"What did you look like before?" Derpy asked. They were laying out on a rug in front of the fireplace, answering each others questions. It was late in the night now, most of the afternoon and evening had been spent trying to teach the Doctor to walk properly. He was determined to begin searching for the TARDIS tomorrow, which meant they would have to return to the crash site. The Doctor smiled, remembering his Timelord form.
"Well... I had hands. Oh, hands are wonderful Miss Hooves. They've got thumbs and fingers to grab things with, no carrying it around in your teeth. And two legs instead of four. No tail, no fur, no cutie marks." The Doctor sighed, lost in the memory of his old form.
"No tail? How can you not have a tail? or a cutie mark? How will you know what you're good at?" Derpy gasped in shock, trying to picture the hideous creature that had just been described. How could anyone miss that?
"Everything is so different in my universe, Derpy. There are a lot of creatures with hands, or no fur, or no cutie marks." The Doctor said gently, closing his eyes. She realized how strange it must be for him to have a tail, or a cutie mark, or no hands. Thinking about other creatures in the Doctor's universe also made her wonder if he had left anyone there. His family, perhaps. What if he never saw them again?
"How do you know the TARDIS even came through with you?" Derpy asked.
"Because we can understand each other." The Doctor mumbled. Derpy considered this for a moment, looking back to the fireplace for a moment.
"Doctor-" He was asleep.
/
"Alright, Derpy. How about a walk around town?" The Doctor asked. He was taking his fifth lap around Derpy's garden, and his gait was more even now. The pair had gone outside for breakfast, though the ground was still spongy from the previous rainfall.
"Are you sure, Doc? You're only just getting the hang of it..." She was watching him from the center of the garden, while chewing on a blueberry muffin.
"Course I'm sure. Time I got a good look around...What is this place called, anyway?"
"Ponyville." Derpy answered. She flew over to her garden door, swinging it open and waiting for the Doctor to join her.
"If you get tired we're going back, Doc." She warned. The stallion swished his tail as he followed her out of the garden, then grunted in disapproval at it. "Still not ginger. Turned into an equine and still not ginger!" He muttered. He determinedly stepped up the walkway, and she fell into step with him as they they neared Ponyville's town center. The marketplace was already alive, ponies trotted around with laden saddlebags, each wrapped up in their own business.
"So Doc-" Derpy turned to see the colt had wandered off. He sure does move fast...
"Excuse me, I've got a party to plan, and-" Derpy turned towards the familiar voice of Pinkie Pie, and watched as the Doctor was nearly run over by the pink mare as he looked up curiously at Sugarcube Corner. He nearly tumbled over his own hooves as Pinkie squealed with excitement and jumped several feet into the air.
"TWO new ponies? Oh my gosh this is the best day EVER!" She skittered into the sweet shop and slammed the door behind her. The Doctor walked back over to Derpy, confused.
"That's Pinkie Pie. She likes to have a party when ever a new pony comes to Ponyville." Derpy laughed.
"Brilliant! I wonder who the other new pony is?" The Doctor exclaimed, glancing around the unfamiliar buildings. His eyes came to rest on a tall, circular structure. Several ponies were rushing in and out, carrying bundles of fabric. "Ooh that seems important. What is that Miss Hooves?" He nearly tripped again as he dashed over to the building in question, and carefully walked up the short flight of stairs leading to its patio.
"That's the town hall, Doc. Everyone's getting ready for the Summer Sun Celebration. Princess Celestia herself will be there!"
"Who's that?" The Doctor asked, curiously heading towards the open double doors to see how exactly ponies prepared for festivities. Derpy looked shocked for a moment, before quickly explaining. The Doctor half-listened with one ear, while the other swiveled forward to concentrate on the commotion inside the building. In fact he was so focused on the wonderfully strange fact that he could move his ears in such a way, that he heard neither conversation. He asked Derpy to repeat herself, just as a crash echoed harshly from the inside of the town hall, and the Doctor's ears flattened against the noise of their own accord.
"Of all the things that could happen! This is the. Worst. Possible. Thing!" Peering through the opening, The Doctor saw a white and purple pony dramatically throwing herself into and armchair (why do ponies need armchairs?), and cry out again. "This blue simply does not go with this shade of purple!" Hovering above her head was a sapphire bow with pale purple diamonds. The Doctor personally didn't see a problem with it. In fact, he quite liked it.
"How is she doing that?" The Doctor muttered to himself, noticing the pony was now rotating several bows above her head. Derpy must have have heard him (he also realized she had been explaining who this Princess was again and he had not been listening, again.), because she immediately launched into an explanation. "Rarity is a unicorn, they can use magic to do all kinds of stuff."
Slightly embarrassed, the Doctor asked Derpy to explain again who Princess Celestia was a third time, and by the time she had finished, with all the questions the Doctor asked as they came to mind, they had made a full loop of Ponyville. The sun was close to setting as the strange pink mare bounced back to the Doctor with a basket full of invitations on her head, giving one to both he and Derpy.
"Don't be late!" She cried happily, then skittered off to another group of ponies. The Doctor glanced down at the invitation in his mouth.
"A library? Brilliant!" He exclaimed. Derpy shifted uneasily on her hooves. "What's wrong, Derpy?" Asked the Doctor.
"I don't really wanna go..." She muttered.
"What? You have to go!"
