretty well.” Swallowing in sudden embarrassment, she sunk back into bravado. “I told the little dog kid not to bring the airship for several days.”
His hooves lifted her head up, cracking her heart as she saw worry fill his eyes.
“I don’t mean beasts, zebras, or or little Shortwide,” he said. “I mean something’s coming for me, in a general foreboding kind of way. I’ve listened to the symphony of life, and I hear the first notes of an overture that will play as the galaxy burns. I don’t think it’ll be resolved for centuries, but I have to steer the symphony. Someone must be in at the beginning to leave their mark. Daring, I have to leave soon.”
As her hooves entwined around his, she said with confidence, “You’ll be back.”
“How could you know?” The Doctor with a cocked head and a curious smile.
“Because you’ll promise me, and I’ll hold you to it.” Her smile glowed with humor and a few other things the Doctor missed. “Because, if you don’t return to me, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”
He breathed out slowly. In the eight short years in this form, he still enjoyed the taste of air in these lungs. In two weeks, that was one of two the memories of that day he would think of on a lonely planetoid as the regeneration energy flowed over him. The other was summed up in his mysterious last word, “Gold.”
At the current moment (or as close as one ever gets to that as a time traveller), he was still studying her face. “You’re not the same little girl in a dirty dress willing to take on zebrican assassins, Daring.” He nudged a lock of hair out of her eyes as she shivered at the touch.
“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “You did that. Without you, I’d be a proper Trottingham lady. While we’re on the subject of changes, I much prefer this year’s model of you to the interstellar tramp look.”
The Doctor froze for several seconds before gently pushing Daring back into the water. “Well,” he announced as he stood, “we should get a move on to get to the next point in the treasure hunt. Who knows, maybe we’ll be dodging stone arrows by breakfast.”
Water sailed into the air as Daring Do rose halfway out of the pond, her spreading feathers launching a wet cascade. Dripping partly with amusement, her wings snagged the Doctor’s lapel.
“We’re right where we need to be,” she said.
The Doctor pitched sideways at the tug and was dragged off-balance toward the pool.
“Um,” he declared as his hoofs touched the waterline. “Um, Daring, we should go meet up with Shortwide, shouldn’t we?”
Her face was suddenly so very more closer to his than usual.
“I said my companion has his own holiday,” she said as hooves locked around his forelimb. “Let the little scamp have a week in Mareocco. Your companion is right here, and demands attention.” Daring quickly yanked the Doctor off of his hooves.
A second later a bedraggled head broke the surface, spitting water. Finally able to stand, the Doctor felt a hoof move across his chest. His jacket, barely holding itself together after the misadventures of the past few days, fell apart into pieces.
“I-I thought you brought me here to seek treasure,” he managed to stammer as she gently bit his ear. “D-Dorothy, where’s the gold supposed to be?”
She snorted with his ear in her mouth, drawing a sharp breath of pain from him. Pulling back, Daring Do gave him a long-suffering look that a dozen other mares had given him over centuries. “Oh, Doctor. My dear, silly boy. You see but do not perceive. Have you looked at me lately, Doctor?”
With her wet wings encircling around him, the only color the Doctor could see was a shimmering gold. He had seen planets formed in supernovae-rich star clusters that glimmered golden from their sun’s light, but Daring’s warm coat seemed to outshine them all as she pushed him backwards against the stony rim of the pool.
“Daring,” he gasped. “What... are you.... ”
She stopped biting his neck long enough to whisper in his ear. “Alive, Doctor. Today, unlike others, I’m alive. Remind me what that’s like.”
The Doctor gently lifted her chin, readying any number of speeches his former selves had practiced for years. Her eyes stopped him. In this body alone, he had spent years watching the universe try to kill Daring. In all that time, he had never seen the fearful vulnerability that shone in her purple eyes now.
Of all the black deeds billed to the Doctor’s soul, he’d never add breaking a proud, dirty young girl in petticoats. And he was so young now...
“I won’t run, Daring,” he said before careful planting his lips on hers, drinking in her breath of excitement. As her wings closed around him, the beating of three hearts sang louder than the waterfall.
Smooth Storm always hated physical education teachers.
Growing up, he had spent his somewhat-difficult flight school years shocked at the state of his instructors. The harder the training regiment grew, the more out of shape the faculty running it seemed to be. He was shocked that Mister Cumulous didn’t bring Cloudsdale down single-hoofedly, or at least make it sag.
When he became part of the athletic world as a sportscaster, he promised himself the he would never be so hypocritical. Over the years he had always kept himself in shape, and the public, his self-esteem, and his wife greatly appreciated it.
As Smooth Storm collapsed onto the floor, he wondered if he should have done more.
“H-hold on, kiddo,” he said as he skidded to a slow walk. Minutes of panicked flight had turned into more minutes of gliding, and finally into a long stretch of running. Shaking, he gently placed Dinky onto the floor next to him as he collapsed onto the floor.
The worried sideways face of his granddaughter entered his vision. “Grandpapa? You’re not okay.” She looked around. “We need to get some cover.”
“No, Little Muffin.” He panted on his side. “Grandpapa needs a break.”
Are those the monsters’ footfalls, he wondered, or my own heartbeat?
Dinky let out a frustrated squeak as she looked around. “Does everybody with a cutie mark assume kids are dumb! Gellbiflorbit!” She reached for her grandfather’s glasses. “Lemme take a look at you.”
Storm blinked and pushed Dinky’s hoof away. “Sorry, those are a trademark.” He tried and failed to pull himself upright as his lungs started to get a handle on the situation. Storm noted that he was on some kind of upstairs balcony. The soft chairs and cushions looked comfortable. The visible starfield hanging just beyond the bannister didn’t.
“Hey, kiddo.” His breathing slowed down. “What does ‘Gellbiflorbit’ mean?”
Years of parenting let him decode the blush on Dinky’s face. “Well,” she said as she scratched her mane, “Daddy says if I say it again around a universal translator or a native Jehk-Dallimak speaker again I’ll get my mouthed washed out.”
Storm sagely responded, “Huh,” just before the Nothing Man leapt onto the banister and roared.
“Run,” Storm barked out as his wing shoved Dinky away from the ferocious flicker. “Run now.”
Dinky leapt over the prone stallion’s limb and stood between him and the not-thing.
“Back off,” she cried as her horn glimmered. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
In response, the not-thing raised its giant claw.
Storm’s eyes filled with tears. “Please run, Dinky. Please. Don’t look back.”
She stood her ground as the monster reared back, and saw it keep rearing back to a ludicrous degree as Dinky heard the bannister crack. As two strong hands pushed the wooden balcony frame and accompanying monster into the void, the Nothing Man reared back as far as dimensional physics allowed, screaming as it tumbled into everywhere.
“Well,” Molossus said as he wiped the saw dust off, “I’m glad that’s taken care of!”
Dinky galloped into him, sending the exhausted butler staggering backwards as she nuzzled his face.
“Molly Moo saved us!”
He nodded before hitting his back on the floor and sighing. “I did, didn’t I?”
A shadow loomed across Dinky, as she turned into the livid face of her grandfather.
“Why didn’t you run,” he whispered forcefully. “What ever taught you that you could stand up to a monster?”
Dinky blinked.
“My Dad. I learned it from watching Dad.”
Storm paused, then shook his head. “Molossus, can I help you up?”
The gigantic canine gently placed Dinky to the side as he forced himself to stand. “Not without a crane, Master Storm, but the offer is appreciated.”
Shaking, Storm nodded and collapsed onto a cushion. “I was worried about you.”
“Grandpapa!”
Actually flinching from Dinky’s tone, Storm found himself tongue-tied as Dinky pointed a reproachful hoof at him.
“Why would you worry about Molossus?” Dinky rolled her eyes, gritting her teeth. “I mean, if the monsters got him he’d cease to exist, right? So, if you could worry, there’s nothing to worry about!” Her front hooves shook in the air in frustration. “Does anybody else actually think about these things? Aargh!”
Butler and stallion shared a long look.
“Permission to giggle, sir?”
“Granted.”
Dinky huffed as the two adults chuckled as much as their energy allowed. She blew her hair out of her eyes and stared at Molossus.
“Mister Molly Moo? Have you seen Daddy?”
He slowly shook his head.
“Mistress Dinkestra, haven’t you proven that we shouldn’t worry?”
She snorted. “Right. I did.” Watery eyes stared down the hallway. “Still, sometimes he does crazy things to save me and Mommy and Sparks, a-and I... I wo... I’m just wondering.”
A hand that could crush watermelons caressed Dinky’s mane as Molossus bent down. “My dear child,” he said, “do you know who your father is?”
“Yes,” Dinky said as she wiped her nose. “He’s the Doctor.”
“Doctor?” Storm cocked his head. “Doctor who?”
“Master Doo-Smith would have enjoyed that,” Molossus said with a nod. “Give me a moment, Master Storm. Mistress Dinkestra, tell me more about your father. Who is he?”
Dinky straightened up. She blinked as she gave a deep breath.
“He’s really old.”
Storm rolled his eyes. “Think about how I feel.”
He was shocked into silence as Dinky said, “I think he’s as old as Celestia. Like, everybody in the universe knows him, and he knows everyplace. He’s saved lots of people.” She stared at Molossus defiantly. “And Mom says you have to call them ‘people’ because not all of them are ponies. I helped him do it, a few times.”
