Adventures in the TARDIS

by Scroll

Stranded in Space Part 3: Getting Settled

“What?” Derpy asks, perplexed, during the middle of giving a tour of the ship to Doctor Kelly. Early on in that journey, within the first hallway of it, the TARDIS crew already encounters an anomaly, and that is a new room that wasn't there before.

“It's a door,” Doctor Kelly answers while giving those around her a confused blink. “You all still use those, right?” She straightens herself. “Although I'll admit, in my world, 'doors' are merely unnecessary aesthetics. A symbol of an outdated design when we live in a synthetic world that can be customized at any moment. Furthermore we typically-”

Stern Wing interrupts by raising a hoof as a signal for Doctor Kelly to silence herself. When she does as she listens to Stern Wing instead, the large brown mare explains, “Yes, but this door wasn't here before. It's new.”

“Oh!” Doctor Kelly replies with a surprised blink. “Really? Are you sure that this environment isn't synthetic too?”

With a glance at the others here, Feather Wind is the first to answer by saying, “I think we're beginning to wonder that too.”

“I told you all a while ago that the TARDIS is its own internal dimension,” Vision reminds, although this is the first time Doctor Kelly is hearing of it. “And it is governed by a sentient entity that exists beyond the bounds of space/time. As such, she was aware that you would arrive among us before you even decided to join us.” Vision attempted to point to Doctor Kelly when Vision said the word “you”, but ends up pointing between Doctor Kelly and Derpy instead. Nevertheless, the ponies around Vision are aware of what she meant from context clues alone. When Vision lowers her hoof, she adds, “I think this is the Heart of the TARDIS's way to tell you, 'Welcome home'.”

“Then what you mean to say is, this is my room,” Doctor Kelly realizes.

“And it also means we should be alert for future changes,” Stern Wing says cautiously as she lifts an eyebrow. “I was actually considering patrolling this place and draw a map for the benefit of newcomers as a precaution, but that is beginning to seem pointless if this place can change itself.”

Derpy giggles sweetly before saying, “I guess it's never a dull day in the TARDIS. Even in here we can have an adventure.”

“I still think we're generally safer in here than whatever exists outside the TARDIS itself,” says Feather.

“Being lost can be a form of danger,” Stern Wing argues. “One I had hoped to minimize, but now I'm beginning to wonder.”

“This change was evoked because of the new crew member who joined us,” Vision reminds. “We can probably expect further changes based on similar circumstances. I make no promises, but that might generally be a safe rule of hoof.”

“Well,” Feather Wind says with a blink, “we can continue standing here and blink at this new door like a bunch of idiots, or we can venture inside and get some of our answers.” He looks at Doctor Kelly as he goes on to say, “Since it seems likely that this new room is for you, perhaps it is best that you give us a tour of it.” After he says that, he uses his wind magic to deliver a whispered message to Stern Wing which asks her, “How much do you want to bet that this new room is going to be a blank white room with holographic projection nodes?”

That question causes Stern Wing to crack up for a few seconds before she turns her head about to nod and wink at Feather Wind in agreement.

“Don't mind if I do,” Doctor Kelly agrees as she channels her magic through one of the gems she is wearing which causes her horn to glow orange. This she uses to turn the doorknob to the new mysterious room. Once it is open, she trots inside. The others shortly follow, but Derpy lingers behind to carefully guide Vision through the threshold just to make sure the little filly doesn't accidentally bump into the wall instead. After all, this room is new, so Derpy is being extra careful that the beloved little filly doesn't hurt herself in the attempt to follow them.

Sure enough, as predicted, what exists in the new room is blank white walls, floor, and ceiling with a bunch of pyramid-shaped projection nodes all over the place, but they appear to be under an invisible floor they trot upon. Together, all of the projection nodes make a very fixed, grid-like pattern in this room.

What does surprise Feather, and everyone else for that matter, is the sheer enormity of the room, for they really can't see the opposite side of the wall ahead of them. It seems like the other side of this room stretches on to infinity.

“Oh wow!” Derpy gasps as her flank plops down to the ground, now officially too stunned to stand up straight. “I guess somepony around here is getting preferential treatment. This room is even bigger than the Doctor's!”

“Okay, this is the last time I'm going to be surprised how much the TARDIS can make itself bigger on the inside,” Feather Wind decides. “Maybe this room really does stretch on into infinity. At this point, I'm not wiping anything off the table anymore.”

