//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 - Don't Blink // Story: They're Ponies! And they Talk! A Whole Planet, with Talking Ponies! // by MrPengu1n //------------------------------// The Doctor spun on his hoof and brought Ditzy close, whispering vigorously, "Ditzy, listen to me, this is very, very important!" He fumbled in his coat for a second and pulled out a key on a string wrapped around his hoof. "Take this key, and whatever you do, do not let anything get to it. Keep is safe, no matter what! Understand?" Ditzy took the key carefully and whispered back, "Doctor, you're embarrassing yourself in front of my parents. What's eating you all of a sudden?" she swung the key around nonchalantly, "What is this anyway?" "It's a key to the TARDIS," the Doctor explained. "And those statues out there aren't statues." He jumped back up and ran to the door, breezing past Dreary and Delphi. Dreary lifted his hoof threateningly, "Quit yer running, city colt!" The Doctor didn't listen, and he dashed out the door into the backyard, gazing warily at the statues. The Do family watched the Doctor dance carefully around the statues, as if he was trying to keep an eye on both of them at the same time. He traipsed about the garden, twisting this way and that around the statues with a face as serious as a shark attack. Dreary grunted, "Why have ya always gotta bring home the weird ones, Ditzy?" The Doctor kept his eyes open with a steely expression on his face. "What are you doing here?" He softly asked the Angels. They were huddled next to each other in the corner of the garden, next to the fence. "Who brought you here?" A thought struck the Doctor about the peculiarity of their positions. One of the Angels was reaching towards the other, and the other was reaching towards the fence. They didn't seem like they were trying to appear very threatening. In fact... Slowly, carefully, the Doctor blinked. The Angels had moved. One was now clutching to the nearest fence post, appearing as if it was about to climb over it. The other was clutching to the other Angel's arm, looking back at the Doctor. The expression on it's face, and the emotion in it's blank, stone eyes could only be....fear. The Doctor's eyes widened, "No..." he breathed, "You're...you're trying to run away?" The Angels didn't move. "And you don't seem all that fast, either," the Doctor mused. "You've only moved a foot or so. I've seen Angels come across an entire room in a blink. You must be..." the Doctor looked down at the Angels' bodies. They were thin. "Starving.." Ditzy stared out the window at the Doctor. He had stopped dancing around and was now standing silently in the yard, looking at the Angels with a forlorn expression. Suddenly, the Doctor spun around and shouted something. She ran to the door and opened it up, "What?" "Ditzy! Bring me a mirror!" The Doctor had set up two mirrors in front of the Angels, so that they were looking at their own reflections. With his work finished, he stepped towards the fence and slumped down next to it, putting his head in his hooves. Ditzy sat next to him, looking worried. She had never seen the Doctor look so...defeated. "Doctor, what's wrong?" The Doctor sighed, "These Angels. They're not just statues," he explained, "though you probably guessed that by now. They're aliens." Ditzy chuckled a bit, "You can't be serious, right? Statues, that are aliens?" The Doctor looked her in the eye. Ditzy stopped chuckling. "They're called the Weeping Angels," the Doctor explained, "They're a type of chronovore, they feed off of time energy. Creatures of the abstract; when they touch you, they absorb all the time you have left, and they send you into the past to live out the rest of your days." Ditzy listened intently, gazing warily at the statues. "They send you into the past?" "Yup," the Doctor confirmed, "The only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely. One touch, and you're gone. You live the rest of your life and die in the past, and they absorb all your time energy." He looked over at the statues, "But there's another fact about their physiology, and that is they're quantum-locked." "Qu-Kwan-q- what?" Ditzy repeated. "Quantum-locked. See, the Angels are composed of a type of matter that doesn't exist anywhere else in the universe. While that statue there is what can technically be called their, 'body'," the Doctor explained, "Their actual presence is a sphere of quantum entangled particles that are produced when their bodies interact with the electromagnetic force. That is, when photons of light interact with them, those photons become paired with all the other ones in a sphere surrounding the Angel that expands at the speed of light. And when those particles are observed by the eyes of a sentient being, the signal processed by the brain is reversely fed-back through the Angels' quantum entanglement telepathically, and the imaginary mass that makes up the Angel condenses into matter that no longer responds to the Angel's control." "Doctor, I have no idea what any of that means." Ditzy explained gently. The Doctor chuckled quietly, "Sorry, I forget you ponies don't have any knowledge of physics," he apologized. He looked up at the Angels again, rewording himself, "Basically, the Angels cannot move when they're being observed. Because when they're seen by any living thing, they turn to stone. They can't avoid this, it's just a fact of their biology." the Doctor turned to Ditzy and whispered ominously, "Because you can't kill a stone." Ditzy shuddered involuntarily, scooting closer to the Doctor. "Course," the Doctor amended, "a stone can't kill you either. But then, you turn away," he suggested, "Then, you blink. And they will catch you. They are fast, faster than you can believe." he blew air through his lips thoughtfully, "That's also why they cover their eyes. They're not weeping, they just can't risk seeing each other. Otherwise, they'll freeze." Ditzy thought about this information. Killer statues that zap you into the past unless you look at them. She almost started laughing at how ridiculously dangerous they were. "What planet are they from?" she asked instead. The Doctor looked at her, "Sorry?" "You said they were aliens," Ditzy recalled, "Don't they have a home planet?" The Doctor looked over at the Angels again. He shook his head, "No, they don't. The Angels are some of the oldest creatures in the universe, nobody knows where they came from." "That's horrible!" Ditzy gasped, "To not have a home planet?" The Doctor said nothing. "What do we do, Doctor?" Ditzy asked, looking at the Angels fearfully, "How do we get rid of them?" The Doctor paused thoughtfully for several moments. "I want to help them," he said finally. "What?" Ditzy shouted, "Why?" "Look at them," the Doctor instructed, "Look at how thin they are. And look at how they're positioned," the Doctor added, gesturing to how they seemed about to climb over the fence. "They're starving. And scared." Ditzy looked, but she didn't agree. "But you said they were psychopaths! Killers!" "Yes," the Doctor said, "But I'm not." He got to his hooves and walked towards the house, leaving the Angels as they watched him walk away.