“Listen,” Storm interrupted, “I’m not sure that fairy tales... ”
“And what do people call him, Mistress Dinkestra?”
“The Doctor,” Dinky started, “an’ I think he’s the Wizard of the Travelling Box. Mommy said the bad things call him the Oncoming Storm. Some really nice purple oozy things call him the Bringer of Shape.”
Storm’s mouth failed to open wider as a tear glimmered in Molossus’ eye.
Molossus nodded. “Please listen to me. The four mares he has most loved in his life are under this roof. What does that tell you?”
“That he’s gonna come back for us. He always comes back.”
Only Storm noticed the way Molossus froze at Dinky’s statement, and the way he paused just before nodding. Slowly, his giant frame straightened to its full height.
“Then believe in him,” Molossus whispered. “Believe he will return, and make him proud. You are the Doctor’s daughter, and the universe has expectations.”
Dinky nodded, as she stood onto her hooves. “You remind me of that blue unicorn that Miss Savory travelled with.”
“That is high praise,” Molossus said as he bowed low. “Now let us find your father.”
As the group walked off, Storm gently hooked his wing around Molossus’ arm and pulled him closer. The obedient butler lowered his head.
“Listen,” Storm whispered, “I really appreciate you playing pretend with her to cheer her up... ”
Molossus shook his head.
“Have your own eyes not convinced you, Master Storm? Stars swirl around us as monsters prowl. The Doctor is real, sir, and everything we said is true.”
Storm stopped as Molossus picked up a squealing Dinky, placing the giggling filly upon his shoulder.
“It is far time you do as she did,” he continued, “and accept your family’s legacy.”
___
Inside the museum, incomprehensible death surrounded Topsy Turvy. The enigmatic monsters approached her and her family while the weird floating mask watched. Topsy had very little idea of the intricacies of the situation, but she knew it was serious from the way everyone acted. As a proper Bronxian mother, she had one responsibility.
“Mother,” Sparkler said as she whirled a suit of armor around. “Everyone else could fly. Leave me. I’ll-- ”
Sparkler stopped as a wingtip quickly smacked the back of her head.
“Don’t you dare.” Ditzy’s wings flared out protectively, the way her ancestors had displayed them at predators. “One, I am not leaving you. Two, Aunt Daring can’t fly.”
Daring smirked as she hefted a spear into her wingtips, watching the Nowhere Men circle. “Very perceptive, Grandniece. And three, I bet flying is a chore for you as well, lately.”
Ditzy swallowed, pretending not to hear. “Three, If they get Daring, it’s all over anyway from a chronological standpoint. We have to think-- ”
The not-things were almost within claw’s reach.
“Ditzy,” Topsy suddenly shouted, “I’m proud of you!”
Things went silent as the assembled ponies eyed Topsy curiously.
“I love you too, Mom,” Ditzy said with a sigh. “Anyway, we-- ”
If Ditzy thought that her mother was about to stop talking, she was suffering amnesia.
“I mean, it’s been so hard for you with the eyes and words and brain thing, and you raised two lovely daughters.”
The Nowhere Men paused for a second, startled by Ditzy’s hate-filled scream.
“What?”
“Kill them,” intoned Mfalme. “I command you.”
The Nowhere Men still paused.
The floating mask look from side to side. “Old habits. Well, If I can’t command you, I suggest it to you!”
They began moving again. WE END. WE COME NOW TO...
“Shut up!” Ditzy shouted at the stunned Nowhere Man before turning to Topsy. “Mother, is that all you can really say?”
Topsy’s wings flared, her brain reacting to Ditzy like a charging predator. “Well, I-I, I mean... ”
The entire room froze as Ditzy advanced on her mother. “Mother, my brain is fine--”
“More than fine,” Daring interjected. She leaned on a spear, enjoying the show.
Ditzy drew a deep breath as she saw the terror in Topsy’s eyes. “And you don’t know. How could you?” Ditzy smiled, then kissed her mother on the forehead. “Thanks, Mom. Okay, time to break Rule Number Point Seventy-Five.”
She turned to the Nowhere Men with the smile a schoolteacher gives to an unruly pupil.
“Excuse me, I think you should run.”
One of the Nowhere Men stepped forward toward Sparkler. A suit of armor slashed a sword through it, passing through harmlessly.
WE FEAR NOTHING. WE BRING YOU TO NOTHING.
Ditzy stepped between the monster and her daughter.
“I’m Ditzy Doo,” she said with confidence. “If you’re a representation of the universe, you know me, right?”
Topsy huddled next to Daring. “What in Equestria is she doing? She’s just a mail-mare!”
As Daring gently placed a hoof in front of Topsy’s mouth, she shook her head. “Enjoy this one, Topsy. I have a feeling its going to be good. Top ten, maybe.”
One of the Nowhere Men hesitated.
WE ERASE.
“Of course,” answered Ditzy in a barely patient tone of voice. “You’re one of the forces that protect the universe, right? Remember me, then? They call me the Grey Angel, and the Seer of Two Paths, and a whole buncha other things. Are you dense, or half-formed, or something? I’m the bloody Derpy. You can’t erase me.”
The beings turned from one to another in confusion before one advanced towards Daring. Daring stood her ground, saluting with a wing.
SOME WORLDS MAY BE SACRIFICED FOR THE UNIVERSE.
It stopped as Ditzy jumped in front of it, stamping her hoof. “‘Some’ worlds? ‘Some,’ buddy?
As Ditzy advanced on the monster, grinning like a manticore, it took several steps back.
“You forgot the most important thing, Mister Flickerhead.”
UH. YES?
Ditzy sat down in front of the Nowhere Man. “I keep the Doctor in check. That’s right, you know the Doctor? The guy who keeps all the planets spinning? I’ve spent years convincing him to help instead of turn his back, make him spare civilizations instead of making examples of them. I have no idea how the universal census turns out without me, but I pretty sure he gives up at some point. Where does that leave your cosmos?”
Sparkler leaned on Daring’s side with a contented smile as Ditzy poked at the Nowhere Man with a wingtip.
“If you want to explain to whatever employers you have why all the worlds in all the galaxies wink out at once, then go ahead! Touch me,” Ditzy said as she unfurled her wings. “Heck, touch anyone in this mansion! They’re all the things that make me who I am. You wink out anyone here, and you break all of time and space.”
Silence fell over the room.
“Do I make myself clear?”
“Oh boys,” Sparkler said as she laughed into Daring’s coat, “she’s using her ‘disappointed’ voice.”
The not-things retreated a step as one.
YES.
“Yes, what !?”
YES. MA’AM.
Ditzy stamped the floor in triumph. “Now get out of my sight.”
The Nowhere Men suddenly... weren’t. Ditzy allowed herself a brief grin as she scanned the room, stopping as she locked eyes with Mfalme.
“You’re next, Mister.”
The mask winked out.
Silence filled the museum. Ditzy slowly spun around, taking in the scattered relics, fallen trophies, and her mother shivering on the floor. With a suspicious frown, Ditzy paced a circle around her family as she peered around. She nodded in approval as Sparkler cleared a path telekinetically, and finally let out a deep sigh of relief.
“It’s okay, everybody. Nothing’s here.”
As Daring started slow-clapping on the floor, Topsy got her own legs to lift her at last and walked over to Ditzy. “N-nothing?” she stammered out. “R-really n-nothing or... or those Nothings?”
Ditzy rubbed the base of her nose with a wing.
“Just ‘nothing,’ Mother. I think we’re back to just plain, simple and innocuous ‘nothing’ again.” She smiled as she turned to Daring. “How did I do?”
Daring’s nod of approval filled Ditzy with warm butterflies. “Bravo. Bravo, indeed. You know, I never told you I found an ancient Llama ruin with sketches of you saving the day, did I? They captured your angry face perfectly. You are quite impressive, Misses Doo-Smith.”
The following giggling and stomping could have been heard in most of the house, and Sparkler joined in, swept up in the moment.
Topsy, however, was trying to keep her feet on the ground as reality spun around her.
“Pardon me,” she said with a wavering hoof in the air. “Why did the monsters run away from you, dear?”
Ditzy spun, slowly walking up to her mother with dignity. Suddenly she ducked forward, licking Topsy on the nose.
“Because I’m terrifying, Mom,” Ditzy said with a giggle.
Topsy was too startled to see Daring laughing into her wing.
“A-and this isn’t a joke?” Topsy blinked rapidly. “They acted like you really did travel around with... ”
“The Doctor,” Daring declared proudly as she hooked a proud wing around Dizty. “Topsy, it’s not only all true, it’s a bloody family tradition. After even I failed to net him, your daughter married the most eligible bachelor in the universe.”
“W-well. That’s great to know.”
With a satisfied smile, Topsy Turvy fainted dead away. Shaking with laughter, Daring Do turned to Ditzy, spreading a wing in front of her mouth to keep Sparkler from seeing.
“Well, Love,” she proudly declared, “if that made her faint, your next little announcement would have given her a heart attack.”
___
“Grandpapa? Does it seem like the house is getting smaller?”
His mind awhirl with thoughts, Smooth Storm contemplated the hallway.
“Well,” he admitted, “I don’t remember Molossus ever having to duck down before.”
“Indeed,” Molossus said as he stooped under an arch, “Mistress Daring constructed the manor with my eventual size in mind.”
