I sip a cup of Earl Grey in Carrot Top's kitchen, waiting for Ditzy to finish preparations "Ditzy! I know that we theoretically have all the time in the time possible, but I'm not very patient!"
Ditzy flies down the stairs and smiles meekly "Sorry, I wasn't sure if I needed to bring my camera or not."
I chuckle "Why do you need a camera?"
"Well, I want to add our adventures to my adventure journal." she replies, walking towards the door "I'm taking pictures to prove I was there. Haven't you ever wanted to have photographic evidence of your amazing adventures?"
"Not really, Timelords are gifted with higher memory retention than most."
She rolls her eyes "Good for you, Mr. Timelord, but I'm, just a regular pony. And cameras are useful in my experiences, especially against subterranean species and stuff like that."
I shrug "Sounds like you've got some stories to tell."
She giggles and gives me a smirk "And I know you have a number of them. Speaking of which, have you ever met any species that exist in the second or fourth dimensions?"
I tap my chin in thought "Well, fourth dimensional beings are a bit rare, but I've met some, not on very pleasant terms, mind, but I have. Remember the creatures Luna was talking about when we met? The Lloigor?"
"Oh! That was a fourth dimensional creature?"
"More of a sentient crystalline collective, but yes." I reply.
"What about two-dimensional beings?" she asks, apparently taking notes in a small notebook.
"Not yet, the existence of such beings has been theorized for years, but there hasn't been any proof. I shudder to imagine what they'd look like, or even in what way they'd interact to three dimensional things. But that's an adventure for another day. So, where did you plan on going?"
She pauses and hums in thought "You know, even if it isn't an adventure, I've always wanted to visit Prance in late spring."
The warehouse with The TARDIS opens before we arrive and Lyra steps out, her mane, tail, and coat sooty and scorched "Okay, you win Doctor, I've tried every single lock pick I own, that door is resonance locked, isn't it?"
I roll my eyes "You could just ask to be let in."
"Would you let me in?"
"No, but you could ask." I reply, opening the doors.
Ditzy passes a tube to Lyra "Here, it's burn salve."
Lyra chuckles "Nah, I'm good, thanks though." her horn glows and her whole body glows gold, the burns and scorch marks disappear "Based that spell off The Doctor's regeneration. I can only pull it off once a day, it drains my magic too much to speed up cellular divisions and all that jazz."
I blink several times and scan her with my sonic "Huh, that's impressive to say the least. How did you figure it out?"
She smiles "Let me into The TARDIS and I'l tell you, I was only trying to get in there because I left my holo-disk player in there when we were dropping frozen tar ponies."
I mull this over and let her past me, Ditzy following "Okay, explain please."
Ditzy pulls her notebook out again and I can't stifle my chuckle Studious, I like that in a girl- I mean partner! I mean FRIEND. Yes, friend...
"Well I observbed the energy you were giving off at the dinner we had at Carrot's and then I compared that to the notes I got from Minuette when I can get her drunk about your physiology and I came up with a theory as to how Timelords regenerate. So I just adapted that to a basic healing spell, Madam Curious' cauterization to be specific, and after working out the kinks and repurposed some dweomers I got it right yesterday. Bonbon helped too."
Ditzy nods and closes her notes "How is Bonbon?"
"She's good. I think that she was going to tell me about her secret soon. Turns out she was 'Protecting' me by trying to stop me from researching 'Dangerous' subjects." she grabs a cylindrical device from under the console and looks it over "Anyways, she's good now. I don't think she's even trying to do Celestia's bidding. I told her to become a consultant but she said that wasn't a job."
She places the device in her bags "I think it is, I mean, what other job can you both con gullible people out of their money and insult their organization? It's in the name." she nods to the both of us and leaves "See you... whenever I guess."
The doors close behind her "Do you think she was up to something?" I ask.
"Most definitely, but that's not important." Ditzy replies and motions to the console "Shall we?"
I roll my eyes "Prance in spring, here we come!!"
I open the door and look around "Either your France is much smaller than mine, or we're somewhere else."
Ditzy trots out of The TARDIS and takes flight "No... this is Prance, but not the one I was thinking of. We're in the past, circa 746."
I shrug "So we missed by a little over two and a half centuries. At least it's spring."
