CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
BONDING
...If he was looking for applause he was sorely mistaken!
“Don't look like that!” He looked hurt. “Really! You Equestrins are such pessimists! A couple of minor mishaps and you're ready to throw in the old metaphorical towel! Is this the attitude that allowed you to build a colony from scratch on a marginally habitable world? Where's that fighting spirit, eh? The never-say-die attitude? The-”
“Back Home.” I interrupted in a dangerous tone, “We never say die, we say 'kill'. It's a philosophy that stood us in good stead for two hundred years against Tellarites, Orions, and the fauna of Equestris. You're about five seconds from having me apply it to crazy Timelords. What's the plan, Genius?”
The Doctor sighed. “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. The mark of the Barbarian. If I had the merest inkling that you were either of those I would never had let you into the TARDIS. I daresay the old girl would have locked you out herself. She's almost as astute a judge of Pony character as I am! ...Or were we both wrong, Starry-Eyes? Somehow I just can't believe we both could be that far off the mark in this particular instance.” He wriggled in my grasp to bring his face more on a level to mine. He cocked his head to regard me with one bright blue eye... I was suddenly struck by how much the light in his eye was so much like Tyllae's... and he winked.
I just deflated. What was the point of being irritated at a Pony who flatly refused to acknowledge it? How was that going to help? I didn't like the way he did things... especially the cavalier way he treated what I knew were absolute laws of physics... but that didn't make him a bad person as such. The worst thing I could honestly say about him at this point in time was that he rubbed me the wrong way. Somepony who had such resources at his disposal should behave in a much more... well, rational manner, damnit!
The Mare In My Head gave me a poke and wondered how many by-Luna Time Machines I had that I wasn't telling her about? If I were in a position to be able to regard all of History at once from the outside what would that do to the way I looked at things?
Something I'd read in one of Sunny's books occurred to me. The Mare In My Head highlighted the line and put it on her Main Viewer. “Sanity is relative.” Who was that author? Riven? Given? It was the story of the discovery of an enormous artifact discovered orbiting a distant star. I found the mechanics of the tale just a bit much to swallow but I enjoyed the characters...
I shut my eyes for a moment and sighed. If I could get along with a Tellerite I could get along with an eccentric Pony with a Magic Blue Box, couldn't I? Was I that inflexible that I couldn't trust anypony's judgment but my own? Tyllae thought the Worlds of him... and I trusted her. Time to be the enlightened Pony of the twenty-third Century I always thought myself to be. Time to act like a civilized Pony of the Federation instead of a bloody-minded Roamulan or Klingon... or a petulant, whiny Filly having a Bad Day at the very least!
The Mare In My Head called me a good girl and sent me a candy apple ration bar whose memory I savored...
I opened my eyes and caught The Doctor's gaze.
“All right, Doc!” Despite the situation I summoned a smile, not my best but I put as much sincerity as I could into it. “What's the plan?”
“Right!” The Doctor rubbed his forehooves together briskly, causing the jacket around our heads to collapse. On the other side of that flimsy barrier the Kel buzzed and swarmed angrily. I propped the thing up with my arms as their stingers sank in again and again just microns short of my skin!
Without my support the Doctor nearly sank out of sight. Being so close to me he couldn't... with his quadrupedal arrangement... grab enough water to displace. He scraped me with his hooves as he flailed wildly for just a second before reflexively wrapping as much of me as he could with all four legs. It almost worked. His eyes and muzzle stayed up but his grip kept slipping on my wet fur.
“Oh, dear!” He muttered as he kept trying to scrabble up my side. “Ohdearohdearohdear..!”
There just wasn't anything else for it. I considered draping him across my shoulders but that would have pulled so much of our protective garment up that there would have been a real threat of letting the damn bugs in. I ducked down to give myself some jacket-slack, grabbed the gasping Timelord, and tucked him up to his shoulders into my cleavage and stood up enough for me to prop our impromptu tent up once again.
“My word!” He paused to give his mane as much a shake as he could in the cramped quarters. Before I could open my mouth my face was splattered with river water and the ends of his mane!
“I do beg your pardon! Let me get that for your! Purely reflex on my part! So sorry!” He brushed my own mane out of my eyes as I glared and resolutely ground my teeth, keeping my mouth shut against a whole slew of acerbic comments!
“I'm sorry about this, ah, set-up...” At least he had the grace to look embarrassed at our situation. “...But I do need my hooves free for this!” Then he went an ruined it. “My word! But that's quite a, well, grip you have there! I wouldn't have thought it possible but here I am, snug as a bug in a rug, eh!” He bounced a little, experimenting no doubt to see how secure he was. He tapped my right breast with a hoof, peering closely at it.