Dinky nodded, raising a hoof. Molossus and Storm stopped in their tracks.
“What is it, Mistress Dinkestra?”
Storm’s mouth hung open. “Honey, have you ever consider work in entertainment? You got the charisma thing down.”
A wide smile flashed momentarily across Dinky’s face. “Yeah, the trick is to act like Dad. Shushies! Aside from the dimensionally wibbly-whasits, the place-time fabric is going all bendy-wendy. Also, do you hear that sound like a radio coming on in the next room? There’s a thinger manifestwhatsing nearby.”
Storm turned to Molossus. “Did that make any sense to you?”
“Yes,” he responded with a shrug, “but I’ve had some experience.”
Three hearts skipped a beat as a doorway opened up down the hallway.
A black-cloaked pony walked out of the starfield, mist billowing out of the door around its hooves. “Oily” was the word that jumped into Storm’s head. Every inch of the pony was black, from its body-suit to its worn top hat. Every inch, that is, except for the beak-nosed white mask that turned in Storm’s direction. The blank stare in those eyeholes made Storm break into a sweat.
“Everypony,” he said, “I think we should run.”
“Run,” the dark shape croaked out.
Storm feebly grabbed for Dinky ineffectually, feeling Molossus tense next to him. The butler advanced with fists raised, but Dinky outpaced him. She galloped towards the dark figure as her grandfather’s desperate grasp only managed to touch her flank as she sped further and further away from the grand-daughter he remembered.
She skipped to a stop in front of the masked pony, who stood motionless.
“Say that again, please.” Dinky’s eyes studied the porcelain mask.
“Run,” it repeated in a questioning voice.
Rage filled Smooth Storm’s brain. After escaping from monsters, no mere pony was going to lay a hoof on his grand-daughter. Storm found the energy to fly, battering the air desperately.
“Don’t you dare-- “
The masked pony pulled a cane out of its cloak, stepping effortlessly to the side as it guided Storm into a nearby wall. Nodding, the masked figure raised the cane into a defensive stance as Molossus advanced with raised fists.
Everything stopped when Dinky said, “Daddy, stop it.”
Storm pulled himself into shape, parts of him cracking back in place as Molossus stood still, transitioning from bodyguard to butler instantly. A high-pitched crack made Dinky flinch as the porcelain mask was dropped to the floor.
“Daddy,” muttered John Doo-Smith. Bloodshot eyes scanned Dinky, blinking many more times than necessary.
“Yes.” Dinky nodded. “Daddy.”
John fell to his knees, forelimbs pulling Dinky close. “Daddy. Daddy. Oh Dinky, is this you? This time, is it really you? Am I really me?”
“Yes,” she said as she nuzzled him with her eyes closed. “You’re my Daddy. No one tells ponies to run like you do.”
A gentle wing touched John’s shoulder. “Hey, that was a neat trick. We really should... ”
“No.”
The word stunned Smooth Storm. Volumes were contained within it, a long record of pained nights and angry days. Carefully, Storm pulled his wing away.
“I am holding my daughter,” John spit out fiercely, “I intend not to stop.”
He shook as Dinky kissed his cheek. Molossus minded his responsibilities, pulling out a hoofkerchief as the bravest stallion he had ever met sobbed on the floor supported by a child.
Eyes still unfocused, John’s mind was seeing things a little clearer. “Thank you, Shortwide,” he said to Molossus as he accepted the offered fabric.
Chest puffed out, Molossus responded back, “You’re welcome, Mister Doctor Smith, sir!”
They let John stay like that for a few minutes until his noises became words again.
“Dinky,” he said as he wiped his eyes. “Dinky, I love you so much. I need you to promise me something.”
“Yes, Daddy?”
John shook more every time Dinky said the “D-word,” and couldn’t imagine a more wonderful way to be addressed.
“Dinky,” John started, breathing heavily. He held her tightly by the shoulders, daring the world to pull her away. “Dinky, I need you to promise me to always wash your hooves before eating.”
Dinky looked into her father’s eyes. Behind them was a beautiful, intricate machine that had suffered kicks and twists, repair in places by pieces that barely fit. It hadn’t broken yet, but it was close enough to need repairs, and needed a little bit of care before it ran at full power.
“I promise, Daddy.” She held him as tightly as she could. “I really promise.”
Storm cleared his throat.
“John? You went into the stars?”
Shaking his head, John realized that the world contained ponies other than Dinky. “Had to draw away the Nowhere Men. Took a bit to get back.”
Molossus noted Storm’s confusion. “Master Doo-Smith, how long did you spend in the spaces between?”
“Between. Oh. ‘Beyond the fields we know,’ and all that, right?” He scratched the bottom of his chin, his mouth forming words for several seconds before finding a voice. “Um. Five.” He paused. “Five years, I think.”
He slowly stood up, throwing the cape off of his shoulders. Storm stepped nervously from side to side.
“Well,” he said with a snort, “you certainly don’t look a day older.”
John turned to him, eyes unfocused.
“I do that. After awhile, you forget how to stop.”
Storm nodded to himself, arriving at a conclusion. “Molossus, would you take Dinky around the corner and keep a watch on? I have to talk to John.”
Nodding in reply, Molossus leaned down and gently picked up Dinky, shushing the suddenly frantic Doctor as his daughter was lifted away. John watched Molossus go as Storm walked up and placed a gentle wing around John’s shoulders.
“Poor Ditzy,” Storm said. “We never believed her about the Wizard of the Travelling Box. You’re really him, aren’t you John? You’re actually the Doctor.”
“Yes!” John’s eyes lit up as he turned to his father-in-law. “Yes, I... ”
Storm’s hoof to the face floored John, who lay on the floor for several seconds before staring at the drops of blood snapped him back.
“Well,” John said as he held a hoof to his nose. “Well.” An anger years in growing prepared to flare. “Before I react, what stupid, simple-minded reason would make your throw that punch, knowing who I am?”
“Because you’re the Doctor, and you left her. I love Dinky, but her ‘father’ was a monster. You can travel through time and space and you let my daughter rot for three years, married to that thing. She spent her whole life writing about you saving worlds and you couldn’t save her from a single pony.”
John stared off into nothing. Gradually, his eyes swivelled to Storm’s own.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was lost. I swear by all the stars that ever were I will never willingly leave your daughter again, and I will always find a way back to her.”
The silence stretched out as Storm scrutinized the Doctor. Storm’s smile slowly reappeared as he shrugged.
“Hey, all right. I get it. We make mistakes.” He stretched his hoof out as he concluded, “If you ever hurt her again no one will ever find a body buried in a box in a cloud.”
He took the hoof that Storm offered him, and stood up. Wiping himself off, he offered his own hoof towards his father-in-law.
“Fair’s fair. Let’s try this. Hello. I was the Doctor. My name is John Doo-Smith, and for your daughter I gave up all of time and space. I was a Lord of Time, and chose to be a second-rate toaster repairpony for her. Do over?”
Smooth Storm shook his hoof and nodded. “You have my blessing, but I still think she’s settling for you.” His smile softened the slightest bit, evoking a crocodile finding the drinking hole at the gazelle Special Olympics.
As the two stallions rejoined Dinky and Molly, John looked at the diamond dog with hesitation. He started to work toward the question he dreaded asking.
“Molossus,” he said innocuously, “how many servants live here?
Molossus puffed out his chest. “I’ve taken care of Mistress Daring alone for years. It’s always been just us, Doctor.
“Yes, but these things erase you from history! Shortwide, has it always been always just you?” That was what John didn’t say. He decided that he didn’t want to know, and nobody else should ever wonder.
Instead, John was silent. As they walked on, Dinky stepped close to him, giving him a reassuring hoof touch when he started to shake. Molossus used this opportunity to lean close to Storm’s ear.
“Master Smooth Storm,” he gently said, “Respectfully, I should let you know that the last time someone laid a hoof on the Doctor, I broke a steel wrench beating them.”
Smooth Storm swallowed as Molly and Dinky shared a chuckle.
“I have really good ears, you know,” she said.
Reproachfully, Mollssus nodded. “Of course.”
Dinky sighed. “Do they really think we weren’t listening?”
“Of course,” Molossus said as he smiled and patted her mane. “It’s kinder to let them believe that.”
The group stopped at the next intersection as John raised a hoof. His eyes flashed with concern as he regarded the hallway’s ceiling shrinking a full hoof in front of his eyes.
“I think,” he said as he tried to sound confident, “that whoever is causing this is about to take his singularity and go home. It’s working a number on the property values.”
“The ceiling’s really shrinking on the housing market,” Molossus replied with a nod.
Storm stared at the pair. “You can joke at a time like this?”
“Keeps you sane,” John Doo-Smith said with a sparkle in his eye. “Keeps you calm. A little levity is good because now we run!”
___
Elsewhere in the shrinking manor, Topsy Turvy contemplated the way her world was rearranging itself. Hallways shifted, ceilings lowered, and she paid them no heed. She was focused on the words of the last half hour.
“So,” she said for the seventeenth time in four minutes. “So... ”
By now, Ditzy only threw an aggravated look at the ceiling as they trotted on.
“Yes, Mother?”
“So, John is the Doctor. John is an alien. My daughter is married to an alien from an advanced, space-travelling civilization.”
“Yes, Mother,” Ditzy said with a polite nod.
