The next mural the two Princesses stood before was of the same figure, only this time plummeting to the Earth below, a pegasus mare looking towards the scene. It seemed so long ago, and yet it wasn't even one year since he 'officially' arrived. "This is when he first came here. You might recognize the mare in the picture as a friend of yours." Looking closer, Twilight took notice of the mare's cutie mark- a series of bubbles slowly rising.
She gasped. "Derpy!" Celestia nodded.
"She was the first pony to ever meet The Doctor." His first companion. Regardless of the friendship she would make with the mare, Celestia was always envious of her. She would travel through time more times than anypony could count, exploring the Universe with the most famous Time Lord.
"How did he come here?" Twilight asked innocently. She now understood The Doctor's secret pain, but still remained oblivious to his adventures.
"He came here painfully." She looked at the box in the image floating above the falling Doctor. It was on fire, burning, quaking, destructive. "He wasn't always who he is now, this much you know." Her voice and tone grew more melancholy as time passed by. "He fell."
Confusion now gripped the purple alicorn. "I know, Celestia." She pointed a hoof towards the mural.
The Sun Princess shook her head yet again. "No, Twilight. He fell through Time..."
Your song will end soon, Doctor. The words echoed silently in his mind, rattling his brain every which way. He sat alone, listening to the TARDIS hum with patience, pacifying his racing mind. Only, he was younger. Much younger, and yet so much older than Him. The Doctor wore a trench coat, with a striped dark blue suit underneath. He was no longer forlorn looking. Instead, he gave off a sense of pride, of accomplishment. A hero. I don't want to die... he thought. Throwing his coat to a nearby seat, The Doctor began to push buttons and pull levers on his ever faithful companion, the TARDIS. "I won't die anytime soon. Not today." Suddenly, the TARDIS whined, and the cloister bell rang as loud as it could, indicating immense danger was nearby. Jumping into action, he began looking over monitors, and checking star charts for his location. Then, he gazed upon IT. IT was impossible. IT was a blemish on Time. IT was there, and it was menacing, and IT DIDN'T BELONG. A crack, but not just any crack. It was a tear in the fabric of reality. Doing all he could, he frantically hit everything he could get his hands on just to prevent nearing any closer to the hole in the Universe. "No, not any hole! Come on, Think!" He sprinted to the other end of the console, pulling down a monitor for closer inspection. It glowed brightly with a strange light, growing in intensity after every passing second.
"No, it can't be!" The cloister bell ringing yet again confirmed his suspicions. "It's a Time hole!" Time Holes were essentially black holes, except even more unpredictable, and very dangerous to get near with a type 40 TARDIS. Every waking second he spent on trying to keep his beloved vessel away from the blemish was fruitless. The pull was too strong. His TARDIS can't resist the pure Time energy emanating from the tear in reality. "Well, it looks like I don't have a choice!" he exclaimed, releasing the hand brake. "I'm gonna have to ride you all the way through! Allon-sy!" The Doctor pulled a lever, shooting the time machine towards the hole like a bullet towards its target. Creaking and groaning, the TARDIS erupted in flames, explosions happening everywhere around him. "Almost there!" Gritting his teeth, he held on for dear life. Suddenly, the console erupted, hurdling The Doctor to the opposite side of the room. "Agh!" he exclaimed, his spine breaking. "I-I n-need to s-save her." He weakly stumbled towards the destroyed console, faintly glowing. No, n-not y-yet! Once he reached the scorched interface, The Doctor began to speak, grunting with pain. "I-initiate Emergency Protocol Omega-6!" The engines roared to life yet again, and the TARDIS flung itself out of the whirlwind of Time.
"Oh, thank goodness!" He sighed in relief. His victory was short lived however, as his body began to glow brightly and he began to grunt in pain. Looking at his hands, they began to morph and change, just like any other regeneration. "No, this one, it feels...different." There was no holding it back now. "Oh, I hope I get some good ol' ginger! Don't fail me now!" His body erupted in golden light, and he began to change into someone else. His back healed, but stretched and cracked. "Wait, that's not right!" He grunted again, this time growing a...tail? His clothes ripped, and fur erupted all over his body. His hands turned into large lumps, and he lost height. A lot of height. "No, This isn't right!" panicking at what was happening, The Doctor failed to notice the console exploded yet again, sending him hurdling out of the doors. His coat snagged against one of his stubs on his way out, covering most of his body. His vision blurred as he heard a woman screaming. "R-rose?" Darkness welcomed him coldly as his body went numb. Towards the end, he could've sworn he heard wings flapping. Maybe a bird rushing past his falling corpse?
I don't want to go...
"So, did he survive? I mean, it sounds like he could never die, but even still, a fall like that would kill anypony!"
