Equestria: A Flux Tale

by Star Sage

A Not So Peaceful Bath

The trip back to the palace is spent mostly in silence as you float alongside the Captain, thinking about everything. It hadn’t occurred to you until just now, but you’ve been in Equestria for a week. Seven days of this being among giant ponies. It certainly had been an interesting week too. From getting eaten several times, nearly stepped on, gaining super powers, and meeting an alternate future version of yourself who looked positively badass in a suit of armor.

“What are you thinking about, Little One?” asks the Captain suddenly, and your jerked out of your revere, realizing that you’d been getting closer to the ground and slowing. Apparently the Captain had noticed for you though, had stopped, and was currently lying on the side of the road with you.

“Everything, my little pony, everything,” you tell him.

“Heh, who are you calling little?” he chides, and you both get a laugh out of it, before he nudges you with his hoof, silently asking his question again with just a look.

“Well, it’s just, I’ve been here a week now. It feels like so much longer though. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m getting used to this place already,” you answer, laying back, and then tilting your head so that you’re looking right into his face.

“You’re sure then, that the Princesses can’t return you home?” he asked, a bit of concern creeping into his voice.

“I’m positive, Celestia gave me proof, close enough to absolute proof, to make me not even want to try,” you admit.

“I don’t know if I would accept that as easily in your position,” he admitted to you.

“Well, what would you do in my position?” you ask him, and he pauses to think about it for a moment, looking up at the starry night sky before finally answering.

“If I couldn’t get home, if there was no chance of it ever happening, then I suppose I would do what you’ve already done, try to make a place for myself wherever I ended up,” he says, and it’s your turn to think about something.

“Heh, I’ve made a pretty nice place for myself too. I’ve got plenty of friends already, a nice place to sleep, and two goddesses who would make every effort to help me if I asked them to,” you say, remembering all the positive stuff that had happened since you came here.

“And then there’s you…you’re the Captain of the Royal Guard, a pony who has dozens of other things to do, but he spent his morning yesterday helping me out, and then today going around the city with me. Not to sound unappreciative, but can I ask, why?” you say to him, and he just chuckles, shaking his head at you.

“It’s a very simple answer. Because I like seeing the Princesses smile,” he tells you, rising to his hooves, and so you get up off the grass, rising easily into the air.

“You want to connect those particular dots for me?” you ask him as you float next to his head.

“The Princesses, both of them, have smiled a lot more since you got here. For Celestia, that’s become rarer and rarer since Ms. Sparkle left, and I don’t think Luna’s done much genuine smiling since she took on the full duties of her station. Since you’ve come to the palace though, I’ve seen the Sun Princess smile several times, and Luna herself was humming the other night during her Court, and she never does that,” he explains.

“And you think I had something to do with it?” you ask, not sure how you would have improved their mood that much.

“I’ve been a member of the Guard for over two decades now, I joined well before Luna returned from her…away time. I remember her laughing only when Ms. Sparkle was around before, and though she’s been happier since Luna’s return, she’s never been one to smile just because. Lately though, she seems to be doing so whenever I look at her,” he explains.

“And Luna? She has been ever the morose one. She blames herself still for all the things that Nightmare Moon did a millennium ago. Since she’s returned, she’s made some good friends, but she made them by pretending to be a unicorn named Selene, not by being Luna. Since she took over the Night Court again, and became a public figure, I don’t think I’ve seen her smile once. Yesterday though, she laughed during a supplicant’s request. She apologized for it, but it was still nice to hear her do so,” he continues.

“Heh, I still don’t see how I had anything to do with either of those,” you tell him, and he just shakes his head and chuckles.

“Then you’re not looking deeply enough,” he says simply, and then stops, looking up. You follow his eyes, startled a bit to see that you’ve already made it to the palace. Above, you can see the sisters looking over the edge of Luna’s balcony, waving down at you, a wave you return, as the captain just chuckles again, and then moves inside the gates. Seeing no reason to go through the corridors yourself, you rise upwards, moving towards Luna’s bedroom, and landing lightly on the railing.

“And how is Equestria’s latest radio personality?” asked the Moon Princess as you landed.