“You're flesh is naturally dense, isn't it? Well, UN-naturally dense in view of your species Genetic rearrangement, that is. Then again, it would be purely natural to you, wouldn't it? Tsk, tsk, tsk! No wonder you don't like deep water! You'd go right to the bottom in an instant like you were wearing a suit of armor! You know, in other upright bipedal mammals female breasts are collections of fatty deposits, naturally buoyant, but you might as well have a pair of cannonballs strapped round your neck for all the good these do you in the water!” Absorbed in his observations, he stretched a hoof out to either side and hefted each one experimentally with his head laying on my collarbone as he gave me a purely scientific grope!
“Great Whickering Stallions!” He exclaimed. “Thirty-six pounders if they're an ounce! Ha! Fit for the guns of a ship of the line... or a battleship!” He gave them both another squeeze. “... I wonder what the specific gravity comes out to?”
That water was damn cold! Colder than that brush with absolute zero I got when that Roamulan attack decompressed the Bridge once during the War. Caper and I herded the rest into the turbolift. There was no way I'd fit in there with them. So I threw Caper on top of the rest and sent the thing on its way before ripping a seat cushion off a chair and stuffing it into the crack as my ears popped and I screwed my eyes shut to keep them from freezing open. I still remember how the sound... and the air that carried it... slowly died away as the cold settled round me. For the record it was Caper that came back for me. The sensors confirmed that it was less than fifteen percent air pressure when he entered the Bridge. There wasn't air enough to shout so he kicked me square in the butt to get my attention and we got ourselves back to safety with a mild case of frostbite for our trouble.
Somehow the water felt even colder than that! Even so, I could feel my ears and cheeks burning as the absent-minded Timelord indulged his scientific curiosity!
I put up with a lot from Terrestrial Ponies when it comes to my size, mass and physical dimensions. Astonishment, disbelief, lust from males, and naked envy from other females. In the privacy of our quarters Sunny has a Field Day, but she loves me and I don't mind the attention from her. ...But to be buckhandled in an alien river by this little weirdo was a whole different grade of ore! Regardless of the circumstances! ...And that crack about fatty deposits was, in my opinion, a low and un-called for comment!
Enlightened foal of the Federation or not, my first impulse was grab him by his skinny neck and make good on my threat of using him as a flyswatter!
I could... I should... have shouted, laid his ears back with every decibel I could muster before I showed him what Equestrin mares do to bucks who take liberties they shouldn't! But I was better than that, wasn't I? I wanted to believe so, anyway. I shoved my emotion down so hard that my voice was barely a squeak with the effort.
“Doc... Take. A .Good. Look. At. What. You. Are. Doing.” I said quietly, trembling with far more than the cold.
“Hm?” He paused in prodding me. “I was wondering just how much of you is water. On Earth, seven-tenths of the world is water. Land species have pretty much the same ratio. I would guess that Equestris is closer to... what? Twenty-five percent? Thirty?” He palpitated my right breast... his favorite, I guess... before continuing. “Certainly less than fifty percent or you'd achieve neutral buoyancy... depending on the salinity of the water, of course. Pretty brainy of the Eugenicists to adapt you like that! Hats off to them! I always say that if you're going to meddle with genetics take a look at the local conditions first! Otherwise you'd have to retro-adapt the entire ecology to fit the new species which is more trouble than it's worth quite frankly. The Daleks, though, didn't give a wet slap about...”
“I...” I coughed and lowered my voice to a deadly growl. “Am going to give you a VERY wet slap into next week if you don't stop pawing my boobs and just get on with this plan of yours!” If eyes were balephasers he would have become a cloud of baryons just then.
“What?” He blinked at me for a moment. “Oh. Oh!” Even in the dimness I could feel him blush. He snapped his hooves back to himself so fast that, if he wasn't so... firmly wedged into place he would have sunk like a stone.
“Well...” He cleared his throat a couple of times. “I just occurred to me while I was in this, um, position...”
“This very awkward and embarrassing position...” I injected coldly.
“Precisely!” He agreed. “A very awkward and, um, unfortunate position. That I came to be in not of my own volition, I hasten to add!... ”
“Of course.” I said flatly. “It isn't as if you knocked me into deep water. Deep freezing water, I hasten to add, full of Luna-knows what hungry creepy-crawlies after managing to knock over a beehive and setting a million bugs...”
“Kel! They're called Kel, not bees!” He sputtered petulantly, the crotchety old buck side of his persona popping up. “And I cannot believe you're going to start going on about that again! That was an accident! Purely an unfortunate accident!”
“Like you 'accidentally' copping a cheap feel just now?” I said acidly, making air quotes that made the Kel outside thrum in agitation.
