The Shape of Outer Time
“Doctor?” Ditzy poked her head into the empty kitchen and frowned. It wasn’t often she finished with her mail route early, and she wanted to spend every spare moment with her beloved. Unfortunately, the Doctor was nowhere to be found. Ditzy had checked the bedroom, the bathroom, the parlor, and the TARDIS, all to no avail. There was only one place left to check before she would finally accept that the Doctor had gone to town, and she was left to languish on the couch, eating cookies and reading romance novels. With a sigh, she started down the stairs to the basement.
On the whole, it was quite a nice basement -- it was large, bright, and spacious, and one room had served as Dinky’s playroom when she had been younger. But as Ditzy went down the steps, she began to feel somewhat uneasy. The air seemed hazier than it should have been, and the walls seemed to shimmer under a strange light. Finally, she reached the base of the stairs and quietly opened the door a crack.
Peering through, she saw nothing unusual. The lights were on, though. Either the Doctor was down here, or he’d forgotten to turn out the lights when he’d left. She slipped by the door, letting it shut silently behind her. For a moment, she felt silly, sneaking around like that in her own home. Then she turned to the left and beheld a misshapen figure, easily twice the size of a normal pony, hunched over against the wall.
Ditzy stifled a scream, drawing back against the wall. The creature hesitated for a moment, but didn’t turn around.
Okay, Ditzy thought. Ohhh-kay. Fine. There’s a monster in my basement. I don’t know where the Doctor is. Fine. Gotta get out of the house, gotta get to the library, get Twilight and her friends, get Dinky from school so she doesn’t come home and find this. Okay.
She reached for the door. Unfortunately, she misjudged the distance and smacked her forehoof sharply against the knob. The creature spun around, startled. Ditzy screamed, more startled. The creature screamed, more startled yet.
After several seconds of this, they both fell silent, staring at one another. The creature looked bizarre-- tentacles sprouted forth from where its mane and tail would have been, and its flesh seemed to peel away to reveal great star-filled clouds of what looked like the cosmos itself. Galaxies twinkled in the depths of its eyes. Stranger still, with the remaining flesh that hung around the creature like wrapping paper, it looked… oddly familiar.
The creature opened its mouth. “...Ditzy?”
Ditzy blinked. “Doctor?”
The creature put a tentacle to the place where its mouth would have been. “Uh. Hm. You’re… home early, dear.”
“I-- you-- we-- what?”
The Doctor flinched. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I could convince you that this is the result of an accident with a perception filter? A bad dream, perhaps? Gas leak?”
“...No, I don’t think so,” Ditzy said carefully.
“Oh.” They shrunk back into themself. Literally. Ditzy watched in fascination as his body receded into itself like the tides. “I’m… sorry.”
“Oh! Oh no no no no!” Ditzy said quickly. “I can work with this.”
The Doctor paused. “You… you can?” A great yellow star located around where his eye should have been winked and twinkled.
“Oh, yes,” Ditzy said, pacing toward him. “I remember back in college, Carrot Top had this magazine that she hid under her mattress, all filled with tentacles and things, and lots of poor, innocent ponies wrapped up in their clutches…”
“I beg your pardon?”
“She was never any good at hiding it,” Ditzy mused. “As soon as I walked into the room, she’d slam-dunk it into a drawer…”
“Ditzy!” the Doctor said indignantly.
“And I’ve always been the curious type, you know.”
“It’s something I usually love about you, yes,” the Doctor said flatly.
“How ‘bout it, then?”
“Ditzy! Is that how you’re going to look at me from now on? A bunch of provocatively positioned tentacles in a dirty magazine?”
Her ears went flat against her head. She couldn’t get a good read on the Doctor’s emotions -- they didn’t really have much of a face at the moment -- but they sounded angry. Worse, they sounded hurt.
“Well, I mean, no, of course not!” Ditzy said, flustered.
“From the very start of this relationship, you knew I didn’t… don’t care for that sort of thing. Nothing changed when I told you I was asexual. I still am. I… you…” he broke off, flustered.
Ditzy looked down. “I’m sorry, Doctor. I was only teasing. I thought it might ease the tension.”
She still couldn’t read his face, but he gave off an air of distinct disapproval. She took a deep breath and let it out. “You’re right. This doesn’t change anything. I still love you, Doctor, just the way you are. Warts and all, you’re still my best friend.”
