Chaos and cacophony, bright flashes of yellow and orange fire shooting out from the walls and various instruments doting the central console, heavy, metal clanging as the room around him fell apart, drowning out every thought he could possibly try to have through the pain shooting through his body. It was enough to make him forget how he even ended up in this situation. He was certainly dying, oh that was very clear with what he was feeling. Bones crack as they morphed, muscles scream as they tightened, contracted, shortened, changed. He’d never felt a death quite as unique as this one. But through it all, something enlightened him. He could not think through it all, but there was one thing he could do that never required an ounce of thought. Something engrained in every bone he’d ever had, something imprinted on every mind that ever thought his thoughts, something that he never could forget to do, even if he wanted, for whatever reason. Run.
And so he ran, away from the bursting console he was fruitlessly staring at. He bid his aching, changing body to turn and make the way toward the door, the maelstrom of sound cut through by the sound of his feet clanging against the thin metal walkway. He made it to the door, shoved it open and closed his eyes, not daring to see what was on the other side for some reason. Either a very wise, or very poor choice, as the horrid symphony of destruction behind crescendoed with a terrible boom. Something exploded, and the force was enough to fling him directly out of the wondrous blue box he loved. And then he felt himself in a free fall, the sound of disaster replaced with the deafening whistle of air quickly blowing past his ears. The pain in his changing body was quickly replaced with agonizing numbness, the air was freezing cold. The only thing he could feel was his body plummeting through hail, hard icey stones pummeling his body, leaving aching welts that powered through static numbness. At this moment, he began to wonder if his amazing physiology was a blessing or a curse. He was going to survive to be sure, he was still in the midst of his cycle, but the next few moments would be very, very painful. He tried to push that thought aside, and started to prepare himself for what was sure to happen.
After a few minutes of intense freefall, unable to pry open his eyes since they closed, his back crashed against the ground through a thick blanket of snow. His body had settled on his new appearance somewhere in the midst of that fall, so now he had nothing to distract himself from the feeling of his body compacting against itself as he smashed into the frozen ground. It was so hard he may as well have hit concrete, his spine and ribs shattering, exploding from the compressive force. He had to lay there, breathless for a few moments being buried in the snow while his body reformed itself into a state that wasn’t… Completely and utterly broken, for the lack of better words. He still suffered as his body healed. In the oppressive cold, he could feel himself freezing. He could feel individual cells icing over, popping, and then being pulled back together by the left-over regenerative energy in his body. If there was any consolation, it only happened once for every cell in his body. Something was stopping it from happening again. He was left confused over what that was, but at least he would not need to go through that pain again. When he felt he could move again, he unsteadily shifted himself over onto his stomach, and started to blindly crawl out his snowy grave, and along the white desolate landscape. Every time he tried to open his eyes, they were instantly dried by the blistering winds, and even if he could keep them open, he noticed each time they opened all he could see was the thick sheets of snow in the air. All he could do was crawl, and hope he would eventually make it to civilization. If there was even any civilization to find.
After hours that felt like endless days of crawling through snow, he had to stop, and just lay there in the snow. His body was no longer destroying itself as it froze, but it was still freezing. His limbs became cold and hard as ice formed in his muscles. If he wasn’t going to die, he was at least going to sleep there, an organic brand of cryostasis. After hours of feeling his body slowly turn to ice, the only thought he could have anymore, was that he hoped the freezing of his brain stole his consciousness, and he would not need to experience the hundreds, maybe thousands of years until he was found. As he was in the midst of accepting his seemingly inevitable fate, he heard the crunch of snow under people’s feet. Maybe that fate wasn’t as sure as he thought, but he couldn’t bid himself to talk, or move. His throat and extremities frozen too deeply. He could only hope whoever they were could see him through the snow, and had the mind to save him.
“Captain! There’s somepony here, in the snow!” A voice shouted out through the whistling winds. Masuline, only a few inches away from him. He was so, so lucky they were so close, and cared to tell a superior about him. Though, he must’ve misheard him through the screeching winds. ‘Somepony,’ instead of someone or somebody.
The squeak of squashing snow soon continued, as at least eight more joined the first in looking at him as he sat there in the snow, unmoving.
“By Celestia, he doesn’t have any protective clothing! Somepony load him onto their back, we need to get him back to the city, quick!” Someone shouted, probably that Captain the first person shouted for earlier. They found him, AND wanted to help him, enough to turn around immediately? He thought he couldn’t be luckier, until he felt himself being lifted out of the snow. With no feeling of touch around his body. A race with telekinesis, even better. They had to be advanced enough to help him from his advanced state of freezing. He let his consciousness let go, a nap at this point wouldn’t hurt, and by anything and everything, he deserved it after the ordeal he had been through in the previous few hours.
