Chapter One
The Eleventh Doctor didn’t particularly care to be alone. He was best when he had a companion or two at his side, people who would talk with him and listen to him and share in his adventures. But somehow, those companions always seemed to have come to some kind of grief when they were with them. Saying goodbye to the Ponds, Amy and Rory, had been a very painful thing for him and for the moment, he was a solitary traveler.
Being the staunch man of nine hundred years that he was, however, he carried on and had a merry old time of it. He had his Tardis at least, and that old girl would never quit on him.
“Where to now, I wonder?” he muttered to himself as he drummed his fingers on the console. He had taken to talking to himself and to the Tardis a great deal lately. It made him sound mad, he knew, but being quiet was so…boring.
“I have just the idea!” he suddenly exclaimed, straightening his bowtie and grinning like a child. “Anywhere, anytime, why bother about the details?” He adjusted a few knobs, pressed a few buttons and pulled the lever that would start up the sexy old girl. “Geronimo!” He was in the mood for something very new, not just a new adventure but a new place. The Tardis would fly him wherever and whenever and he would land when he had a mind to.
He ignored the little sparks that burst from the console every now and then; that is, until the Tardis jerked wildly and a whole host of miniature fireworks exploded forth. The Doctor was thrown aside and tossed about as the machine did a series of spins, sending him slamming into railings and onto the floor.
At last he felt that all was still and clambered somewhat stiffly to his feet. “Now that wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said slowly, looking around. Nothing seemed permanently damaged. He checked himself; his faithful sonic screwdriver was still in his pocket and his bowtie was still secure.
“Now then,” he went on, speaking to the Tardis, “where have you landed me this time?” Rather than wait for a response (it was a time machine with a soul, not a speaking person) he bounded eagerly to the front door and swung it open.
“Ah! Well this is new.”
The landscape before him was unlike anything he had ever witnessed; and he had certainly seen many odd things. It seemed as though he had stepped into a kind of pastel cartoon world. His machine was atop a hill blanketed in deep green grass, and the rolling knolls around him sloped gently down towards a town in the distance. The sky was positively pastel in its blue, comically fluffy clouds playing lazily across the perfect background. Butterflies flitted about and adorable, big-eyed bunnies bounced past unconcernedly; the Doctor wasn’t sure if he enjoyed this cutesiness or not.
He took a step forward and immediately he lost a few feet in height; that was certainly strange. His appendages felt strange, as if he lacked hands and feet and were on all fours…what an odd sensation. He pondered it, running a hoof through his mane and twitching his tail in thought.
Wait a minute. Hoof? Mane? TAIL?
He looked down and saw two hooved legs; he stretched his neck around and found it elongated. With a growing realization that this was indeed an oddity, he took in the sight of a brown flank with a curious hourglass mark tattooed upon its face. He wiggled his whole body and found that he appeared to have changed into some odd form of equine, a small one that still wore a coat and bowtie.
“I seem to be a pony! Now, why would I be a pony? And what kind of pony looks exactly like this and on top of that, where am I?” His eyes widened. “Oh! And I’m a talking pony too, that’s just brilliant! And very weird, too, I never asked to be a stallion.” It took a great deal of awkward maneuvering, but eventually he managed to get to his coat pocket. Breathing a sigh of relief when he found his trusty screwdriver, he decided to make for the town ahead gain some information from the lovely civilians there. He walked forward.
He promptly tripped and fell flat on his face.
“Right then!” he cried to himself as he struggled to get up. “Four legs, this is very, very new.” The fact that he was a pony did worry him, but not to an alarming extent; being the Doctor entailed weird happenings and this was merely another one on the list. Now to find out where he was!
He wobbled and stumbled his way down the slope of the hill, attempting to walk and get used to feelings such as the wind in his mane at the same time. Then it occurred to him that he’d never had the occasion to think like this before and that sweet, slithering Slitheen, he was a pony. He lost his footing once more and tumbled head over heels, sliding to a dusty halt at the bottom. The town was closer now and he could see thatched roofs and the shapes of pony-like creatures trotting along on its roads, so it was obviously no oddity to be a four-legged pastel oddity here.
By the time he entered the town, he had found his footing (hoofing? Oh, the words he wouldn’t be able to use here) and was devouring the sights with eager Time Lord eyes. As he trotted along at a fair pace he made exclamations at the things he saw and attracted a few strange looks, but he didn’t notice. Being the Doctor also entailed people looking at you as though you had three heads. He appeared to have wandered into some kind of marketplace. The voices of vendors selling their wares drifted over his head, mostly advertising fresh vegetables and fruit in delectably bright colors. Fillies and colts chased each other and played in the square, while ponies shopped and chatted. His keen eyes noticed a very important thing, the kind of important thing that was sure to be vital later: some had wings, some had horns and apparently did magic with them, and others had none. All were about three feet tall, which disappointed him; subconsciously he had hoped to be a great, large stallion of epic prowess. Occasionally he did sweeps with his screwdriver and the data he gathered was unanimous: these were bona fide, if not uncommon, ponies.