“I was curious as to the reason for your ultra-dense flesh, Madame! Nothing more and nothing less!” He said indignantly. “A curiosity, I might add, that leads me to theorize that this density phenomena extends to the matter between your mule ears!” He reached up and tapped my right ear to illustrate. “I can see why you wear your mane in such an overbuilt fashion!”
I was shocked. There are no Donkeys on Equestris. The Founders never recruited them in their drive to improve the Pony genome. But the cultural stereotype of crude, stupid, stubborn behavior persisted and was passed down in the barracks and the pubs for generations. That he would apply that to me caught me completely by surprise. There was a lot of gutter language the Doctor might have used that wouldn't have hit me harder!
“Mule.” I repeated calmly. “Mule, is it? Maybe it slipped your mind, genius, but mules are sterile and there aren't any Donkeys back Home. If you're suggesting Daddy had a fling with a passing Starfleet...”
“Well the behavioral precedent is there, isn't it?” He said waspishly. “Reckless behavior seems to be in your genes. I mean, really now, what sort of rational being would go tearing off in a weepy fit on board an Alien Time Machine in a drunken rampage? Time for a little chlorine in the old gene pool if you ask me!”
“You fed me that hooch in the first place, genius!” I said hotly, my voice rising despite my best intentions. “And what kind of scientific prodigy goes tear-assing through Time and Space in an antique phone booth? Can't you afford a decent Engineering Staff? The whole damn thing looks like it was put together from parts on a scrap pile!”
That crack wounded him as much as the Mule comment did me!
“Now see here, Madame!” He reared up, his head tenting the jacket as his eyes glinted in the dimness. “It's a Police Box and... and...” He sputtered and waved his hooves for a moment before abruptly going very still. I felt his body quiver and I thought that he was shivering... I know I was! But me ears caught the sound of a quiet chuckle that grew progressively louder.
“...Do you have any idea how preposterous we must look right now?” He giggled. “Oh me, oh me, oh my!” His giggle became a laugh that set me jiggling.
“I... am an idiot!” He declared and wiped at his eyes. “You know, if we survive the future I'd very much like to have you come back aboard the TARDIS for a while. I do like you, bless your stubborn heart!”
“Stubborn like a mule, maybe?” I asked warily, not sure what to make of the sudden turn of events.
“Do let that pass, my dear!” He patted the side of my muzzle. “And try to forgive a two thousand year old madpony, won't you?” He tugged at one of his ears and looked away. “I do tend to get sidetracked by very interesting things...” His gaze swept back to me and he added. “... And, bless me, you are a very interesting Pony, my dear Starry-Eyes!”
“Well... you're OK too, Doc.” I admitted. “I'm sorry as well. You haven't caught me on one of my better days, I'm afraid.” I paused, unsure of what to do next. In the end I just gave into instinct and administered a chaste and sincere kiss on the end of his muzzle.
“Friends?” I offered.
“Oh, indubitably!” He exclaimed then briskly rubbed his hooves together.
“Right! Now all I need to do is get my Sonic! It's in one of the pockets of my jacket.”
“What's it look like?” I spread my arms a little, making more room for him to rummage his pockets.
“Oh, I used it in the Control Room... and the Engine Room, as a matter of fact. I made one for Ditzy, too! But that doesn't help us much now, doesn't it?”
“That cylindrical gizmo you had?” I felt my ears perk up with curiosity, trying to distract myself from the cold tightening its grip.
“The very same!” The Doctor said proudly. “The Sonic Screwdriver! A neat little device. It uses sound to do all sorts of fascinating things, think of it as the ultimate multi-tool! I'm quite proud of it as a matter of fact.” He just couldn't keep the smugness out of his voice.
“No kidding? I'd like to get a closer look at it. Jerry'd give his left arm for something like that! Where did you keep it?” My hooves were full so I just watched him rummage.
“In my inside left breast pocket next to my hearts... oh, crumbs!”
The Mare In My Head was still mulling over the word 'hearts'. “What?”
The Doctor cleared his throat quietly. “My jacket seems to be, ah, inside-out. The pocket we want is on the...” He gestured vaguely.
“... Outside.” I finished. “With the Kel.” I sighed. “Well of course it is!”
“It must have happened when you...” He made a tugging gesture, keeping his voice carefully and casually neutral.
“Thought I was being jumped by a Sea Monster.” I finished for him, nodding. I sighed again.
“Well, I did say it wasn't one of my better days!” I squared my shoulders. “OK, here's the plan! I'm going to duck down and pull the jacket back around. Hopefully the water will stun them long enough for you to do what you have to do. Keep your hooves crossed that the damn thing doesn't fall out in the process! If it does, we go diving. Ready?” I prepared to take a deep breath.
