“She’s my sister, you know,” Ditzy said, after a long moment.
“Who, Rainbow?” asked Applejack, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
Ditzy laughed. “No, no. Daring Do.”
“Really?” said the Doctor, impressed. “Small world! I traveled with her for a while, under the nom de plume Sand Timer.”
Ditzy looked at him, brows raised. “Oh, really? She told me that she met her husband while travelling with a Doctor…” She paused, frowning. “But the way she described him was nothing like you.”
“Hold on,” said Applejack. “Darin’ Do is your sister? And she’s married? To WHO?”
“Well, his real name is Jamie MacCrimmon, but that doesn't sound much like a pony name, so mostly he goes by 'Piper Tune'.”
“He was an old friend of mine as well,” the Doctor added. “We traveled together for ages before Daring came along.”
“Don’t complicate things, Doctor,” Ditzy scolded. “Well, obviously, she can’t put personal stuff in her novels. Ahuizotl or someone might find out and use it against her. As for us being sisters... well, I’m honestly surprised that more ponies who know both of us don’t figure it out.”
Applejack nodded slowly. “Both pegasi, got th’ same last name, yer gray with a golden mane, an' she's golden with a gray mane... Eeyup, I guess I can see it. What, are you estranged or summat?”
“Oh, no,” Ditzy replied, shaking her head. “We’re actually pretty close these days. It’s just that she lives way out in Vanhoover, and neither of our work schedules really allows for vacation time. Sometimes Jamie visits, though, with their daughter Ace.”
“Ace? That her real name?” the Doctor asked.
“No, it’s Amethyst Star. But she really hates being called that, so everyone just goes with Ace.”
The Doctor smirked slightly as he examined a series of readouts.
“But back to the subject at hoof,” Ditzy continued, frowning at the Doctor. “Daring said that Sand Timer was a scruffy little old grey bat-pony. You... aren't any of those things.” She cocked her head. "Scruffy, maybe."
“Oh, well, I'm pretty old, as it happens,” the Doctor grinned. “I’ll be celebrating the big nine-seven-five this November. Think I’ll go on a pub crawl all through the Alpha Centauri system. Save the date.”
“Doctor…”
“He might be a changeling,” volunteered Applejack. She paused. “Y’ain’t, are ya?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's alright if y'are, but Ah'd like t' know."
“No. Well. No. Not really. Not at all, actually. It’s just this thing Time Lords can do, see. When we’re dying, we can regenerate ourselves on a cellular level. New face, new voice, new clothes, taste buds, personality, gender identity, sometimes even a new biological sex. Never done that last one yet. Bit dull, but oh well. Never been ginger either, which is sad. One time, a friend of mine, name of I. M. Foreman, regenerated into an ecosystem, but that's a bit of a story by itself. But, yeah, Sand Timer was my second body. This is my… tenth? Sort of? It got a bit confusing for awhile.”
Applejack whistled low. “Must get hard on folks tryin’ ta keep up.”
“Oh yeah.” the Doctor said emphatically. “I mean, we’re all the same bloke, but if you compare two and three or five and six… well.” He shook his head, sucking air in through his teeth.
“Ooh, have you got pictures?” Ditzy asked eagerly. "Can we see?"
The Doctor opened his mouth. He paused, considering. “Actually... yes. Hold on a mo’.”
He ran around the the console, flicked a couple of switches on the far side, and a holographic image of an elderly, mint-green unicorn holding a walking stick shimmered into view. He peered at them through a monocle in a rather supercilious fashion. The Doctor paused. “Huh. I expected it to be humanoid. Ah, well.” Applejack, having decided that discretion might just be the better part of valor, chose not to ask.
“Anyway! This is the original me. Bit grumpy, but my hearts were in the right place. Mostly. Well. Except that one time I kidnapped a couple of my granddaughter’s schoolteachers, but that turned out alright in the end.”
“Y’all did what now?”
“Er, yes, well. We all do stupid things as teenagers. Moving on!” the image suddenly flickered to that of a raggedy grey bat-pony holding a recorder. “This is Sand Timer. He was a bit dotty, but he was a friendly sort of chap. Cleverer than he let on, too.”
The image of a vermilion crystal pony in some kind of martial arts pose appeared next. “Third me went by the name Tempus Fugit. I got stuck here for a bit after my attempts at repairing the TARDIS went dodgy. They were a bit rude and kind of snobbish. But they were an alright sort. Classy.”
The slide show continued through a brown earth pony with a massive trailing scarf and a smile as wide as a piano keyboard, an open-faced pinto pegasus wearing a stalk of celery, a lime-green crystal pony with an excessively loud jacket (and, according to the Doctor, both the personality and voice to match), and a blue pegasus carrying a question-mark-handled umbrella. “That one was the manipulative chessmaster sort, very cunning,” the Doctor said. “Next!”
The hologram flicked into the shape of a purple unicorn with a curling brown mane. “Now, I don’t remember this regeneration well,” the Doctor began. "Under, er, a lot of stress. I got involved with some very nasty time-altering--"
He paused when Applejack abruptly cut him off. “Ditzy? Y’alright there, sugarcube?”
The pegasus was staring, both eyes fixed on the hologram. She appeared to have stopped blinking, and her face was turning red. “...Ditzy?” the Doctor asked, fear seeping through both his hearts. "Is something the matter?"
He made his way over to her, only to be met with a hoof striking him sharply across the face. He toppled over, crying out in pain and shock.
“Get away from me!” Ditzy roared, leaning over him. "You-- you!"
Both of her eyes were fixed right on him and already the whites were tinged with red. Unable to finish her sentence, she ran from the TARDIS, leaving the door swinging in her wake.