Timeswirl

by Fedora

Crash Landing

The sky was growing dark, and the clouds began to swirl unnaturally. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning flashed through the torrent created in the sky. Through these clouds crashed a wooden box painted blue and marked with graffiti. The craft spiraled out of control and swerved through the air while making a high pitched groaning noise.

It dipped low to the ground, raking itself through the wet mud and tumbling over a small hill before attempting to rise back into the air. The TARDIS didn’t make it high enough to stop itself from crashing through the edge of a forest, and it was whipped and slammed by thick wooden branches before it rose back above the treetops on it’s way into the air.

It seemed to be making a promising flight back into the atmosphere, but before the box could clear the cloud coverage a bolt of lightning struck at it’s side, sending it crashing back to earth and causing it to tumble to a stop with the door facing the ground.

The light on the top flashed, and the TARDIS slowly phased out, only to materialize right-side up once again, albeit scraped and tattered-looking and spattered with mud on all sides. The doors flung open, releasing a column of smoke as the Doctor tumbled out, waving the flaps of his leather jacket in an attempt to clear the smoke away while hiding his snout under the v-neck collar of a red jumper.

A pegasus flew out over his head, coughing and covering her eyes as the stinging smoke flowed around her. She landed on the wet grass of the meadow, taking deep breaths of fresh air. Derpy let her head sink into the grass, burying her face from the acrid smoke.

“Hey, easy girl, it’s all right. You’ll be ok, right?” she heard the Doctor say. She lifted her snout out of the grass to reply.

“I’ll be alright Doctor,” she replied, craning her neck to make eye contact. She found the Doctor hugging the outside of the TARDIS, rubbing his hooves against the wood as if to soothe the time machine.

She rolled her eyes, and swung herself back onto her hooves, moving to close the door. She and the Doctor had been soaring through a far-away nebula in the distant past, only for the TARDIS to be ripped through time and space forcefully and hurled onto the surface of this planet.

A planet that looked a lot like Equestria.

“Doctor, where... erm, when are we?” she asked. The Doctor opened the TARDIS doors again, and dashed inside. From the TARDIS came the sound of a fire extinguisher, and some kind of energy crackling. Derpy noticed the smoke beginning to clear up as the Doctor poked his grinning face outside the door to talk to her.

“A few thousand years in your past. This is before Celestia, before Discord, possibly before the pony tribes joined to form Equestria itself. This is a pre-classical era, a time of conquest, empires, great stone castles and....”

A sharp roaring sound pierced through the air from the edge of the forest. Trees began to sway and timbers snapped. Something large moved through the forest coverage, and emerged into the grassy meadow. It was large, reddish with black patched, and scaly. It had strong, muscular legs, small two-clawed forelimbs and a colossal head lined with sharp teeth and a squarish jaw. The creature stared at the blue box and the two standing outside of it, eyes narrowing.

“Tyrannosaurs? Are you sure you have the right time era, Doctor?”

The Doctor grinned up at the Tyrannosaurus Rex as the lumbering beast tentatively sniffed the air. The great red beast moved its snout from side to side and took a slow step forward, blinking slowly and smelling the air around it some more.

“Aren’t you beautiful!” remarked the Doctor, “Look at her, Derpy! She’s an adult female Tyrannosaurus Rex, Late Cretaceous era.”

“Beautiful?!” Derpy whispered harshly, hiding around the corner edge of the TARDIS, “Doctor, that’s terrifying! We need to get out of here before it eats us whole!”

“Oh, don’t be daft,” the Doctor shot back, “Look at her! She’s as confused and lost as we are.”

He called out to the colossal Dinosaur in a sappy voice similar to how one would talk to a dog.

“What’s the matter girl? What are you doing so far from home, huh?”

The T. Rex lowered it’s head to look at the Doctor, shifting it sideways to bring an eye down to his level. The humongous yellow eye swiveled about to glance at the Doctor, at Derpy hiding on the side of the TARDIS, and the unusual appearance of the beaten-up blue box itself. The dinosaur’s gaze went back to the Doctor once again, and its pupil dilated to a huge size.

“That’s not good. Huge pupils, rush of adrenaline.”

“What’s that, Doctor?!” Derpy whispered.

“Run, NOW!” he called out, dashing to the side and tumbling into the mud as the Dinosaur cried out with a deafening roar and made a swipe for him. Derpy shot through the air like a bullet, quickly putting as much aerial distance between herself and the jaws of the dinosaur as possible. The Doctor clambered up onto his hooves and dashed towards the forest. Behind him, the ground vibrated with every step the Tyrannosaur took, and the sounds grew louder in his ears.

