A brown earth pony wearing a green tie sat a table reading a book. Weeeell, reading would be an inadequate term to describe the speed at which the pages moved. Flipping would be a more accurate, if generous, term to describe what was happening. Any normal pony would learn only that this is a book and does indeed have marks in it, whether those were words or black smudges no pony would know. This was no normal pony.
This pony is the Doctor. He's a Time Lord. He's from the planet Gallifrey in the Constellation of Kasterborous. He's 933 years old and he's the pony who is gonna...read a book...obviously.
The Time Lords are a race that are gifted with many abilities. One of which being regeneration which allows them to regrow every cell in their body at the point of death. This allows them to live unnaturally long lifetimes at the cost of their appearance and personality. The limit to the amount of regenerations is twelve which allows for thirteen different faces.
The eyes of the Time Lord quickly darting across the fast moving pages would be his tenth set if he remained in his own dimension.
For reasons still unknown his time machine/spaceship, the TARDIS (That's Time And Relative Dimension In Space), transported him to a dimension where the default shape was equine. This forced his body to transform into a brown earth pony. Prior to that he had been more human-like, a human being a bipedal, mostly hairless primate.
Aside from regeneration, Time Lords have been gifted with the ability to speed read. Which is what the Doctor was demonstrating as he flipped through various dusty tomes that he had picked up from the local library.
The books came from the ever updating series simply titled "Equestrian History" and detailed all major events that led up to the current moment. This included the situation with Nightmare Moon, which was the day the Doctor had arrived in Equestria and met his lovely companion Derpy Hooves.
Derpy Hooves, or Ditzy Doo as she is more commonly known, is a grey pegasus with a yellow mane and a natural skill in muffin making. She also has a rather...unique "look on life", as it were. Her left eye seems to like to wander with little care to Derpy's wants.
The Doctor sighed as he remembered that day and his companion. Regardless of her appearance, she was so kind to the Doctor. Putting up with his shenanigans and sticking by his side.
"Weeeell..." The Doctor said looking upwards in thought "...There was that one time in Appleoosa."
He rubbed his hoof to his chin in thought then shook the memory away with a smile. The past was in the past...and sometimes in the future depending on your viewpoint.
The Doctor got up and stacked the last book on the large pile he had gotten from the library. The whole reason he had gotten them in the first place was to have some understanding as to the differences between Equestria and its other dimensional counterpart. Turns out there are quite a few, like-
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
"Who in the world could that be?" The Doctor thought aloud "Surely it isn't that dragon fellow. I mean, I did say I'd only have the books for a half hour but it's only been 23 minutes."
The Doctor walked to the door and opened it. The Doctor was greeted by a pink earth pony mare with a quite poofy pink mane. Her cutie mark was different colors of balloons, which would have led the Doctor to believe she made balloons for a living if it weren't for the basket she held in her mouth.
The Doctor smelled the sweetest smell he could have imagined coming from the basket. The basket itself was full of what looked like cupcakes with little drawings of muffins on the frosting. She was obviously a very talented baker.
"Ummm...Hello There. Der-" The Doctor was cut off by pink mare.
"Oou Rrnt Dishey Doo!" She said through the basket handle.
"Perhaps you should put the basket down." The Doctor said.
She noticed the basket and proceed to gently set it down on the ground before her.
"You aren't Ditzy Doo." She repeated rapidly "Infact, I've never met YOU before. Which is weird because I meet everypony that comes into Ponyville and we become the best of friends. Why are you Ditzy's house? Are you family, a friend, or *GASP* her very special somepony? It's just rude of her not to introduce me to you, especially if you ARE her very special somepony. It also makes it more weird that I never met you. Unless you were her very special PENpony! That's so romantic. So are you? Are you? Are you?!"
With that last question, the mare hopped with an audible BOING. This mare seemed to be in some level of sugar rush.
"Um no, I'm just a friend." The Doctor began, blushing a bit. "I'm visiting from far away. I don't believe we've met. I'm The D-er-Timer Turner. Yes, Time Turner."
The Doctor barely caught himself. He often used alternate names to blend in better to his environment and to not raise suspicion. His usual pseudonym was John Smith, but he had to change it with the change in naming. No one was named Smith or David in this dimension. Time Turner was the alternative to fit his hourglass cutie mark.
"Hi Time Turner! I'm Pinkie Pie!" The pink mare announced
***
The next twenty minutes contained the ever rapid questioning of Pinkie Pie. Varying topics from his favorite type of cloud shape to his favorite color. All of this rather one sided since Pinkie was rather content in answering her own questions. This went on until Pinkie finally let the Doctor get a word in.
The Doctor took a deep breath before attempting to answer her many questions. "I don't have a favorite shape of cloud. I have no idea what a Cherrychanga is. I don't like pears. My favorite hoof is...this one I guess. And finally my favorite color isn't green, it's blue. Ditzy gave me this tie and it goes well with my mane."
