The group had rapidly made for the TARDIS immediately following Bloom’s declaration. It had been cleverly hidden in the basement of the Golden Oaks Library which, Bloom was surprised to realize, was still standing. “Come on, come on, no time for dawdling,” the Doctor declared imperiously. “If there’s been a disruption in the time stream of this magnitude, there’s no telling what might happen!”
So, Bloom had been bundled along down the stairs by the crowd and eventually jostled through the doors of the old blue police box. She glanced around in astonishment. The Doctor paused a moment, looking at her expectantly. At length, the mare found her voice. “Did y’all redecorate in here?” she asked, glancing around at the high, gothic ceiling which contrasted sharply with the sleek glass floor and bright yellow lighting. “Ah don’ like it.”
The Doctor’s face fell. “Oh. Right. Already been through the whole… never mind. Coordinates! I need coordinates!”
Apple Bloom screwed up her face. “Ah can remember the date…” she said. “Same day Spike was born, ‘less that’s been screwed up too…”
“Close enough,” the Doctor decided. “And the place?”
“Well, that’s th’ trouble. All Ah know is it was at some flight camp!”
Thunderlane puffed out his cheeks and stared up in thought. “This mare… her name was Rainbow Dash?” he asked slowly.
“Yeah?” Bloom replied.
“Pale blue coat, rainbow mane?”
“Yeah! Why?”
Thunderlane broke into a grin. “I think I remember her! She must have gone to flight camp the same year I did. It was, uh, Little Cirrus, that was the name. Just a few miles south of Cloudsdale.”
The Doctor broke into a grin. “Alrighty, then!” he flipped a few levers, and Lyra selected a couple of digits on a separate console. “And off we go!”
There was a wheezing, groaning sound, and the TARDIS shook violently. The Doctor’s face fell. “Oh, that’s not brilliant.”
“What’s going on?” Maud asked, her eyebrow ever-so-slightly raised.
“We’re flying into a very, very muddied piece of the timeline. Hold on, it’s going to get rough!”
Zecora groaned as she began to turn black and white and green all over. “I intensely dislike this temporal turbulence. It makes my head hurt, and my stomach a burbulence.”
“That’s not a real word,” Maple objected.
“If you want to try rhyming under these conditions, gladly I’d hear your poetic renditions,” the zebra snapped waspishly.
Slowly, the TARDIS settled back down, much to the collective relief of its occupants. “I hope nothing like that’s going to happen when we try to take off again,” Spike groaned, rubbing his tummy.
“Shouldn’t do,” the Doctor replied. “Come on then, if you’re coming.” Apple Bloom rose to her hooves.
“Not you,” the Doctor said. “You’ve not got wings!”
“But Ah’m th’ only one who actually knows what Rainbow Dash looks like,” Bloom protested.
“How many fillies with rainbow manes can there possibly be?” the Doctor asked, raising a brow.
Apple Bloom flapped her mouth open and closed like a fish before clamping it shut. “Ah jes’ wanna help,” she pleaded. “Let me help ya!”
“You’ve been a tremendous help,” Maple assured her, pulling the young mare into a quick embrace. “Right now, though, you need to stay here.”
“Ah’m big enough t’ come, too,” Bloom said petulantly.
“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Lyra said, nodding. “You’re too big for us to carry, and you can’t fly. QED.”
Bloom’s lips tightened into a line. “Ah suppose,” she said stiffly. “Ah’ll jes’ stay here, then.”
A firm, friendly hoof wrapped around her shoulders. “Chin up,” Thunderlane said cheerfully. “At least you’re in good company, eh?”
The young mare’s lips twitched upwards. “Yeah, Ah guess,” she admitted, ducking her head to hide a smile.
“Excellent,” the Doctor said with a slight grin. “We’ll not be a moment.” With that, he stepped out onto the cloud layer, Maple and Lyra just behind him.
Zecora pursed her lips for a moment, glancing around the console room. “Our number is four, and not a bit more. I propose a card game— do you all feel the same?”
***
Lyra cantered along behind Maple and the Doctor as best she could, though her progress was hindered by her lack of experience with walking on clouds. “I swear, I should be able to do this,” she said, blushing fiercely. “The spell should limit sinkage as I walk. I just don’t know why this is such a problem.”
Spike shrugged from his seat on the unicorn’s back, popping another piece of rock candy into his mouth. “Well, it is only your first time casting it,” he said.
The Doctor and Maple glanced back at the pudgy dragon sitting atop the struggling unicorn and shared a smirk. “Never mind, Lyra,” Maple said comfortingly. “I don’t think there’s any particular rush. Which makes a bit of a pleasant change, frankly,” she added, cocking her head.
“Oh, I don’t know,” the Doctor said, frowning slightly. “I like a good run, me. Clears the head.”
“Okay, yeah, maybe jogging,” Maple conceded. “But not running for your life from sodding CENTAURS every day.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I eat practically a whole cake every day and burn it all off while we’re travelling,” Lyra said with a shrug. “My metabolism’s faster than a jackrabbit on rollerskates, and I am loving it.” She bounced on her hooves, sending ripples through the clouds and jostling Spike.
Maple’s mouth twisted into a half smile. “Fair,” she said amiably. “Now, come on, let’s find this filly so we can get all this settled.”
The Doctor, however, didn’t move. His brow was creased slightly, and his frown was tight. Silently, he flapped off toward a group of foals at the edge of a cloud. Lyra, Spike, and Maple exchanged perplexed glances, but followed their friend.