“Well . . . this room could certainly use a mare's touch when it comes to decorations and furniture,” Stern Wing criticizes. “But then again, I know what those projection nodes can do. That said,” she looks at Doctor Kelly, “I assume that means anything created in here can't actually leave this room?”

“Unless projection nodes exist out there as well, then you are right,” Doctor Kelly answers. “That or one of us carries a portable projection node outside of this room, and it has to be a real one.”

Doctor Kelly smiles when she beholds all of this. In satisfaction, she turns to the others as she says, “This is perfect because this means that this room can serve other purposes besides being my own personal living space. It can also serve as a hospital, clinic, therapist room, gym, and training room for all sorts of scenarios that we can imagine. Plus, since it is so big, we can compartmentalize each section for various purposes without disturbing our neighbors.”

“You really think it is safe for us to wander about a potentially infinite size room?” Stern Wing asks cautiously.

“That's just its potential,” Doctor Kelly says with a glance around the room. “How we choose to utilize it is the more important thing. What it does and how it looks depends upon the functionality we assign to it.” She looks back at Stern Wing. “So we'd only be lost in here if we actually want to be lost.”

“Hey, everypony . . . what's that?” Derpy asks as she curiously tilts her head while staring in a certain direction. When the others attempt to follow her gaze (with the obvious exception of Vision), they eventually spot one detail about this environment that is different from the rest. Due to the distance, it didn't stand out before, but after they spot it, they primarily notice it because every other direction is so uniform. The contrast helps it to stand out despite the distance.

“Let's find out,” Feather Wind suggests as he begins to approach it. The others shortly follow after him. Once again, Derpy lingers behind to guide Vision along by gently applying a gray wing across Vision's back.

“Wow! It kind of does feel like we're really going on an adventure!” Derpy cheers at first then mopes as she adds, “I just wish the Doctor could join us too.”

“Wait a second! Hold on. Everypony stop!” Doctor Kelly instructs. When they do, they look at her (if able). Once she has their attention, she says, “There might be a smarter way to hoofle this. Let me try something by interfacing with the computer here. Give me a moment.”

Doctor Kelly closes her eyes. Magic glows from her horn. This time it is a golden/brown color. Moments later, the mysterious objects ahead of them seems to come to them.

“What happened?” Derpy asks with a confused blink.

“It seems it worked,” Doctor Kelly says in satisfaction. “I can interface with a computer generating this environment. Using that, I simply collapsed the distance between us and . . . Well. Lookie what we have here?”

“Spherical mirror balls?” Feather observes questioningly.

“Not just that. These are droids,” Doctor Kelly explains. “In other words, artificial life forms. They are sentient tools that are designed for various purposes. I have things like that back at the hospital I work at, except they are actually holograms of droids. That's why I didn't bring them with me here. Besides, they belong to the hospital anyway.”

Doctor Kelly approaches and examines the pair of silvery spheres.

“But I get the feeling that these two are real, despite being presented to us in a holographic projection room,” Doctor Kelly declares. “Hold on. Let me examine the specs of these two.”

Doctor Kelly's horn glows golden/brown again. A gem of the same color glowed on her lab coat at the same time. A faint magical line can also be seen tracing up from the gem to as close as it can to her horn as her coat can permit. During this time, a holographic window opens up in front of her. Doctor Kelly reads it fast. Moments later, she conjures a floating spherical ball made of force but with a wedge cut out of it where she can sit. She sits down upon it. When she does, it floats her about fourteen feet above the others. More holographic windows spread three-hundred and sixty degrees all around her as well as above and below her. Altogether, she now looks like she's in an invisible column that is only visible because of the many holographic windows that now surround her. Her eyes are quickly darting around her to the various other windows. Sometimes she spins about in her spherical chair to accommodate her to look in those various directions.

“Now there is something you don't see every day,” Stern Wing says with a confused blink.

“What are you talking about? It 'looks' the same to me,” comes Vision's rather rare snarky reply.

“Oh ha-ha,” snips Stern Wing back to Vision.

“Interesting,” says Doctor Kelly as she leans back in her seat while collecting her forehooves just below the edge of her muzzle. The lollipop she is still sucking on switches sides in her mouth during this time. “It seems I was a bit mistaken. These two droids are not only real, but they are, in fact, more advanced models than I have ever worked with before.”

Doctor Kelly's right eye looks down at the pair of droids off the right rim of her eye. When she does that, the pair of silvery spheres float off the pedestals that they were originally on. When that happens, the pedestals fade away and therefore confirm that at least the pedestals themselves were holographic. The pair of droids float up to the level Doctor Kelly is on then spiral around her. Both of them split apart which reveals what sort of looks like a kind of camera in the center, except it is more like a projection node. They create various other tools on top of that camera-looking thing. Doctor Kelly examines this for a few seconds then goes back to reading the myriad holographic windows spread around her.