Celestia chuckled at her pupil's ignorance. "No, Twilight. Surely you must have guessed that Derpy Hooves was the one to save him?" Her averted gaze said otherwise. Oh my sister's stars, she's serious. "Twilight, what do you think the flapping wings were?!"
"A nearby bird?" she chuckled nervously.
Dark, so dark...
"Dinky, go to your room! He's hurt!"
A...voice? It sounds sweet, like...Rose...
The voice gasped. "Are you alright, mister?"
His eyes squinted to life. "R-Rose? Is that you?"
"Rose? My name's Derpy Hooves. Oh! Do you mean Roseluck?"
The Doctor shook his head to clear it of the fuzziness. "Roseluck? Wha-who?" His vision cleared, and before him stood a horse in some sort of bedroom. The strangest part was the horse had wings. He looked left and right, hoping that he could meet the face attached to that songbird voice. "Who's there? Show yourself, i won't hurt you!"
"Oh no! Is he blind?!" The horse talked. The horse...talked!
With a gasp that Pinkie Pie would be jealous of, The Doctor exclaimed "OH MY GOODNESS, A TALKING HORSE!"
"Horse? I'm a pegasus."
"Tomato, tomahto." He jumped out of bed, eliciting a surprised gasp from the mare. "Either way, this is simply fascinating! What do pegasuses, pegasi? No matter, what do you do? Do you have an economy, what about religion? *gasps* DO YOU EAT OATS?!"
Boy, this pony's a weird one... Derpy thought. "Uh, mister-"
"You can call me Doctor!"
"Al...right. Doctor, you're a pony too. Try to remember, you should have learned all this by now."
"What are you talking about, I'm a hu-" he looked down to two stumps that replaced his hands. "What happened to my hands? WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HANDS?!" A grunt of pain prevented The Doctor from talking any further. "W-what happened?" he asked weakly, crawling back into the bed.
"You...fell a long way. There was some sort of bright light and there you were, going towards the ground!" she twiddled her hooves nervously. "I thought you were some pegasus doing a stunt or something like that, but when your coat flew off-"
He stopped her with a raising of one of his... hooves. "My coat?*Coughs* Was it brown, and kind of long?" She nodded. "Okay. I need you to go get it Miss..."
"Derpy. Derpy Hooves." She smiled.
"Okay, Miss Derpy. That coat is very important to me, and if anything were to happen to it, I would be gravely upset."
"Oh! O-of course, I'll go get your coat. You just try to get some rest, okay?"
He nodded his head. Before leaving the room, the Pegasus mare turned her head around to say one last thing. "Oh, and be mindful of Dinky, she's a really curious filly! If she bothers you, just don't pay it no mind, she'll leave soon enough."
With those last words, Derpy Hooves set off on an adventure she thought she never would have...
Celestia sighed forlornly. Oh, Doctor. If we met sooner, maybe things might've been different...
"I understand that him arriving to Equestria was important, but why are you telling so much about this particular day, Princess?" Twilight asked, ever the more curious.
"Because Twilight, this day was the single most important day to date within Equestria." She turned, and smiled at her ex-student. "This was the day Nightmare Moon was defeated by six talented and brilliant ponies, who all became friends..."
Her eyes shrank to the size of pinpricks. "S-so, you mean, he helped?"
"It is like him, don't you think?" This confused Twilight even more.
"I don't really know much about him yet, Celestia..." the purple alicorn exclaimed.
"Oh... I forgot. I'm sorry Twilight." her ears shrank down, and Celestia sat on her haunches yet again, but this time almost drowning in her own sorrow. "One thousand years since i've seen him last. I have waited every last second, hoping that he would return, that i could apologize for my actions." A single tear hit the ground between her pearl hooves. Then another. Soon after, she was crying, inevitable in their course. "I-I've waited so long, and became s-so v-very exhausted. And then he did, but he didn't know me yet!" She stood up suddenly, whole body shaking, her eyes full of sorrow and anger, mixed together. "Do you know how painful it is to know somepony, and yet they have no clue who you are?! A thousand years' worth of knowledge and wisdom, thrown out the window because I was a complete stranger to... Becau-... I-" She grabbed ahold of Twilight, sobbing her purple coat and soaking it wet. "P-please d-don't leave me! N-not l-like he did! I'm so alone! So scared! Please, I-I don't want you to-" Her mane no longer magically flowed, and all life drained out of her.
Is she...? Twilight thought. She shook her head, getting rid of the thoughts forming for a while. It doesn't matter now. You have a friend that needs you... "Shh, it's okay. I understand. I won't leave you" she hugged her former teacher back, hoping that affection would help ease Celestia's pain.