The What and Whatiful Who

by cosby7

CHAPTER EIGHT: Paper -> Pony -> TARDIS

“Doctor?”

“Yefh?”

After their guide had disappeared behind the entrance to Cantaerloth Palace, Trixie and Doctor Hooves had allowed themselves to cease the run they had broken into, but they continued on their way at a brisk trot through the palace’s entrance passage. As they passed each set of guards, mostly pegasi Trixie noticed, the Doctor held in his mouth a strange piece of paper. To Trixie’s eyes, the paper appeared completely blank, but her companion seemed adamant that each guard see it as they hurried past. Whatever they happened to see, it was enough that they were allowed to carry on without incident. Even so, it had the, potentially welcome, Trixie hadn’t decided yet for sure, side effect of muffling the stallion’s speech.

“Have we come to the wrong time? I thought you said we were coming to the start of the Princesses' rule over Equestria, but Dennis did not seem to know who they were at all.”

“Whe-uh . . .” he replied through a mouthful of paper. Trixie tried to stifle a giggle. She was unsuccessful.

“Here,” she said, a light purple glow, the same color as the glow around her horn, enveloped the blank sheet. It rose a little off to the side, hovering just ever so slightly away from his face. “Allow me.”

“Bluh. Thank you. Seem to remember being a bit more dextrous with that.” He spent the next couple seconds spitting the paper taste from his mouth in an overly dramatic fashion.

What’s the big deal? Trixie wondered to herself. I’ve eaten plenty of paper . . . to gain its power! Fondly, she regarded the memories she held of eating page upon page of magic tome. It never worked.

“What is that anyway?”

“Psychic paper,” he replied with that casual voice, at once at odds with his boyishly excited grin. “Shows ponies whatever I want them to see.”

“What does it say now?”

“That I’m the wise earth pony doctor, Doctor Hooves, and you are the Great and Powerful unicorn magician, Trixie.”

She shot him a sideways glare. “You really didn’t put any thought into this plan, did you?”

“Like I said,” he deliberately slowed his pace a bit, forcing Trixie to compensate both her spell and her steps, “planning usually ends up with running. Why plan when we can just start running now?”

The passage had been surprisingly long, but it finally ended after a final set of guards, holding a large double door. Doctor Hooves snatched the psychic paper from the air with his teeth, presumably with the intention of returning it to whatever hidey hole he had removed it from in the first place. Trixie let her spell dissipate.

Wandering into what must have been the conference hall, base and pulse of the palace, they found it surprisingly noisy. Never before had Trixie seen a single room so massive. While it was true she had never been to the castle in Canterlot, a gig she would have died for, she had still been to some pretty impressive cities. Still, this place blew them all away. Not only was the floor completely littered with podiums, desks, and other speech-making sundry, but the walls and ceiling seemed to go on forever in a vaulted dome. Perhaps that was why the sound bounced around the room so well. Trixie liked to imagine she understood acoustics. Each piece of furniture was positioned around the walls of the ovular room, leaving an empty space in the center, which allowed each group stationed around a podium or table to see all the others in the room. Earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns all stood about talking amongst one another, the idle chit chat mixing in the air to create a web of indistinguishable voices. Clearly, they had not yet missed the beginning of the summit. Doctor Hooves pulled Trixie off to the side.

“Tell me what it was you wanted to ask and I’ll answer if it’s the right question.”

Just who did this stallion think he was getting so high and mighty all of a sudden? Trixie? Her ensuing grunt was all kinds of disdainful.

“Trixie asked, oh 'wise' Doctor, if you screwed up and got us to the wrong time. Dennis didn’t know who the princesses were at all. That is where you said we were supposed to be.”

“What I said,” he intoned in a slow lecture, not even deigning to face her as his eyes fervently searched the throng of important ponies, “was that we were going to see the creation of the Elements. The problem is not with our timing, its with their’s.”

“What do you mean?” Trixie asked, her face scrunching up in confusion.

“Well,” Hooves began, holding on to the word just a little too long, “there’s no exact documentation of the when the Elements came into existence, but it shouldn’t be this soon. The creation of the Elements of Harmony as we know them has always coincided with the rule of the princesses. Something has already altered the flow of events.”

“You mean,” Trixie’s voice couldn’t help but tremble a bit, “time was already changed even further back?”

Doctor Hooves finally looked her in the eye. He nodded.

“But . . . how far back? Shouldn’t we go back to the TARDIS?”

“Not yet. This time, this meeting here is still our only lead. If we can, we need to set things right here. And, if we can’t, then we need to find out when it is we can.”

Trixie nodded with a resolution she did not feel. She had a million more questions she wanted to ask the Doctor, some of logic, some of comfort, but a wizened unicorn chose that moment to take the central podium of the meeting hall.

“Hear ye, hear ye. Fillies and gentlecolts, from far and wide, near and abroad, I ask that we come to order in discussing this most trying issue. I speak, of course, of the Elements of Harmony.”

A murmur went through the crowd. It was clear that everypony present knew what the elderly unicorn was talking about, but it still appeared to be something of a scandalous topic. While many of the ponies present looked disconcerted or even fearful of the idea, Trixie looked to find the Doctor’s face was purely serious. She redoubled her efforts at concentration.

“Order! Please, everypony, we will have order. Now, as I am sure many of you know, the quandary before us is not whether we can harness the power of these Elements, but whether or not we should and, if so, in what manner. Our first speaker today is perhaps the wisest and most powerful unicorn of our age. I implore you to listen to his counsel carefully. Star Swirl the Bearded, please step forth.”