“Isn't that dizzying?” Feather Wind asks up to Doctor Kelly.

“Hmm?” Doctor Kelly looks down at Feather Wind. “What do you mean?”

“All of those holographic windows around you with that dizzying amount of information,” Feather replies. “Doesn't it overwhelm you?”

“Oh no,” Doctor Kelly assures as she goes back to her eyes darting among various windows. “This doesn't overwhelm me at all because this is what the inside of my own mind looks like all the time.”

“Well, I am getting dizzy just looking at all that,” declares Derpy as her eyes and head swirl. “Whoa! I'm soooooo dizzy!”

“Then you should sit down before you fall again,” Stern Wing advises cautiously.

“Don't mind if I do,” Derpy agrees as she proceeds to do so.

When she sits down, Feather Wind's look transfers from Derpy to up to Doctor Kelly. Feeling curious, his horn glows silver as he lightly envelops his body with a silvery aura while also lightening his own body weight simultaneously. As a result, he requires very little magical strength to float himself up to near Doctor Kelly. From there, he tries to read what he can on some of the various holographic windows surrounding Doctor Kelly, but from his perspective, the ones closest to him appear backwards. From there, he just floats there shyly. He does not want to float within her invisible column until she invites him first.

“Can you actually read any of this?” Doctor Kelly asks with curious skepticism as her eyes focus on the small, floating sky-blue mage.

“It's hard to tell from my perspective,” Feather Wind notes which is as close as he's come to asking permission to enter her column so far.

Lucky for him, it works in this case.

“Then come inside and take a look,” Doctor Kelly invites.

“As you wish,” Feather Wind complies as he floats within the spinning column of holographic windows.

“Want me to create you a seat?” Doctor Kelly offers.

“No thanks. I can create my own,” Feather Wind replies as he creates a small real cloud right next to Doctor Kelly by condensing the moisture in the air to one spot. Once that is done, he gently floats down to rest on top of it. On the cloud, he sits on his flank while his forehooves rest straight between his hind hooves. From there, Feather Wind attempts to read the information on some of the window screens.

“I thought only pegasi could sit and walk on clouds,” Doctor Kelly notes curiously. “That's how it is with my kind if the clouds are real. I read it was that way back in our original home world too.”

“That's usually true, but I'm a special exception,” Feather Wind says while he continues trying to read some of the information displayed off the various holographic windows. “I share a unusually intense connection with the wind and sky. As a result, not only can I sit and lay on top of them, but I can create and/or dissipate them as well as I just demonstrated.”

“I see.” Doctor Kelly looks forward while a new holographic window just opens up. Unlike the others, this one floats a bit closer. On it, it displays only one image, and that is a picture of a white feather being gently blown by a magical breeze, as evidenced by the magical sparkles that linger within the wind.

“So this is your cutie mark,” Doctor Kelly notes with interest. “This image not only represents your magical talent, but essentially also symbolically represents who you are as an individual pony.”

“This is so,” Feather Wind agrees with a soft voice. He nods to the window displaying the image of his cutie mark as he adds, “I even changed my name the day I discovered my mark. Before that, I used to be known as Quill Scroll of the esteemed Scroll family.”

“Wow.” Doctor Kelly props her head up on a hoof. The elbow of which now rests on a row of hemispheres, the flat end facing up to make a makeshift armrest. She does this as she continues to regard her elevated companion with interest. She even says, “You're going to make a very interesting companion.”

Feather Wind grins a little as he continues scanning among the various images. He says, “Funny. The Doctor said the same thing. Almost word for word.”

“Anyway,” Doctor Kelly's face continues to face toward Feather Wind but her eyes shift to her left to return her attention to the window displaying his cutie mark as she asks, “can you actually read any of these?”

“Somewhat,” Feather Wind answers. “But I sense there is more than meets the eye here. I'm feeling very distinct magical patterns from these windows. It's like there is a second layer to the messages here. A message that is buried within the magical pattern itself.” He regards Doctor Kelly curiously as he asks, “Is this so? Did the Magi create a language out of the energy patterns of magic itself?”

“Honestly, yes, but I'm very surprised that an outsider, like you, has even noticed that at all,” Doctor Kelly says with a very impressed tone. Her eyes shift back to him to stare at him beyond the upper rim of her own holographic glasses. “You are a very impressive specimen, Feather Wind. I look forward to diagnosing you further.”

