//------------------------------// // Final: I Have Time // Story: A Rabbit Hearted Mare // by MissytheAngle //------------------------------// Chapter Ten I Have Time “Get out here already! C’mon, Roseluck!”          Roseluck took her time walking outside and approaching Daisy and Lily. Sighing, she turned to Daisy. “You know I had a long day the last few days. I’m lucky I got up early.” “You’re telling me!” Daisy exclaimed. “The both of us were mind controlled and barely remember anything. Our poor gardens! They've been neglected!” "Abandoned!" Roseluck cringed, wishing to join in on their melodrama but deciding against it just this once. “Oh, right.” She glanced at the beds of flowers in front of their houses. Though they were far away from wilting, she could sense the roses and other variants were lacking the love and comfort they normally gave the flowers. They slumped just a bit to the side, like a cry for help. She could sense their loneliness, their want for their needs. And as of the past few days, they were the last things on her mind. Lily nudged Daisy. “Don’t worry about it, Rosie. We won’t make a big deal out of it this time. You know, 'cause of what happened.” “I guess,” Daisy said, with a sigh of remaining disappointment. She then flashed a smirk. “We’re just glad that it’s all over with.” "'Cause of you!" Lily giggled behind her hooves. Roseluck's face burned. "Oh, come on! I told you to stop making a big deal out of that." She buried her face into one of her hooves as if to hide herself from her friends. They laughed again. "You're so cute when you're flustered," Daisy mused once their laughter quieted down. "But in all seriousness, Roseluck, it is 'cause of you that we're back home." She added in a sigh. "Let's just hope nothing else tries to drag us away next week." “Yeah, next week we’ll have, like, an infestation of… snapping turtles,” Roseluck joked. Though she laughed, the idea didn’t sound too absurd, in comparison to the other things they’ve dealt with. “That sounds adorable yet terrifying,” Lily quipped, eyes wide. She began jumping up and down. “I’m ready! Where are they?” “Roseluck!” Turning around, Rose caught Muffins gliding down towards her, her wings flapping rapidly even a few feet from the ground. Once she met with the ground, the pegasus stumbled until Rose caught her. Laughing, Roseluck said, “Hey, Muffins. What’s up?” “The Doctor wanted to find you!” Muffins beamed, practically shaking her shoulders. “Oh, sorry!” She stopped and stepped back, her excitement fading only slightly. “But it’s super important and you should go see now! It seems like he really wants to see you for… something.” Roseluck didn’t need to look back to see Lily and Daisy’s smirks. They started snickering behind her, and even Muffins glanced at them over Rose’s shoulder. The earth pony shook her head. “Just ignore them.” “Oh, Rosie!” Daisy feigned exasperation as they approached her, one hoof from each wrapped around her. “Ignore us all you want. We’ll still love you. And don't forget, we still need a spa day for ourselves sometime later. My treat!" Roseluck practically swooned at the idea of going to the spa, and the lingering ache in her hooves only further convinced her it was of upmost importance to go. "As soon as I get back, promise." Lily giggled. “Yeah, now go talk to Doctor Hooves. Tell him I-er, we said hi.” “Yeah, Lily said hi.” The bashful mare scoffed at Daisy with pouted lips and pushed Roseluck toward Muffins. “Whatever. Tell him somepony said hi! Now go, go!” Lily pleaded, her face a bright red. The four mares waved as Roseluck and Muffins walked away. Once they were out of hearing distance from the other Flower Ponies, Roseluck’s patience faded.   “So,” she began, eyebrows raised, “what’s the surprise?” Muffins grinned, while also chewing her bottom lip. “I can’t tell ya. But that’s also cause I don’t know. Well, I might have an idea! Even if I did tell you, though, you wouldn’t believe me until you saw it for yourself.” “It?” she repeated. Muffins’s stammering only further confused her. “Eep!” Muffins jumped back. “No more hints, no more hints—I, oh, look! Here we are!” She gestured to the Doctor’s house. Even from outside, the two could hear rustling from inside. Rustling of metal and whatever sort of creations or messes the Doctor was playing around with. And without the door open, they could tell something out of the norm was certainly part of the noises inside. “Now my work here is done!” Muffins gave her a salute, which Roseluck gave back, albeit reluctantly. “We should get something to eat later. All three of us! Later!” And she zipped away, bumping into a cabbage cart while shouting desperate apologies to the distressed merchant. What she said still confused Roseluck, but she knew she’d get her answers soon. She trotted into the Doctor’s house, knocking on the door that was