STAR TREK: EQUESTRIA

by Alicorne


Chapter Sixty- A Picnic...No, Really...With Fezzes!

CHAPTER SIXTY

A PICNIC... NO, REALLY,... WITH FEZZES!

“All right, Doc, you're losing me. I must be...”
“No, no, no!” The Doctor began pacing, trotting a few steps one way then reversing direction so abruptly his coat tails were swinging!
“It's just I'm very much afraid... I seem to remember... oh, confusticate and bebother it! It's all in flux now!” He abruptly plopped down on his hindquarters and stomped a forehoof in frustration before collecting himself with an effort.
“Despite appearances to the contrary...” He began at a slower pace, his eyes locking onto mine urgently. But his tempo picked up immediately afterwards. “Time is not a linear series of causes and events. It's more of a web... lattice, actually. Picture a three-dimensional lattice, OK, four-dimensional... we'll just table the more esoteric quirks of Spacetime and just keep things confined to the observable Universe for the moment! Ooh! That's it! Think of a sort of infinite series of trellises stacked alongside of and around each other. These are Universes, realities... you get the idea! Time is like the roses that twine through them. The blossoms are the fixed points in time linking it all through the common vine. I like that! Roses! Very poetic, don't you think?” He beamed and then frowned. “No, bad analogy. Forget I said that, it's all rubbish! Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, that sums it up! The point...”
“Doc!” I said sharply. I drew a line with two fingers from my eyes to his own. “Focus! Slow down! What's. Wrong?”
“The point I'm making is that there are Fixed Points in Time that just have to happen! They're linked to points in other universes mutually shoring up the whole lattice holding the whole silly thing together. The Great Depression and the Blar Famine in Segoh are linked by way of other realities! One has to happen so that the other can!”
“Doc!” I reached out to grab his jaw, forcing him to look at me. “Banjos! Turquoise! Forks!”
His eyebrows shot up then scrunched down in irritation.
“My Dear Girl... what are you going on about? … And kindly unhoof me!”
“My question exactly, Doc! You're beginning to run off the mag-lev rails! Slow down and pretend I'm not a Timelord!” I let him go and waited.
“Of course you aren't a Timelord. ...You'd quite emphatically be a Timelady!” He rubbed his jaw. “In the future, you pretend that I'm made out of porcelain!”
“Doc, meet Corporal Punishment!” I hefted a boot and lined it up with his cutie-mark. “She's great motivational inspiration. Sunny can tell you all about her...” I let the implication speak for itself.
“All right! All right!” He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he began again it was at a much more restrained pace... though a terrible urgency frayed the edge of his voice.
“It's being Undone, Starry! Fixed points in Time are destabilizing into Flux! Remember what I said! As I sat here and told you... my tale... it suddenly occurred to me that you had to make a similar decision!” He drummed his forehooves on the ground. “That Never Happened Before! Never!”
“... What are you saying, Doc?”
“Starry, I once made a decision to kill billions. I burned a world out of existence in all Time and did in two intelligent species. Unless you are very, very careful... my Dear Starry-Eyes... you may find yourself in a position to do much worse.”
By his own definition he wasn't one to offer hugs. Yet he reached out, tentatively and unsure, to clasp my hooves with his forehooves with a strength I found surprising for such a little stallion. Solemn, sad dread haunted his eyes...
“ I don't want you to have to make that decision!” He whispered. “Believe me, you don't want to have to live with that. Be very, very, VERY careful when you confront Discord! So many lives and potential lives are at stake!”
I lowered my hoof and planted it firmly. I needed the stability just then!
I opened my mouth to speak only to shut it... several times while The Mare In My Head kept hitting the resets on my Cognitive Functions Board. I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated on the stimuli at hoof. The chuckling of the river, the rustling of the scarlet-and-silver leaves, the twitters and cheeps of the unseen birds... the sun was blissfully warm on my naked back and shoulders and the Doctor's grip never faltered.
Minutes... I don't know how many passed. Finally the breakers stayed closed. When I could speak my tongue felt like it weighed fifty pounds!
“When... where?” I asked thickly. “Do we make it to... do we find the Goddesses?” You know... it never occurred to me to doubt him!