"Doc, every time I go to a party... I usually end up the center of attention... And not for a good reason." She sighed. She remembered how many times she had crashed into the punch table at birthday parties when she was a filly, or ended up being made fun of by the other foals because of her eye. It had really ruined the whole party experience. She didn't have to tell the Doctor this for her to understand what she meant.
"Derpy, you shouldn't care what ponies who make fun of others think. They're not worth the time." The Doctor reasoned.
"I guess you're right..." She sighed.
"So this library..."
/
It was just after sundown when Derpy's house came into view for the two ponies. Derpy was explaining how every pony stayed up all night for the Summer Sun Celebration, and the Doctor was reminded of Earth's celebration of New Years Eve. He nearly tripped as something in the sky above caught his eye. The moon was resting low in the sky, and it seemed to have the head of a pony on it.
Mare in the moon, man in the moon... He mused, watching as the outline of the mare pulsed against the gray background.
"Derpy, is the moon supposed to pulse like that?" The Doctor asked on impulse, stopping on the path just outside of the house. Derpy stopped too and squinted, focusing both of her eyes onto the moon as best she could.
"I can't see the moon well without my glasses, but I know it's not supposed to pulse, Doc." Derpy said worriedly. "Do you think this has something to do with you?" She asked. The Doctor continued to stare at the moon, but nothing happened. He was more curious as to whether or not it was being caused by the TARDIS. Could she have possibly landed, unreachable, on this planets moon? The Doctor turned back to Derpy.
"I don't know." He confessed. Derpy nodded slowly, before walking past the stallion and opening the door to the house. The Doctor followed more slowly, lost deep in thought.
/
The party was in full swing when Derpy and the Doctor arrived. Derpy watched as a baby dragon stumbled by them, a lamp shade on his head. A pink and yellow mare was being handed a small glass of amber liquid by a blue and rainbow maned mare in the corner. The Doctor watched as the yellow mare gulped down the liquid and spluttered, while the blue mare burst into laughter.
"You're here!" Pinkie Pie squealed, rushing over to the pair. She was wearing a sparkly pair of thick rimmed glasses.
"Hi Derpy!" Pinkie exclaimed. She looked closely at the Doctor. "What's your name?" She asked. The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but the pink mare interrupted him before he could.
"Oh wait! Let me guess! Uh...Hourglass? Brownie? Oh.. no, no, no... Time Turner? Oh it's Time Turner, isn't it!?" Pinkie prompted.
"No, actually. I'm the Doctor."
"Doctor who?" The Pink mare said suspiciously, narrowing her eyes and leaning forward.
"Just...The Doctor."
"Well why didn't you say so?" Pinkie laughed, then bounced away. The Doctor wasn't sure if he liked her or not. It seemed like she might be the type of person -er, pony- that would kidnap someone and hold them against their will for fun. The Doctor listened to tidbits of conversation, trying not to say anything that sounded too...Timelord. Meanwhile, Derpy was still practically standing in the doorway, looking around nervously at all the faces.
"C'mon Miss Hooves! Introduce me to some ponies!"
/
"The Celebration is about to start!" Rainbow Dash called out to no one in particular. A few cheers followed this statement, and the ponies began to file towards the door. Most of the night had been spent with the Doctor learning everypony's name. Now he was waiting just outside the door for Derpy, and at the same time seeing how many names he could remember. As he watched the ponies head outside, some stumbling or giggling a little too much, he noticed a purple mare who he didn't know. As she walked by, she mumbled worriedly to herself about the moon. Derpy appeared at his side a moment later, with a mare by the name of Carrot Top at her side.
"Derpy, who's that purple mare?" The Doctor asked.
"Oh that's Twilight Sparkle. She came here to help plan the celebration. Not too social though, She's only at the party because she's staying in the library." Carrot Top said quickly. The Doctor headed back inside the library without warning.
"Doesn't he know the celebration is that way?" Carrot Top asked Derpy.
"He has a habit of just doing things sometimes." The gray mare shrugged. "I should probably see what he's up to..."
"I'll wait for you at the celebration!" Said Carrot Top. Derpy nodded, before following the Doctor back into the library. He was slowly ascending a flight of stairs, presumably leading to where Twilight lived.
"Doc, you can't just go into someone's room." Derpy said, beginning to wonder if manners existed in his universe. She followed him up the stairs.
"That mare, Twilight Sparkle..." The Doctor began, reaching the top of the stairs and swishing his tail in triumph. "She was saying something about the moon. Isn't it strange that something happened with the moon earlier, and now somebody else is worried about it, too?" The Doctor didn't bother to correct himself, and Derpy watched as he began to look around on Twilight Sparkle's desk. A thick book slid off of the desk, and Derpy recognized it as a fairy tale book. She headed over, picking up the book and flipping to a bookmarked page.
"She has a fairytale about the Mare in the Moon bookmarked..." Derpy said. The Doctor came up to Derpy's shoulder to look at the book as well.
"'The Mare in the Moon is to be freed from her imprisonment on the longest day of the thousandth year; the stars will aid in her escape and she will bring night time eternal.'" The Doctor read out loud. Derpy gulped.
"That's this year..." The mare said slowly. Both ponies jumped as a claw of lightening streaked across the sky, and over the trees. The sky was clear, however.
"Doc, that's just like the one when you came to Ponyville!" Derpy said. The Doctor stared at the place where the lightening looked like it had touched.
The TARDIS?