The What and Whatiful Who

by cosby7

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX: Loosening Up Tied Ends

The creature approaching the TARDIS did not look like any pony that Trixie had ever seen. It was like a bear, except hairless, well mostly, and with a different face. More smooshed in. There were wiggling things on the legs instead of hooves. Only time would tell if it talked, but she had a hard time imagining the thing without a voice. That went on. And on. And on. That is to say, Trixie had never seen a creature like it, but she somehow had no trouble recognizing him.

“So, I suppose this is what a Time Lord is meant to look like?”

“I certainly hope so.” It was so strange. The voice was different and the form definitely was, but, somehow, inescapably, she just knew. “But I think I might actually miss the 'Hooves.' Was growing sort of attached to it. Them, even.”

“Shall Trixie try a spell?” she asked coquettishly. “Maybe I can grow some back for you.”

“No! No, that's . . . that's alright.” He wiggled his wiggly things. “Think I'll stick with fingers again for a while, thanks.” Trixie giggled at that. The strange creature called a Time Lord sat down next to her with a sigh.

“You know,” she said, still staring off into the dark woods from which he had returned, “you were everything I was always striving for. I shaped my whole life around that day.” Her head shook ruefully, at a memory's return. “Right now, there's a little filly, crying her eyes out down there, scared to death that she ran away from her first adventure. And her first real friend.” Smiling, but still not looking, she gave the Time Lord a playful bump with her shoulder. “I guess both of you caught up to her in the end though. Just like you promised.”

“It didn't occur to me, until I saw her there, so little and full of wonder, it was you, the whole time.”

“Well, of course it was me,” she replied, rolling her eyes as if that much was not obvious by now. “Trixie has been telling you all along—”

“No, I mean,” he continued, interrupting her, “all of it was you. Everything. There was one last enormous paradox I couldn't account for. He knew it too, but I doubt he ever would have guessed where it came from. Not the Master, not the Elements, you. Without you, none of this would have been possible. But, because of everything you've done, the chain of events you set in motion, you became the only one who could do it. Two moments in time that couldn't exist without the other. You were the biggest paradox of all, Great and Powerful Trixie.”

“You mean,” she stumbled as she spoke, the full weight of what he had just told her crashing down one word at a time, “none of those horrible things would have happened without me?”

“What? No! Did I say that? I didn't say that. Who told you that? All I said was that if you had not helped me get here, then the events that made you who you are never would have taken place. You're responsible for shaping the pony you were always meant to be. I mean, that's usually how it's supposed to go anyway, or so I hear. Just took a bit of a more roundabout way of doing it.”

“Funny,” she chuckled, “I was blaming you for it all these years.”

“All on you, I'm afraid.”

“But really, Doctor,” she coaxed in a more melancholy tone, “if it's my fault, if it's the paradox I created that allowed all this to start, then how is everything that happened not on me?”

“Because it's not.” He was so sure. Trixie still wanted to know more than anything how he did that. Nopony could fake it that well. She knew. She had tried. Maybe that was one trick she could never learn: Being him. “Time is always moving, always changing all around us. All we can do is react to it. That's what you did. You reacted. Marvelously, by the way. If you are at fault for anything, then it's saving the entire world and every world that would have been touched by the Master's insanity. The future we saw? Never existed. Everything that happened to Ponyville? Didn't happen. There are some who will remember, of course. The ones tied into the fabric of that reality, Twilight and her friends, the Princesses, wherever they were in all that mess—”

“Yeah, what was up with that?”

“Honestly, I do not even know.” Not surprising. “The point is, none of the horrible things that happened, really happened. It all gets wiped away, like a bad dream. Time corrected itself. That is what's on you.”

“I'm still not quite sure I get it.”

“Yeah, well, try dwelling on it for a thousand years, see how far you get.” She couldn't tell if he was serious or not. It was probably more a matter of degrees.

“Is it really over then? The Great and Paradoxical Trixie is not some sort of time bomb?”

“Loop is closed. Both ends met, universe didn't explode. Far as I can tell, time is satisfied. Least until another Trixie in another time line starts mucking things up again.” He put his wiggly paw type thing on her shoulder, giving it a shake she took to indicate he was only kidding. She liked the feeling. It was comfortable. “And if that happens, I'll just go and have a talk with time. We go way back.”

Trixie found herself chuckling again, but this time, it had as much to do with her strange friend's words as it did with the words she did not want to ask. “And what about the Master?”

By the way the Doctor stiffened, Trixie gathered that he had been avoiding the subject, as well.

“When your spell took effect, I . . . I think it worked better than I hoped. I could feel it, in my mind. I could feel him. The potential you have for magic clearly works on instinct, on your emotions, and you naturally came up with the right spell. When you said you didn't want it to hurt, well,” he looked sheepish, “it didn't. It wiped us out, but it may have been closer to a purge than a kill? Gah! I don't know how your rubbish magic works!” This time, her chuckle was sincere. It seemed her Time Lord friend could be cute when he was frustrated. “However it worked, you weakened him. Both of us, obviously, but, right, you get it. Anyway, the energy from my regeneration was enough to push out anything that remained. So he's gone. The Master is gone.”

“For good?”

He didn't answer.

Instead, they just sat there together, a Time Lord and a unicorn, sitting in a big blue box that was bigger on the inside, in the middle of a big dark forest. There may have been a stranger pair, somewhere in the universe, or Las Pegasus, anything goes in that place, but probably not many. All the same, that didn't seem to bother them. It was enough that they could simply enjoy one another's company after a job well done. The young unicorn with her oldest friend and the mad old man with his newest.

“You know what I just realized?” the Doctor finally asked, breaking the peaceful silence.

“What's that?”

“I'm nude.”

“Didn't seem to bother you before.”

“Yes, well, customs and all. Typically, a self respecting Time Lord wears clothes.”

“How fortunate. It doesn't sound like you qualify.”

“Fair point, but, you know, customs and all.”

“I suppose. Trixie suggests perhaps a cape.”

“Oh ho, you think I can pull one off now, then?”

“Hm, I suppose. You may have the shoulders for it, but, then again, Trixie has never seen how a cape fits a Time Lord.”

“Pompously, if memory serves.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Oh! You have to tell me, what do I look like? Whole new me and you're the first to see it.”

“Hmm. Skinnier than a bear. And the skin looks fairly smooth.”

“Yeah, young and thin, those are trending lately.”

“And your mane is red.”

“What, my mane . . . ? You mean my hair? I have red hair? REALLY?”

“Is . . . is that okay?”

“Oh! It's better than okay! It's brilliant! This really is a good day! I finally get to be ginger!”

The unicorn and the Time Lord continued on like that, chatting and conspiring back and forth, as only good friends may. They continued talking as they both rose from their seats. They continued talking as Trixie followed the Doctor down the halls, to wherever a closet might be. They continued talking as the door swung shut behind them. They continued talking as the blue box disappeared from time and space, leaving no trace for a young unicorn magician to find the next day.