“Thank you,” said the Doctor, relaxing slightly. There was still a certain tension there, though.
Well, thought Ditzy. I can fix that.
“There is one thing, though,” she said casually. “Just a little curiosity about, you know, all this.”
“Oh?” said the Doctor, the tension growing slightly.
“Well, it’s a lot of different things, actually, like how many tentacles you have, and are they slimy or scaly or what, and what’s the deal with the big void inside of you, and how is it not sucking all the air right out of the room, but they all really come together into a central question.”
“Which is?” the Doctor said warily.
“How good is this body at cuddling?”
There was a beat of absolute silence. Then, “Cuddling?” the Doctor said, life coming back into their voice. “You see me, all tentacles and empty spaces and stars, and you wonder how good I am at cuddling? Oh, Ditzy Doo. Oh, Ditzy, it is on!” He struck a pose, thrusting Orion’s belt forward and pointing to her with several tentacles and hooves all at once. “Prepare yourself for the snuggle of a lifetime!”
One tendril darted out, and Ditzy squealed in surprise. It came to a stop right in front of her face. Then slowly, delicately, the tip unrolled the last few inches and tapped her right on the nose. “Boop!” the Doctor said.
Ditzy grinned as the tentacle brushed against her cheek. It felt cool and airy against her coat, almost as intangible as a spring breeze. On a whim, she grabbed it and held it to her face, rubbing against it like a cat. Immediately, it became more solid, warmer, smoother. It wasn’t slimy, like she imagined it would have been. It wasn’t scaly and dry like a snake, either. It was like… like…
“I’ve heard it described variously as ‘glass come to life,’ ‘an elephant’s trunk but smooth,’ and ‘the union of a non-newtonian fluid and a non-newtonian solid’,” the Doctor said cheerfully.
“Are you reading my mind?”
“Well, if you’ll observe, I no longer actually have a mouth.” Ditzy glanced over. Indeed, the Doctor’s face was gone, as was most of his body. Only a few patches of tan coat remained on the cloudy patch of space stuck together in the vague shape of a pony. And, of course, there was the necktie.
“So really, the only way I’ve got to communicate is telepathically.” They paused. “Is that alright?”
“Yes,” Ditzy thought back. “But… just surface-level stuff, alright?”
The feeling of a smile blossomed in her mind. “Of course, love.”
Ditzy became aware of more tentacles brushing over her, toying with her hair, rubbing her back, twining around her hooves all at the same time. She felt herself going limp as every muscle in her body was massaged all at once from every angle she could think of, and then some.
“...Right. At this point, all I’m really hearing on the surface level is, er, I think you’d call it ‘purring’. I take it you’re quite relaxed?”
“Mmm, mhm.”
“Ready to move on to the snugglefest?”
“This isn’t it?”
“Course not! This is just to get you warmed up.”
“Well… alright then. I’m ready.”
“Molto bene!”
Suddenly, all the tentacles paused. Ditzy nearly fell over, but several of them caught her as she went. And then several more wrapped around her barrel. And then a few bound her hooves, her legs, her neck… until she was completely swaddled in tentacles of varying degrees of tangibility. Though they covered her mouth and nose, she could breathe comfortably. Though they covered her eyes, she could still see clearly. Though they bound her hooves… she shifted slightly, and the tentacles curled and furled around her, adjusting to her new position.
The tightness was still there, wrapping around her like a snug blanket, but it never seemed to tighten or loosen as she breathed. “Some kind of quantum motion,” she guessed. “Tunneling, maybe? Or just uncertainty as to where your limbs are in all this tangle.”
“Time Lord,” the Doctor said cheekily.
Correction -- the tightness wrapped around her like a smug blanket.
“Oi!” said the Doctor.
Ditzy giggled, and after a minute, the Doctor did too. “Alright. Next phase, Ditzy Doo. I’m a-reelin’ you in!”
Ditzy twisted around to take a look at the Doctor. His fur, his skin had completely peeled away, revealing an enormous cloud of what could really only be called outer space. It looked like they were getting bigger. But no, Ditzy thought, he’s just pulling me closer.
She watched as the Doctor grew ever nearer, ever larger. Okay, she thought. Maybe he’s getting closer and getting bigger.
And then the cloud was upon her. She blinked in the purple haze as several things happened at once. Gravity released its hold on her, and the last tensions were forcibly evicted from her body. Every one of the tentacles became transparent. A faint, double-beat became audible, echoing in the distance. Ditzy noticed almost none of this, because the stars had come out to play.