“Uh . . . thank you?” Feather Wind asks while giving her a mildly disturbed look. He is pushed further from his comfort level by the look of an excited wicked gleam in her eyes.

“Very impressive indeed,” Doctor Kelly reiterates. “And don't worry. It won't hurt.”

“You wanted to study the rest of us too, didn't you?” Feather Wind reminds in an effort to deflect the subject off of him exclusively.

“But of course,” Doctor Kelly agrees. “I want a detailed physical and psychological profile of you all so that I can render better assistance later.”

“Hey, um, Doctor Kelly, I have a question for you,” Stern Wing calls up to the still floating doctor between the spiral of holographic windows.

“Yes?” Doctor Kelly responds down to Stern Wing.

Once Stern Wing notes that she has the floating doctor's attention, Stern Wing uses a wing to gesture at their surroundings as she says, “This is how this room looks like by default when we all came in here. It seems to me you already started influencing this, but so far the only changes you made were to shorten the distance between us and those floating droids then create that seat and all of those windows. My question for you is this.” Stern Wing focuses on the doctor. “Do you plan on creating something more elaborate here than all of this plain white?”

“Does this disturb you?” Doctor Kelly checks with Stern Wing.

“Only a little,” Stern Wing answers. “To me, this is a blank canvas. It's like unfulfilled potential.” She tilts her head. “And yet, the hospital we were delivered to was kind of like this as well. Just this white and very sparsely decorated waiting room. I find it strange that a society that can create any image they want tends to settle for simple patterns like this.”

Doctor Kelly's eyes dart about as she says, “The exact decor of each place in my world tends to be whatever purpose that place is designed for. If it is a park, you'll tend to see lots of green grass, plenty of flowers, and open skies. Individual homes tend to be highly distinctive. It might not even appear to be a traditional home at all. For some, it might be just a glowing sleeping bag hovering a foot off the ground, and up above is what looks like an open, starry night sky.” She looks back at Stern Wing. “By default, however, most places in my world tend to start like this. Just this white, blank, and empty room waiting to be customized however each individual pony wishes. Because that is the default, many of my kind got used to it, especially in public places.” Her eyes dart about again. “I actually prefer this aesthetic in my personal home beyond specific furniture and decorations I added. To me, a white room is calming. It's easier for me to concentrate in such environments.”

“I can understand that,” Feather Wind partially agrees. “For me, I tend to prefer a dark room when I concentrate on my studies which I keep lit with a soft candlelight. It helps me to avoid distractions. However, I have also practiced concentrating on my studies, or my spells, during busy and noisy environments on purpose for training reasons. That is so irritating to me, but because of it, it helped to strengthen my concentration. That's actually standard practice for students of a certain year who train in my father's prestigious magic academy.”

“Yeah,” Derpy says with a smile. “I remember when I trotted into your room during one of your studies. You did do it in a dark room even though you could have used a light switch in there.”

“To each, their own,” Feather says down to Derpy.

“I think we should all leave and let our new friend settle in,” Stern Wing decides.

“Wait! Weren't we just giving her a tour of the TARDIS?” Derpy reminds as she looks back up at Stern Wing with one eye.

“Something tells me her focus is on other priorities at the moment,” Stern Wing observes. “If she wishes, we can conclude the tour later.” She looks back at the exit. “For that matter, maybe I should patrol the TARDIS again. See what else might have changed.”

“Um . . . okay,” Derpy says with uncertainty as she stands back up. “That okay with you, Doc?”

Doctor Kelly does not answer. She is too distracted reading the various windows that spiral around her.

“Believe it or not, that's your answer,” Vision informs. “I think Stern Wing has the right of it. We should go.”

“Will you please stop sounding so mature all the time?” Derpy lightly, but also playfully and proudly, complains to Vision. “You're a foal. You should act your age once in a while by doing . . . well . . . I don't know. Something silly. Be a silly filly.”

“One of these days, I'll likely surprise you,” Vision predicts. “In the meantime.” She gestures back to where they came from.

“Let's go,” Stern Wing decides then calls up to her stallion friend, “You okay up there?”

“I'll probably join you shortly,” Feather tells Stern. “If you're out on patrol and get lost in the TARDIS because something else did indeed change, I'll send a wind message to you in order to help pinpoint your location.”

“Sounds good,” Stern Wing agrees. Then, with a gesture with both of her wings, she gestures towards the exit and then begins trotting in that direction. Vision and Derpy soon follow.