“Feeling flustered about Vinyl’s last question, and looking forward to hearing more music from my world. I’m also vaguely considering introducing Rick Rolling to this world, but I’m pretty sure that would be a sin,” you answer.

“Heh, Ms. Scratch can be rather direct. I’m sure she only wants you and Octavia to be happy though,” offers Celestia.

“And to make us feel as uncomfortable as possible,” you add.

“Indeed. It would seem though, that you’ve had a rather nice walk with the Captain,” said the Sun Princess.

“He’s a nice man…pony, and rather insightful when he wants to be. Was he right, by the way?” you ask, and the two sisters look at each other, before nodding.

“Yes, in a way, you being here has been a real boon to our moods. You’re something different and unique, which is a rare thing in an immortal life. More, you’re not one of our subjects, yet you still treat us with respect, and tell us things that are nice to hear from one who hasn’t been trained for birth to think them by their parents,” explains Luna.

“I speak only the truth,” you say, turning around, intending on flying off towards your room, but then, an errant thought strikes you, and you turn towards them again.

“You know, while I’ve got you both here, can I make one request?” you ask, and they both look at you expectantly.

“Um, while it hasn’t exactly been unpleasant to bathe in sinks and stuff, can I get a bathtub in my room to soak in. Hot and cold running water and all the usual stuff, maybe some soap that’s not being applied by a cold hoof,” you tell them, remembering yesterday when your cleaning had been done by Deasly, who, while trying to be gentle with your tiny body, still hadn’t exactly been pleasant, especially since they then stuck you with like a dozen needles.

“Ah, I knew I was forgetting something when designing your room. Luna, would you do the honors?” Celestia asked her sister, and Luna nodded, looking down towards the balcony outside your room, and closing her eyes. Her horn took on an almost ethereal glow for a moment, before a flash of light came from inside, and you smile.

“Awesome. If you Princesses don’t mind, I shall now take my leave of you, and make the acquaintance of a hot bath,” you tell them, and they both smile and chuckle at you, as you bow, and then fall off the balcony, flipping end over end, before landing on your own balcony, and going inside. A moment is spent lighting the candles so they can illuminate your living quarters, and show off the newest addition to them sitting in the far corner, out of sight of the balcony.

“Ah, my lovely thing,” you say, rubbing your hand over the side of the tub. It was one of those fancy standing models, rather than the ones you’re used to that are built into the house. Better, it was almost half again as long as you were, meaning you could really soak in this thing, rather than having to curl up in it.

“I wonder how hot these things go,” you say to yourself as you turn the knobs next to the faucet, and then stick your hands under the water. Instantly you regret that action.

“Ouch! Hot, very hot,” you say, blowing on your hand, as you use the other one to turn down the hot water, and turn up the cold, taking a few minutes to adjust them until the temperature of the water flow is perfect. Leaving the tub to fill, which it was doing rapidly, you go over to your wardrobe and pull out a bath robe you’d seen the other day, which you drape over a chair and move close to the tub. Taking off your clothing and shoving it down the chute, you then climb into the tub, turning off the water, and just lying back and luxuriating in the feeling of warmth all around you.

“This is the life,” you say to yourself, dunking your head under the water briefly and just holding it there, letting your hair soak through, before finally rising with a splash.

“The life,” you repeat, as you settle your back against the rear of the tub. You’re like that for several minutes, just enjoying the feeling of the water, when you hear a strangely familiar sound. It’s like a whirring thing, and you look up to find a blinking blue light outside your window. When the sound fades, and the light stops, you just lay there, wondering what it was. Not that you have to wait long as there’s suddenly a very familiar voice, and a knock at your outside door.

“Hello, human, are you in there?” asks Doctor Whooves, his face looking into the window.

“Doctor, I’m taking a bath, can this wait?” you respond, only for the answer to be the door clicking open, and you instantly duck down deeper into the tub so the Doctor can’t see you.

“Ah, there you are. I told you this would work, Derpy,” he says, and you hear two distinct sets of hooves clacking on the floor of your apartment.

“Doctor, this is very rude. You should have waited for him to open the door for us,” scolded the mail mare as she followed her husband.