“Wait a tick!” The Doctor poked his jacket then laid an ear cautiously against it. “I do believe they've moved off! Hmm... I wouldn't have thought they'd give up so quickly.”
I realized with a start that the Kel were gone! I strained my ears, listening. Sure enough the Kel were no longer swarming our cover, but they were still in the vicinity. I could still hear them close by, their angry buzz now more muted and preoccupied.
We exchanged glances and nodded to each other.
“On three.” I said. “One... ”
“Quick peek!” The Doctor cried out, flipping our cover over his head in a hood and peering over my shoulder!
“Oh! That explains that, doesn't it?” He said, sounding pleased.
I made a note to the Mare In My Head to remind me to never take the Timelord on a Landing Party and pulled the jacket off completely to see for myself.
The sunlight made me blink for an instant but when the glare died out I found myself staring at Our Favorite Fey hovering less than a yard away waving her little hooves.
“Hi-hii, Starry!” She caroled. “All safe to come out now, yep, yep, yep! Buggy-bugs got more fun stuff to do now!” She pointed a teeny hoof toward the riverbank.
There, not far beyond the water, lay three lavishly frosted cupcakes, a slice of cake, and a generous wedge of pie nearly buried in an industrious swarm of Kel! While we watched, a thin rope of them coalesced out of the swarm to trail off into the woods in the general direction from which we came. The Kel were taking their bounty back to their Hive one bug-sized bite at a time!
I didn't pause to question my good fortune. Without a comment of my own, but plenty of annoyed and indignant grumpiness from the Doctor, I slung him under one arm and forged my way to the shore farther downstream from the distracted swarm!
I needed both hooves to negotiate the steep shelf near shore so, without further ceremony, I simply tossed the Timelord to a dry landing before scrambling out. Without a word I made my way further downstream till a bend in the water put us out of sight of the swarm. There on a sunny bit of shore I sank to my knees with my back resolutely toward the river. The Doctor's wadded-up jacket I simply let fall in a sodden heap. The sunlight felt good, but I was trembling and soaking. I was safe after what seemed to be ages. Oh, Hell! No point in sugar-coating it. For the second time that day I sat and cried like a little Filly...
I was even a little hysterical, I remember sobbing to Tyllae about drowning will all the nasty critters in the water... or something along those lines. Way, way down on the list of My Proudest Moments! I can't remember any more and I quite frankly don't like trying. Enough said.
The first coherent thought I had was that the tears were messing with my vision. It didn't go away when I blinked and I suddenly realized I was seeing the world through a shimmering pink haze. Tyllae, sopping wet from wriggling through my dripping mane, was cuddled up to my ear and healing me. She spoke to me, or maybe it was Faery Singing. It wasn't Standard, that much I remember! I can't recall any of the words, they just slipped past the cognitive part of my mind and went much deeper. I do remember the assurance, the love, and and the warmth going straight to my heart of hearts more potently than any slug of uskebaugh or alien booze.
I reached up and took her in my hoof, cutting her song short, and gave her a grateful kiss before hugging her close.
“Thanks, Squirt! Uh, sorry to get you all wet...”
“Aww! Don't worry 'bout Tyllae, Starry-Starry!” The little tyke beamed up at me. “Feeling all Better now?”
“I am at that, kid. Guess I'm not so tough an Augment as I thought, am I?”
“Fifflesticks, Starry! Everypony gets sad and scardey-scared sometimes! Remember poor Tyllae the night Tyllae came? Starry sang to Tyllae an makea all better. Tyllae got to do samea for Starry, that's all! Tyllae loves Starry! Tyllae helps Starry like Starry helped Tyllae. All oakey-dokes now, yep, yep, yep!”
With that she leaped off my hand, flitting off a safe distance to whirl in place until she was a soft blur. The sunlight made a rainbow aura out of the mist of water she flung off. She stopped dead in mid-air doing a victory pose. “Ta-daaaaah!”
I couldn't help but to smile. “Show off! I don't suppose you can conjure me up a towel or something?”
“Nope, nope, nope! Tyllae can't get back to Her-mees till TARDIS gets closer. Sorry-sorry, Starry!”
I nodded. “Well there's nothing else for it then. You'd better get back a little, kiddo!” I rose and began squeezing the water out of mane. It took a little doing, thick and heavy as it was it held a lot of water! I wound things up with a vigorous full-body shake that left me standing in a the center of a patch of very damp ground indeed!
The Faery was doubled-over laughing in mid-air!
“Hay! Don't knock it, kid! It worked didn't it?”
“Not unlike the 'Twist', as I remember... if one were to be doing it in a downpour!”
