I walked right into the Doctor as he stopped just out of the TARDIS’s doors. I grumbled something offensive to Time Lords into his back, but the Doctor didn’t reply. Annoyed, I pushed him forward slightly and stepped outside completely. We were in a dark room which was especially disorientating considering how bright the TARDIS was on the inside. It looked like a bedroom, with a pink and black wallpaper, toys and dolls scattered haphazardly on the floor and stars and planets that hung from the ceiling.
I didn’t notice it at the time but the planets and stars were bizarrely accurate from the size to the location relative to each other. Despite it being morning in my house it was the middle of the night here so I lowered my voice to a whisper as I prodded the Doctor
.
“Doctor, where are we?” I asked.
“Oh, hello!” he greeted. He wasn’t concerned with me, he was just staring across the room with a happy grin on his face. Following his gaze, I looked at the twin beds that sat before us, pushed against the wall neatly. The beds looked like they belonged to Queens, they were twice as large as mine with an elaborate canopy hanging over it. One of the beds had a starry canopy while the other was a simple picture of the sun.
The starry bed as empty and judging from how neat it was, nopony has slept there for a long time. A little filly sat in the other bed, her coat was the color of milk and her mane was the brightest of pink. My mouth dropped as I noticed her tiny wings folded on her back… in tandem with her little unicorn horn.
“Hello,” she greeted with a curious tone. “Who are you? What’re you doing in my room?”
Princess Celestia blinked in confusion as she tilted her head.
I was struck dumb and mute, my mouth hung stupidly and if it wasn’t for the Doctor I would’ve stayed like that for the rest of the day. He calmly closed my mouth without removing his gaze from Princess Celestia. He was still smiling diplomatically and he made slow, deliberate movements as to not startle her.
“I’m the Doctor and this is Twilight Sparkle. Sorry about the sudden visit, we’re from Health and Safety, here to check out if everything is okay and up to standards!” he answered without hesitation. I got the feeling the lying was part of his job description.
For a moment, I thought Princess Celestia was going to call the Doctor out on his lie but then he pulled out a small black wallet and flashed a blank piece of paper at her. “Here are our credentials, if you’d like.”
“Doctor!” I hissed, ribbing him in the gut. “It’s blank!”
“Of course not,” he whispered back, not looking away from Celestia. “It’s psychic paper, she sees what I want her to see.”
Princess Celestia blinked and for a moment didn’t say anything…
“Mister, the paper is blank!”
The Doctor reeled back slightly and looked at the wallet. “It’s on the fritz?” He shook the wallet slightly but the paper remained blank. Sheepishly, he pocketed the wallet and grinned broadly at Celestia. “Excellent! You passed the first test, what did I tell you, Twilight? She’s a clever filly.”
“But—“ The Doctor gave me a hard look and I quickly got the gist. Go along with it.
“Yeah! Very clever! As expected from Princess Celestia!”
Luckily, my hammy performance played well with Celestia. She smiled cutely and squirmed in her place from the compliments. “I am clever aren’t I? My mom always tells me so!”
The Doctor took that opportunity. He approached the bed gently and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, running it over a candle letting it whir to life. To my surprise, the candle lit up! Celestia was in awe at the display of this strange magic and so was I but I had to pretend that it was something I was accustomed to.
Psychic paper, boxes that are bigger on the inside, screwdrivers that can light candles, you know the usual.
“And your mother, does she happen to be around?” the Doctor asked.
Celestia pouted, rubbing her hooves together. “No, she’s with Lulu, her magic lessons always take place at night.”
The Doctor looked at me. “Lulu?”
“Princess Luna?” I ventured.
“Yeah!” Celestia confirmed. “Lulu and I don’t see each other anymore, during the day she sleeps and at night I’m supposed to be asleep. We never hang out…”
I winced. I never heard anything about that from the Princess before… then again it wasn’t as if I asked her about her fillyhood before.
“Well, no need to worry. That’s why we’re here!” the Doctor tossed Celestia his sonic screwdriver, she fumbled with it but managed to catch it. “Psychic interface, think and point.”
Celestia tested out the screwdriver, pointing it at me and it buzzed to life, vibrating slightly in her hooves. She nearly dropped it but giggled. “It’s funny!”