“P-please,” the yellow filly whimpered. “Leave me alone…”
“Not so brave without Rainbow CRASH here to protect you, huh?” sneered a tan colt with a darker mane.
“Not that brave when she was here, either,” agreed his chocolate-coated friend.
“Hey, where d’you think you’re going?”demanded the third colt, catching sight of their victim attempting to sneak away..
The filly squeaked and attempted to hide behind her own mane as the three colts moved to circle her. “Please, just leave me alone,” she repeated, her voice high and frail.
“No prob,” said the tan colt, his smile filled with the sort of vicious glee in suffering that only the mind of a child could conjure. “Just fly away, and we won’t even come after you.”
“Oh, wait,” said the third colt, putting a hoof to his jaw in mock thoughtfulness. “You CAN’T!”
The trio burst into guffaws of malicious merriment as the smaller filly attempted as best she could to hide behind herself. “Fluttershy can hardly fly, Fluttershy can hardly fly, Fluttershy can hardly fly…”
Tears began to run freely of butter-yellow cheeks, and with a faint squeak of protest, the filly turned tail, facing the edge of the cloud, spread her wings, and jumped.
And
Fell
Down
Down
Down
Oh, the filly thought idly as the ground rushed up to meet her. This was a mistake. She closed her eyes, silently preparing herself for the impact.
None came, however. Instead, she felt a pair of hooves wrap around her barrel, turning her freefall into a gently controlled glide to the ground.
Cautiously, she peeped an eye open. A blue pegasus gave her a massive gappy grin. “Hello,” he said. “I’m the Doctor. What’s your name?”
She stared up at him in honest amazement as they finally touched down on the soft grass. He set her down gently and his smile relaxed into something more real. “What’s your name?” he repeated, a little more softly.
“Fluttershy.”
“Nice to meet you, Fluttershy,” the blue stallion said with a nod.
“Not s’posed talk to strangers.”
“Ah, well, we aren’t strangers anymore, are we? You know my name, and I know yours. Besides, I think I might’ve just saved your life, which has to count for something.”
“I… guess.”
“That’s the spirit,” the stallion said, breaking into a wider, goofier smile. “So, tell me, what drove you to jumping off clouds, huh? I mean, I can see the appeal, but it’s probably best you make sure there’s somepony there to catch you first, rather than trusting in chance.”
The filly whimpered and hid behind her mane. The Doctor winced. “Alright, sensitive subject. But really, are you OK?”
There was a moment of silence. Then, the mass of pink hair wiggled from side to side.
“Was it those colts?”
“A little.”
“Hm. What else, then?”
“My friend is gone.”
“Gone? Gone how?”
“She had to go home. Her parents…” she made a distressed squeak. “Died.”
The Doctor’s grin had been slipping from his face for some time, and now it fell completely. “Oh,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“And she was the only one who protected me from the bullies and scared them away and made me feel better when they made fun of me.”
“Hm,” said the Doctor. “You know, when I was in school, I had a friend like that.”
“You did?”
“Oh, yes. His name was Koschei,” the Doctor said, a warm smile spreading over his face. “Thick as thieves, we were. But one day, we… well. We went our separate ways.”
Here, the author interjects, the Doctor is depreciating the truth, a phrase which here means that he refrained from mentioning that said separate ways were 1. Becoming a world-dominating megalomaniac and serial killer, and 2. Running away from all responsibilities and making incredibly poor fashion choices.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Oh, that’s alright. It’s been years now,” the Doctor said nonchalantly, a word which here means that he disguised his true emotions with false breeziness. “When we first split… well, it was terrible. I felt awful about leaving him behind. I was a right grump!” He chuckled, remembering. “Oh, yes. But then, my granddaughter introduced me to… well, a whole new world, new friends, new adventures. It was brilliant. If it wasn’t for her, I probably would’ve just stayed shut up in a box my whole life! Ha!”
“Granddaughter?”
The Doctor’s grin fell. “Yes… it’s been awhile since I saw her, too.” He sat down, brow furrowing in thought.
Cautiously, Fluttershy trotted toward him and rested one hoof on his foreleg. “Are you okay?”
The Doctor stared up at the sky for a long moment. “No,” he admitted.
The word ‘no,’ it is often stated, is a complete sentence. This, like many things which are often said, is untrue. “No” is, in fact, a myriad number of complete sentences, virtually infinite in meaning but dependent solely on context. Contrast the “No” that is said in response to the question “Will you go out with me?” to the one in response to “Is it cancer?” or to the “No” that responds to “Tell us where you hid the documents.”
In this instance, the Doctor’s use of “No” translated to “I have been exiled from my home universe, fallen through a crack in time and space into a body which is not mine, in a world which is not mine, in a universe that is not mine. My presence is, even as I speak, being erased from time and space, and my old friends already have lost their memories of me. This universe is safe, for now, but not for always, and soon my presence here will be as though it never was. Now, my only hope is that Apple Bloom will be able to reset the universe and return the timestream to how it is meant to be, which may return me to my reality or, possibly, put me into an even worse situation.”
The Doctor said none of this. Fluttershy had no way of knowing this. Nevertheless, the little pegasus filly hugged the blue stallion’s leg tightly. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
The Time Lord looked down, startled. Then, slowly, a warm smile spread over his face. “Thanks,” he said. “Thank you. Y’know what, here.” He took his red hat off and placed it on the filly’s head. “Have a fez. Fezzes are cool. Might help you make more friends.”
Fluttershy looked dubious, but she pulled the hat over her head a little more tightly. “Can you fly me back to camp?” she asked tentatively.
The Doctor’s smile grew and he crouched low to the ground. “Hop on.”