I turned. The Doctor was sitting on the grass upon which he'd spread out his worse-for-the-wear bow tie with its false collar. He'd been pressing the excess water out with his hooves and had paused to watch my performance. He was wet but not dripping, anyway. I'm sure he'd had a good shake of his own while I was... indisposed.
The old buck wasn't in much better condition than his tie. There are collapsed diggings back Home that looked better than the Timelord just then! He smiled at me around his swelling welts and stings. It made me feel guilty about my present condition.
“I thought it better to leave you be...” He said apologetically. “You were in capable hooves and I'm just not much of a 'hugger', if you take my meaning. Beyond Miss Doo, I mean!” He winked and then winced. “Ow.”
“Not a problem, Doc. Neither am I... beyond my immediate circle! Tyllae? Can you do that healing trick with Timelords?”
“I would be very grateful if you would.” The Doctor said. “I ask you three times, as a matter of fact!”
“Aww! Dokker don hafta ask! Any Faery would do!” She zipped up and landed delicately on his head. Her antennae waved and soft, pink light flowed over the little stallion who shut his eyes and sighed.
“Oooh, that's good! Almost makes me want to learn Magic!”
I paused to pick up his sodden jacket and began to carefully wring it out, feeling for anything in the pockets that I might damage in the process. Seemed empty to me! I shook it out as I approached.
“I think you'd be out of luck on that score, Doc! Unless you have a false horn to go with that false collar! Sorry, but you're screwdriver must be on the bottom after all.”
He opened one eye and regarded me lazily through the healing aura. “Hm? Oh I don't know about that.” He said lazily. “Oh, just turn it upside-down. I've got very deep pockets, you know.” He went back to relaxing under the Fey's ministrations.
I shrugged and upended the thing, holding the sleeves up clear of the ground... and danced back with a yelp as a torrent of somewhat murky water splashed around my boots!
With the water came a collection of …stuff!
I recognized the wallet holding the Psychic Paper, the bundle of pencils and compass I'd seen earlier, and the sodden and wrecked crossword puzzle. A red rubber ball, the mushy remains of a muffin, an archaic vacuum tube, a single chopstick, an hourglass egg-timer, an old-style CD in a clear jewel-case, a folding fan painted in a swirl of garish colors, something like a spray hypo, a few coins of bright silver, a recorder, (“I'd been wondering where that went!”) a cloth measuring tape, a tattered ticket to something called 'Woodstock', a neat looking smoking pipe with brass bands on the bowl, a few un-inflated balloons, and, finally, the Sonic clattered onto the pile!
Without moving my head, I gave the Doctor a look.
He, of course, was looking back with a smug smile on his lips.
“Bigger on the inside, of course! Handy old trick, that! The rest must be log-jammed somewhere. Oh, well! At least the water's out now. Thank you, Starry!”
“Extra-damn-dimensional pockets!” I shook my head. “Well, why should the TARDIS have all the fun?” I flipped through the eclectic collection with the tip of my boot. “What's the hypo for, Doc?”
“That?” He craned his head to look. “Oh, that's a stimpack. Not quite on a par with healing potions but very useful nonetheless! Ought to be a couple of Rad-Aways and a Rad-X or two in there somewhere...”
“I'll take your word for it.” I said, refusing to rise to the bait. I gave the thing another wringing and waited for our Number One Medical Assistant to finish before tossing it over him. Tyllae dodged away, giggling, just in time to keep from being engulfed.
I turned my attention to her as he struggled out from underneath.
“Good timing, kiddo! I just wish you'd gotten there a few minutes sooner.”
“Tyllae came almosta at once, Starry! Felt Starry get all scardey-scared but Tyllae waited jussa little before Tyllae talked to buzzy-bees.”
I blinked. “What the heck for? I was freezing in there!”
“Tyllae knows! But Tyllae sees, Starry! Starry anna Dokker hada work things out first, yep, yep, yep! Starry an Dokker too mucha like to get along righta way, nope, nope, nope!” The little mite shook her head till her antenna jangled!
I gave her my best Vulcan eyebrow. “I... say what now?”
The Doctor said nothing. He'd fished the Sonic out of the motley collection and held it in his teeth. He pressed a stud with a hoof and played the trilling, buzzing thing over his bow tie as he watched us intently.