“I don't know!” He dropped his hooves and ruffled his mane fiercely. “... It could be five seconds from now or it could be never! Wait...!” He held up a hoof and looked around for precisely five seconds.
He let out a little sight of relief. “... Probably later than sooner, then! It should be impossible for him to get in here... but it also should be impossible to muck around with History! Time save me from bungling amateurs!” He shook a hoof at the skies.
“It's no longer a fixed point, he's bollixing it up! Your sole contribution to history was your participation in the re-discovering of the Princesses and the rel-uniting of Ponykind. You weren't even supposed to be in Command of the ship! Now, though, you could end up decimating the Universe, destroy it in by failing, or slaughter untold trillions fighting Discord to a stalemate!”
“Doesn't it strike you as being, ah, reckless to be filling me in about the possible outcomes?” I wondered quietly.
“My Dear Young Mare, don't presume to lecture me on the nuances of my job!” The grumpy old buck side of him leaped to the fore as he glared at me severely. “I've been fixing History since before your species began banging rocks together as a rhythm accompaniment for sing-alongs!”
We all of us on Equestris are Earth Ponies, with all that has to say about our collective characters. We find our own way in our own way and the Hell with anypony's opinion of our chances!
“All I'm asking...” I said evenly. “Is are you assigning my options or am I free to come up with my own?”
He looked at me as if I'd just turned red and sprouted suckers all over my body!
“Well whatever else...?” He began crossly and then caught my eye. His expression softened at once as the cranky old buck fell away and another pony's easy smile graced his features.
“Oh bra-vo!” He said softly. “I've said it before, haven't I, how much I admire Ponies? Earth Ponies especially... I reckon that's why I've regenerated as one, I suspect!” He reached up to critically eye a bit of his mane. “... Though just once I'd like to see some ginger! Is that so much to ask, I mean really!”
As he hopped to his hooves and shook himself briskly I wondered... is this his defense against thirteen lifetimes of memories? Or maybe his way of coping with it...?
The Mare In My Head shrugged and tapped her nose twice, keyboarding with her free hoof.
Who knows? Who knows?”
Only one Pony could say, and he danced forward and dealt me a companionable punch to the thigh.
“That's the spirit! Confidentially speaking, I prefer to keep my options open right up to the last moment! Nothing like it for keeping one on ones toes, eh?”
He stilled and looked up at me, sadness and and incredible world-weariness a poor filter for light of hope in his eyes! Instead of another punch he patted me softly above the knee.
“What else can one do against Chaos? … I'm sorry you got caught up in this, like this. I'm so, so sorry...”
He sprang to his hooves again! “You see? I told you it was my line! Nopony can deliver it quite like me! It's the soulful eyes, wouldn't you agree? My best feature, well, that and my impeccable fashion sense... and my modesty! I'm great at modesty! I could be...” He reared up and spread his hooves toward an imaginary marquee. “... The Great Modester... Modesty Pony... whatever!”
He whirled away, heading downstream in a series of twirls with his coat-tails swinging and his forehooves flapping to illustrate his words!
“Right! We have a picnic waiting! I don't know about you but I am famished! This way, My Dear! And I can promise you no more indigenous wildlife! Well, maybe a few ants... though we call them 'Sems' hereabouts! Throw them a little sugar and they're your friends for life which, in their case, is about twenty days give-or-take the odd bird or bug...” He stopped dead thirty feet away and looked at me quizzically. “Coming?”
“On my way, Doc! On my way, all the way!” With that I shoved What May Come as far into the future as I could. Time for just a little R&R... while I could.”
“That's my filly!” The little stallion beamed while I caught up. He fell in beside me, high-stepping to keep up.
“Tell you what! Let's just compare notes on Equestrin ecology vis-a-vis good old Gallopfrey while we walk, er, trot! Don't worry! We'll stay well clear of the water, eh?”
