The Doctor and his Wandering Heart

by ScarletHarmony

Out to Lunch

“Your name is ‘The Doctor’?” The woman, or mare as equines were called if he recalled correctly, asked. “Somepony’s parents had lofty expectations, didn’t they?” She said with a titter, a small smile creeping over her face. Muzzle?

‘Somepony.’ So that really was what he had heard earlier. If there was any doubt about his assumptions before, they were now solidified by an utter lack of respect for convention by this species. Somepony, not someone, not something, and not even something else as ridiculous, like somecreature. No, somepony. And the translation matrices in the TARDIS were obviously working, since the chances of this species he had no idea about speaking a language he personally knew were so astronomically low that it didn’t even bear consideration. So that must have meant that they didn’t have a word meaning ‘someone’ like every other race he had ever known. How stupidly silly.

He was pulled from his internal monologue by Twilight clearing her throat into the fetlock of a raised hoof. Pushing the thoughts aside, he finally replied. “I suppose they did. Though, I don’t think anyone- Ahem, anyPONY has called me exclusively ‘The Doctor’ ever. Just ‘Doctor’ would be fine, Miss Sparkle.”

The mare waved the hoof she had up dismissively, smiling and chuckling once again. “Oh, no need to be so formal, Doctor. Just Twilight is fine. But good effort! Being called ‘Miss’ is one of the least formal introductions I’ve had since I became a Princess.”

He forced a smile back, chuckling back until a thought hit him. “Wait a moment, Princess…” He trailed off and looked down, scratching his chin with the tip of a hoof. She was a Princess, and that voice, that voice was familiar… “You’re the one who broke my leg!” He exclaimed, his head shooting back up to glare at her.

Twilight’s first reaction was to physically cringe, leaning back away and recoiling her neck closer to her body. “I was only trying to help, I admit that I might have been overzealous and acted with a bit too much haste. But there’s no way I broke your leg, or else you never would’ve been walking again, let alone walking so soon.”

He huffed and looked down, lifting his leg to idly kick it through the air. She would have had a point were he a normal ‘pony,’ but he couldn’t exactly explain that he was a time traveling, dimension traveling alien, could he? Regrettably, he’d just have to acquiesce. “I suppose I’ll have to give you that, but it still was very far from a pleasant experience.”

The pony in front of him slightly relaxed, but continued to grimace. “I can’t argue with that. Again, I want to say that I am truly sorry. I didn’t know you were in that poor of a condition.”

He wanted to chastise her, scold her for being so foolish and improper, but he bit his tongue. He couldn’t be too angry, he was saved, his leftover regenerative energy stitched him back together. And her face was alarmingly disarming. Probably something in the absurdly large eyes tricking the insides of his reptilian brain. Before he could come up with something that straddled the line just enough, she interrupted.

“You must be hungry though, after whatever happened. I was just checking up on you before heading to lunch with my brother and his family. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind at all if you joined.” She offered, letting her grimace dissolve into a friendly smile.

“I couldn’t even think of denying. Thank you for the offer.” He replied. Denying would have been a stupid thing, no one ever denied dinner when asked by royalty, and this gave him the perfect opprutuinity to bump elbows, or fetlocks, or ulnas, with the local nobility. No faster way to make inroads to information. And a good chance to scan what kind of diet the upper echelon had, and from there he could probably figure out what the species as a whole would eat.

He followed after the Princess after she started with his confirmation. The hall's walls were made of the same flat crystal as the room was, decorated as finely as well. Sturdy wooden tables adorning it every so often, oft with flowers on top or a painting hung above, sometimes both. It had one long continuous carpet, straddling a line between dark blue and purple along most of it, adorned with a pattern of a few sky blue criss crossing, wisping lines that turned into hollow hearts in the middle of the carpet, large ones in front of every door, smaller ones in front of every set of tables. Fancy and yet surprisingly simple at the same time.