The little Fey held up one hoof. “Dokker an Starry both very, very, very strong Ponies... inna own way!” She declared. “Both hava own way to do things. Tyllae is not tryna sound mean, nope, nope, nope! But Starry anna Dokker are fulla selves! Both strong inna head an heart! So strong that both sometimes forget there other ways that work jussa good. Butta heads alla time like deers, yep, yep, yep! Own ways notta only ways! Dokker an Starry just hadda take time to see is all. Jus hadda take time an lissen, really lissen to each others hearts an see how good each other is. Starry an Dokker very, very, very smart. Wise little Tyllae wanted Starry an Dokker have time enough to see smarts inna hearts, yep, yep, yep!” She cocked her elfin head. “That maka sense... or does Tyllae needa gather all Tyllae to self so can talka better? Poor Tyllae can't go Other Side no more, nope, nope, nope! But Tyllae can try!”
“I think...” The Doctor said slowly. “That she just told us that we've both been a throwing our rather inflated egos around at each other. Oh, Dear! I rather hoped I was beyond that at this stage in my lives.” He finished almost to himself.
I opened my mouth in denial... and shut it with a 'clop'. I wasn't an egomaniac... was I? I pretty much convinced myself that, based on superficial observations, the Doctor was what he claimed to be... a madpony. A madpony with flashes of brilliance, to be sure, but a madpony with all the negative stigmas attached to the title. I chose not to dwell on the inconvenient possibility that he was more than he seemed. How many other Ponies... and other people... had I done that with? (Images of a certain dove-gray and blonde Pegasus danced across the screen of the Mare In My Head...) Starfleet had shown me a way that worked for me but who was I to say that it was the best way for everyone? Hoo-buck! It really was a good thing the Eugenicists couldn't see me now! Then again... who were they? I shook my head then just let it drop with a rueful chuckle.
“We're lucky she did it this way! If she'd gone all Otherside on us she probably would have saved herself the trouble and banged our coconuts together to make us see reason!”
“Or stars at least!” The Doctor agreed. “I've seen the Fey in action before! Thank you, Tyllae, for your forbearance. ...We must seem a pretty rum lot to you, eh?”
“Oh husha-husha!” Tyllae waved a dismissive little hoof. “Tyllae goofs plenny times! Faeries goof plenny times in alla years! Tooka long, long, long time before could unnerstan sometimes just can't teach, gotta let goof in order to learn, yep, yep, yep!”
“It's certainly nice to know that I'm not too old to learn a thing or two.” The Doctor admitted, lifting his tie and eyeing it critically. He passed it through his hooves, trying to smooth the wrinkles out. He sighed and then looped the thing around his neck.
“Tyllae, I wonder if you'd pop back and let the others know that we'll be along in just a little bit. I just want to get presentable first.”
“Speaking of which...” I cleared my throat and gestured toward my upper anatomy.
“I'd offer you my jacket but it just wouldn't be up to the occasion, wouldn't it?” He stuck his chin straight out and began to fiddle with his tie.
“Now that the Kel are distracted maybe I could go back and liberate my shirt... ?” I wasn't crazy about the idea. The Mare In My Head was even less enthusiastic about the prospect.
“Nu-uh!” Tyllae shook her head emphatically. “Buzzy-bees still very, very, very mad at poor Starry, yep, yep, yep! Starry shouldn't go back there notta for one little second, nope, nope, NOPE!”
I sagged, disgusted. “Figgers.”
“Oh, I don't know!” The Timelord rolled his eyes away innocently. “Your new look does have a certain 'Amazon' appeal to it. Very intimidating! Makes a body want to look, er, think twice before trying anything!” His smirk didn't last a second before he bobbled his attempt at tying his knot.
“'Twice'! Har-dee-har-har.” I snarked, folding my arms across me defensively.
“Jussa follow water!” Tyllae pointed farther downstream. “Don't worry, nope, nope, nope! Plenny, plenny, plenny food! Tyllae tell Sunny an Ditzy all OK! Bye-bye!”
She piffed away only to reappear in front of the Doctor's muzzle. She administered a teeny, elfin kissed before piffing away to do the same for me. He bobbled the knot again, muttering.
“Dokker wanna say more to Starry, yep, yep, yep!” She whispered confidentially before disappearing one last time.
I turned to look at the Timelord as he fumbled with his bow-tie. Oh, well...
“Let me see that thing, Doc.”
I knelt in front of him and still had to lean down in order to get a good look at what he was doing.
“Have you ever tied one of these before?” He wondered.
“The topology can't be that hard to figure out.” I assured him. “Pick your chin up!”
He craned his head up obediently and let me get to work. After a few moments he spoke.
“Fourteen.” He said.
“Hm?” I was distracted. Given the shape of the thing it was obvious how it was supposed to end up. My problem was that it was just about at the limit of my manual dexterity.
“Fourteen lives, not nine.” He said quietly. “I've lived thirteen lifetimes. This is my fourteenth. When Timelords die their bodies... “
My conversation with K-9 reoccurred to me. “'Regenerate'. K-9 told me.”
