Short Stories Collection, vol. I

by fallen starr

Three Seconds [Slice of Life]

She grinned as the brown stallion walked through the door. "Any luck?" she asked. He simply shook his head. He still hadn't found that mysterious box he was always looking for. He had been here for years, looking for it. Sometimes, the grey mare didn't think he really wanted to find it. If he found it, that would mean leaving her.

Or would it? It was something they discussed. She could run away with him. Their daughter as well. Ponyville would survive without the three of them. They had a nice life here. He hadn't wanted to stick around at first, but she had won him over.

She grinned, remembering the day they met, as if it had been just yesterday instead of over a decade ago.

The blonde mare had just started her first job as a mail carrier. She wasn't planning on making a career out of it, but it would do until she figured out what she wanted to do out of life. She was flying to Rainbow Dashes house. This was the real reason the Ponyville Postal Service had wanted to hire her. She was the only Pegasus, and as such, the only employ who was able to reach the only cloud-based home in Ponyville.

Her circuit didn't take long, two hours at most, and she was finished. She was walking back to the post office when she saw him. He was falling from the sky. She wasn't sure how he was, because there was no pony around him, and nothing for him to fall from, but falling he was.

She flapped her wings and shot forward. Both ponies let out an "oof" as the mare caught the stallion. She slowly touched down, shaking from the weight of the other pony. "You have to be more careful. You could get killed.

"Thank you. Now, where is that-oof!" He had tried to step forward, only to fall, face first into the ground. "Why…what is this? I'm a…pony?" He took a few seconds to examine his body before sighing. "Cross realities, dimensions, and who knows what else to become a pony and I'm still no ginger."

The young mare looked at him. "You're strange, you know that? You talk like you haven't always been a pony. What else would you be?"

He blinked up at her. "Oh, right, I'm sorry. You just saved my life. Thank you. I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor of what?" the grey mare asked.

A surprised look crossed his face. "Well, most of the time I'm asked Doctor who? But you ask Doctor of what?"

His savior was slowly backing away. She decided he couldn't be stable. "Good luck with…not dying again. I'm just going to go-"

"Hang on. What's your name?" he asked.

She sighed. "Derpy. Derpy Hooves." The brown mare hmmed at this information, but said nothing. He studied Derpy some more, almost to the point she was ready to leave again, but he broke his gaze.

"Would you mind showing me around, telling me where we are? I can't even seem to find my sonic." She couldn't say no to the hopeful look on his face.

He sat on the couch next to her, softly nuzzling her neck. "I just want you and Ditzy to see it. You would love it there. I'm different there."

With one hoof, she caressed his face. "I fell in love with you, just as you are. Why would you want to change that?"

He heard all the unasked questions. She knew everything about his past. At first, she had thought he was crazy, but slowly she came to realize it was the truth. Once he found the screwdriver, that was proof enough for her.

He looked into her eyes. She was the reason he had stopped, he had settled. None of his other friends, or any of the others he had loved in his many, many years had made him stop. But he didn't run anymore. They had lived here, in this little town.

He had traveled at first, but when he was brought back here, back to her, he stayed. Oh, of course she knew of the previous relationships. He had told her every story. How he stole the TARDIS, how hundreds of years later he found out she had also stolen him. All of it.

He couldn't say he didn't like being a pony, either. No, he wasn't ginger. He didn't have two hearts anymore either. He had formed to his name, learning the skills of the doctors in this land. His name didn't stand to strangely, either.

Maybe this is what it was like to live a normal life, like his companions had tried to get him to do. It wasn't boring, not really. It seemed that coming here had been the best mistake of his life. As he gazed into his wife's eyes, he couldn't think of any place he would rather be.

He might have given up on finding his beautiful blue box years ago, except that she still encouraged him to find her. Truth be known, Derpy wanted him to find it. That would mean she could see something no pony else had.

All of this, passed through their minds in a few brief seconds. In the time since she had asked her question to the time their lips met, perhaps three seconds had passed. Derpy didn't care. Ditzy was at school, so the married couple had all the time in the world. It amazed her that after so many years, a simple kiss could still make her heart beat quicken and her wings shoot out. The passage of time was never something that Derpy had ever concerned herself with, even now that she knew all her husbands secrets.

The Doctor relished the feeling. Three seconds. An eternity. He had been there when time was stopped. Or moving all at once, however one decided to look at it. He had watched time, saw time, traveled in time.

And yet, those three seconds that seemed to stretch for an eternity seemed all to short at the same time.

Three seconds was all the time in the world.