“Point of fact,” offered Daring Do, “Also a time traveller.”
“Okay.” Topsy breathed in carefully. “Okay! Okay. I have a question then.”
Daring quizzically regarded Ditzy, who rolled her eyes and nodded. The two mares turned to face Topsy. Behind Topsy, Sparkler stopped walking while continuing to cast challenging stares at darkened corners, daring them to produce threats. With her daughter on lookout, Ditzy felt confident enough for a minute of question-and-answer.
“Shoot.”
Topsy bit her upper lip.
“Well, if he can travel throughout all of time and space... ”
Ditzy gestured with a hoof, pleading for her to continue.
“Yes, mother?”
“Well,” Topsy said after a sharp intake of breath, “why can’t you two afford a bigger house? I mean, he could grab sunken treasure, or sell moon rocks, or something.”
Ditzy’s mouth fell open.
Daring raised a hoof questioningly but put it back down with a shake of the head. “Topsy,” she finally concluded, “I cannot believe you have the gall to ask that considering what’s at stake. I-I... ”
Topsy wing-patted her on the head as she walked past her. “Honey, back in Trottingham you may try for a stiff upper lip, but back in the Bronxco we get chutzpah.” She smiled at the two stunned mares as she walked past. Topsy was strutting like a Miss Equestria contestants until the spear flew at her.
Even for a pegasus, whose race prides itself on reflexes, the pony brain isn’t fast enough to compose complex thoughts under stress. Topsy was barely able to think of the word “sharp” before the impact.
Then, all Topsy could see was gray.
She was still staring at gray and shaking when Ditzy placed a soft hoof on her shoulder and whispered, “Mom, are you okay?”
Show business reasserted itself into Topsy Turvy, and it told her that time for crying was alone in a dressing room. Topsy gingerly tapped the spear-point sticking out of the back of the now-impaled suit of armor. “Uh. Uhm-hmm. Okay. Good... good Sparky. Sparkler! Good job, Sparkler.”
Proudly, Sparkler reasserted her field around the armor. It pulled the spear out of its chest, mimicking gestures of obscene pain before it gave Topsy a salute and kept marching down the corridor.
Daring snickered. “Forethought, class, and style.” She gave Ditzy a sympathetic look. “My dear, aren’t you afraid some cradle-stealing time traveller’s going to whisk your baby away? It’s a family tradition, after all.”
Sparkler blushed.
Ditzy didn’t respond as she stared into the hallway ahead. She noted the empty display cases and bare podiums lining it. Biting her lip she picked up the spear and shook it, making several green sparks shimmer into existence as they fell away into nothingness.
“Telekinesis,” she noted. “Whoever this guy is, Auntie Daring, he’s a telekinectic in a house filled with weapons where the cabinets are suddenly all bare.” Ditzy took in a sharp intake of breath as she gestured to a stairwell up ahead nestled between two doors. “And if he attacked us now, I bet that means he’s down there.”
Daring stepped to the edge of the stairs and looked down. Staring into the gloom made the hairs on her neck raise up as her feathers rustled.
“Good,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Let’s do some spring-cleaning.”
Ditzy sighed. “Puzzle wob sideways barn waving.”
Daring nodded with a laugh. “I knew you’d say that,” she said before running down the stairs.
___
“Stay on your hooves or paws respectively, everyone.”
A single light illuminated the way down the stairs. John carefully stepped onto the floor, scanning the basement as Molossus’s flashlight scanned the room. Neglected crates stood in cobwebbed solidarity, creating a dusty maze that obscured the view of the sprawling room. Dead rats littered the floor, spaced among them shrivelled spiders corpses that had fallen out of their webs.
“Something psychic’s down here all right,” John said with a nod. “Smaller life forces tend to get snuffed out with enough mental fallout.” He shivered as he nearly put a hoof down on the remains of a particularly bloated rodent. “Awfully glad you had that torch, Molly.”
Leaning over Dinky protectively, Molossus inclined his head with pride. “Butler, sir.”
“You grew up good, ‘Shortwide.’ Careful now, everyone.”
Storm glided down onto the basement landing, sending a cloud of dust barreling away. As the particles enveloped the room a flurry of coughing and angry eyes greeted him.
Dirty and irate, John trotted over to his father-in-law with murder on the mind. “A little more stealth would be good, Storm, considering there’s someone down here who broke reality.”
Storm passed by him, bringing John’s slowly simmering anger to a boil. He leaned down to Dinky, wiping her nose with a wingtip.
“You okay, Little Slugger? Adventure not getting too much for you?”
“Ketchoo,” she answered as sarcastically as possible.
“Good,” he said with a smile, heedless of his son-in-law’s death glare. With the practiced cool of years of show business, he turned his grin to John. If he had been an actor in a low rent black-and-white film, Storm would have been fiddling with a cigarette and hitting on the leading lady, regardless of any attacking monsters made of paper-mache.
“So,” Storm said as he tapped a crate marked “EQUESTRIAN GUARD INTEL” experimentally, “are there any things in these boxes that would be useful?”
John righteous fury settled into a satisfied smile. “Yes. Well, kind of. Well, you could open the one you’re tapping.”
“Oh? Some kind of weapon?”
“That one?” John stepped carefully around Storm as he continued. “I think so. I dunno, Daring and I were tied up when it was activated. Tell you what, though. They had to clean up the ones who opened it with a bucket and mop.”
Storm’s tapping hoof froze in mid-air.
“Smelt faintly of mint, too. Can’t stand mint.” He turned back to Dinky, listening to her father with wide, awestruck eyes. “Never trust mint.”
Molossus carefully raised Dinky into his arms and followed after the Doctor. “Little Dinkestra,” he whispered into her ear, “I do believe your father is feeling like himself again.”
Storm stared at the crate before giving it the kind of pat that is usually accompanied by the phrase, “Nice doggy.” He whistled low before walking away. “Merciful Majesty,” he said softly.
“No,” John said as he turned, a haunted look in his eyes. “Don’t say that, Storm. She didn’t have any. I know. I was there.”
They moved through the stacks in formation, as stealthily as they could. John and Molossus moved with the grace of a lifetime of practice, and where thusly quite quiet. Unfortunately for them, Storm moved with the skills gained from several films he spent playing the square-jawed Equestrian Guardspony under fire, and his exaggerated movements knocked over a sarcophagus. The ponies Storm used to sneak up on used to be paid to look the other way, after all.
As the clattering sound of broken pottery ceased, John Doo-Smith settled a weary look at his father-in-law. “Athletes,” he whispered.
Storm very carefully stepped closer to his son-in-law, until they were standing eye to shades.
“Knock it off,” he said with gritted teeth. “Playtime’s over.”
John’s eyes searched the ceiling for patience. “Smooth Storm, the being we’re searching for-- ”
“Is psychic,” Storm said, poking John in the chest with a hoof.
“Psychic.” John rolled the word around in his mouth. “Oh. Psychic.”
“Psychic,” Storm repeated with careful pronunciation, “and we’re stealthily creeping towards him with a flashlight on.”
“Oh,” John said as his shoulders slumped.
Storm nodded. “Yep, I thought so. My daughter’s the one with the common sense.”
John’s hoof reached into his aged, now-patchwork trench-coat, pulling out a sonic screwdriver from a pocket filled improbably with rose petals.
“Well, then, Smooth Storm. It’s time to start the music.”
Aiming his hoof straight up, John sent a high-pitched pulse throughout the basement. The sound of decrepit generators filled the air with the clash of rusted gears as illumination filled every corner of the basement.
“It’s time,” John concluded as he spun his multi-tool like an Appleloosan gunslinger, “to light the lights.”
Dust began to shake off the nearby crates. Suddenly, tons of packaged artifacts and equipment skidded out of the ponies’ way. Within seconds, invisible hooves cleared the center of the basement, revealing a striped, wooden mask sitting on an ancient box. It slowly levitated into the air, glowing with a sickly green light.
“Yes,” it said in a voice that dripped menace in large globs, “why don’t we get things started?”
Molossus raised his flashlight defensively and Dinky’s snuggled into his neck.
“Daddy,” she whispered, “that’s the bad guy. Can we go home now?”
Resisting the urge to run, Storm leaned over towards John and spoke softly. “You know, I didn’t expect to swing this far in the other direction so soon.”
“Storm,” John said through gritted teeth, “it nearly kills me to admit it, but you were right. We’re dealing with a world-shattering psychic. What am was I going to do, sneak up on him and hit him with a brick?”
“Doctor,” the mask said. There were chapters of hate and scorn wrapped up into that single word.
“Mfalme! I could tell it was you.” John took a step triumphantly forward. “So obvious when you consider things.”
Storm’s eyebrows raised. “But you didn’t... ”
“Shh,” John hissed through smiling teeth. “Never let the baddie know he’s one up on you. Makes them insufferably smug.”
Mfalme’s masks dipped back and forth as laughter boomed throughout the basement.
“I told you,” John remarked. “There’s the smug.”
“Daddy?”
John turned to Dinky. “Yes, my pride and joy?” Suddenly his eyes went wide with shock. John stuck a hoof in his mouth, turning back to Mfalme with fear in his eyes.
The mask levitated forward, closing the distance between it and the Doctor. “Go ahead,” it said in a patient tone. “Explain it to her. I want to hear what you say to,” Mflame’s voice suddenly lowered, stretching the words out with malicious glee, “your daughter.”