We blazed a trail through broad-leafed bushes and around trees with rough, black bark, the Doctor nattering away and pausing every so often to turn over a leaf or look under a rock to show me the small things living or taking shelter there. It was a pretty one-sided conversation! Compared to anyplace else with an atmosphere Equestrin ecology is pretty rudimentary. Wind and rain break down the igneous rock into a thin dust that mostly washes into the rivers and the seas. Moss and a few lichens grow on the flat spots and play host to a hoof-full of tiny insect life-forms that feed on it. The water is the real action is! The rivers and seas are just full of life and is the old Homeworld's one working ecosystem. Conditions are rough given the wildly varying PH and mineral content of the water due to underwater eruptions and magma flows. Competition is fierce and evolution unrelenting. Early on the Colonists made plans to kill off the sea life in order to perform aquaculture but nothing could be done that wouldn't kill them as well so we wrote off Terraforming the seas and kept to ourselves on the dangerous enough land! Plans were made to dredge up the organic-rich ooze but the toxic metals and the overabundance of almost microscopic things living in it made it less than cost-effective. Once we sterilized the stuff all we had left was a thin dust just like we had on land... plus a little carbon. Not enough to offset the hazards no, thank you! Mining was, and is, a lot safer!
We climbed a gentle slope, the higher ground making the river bend far away in a loop, and almost at once hit the path we should have been able to take before our unfortunate encounter with the Kel.
There was naked bedrock at the top. A hard ocher-brown sandstone or something very much like it. The soil was thinner as our path wound down the far side. The trees gave way to shrubs and bushes growing in broad patches as islands in a sea of grasses and herbs, the former with heavy heads of seeds and the latter sporting feathery or needle-like leaves lending a variety of heady scents to the soft breeze. Looking up, the genial sun stood just past mid-day while the more businesslike moon was already tending toward the horizon.
I wanted to ask him about those markings on it but the Doctor was telling a story about how he found our how male platypus... whatever the hell they are... were poisonous so I filed it away for later and just enjoyed the walk.
The smells from the herbs were preoccupying my attention, reminding me that I was hungry! Crying really takes it out of a person, I suppose. On an impulse I snagged the head off a passing specimen and gave it a sniff. It certainly smelled enticing enough...
“Go ahead, it's quite good and I daresay it'll hardly spoil your appetite!” He stopped and tipped me a wink before reaching out to nip a bit off the same plant with his teeth and began chewing.
“Think of it as a mint...” He said around his mouthful. “Good for settling your stomach if you eat too much. But go easy! Too much will bind you up tight as a drum!”
“Do tell?” I murmured, giving it another sniff. Looking at it, I would have expected it to taste like parsley... but it smelled more like licorice! I shrugged and popped it into my mouth.
Yep, it had a strong licorice flavor with a hint of something like a resin. The natural oil of the plant, I figured.
“Not bad.” I conceded, chewing thoroughly. “... Kinda leaves a coating in your mouth, doesn't it?”
“Nothing permanent, I assure you!” The Doctor trotted on. “Add some sweetener, mix in a little flour by way of a filler, put in just a touch of salt and you have a neat little after-dinner treat!”
I twigged off another little bit, trusting my Augmentation to keep me from coming to any real harm, and ambled off behind him.
Our path took us downward at a gentle incline. Before we got too far down I could see the river looping back toward us before getting lost to sight by virtue of the chest-high-to-an-Equestrin foliage. For the record, I wasn't even a little bit uncomfortable with it... as long as we weren't eating on a raft or something!
I was about to explore the possibility of that with the Doctor when we encountered an intersection. Off to the side of the new path lay a small pile up rocks piled atop on another. At the miniature summit seven small, round balloons waved gently. They were pale gray, almost silver colored and were held down to the stone with a strip of brilliantly yellow tape.
“As if I wouldn't know the way!” The Timelord scoffed. Yet he regarded the little marker softly. “Well...” He gave me a little smile. “Stranger things have happened! Not One Word! Allonz-y!
We followed the new path through a couple of hairpin turns into a patch of bushes sporting little pale-red leaves liberally adorned with big pale green-white flowers that smelled like a water-downed version of something Sunny would dab behind her ears.
The Doctor let me lead the way. The path made a sharp turn ahead of us around a particularly large botanical specimen. From the other side of it I heard voices.
“I guess from the way you're set up that it would make sense. Seems like you'd make a lot of milk that way!” Ditzy was saying.
“Oh, aye!” Sunny agreed. “Now if we could get wee Starry a-lactatin' th' wee bairn'd a-swimmin' in th' stuff! We could probly set up a cheese shop!” The two of them giggled like schoolfillies.
I rounded that last corner and into the little clearing.
“Damnit, Sunny! You're just jealous!” My frown was purely for form, I was too happy to see her again!
