Vortexes are Magic

by JeckParadox

Stars Part 1

Luna looked up at the stars, seeing the strands of light that emanated from the Crystal Empire, she frowned at the mere mention of the name. But she couldn't say that she didn't enjoy the simple tainted happiness that emanated from the light. She shook her head. The mysterious Empire itself was not to blame, but rather, it's one-time ruler. She shuddered, and trotted away from the glass.

She often patrolled the halls of Canterlot's throne room by night. It was always interesting for her to see the stain-glass windows by starlight. She stopped by the newest one, the image of Spike holding the Crystal Heart. She let herself lie on the ground and sighed. She had stayed up the previous day, instead of going to sleep at daybreak as per usual. She passed one stain glass window after another, each dedicated to an act of heroism done in their era, heroes would arise to defend Equestria in the hopes their heroism would earn them a window that would be viewed by ponies and their monarchs for generations. At least, that's how it was before she was sent away.

She stopped by the image of Nightmare Moon being blasted by the six elements. She really shouldn't have been that rude to Twilight this morning, but she was tired, and had apologized later. It was a beautiful work of art, it pictured Nightmare Moon trapped in a purple sphere, writhing in pain, as the six elements' purple beams covered her sphere. It had not happened that way at all though, what with the rainbows making a double helix, but she appreciated the artist's creative changes. The same artist had come to make a window of Spike bathing in the light of that horrid crystal heart.

She shook her head, the light made so many of the ponies so happy. But as she turned behind her the rims of metal supporting the window made a much more interesting grid of shadows on the ground, the tints in the glass making interesting shaded designs among the shadow's lines.

Today was a cause for celebration, apparently Sombra had been killed again, like that'll last, the Crystal Ponies had returned, and their light of happiness stroked the heavens. But when she looked down at the streets of Canterlot still up in their celebration she felt strangely depressed by the entire turn of events. Her thoughts began to turn back to simpler times, before she had any great responsibility or guilt, when she had only a few close friends and family, she made her way to her bed and lied down on it, and dreamed of the past.

"Doctor, grab the bugle!" Pinkie yelled from where she was pinned down by the gigantic paw.

"I can't play the bugle!"

"You don't have to, just throw it to me!" The Doctor stretched out his hoof and stuck it into the brass loop of the instrument and passed it upward the the pink mare, who was actually pinned down against the wall. She managed to catch it in her teeth and gave a gigantic blow on it, sending a single loud note directly at the beast's ear. The Ursa Major lifted up it's other paw and brought it to his ear, growling at the pink mare and pushing her even harder against the rock, but without her holding the Doctor down he managed to fly up to the ledge where his Sonic Screwdriver had been knocked.

He grabbed it in his mouth and flew up to the Ursa's face. He lit up the screwdriver and waved it to the left, a high pitched buzzing coming from it, and the Ursa's pupils shrunk and he looked at the screwdriver in a trance. "Let her go! And gently!" The gigantic celestia bear did exactly that, letting down the pink pony as gently as it possibly could. "Now then, let's have a look at that paw." The Ursa Major moved it's foot near the Doctor and he looked at the smoking red star that had been caught in it's foot. "Ooh, a comet, that's a nasty kind of foot infection, moving so fast it burns yet so cold it hurts... let's get that out of there." He changed the frequency on the screwdriver and grimaced as the comet began boring it's way out of the Ursa's foot. It popped out after only a few seconds though, and the Doctor caught it in two hooves. "Come on Pinkie, let's get out of here before the trance wears off."

"What about the Major?"

"It'll be fine, a little thing like a splinter-sized hole in her foot won't bother her for long, the comet hurt her a lot more, she'll be fine and-" The Doctor looked down at his Screwdriver, somehow deciphering the pattern of lights. "-She's pregnant! A beautiful baby boy in a few decades."

Pinkie and the Doctor walked from the gigantic cave and made their way to the Tardis, the people of Hoofington wouldn't have to worry about Ursa's coming out of the woods for quite a while. The Doctor looked at the 'comet' and smiled. "Hey Pinkie, want to release this from space?"

Pinkie gasped. "Would I!?" She grabbed it from his hoof and started jumping up and down in the Tardis's entrance. "Hurry hurry! And then we can go back in time and land on the ground and watch us releasing the shooting star!"