As Storm snorted, John took a step back. “Oh, no. No. Not fair. Mfalme, that’s not fair.”
“Daddy,” Dinky asked worriedly as Molossus tightened his grip, “are you scared?”
Molossus silently leaned down onto one knee as John stepped toward him. He carefully placed Dinky on the ground before turning toward Mfalme and cracking his knuckles. John took no heed. The trembling Time Charger ruffled Dinky’s mane with a hoof. “Nothing’s wrong, dear. Everything’s going to be all right. I promise.” He swallowed. “I’d never let you get hurt.”
“Heh. I’ve heard that before,” intoned Mfalme with a chuckle as crates exploded, pieces of wood flying through the air toward the mask. Splinters twisted and entwined into a wooden, equine body. “Comfort your daughter, Doctor,” the zebra-thing announced as it reared back. “It’s more than I was able to do.”
Smooth Storm began pawing the ground, his wings flaring out.
Dinky quickly caught her breath. Can’t look scared while Daddy’s working. “Is he a zombie zebra?”
Despite the tight pit of cold fear in his stomach, John Doo-Smith laughed.
“What? No! Of course not!” He waved a hoof dismissively before using it to wipe the sweat of his brow. “Don’t be ridiculous. Mfalme is a powerful psychic. He’s been using his powers to keep his mind working for decades on willpower alone, feeding off other being’s psychic energy.”
“Oh.” There was a pause. “Daddy?”
John leaned in, tears in his eyes. He could sense the tense form of Storm preparing to charge, but his intellect wasn’t in control. John was too focused on placing his hooves on his daughter’s cheeks, feeling the warmth under skin. “Yes, my most wonderful joy and muffins?”
Molossus idly picked up a crate and hefted it over his head. “You ready, Master Storm?”
“Yes,” he spat out. “Let’s buy those two some time.”
John’s mind’s registered the stamping of hooves and paws and the cracking of wood, but as he held Dinky’s face, neither of them looked away.
Dinky rolled her eyes. “That means he’s both a zombie zebra and a vampire zebra, Daddy.” She poked her father’s nose with a small hoof. “Silly Daddy.”
“No, it… well, I guess it kind of does. All right, he’s a zombie-vampire zebra.” He turned his gaze away from Dinky with effort comparable to jogging away from a black hole. “Now, let’s-- ”
John grabbed Dinky and rolled to the side to dodge Storm, flying fast and unconscious. The pegasus-shaped projectile impacted through a crate, sending a cloud of sawdust and gems scattering about. Turning toward the origin of Storm’s flight, he saw Molossus standing astride a heap of broken boxes, his tuxedo falling off of him in tatters. Gripping a totem pole like a diamond dog gemball bat, he hammered it down on a wooden zebra. The monstrous construct only laughed, rearing back to smash the straining diamond dog in the chest with unyielding hooves.
Molossus raised an arm to his chest in defense before swinging it out out, his backhand knocking the grinning golem off its hooves. As it kicked out on its back, Molossus stepped forward and grasped a hind leg with both hands. A pained groan rose out of his throat as he strained. Suddenly a crack reverberated throughout the basement as he tore the leg off into the air.
“Hmm,” Molossus snorted in triumph. “Not a wrench, but it’ll do.”
As the masked zebra snarled, it turned onto its side. Kicking out its back stump, splinters of wood began to shoot into the limb, reforming into bones, muscles, and hooves. Molossus roared as he began smashing the reforming limb with the previous one.
“Get to Storm,” John muttered as he threw Dinky onto his back and ran. “Must get to Storm.” He galloped at full tilt into the maze of crates, skidding to the side to dodge a stone idol throne out of the titanic melee behind him.
At the end of a makeshift row of storage containers, Storm’s legs dangled helpless out of a broken box, sawdust spilling out over his rump. Dinky whimpered as her father carefully placed her down. John bit Storm’s tail, yanking back as hard as he could. The prostrate pegasus slid out into the pile of sawdust, groaning. He rolled over onto his back, covering his eyes with one hoof as his other felt around for his glasses.
“Come on,” John snapped as he nipped Storm’s shirt and pulled him upright. “That was a damn foolish thing to do. Dashing and silly and stupid.” He smiled and sighed as his father-in-law rubbed eyes filled with sawdust. “You may be cut out for this after all, Smooth Storm. I’m seeing you with new eyes.”
The two Doo-Smith’s took a step back as Storm snorted out a dusty cloud before laughing like a madstallion. He was still snorting out wood debris as he cleared his face. “Okay, ‘Doctor.’ Maybe I’ve got a new pair to show off, too.”
He looked up. As an experienced chronal traveller, John would have sworn that time stopped in the second. He knew his hearts skipped a beat as he stared into his father-in-law’s eyes. Bereft of his sunglasses, Smooth Storm stared back as well as he could with his two gold eyes rolling in different directions.
John gasped as he stared in Smooth’s misaligned two golden orbs. Smiling, Storm offered his hoof.
“So, do-over indeed. Hello, John. I’m Smooth Storm. Let me just say, waffle neurotic harpist therefore larch.”
“What?” John shook his head in denial. “What? How... how hard did you hit that crate?”
Storm only giggled. “Come on, you know genetics.”
“What? But your wife is always trying to-- “
Storm nodded. “I learned to live with it. I took up radio as a kid to deal with the speech thing. Got the shades to cover the eyes. That’s why I know Ditzy doesn’t doesn’t need an operation. It’s why I secretly asked my aunt to cut us off. My daughter can handle this.”
Dinky took a step closer, examining her grandfather’s face. Her brow furrowed as she aimed a hoof at him accusingly.
“My mommy,” she pronounced with gravity, “is still the most unique mare in the universe.”
Storm hugged her tightly. “Granted.”
“Huh.” John tapped his chin. “But you’re not a genius”
“I thought that this was a do-over for us,” Storm said, tensing up.
“No, I mean Ditzy is. A genius. Like more than any other pony. Your genes and Topsy’s genes must have-- ”
“Daddy!” Dinky’s stage whisper exploded with excitement. “The smashy sounds have stopped.”
“Oh. Good,” said Storm.
“Oh, bad,” replied John. “When a ranty villain goes silent, it means he’s changed tactics. I should have realized; I had a whole conversation without being interrupted.”
A massive shadow loomed over the ponies. Silently, they turned to the dusty diamond dog.
“Master Doctor,” Molossus said. “It’s safe to come out now.”
Dinky whimpered as she backed into Storm, who covered her eyes with his wings. John stared in fear at the blood-covered butler.
“I-I don’t t-think so,” John said at last.
Molossus’ head flopped to one side. “Why would that be, Master Doctor?”
John bit his lip.
“Because, your mouth isn’t moving, and you’re glowing slightly green.”
A victorious laugh filled their minds as the limp form of Molossus was thrown into the air, landing splayed among them. The wooden wall before them parted, revealing a giggling ghoul made of a mask, splinters, and sawdust.
Storm rolled Molossus onto his back. “John?” He words came out haltingly and unsure. “John, is he...? ”
Sneering, John drew his multi-tool and stepped forward. “No, he’s not. His heart can’t have stopped. It’s too big.” He aimed the sonic screwdriver into the air and was rewarded with the creaking of metal. Sparks flew in every direction as a mass of iron and lights crashed onto Mfalme, scattering his bits. The mask hovered in the air, spinning as pieces of wreckage began slowly drawing toward it.
John snarled as he stepped back, drawing an arc through the air with his beeping wand. Dozens of screws on a lead ceiling pipe popped out, leaving the metal monstrosity to swing through the air freely. It smashed into Mfalme, scattering the reassembling body and sending the mask spinning before it imbedded in a stone sculpture.
“Go on,” said John as he advanced on the mask. “I’m a poor repairpony with a screwdriver in a room of unsafe equipment. Just see what I can do.”
The glow of the mask flared. “Enough of this!” The statue exploded, its dust hovering in a frozen clouded before shaping itself into the floating neck of a zebra. John flung his forelimbs in front of his face to block the shrapnel as countless statues in the basement erupted into fragments, the dusty clouds spinning through the air into the Mfalme’s congealing mass.
“You took my kingdom from me, Doctor!” The booming voiced screamed in frustration.
John rolled to the side as a still-forming stone hoof the width of a tree trunk stamped onto the ground. “Come off it. You tried to turn a wise nation of philosophers into a conquering army.” John sprung to the side to avoid a titanic kick. “It was a doomed relationship from the start.”
“You turned my daughter against me,” intoned the elephant-sized stone zebra as it tried to trample the sprinting Time Charger. “You-- ”
It stopped talking as a small piece of masonry sped through the air and bounced off the mask. The behemoth stopped. It lowered its neck until the mask was eye level with the still and defiant Doctor.
“You... threw a brick at me?”
John shrugged.
Mfalme cackled. “There must be only one pony on this planet stupid enough to thrown a brick at a psionic jugger-- ”
He stopped mid-sentence as a purple-glowing chunk of wall the size of a cart slammed into his head.
“Great work, Sparkler!” Ditzy gestured towards the staggered titan from the top of a wooden stack. “Hit him again!”
Sparkler rose into the air on a glowing stone platform. “Absolutes!” With a grin and an incline of her head, the teen propelled bricks, pipes, and stone into the mask. It stepped backwards under the assault.