only open ajar. The contact against her hoof made it open out more with a slow creak, until she could fully see inside. “Doctor?” She peeked her head into the disorganized room that was the Doctor’s… whatever room he called this. Living room? Building room? It was another question she’d bother with later. His head popped out from behind a couch, his hair more unkempt than usual. “Roseluck! Morning! How’ve you been?” “Great!” She walked over to him. “Muffins said you wanted to show me something. Something kinda important, I guess.” His face lit up. “Right, right! That! Okay, let me just fix this!” He pulled out a metal bar with static shaking between two small antennas. “What does that—?” “Oh, I’ll tell you later.” He waved away the subject and trotted over to a wooden door in the corner. Roseluck sneaked a look inside, only to see a pile of scattered objects and other forgotten debris. The dust told her these were all things thought useless or tossed for another day. Apparently able to read minds, he said, “The thing I have to show you is actually in the basement. Follow me.” Another door to the right had a silver handle matching a silver lock. The Doctor waved his sonic device onto the handle and opened it, leading her inside. Whatever was below was shrouded in the dark. So Roseluck had to follow him down in slow steps. The clacking of the floorboards was the only sound to be heard. Roseluck could only imagine what this mysterious and amazing stallion had to show her. Whether a new invention of his or whatever else, the ideas were boundless. And she wondered why she, of all ponies, got to see this thing. After what you’ve done, perhaps he thinks you deserve it, she thought, and she couldn’t help but grin in the darkness. It faded a bit. Or it’s no big deal. Roseluck, relax. What could be down here? The Doctor turned on a light, brought to life by a lamp at the bottom of the staircase. The basement was quite the opposite of his main room. His living room was a sign of an eccentric and intelligent owner. But the basement was dark and lonely, its song a mysterious quiet. Even when he turned on the lights, the room still lacked the excitement upstairs. Very few things lingered in the room, save a carpet, a dusty table, and something covered by a light brown tarp. “Is that it?” She pointed to the tarp and walked towards it. “Err, yes. I… well, what’s under it.” Roseluck giggled. “I guessed that much.” “Just promise you won’t faint,” the Doctor said, a worried look on his face. “I rarely have fainters, and the floor is not comfortable to land on, let me tell you.” She blinked, then her smile grew. “Okay, okay, I promise, just show me!” Roseluck was all but bouncing in place as she waited, her hoof touching his. “You’re getting me all excited.” The Doctor grabbed the brown tarp and pulled it off the tall mystery underneath it, revealing a blue box taller than both of them combined. Roseluck walked toward it, expecting it to do something extraordinary. Yet it just sat there, silent and still. Like any old box. “A big blue box?” she said, feeling the door. It was wooden, covered in dust and a cobweb or two, but it felt strangely cool. Looking back at him, she smiled. “Did you make it? It’s really nice.” He chuckled. “No, no. It’s what inside I want to show you. Only Muffins knows about it, so if you could keep it secret, that’d be wonderful. Don't want the town ponies to freak out over it and cause unnecessary commotion.” This did nothing but pique her interest further. With a quick nod, she opened the door. Roseluck stepped inside with caution. With one look inside, she was met with a golden room, larger than she thought the thin box provided. With metal grating walkway and a large machine surrounded by various buttons and levers, Roseluck stared on in awe. Stared like she entered a new world, which… she felt she practically did. She felt many other emotions crash inside her like waves, but the one most dominant was wonder, amazement. She walked to the back of the machine and saw a long corridor stretching deeper and deeper, one that she saw no end to, either. Way longer than the box looked! Almost tempted to step down the extended hallway, she took a step forward. Then she stopped. With a spin around, she saw the Doctor leaning onto the doorway, watching her reactions. Roseluck struggled to keep her hooves from buckling underneath her. Her brain spun with all these questions, as this strange contraption suddenly swallowed the two of them whole and brought them to this new world, and abruptly, her own world changed. Just by observing this magical and magnificent room. “Wh-what is this?” “It’s the TARDIS.” “TARDIS?” she echoed, still observing the room. Strange word. Fitting for a strange sight. She failed to notice the Doctor grinning at her. “O-okay.” He nodded. “It’s an acronym. For ‘Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.” “Space.” That word stuck out, and she mouthed it several more times. Looking around more, she could feel the world about to spin. Despite promising not to faint, she found it hard to keep focus, and this new information that entered her mind made her feel light headed. She held onto the console for support, and the Doctor approached her. “Whoa, whoa careful there.” He chuckled a little awkwardly. “I did say no fainting, now, didn’t I?” The close contact only made her look into his eyes. Those bright blue eyes. Eyes that held secrets and apparently more. Perhaps stories and sorrows and pains and demons that he concealed with strained smiles and spiels of nonsense. She had seen many things in her life in Ponyville, especially once the Elements returned and brought with them a magnet of trouble and chaos. Monsters, malice, magic beyond her belief, destruction, so much… but— “You’re, uh, not just a… a pony space explorer, I’m guessing.” She waved her hoof, trying to come up with the proper word. “Like, a secret astronaut.” He just shook his head, his chin stuck out. “So you’re not from around here.” She gulped. He stepped back. “Good that you could rule that out.” Roseluck attempted to follow him, but his hoofsteps were always a pace quicker. And his gaze constantly avoided hers. She looked down, thinking about all the knowledge this stallion spewed like they were the colors of the color wheel. All those flowers he spoke of as if they were real only she was sure they weren’t… but were they? “And… not just out of Equestria, right?” “Not even close.” The Doctor peeked up from the devices and buttons on the console to see Roseluck’s eyes light up as the pieces fell into place. He paced around the TARDIS. Once it clicked, her eyes widened. “Y-you… you’re from another planet,” she said. Not a question, but an answer. “An alien.” “Even further, technically, but… that’s a long, long story.” He brought his head back down. Roseluck, after spinning around multiple times to get a grand look at the machine, looked at the Doctor for a minute. The Doctor brushed the back of his neck, smiling awkwardly. She glanced at the center of the machine, quiet and still. No matter how many buttons and levers he pushed and played with, the machine did not respond. “So, the-the time thing?” she stuttered. He shrugged. “Hmm, well, I think that says enough. Hint: it’s not a giant clock or anything.” “O-oh.” It hit her, and that rush in her head returned. She stepped back. Time travel! Traveling through time! It shouldn’t have been surprising, in hindsight, but everything about this felt so incredibly impossible that she gasped at every piece of it. The Doctor’s eyes hardened with concentration as he turned back to the quiet console. “It’s a lot to take in, even for ponies, despite them having all that magic and magical creatures, and I’m pretty sure there’s a time travel spell somewhere in those libraries of the princesses’, if you look hard enough.” He paused to look at her still wide-eyed expression, and he gestured to the small chair on the other side of the console. “If you want to sit down, well, there’s the chair, but it’s not really fit for ponies, per say.” He scratched his cheek. With another gaze at the Doctor, she sat down on the only chair in the room. It was thin and long, not suited for a pony as he stated. She stayed there despite that. Amazing, but… is that all?! There can’t be! Suddenly she wanted more. It was if she had received a mere piece of bread and wanted a whole meal. Where was he from? How were ponies different from where he was from? Why was he here? Why was the machine broken? Could he fix it someday and travel through the skies and stars? A burst of curiosity came to her that only often came through gossiping amongst her friends. “A long story?” He nodded, and she smiled and couldn’t stop her eyes from practically glowing. She leaned out a little in the tight seat. “I’ve got time. I-if you’re okay with telling me, that is.” The Doctor moved his gaze away from her again, and she tilted her head. Though she couldn’t see it, she imagined that faraway look in his eyes, thinking about that other world he called home. Possibly missing it? Now she understood what he was staring at when he thought others didn’t notice, or what he wanted to be looking at. Maybe another time… But until then, I wonder what else there could be. Is this just the start? She tossed him a gentle look, and she tapped her hoof on the machine. “So, uh, what’s this thing do? How does it work? It’s, ah, a lot bigger than it looks.” “Does it? Hmm, I haven’t noticed?” He grinned, the cold in his eyes melting at the shift of conversation. She laughed, and the Doctor approached her, pointing to the very center. “You see, technically, the way it works is that the TARDIS is a whole other dimension…” And she listened. To every word.