"I don't think we'd be able to see it from that far off Pinkie."

"Then we should just release it a little closer to the atmosphere!"

"heh, fine but if it hits anyone on the head they're suing you."

The Doctor swung open the doors and Pinkie stretched her neck out over the blue and green world below. With a loud 'ptew!' she spit the comet out of her mouth and it streaked down toward the world, the gravity catching it and flinging it around the other side of the planet. Pinkie watched as it streaked, it's tail of light extending behind it. "Beautiful! Now let's go see it from the ground!" Pinkie said in glee, pronking back and forth in the Tardis's doorway.

"Uh... Pinkie..." The Doctor said slowly. Looking over the black emptiness of space above them. "There... are no stars." He let out a single loud laugh. His eyes shrinking. "Where are they?"

Pinkie investigated the sky. "What age are we in right now?" She asked.

"Does it matter?! The stars will all go out eventually, in any universe, but not until trillion upon trillion upon so many trillions of years! Stars reproduce and grow and split and die and give birth to new stars, and until all the energy of the universe is spent there will always be more stars!" He looked from side to side, seeing only the sun, the moon, and the comet they released. "There is something very, very wrong."

"What age Doctor?"

"Huh? Um..." He went back to the monitor, "a few millenia back, so we wouldn't hit any of the populated cities of your time, or stop any from forming. We're about... more than thirty thousand years back by your calender."

"Well that explains it." Pinkie Pie smiled at the Doctor. "Stars weren't invented until around that time anyway."

"But... that... what.... huh?" The Doctor gave her a crazy almost smirk. "N-not... invented?"

"Nope!"

"Uh... wh-who invented them, do you think?"

"Um... Luna, or maybe that one wizardy guy that Twilight dressed as."

"This is insane! How can- ugh..." The Doctor raised an eyebrow and pulled something out of his vest pocket. "Oh, yeah, almost forgot I had this, it's for you." The Doctor gave her the piece of paper.

Pinkie read it slowly. "Um, the message keeps changing."

"What does it say?"

"Um... return home, oh yeah!"

"What?"

"I left a psychic note for myself! To go home after eight weeks so I can make it for the early-surprise birthday party for myself that Gummi is planning! And because I'm eight weeks older than normal I'll still be celebrating my birthday at the right time for my body, then I just need to come back eight weeks later next year and everything will even out! I guess it was reflected on your psychic paper. I can do that kind of thing!" A sudden realization came to Pinkie. "I don't know your birthday!"

"Oh, it doesn't matter, I don't even know for sure... I'm more interested in this whole star thing, what kind of creature has the power to make stars appear from nothing!?"

"Um..." Pinkie shifted her gaze to the note and back to the Doctor. "Can we figure it out after my birthday?"

The Doctor regarded her for a moment, and smiled. "Sure Pinkie."

The Doctor stayed in a nearby cloud, which he had parked the Tardis on, and watched on the festivities below. They had stayed in the 'present' for three days before the party was thrown for Pinkie's birthday, and the Doctor had even gone down and danced with her for a while, before Twilight recognized him and tried to tie him up, Pinkie managed to convince Twilight to rejoin the party after she helped the Doctor get away. Applejack even got in Twilight's way to help him escape, perhaps he'd be excepted among the ponies yet.

Then something occurred to him. He dived down toward the Party, and slid under a buffet table without being noticed, he then made his way stealthily to the party mare herself. "Pinkie!"

"Yeah Doctor?" She said, spinning around in the dress Rarity gave her and wiping some frosting off her mouth.

"Um, when you met Luna, did she recognize you?"

"No... not the first time, why?"

"Then that means that when I fall in love with Luna, or she falls in love with me, in the future you know, or the past... whatever, but that means that you weren't there!"

"What?! But you've taken me on every adventure for a while now, right?"

"Yes, the whole time I've been in this universe I was hanging around with you."

"So does that mean that I'm not traveling with you in the future?"

"...Maybe... but don't let it change your mood, I was just curious."

"There you are again, the Princess would like a word with you!" Twilight's horn glowed as the unicorn charged at the Doctor.

"Gotta go! I'll come get you tomorrow!"