“I love my family,” John said with a sigh. “Girls, great work! Keep hammering him until he loses concentration.”
Ditzy smiled at her husband’s voice until until her her eyes saw him struggling amidst the debris. “Oh, John!”
Topsy landed on Ditzy’s precarious perch of pallets. “What? What’s wrong? The big lawn ornament didn’t squash him, right? I mean, I didn’t miss that, I think.”
Ditzy’s chin trembled as she noted the weeks of stubble on her husband’s chin and the extra inches on his mane. “He’s been ‘unstuck,’ Mom. It’s... it’s time traveller talk. He’s been bounced around in time for a while since dinner.”
“How can you tell?” Topsy blinked, stepping forward and peering at John in curiousity.
Ditzy sighed. “I shave a distinctive pattern into his coat everyday,” she lied.
“Got it,” Topsy said as she tousled Ditzy’s mane. “My brilliant girl. Should we do something like that to the kids, too?”
Ditzy’s mind stopped, checked all the dials, made some adjustments, and finally approved the conclusion. She realized with a grin that her mother now believed every word she said. With a spring in her step, she took to the air.
“Come on, Mom. We’re winning this. I refuse to die now.”
As they flew over the snarling spectacle, Mfalme’s eyes glowed. Jagged bits of pipe narrowly missed Ditzy and Topsy they looped around in the air.
“Watch out, love!” John called from the ground, both hooves on the side of his mouth. “He’s a powerful telekinectic!”
Ditzy’s eyes spun in exasperation as she and Topsy dropped a few feet of altitude to dodge a headless statue. “Thank you, John! I never would’ve realized that!”
“Feh,” said Topsy. “Husbands. Think they know everything.”
Mfalme stormed through the cellar, shattering containers underhoof. As they exploded, they coalesced into lines of Zebrican warriors. “You can’t hide, Doctor!” He screamed, far past the edge of sanity. “Not when my legions reappear!”
“They were never that good in the first place, dear king,” drawled an amused voice behind him.
Past the point of coherent banter, Mfalme turned towards Daring’s voice. She walked calmly between her scattered possessions, finally stopping to offer Mfalme a wink.
The resulting scream shook the timbers of the manor as he formed a spear made of concrete, bricks, and hate. It flew towards Daring, embedding in the crate behind where she just stood.
“This is it, Mfalme,” Daring’s mocking voice called out. “This is my worst day, and you still can’t touch me.”
“Seize her!” Mflame roared as the zebrican constructs scattered throught the basement. His attention drawn away from the spear, he failed to see the blood drip off of it onto the floor.
As the girls drew Mfalme’s ire, John jogged his way back to his family. His mood soared as he saw Storm helping Molossus to his feet. The diamond dog was breathing with pain and effort, but he was able to stand. Dinky stood behind him, nuzzling his leg as he gently patted her head.
As John moved, Sparkler’s glowing stone platform dropped out of the air next to him, keeping pace easily. “Father,” she asked. “What is just happening?”
“Mfalme.” John breathed heavily, wavering back and forth as he reached Dinky’s side. “Mfalme... transferred his consciousness into a psionic entity, and he’s now creating sapient psionic constructs of his dead followers, probably by drawing on our applicable memories of how they were in life.”
Sparkler nodded. She immediately turned to Dinky.
“Sister, what happened?”
“The vampire zombie zebra made some ghosts,” Dinky said with a smile.
Sparkler nodded as John rubbed his eyes. “Dinky, if I wasn’t so proud of you for understanding and explaining that I’d be more exasperated.”
‘Kay!” Dinky paused. “What’s exasperated? You, Mommy, and Cheerilee use that one a lot.”
“Tell you when you’re older.”
Dinky nodded, thinking about the large dictionary in her home.
As Molossus leaned against a makeshift wall, Storm walked over to John. “Okay, so he was psychic while he was...” He looked at Dinky nervously. “While he was. Why won’t he stay... not? How can we ‘not’ him?”
As he spoke, Sparkler gasped at her mother’s eyes rolling around on her grandfather’s face. Storm gave them an extra twirl for her benefit.
“Well,” John said as he caught his breath. “Hmm. Well.”
Dinky giggled. “Daddy, you’re as silly as Mommy says sometimes.”
He swiveled, staring at her with anticipation. She stuck her tongue out at him before snorting.
“You’re awfully calm, Dinky,” he said.
She shrugged. “It’s just a monster, Daddy.” Dinky rolled her eyes. “Seriously, it’s not like its Diamond Tiara or anything. Anyway, all you have to do to ‘not’ a vampire zebra is drive a stake through his heart.”
His shoulders slumped. “Little Muffin, if you ever say that monsters shouldn’t be taken seriously again, I promise, no more family trips.”
John Doo-Smith sighed. He had expected one of those “out of the mouths of foals,” moments. “Honey, he lives on psychically-refined willpower. You can’t just... “
He stopped, lifted his daughter in his forehooves and kissed her on the nose.
“You’re a genius! That’ who you are, my genius girlie!” He spun his daughter in a circle, drawing a spate of giggles. “His heart! Brilliant! You’re the most wonderfully brilliant girl who ever lived!”
Dinky snorted. “Of course I’m a genius. Look at my Mommy.”
As Storm stared in uncomprehending wonder, John continued nuzzling Dinky.
She sighed. “Daddy, go save the day. You’re embarrassing me in front of Grandpapa.”
John blinked. “Right.” He passed his daughter to Storm. “Here, take over. Run if anything sounds like an imminent explosion. Sparkler, start gathering really big things in case this doesn’t work.”
As John ran back toward the fray, Dinky looked at Storm pleadingly. “Grandpapa, could you put me down?”
He looked at her before pulling her even tightly into his grasp. “No. Little Muffin, I don’t think I can.”
John crept low, ducking under the protection of the scattered debris as dust and shards flew past his head. Turning toward the melee, a wing weakly grabbed him from inside the hollow wreckage of a box.
“Doctor,” Daring said weakly. “Doctor, listen. Scarlet... Bloom.”
John looked inside at the trembling mare. He very gently kissed her, rubbing his hoof down the side of her neck lingeringly as he pulled away. “Shh. Stay here. You’re delirious. Shortwide will be here with the plane very soon. I’ve got to go. Got to save the world.”
As he left Daring blushed, shivering slightly. Suddenly, she weakly slammed her hoof into the side of the crate as he disappeared from view. “Oh, for pity’s sake,” she whispered. “Doctor!” She cried out as she tried to drag herself out of her shelter. “Doctor, I am not bloody delirious! Before you die on me again will you please listen to me? It’s about your -- ”
Hearing wooden hoofbeats, she pulled herself back into the darkness.
“How did you ever manage, Ditzy?” Daring Do grumbled. “That stallion is impossible.”
In the middle of the room, the mad giant was laughing now as it spun stone after stone at Ditzy and Topsy. Ditzy’s lungs burned in her chest as she strained to speak while flying. “Mom, watch out. There’s a wave of rocks coming... ”
Ditzy suddenly yelped as her wing collided with a support pillar. Topsy dived at the sound, wrapping her limbs around Ditzy as they dropped.
“My poor scatter-eyes,” Topsy said while shaking her head. “You did great for someone with your condition.”
Ditzy shook her head as Topsy’s words flew through her brain. “Mom! Slow down! You can’t let us crash. I working shower gellbiflorbit king!”
Topsy flung her wings downwards, straining to reassert control. As the hard basement floor rushed up at them, Topsy used the very the last second to spin around, using herself as a cushion for Ditzy.
Ditzy rolled unto the ground. She shook her head, only a little bit dizzy from the impact. Her eyes snapped open. “Mom? Mom, are you okay?”
The pile of orange hair and feathers groaned. “I swear, Bubbeleh, you’re going to be the death of me one day.”
As Mfalme’s hooves shook the foundations of Daring Manor, John Doo-Smith calmly stepped in front of the giant.
“Stop it,” he said. “We’re done. No more of my family gets hurt today.”
The stone titan peered down at the defiant Time Charger. “Why? Why should I not punish you for poisoning my own daughter against me?”
“Because you’ve won.” He flung his forelimbs, spinning in a circle as wooden Zebras closed in on him. “Look at the level of basic awareness you’re placed into these simple constructs. Truly, you are the most gifted psychic the world has ever known.” He stopped, looking away from Mfalme as a cruel grin stretched across his face. “So, what if you focused on just one?”
Mfalme paused. “Go on.”
“Well,” John said as he leaned against the crazed king’s leg. “If you focused on just one entity, you could infuse it with the shared memories of multiple individuals, Your Majesty. Give it full sapience and independent identity.”
Mfalme straightened. Wordlessly, his eyes gleamed with emerald light as the zebrican soldiers collapsed. In the midst of the psychic storm, a single equine body was weaving itself into existence.
Daring panted as she leaned on a crate, staring into the storm. “No,” she whispered. “Please don’t let him do this.”
With a final burst of light, a beautiful wooden zebra mare stood in the middle of the settled chaos. Eyes made of bark and stone blinked in wonder.
“My daughter,” Mfalme cried in triumph. “My daughter returns, Doctor! Now, we can rule this land together.”
The Doctor shook his head as she stepped towards him.
“Doctor,” she whispered.
He breathed deeply. “I’m sorry, Mailaika. I’m so sorry.”