“Oh, but he’s in the tub. It would have taken him minutes to get out, and we’re kind of pressed for time,” he counters, and you rise up out of said tub to see them looking at each other.

“Yes, I’m in the tub, and rather naked. Is there any chance of you two coming back later?” you request, and they both turn towards you.

“I’m afraid not, old chap. Got to seize the moment while we can. I’m not even sure how long I can keep the wibbly wobbly working so we can stay this size,” he tells you, and you are startled to realize that he and Derpy are both scaled with you, a fact their sudden appearance had made you oblivious too.

“Besides, why are you worried about being nude? Almost nopony I know wears clothes on a daily basis,” comments the Mrs. Hooves.

“Oh, it’s a human thing. They’re embarrassed by their bodies or something,” the Doctor explains to her.

“This coming from the guy whose people wear robes that have collars bigger than their heads,” you counter as you rise a bit farther, your chest now peeking over the lip of the tub.

“So, you know about Gallifrey then as well?” he comments, and you nod.

“And I’ll be happy to tell you all the rest of what I know, just turn around,” you instruct, twirling your finger in the air. The Doctor looks like he’s about to protest, but then Derpy taps him on the shoulder, and pushes him around, so that you can get out in relative peace, spilling a bit of liquid onto the floor as you do so, and then slipping into the robe, which starts drying your body off almost the instant the material touches you and you tie the front shut.

“You may turn back around now,” you tell them.

“Good, now that you’re decent, I have so many questions to ask you. Like how did you do that with the studio this afternoon, or the field yesterday, or the fighter jet the day before, or…anything you’ve done really,” he asks in rapid succession.

“Dear, maybe you should space those questions out a bit more?” asks Derpy.

“Why bother, they all have the same answer. I can do all that through the power of a Phenomena Fluctuation Field I apparently generate,” you explain, and the Doctor just stares at you like you’d said your head tastes good.

“Really now, if you’re going to make things up, you could at least make them believable,” he counters, and you smile at him.

“I tell you it’s the Element of Honesty truth. I heard it from another version of me while Celestia and I were inside a golden cloud. He was there with Solaris, a rule 63 version of the Sun Goddess,” you tell him, and the Doctor just looks at you even more incredulously.

“You wouldn’t mind if I tested that then, would you?” he asks you after a moment, and you shrug.

“I did all those tests for DawnChaser yesterday, what can a few more hurt?” you tell him with a shrug, following him and Derpy out onto your balcony where the Tardis is sitting, the blue box looking as you’d always seen it on the show, including all the dents and dings. You try to imagine how much Who fans back home would pay for this privilege, as you step through the threshold.

The next second you’re flying, and then slamming hard into the stone wall beside your door, the sound of your body hitting the ground with a dull thud following, as not two, but four distinct hoof clatters rush over to you, and your vision blurred so you can’t see clearly, but slowly coming into focus like it had the day before after the flash of the blooming flowers.

“Are you okay, mister human?” asked a young sounding voice.

“Dad, what was that?” adds a second unknown voice.

“That…that wasn’t possible,” was all Doctor Whooves says as you try to focus your eyes, only to get a headache from it.

“Everypony, give me some space,” you tell them, feeling them back up a little, before you reach inside yourself, touching that little star of power within you. A thought forms, and you draw on a small flow of it, touching your hands to your chest, and thinking about what you need.

“Curaga!” you shout, and hear the chime noise that usually accompanied such spells, as well as a burst of green stars that threaten to blind you again, even as your vision returns to normal. Inside, you can feel the headache you’d been developing fade away ,as well as a few bones knit themselves back together.

“That also, wasn’t possible,” you hear the Doctor say as you blink away a few remaining spots, and stare at the forms of the entire family of Hooves whom you’d met in Ponyville a few days before.

“That’s a word I keep hearing, and keep disagreeing with. Hello Sparkler, hello Dinky,” you say as you stand up, using the wall for support.

“How’d you know our names?” asks Sparkler, a pinky unicorn with purple mane. Beside her, her little sister, a unicorn with a light purple coat and blonde mane, just stares at you.

“Applejack told me,” you said simply, shaking your head a bit to try and clear it.