She lands and rolls her eyes "I suppose... but what do you think the problem will be?"
"What do you mean?"
"Whenever we go somewhere or when, we end up stopping some cataclysm or another. So I'm a bit paranoid..."
I sigh "Not all of my adventures end with aliens, mad men, or monsters. Come on, let's go get some wine."
"You don't drink!"
"'Souvenirs'. I'm getting souvenirs."
We enter the town and I suppress a shiver "Are... ponies supposed to look like that?"
Walking around as if in lockstep are dozens of solid tan ponies with thin mouths and pupil-less eyes. No cutie marks or hair, just what appears to be clay or mud.
Ditzy shakes her head "If... if I didn't know better, I'd say that this whole city is full of Golems."
"Whats?"
"Golems, animated clay figures that do jobs that ponies can't."
"But where are the ponies?"
She shrugs "Golems weren't used to found Prance or even employed, they're mostly used in towns where there are few Earth ponies and excavate rockslides and stuff. I've never seen a town full of them and... they're smaller than any I've ever seen." she shudders "Doctor, what if by coming here, we alter the chain of events and something never happened?!"
"Ditzy, time is elastic in nature most of the time. If this was never recorded in history, than either no one recollects it happening, or it's an anomaly in time. Either way, we can't alter it too much anyways. If it were a fixed point in time, that'd be another story."
She nods and looks around "I still can't help but feel like something bad is about to happen..."
"What say we go find a pony and ask what's going on?"
She shrugs "I have a bad feeling about this..."
So do I, but I'm curious. I think to myself, looking around the city.
Several hours later and we fail to turn up any non clay-based life "Doctor... We've combed the whole city, there's nopony else here!"
"Well that's impossible! There must be a group of people who built these Golems, so where are they?"
She shrugs and lands, scratching her head in thought "Well, we've combed the whole city, right? So therefor, any non-Golems must be outside the town."
I nod "That's a logical conclusion."
She nods in return and takes flight "I'll circle around and outwards and try to find a building or something. It shouldn't take me long."
Before I can respond, she's a grey dot in the sky "... I wish I could fly."
She plummets back down, flaring her wings at the last second to cushion herself "I found something."
I cough and wipe the dust from my eyes "Yes... thank you."
She leads me towards a rundown shack of a building so dilapidated, I'm sure that something must've happened. Something violent.
Ditzy pushes the door in and looks around before motioning me to follow.
"Anypony in here?!" she calls, her voice echoing through the house "... Apparently not."
I scan the room for signs of life, but find none "Nothing's been disturbed recently..."
Ditzy nods "I guess this must've been a lab. There're flasks, vials, Bunsen burners... everything a chemist might need."
"Alchemist, actually." someone says from behind us.
I jump towards Ditzy and turn "Who-"
A sepia pegasus with red and blue eyes "Hello, I'm Alka Hest... I suppose that you two are travelers?"
Ditzy nods "Yes, we were coming to visit Prance, but we only found Golems, do you know where the ponies might've gone?"
He snorts "Yes, you met them... or what they became. Follow me..."
He walks to a bookshelf and pulls a cornice down, the bookshelf sliding away to reveal a staircase "Hm, hidden door, been a while since I've seen one of those."
He pushes a lever upwards, and the bookcase shifts back into place at the top of the steps, several marble pillars move in to block the staircase. "I'm sorry about what happened."
"What do you mean?"
He sighs and walks over to a dented kettle and pours tea into several cups "They aren't Golems, they're Homunculi. There was a disease that was killing the town's people, and I was the only pony with education close enough to medicine. I'm an alchemist, so you know what happened after that..."
I nod, sipping the tea "You worked a miracle that worked too well. You cured the disease, but you also changed them... you turned them into living clay."
Ditzy gasps and runs towards him "That's not true, is it?!"
He nods slowly "Exactly that. The disease attacked the skin by putrefaction. I came up with the idea to create a salve that preserved the rotting tissue long enough for the disease to no longer have anything to eat. Unfortunately, the disease was a curse, and by adding enchanted clay, it turned changed the curse into a petrification curse. It turned them into clay ponies. I tried to figure out a solution, something to release the ponies within..." he points to a large table covered with beakers and test tubes and papers "As you can see, I've had no luck."