She nodded, turning her face upwards. “Father.”
The mask nodded. “I have transcended the bonds of flesh and time, my little bird. Now, let us-- ”
“Let us die, Father,” said the Princess.
Mfalme shook, bits of debris falling of him. “What treachery is this, Doctor?”
Mailaika ran a gentle hoof down the stone pillar of her father’s leg. “Let the past stay buried, and stop inflicting your hate on the world for me. I do not crave it.” She looked back to John. “Doctor, it is I who am sorry.”
He nodded silently with wet eyes before turning around. “Mfalme, that’s it. Show’s over.”
The beast reared back, slamming its hooves into the ground. John and Mailaika were thrown backwards as Mfalme screamed.
“What have you done to her, Doctor?”
John pulled himself to his hooves with a minimum of bone-shaking pain. “I did nothing. But that’s your own memories you just kicked away, Mfalme! Your own thoughts and feelings made her! That means that, deep down inside, you know what that beautiful creature would have wanted. You know that you need to stop existing and your daughter would agree!”
The Princess tried to stand, but her shattered limbs cracked underneath her. “Father,” she said with effort, her throat nearly torn away. “Stop hurting me, Father.”
Mfalme stopped.
In every way, Mfalme stopped.
John’s eyes went wide as the giant equine above him began to collapse like a giant equine pinata filled with warriors. He leapt out of the way of a falling leg before pulling himself to his feet. Standing, he turned to see nothing but a pile of rubble.
Okay, he thought, briefly closing his eyes. Seven. Please, seven. I don’t know if this helps, but please make it seven.
John turned, holding his breath.
Molossus limped along the rows of wreckage, walking on a crutch of debris held together by a purple glow. Sparkler held her head high next to him, Dinky on her back. Nearby Topsy walked shakily, leaning on breathless Ditzy.
“Five,” John said with a gasp. “No, not five. Five’s not good enough.”
From a pile of dust a wing rose into the air. Smooth Storm coughed as he stood, lifting the other wing that was wrapped around his aunt. Daring Do weakly pulled herself upwards, one wing grabbing Storm’s shoulder and the other held in a bleeding patch of her flank.
“Daddy,” Ditzy said, turning pale. “What’s with your eyes?”
Storm sighed. “Yeah, there’s a conversation I’m looking forward to.”
“Seven,” John whispered breathlessly, falling to his knees. “Oh, yes, yes, seven!”
Dinky hopped down off of Sparkler as the pair lifted their father up. “Daddy, what happened?”
John pulled his girls tightly against him as he shook. “You said it. He was a vampire zebra. You kill a vampire by destroying his heart, Dinky. No matter what, a father’s heart is always his daughters.”
Ditzy smiled, lifted the fallen mask out of the debris in a quivering wingtip. “And this?”
He shrugged. “It’s just a mask, now. Harmless.”
Daring nodded. “Of course.” She coughed into Storm’s wing, then lifted her head. “Sparkler? Be a dear and do your me the honor, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course, Grand Aunt,” Sparkler said with a smile. Without leaving her father’s embrace, her horn flickered as the wooden mask imploded, crumpling in on itself until it was a small cube of sawdust.
“But,” the Doctor said rolling his eyes, “I guess there’s no harm in making sure.”
___
Minutes later found the Doo-Smith clan upstairs in the living room, laughing as they lounged on the couches. Having tucked in his aunt with a blanket, Smooth Storm walked over towards his wife. He briefly dodged one of several levitating drink trays (Sparkler having offered to help the injured Molossus) before reaching Topsy. Spinning her away from her conversation with the reclining Ditzy, he pulled his wife into a passionate kiss.
“You know, honey,” he said as he pulled back briefly. “I have it on good authority that our daughter’s a genius because of you.”
“Well,” she replied with a smile while she wrapped her wings around her husband’s neck. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Dinky stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry. “Ugh. Why does the end of an adventure also become kissy-face time?”
Sparkler’s tail pat her on the head as she past, a tray of appetizers balanced on her head. “My sister, do not knock it yet. I for one plan on trying it as soon as we get home.”
Dinky made gagging sounds as she crept up on her father and Daring, relaxing on the side of the couch. They laughed at some whispered joke as their great aunt poured a drink with her wings.
“Well, that was an adventure,” Daring exclaimed. “A toast, to impending retirement! May more of our kind live to see it.”
John nodded. as he checked the bandages on her side. “Yep. Gonna kick back in Cloudsdale, now?”
Daring nearly spit out her drink. “Cloudsdale? Can’t stand the place. If I recall, you and your jealous little box tended to fall right through the clouds. That’d make visits dreary, don’t you think?”
As the two giggled, Dinky bit her lip. “‘Priceless things,’” she said to herself while trotting up to her Grand Aunt, her mind racing with recent memories.
“Mommy? If Auntie Daring’s a pegasus, why does she live on the ground?”
“She always told me that the sky bored her. You don’t find priceless things on top of clouds. They tend to fall right through.”
“Grauntie Daring,” DInky asked innocently, “did you used to date Daddy?”
John blew a mouthful of champagne out over the couch as Daring laughed. She looked at Dinky with pleasure.
“This one is the sharp one, John. Keep an eye on her.” She leaned forward. “Yes, my dear. Yes, I did. That is why I am so happy he found someone as wonderful as your mother.”
Dinky nodded with a smile. “Thank you.”
Daring blinked. “For what?”
“Not treating me like an idiot,” Dinky said as she walked off with a spring in her step.
John said nothing as Daring shook with silent laughter.
“Daring, darling,” he said suddenly.
She sipped her glass, regarding Dinky with a curious eye. “Yes, Doctor?”
“I practice.”
To her credit, she didn’t say “What?” Years of experience taught her to smile and wait for the Doctor to explain himself.
“You asked me once if I was prepared to wait by Ditzy’s bedside. I... I reasonably expect to know when I’d have to. I caught a vague, fleeting glimpse at a memorial statue of her erected on some planet or another in the centuries between visits. Big thing, you’d like it.” He swallowed.
“You naughty boy!” She gestured reproachfully at him with her drink. “What about your rule regarding spoilers?’”
John shrugged. “I made a wrong turn at the restroom! That darn tourist map was useless.”
“My poor Doctor.” Daring reached over and ran a single feather down his cheek. “Always getting lost.”
“Anyway,” he continued, “I think I know the day. I practiced. I tried waiting outside the room. Didn’t work. I managed to get down the street, just within view of the hospital.” Bleary eyes pierced into her, begging for some kind of absolution. “I can’t bear to go in. I know I’ll have to one day, but I can’t do it yet. I’ll have to someday. I shouldn’t have to do it twice”
Daring threw both forehooves around his neck. “My dear Doctor. My poor, dear, lonely Doctor. Does she really deserve you?”
This time he didn’t need to think. “Yes,” he replied immediately.
Daring smiled. “Then I am more proud of her than I could ever say.” She sighed. “We’ve lived long lives, John. It’s good to be proud.”
“True. So many experiences. Submerged temples. Zeppelins. Things we shared. Things we missed out on.”
Daring raised an eyebrow.
“Well,” he said with a nervous hoof wave. “Children. I’m glad you married, but it would have been fun to see Mommy Daring at work.”
Daring gently put down her glass. “I had a child, John.”
“Oh, I missed that?” John poured himself another glass. “Strong Song must have preened all over his kilt that day. I always told that spunky young hooflander that he’d make a fine father.” He raised his glass for a swig.
“It was before I was married, John,” she said softly. “After you left.”
The glass fell out of his hoof into his lap before rolling off onto the floor. He sat still. He didn’t turn to her. At least, it didn’t feel like it. It felt like the universe turned him.
“What happened?”
“I raised her on my own while her father went to war. He... didn’t come back quite the same. When he left, he was the most courageous, brave, kind and gentle stallion I knew.” Her wings drew back. “When I saw him next, he was a brash, loud, bore of a stallion. The boy I loved was gone.” Her trembling hooves put down her drink on a table. “Lately, I feel like I’ve found him again.”
John’s eyes begged her to continue.
“We loved each other and fought constantly. She was so headstrong and stubborn.” A prideful smile flashed on Daring’s face. “I hadn’t been ready to settle down yet. Life was a trial and an adventure for us. Eventually, she was old enough that she could run away. She was good at running. Picked that up from her father.”
John leaned over, placing a hoof gently over Daring’s own. “What did you name her?”
Daring Do looked into her glass. “Scarlet Bloom. I named her after my favorite flowers.”
“The ones... in your room.”
“Yes, John.” She patted his hoof. “They help me remember the best times.”
John leapt to his feet, drawing glances from the rest of the family. “Where is she? She still is where, right? Please? Please.”
Daring’s face froze. “She took off on the relaunch of the H.M.S.Courageous . She grew up hearing stories of that ship.”
“No,” whispered John. “Please don’t... don’t say this to me. I don’t deserve-- ”
“She was supposed to be on it when it crashed into the canyon,” she continued conversationally.
John’s knees buckled. “Please.” Ditzy began to stand as she saw John shaking.
Daring lifted her drink. “Strange affair. They never found any trace of her.” She raised an eyebrow. “Or, even more bizarrely, her luggage. It had apparently disappeared out of the still-sealed and recovered cargo compartment, somehow. So did her favorite painting of all time, from the empty captain’s cabin.”
