Act 1 – It’s a muffin!
It was another busy day at the market place, as Derpy, The Doctor, and their daughter Sparkler were out shopping. It had been a while since the three of them had done anything together as a family, so Derpy had decided to bring Sparkler along with her and The Doctor, since Dinky was in school.
The Doctor looked over the checklist that he had in his hoof, as he began to talk aloud to himself.
“Let’s see. We have fruit. Check. Some bread, that’s always good. Check. Some…oats. I guess it’ll have to pass for meat for now, since I can’t very well eat any around here.” Muttering the part about the meat to himself. “Check. Ah, fantastic! That just leaves the most important item to get, butter!”
Sparkler rolled her eyes at her father.
“I still don’t understand your fascination with butter dad. You go on and on about it, and you eat it every day, but you don’t gain any weight. How can anypony be that obsessed with butter?”
“Believe me, I’m still trying to figure it out.” Derpy responded to her daughter.
“Oy! What’s wrong with butter? It’s goes great on everything! And I’ll have you know, that my metabolism is far more advanced than humans, so I burn it off rather quickly.” The Doctor replied back, ending very as-a-matter-of-factly.
Derpy rolled her eyes.
“There you go about those human things again.”
The Doctor gave a slight pout, with a face to match.
“Well fine then. My metabolism is far more efficient than ‘ponies’, so I’m not effected by the weight gaining effects of sweet, wonderful, butter.”
“Well I know something that you could bring along with you in the TARDIS, and I’m sure you’d enjoy it even more than butter” Derpy said with a menacing grin. “Pears.”
The Doctor freaked out and leaped backwards, nearly knocking over another pony who was shopping.
“AHH! Don’t you dare mention that horrible accursed abomination of a fruit! Those things are absolutely horrendous, and I’ll never eat another one of those things for as long as I live! Both in human form, and pony form!”
Derpy and Sparkler giggled with each other at The Doctor’s reaction.
Annoyed that he had been tricked into thinking about one of the things that he despised most in the universe, The Doctor decided to trick his wife with something that he knew she took very seriously. He looked around the market, and eyed the stand selling the very thing he was looking for. He ran over to buy one of its items, and brought it back to the still giggling mares.
“Well then, what do you think about…this!?” The Doctor produced a muffin from behind his back, and held it in front of Derpy.
“Muffin!” Derpy exclaimed excitedly.
The Doctor moved it back and forth in front of her face, watching both her head and eyes seeming to follow it differently, yet at the same time.
“Go get it!” The Doctor yelled, as he threw it off behind Derpy.
“Muffin!” Derpy yelled, as she turned and flew after the flying muffin.
“Real mature dad.” Sparkler replied to her father.
“What? She made me think about pears, and you know how much I don’t like pears.” The Doctor then began to make a pitiful crying attempt. “I mean, what a mean thing to do to someone. It’s just downright horrible to think about.”
Almost sincere tears began to form in his eyes, as Sparkler just rolled hers.
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Meanwhile,
Derpy managed to catch up to the muffin, and began to eat it, as she continued along its initial trajectory back towards the ground, not paying attention to where she was going. Just as she began to take another bite out of the muffin, she crashed into a pony walking on the ground.
“Owie.” Derpy looked to see that she had run into somepony. “Opps, sorry mister, I didn’t see you there.”
The pony stood up and brushed himself off, adjusting his glasses as well.
“It’s no problem. Accidents do happen after all.”
Derpy took another look, and realized that she had crashed into Doctor Stable, the head doctor of the Ponyville Hospital.
“Oh, hi there doctor!” Derpy replied gleefully, suddenly oblivious to the fact that she had just run into him.
“Hello miss…” The doctor finished adjusting his glasses, and looked up at Derpy. His jaw had been left open, as he stared at her, watching only one of her eyes looking at him, while the other looked off somewhere else. “Mrs. Hooves….Ah, Mrs. Hooves! Just the pony I wanted to see actually!” This time it was Doctor Stable’s turn to be giddy.
Derpy gave the stallion a confused look.
“Umm…you wanted to see me?”
“Yes! I’ve got a very important medical discussion that I’d like to have with you!” Doctor Stable replied excitedly.
Derpy became even more confused, as she tried to answer back.
“I…uh…”
Before she could get another word out, she was interrupted by the sound and presence of Sparkler dragging The Doctor over to her.
“Ow ow ow! You can stop pulling my ear now young lady.” The Doctor replied, twitching at the pain of Sparkler still tugging on his ear.
Sparkler let her father go, before pointing her hoof at her mother.
“Apologize.”
“Alright, alright. Fine.” The Doctor let out an annoyed sigh, before speaking. “Derpy I’m sorry that I tricked you and threw a…” The Doctor stopped mid-sentence, as he realized the situation in front of him, and Derpy’s confused look. “Hold on. What’s going on here?”
Derpy replied nervously. Her words getting faster and slightly quieter as she spoke.
“Uh, Doctor, this doctor apparently has some important medical thing to talk to me about, and I don’t have any idea what he’s talking about or what to say to him.”
