The TARDIS
The Doctor didn’t wait for an answer, he just turned and departed, apparently assuming the rest would follow. The others exchanged glances, each glance bearing a silent vote embedded in it. Of those silent votes, only one voted against following, so of course, Flitter was overruled on the matter and one by one they proceeded to follow the strange stallion from another universe. This time Rainbow Dash led the way, anxious to see what it was the Doctor had to show, with Spike, made slightly more timid due to the Dimenost encircling the library and knowing what they could do, following close behind. This left Flitter to begrudgingly bring up the rear, following mostly because she didn’t care to be left behind and alone.
The Doctor chose to lead them back the way they had come into the library after leaving his box in the first place; upstairs into Twilight’s empty room and study, then out onto the balcony and up the staircase that would take them back to the limb the mysterious box was at. On the way, though, they all had to hesitate on the balcony and look outside where the swarms of shadowy Dimenost swirled restlessly around the library.
“They don’t look too happy,” Rainbow noted.
“Of course not, Miss Dash, they’re being kept from what they want, and when they don’t get what they want, they, like all creatures, tend to throw a hissy-fit,” the Doctor noted, the only one who didn’t pay them too much close attention. “Don’t worry, though, the sonic screwdriver’s still active and won’t be running out of power anytime soon. It’ll keep them at bay and away from all of you for now.”
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t scary,” Spike remarked aloud, staring wide-eyed at the inter-dimensional beings.
“Of course they’re scary,” the Doctor pointed out, pausing as he started up the balcony’s attached staircase. “I’d actually be more worried if you didn’t find them scary.” He looked back at the trio that had been following him, seeing them gaze out at the Dimenost. “Better not look too much at them, though. They might try something if they think you’re paying attention to them. Remember, they are telepathic.”
“Right,” Rainbow murmured, and tore her gaze away from the Dimenost and onto the Doctor, proceeding to follow him again. Spike again followed her lead. Flitter, however, remained staring at the creatures besieging the library for a moment, before numbly turning and following the others.
A short climb halfway up the staircase soon brought them back to the same limb where the Doctor’s box resided and they all clambered onto it, pressing through the foliage towards its location. Spike had been expecting to find the box in mostly the same condition as when they had left it, pinned above the branch by two other branches, but he was surprised to see the box had moved. Now it stood on the same branch as them, underneath where it had once hung, standing tall and straight, its double doors neatly closed, with its signs lit up and with not a scratch on it anywhere. Its outside even looked like it had been given a fresh coat of blue paint. All while they had been away from it.
Spike felt his jaw drop. He hadn’t been paying attention to how long they had been away from the box, but even he knew it wasn’t long enough for all of this to happen, especially while entirely on its own. “But…but…it was up there earlier!” he objected, pointing a claw up at the two branches the box had been pinned between before.
“Yep,” the Doctor agreed simply without stopping.
But Spike stopped, and he wasn’t the only one, for Rainbow and Flitter halted in surprise too. “But…but…it was all beat up, and scratched, and…”
“And now she’s fixed herself,” the Doctor concluded, arriving at the box but turning to look back at them when he realized they had stopped following.
“How?” Flitter demanded, shocked. “I mean, after everything that’s happened tonight, I don’t even know why I’m even surprised anymore, but…” she shook her head. “How?”
“What do you mean, how?” the Doctor repeated, a little indignant as he sat before the impossible box. “What did you expect her to do? Just sit there and whine about how broken she was?”
“So…” Rainbow said, scratching her head with one hoof, working to try and figure this out. “You’re saying your box can fix itself?”
“That’s TARDIS, Miss Dash, Time and Relative Dimensions in Space,” the Doctor explained as he worked to fish a key out his pocket, carefully holding it between both of his forehooves. “And it’s no big deal. Just like when you go and take a tumble, she just needed to go and take a few so to heal. I mean, you would too if you had burned out your power relays successfully shunting several gigatons of explosive energy through an opening into the Void before getting thrown out of your universe just to smash into another all willy-nilly like she did.”
“But how?” Flitter repeated. “It’s just a box! How can a box do all of that?”
The khaki stallion grinned. “She’s no ordinary box, Miss Flayer.”
Rainbow was astounded. “That’s amazing!” she cried.
“Oh, but you haven’t even seen the inside yet!” the Doctor said as he stuck his key into the lock of the box. “Speaking of, let’s take a peek, shall we?”
Flitter actually backed away from the box when he said this. “Must we? I…I don’t know if I can handle any more of this,” she remarked.