He was roused from his sleep by the sound of new voices, though in his tired fog, he could hardly make most of it out, and his tired eyes refused to open to attach the voices to faces. He tried his best to make heads or tails of what was going on, but his tired mind kept losing track of conversations.
The first thing to wake him was a femenine voice, they sounded worried. It sounded like a title of some sort, fury something or some sort, but it was lost in the haze. From the way their voice tracked from far away to close, they must’ve been running toward the group. The Captain, the person he assumed to be the Captain, replied, going through the motions to assure whoever it was he was okay. And then she gave the normal replies. It’s okay, I’m okay, so glad you’re okay. He’s heard it all before. Too many times before really, it was just a drone of noise at that point. He was almost… annoyed by it, which worried him. Though that thought was pushed aside as the woman revealed the source of her worries. Apparently the weather that greeted him as he jumped from the box was abnormal, and started so suddenly that she was worried for their safety. Abnormal weather patterns, never a good sign. Was it caused by him, or were they the cause of his being here somehow? Questions that distracted him as they themselves wondered aloud what could have been the cause. Questions that made him miss another voice’s arrival. Another woman, voice was higher up than all the rest, they must’ve been taller. Royalty of some sort, one of them used the term ‘Princess,’ which piqued his attention. If he was going to get any help or information from these people, he’d need to understand their culture and way of life.
Though he didn’t get much of that. He was treated to more information of a personal nature, apparently the captain was also related to this Princess. He was saved by royalty, very interesting, very unusual. Advanced monarchical societies were usually protective of their nobility. Though, he can’t complain, if he was saved by a member of the ruling class, that must afford him some purchase to better treatment from the society later on.
A certain type of treatment was much more important at the moment though, as the apparent Princess pointed out after their initial discussion was done. She gave an order to bring him to some sort of castle, and offered to look him over. Noble nepotism, now an enemy. A low rank in the military? Helpful. A probably non-medically trained person trying to examine a near dead man that isn’t actually the species he would appear to be? A problem. A problem that made itself apparent very quickly, as they attempted to move one of his limbs. With an icy crack, pain shot up his arm, in his back and then to his pain, shutting him off like a switch. Frozen muscles cracking like ice. To no one’s surprise, very painful, a type of pain he had the pleasure of never experiencing before, a pain even he could not withstand at this weak point. Mercifully though, the pain didn’t last long as consciousness fled from him to hide from it.
The next time he woke up, he was in a hospital bed. A surprisingly comfortable hospital bed at that. Usually they were all too firm or too soft to feel good for anyone, or right down the middle in horrid compromise that made no one happy at all. At long last he was able to open his eyes and take in his surroundings. And the bed was far from the thing he was most impressed by at the moment he opened them. He was in a hospital room, usually clones with bare furnishing that tried and failed to make them seem like a room someone could live in, but not this one. It had a king sized bed with finely quilted purple sheets, nice and heavy to beat away the cold. Granted the furnishings were rather sparse, just a bedside table for each side, and a writing desk with an inbuilt mirror, but everything seemed to make out of dark, fine wood. Those on their own would be an amazing hospital room, but the room itself was also amazing. The walls themselves were made of crystal. Most of them were smoothed flat, but the corners were left in a natural state, with all the odd angles that came with being a crystal. How incredible, he’d never seen anything quite like that in all his years. Bid by his desire for knowledge, he tried to get up and out of the bed, only to tumble straight off the edge onto the floor.
How strange, he’d never lost control like that after a regeneration. Turning his gaze down at his legs, he found the source of his stumbling. Four legs. Not even any feet to speak of, just flat hooves. “Well, that's maybe the last thing I expected in a regeneration.” He said, taking a moment to examine his voice. It was deeper than he liked, a bit gravelly. Familiar almost, but he couldn’t quite place who it reminded him of. No one he really knew, surely, he could tell that much. Voice wasn’t the main concern now anyway. Four legs. A quadruped Timelord, was there no barrier of possibility he couldn’t cross eventually? Carefully rolling onto all four limbs, he slowly started pushing himself up away from the floor. Standing wasn’t horribly different, there were two whole extra limbs to balance on. Walking though, walking would be more difficult. One foot in front of the other would be the best way, the only problem was the severe lack of feet, and the addition of two more feet should there have been feet.