“Ah! So you are a stallion of medicine as well?” Doctor Stable spoke to The Doctor. “I wasn’t aware that another pony of the medicinal field resided in Ponyville, outside of those that work with me at the hospital. What’s your name sir?”
“I’m The Doctor.” The Doctor replied.
Doctor Stable seemed confused at the response.
“The Doctor?”
“Yes, just The Doctor. Ow!” Sparkler gave her father a hard nudge in the side, and he quickly realized what she was trying to tell him. “Oh, uh, I mean” He cleared his throat before speaking. “My name is Time Turner. Nice to meet you Doctor…?”
Doctor Stable cleared his own throat this time.
“Doctor Stable. I work at the Ponyville Hospital. Nice to meet you Mr. Turner, and yes, I was actually speaking to Mrs. Hooves about a very important medical achievement that I would like her to be a part of.”
The Doctor was confused as to what the other doctor might be referring to.
“Medical achievement? In what, might I ask?”
“Why in optometry! I’ve recently developed an historical new eye surgery that could help any and all ponies with problems with their sight.” Doctor Stable replied to The Doctor proudly.
The Doctor was now even more puzzled at what the stallion had just told him.
“Optometry and problems with ponies’ sight? You said you worked at the hospital. Shouldn’t your expertise be more inclined to the body itself, rather than the eyes? Isn’t that the kind of medical operation that would need to be performed by an actual doctor in optometry?”
Doctor Stable was a little taken aback at The Doctor’s response.
“Forgive me Mr. Turner, but just because I am a doctor whose main focus does revolve around the pony body, doesn’t mean that I am limited to just that. I’ve developed my medical skills to help ponies in as many ways as I can. I am more than capable, and prepared to perform the surgery that I have in mind for Mrs. Hooves here.”
“Well that’s all fine and dandy, but for what? What’s wrong with her eyes? You know, other than them being all…you know.” The Doctor replied.
“Hey! There’s nothing wrong with my eyes!” Derpy snapped at The Doctor.
Doctor Stable broke the tension between the two before the other could reply again.
“It is actually precisely that.”
Derpy and The Doctor spoke in unison.
“Huh?”
“You see, I’ve been aware of Mrs. Hooves condition for some time now, and I believe that this new surgery could fix both her eyes, and her vision.” Doctor Stable replied.
Sparkler spoke before either of her parents could.
“But there’s nothing wrong with my mother’s vision. She can see just fine the way she is.”
“Yeah!” Derpy replied in agreement.
Doctor Stable cleared his throat before speaking again.
“Well be that as it may, I’m sure there must be some vision difficulties that you’ve had in the past. Like accidently flying into me for example? I’ve also heard of your difficulties delivering the mail at times. I know I once received a package of apples, when I was supposed to be receiving thermometers.” He then gave Derpy a slight glare. “And let’s not forget the time that somepony flew the wrong way to fetch the migrating birds during Winter Wrap Up.” He stopped glaring as he continued to speak. “Or how about the piano…”
Derpy cut the stallion off before he could finish.
“Hey! Don’t talk about the piano dropping incident!”
Doctor Stable cleared his throat.
“My point exactly. Seriously though, this could be an extraordinary turning point in your life Mrs. Hooves! We could fix all of your vision problems, as well as the other issues related to your eyes.”
Sparkler spoke to the doctor in an annoyed tone.
“And what issues would those be?”
Derpy put a hoof out in front of her daughter.
“Calm down Sparkler. I know what he’s talking about.” Derpy replied in a down tone.
Doctor Stable cleared his throat one last time.
“Well I can understand that this whole thing is very sudden, and that I shouldn’t expect a response right away, but please think about it. I’ll be at the hospital whenever you decide to make your decision.”
And with that, the pony doctor walked off out of the market.
Sparkler spoke again, still annoyed.
“The nerve of some ponies. There’s nothing wrong with your eyes or your vision mom, don’t listen to him.”
Derpy placed her hoof on her daughter’s shoulder for comfort and to calm her.
“I know…but he does have a point. I’ve accepted the way that my eyes are, and I’m used to my vision, but if he really is able to do something about them, then maybe it’s worth a try.”
The Doctor then placed a hoof on Derpy’s shoulder.
“You know you don’t have to go ahead with something like this. I mean, if its delivery problems, I could always lend you the TARDIS to get around faster and more efficiently.” He then mumbled to himself. “You seem to be able to drive her better than me now anyways.”
“I know, but it would be a little weird, and really obvious, if I started popping in and out of a disappearing box constantly throughout the day.” Derpy replied.
“Good point.” Replied The Doctor.
Derpy let out a deep sigh, before she spoke.
“This is a really big decision that I’ll have to make, and I’ll need some time to think it over.” Derpy then looked up, to see that the sun was starting to get a little further in the sky. “Come on, we still need to finish the shopping, and pick up Dinky from school.”
The Doctor and Sparkler nodded in agreement, and the three of them turned to finish their errands.