I smile "Maybe a few fresh pairs of eyes might help."
Ditzy nods and nudges Alka Hest from his chair "Yeah! Let's do it!"
"No... the properties of tin aren't going to help. What we need is lead. Lead is more resilient."
Alka Hest groans "How could I have made such a juvenile mistake? Mayhaps I should just leave it to you, Doctor."
"Nonsense! We need you to tell us what each of these are supposed to be creating and to explain what you wrote." Ditzy chirps, looking over the piles of notes.
He nods and smiles weakly "You're right... I can't get caught up in self-pity or doubt. Now that we've solved the problem, how do you suppose we dissolve the clay molecule's bonds?"
I tap my chin "Clay is predominantly sediments and organic material... so all we need to do is moisten it, and that should turn it into mud that we can then scrape off of them."
He gives me a flat look "I'm one Pegasus, I can't possibly create a strong enough storm to cover the whole town."
I grin and nod to Ditzy "But she can."
Ditzy looks up, confused "'She can' what?"
"Create a large enough rainstorm to cover the town." I reply, carefully lifting the finished mixture "And we need you to get it to rain a solution of this."
She looks at dubiously "It... might not blanket the town... but if you can get them all into one place, then that's QED." she stands and stretches her wings "Can you get them into, say... the center of town?"
I nod and Alka sighs "I'm going to have to run, aren't I?"
"When you're around me, you never need to worry about not getting your cardio." I say, grinning like a madman.
Ditzy takes off towards a low flying mass of clouds, leaving us to gather the Homunculi.
"She's a very determined mare..." Alka mutters.
"That she is, now, how do we get them to chase us? They didn't react to Ditzy and I's presence earlier."
He nods and produces a vial from his saddlebags, pouring part of it onto my tail and the rest onto his and his wings "This activates the latent herd mentality that's present in everypony's mind. Basically, if they see or smell us, they will follow. Unfortunately, it has a short effective time. About five minutes."
I nod "More than enough time. Shall we?"
He nods and inhales, puffing out his chest "Allons-y!"
I snort "I used to say that all of the time. Anyways, run!"
We take off, and immediately several start to follow me, and for once, I marvel at how often the majority of my adventures involve running to or from something.
Then why do I still get out of breath? I ponder, nearly hitting a Homunculus.
Alka and I meet up in the center of town, but there are no clouds or perky, adorable pegasi Stop that!! She is just my friend! Nothing more!!
Alka pants, many more homunculi following him compared to the ones I'd herded "Flying... is not... fun... after... spending years... walking..."
I shrug "But where's Ditzy?"
A shadow passes over me and I nod "Ask and you shall receive, I suppose."
"I hope you have an umbrella!!" Ditzy yells from within the cloud and suddenly, a torrent of water falls from the large cumulonimbus, pelting us with drops of water.
I turn around and watch in relief as the clay bodies of the Homunculi start to melt, revealing colorful ponies underneath.
"We did it!! Thank you Doctor! Thank you Ditzy!" Alka yells, hugging me "Thank you... thank you..."
I pat his back awkwardly "Erm... yes, you're welcome..."
The rain slows to a drizzle and the cloud floats away, a sweaty looking Ditzy fluttering down from the sky "Whoo! That was fun! I never knew that the inside of a cloud was so humid! Of course... most clouds are only big enough to have a single pony sit on..."
Alka nods "Thank you... thank you both of you..."
She beams "No problem! So what now? Do you think the townsponies know what happened?"
I pause "I'd assume not, they should've been unconscious the whole time."
"Alka Hest!!" a gruff, angry voice yells.
He turns and is nose to nose with an angry blue stallion "Yes constable?"
"What have you done?! First we come to you for help, next thing we know, we're standing in the middle of the rain!! What happened?!"
He chuckles awkwardly "Er... yes, well, you see... I'm not a medical doctor, I'm an alchemist, and a Pegasus, so I couldn't ascertain the exact nature of the disease... it was a curse, rather than a contagion. You were all unfortunately turned into living clay... but don't worry! I've fixed it with the help of my friends!"
The constable turns to us "Is what he's saying true?"
"That it is, my good officer." I reply.