“That little tin-plated blabbermouth!”
“Keep your chin up and stop moving around, damnit!” I growled not unkindly. “I'm at the tricky bit!”
I had to back up a step and start again...
“So... you get born again? As an infant?” I shook my head. “I'd hate to have to go through puberty that many times!”
The Doctor chuckled. “No, no. Once an adult always an adult, eh? Regeneration is always into a fully grown format... though there can be quite a variation in the apparent age afterwards.”
I paused in the process of wrapping up the project. “You can come back as an old buck? Hard to see the evolutionary advantages of that! … Unless it isn't strictly a natural selection at work. Did your folk dabble in Augmentation, Doc?” I finished the knot and drew it tight.
The Doctor subtly changed the subject. The little fink made a faint strangling noise, making vague motions toward his neck. I was this close to undoing the thing when I caught the impish gleam in his eye!
“Ha... ha. You don't like that knot? Let me show you another one called 'The Alcatraz Ascot'! A real once-in-a-lifetime experience. Thirteen turns and a big loop! Fix you right up!”
“This will do nicely... as long as you got the bow straight! I wish I had a mirror. In any event, I make it a point never to be hung with anything except a new rope. If you're going to do these things you may as well do them right, eh? Hold this a moment, won't you?” He snatched the jacket off his back with his teeth and presented it to me with a muffled “Pease?”
I held the thing for him as he fished the Sonic device off the pile, stuck it in his mouth and played it over the damp garment. As I watched, the wrinkles relaxed and the vast majority of the remaining moisture wafted away... along with the mud and stains it'd collected. Neat job, that!
“Just a bit of Gallopfreyan dry cleaning, isn't it? The Sonic is the best idea I every had even if I do say so myself! Just one more thing if you would? Hold this open over and just behind me... yes, just like that...”
He backed into position and then reared. He slipped his hooves into the sleeves with practiced precision and dropped back to the ground with the jacket neatly arrayed over his back!
“Oh, much better!” He beamed. “I do love this coat! The patches make me look scholarly, don't you think?” He paused to admire the thing for just a moment before picking the Sonic up in his mouth once again.
“Ow 'is yer 'urn! 'Ont take a tick!” He made a twirly-motion with one hoof to get me to turn around. I stood at Parade Rest while he gave me a sonic once-over. He even ran the thing over my tail and made it presentable, though I warned him off with a look when he began to smooth the tangles and snarls out with a hoof. My Personal Space had been through enough already!
He looked hurt so I didn't object when he motioned me lower so he could do my mane. That was a much more involved situation, as mentioned before I have a lot of mane!
He gave my knees another dust off as I stood to rake it all back into place with my fingers.
He carefully put the thing back into his inside breast pocket before running a hoof through his own mane.
“There we are! A little worse for the wear but all's well that ends well, eh?”
“Thanks, Doc! You know, Starfleet's been doing some experimenting with ultrasonic cleaning systems as a way to take some of the load off the reclamation systems onboard our ships. The Hermes has a prototype in the locker rooms in Recreation. Never used it, myself. I don't have a hope in Hell of getting inside! It seemed to me to be a dubious way of getting clean but, now, I don't know...” I fingered my mane speculatively.
“It has the value of being expedient...” The Doctor conceded. “But nothing quite beats a good, hot shower after a stressful day, to my way of thinking!”
“Especially if you have a good, hot someone on hoof to scrub your back!” I gave him a wink.
It was just a little barracks-talk. We were friends now that we'd gone through our Faery-inspired team building exercise. Still, remembering what Tyllae said about the Doctor destroying the planet, I think I was just casting about for some way to understand what kind of person he had to be to bring himself to do it. I had the impression that he genuinely liked the place, after all, who doesn't love their Home? What would drive me to kill Equestris? Would I do it to save the Federation? The Mare In My Head gave me a disapproving look but I ignored her.
The Doctor chuckled quietly, looking away. “Well, there's a lot to be said for that isn't there?” He sat by the pile and began re-loading his improbable pockets in silence. He paused as he picked up the recorder and brought it to his lips. The holes were too impossibly close together to manage with actual hooves... yet he managed a few sweet notes before going off-key. He sighed and put it away in a pocket by itself before turning to regard me. I had the uncomfortable but certain feeling he was privy to what was going through my mind. Were Timelords empathic?
“It wasn't an accident, you know.” He said quietly. His eyes were absolutely neutral. There was no plea for understanding or sympathy, not even the resignation of martyrdom. He just wanted me to know... because he counted me among his friends.
The Mare In My Head had just enough time to warn me about getting what I wanted when he continued.