He made it to the edge of the trees, and had to leap over the overgrown bushes and brambles that grew up there. The outermost tree coverage was sparse, but if he could make it into the thicket the lumbering creature would have a harder time grabbing him.

Wood cracked and splintered behind him, and entire trees began to shake and sway. Birds soared out from their nests in the treetops, and the Doctor slid down a muddy embankment, crashing into a pulsing brook. The Tyrannosaur roared and burst through the tree coverage, jaws outstretched and ready to snatch up the Doctor. The beast’s jaws made the grab, but struck only mud and gravel as the Doctor ducked and rolled out of the way. He had escaped by mere centimeters.

The Tyrannosaur began to glow in wavy light that grew in intensity, so much that the Doctor had to shield his own eyes from it. With a brilliant flash, the dinosaur vanished entirely, leaving only broken tree limbs and a Time Lord with racing hearts in its wake.

The Doctor made his way out into the clearing once again, and was joined by Derpy, who remained hovering above him. He took off towards the TARDIS, seemingly forgetting about the dinosaur entirely for a moment when he saw that his time machine lay on its side in the mud.

“Tyrannosaur knocked it over,” he said quickly, “Are you alright?”

“Yeah...” Derpy wheezed, “Just a little winded. You?”

“I’m absolutely fantastic, thanks for asking,” he replied with a smile, “First things first, the TARDIS.”

“Aren’t you worried about the dinosaur?!” Derpy exclaimed, landing at his side.

“The dino mystery can wait,” replied the Doctor, “here, you get at that end...”

Derpy got at the top end of the TARDIS with the Doctor, and together they lifted at the part where the top was attached to the wooden sides. Derpy grunted and pushed to raise her side, and the Doctor threw his shoulder up and into the edge, and together they righted the TARDIS again.

“Look, it’s all covered in mud,” she said with a frown. The side that had been facing the ground was completely brown with dirt and mud, and had clusters of twigs and grass clippings stuck to it. A third voice came from behind the two, causing both the Doctor and Derpy to jump in surprise.

“Let me help,” the voice said. It belonged to a tall unicorn stallion with a brick colored coat and a flowing mane of red. He wore an odd-looking robe embroidered with stars, and a misshapen pointed hat with an absurdly large brim that was lined with bells.

The unicorn bowed his head and a blast of water shot forth like a fire hose, dousing the side of the TARDIS and causing the mud to run off the side, revealing the blue wood beneath. This particular side of the TARDIS was graffitied with white paint that formed the words “Bad Wolf”, the same graffiti the two time travelers had seen in 30th Century canterlot.

The Doctor, who had been taken aback by the sudden appearance of the red unicorn now looked angry, and his jaw stiffened. This was the first he had seen of the graffiti, despite it having been there for several day’s worth of time travel.

“I’ve got a right mind to go back to New Canterlot this instant and find that paint-happy chav and-”

“Doctor!” Derpy yelled out, motioning with her wing to the bemused stallion standing by. The Doctor grumbled.

“Sorry,” he apologized, “Say... I know who you are! You’re fantastic!

The reddish unicorn raised his eyebrows and lifted the floppy brim of his hat to make proper eye contact with the Doctor. The unicorn had no beard, and he looked to be middle aged.

“You know of me?” he replied, “I’m surprised at the compliment from an Earth pony such as yourself. Most of your kind holds nothing but contempt for us unicorns, and sadly the same is true for my race.” The stallion removed his hat, and shook his mane out of his face.

“You’re Starswirl the Bearded- well, the not-so-bearded at the moment! The most accomplished wizard of the pre-classical era!” raved the Doctor, shaking hooves with the wizard enthusiastically, “You’re brilliant, you are! Completely and utterly brilliant. Derpy, this is Starswirl the Not-Quite-Bearded.”

Starswirl narrowed his eyebrows and took a step back, his cape billowing around him in the wind. He glanced from the Doctor to Derpy, and then back to the Doctor in a confused manner.

“You’re not time travelers, are you?” he muttered, aghast, “Please tell me you’re not....”

“Beardy I’ve got some bad news for you,” replied the Doctor with a smirk.

“Wait a second!” interrupted Derpy, “Doesn’t anypony care about, I don’t know, the huge meat-eating dinosaur that was here and then just vanished into thin air?!”

“Tell you what, Doctor, Derpy,” Starswirl said, “I’ve got a bit of explaining to do. Why don’t you follow me to my abode?”

Comments

[Slick Ink]

Good so far, but doctor, I'm warning you, meddling with time is