“Last one upstairs is a rusty Dalek!”

Dinky galloped up the stairs with Sparkler right behind her. The stairs to the attic were old and creaky, and Dinky giggled as her hooves pounded on the wood. “Can’t catch me!”

“See if I don’t!” Sparkler called back. Dinky blew a raspberry back over her shoulder—

—and missed the last step, stumbling over her hooves and falling into the attic.

“Whoa!” Sparkler came trotting up behind her. Dinky groaned, her hooves and tail tangled up in a messy heap. “You okay there?”

Dinky sneezed as she got back to her hooves. “I, uh, think so.”

“No bruises?”

“Nope.”

“Cuts?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Lacerations or internal bleeding?”

Dinky stuck her tongue out at her sister. “Nope.”

Sparkler chuckled, reaching to dust Dinky off. “Let’s see what we’ve got up here, then.”

“Yeah!” Dinky brushed Sparkler’s hoof away and looked around the room with wide eyes.

The attic, like most other attics, was filled with dust and patches of darkness. Motes of light drifted across the room, alighting upon Dinky's nose and tickling her nostrils. She sneezed again, bits of dust flying everywhere.

"Don't tell me you've got a cold now," Sparkler said.

"N-no!" Dinky shot back, struggling not to sneeze again. Her eyes watered, and her mouth wobbled, but she managed to keep it down. "It's just dusty up here!"

 "It is pretty dingy up here," Sparkler said, taking a look around.

"Like a cave!" Dinky spotted something in a corner and trotted over to get a closer look. “And caves have secret treasures!”

“I don’t think that Blackmane hid his loot in our attic.”

“That’s just what he wants you to think!” Dinky grinned down at a pile of tattered-looking newspapers. Maybe one of them was secretly a treasure map!

“So we’re some kind of explorers, then?”

“Exactly!”

“Well, then,” Sparkler said. “So, great captain, what treasures do you think you'll find here?"

"We'll know them when we find them," Dinky said. Bored with the newspapers—they were all in black and white, and without enough pictures to be interesting—she decided to look elsewhere. She quickly found the perfect subject: a pile of boxes stacked up toward the ceiling. At the top was a large, wooden object cast in shadow by the dim lighting.

Hopping over, she looked up at the pile with her tongue in between her teeth. It would be a hard climb, but she knew that she could make it. After all, she and Pipsqueak had climbed worse mountains before.

"Well, what do you know?" Sparkler trotted up behind her as Dinky squatted down. "I think that's my old rocking-horse up there. Y'know, it still seems really ironic to me that we even have those."

Dinky had already tuned her out. There was just one thing on her mind: getting to the top of that tower, and finding whatever treasures that lay in wait at its peak. Wiggling her hips, she thrust out with her hooves and jumped—

Sparkler noticed only a second too late. "Wait—Dinky!"

Dinky landed on the first box with a thump, her hooves wobbling a bit on the bent cardboard surface. Thankfully, it only took her a second to regain her balance. “Come on, Sparkler!” she said, leaning up against another box behind her. "Let’s go hikin—whoa!”

The box slid backward a few inches and Dinky overbalanced, her hooves wiggling in the air in a doomed attempt to stay standing up. One moment, she was standing at the bottom of a tower, and the next it had all come crashing down around her, burying her in a heap of old newspapers and cardboard.

When Sparkler managed to dig her out, there was a big blush on Dinky's face. "Oops," Dinky said. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

Sparkler snorted. "No, it wasn't. Now come on—let's clean this up before Mom or Dad comes up here to check what that was."

"Hey—what's this?" Dinky said, blinking owlishly down at a book that had fallen into her lap. It was a thick, string-bound volume, its pages yellowed and crinkled with age. She flipped through a few pages: each one held a picture, most in black and white. More importantly, in the center of every picture stood a couple: a grey pegasus and an earth pony stallion with a hourglass design on his flank.

"Sparkler, look! A treasure!"

"A treasure?" Sparkler leaned in to take a closer look. "Huh. It’s an old photo album of Mom and Dad’s. I wonder how old this thing is?"

"About twenty years, give or take."

The two fillies whirled around. "Mom!" they blurted together. "We didn't hear you!"

Derpy chuckled, trotting up the stairs and into the attic. "Of course not, sillies. I can be quiet if I want to." A grin spread across her face, her eyes swirling a bit closer to normal as she trotted toward them. "So that's our old photo album, huh? Mind if I take a look?"

Dinky frowned, clutching it to her chest. "I dunno..." she said, mulling it over.

"Please?" Derpy asked. "I'll give you a muffin."

Dinky shrugged.

"Two muffins," Derpy said, smirking. "Final offer."

That did it. "Here you go!" Dinky cheerfully announced, thrusting the photo album into her mom's face. "I'll expect those muffins on my desk by tomorrow morning, please!"

Sparkler snorted, and Derpy glanced over at her with a helpless grin. "What can I say?" Derpy said. "My kids know what they want—after all, I seem to recall another filly who had no problems taking hostages in exchange for more muffins with breakfast."

Sparkler blushed.

"Now," Derpy said, taking a seat and setting the book on the floor, “let's see what we have here."

Dinky took a place by her side, with Sparkler right beside her. Dinky leaned over her mother's lap. "What's that one?" she asked, pointing at the first picture she saw.

"That's your father and I on the planet Anagonia—planet of eternal autumn, it’s called." Derpy giggled. "That was our first date."

"And this one?"

“That’s us outside the headquarters of the Shadow Proclamation.”

“What about this?” Dinky’s hoof landed on a colored picture of two ponies standing outside of a blue telephone box—the TARDIS. The mare had an uncertain smile on her face, and the stallion was beaming into the camera.

Derpy smiled. “That was taken soon after your father and I met, just after our first ‘adventure’.”

Dinky’s eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Really really.”

"What was it like?" Sparkler asked. "You've never really told us how you two met in the first place."

"Haven't I?" Derpy frowned, prodding her chin. “Are you sure you want to hear it? It’s not the happiest story.”

Dinky nodded eagerly. "Oh, yes, yes please!" Sparkler nodded too as she reached over to ruffle Dinky's mane. The filly pouted, but didn’t resist.

Derpy chuckled, leaning back and closing her eyes. "Well, then. I guess I have no choice. It all started on a warm summer afternoon in my hometown of Whinnypeg..."

Derpy and the Doctor will return in…

Can I Come With You

A story by Golden Vision