They burned bright in the skies above -- without being obscured by an atmosphere, they didn’t twinkle or glimmer. But she could see more stars than she had in her life. Galaxies spun through the void, great clouds of space dust glittered with reflected and refracted light, and stranger things besides flew past Ditzy’s eyes as she lay in stunned silence, taking in the magnificent cosmic ballet.
“You like it?”
“...”
“Ditzy? Are you alright?”
“Oh, I’m better than alright, Doctor.”
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Ditzy paused. “Wait, is this the actual universe, or just… you?”
“Little of both. It’s everywhere I’ve been, everything I’ve seen, everyone I’ve known. A man is only as much as the sum of his memories. A Time Lord even more so.”
Neither of them said anything for awhile after that -- the stars spun in the heavens above, below, beside. Perhaps billions of years went by as Ditzy floated there. Perhaps it was mere minutes. Ironically, time seemed not to have any meaning cozied up this close to her favorite Time Lord.
She could barely feel anything. Had she blinked once this whole time? Had she been breathing? She was more relaxed than she’d been in her entire life, not even conscious of her own body. She had transcended. The only thing she could feel now was a powerful sense of love, deep and rich and all-encompassing, wrapping around her like the Doctor’s tendrils.
And then she became aware of something else. Another presence in the great cosmic majesty of the Doctor. She twisted around, the tentacles shifting through four or five dimensions to accommodate her motion, and stared out toward the source of the sensation she was feeling, a pair of overlapping rhythms that beat in a four-note pattern.
Two vast planets orbited one another, binary twins sharing a dance. “Your hearts?” Ditzy guessed. Her voice sounded croaky and dusty from disuse.
“Got it in one,” the Doctor said. “Every story I’ve ever known is written across the two of them. Go ahead, touch the left one.”
“But they’re so far away!”
“Size and distance are very flexible in this state,” the Doctor said.
“Oh. Bigger on the inside.”
“Ha! Yes, I suppose that’s a way of putting it. Go on, try it. The blue one.”
“Well, alright,” Ditzy said, reaching out a hoof. And reaching. And reaching. Her hoof seemed to be miles and miles away…
She blinked, and her leg was back to its usual size, and the planets were floating in front of her, only as big as grapefruits. She touched the blue one, and suddenly
she was sitting in an apartment, wearing a silly paper crown, laughing and cheering with a young blonde and her mother and her friend and
she was arguing with a brunette in a loud shirt about plants and then she smiled and tapped Peri lightly on the nose and
she was on the beach with a strapping Scot and a tiny sparkly genius, building a sandcastle and
she was in the TARDIS with her granddaughter, setting a course for anywhere and anywhen brand new and
the planet moved away from her hoof. She pulled back quickly. “Wow,” said Ditzy. “That was incredible!”
“Well, I like to think so,” the Doctor demurred. “Now, just wait until you see my brain…”
“Hold on,” Ditzy said, reaching out. “I haven’t touched the other one yet.”
“What? No, don’t tou
she flinched back as the young Space Security Service agent was aged to dust in front of her eyes, screaming as her flesh turned wrinkled, withered, and finally disintegrated, and
she watched, helpless, as the spaceship fell to earth, on a direct collision course for the dinosaurs, manned by only one small boy who would never know if he was right and
she stared numbly up at the screen, unable to connect it with reality, surrounded by her own people and they… killed… Peri… and…
she reached out for the big red button that would end it all, and hoped like hell that she was included in ‘all’, and
ch that!” the Doctor shouted, pulling her backwards. “Ditzy! Ditzy, are you alright?”
She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Are you?”
Dead silence. “I…”
“Doctor, it’s okay,” Ditzy said, petting one of the most convenient tentacles. “I’m fine, now. But… I only had those memories for less than a second, and you have to live with them. So… are you okay?”
“Ditzy,” they said, sounding suddenly very weary, “these are memories I’ve had for hundreds, in some cases thousands of years. I’ve carried them along pretty well all that time. There’s an old Time Lord saying -- ‘Two hearts: One to love, and one to harden’. I’ve stuck to that one pretty well, and it’s gotten me through so far.”
“There’s a big difference between that and being okay.”
A long pause. “...No. Of course I’m not okay. You saw a fraction of a percent of my worst memories, Ditzy, and even that was… a lot.”