“Pegasi, unicorns and regular old ponies all living together in a thatched-roof village in a cartoony world, oh I love this,” he muttered enthusiastically. He examined himself again and found no horn or wings. He pouted a little. “Ah well, would be nice. But that still doesn’t tell me where I am…” It was becoming increasingly obvious that the world he had touched down on was extremely obscure. No planet or galaxy in his long and complicated memory was remotely like this one.
His thoughts were interrupted (so rude; he simply hated having his concentration broken) by a garish pink blur rushing past him and stopping before him. The rush of the movement turned him into a temporary whirlwind. He righted himself at last, much dustier than he had been, but before he could accost the pink thing his ears were assaulted by a barrage of high-pitched talking.
“Hey mister, I haven’t seen you before! And I know everypony around here so that must mean you’re a new pony, ‘cause I remember everything about everypony and I don’t remember anything about you so you’ve GOTTA be new!” She took a deep breath, her mouth expanding far more than it shoulder have, and plunged into more speech. “And I love new ponies, because that means new friends and friends are great, dontcha think? Anyway, mister, welcome to town! I’m Pinkie Pie, what’s your name?”
The Doctor blinked several times, very slowly, and stared at the bubbly, bouncing thing in front of him. It was a pony, so pink that it hurt, with a springy poofy mane and tail in an even deeper shade of pink; she was a mare of about three feet without horn or wings. She stopped bouncing at last and flashed a blinding grin at him. Each of her flanks was marked with three balloons.
At last he shook his head rapidly and gathered his scattered brains together. “’Ello there Pinkie Pie, I’m the Doctor and I’m from a very, very distant place. Can you tell me exactly where I am?”
“Sure, Doctor! This is Ponyville, the best place to be in all of Equestria!” Pinkie positively beamed at him.
“Equestria…Equestria…AH! The Tardis!” Without explanation, he suddenly turned and galloped down the road, away from the hyperactive mare and the pleasant pony town. He did enjoy the sensation of galloping, as unusual as it was. It made him feel like some dashing stallion.
“Bye Doctor! Welcome to Ponyville! Again!” Pinkie’s shrill cry was the last thing he heard from the settlement as he dashed up the hill to his beloved blue box.
As an experiment, he reared up on hid hind legs and used both front hooves to push the door open; he toppled sideways and hit the ground.
“Remember, four legs,” he reminded himself as he trotted into the machine that was bigger on the inside. Everything looked much taller. How in the name of Gallifrey was he supposed to operate anything in here with hooves and no fingers?
He made his way to the screen sticking out from the console. Normally he would use the typewriter keyboard underneath to punch in coordinates, but now he used it to perform a search.
Except he didn’t have fingers. Grumbling to himself, he pulled out his sonic screwdriver; he was forced to use his mouth, a series of very awkward movements and the end of the device to punch each individual letter.
“Alright then! Equestria. What have we got?” He read the screen, and with each new piece of info his eyes grew huger and his sense of disbelief ever greater. It read:
Place:
Equestria
Planet:
N/A
Galaxy:
N/A
“But…that’s impossible! It can’t be nowhere!”
Year of establishment:
2010
“2010! What year could it possibly be?” In a frenzy the Doctor checked his date and surprisingly, he was in 2012, the present. “How could it only be just two years old?”
Inhabitants:
Ponies
Origin of native species:
Human minds
“Human…minds?”
Status:
Awaiting Season 3 of My Little Pony
“Season 3? Is that some sort of code for weather, or-” Suddenly he stopped, his mouth agape. His ancient, well-learned brain put the facts together in a blink of an eye. Equestria was not on a planet, and yet it was a world inhabited by living ponies. Ponies that originated from human minds awaiting the third season. Television shows came in seasons, didn’t they? Oh and humans, those funny little humans, they just loved dreaming up those TV series of theirs. And the world was awfully bright and happy….rather…childish. My Little Pony. There was no other explanation. Well, there was no other obvious one and obvious ones were his favorite.
“But that’s impossible!” he said again, addressing the screen. “I can’t have landed inside the world of a children’s TV show! It doesn’t actually exist! That’s not-I can’t-” He made a funny growling noise and rubbed his hoof through his mane like a maniac.
The Doctor gazed in bemusement at the screen, at the Tardis from his new perspective. “How did you get me inside a TV world, old girl?”
He looked to the door. There was no way that he could waltz off through time and space as a pony; no, he needed to stay in Equestria and figure out…well…everything.
“Geronimo!” he cried to himself for the second time, plunging recklessly outside and running back towards Ponyville.
A/N: This wasn’t meant to be a terribly serious idea, but I do aim to capture the personality of the Eleventh as best I can. I apologize if I haven’t done so.