The Doctor shrugged as he unlocked the door. “Suit yourself,” he remarked as he opened the door and slipped inside. Not a moment later, he could be heard speaking. “Oh c’mon, why did you go and change the interior? There was nothing wrong with the interior!” Surprisingly, the Doctor’s voice started to go dimmer for a moment, like he was moving further away, only to return to full volume a moment later. “You only burned out your power relays, for crying out loud! Most of that damage was barely even superficial! You could’ve left the interior exactly the same!” A pause, then; “Not to say that I don’t like it, old girl, in fact I actually love the new look, very classy…but still! Did you go and change the interior just because we’re in a new universe with slightly different rules? Or to go impress the guests? Are you really that vain? I mean, you’ve always had a thing about your image, hence the whole blue box deal, I suppose, but really, what difference does…well…I suppose I’m one to talk, aren’t I? Always showboating about and wowing the companions with my awesomeness, and speaking of, hold that thought old girl.” He poked his head back out of the door and looked at the others, who hadn’t moved. “Aren’t you going to come in?”
“Really?” Rainbow asked, blinking. She and Spike exchanged glances. “But we won’t all fit in there!”
“Oh, will you now?” the Doctor responded knowingly. He grinned then proceeded to duck back inside the box. “You can still come too, Miss Flinger!”
“I…I think I’m going to stay out here, actually,” Flitter said, looking the box up and down nervously. She still seemed to have her misgivings about it. “And it’s Flitter!”
The Doctor didn’t respond, he just gave Rainbow and Spike a wink before vanishing back into the box again. Exchanging another glance with the little dragon, Rainbow started towards box, wondering what she’d find inside.
“How are we really going to fit into that thing?” Spike asked aloud, who was following Rainbow.
“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” Rainbow said, heading to the doors that the Doctor had left ajar.
“Be careful!” Flitter called from where she sat further back. Trying to distract herself from the box, she turned to look for something else to stare at.
Rainbow barely heard the other pegasus as she nudged the door open with her nose and peered inside, Spike pushing past her legs so to see as well. Their eyes both widened at what they saw.
“Aw, no way,” Rainbow remarked, starting to grin as she let herself into the interior of the box.
Spike peeked outside the box then back inside before following. “It’s…it’s bigger on the inside!” the dragon whispered in astonishment.
The Doctor, leaning on the wall next to the door, pumped his forehoof in victory at this. “That never gets old, hearing them say that!” he remarked, turning to stroll deeper into the box’s interior.
For there seemed to be plenty of it. Despite the outside of the box being paradoxically far smaller, smaller than it could possibly hold a room of this size, the room seemed ginormous in comparison. The box’s double doors initially lead into a small entry space roughly the same dimensions as the box’s exterior, but past that it opened up into a much larger, curving, room of an entirely different architectural style from the box’s exterior.
Though appearing to be made largely of a brown wood of varying shades, or perhaps just what appeared to be wood, the room was impressive in both shape and design and seemed to fit its reputation. The walls of the room curved out from the door, lined with large round lights sitting at a diagonal angle along the bottom. These lights were covered with simple clear glass panels, framed with intricate and geometrical patterns of stained glass colored with blues, yellows, and oranges. In the center of the room was a raised platform, and hanging above it in the shape of an octagon was a balcony supported by square wooden pillars running around its outer edge. These went up to meet with the balcony floor before splaying outward at regular angles to meet up with the ceiling, decorated with crisscrossing lines of trim that continued the trend of geometric patterns. In on that balcony was some sort of display of predominately blue light coming from a large, cone-like structure, glowing dimly through the balcony railings and supports.
On either side of this balcony, mostly enclosed by walls so it wasn’t immediately visible, were two square staircases that led up to it. A cupboard with ornate glass doors sat immediately beside both staircases. On the room’s far curving wall, a small staircase led up to a set of double glass doors that presumably led to even more rooms. But the chief focus of the pegasus and dragon visitors was, on the raised platform sitting under the balcony center of it all, a hexagonal podium, clearly a control panel due to the many buttons, levers, and screens that were on it. Rising from it to join with the underside of the low-hanging balcony that served as its roof was a glass cylinder, mostly transparent, but bore the same geometric stained glass designs as seen elsewhere in the impossible room. A solid pillar of what appeared to be metal was encased inside. It was here that the Doctor now headed, working with the controls. As he did so, he kept an eye on the amazed Spike and Rainbow as they continued to look around the room.
“I know, right?” he said. “This is all new to me too. The interior was quite different before I wound up here.”
“Wait, so the inside of this thing can change shape?” Spike asked, whirling around to face the Doctor.