While examining the carpet’s pattern a set of legs appeared in his view, looking up he saw something that only raised more questions. It was another pony or at least a facsimile thereof, only made of translucent crystal instead of flesh and bone. It was also wearing clothes, a black maid’s dress covering up most of its form, leaving only small parts of its smaragdine body visible, half of its rear legs, the hooves of its forelimbs, and the head. No horn, no wings either, he observed, just like him.

Now he had to wonder, was he nude? The Princess wasn’t wearing clothes, but the serventry was, so was nudity something like a status symbol? If so, he couldn’t yet tell if it was a blessing or curse that his clothes mysteriously disappeared somewhere between jumping out of the TARDIS and hitting the ground. Next question was, what did it mean that he and that thing did not have wings or a horn? Obviously neither of them could have flown with wings like the Princess had, nor her either, so were they evolutionary cling-ons like a human’s tail? Or maybe they weren’t wings at all and this was the pony equivalent of a Habsburg chin. The horn was an obvious evolutionary boon though, so there was no point in trying to figure that out. Maybe he was just a certain sub-species of pony, just a pony while this Princess Twilight was a pegasus-unicorn hybrid. A pegacorn, perhaps.

The last, most pressing question, what was that thing? No bones to be seen, so was it some kind of pony golem made of gemstones? Was it sentient? Having passed it a few steps ago, he craned his neck back to look at it, matching eyes with it. Fairly quickly it noticed his looking, and looked back, smiling and waving. Returning the gesture as an afterthought, he turned away to close his eyes and think.

Sentient then. Sentient creatures based on old human mythology, in both flesh and mineral forms, with himself being turned into one of the former. No way the two weren’t somehow related. Maybe the TARDIS’ chameleon circuit malfunctioned in the explosion and did this while sensing something here. She did seem to have the most uncanny ability to dump him right where he needed to save something or someone. If that was the case, it would make sense if the crystal based life form was native to the giant crystal building, and that the Princess was foreign. So was he here to be their liberator? He placed the idea aside until he had more information, and opened his eyes just in time to see his escort take a turn for a set of doors.

A purple glow surrounded the doors for a moment, opening inward before the aura faded. That confirmed their telekinetic abilities if it was needed. He followed the Princess into the room, the aura surrounding the door once more to shut them as he walked in far enough to not be hit by their swing.

The room was a dining room, walls lined on both sides with massive windows with large, deep purple curtains tied open with golden sashed. The dining table in the center of the room was made of the same crystal material as the walls, ornately carved with hearts instead of having a tablecloth set on top, though it was covered with crystal dinnerware. Plates, bowls, glasses, pitchers, decanters, flower vases, even the silverware were all made of silver. As interesting as that was, and it was interesting as it was gaudy, he was far more interested in the ponies at the table. Another one with both wings and a horn, and one with just a horn. The pegacorn was bubblegum pink, with a purple, pink, yellow tricolour mane. She was wearing what seemed to be some form of jewelry, a simple gold necklace hugging her barrel, and a small, simple crown resting on top of her horn that resembled half a fleur de lis. Another member of the aristocracy, another with both horn and wings, made of flesh and bone. He was starting to feel more and more sure of his earlier assessment of the situation with the crystal being.

The other one there had a simple white coat, with a mane made up of three different blues. He, however, was wearing armour. The armour looked decorative more than anything else, but armour nonetheless. Mostly purple, with gold filigree, and a pendant set into the chest with a purple star as decoration. And again, a normal creature. Bodyguard, soldier? One of them was a sibling to the Princess escorting him in any case, and since one was another species…

“Shiny!” The Princess to his side called out, rushing forward toward the table as the soldier did much similar, meeting one another halfway through and crashing into a hug. A bit like a pair of siblings would. Maybe he should just stop making assumptions. But that did raise a few more questions. The two looked nothing alike, aside from being different species they had totally different coat colours, and different hair colours. If he were being generous, they both did have hairs with strips of over tones of the same colour, but this ‘Shiny’ only had two instead of three.