“Twilight and I will begin to check your room out, standard procedure, no need to worry,” he told Celestia.
The Doctor guided me to the other side of the room, near the TARDIS, by a fireplace. For some weird reason, the Doctor was running his hooves under the mantle but cursed under his breath when he couldn’t find anything.
“Last time I saw you, you could barely stay on your hooves,” I said.
“A lot happened between then and now,” he answered, still messing with the mantle and muttering something about cowboys. “I tried to set up a temporal anchor point, I ended up flying all around your history. You’d be surprised how many ponies hate when a big blue box appears in their homes, lots of running around, plenty of practice.”
I looked back at Princess Celestia who kept playing with the screwdriver. She looks so young and innocent, she didn’t have her cutie mark yet. “Why are we here, Doctor? Do you think this… alien, whatever, is targeting her?”
“I followed her temporal isotopic trail, sorta like… timey-wimey breadcrumbs, actually no, forget that. Imagine a bird dropping feathers as it flies, got that?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, forget that, it’s nothing like that at all.”
“Doctor!”
“Basically, I followed her and she intended to come here, only we got her five minutes earlier. We’ve got the element of surprise!”
My eyes widened. I looked frantically around the room for a clock but there wasn’t one in sight. “Lemme get this straight,” I began, my voice starting to waver. “You followed an angry, powerful, shapeshifting alien through time and space and ended up here five minutes earlier from when she was going to land, right?”
“Yes…”
“Doctor… It’s been well over five minutes!”
Princess Celestia gasped. We looked over and saw a pony standing by her bed. It wasn’t Mare Do Well, it was somepony entirely different, I didn’t recognize him but I noticed the Doctor glare so coldly at him I could’ve sworn the temperature dropped 10 degrees.
It’s hard to describe the expression the Doctor had at the time, but if I had to summarize it in one word I’d have to say “dread”.
The pony was a unicorn but the ghostly look in his eyes reminded me more of an alicorn, I had to look at his back constantly to remind myself that he didn’t have wings. His coat was ashy gray which matched his snow-white mane, scraggly beard and tail. His mane was matted and messy, fixed in the same style as the Doctor, all sticky-up. He had big brown eyes that looked so sad and somber it nearly made me cry looking at it, so I focused on his clothes.
He wore this brown tattered coat over a black waistcoat and a bloodred scarf. He looked so worn out and exhausted, as if he had been run through Tartarus and back… actually based on the look in his eyes, I think Tartarus would’ve been a vacation for him.
On his flank sat an Hourglass cutie mark, like the Doctor’s, except it was broken and shattered into a million pieces.
“You…” the Doctor growled.
“Me,” he agreed sadly.
“Doctor, is this the alien?”
“You shouldn’t be able to assume that form,” the Doctor accused, ignoring me. “Those events are time locked, you aren’t strong enough to break that!”
“And yet, here I am,” he said coyly. “It’s really quite simple, Doctor.”
“D-Doctor, who is he?” Celestia whimpered.
“It’s quite alright, my dear,” he turned to Celestia but the Doctor took a step forward.
“Don’t you dare. Don’t even touch her!” he all but snarled.
This old pony only chuckled. “Come now, Doctor. Are we not amongst friends?”
“How are you doing this?” the Doctor sounded like he was close to tears. “This isn’t possible…”
“My dear Doctor, there are cracks.. in time.” The Doctor looked like he was close to fainting or bloody murder. “Did you really think your actions back home didn’t affect every universe? You have scarred reality, even this universe wasn’t spared.”
“That wasn’t… I didn’t…”
“You claim I am the monster, Doctor,” he continued. “But you slewed millions.”
“History was changed!”
“But it still happened!” he argued. “In your mind, there are two events. One where history was changed… and one where you still burned Gallifrey.”
“Gallifrey…?” I echoed.
“You shouldn’t even be here!” he continued. “The Doctor, the real Doctor is elsewhere while you play pretend to be him.”
“I am the Doctor,” the Doctor defended.
“You are no better than me,” this stranger countered.
“Hey!” I stepped forward, my horn glowing brightly. “If you’re that alien from before, then I’ve got a few choice words to exchange with you. But first, who are you?”
“My dear… I’m the Doctor.”