One the ground lay a large cloth, white with a pattern of little purple question marks. On it sat a wicker hamper, one insulated pitcher, two ice-filled ones glistening with condensation, an impressive platter of sandwiches, a bowl of salad, a pile of apples, a bunch of bananas, most of a chocolate cake with bright white frosting, one each apple and cherry pies now worse for the wear, a depleted tray of assorted cupcakes and muffins, and a bowl of honest-to-Luna potato chips! Wow! I hadn't had those in ages!
I only had an instant to savor the spread! Sunny, who was sitting on a little pillow on the far side of the cloth, spread her glorious wings with a flap and leaped onto me, twining her arms around my neck and wrapping her legs around my hips in order to administer a truly A-one proper kiss! My hooves cupped her bottom out of reflex and we just stayed that way for as long as her breath held out.
With just half an ear (I wasn't concentrating on too much of what was going on around me just then!) I heard Tyllae giggle and something I imagined sounded like the Doctor rubbing noses with Ditzy who cooed something endearing just to him. I carefully choose not to hear what he murmured in reply.
Sunny hardly weighs a thing by Equestrin standards so I was able to free up an arm to give her a squeeze that pretty much drove what was left of her air out of her!
She came up for air with a gasp and she buried her face in my mane.
“Starry love, I'm so sorry fer me blather before...”
I cut her off with a swat to her bottom that made her wriggle!
“Oh slag it, Sweets!” I crushed her to me tighter. “I'm sorry for being so thin-skinned. Not very 'Optimal' of me, is it? As far as I'm concerned you're just bragging me up to your friends!”
That earned me another kiss, frosting-flavored, as I recall!
“Sure n' yer just th' best kind o' Pony, fer all yer savage ways!” She snuggled into my embrace with her muzzle in my ear.
“... Starry, Hon?”
“Mm?” I said, thoroughly enjoying myself.
“... Why're ye runnin' around half starkers? For me own part Ah dinna care, but 'tis just a wee out o' character fer a dear prude like yersel'!”
...Oi! She's one to talk!” The Doctor stage-whispered.
“Doctor!” Ditzy scolded and apparently fetched him a whack with a wing from the sound of it!
“Oh, wait! My mistake, she is wearing under wear... if only for decorative purposes, that is!”
“Stop!” Wap! “LOOKING!” Wap!
“Oi! Steady on! You just broke that! No hitting in the TARDIS!”
“Curiosity killed the Timelord!” “A synthetic voice observed.
My hoof had pushed Sunny's skirt up, of course. Purely by accident, I might add! I covered her up with one broad hoof and half turned to look around.
“Oh! Hi, K-9! ...What in the name of Luna's pet Mooncalf have you got on your head?”
“Greetings, Mistress Sunny.” The dogbot nodded, careful not to dislodge the crimson cylindrical headpiece jammed onto his noggin.
“Oh, sure!” The Doctor said indignantly. “He gets a fez!”
“You've got one too!” Ditzy said in a long-suffering voice, rolling her eyes, lifting her Timelord-beating wing higher to reveal a slightly crumpled one tucked there.
The Doctor gleefully picked it up and tucked it onto his head, happy as a foal on Hearthswarming Day!
“What?” He looked around at all of us. “Fezzes are cool! Almost as cool as bow-ties!” He swung his head a couple of times, delighting himself with watching the tassel wave!
“Sure n' we all got one!” Sunny giggled. “T'was Ditzy's idea t' be a-makin' it a proper Party n 'all!”
I stared at the thing on the Doctor's head. ...I had to stifle an urge to snatch it off and use it for balephaser practice!
“You got me one of those things?”
“Oh, aye!”
I shook my head resolutely. “Ain't gonna happen!”
I took a really long step and carried Sunny over to where she'd been sitting. There was a teensy... compared to an Equestrin butt... pillow there. I switched my tail out of the way and folded my legs down for a perfect landing, making Sunny whoop in the process!
“Wow!” I surveyed all the food in front of me. “You guys must've used a cargo sled to truck all this in!”
“Would ye believe it! Yon basket only weighs a few pound... Ah know because I carried th' thing fer th' Lass! But when we got here she started unpackin' n' unpackin', n' unpackin'! Th' damndest thing ye ever could hope t' see!”