Ignoring that for now, he glanced over toward the pegacorn who was already looking back at him. The two kept an awkward silence while the two hugged for what most would probably consider too long, The Doctor not wanting to put himself at a disadvantage by offering a greeting first, the other probably too worried about making an introduction to someone who entered a room and was not formally introduced first.

Lacking such social graces, The Doctor cleared his throat, briefly glancing back at the hugging siblings. The two let each other go, smiling awkwardly as they took a step back from one another.

“Sorry about that, it’s just been so long since I’ve seen him. Running Equestria is infinitely more time consuming than saving it.” Twilight offered, turning back toward her guest.

“Oh, that’s quite alright, I just noticed that the other esteemed Princess was a touch curious about me.” He replied, looking back over to match eyes with the pegacorn, hoping his assumptions about a race based hierarchy were right.

“Oh, right, of course! Doctor, this is Princess Cadence, obviously. Cadence, this is-” Twilight paused in the middle of her sentence, a small frown crossing her face as she lowered her voice to a mumble. “No, that doesn’t sound grammatically correct. I mean it’s your name so ‘this is Doctor’ would be correct, but that sounds silly.” She trailed off to herself, trying to figure out which way to introduce him was correct, each time coming to a circular logic of ‘this is Doctor’ sounding wrong, and ‘this is The Doctor’ sounding too impersonal and imprecise.

After the fourth go, the Doctor just shook his head and introduced himself. “Nice to meet you both. I’m the Doctor, or just Doctor if you please. I wasn’t fully conscious, but I believe I was the cause of some interest earlier today.”

The two thought for a moment, before the Princess, Cadence, stood from her seat. “You’re the pony we brought in from the snow storm? The doctors said you’d be unconscious for weeks, if you were lucky. How are you up and walking?”

That was a good question. A very good question that he had not readied a lie for. And now the pressure was on as every pair of eyes in the room fell on him, each one demanding an answer in their curious gaze.

“Well, it would sound unlike me, but I must’ve been very, very lucky. Usually when things go my way, it’s due to my towering intellect and my charmingly good looks, so all of my luck must’ve been waiting for this moment to come out of hiding.” He spoke, letting every first thought he had fall out of his mouth, hoping that they would either accept it, or be disarmed by his ego.

It somehow worked, as Twilight just shrugged to herself. “Well, it wouldn’t be the most absurd thing I’ve ever seen. Maybe you’ve got a bit of Apple in you, those ponies are hardier than Crystal Ponies.”

Shining and Cadence chuckled behind her, so he quickly joined in, letting his lips part for a smirk. Always laugh along to a joke, no matter how much sense it didn’t make. A bit of apple? Apple a day keeps the doctors away, he could understand that, but a bit of apple to survive plummeting from the sky and getting your frozen muscles snapped like a fresh carrot? All the thinking about carrots and apples reminded him though, he was fairly hungry from his regeneration. His grumbling stomach also stood as a fairy good reminder.

Thankfully his hosts took notice and returned to their seats, or took their seats in Twilight’s case. “We can talk about this later, you’re probably starving.” Cadence said, and then raised her front hooves to clap them together. Three servants came out from a door behind the Princess, though one saw him taking a seat near Twilight and quickly poked their head back in before returning to the other two, who delivered a plate of salad to the nobles. A moment after, a fourth came out with another plate, delivering it to The Doctor.

Rocket, cherry tomatoes, and pine nuts. How… Surprisingly austere. He quickly peeks around to check the plates in front of the others around him, and sure enough they had the same meal as him. Hardly a meal even, more like a snack. And these were royalty? This is hardly the opulence he expected from what he thought were going to be racial supremacist dictators. None of this made sense.