Slowly, carefully placing one… Leg? Hoof? Forward, he placed his forward weight on it to test if he could stay stable. Stable enough, he determined, and then moved another limb forward, back legs, opposite side. He’d seen animals walk before, he could probably copy them easily enough. Once more, forelimbs, same side this time, and then again, rear limbs, opposite side. And sure as his hearts beat, he moved forward. Trying again faster, he was moving along as if he always had their four legs. A natural. A natural at walking, surely he had never reached such lofty heights before. He would have to pat himself on the back and figure out how this happened later, for now there were much more pressing things to see to. Find his saviours, find his TARDIS, and then save the day from whatever was going wrong this time. Hopefully in that order.
He strode toward the door, idly brushing one of his new hooves against the desk as he passed, giving himself a quick glance in the mirror that was built on top of it. A very blocky face structure, ridiculously large, sideways facing eyes, small nostril slits. He opened his mouth, looking at his teeth as he brushed his tongue along their bottoms. Flat grinding teeth. Just as he expected, not even the slightest of ideas what he was supposed to be. Something evolved from an herbivore prey species, obviously. Four legs, flat ends… Hooves? He did have a long snout. Could it be some kind of sentient equine-esque creature? Just as possible as anything he’d ever seen and everything else he hadn’t seen too.
As close as he’d get for now, what about himself? White… Coat? Coat was the proper term for horses and ponies, right? His mane was also white-ishm just a bit darker. Silver, silver was the proper term. It was pretty scruffy, short on the sides, longer on top making for a horrid nest of bed head. A similar situation a bit lower, silvery hair outlining his chin and the top of his lip for a surprisingly well tame goatee. Thank goodness whoever saw him was able to find him, it’d be easy to confuse him for snow with how lightly coloured he was. Brown eyes. Freakishly large brown eyes, it should be pointed out again. The bags underneath them were unnaturally large as well, either thanks to the naturally absurd eyes, or his utter lack of a sleep schedule. The only other thing that seemed to be of any note was a tail, matching in colour to his mane and facial hair, it was by far the neatest hair on his body, just falling straight off the little nubben of muscle it was attached to, just long enough to hover above the ground save a few errant strands whos tips brushed it.
He gave himself another once over, walking in a circle to check everything. Nothing else seemed to be of note, so he finally finished the trip to the door, stopping a foot away to stare at the door handle. Hooves, a round door handle. Walking came easily enough, hopefully grabbing things did as well. Carefully shifting weight off one hoof, he raised that one up and pressed it against the door knob, and twisted it. To no effect. With a displeased hrm, he tried just generally tencing all the muscles and the leg and twisting again. For absolutely no reason that would make sense, the handle twisted with it, and he was able to pull the door open.
Only to find someTHING standing in front of him already. It looked not entirely unlike him, except this one had a ‘softer’ facial structure, with a shorter snout and more curves, and they were unnaturally purple, with three a three toned mane of other pink-purple hues, similar to her tail. That was already incredibly strange, but she also seemed to be an admixture of two mythical creatures. A unicorn horn jutting out just below her hairline, and wings sprouting from the small of her back like a pegasus. She made the first introduction, smiling at him and speaking up. “Oh, you’re awake! The doctors thought you’d be out for a few days at least. Good thing I came to check up on you.”
He stood silently for a few moments, trying to scan over her body with his eyes as nonchalantly as he possibly could. He obviously failed, because as he looked down, the amalgam of mythology tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow at him. “Yes, I suppose so. I’d hate to be left to wander around on my own.”
She, if he was correct to judge by her softer features and the pitch of her voice, opened her mouth to reply, only to pause and lean forward to peek around the room. “Wait, you got up without the medical staff? Geez, I thought Rainbow had an impressive recovery time. There were talks of cutting off one of your legs.”
He cringed at the thought. There were only two possible outcomes to that, either he actually lost his leg, or he regrew an entire limb in front of a team of medical professionals under the employ of national leaders. He didn’t know which situation was actually worse.
“Yeah,” The woman started, reaching out with one of her forelimbs to tap the counterpart on his body, “that wouldn’t be any good at all. I’m glad it didn’t come to that. I’m Twilight Sparkle by the way.” She lifted the tapping limb up, offering the limb with her hoof facing upward.
Taking a guess he lifted up his own limb, placing his hoof against her own. Luckily, she started to lift his hoof up and down. A handshake with hooves. If hoofshake, if you will. Putting on his best smile, he looked back up to her eyes. “Hello Twilight Sparkle. I’m The Doctor.”