“It was the climax of the Time War. Aeons of conflict with the Daleks had come to fruition... and we were losing. They brought every horrible, horrible weapon and ship they had for this Last Fight. We'd used every last terrible secret we'd secreted away in our Archives, all the ancient and horrendous things the Timelords had made in our long history.” He paused again, his eyes looking far, far back at something that made him blanch even from here.
“But the difference between Timelord and Dalek was that they never hesitated to use what they had made ever! We hesitated... and it cost us everything. By the time we employed them it was far, far too late.” He left off and stared down between his hooves for such a long time I almost spoke... though what could I have possibly offered by way of comfort or understanding?
“There was only one weapon left in our Arsenal by the time their ships had ringed Gallopfrey. More a concept than an actual weapon, it could never have been tested. You see...” He waved a hoof vaguely in an effort to find the words, then, “It would destroy Time itself. Well, the bits of it belonging to its creators at least. Timelords made it and it would burn the Timelords out of Time Itself and all things touched by them. So, since our History encompassed all of Time itself, setting the thing off would erase all of Time. That's what the models said, anyway. What madpony would ever dream of using it? Under what circumstances? There were just too many uncertainties. Only a madman... madpony... would dream of using it. … A madpony.”
He lifted a hoof and pointed away across the river. “Out there in The Dry Lands, beyond the hills, is a barn.” The barest ghost of a smile flitted across his face. “You might say that I seized The Moment.” He flicked me a glance. I had the impression that, somehow, it was a pun. The Mare In My Head and I exchanged looks.
The Doctor went on in a quiet tone that sank closer to a whisper with every word. “ I took it there and... well... did it. Gallopfrey burned... the Daleks burned... the Vortex screamed.”
He went silent but not unmoving. He pawed the ground and brought up a hoof-full of rich soil worth a mine owners salary back Home. He let it fall. His face worked almost as if he was working on a sneeze. His sniffled once and looked around at several nothings in particular with bright, bright eyes that blinked rapidly.
On Gallopfrey as on Earth or Equestris... bucks don't cry. ...Except when they think nopony can hear them. It must be something in the Universe's DNA that makes them all that way.
I remember Daddy sobbing to himself in the night and I went into action before The Mare In My Head could urge me on. I knelt and took him in strong Equestrin arms and held him to my breast. If I could do the same for The Last Faery how could I do less for The Last Timelord?
I wasn't surprised that he still didn't cry. Those tears had been shed millennia ago, hadn't they? I vowed I wouldn't insult him by falling to pieces like a 'suboptimal' Filly... but the tears still slid from my eyes though the sobs I locked down by Main Force.
The Eugenicists would be proud that I kept the quaver from my voice!
“Oh, Doctor...” I whispered. “I... just don't know what to say! I haven't... there aren't any words. ...I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry!”
He was in no position to return the hug, so he patted one of my articulated hooves with one of his own Standard Models.
“There, there My Dear.” He said quietly. “You mustn't cry for me. I don't deserve it... but bless you anyway! And besides... that's my line, isn't it?” He stirred and I released him, scrubbing my face dry as I stood. If he choose to notice, well, that was on him!
“In any event, it didn't work. Not all the way. I mean... I'm still here, TARDIS and all! Like I said, there was no way to predict exactly what would happen.” He stretched fore and aft and ran a forehoof through his mane again.
“Truth be told I don't remember much of the actual event except...” He cocked his head and looked preoccupied. “There was a big, red, button. … And the Bad Wolf was there... and all my Other Selves...”
The Mare In My Head played that last bit back, frowning. I shook me head to her, hoping the Doctor wouldn't notice as he continued.
“I can't help it... but I think, or maybe hope, that I did something incredibly... clever!” He shook himself. “...No, no. Just wishful thinking after all. I... killed the Daleks... and Gallopfrey. Do you know that's the last time I allowed myself to use a weapon? I've eschewed them ever since. There's blood enough on my hooves for even a Dalek, isn't there?” He gave me a sad, twisted little smile that never made it to his eyes.
“At any rate I was clearly out of my mind for a while. A good, long while, I should think. Somewhere in there I'm sure I Regenerated. My memories afterwards don't begin again until the TARDIS landed. I trotted straight out the door... and met Ditzy!. For some reason, being a Pony just flummoxed me! But all my memories... have memories, if you follow me!” He locked gazes with me and for the briefest instant I wondered just what I was looking at.
In the end there just wasn't anything else to say...
“Who knows, Doc? Who knows?”
“Would that I did!” He snapped irritably and scowled.
I did what I could, I shrugged!
“Not my department, Doc. I'm not in-”
“That's just it!” He jerked around and stabbed a hoof at me with a look of terrible urgency on his face. “It just might be your department!”