“Now what was that? One second I was walking behind you, the next I’m slamming into a wall hard enough to give myself a concussion,” you tell them.

“That was…that was the TARDIS rejecting you. But that hasn’t happened since…since,” he trails off.

“Since Jack Harkness jumped on in Cardiff and you went screaming to the year one hundred trillion, right?” you finish, and he just nods, not even questioning how you knew that.

“Yes, but that was because Jack was a Fixed Point, and even then, that…it would have tried to leave, it wouldn’t have attacked you like that. It wouldn’t do that expect to remove a danger to the Heart of the TARDIS itself,” he says, and then dashes into the TARDIS itself, being gone for several minutes, before returning with both the sonic screwdriver in his mouth, as well as a second thing that looks like a tiny disco ball with a screen on it.

“Erpy, old his or a seond, oul yo de” he mumbles around his mouthful, and Derpy takes the screwdriver, while he holds the ball at you, waving it in your face, before handing that off to Derpy, and taking the screwdriver.

“Now, this should tell me what I want to know,” he says, probably more to himself than anypony there. He then takes the ball from his wife, and hands her the screwdriver again.

“So, what have we got…no…no…no…it’s just not possible,” he says, and looks from you, to the disco ball, and then back again.

“What is it? Does it tell you what I did?” you ask, figuring you might as well rub it in that you’d already told him what he wanted to know.

“Well, yes. The neutrinos around your body, they’re stopped. That just doesn’t happen, ever, expect within a Flux. But..how…Fluxes are deep space phenomena, not living things. They’re points in space time where probability has broken down, where reality itself is fluid,” he says, holding his hoof up, and running it through his mane.

“You shouldn’t be able to live inside one, let alone generate it. There’s just no way. Any stray thought and you would erase yourself from time,” he explained, and you just shrugged.

“Why would I go and do a thing like that? It sounds pretty boring to me,” you tell him in answer, and he opens his mouth to object, but then closes it, and taps his chin with his hoof thoughtfully.

“Um, you’re okay, right?” asks Sparkler while her dad is busy thinking, and you nod.

“That was a third level cure spell, good for all those aches and pains,” you tell her, stretching a bit to show her that you’re fine now.

“Um, dear, are you finished yet? I it’s almost time for us to go,” said Derpy suddenly, and the Doctor turns to her, then rushes back into the TARDIS.

“Oh my, you’re right. Girls, back inside. And you, Mr. human, I would like to get to know a little better. If you could, I’d like for you to come visit us in Canterlot while we’re here. We’re staying at the Cumulous Downs, just ask for the Hooves,” he tells you as the females in his party join him inside the TARDIS. The instant they’re in, he shuts the door, and the light on top flashes, that whirring sound coming from the machine as it fades away.

“Well, that was random,” you say to yourself as you go back into your room, and this time look for a lock on your outside door. Unfortunately, you don’t see one, and decide to find a way to ask Celestia or Luna for one sometime, hopefully without having to talk about the Doctor. Dismissing that thought, you walk over to your bath and find it had cooled off during your little chat, but rather than heat it up, you just drain it, figuring you can finish it in the morning.

Disrobing, you shove the bathrobe down the chute, and then, rather than searching for something else to wear, decide to sleep in the buff tonight. Your first week in Equestria. It had been interesting, very interesting. It wasn’t going to be your last either. Ten years, the other you had said. Ten years, never going home, never seeing another human in this world. You didn’t know why, but that last thought actually made you kind of happy, and as you smiled at it, you fell asleep.

Comments

[Star Sage]

1306271

I hope you continue to enjoy it.

[Taktiker]

1307097
Eyupp

[Mike32oz]

Nice!

[Hereward]

I hope the Doctor stuff's gonna be incidental. I'm not too sure about including that style of cold science into this story, especially regarding the bit about nutrinos.

[Tadpole]

I understood nothing abotu what the doctor said. I don't watch Dr. Who.

[Darkheretic]

Bit wierd the doctor having a family but I'm loving every chapter his in

[Yuki Harima]

That awkward moment you are taking a bath when Doctor whooves comes in to bother you. That was funny. now Allons-y!

[Oat Cakes]

>>The Pyro King

Funny because I understood every word of it.