He stares at Alka Hest and raises a hoof "I'm going to enjoy punching..." a shadow passes over him "... Did somepony just move a cloud?"
I look up and my jaw drops "Oh my... run!"
Towering above us is an amorphous mass of clay, several reflective eyes staring down at us like hundreds of spiders.
Alka looks up and scrambles back "That's it! I'm giving up on alchemy! If I survive this, I'm going into a different science!"
Ditzy picks me up and nudges Alka to move "Come on! We need to get back to the lab!!"
Before I'm too far away, I whip out my sonic and scan the monstrosity "Alka hest! Do you happen to have anything like a giant kiln?!"
He turns to me in confusion then understands "We are not turning that thing into a giant sculpture! It's alive! That's inequine!"
I roll my eyes and point to the hundreds of ponies running in terror from the clay monstrosity "I think that you can ignore the Hippocratic oath in exchange for doing the right thing!!"
Ditzy nods "I can't lower the air pressure in a town! That'd take hundreds of pegasi and we'd still need a kiln!"
Alka Hest grits his teeth "There must be a way... Clay, organic sediments, fine grain rocks, and metal trades... malleable when wet, brittle and hard when dry or fired... We don't have a large enough kiln, nor can we dry it fast enough."
Ditzy gasps "Doctor! Can you change the ice rifle into a heat laser?!"
"What?! You mean a giant plasma cooker?!"
"Pretty much!" she replies
"Not with what we have! I'd need a microwave among other things."
She frowns "Hmm... I have an idea!"
She runs into the TARDIS and comes back out with several saddlebags filled to the brim "Come on!"
We follow "Doctor, do you know what she's planning?" Alka asks.
"Not in the slightest, but I trust her!"
He stares at me, perplexed "That's reassuring."
Ditzy barrels through the doors to the lab and empties the bags "I think that if I can turn these radio parts into a long-range magnetron, and focus the radiation, I can create a thermal source that will dry out the clay's structures and render immobile."
"And how are you going to do that? If you use it like a laser, it'll just create a shell."
She grins "I'm going to make it a bomb. Remotely activated and safe for everypony."
"Ditzy, you can't solve problems with bombs." I say, walking over to her.
She turns to me "Do you have any other ideas?"
"... Fair point. Alka Hest, do you think that you can help us?"
He nods and produces a pair of glasses from his bags "Yes, I had another experiment going to see how to heat it fast enough to make it easy to free them from the shells, it's over here."
Upstairs I hear the sound of several hoofsteps and angry muttering "I think that the townsponies want to exchange angry words with you Alka Hest..."
He sighs "They shouldn't be able to find-" something crashes and dust falls from the ceiling "Or maybe they will. The experiment shouldn't take too long to finish! Doctor!"
"I understand, Ditzy, can you stall for us?"
She nods and pushes the lever up, opening the bookcase at the top of the steps and walking out to try and talk with them.
A few minutes later she darts down the stairs, closing the bookcase and marble pillars "I'm supposing they didn't listen to reason..."
She shakes her head "We should be able to hide out her for-
Several of the marble beams crumble behind us, the sounds of the enraged townsponies drowning out the sound of the bubbling beakers and machinery "Doctor..." Ditzy whimpers, cowering from the door "We need to go..."
Alka Hest and I look up from the readouts "We just need a few more seconds!"
The point of an axe breaks through the solid wooden door, and Ditzy grabs me by the shoulders "Doctor!! We don't have the time!! Can't we just cart this stuff into the TARDIS?!"
Before either of us can answer, the doors groan on their hinges, a battering ram slamming into them "Just a few more..."
Alka stands up and adjusts his glasses "I can hold them off for a little bit, finish the experiment... ALLONS-Y!!"
Ditzy grabs him "You're the only one who can do this.! Do you have a cloak or something?"
He nods and roots through a box before pulling out a dusty cloak "Yes, how will-"
She throws it on me and tucks my tail under it "You and The Doctor have similar coats and builds, The two of us will charge through the mob and have them chase us back to town. Use that time to make the firing-bomb-thing!"
I nod to him "Yes, so long as I don't say anything, they'll think I'm you." we walk over to the lever and nod to him "Good luck my friend."
He blinks and nods in resignation "I understand, Godspeed Doctor, may we meet again, fate allowing."