“All the time,” the Doctor replied casually, like it was a common (and probably was) occurrence for him.
“So does the outside change too?” Rainbow asked as she continued to look around. “I mean, just about everything else about your box does, so…”
“Well…” the Doctor hesitated. “It’s supposed to, actually. But it’s been staying as a police box for quite a while now regardless.”
“Why’s that?” Spike asked, joining the Doctor at the control panel, watching the stallion move about it, flipping controls.
“I dunno,” said stallion admitted. “I’m starting to think the TARDIS just likes the look of it. She can be a bit…picky, so to speak, but that’s neither here nor there.” He looked up from the controls for a moment to see Rainbow still moving about taking all the sights of the control room, amazement still etched upon her face. He grinned. “So, Miss Dash, Mister Spike,” he prompted. “What do you think? Like what you see?”
“It’s amazing, Doc,” Rainbow said as she continued to look around.
“Yeah,” Spike added, turning to look around the area of the control panel too. “Though it actually reminds me a little of the work of that new architect over in Baltimare that Twilight’s been interested in lately…what was his name?” He snapped his claws a few times as he worked to remember. “Fet Lock Wright, I think it was.”
“I was going to say Frank Lloyd Wright, but that works too,” the Doctor concluded dismissively. “It’s your planet after all.” He turned back to the controls, prancing around as he worked with them. “Anyway, we have Dimenost to deal with. So, I’m rigging the TARDIS to plot a course into the Fringe back through the tear in which she came in, but this time to do it in such a way as to avoid detection by the Dimenost. Might take a bit of time, but shouldn’t be too much. Once she does, we can go and put a stop to that little affair, and then ohmigosh, is that what I look like now?”
Rainbow and Spike stopped to look at the Doctor to see he had suddenly stopped to study his reflection in one of the cabinet doors next to the staircase. He gazed at it with a critical eye, poking and prodding at his face with his hooves.
“Wow,” he muttered, peering at himself. “That snout is a lot bigger than I thought.” He gazed up at his mane, running a hoof through it. “And still not ginger! Go all the way to a new universe to regenerate, and I still can’t get ginger hair!”
“Wait a minute,” Rainbow said, approaching the Doctor. “What does this regeneration stuff have to do with your hair?”
“Well, I was hoping it’d change to ginger this time around,” the Doctor explained as he attempted to smooth out his bronze mane. “I’ve been just about all the other hair colors before after regenerating except ginger. For some reason, the multiverse is adamant that I can’t ever have ginger hair! Instead I keep getting stuck with brown! GRR! This is like the eighth—ninth?—or so time I’ve been stuck with brown—well, brownish—hair! I can change my face into a whole bunch of different shapes, even a pony apparently, but I can’t seem to get my hair color to change anywhere nearly as diversely, so after a while, one gets—”
“Wait, hold on!” Rainbow interrupted, rubbing her forehead as she attempted to make sense of these new details. “Are you saying that you change too?”
“Oh…yeah…it’s called regeneration,” the Doctor responded as he moved on to examine the rest of his body and what clothes he still wore on it. “It’s…complicated. But basically every now and then, pretty much to save my own life, I regenerate and get a whole new body to stroll around in for a while.” He regarded his pony body with a critical eye. “Problem this time around, though, is that I don’t really know how to judge what I look like.”
“How do you mean?” Spike asked, coming over. Rainbow, meanwhile, was still trying to come to terms with the Doctor’s sparse details on regeneration.
“Well, I don’t know what is considered beautiful for a pony at all,” the Doctor confessed. “Or even how to properly maintain it, for that matter. Heck, I’m not even sure if I’m operating this body correctly, as it’s intended to be used.”
“I can give you one tip,” Spike said, and grabbed the Doctor’s bronze-colored tail, tugging it downward. “I wasn’t going to say anything before, but you’re going to want to keep that draped down as much as possible. For, you know, privacy.”
“Oh, good point!” the Doctor said, and maneuvered his tail so that it hugged his rump closely, more than he really needed to but Spike opted not to correct him. “That could be embarrassing. Glad you pointed that out, Mister Spike. Since all the rest of you run around naked, I had kind of figured after a little bit that it didn’t matter, but now that I think about it, it makes sense that there would still be some practices of modesty around here. Haven’t met many races on your level of intelligence that didn’t. Either way, I don’t think I want anyone getting the idea they can stare.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t be so bad,” Rainbow suddenly remarked aloud without thinking. “In my book, your flank could rival even that of—MPHF!” She quickly stuffed one hoof into her mouth to stop herself, realizing what she was saying, before flushing a bright red in embarrassment.