“I want to help.”
“That’s very noble of you, but--”
“I’m going to help you.”
“...Ditzy, I’m a Time Lord.”
“And I’m your wife! Let me help, or you’re sleeping on the couch for a week.”
His tentacles tensed. “Yes, dear.”
“I need to touch your hearts again.”
“What? But--”
“Doctor.”
He fell silent and she softened. “I won’t do it if you truly don’t want me to. But don’t say no for my sake. I’m pretty strong, you know. I can handle some bad memories.”
They were silent for a long moment after that. Then, slowly, Ditzy felt herself moving toward the two hearts again. Soon enough, they were close enough to touch, red and blue chasing each others tails. She took a deep breath, reached out with both hooves, and touch
she cradled her granddaughter’s head in her lap, singing soft songs about orange skies and silver trees that they both missed so deeply
she stepped out into the bright suns of her homeworld for the first time in three lives, clad in the robes of the president
she sat with Nyssa and Tegan for the first time since they had lost Adric, none of them speaking, all of them sipping tea and trying to heal
she watched a pretty blonde girl running toward the TARDIS in the dead of night, running towards her, and she felt the damage of the War heal just that little bit more
ed both at the same time. And they moved away again.
“Oh,” said the Doctor, softly. And then,
“I’d nearly forgotten,” he said. And then,
“Thank you,” they said.
Ditzy smiled. “You’re welcome.”
They stayed like that for an indefinite amount of time, Ditzy resting safe and relaxed in the Doctor’s coils, watching their hearts chase each other around. But now, she thought, each one was a little closer to purple than they had been before, a little more balanced.
And they would’ve stayed like that all day if the front door hadn’t crashed open. “Mom! Doctor! I’m home!” Dinky cried.
Ditzy tensed. “So, um, how long does it take for you to turn back into, like, a regular-looking pony?”
The tentacles were already shooting her back out into the basement. “Go! Go go go go, keep her distracted!”
“Mom?”
Ditzy fell to the carpeted floor. “Just a minute, honey!”
“Mom? Why are you in the basement?”
Ditzy rolled over and popped up onto her hooves as she heard Dinky coming down the stairs. The Doctor was frantically reweaving his body back together. She shoved open the door and stepped through, blocking her daughter’s path down. “The Doctor and I were fixing a blown fuse,” she lied smoothly. “It’s nearly done now. Let’s go and get you a nice muffin and get started on your homework, hm?”
“I finished it in class. Are you alright? You look kinda… mussed.”
Ditzy smoothed down her hair. “I may have gotten slightly electrocuted. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Uh, no. Your mane isn’t even singed. What’s going on?”
“Nothing to worry about,” said a voice from the other side of the door. “Everything’s fine!” The door flew open, and an orange earth pony mare with a short blonde mane and the Doctor’s necktie smiled at the pair of them, wild-eyed and slightly panicked. “Er, perhaps I’d better explain over muffins. Or, actually, biscuits. Could murder a biscuit right now. C’mon, fam!”
The Doctor pushed past them both and hurried up the stairs. Dinky blinked. “So… do I have two moms now?”
“I think that might be a better question to ask the Doctor, don’t you?” Ditzy smiled. “After all this time, they’re still full of surprises.”
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Nice to see this back!
A little off-topic from eldritch-abomination Alicorns, but still an enjoyable read. The Doctor's two hearts reminds me a bit of the memory orbs from Inside Out, and how even happy memories have a hint of sadness and vice-versa, allowing them to begin to heal from their bad memories. Also, I feel like their brain is an entire galaxy.
...wait, is Dinky also The Doctor's daughter? Would she develop in any way like The Doctor or would she just be a normal foal?
9897169
As regards Dinky, I'm honestly not sure at this point. Time Lord biology is weird and sources often contradict. I'm probably going to go with whatever makes for the best story.
Ditto on this being back, your Wibblyverse stories are fun, but these stories have a certain...flavor...all their own.
(I have read at least one Dr. Who novel where it is strongly hinted that the Doctor, and all Time Lords, really are eldritch abominations, although he's a well-intentioned one. Damned if I can remember the title, though.)
Magnificent stuff. There isn't nearly enough eldritch comedy in the world. Glad to find more of it.
Loved these stories. Such an Equestrian take on the Lovecraftian idea of unspeakable elder gods!
Well I'm entertained. Looking forward to more this good. Have a follow lol