I nod back "I hope so as well. Now!" Ditzy pushes the lever up and we charge out of the staircase I hope this works...
The bookcase gives and we fly over the debris, and they yell in recognition and give chase, following me and Ditzy "Ditzy, this is the second time I've played bait today... I think that's a personal record."
She giggles and shakes her head at me "You're funny Doctor. Anyways, we need to conserve oxygen."
I nod and jump aside to avoid a tree, the townsponies gaining slowly.
The TARDIS comes into view and I sonic open the doors, jumping into it and Ditzy pulls the doors closed "Ms. TARDIS! Please take us someplace that isn't here!"
"What are you-" I ask before the TARDIS starts to rise and disappear "... She never listens to me..."
Ditzy wipes her forehead and grins "I think it's because you don't ask politely."
"... I think you may have a point." I reply, pondering the many times I'd tried to talk to The TARDIS.
We land and I look at the readout "We're... in modern Prance, right where we were two hundred and fifty-nine years ago..."
Ditzy shrugs "I said 'Somewhere else', but somewhen is good too. Want to go see if Alka Hest is still alive?"
I turn to her "What?! There's no possible way that he'd live two and a half centuries!"
"Alchemists are a tricky group, why don't we go see if he has any descendants?"
"Why not?" I ask, walking towards where the house stood.
"... Ditzy, is it me, or is the house gone, but the trapdoor..." I knock on the storm cellar-esque doors A bit harder to see from afar, but not so much up close.
The doors open, blue and red eyes on a grey-white coat stare out "Doctor?"
I flinch "Yes...?"
He jumps out, and hugs me "I've read so much about you! I'm Alka Hest the second. The one you met was my great grandfather." he releases me "Wow! I thought for sure that you were a construct of his guilty conscience, but..." he shakes his head in disbelief "You saved my great grandfather's life and career."
"How so?"
He sighs and nods to the now homunculus free Prance "How about we talk it over lunch?"
Ditzy nudges me as we follow "How am I understanding what he's saying? isn't he speaking Prench?"
"You didn't know? The TARDIS has a translation circuit, it automatically translates any language you hear, see, or experience into the one you understand. Even what we're saying can be understood."
She stares at me in awe "Wow... does that mean you're speaking... Gallifreyian?"
"No, I'm speaking English. Timelord is more or less a mathematical language that is expressed by sight rather than hearing and speaking."
"Huh... that's neat! Can you teach me it?"
"Erm... it's more than likely impossible for you to learn it."
She shrugs "At least I tried. So, want to get those souvenirs?"
"So he became famous for stopping his own creation?"
Alka Hest nods "Yes, but it was so massive, that they built a building to protect it from the elements. Come on."
He leads us to a large glass pyramid in front of an impressive building several times the height of the pyramid "Oh you have got to be kidding..." I mutter, my eye twitching "They built The Louvre to hold a giant clay homunculus?"
He shakes his head "No, that's the pyramid."
He waves to a guard and a small triangle on the pyramid's opens like a door.
Inside is the Homunculus, the same color it was when I last saw it, but shrunken slightly and immobile. In its hands is a trio of statues, one of Alka Hest the first, the other is of a grey Pegasus with a mane and tail of gold, wise, mirthful eyes partially hidden by impressive wings, and the last of a sepia stallion with a slicked back mane and tail, a smirk highlighting the intelligent blue eyes he had. In the other is... a blue cube.
Ditzy gasps, blushing and her wings spread in excitement "W-we're the Golem's two nameless subjects?! And... The TARDIS! I mean, it's just a big blue cube, but... oh sweet stars... this is..." she falls onto her back, looking up at the statues, her wings splayed on the floor "More than breathtaking..."
I sit next to her "And isn't this better than some old picture?"
She turns to me and pulls me into a crushing hug "Doctor! This is the most wonderful thing I've seen! I'm... immortalized in both scientific, artistic, and cultural history!! And so are you! There've been debates as to what they meant, but... they were of us..." she smiles, tears running down her cheeks "I... I... I can't... oh Doctor... this is too much..." she shudders "Thank you..."
I blush and hug her back, patting her back "You're welcome, my friend..."
Maybe Midnight was right about Friendship...