John blinked. “No! Really.” He started to grin, tears flowing freely. “Really? Please, please really?”
Daring’s wings gently circled him. As he pulled him closer, she whispered into his ear, “Really. John Doo-Smith, I swear that whenever you find her, regardless of whoever you are at the time, if you don’t bring her back to visit before my end... ”
“You’ll hunt me down and kill me?” John asked with a grin.
Daring smiled. “I’m getting too old for that, and you’d just shrug it off anyway. I’ll do something that sticks to you particularly; I will be very disappointed. I’ll keep my schedule free, as it is.”
John Doo-Smith, last of the Time Chargers, the Oncoming Storm, the Bringer of Shape and the Shaper of History, collapsed into Daring’s forelimbs in an incomprehensible fit of joyful crying. He raised his sniffling head as he felt Ditzy’s hoof on his shoulder.
“Ditz’ Do! Luv’ you so much!” He squeezed her like an over-affectionate python.
“Urgh!” She wiggled out of the hazardous hug. “John, I think it’s time to tell you something before you try that again.” She stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth for a second as her head bounced back and forth in contemplation.
“John,” she finally started. “I was worried. I mean, actually worried that time.”
“What?” He blinked away the tears before snickering. “No. I mean, psychic projection and broken reality walls? That’s nothing out of the ordinary-”
A hoof closed his mouth.
“John, shut up for a second. I was worried because I’m pregnant!”
The entire room went silent. Sparkler clapped her hooves onto the ground as Topsy made almost words with her mouth.
“Well, now,” Storm said with a smirk. “I really didn’t think he had it in him.”
Dinky scratched her mane. “Does this involve the blue box, somehow?”
Molossus remained unruffled and unfazed. He was a butler; he had standards to uphold.
“We... I... you.. we did,” John sputtered out a semblance of sentences. “We certainly did! We’ll have to tell Wandering Star. She’ll want to be there for the birth. I mean, she lives two hundred years in the future, but that’s just commuting. She’s going to be a niece again!”
Ditzy grabbed her husband tightly. “Promise me we’ll go together.”
“I’m here with you,” he said with a nod. “I’ll always be here. I’m not leaving.”
Daring smiled as she patted him on the shoulder. “Good choice. You’re a good pony, John Smith. See your child’s birth. Raise her. I think that’s the greatest gift you could give. You have all the time in the world. Spend it with her while you can.”
Ditzy pulled back, throwing a skeptical look at Daring. “Her?”
Daring smiled enigmatically. “It’s a hunch. And it’s what you deserve.”
___
Days later, John was shaking unsteady hooves with his father-in-law on the steps of the manor as Molossus loaded their cart.
“I like you without your sunglasses. You remind me of someone.”
Storm nodded. “Maybe I’ll go public. Raise some awareness.”
“So. Um.” John stared at the countryside for a few seconds. “Visit when you can, you know.”
Storm nodded. “Sure, John.”
“Yep,” John replied as they launched into uncomfortable silence.
“Well,” Storm said, trying his best. “We may not have much in common... ”
“Do you like sports?” John interrupted, scratching the back of his neck.
Storm stared at the son-in-law he had finally accepted as not being an idiot.
“Because, you know, I have a time machine and box seats to every zero-g football game for three hundred years and just maybe I still have two tickets to the Bucklyn Dodgers’ first seven World Series.”
As the girls walked out of the manor, all their conversations ceased at the sight of John and Storm patting each other on the back and laughing.
Topsy’s mouth opened. “Bubbeleh, that is the most impossible thing I’ve seen this weekend.”
As the family gathered for good-byes, Dinky walked up to her father with a perturbed look. “Dad, we missed something.”
“Oh?” He gently slid out of Storm’s embrace. “What is that?”
“Where’s the part where we cure Aunty Daring?”
An uncomfortable silence settled over the family.
“Because,” Dinky continued, “if this were one of Aunt Daring’s novels the end would involve us curing her, so when does that happen?”
John closed his eyes. “One day, Dinky Doo-Smith, I had to stop living up to your standards. Dinky, this isn’t a children’s adventure novel. We don’t get to fix everything.”
Daring Do turned away, walking to the other end of the stairs. “Someone deal with this. I’m rubbish at children.”
Dinky’s eyes widened. “That’s not fair.”
Topsy bit her wing. “Oh, boy. Let me make something-- ”
“Mom,” Ditzy said with warning in her tone. “I’m her mother. I’ll take care of it.”
Topsy smiled. “Yeah. You will.”
Ditzy slowly walked down the stairs, scooping Dinky up into her wings. “Little Muffin, life’s only as fair as we make it.”
The coach driver nervously kept his mouth shut as he watched the heart-breaking scene, aware that a little discretion was sometimes worth a large tip.
“That means we have to visit a lot,” Ditzy whispered into her daughter’s ear. “Starting now.”
Dinky lifted her head. “How...how long?”
There was a pause, broken by Molossus. He carefully knelt down next to Dinky and used a finger as wide as her leg to wipe her eyes. “Many months. Respectable months. More than February-level months, maybe not so many Octobers-sized. We might be able to string them into a year or two.”
Sparkler, pale-faced and shivering, walked into the cart.
Dinky lifted her hoof to Molossus’ paw. “Thank you for being honest, Uncle Molly Moo.”
He froze. “Pardon me, young miss, could you please clarify?”
Dinky nodded. “Well, Sparkler needed a family, so she became my sister. You’re going to be alone someday, so I’m making you my uncle.”
Daring Do lingered on the edge of the estate steps, barely able to catch the tones of conversation. She closed her eyes, weary, leaning against the side of a statue of Queen Majesty performing some viciously humorous punishment on an enemy of Dream Valley. Suddenly, a sound that she thought could never exist entered her mind.
It was the sound of Molossus crying. Opening her eyes, she saw Molossus on his knees, shaking back and forth as he cradled Dinky in his arms. Her family was surrounding him, sharing some warm smile that she had opted out of. Even Sparkler seemed to be coaxing herself out of the cart. Daring’s breath caught in her throat as she walked forward. When Daring Do cleared her throat, she spoke with none of the hesitation she felt.
“I have no idea what’s happening,” she pronounced, “but this stupid old nag will not be left out.”
Dinky crawled out of the arms of the blustering Molossus after planting a kiss on his nose. “I was trying to tell Mommy and Daddy that maybe I should miss school tomorrow.” She turned to her parents with tears in her eyes. “And… Tuesday, maybe?”
“Oh, no,” exclaimed Ditzy. “She’s doing The Eyes. I told you Apple Bloom was trouble. You deal with this.”
John clicked his tongue. “You just want to skip your geography test. It’s always a bit hard when places are laid out side by side, innit?”
Daring neighed in anger, drawing the attention of everyone around.
“My dear family, no granddaughter of mine is doing poorly in geography.” She dug into the pockets of her dress, throwing a bag of bits to the cart driver. “Sir, please give us another hour. Molossus! Pack my things! We’re going on vacation.”
She breathed carefully. “That is, John Doo-Smith, if you have the room for an old...”
Daring Do’s mouth failed her as she noticed the Scarlet Bloom flower carefully stuck into the lapel of his trench-coat. He gently pulled her into his embrace with Ditzy.
“My dear Dorothea, I will always have a place for you.”
___
Cheerilee’s class’ attention was beginning to sway as Truffle continued to drone on about his vintage pickelhaube hat. Cheerilee smiled, her inner teacher’s mask slipping in place to hide the look of a mare low on sleep from grading and about to pass out.
“That,” she said while stifling a yawn, “was wonderful, Truffle. Okay, so who’s next?”
“Not Dinky,” snorted Diamond Tiara. “She’s been too embarrassed to show her face all week.”
As the class started whispering, Cheerilee found herself wishing that Celestia would grant her the power of lunar banishment.
“Now, Diamond, why don’t we give Dinky the benefit of the...”
“I’m here!” Dinky shouted as she ran into the class. She skipped to a halt in front of the lectern. “I’m ready for show and tell.”
Revelling in Diamond’s shocked look, Cheerilee nodded approvingly. “Well, Dinky, you’re just on time for it.”
“‘Course I am,” Dinky replied, “I’m a Doo-Smith.”
Diamond Tiara snorted. “And what weird thing do you have this week? Maybe the stupid talking teddy bear again?”
The class held its breath as the aged mare in the pith helmet walked into the schoolhouse. “My word,” she said, “is that snarling little brute what passes for a girl these days?”
“Wubba wah wo Darh-Do,” commented Cheerilee precisely, swaying on the spot with starstruck eyes. The captivated eyes of the class stared as the mare in the green vest sat down at the front of the class. She rolled her forelimb at Dinky, who nodded in return.
“Hey, everybody. This is my grand-aunt. Her name’s Daring Do.”
The sound of Diamond Tiara’s unconscious head slamming onto the desk was as sweet as Dinky could have imagined.
The Whooves Family Trilogy will conclude this summer in "Doctor Whooves and the Mare in the Moon!"
Author's Note
Well, here we are again. It's really quite a pleasure. I think that now I've tried to kill John twice.
This was the hardest chapter I ever had to write. In my mind the seen in the beginning had to be perfect. I hope that you readers appreciate and enjoy the way I tried to entwine Daring Do and the Doctor's history together.
Thanks for all the support. I wouldn't keep writing without it.