The other two stared at her for a moment, the Doctor incredulously, while Spike attempted to hide a snicker of realization.
“I beg your pardon Miss Dash?” the Doctor asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Nothing,” Rainbow squeaked, turning and walking a few paces away, trying to hide how embarrassed she was.
Spike couldn’t help but snicker again. “I think Rainbow’s decided you look good, Doctor,” he commented teasingly.
The Doctor gave Rainbow a teasing smirk before turning to look back at his reflection. “Well, it’s a two-way street, because I think it’s safe to say you have a nice rump too, Miss Dash…seeing we’ve apparently been peeking and all.”
Rainbow let out an unintelligible squeak as she ducked behind the TARDIS control panel, further embarrassed. The Doctor grinned in satisfaction for this before returning his attention to the matter at hoof, looking himself over again.
“So tell me,” he said, “if modesty is still an issue of importance in Ponyville…then why don’t you all wear pants?”
Spike shrugged, having never thought about it. “I don’t know. I always thought pants was just a fashion thing anyway.”
“So there’s modesty, but still playing it fast and loose, I like it!” the Doctor surmised. He tugged at the jacket he wore with one hoof. “Still, I think a change in clothing is needed. New wardrobe for a new incarnation of the Doctor. And a hat. I’d love a hat this time around.” He glanced at the TARDIS control panel. “The TARDIS is still going to need another fifteen or so minutes to plot that course into the Fringe…I’d say that’s enough time to go and get changed real quick.” He spun around and pointed a hoof in the direction of the double glass doors. “To the TARDIS wardrobe! Tally ho!”
“Wait, this thing’s got a wardrobe too?” Spike remarked, intrigued as he followed the Doctor. “How big of a wardrobe? How can all of this fit in this little box? Aw, I gotta check this out!”
“After you, then Mister Spike,” the Doctor said as he held open one of the double doors for the little dragon, who eagerly hurried through. “You coming Miss Dash?” he then asked, looking back at the pegasus mare hanging back near the control panel.
“No,” Rainbow replied, her voice a little higher than usual as she avoided eye contact with the Doctor, still embarrassed by their earlier conversation. “I think I’ll stay here.”
“Okay,” the Doctor said, not questioning Rainbow’s reasons any before turning to go as well. “Shout if the TARDIS finishes plotting that course before I get back!”
“Will do!” Rainbow called after the stallion’s retreating figure, forcing a grin. The moment he was gone, though, the athletic pegasus grabbed one of the balcony’s supporting columns and began banging her head on it. “Why. Did I. Say that?! It was so immature and inappropriate! What was I thinking?! Now he’s going to think I’m some kind of…of…I don’t know…floozy!” She let out a wail of embarrassment as she sank to the floor. “Me and my big and uncensored mouth!”
I had wanted to include a picture of what I have envisioned for the TARDIS interior, but unfortunately, due to schoolwork and other time constraints, that picture didn't get made. So for now the description I've written here will have to do. But I'll probably get that pic made eventually, so when I do, I'll go back and add it.
There was also going to be more to this chapter, which would further the overall plot of the fic, but this chapter became rather long, so I opted instead to break it apart into more than one. That's also why there's no accompanying music in this chapter either.
Also used this chapter to speculate on a few things, one of which being the pony idea of modesty. Mostly because I'd be surprised if the Doctor didn't bring up the subject at some point given his situation. By the way, I don't think the Doc actually "peeked," he just implied that he might have so to tease Rainbow. 
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Answer, The TARDIS's Chameleon Circuit broke whilst it was in 1960's Britain, keeping it stuck as a public police call box, the Doctor knows this but he couldn't be bothered fixing it because he liked the look! He's explained it to his companions multiple times!
3992241 1960's*
3992241 Turns out that the reason why it's stuck like this is because the Doctor HIMSELF damaged the Cameleon Circuit in the past to burn the image of the Blue Box into the memory of Humanity and to inspire fear of it in the more violent races as shown when an invasion was in the works only for them to see a Blue Police Box in London and immediately fear that it was the Doctor's TARDIS (when it was simply just a Police Box)
Wow, the TARDIS looks amazing! I can't think of a consul room like it. Did you ever make the picture later?
And Zoidberg's gone for now. Yay!
3992241
Oh, its even more broken then he lets on. Police Box's back then were made of plexiglass, not wood.
I really do feel like this needs a picture for the TARDIS interior
10280041
One of these days I might actually get around to doing it.