Internally huffing he grabbed a nearby fork and stabbed his salad, bringing a healthy bite to his mouth. He contemplated as he chewed, trying not to choke up as the cherry tomatoes popped on his tongue. New body, new tongue, and this tongue hated tomatoes it seemed. There must be something going on here, something must have drawn him here or the TARDIS never would have ended up on a strange world even he had no information about. Maybe it was just a side effect of the rapid deconstruction going on in the control room, but then the question was what caused the TARDIS to explode like that. Actually, that was going to be a pressing question in either case.

He picked up another forkful before he noticed he was using the fork. He looked at his hoof, seeing it curve slightly around the handle of the fork. No digits, no telekinesis, no glue, just a flat hoof wrapping around a fork somehow. At least he wasn’t going to need to devise some strange system to hold things without hands. He put his new forkful into his mouth and looked aside to see if he missed anything lost in thought.

No one else at the table was doing anything, they hadn’t even touched their salad, all eyes were staring at him. Not just at him, but at his rump as he hadn’t seen fit to scooch his chair in. As soon as they all noticed he noticed their staring, they immediately grabbed their forks in their sparking, glowing telekinetic fields. Interestingly, it seemed to emanate from the horns on their heads. Fascinating.

“I hate to come off as accusing, but it is rude to stare.” He spoke up before his mind is done wondering about the connection between telekinesis and horns. If he had thought it, he never would have said something like that to royalty.

At least they took it to heart, all of their cheeks flushing in embarrassment. The first one to speak was Twilight. “Sorry about that, Doctor. It’s just… Unusual to see, um.” She pauses, looking away from him to the wall on the opposite side of her. The rest followed suit, though not as obviously. They at least looked near his eyes, Cadence at his teeth, Shining at his nose.

The Doctor blinks at their silence, raising his eyebrow and making a subtle rolling motion with one of his hooves, rather rudely telling them to go on in silence.

Twilight breaks the awkward silence again, turning her neck back to look at him. “Well, it’s just… You’re a rather old pony, as things go. And you don’t have your cutie mark.”

“Cutie mark?” He asks right away, a gut reaction to the absurd name of whatever it was she was describing. The rest of the room reacts in minor shock at it, blinking into wide eyes at it.

“You don’t know what a cutie mark is?” Cadence asks, her voice concealing a light feeling of concern. It makes him notice just how big of a mistake he just made.

“I know you must’ve hit your head, but cutie marks are fundamental stuff. They’re your destiny.” Twilight explains, her voice concealing her concern less well, coming out in a bit of a whine.

“Ah,” The Doctor starts, setting his fork down in his salad. “I never did buy into that whole ‘destiny’ thing. Never quite agreed with me, like bad cheese.” He explains. He already messed something up, maybe being candid about it would fix it. The rest of the room seemed confused by his explanation, Twilight’s one eye arched high above the other.

Comments

[Davenfjeld]

I have to say, this is wonderfully well done. The Doctor is very similar to the show; I daresay you studied other novelisations beforehand.

As soon as they all noticed he noticed their staring, they immediately grabbed their forks in their sparking, glowing telekinetic fields. Interestingly, it seemed to emanate from the horns on their head. Fascinating.

Ooh no cutie mark doctor. Well met.

Also, "he had" and, "their heads".

“I hate to come off as accusing, but it is rude to stare.” He speaks up before his mind is done wondering about the connection between telekinesis and horns. If he had thought it, he never would have said something like THAT to ROYALTY.

This seems out of tense, perhaps rewrite to something like this(?):

“I hate to come off as accusing, but it is rude to stare.” He spoke up before his mind was done wondering about the connection between telekinesis and horns. If he had thought about it, he never would have said something like that to royalty.

This is, of course, just nitpicking. Old habits.

Absolutely love this doctor. No cutie mark, viciously analytical—but still, somehow, humerous—and woefully unprepared for the ridiculousness of what has befallen him. Would love to see more, but take care to read through the day after writing—to catch those really little mistakes.

[ScarletHarmony]

10699990
Made some changes, thanks for the hand, the tip, and for enjoying.