“I've had some experience with it, Toots!” I nodded to the Timelord who was busy filling his plate with sandwiches and bananas. “The Doc has a junk shop in his pockets!”
“Everything I carry has a purpose!” He said with dignity, squirting mustard onto a dandelion-and-shredded-carrot sandwich. “It's amazing the sort of thing you can use a yo-yo for!” He took a big bite and I just winced. The sorts of things some Ponies eat!
I looked around to rinse the sight of that out of my mind and found Tyllae over by K-9. She had a fez, too. But in her case she'd tipped the thing over on its side and made a three-sided shelter out of it. She'd tucked it into the base of a flowering bush and made herself a snug little Faery bower. A plate with three cupcakes, a wedge of apple pie and a few crumbs of chocolate cake sat to one side near at hoof. Before her, propped up against K-9, was a short stack of garishly colorful magazines of some sort. From where I sat I could see that the pages contained nothing but panel after panel of bright drawings sparsely sprinkled with some sort of captions in little balloons.
“What do you have there, Squirt?”
The little Tyke looked up, putting a teeny hoof down on the bit she was looking at so she wouldn't lose her place.
“Hi-hiii, Starry! Tyllae is reading Power Ponies yep, yep, yep!”
“'Reading'?” I cocked an eye at her.
“Well Kay-Kay is helping Tyllae with the big words! Not really needa know what Ponies are saying. Pictures maka plain as wings yep, yep, yep!” She fluttered hers by way of illustration.
“Comic books, ye ken!” Sunny mussed my mane a little, giggling.
“The firs' ten issues uh Power Ponies!” The Doctor explained with a full mouth. “Picked 'em up for Dinky-Doo nex time we're in Ponyville!” Ditzy, snuggled up to the Doctor, tsked and wiped a bit of mustard off his muzzle.
I felt my ears droop a little.“Oh... ponies in tights with capes? Back during my first cruise on the Hermes my roommate had reprints of Superpony one through sixteen. Claimed they were classics. You'd think an Engineer would read something just a little bit more, well, educational!”
“Aww, don be sucha ol poop, Starry! Power Ponies are fun! Tyllae specially likes Fillysecond! Zippity, zip, zip!”
“And you're OK with that, K-9?” I cocked a sardonic eye at the little bot.
“Affirmative, Mistress Starry.” He nodded his head carefully, mindful of that Goddess-awful thing perched there. “For Beginner-class reading material it is sufficient. Besides...” He waggled his parabolic ears. “It amuses me to see her amused!”
“Well buck me down a shaft!” I chuckled. “Tyllae has such a rocky relationship with machines that I'd never thought-”
“Hay!” The little Fey scolded. “Kay-Kay notta real machiney like stoopid compooters onna Her-Mees nope, nope, nope! Heesa real, real, real person! Jus notta made of same stuff is all! Be nice to Kay-Kay, Starry! … Whassa this word, Kay-Kay?”
K-9 lowered his head and looked where the Fey pointed.
“Nefarious. Neh-fair-ee-us. It means 'exceedingly wicked' … a bad guy, Little Mistress.”
I just had to laugh! I raised a hoof in the vicinity of Sunny's bottom palm-up.
“I stand, er, sit corrected! As long as you two are having fun I'm happy! Hey, Sunny! Grab me some of those chips!”
“Wha? Ye mean th' crisps? Who broke yer arms, ye great lump?”
“My hooves are full and I don't plan on letting you go for a long, long time!” I gave her a playful spat on her cutie-mark. “Now feed me, Mare!”
“Oh 'tis that the way of it, then? Well how can I be a-sayin' no when ye ask so politely? But...” She gave me a blast of her lavender eyes. “'Twill cost ye!”
“Kisses for chips?” I waggled my eyebrows at her.
“Nay, summat better!” From somewhere behind her she retrieved and clapped a fez on my head!
“Oh, very nice! Bravo!” The Doctor put his second sandwich down and applauded. Tyllae cheered, K-9 only cocked his head while his eyes blinked on and off rapidly. Ditzy sighed and produced her own fez and got a prim kiss on the muzzle from the hooting Timelord as she donned it. Me? I only groaned theatrically, I was having too good a time to really care!
“OK!” I laughed. “But I better get the whole bowl!”