The Doctor panted while looking down at his tie. 'How in Equestrian does she talk so fast and isn't slightly out of breath.' He thought.
After a few moments he cleared his throat and looked back at the mare. She seemed to have been waiting for him to recover before talking again.
"One more question, Mr. Turner. What's your cutie mark mean?" She said gesturing to his side.
The Doctor looked to the mark he had been given in this dimension. An hourglass. Very appropriate. Pinkie isn't as clever as Derpy it would seem. Derpy had figured out that he was a time travel relatively quickly yet Pinkie hadn't connected the dots. If she did, she showed no sign at least.
"I...repair clocks." The Doctor lied.
"Oooooooh. That makes sense." Pinkie said "I'll have to make cupcakes in the shape of a giant clock for your party!" Pinkie punctuated that sentence with a hop.
"Party?" The Doctor said a bit shocked. 'A party isn't exactly a good way not to draw attention. Why on earth does she want to throw a party for me?'
"Your Welcome-to-Ponyville party! I throw everypony a party when they come to Ponyville and they're always so AWESOME!" Pinkie screamed the last word in excitement.
"No. No. That isn't necessary. I'm just visiting for a day or two. No need to go through all that effort." The Doctor said, hoping she would just let it go.
"Then I could throw a Visiting-Ponyville-for-a-Day-or-Two Party! What color streamers do you buy for that?" Pinkie rubbed a hoof against her chin in contemplation.
The Doctor was about to reply when he was interrupted by a third voice who yelled "Oh, Hi Pinkie!"
It was Derpy carrying her saddlebags full of groceries. She had gone out earlier to the market while the Doctor was studying. Apparently the whole scene with Pinkie was long enough for her to finish shopping and come home.
"Hi Ditzy! I was wondering where you were." Pinkie said, excitedly "I was confused when your friend Time Turner answered the door. I thought maybe I had the wrong house, but I remembered that I always come to THIS house so I knew it was right."
Derpy smirked ever so slightly at hearing the pseudonym. She always found it kinda funny when the Doctor had to use his alternate name.
"I was just out getting groceries." Derpy explained "I was all out of flour and butter."
The Doctor looked downward, embarrassed. He had kinda, sorta ate all of Derpy's butter. What could he say? He was hungry...and it was butter.
"Okie Dokie!" said the pink pony "I was afraid you had forgotten all about our session."
***
Apparently Derpy and Pinkie Pie have a meeting every Sunday. During these meeting Pinkie brings cupcakes and Derpy makes muffins, and the two have an extremely civil and calm debate over which is better. It was actually pretty shocking as to how it didn't involve throwing of baked goods or insulting of each other’s baking trays.
To avoid the weirdness of the situation, the Doctor decided to bring his books back to the library. Spike fussed at him for having the books out over a half hour but seemed happy enough to have them all back in one piece. Especially after the incident with the 'Cutie Mark Crusaders Book Printing' that ended up destroying a majority of the "Encyclopedia Equestria" set.
The Doctor seemed overly excited just to be in Spike's presence. It was a DRAGON running a LIBRARY. How could the Doctor not want to stick around and chat? From his conversation with the apparently 'baby' dragon he learned that he actually didn't own the library. The owner was away in Canterlot for important business with Princess Celestia. The owner also was a unicorn. The Doctor SO wanted to meet her and wondered to himself if he would in the future. How could the Doctor EVER pass up the opportunity to meet a UNICORN? He wondered if she was nice....or a ginger. How great would that be? A ginger unicorn. A GINGICORN!
The Doctor bid Spike a farewell and returned to Derpy's home, which was now Pinkie free.
Derpy told the Doctor all of the "exciting" details of the debate, which she had won this round, and how she had managed to talk Pinkie out of a full party.
"I just told her that you would be upset to meet all the ponies and end up just having to leave." Derpy said while washing a teacup.
"Clever clever, Ms. Hooves." said the Doctor wondering why he hadn't thought of it himself.
***
A few hours later, just as it had become night, there was a knock on the door. Unfortunately, Derpy was in the bath so it fell upon the Doctor once more to answer the door.
Opening the door revealed a very familiar pink mare with a pair of saddle bags.
"Oh, hello Pinkie Pie. Ditzy is in the bath currently. Is there any way I can help you?"
"Hiya Mr. Time Turner! I'm actually here to see YOU. I need your help with something." Pinkie said.
"Oh? With what?" The Doctor asked tilting his head slightly.
Pinkie began to dig in her bags. "I was hoping...you could fix...THIS."
The object she took out shocked the Doctor. 'The symbols...the writing...it couldn't possibly be...'
From a chain, Pinkie held a pocket watch.