"I'll save you some cake!" Pinkie shouted to him as he flew into the sky, dodging bolts of pink-purple magic.

"Pinkie, where are you? Are you home?" The Doctor asked, tapping on the window a few times. A small pegasus foal came to the window and babbled something out. "are you absolutely sure?" The foal babbled something else out and giggled. "I am not a hedgehog!... but thanks for the info anyway, see you your Great Flour-ry Excellency." Pound Cake let out a babble of happiness someone used his 'real' name.

The Doctor fluttered back up to the Tardis and frowned. "Well, it's her choice, and she could always just contact me with the paper." The Doctor frowned though. "But I've never heard of this 'Crystal Empire' before, I think I would've heard about it from her or any of the ponies from Hearth's warming." He looked around at the empty sky. "And I'm talking to myself." He frowned though. It was her birthday, and she deserved her own time off, but it must have been important enough that she would leave with only a note on the fridge that Pound Cake managed to reproduce the lettering of.

He looked to the sky and felt a determination rise up in his chest. "The stars take precedence, Pinkie will come back on her own time, and if not, she'll find her own fun." With that the Doctor ran up to the module. "Starswirl, Luna, and the first stars..." He set the monitor to look for a good date and place, and he went with the first on the list. "Well, Unicornia here I come!"

An Earth Pony farmer sighed and put down his newspaper. All it ever talked about was the preaching of politicians about Utopia, or bagging of other politician's version of Utopia. He sighed and kicked a dead tomato plant. Utopia indeed, the Pegasi in his area plotted a revolt, then went into hiding the first sign anypony outside of the village came to deal with it. But a shadow, no two shadows, streaked the ground, and they were shrinking. He lifted his hoof above his eyes and squinted into the bright summer high-noon sky, two Pegasi were heading for his farm, "well it's about time!" He shouted upward at the two of them, who were banking to land near his position. He was about to go off complaining, but as he regarded the two ponies before him he was at a loss for words.

The two of them were taller than any pony he had ever seen. And besides their already much larger and more fully grown wings, they had on their heads unicorn horns, ones that were almost three times longer the average one as well. But the thing that drew him to them was their billowing ethereal manes and their lithe but incredibly strong bodies. He felt as if he should bow, but millenia of disdaining monarchies and popular religion for centuries leaves a stubbornness in a pony's bones.

But that wasn't to say he wasn't very respectful. "Um... h-hello." One of the majestic creatures turned to him, and he felt his heart rate go up slightly. The deep blue eyes of the pony before him stared into his soul, and left him wanting to make what they saw something they would be proud of.

"Hello, noble Earth Pony, I beseech your hospitality, my wife is in pain, and we desperately need help from civilized ponies, and shelter."

The Earth Pony farmer turned to the other majestic one, and indeed, she had pain laced in her features, but it didn't take away any of her majesty. He also noted her extended belly and his eyes widened in understanding and recognition. "Of course, the Tomahto family was never one to turn away ponies in need, and don't worry for your wife, is she in labor at this moment? My wife has had two colts and a filly without trouble, so she'll be able to take care of you." He smiled at the two giants, and led them back to his home.

"Cherry Red? We have guests." Cherry regarded the two of them, but she noticed the pain in the mare's face and the extension of her belly immediately.

"Oxheart, Plum, come in here and put the sofas together for our guests!"

The two fathers stood outside, and Tomato Paste smiled as the majestic being before him paced back and forth nervously, it had been almost six hours, and Tomato began eyeing the cigars he meant to give to his guest upon any happy news. "Do you think she needs my help?" Orbitus, as Tomato found his name was, asked for the hundredth time.

"Listen, my wife and her aunt are almost professionals by now, your wife is in the best hooves right now, besides, what could you do?"

"Don't underestimate me!" He growled, but the rage dissipated instantly. Orbitus had pristine white fur, and had a mane that was a deep everlasting daytime sky. His wife on the other hand, had a dark blue coat, just as flawless, but not 'pristine', just as Orbitus was the day, Umbra was the night. Her mane was a perpetual violet sunset. She screamed out in agony again. "Are you sure I shouldn't be in there?" He asked again.

"I'm sure, it'll hurt her, but she can take it, my wife took it, heck, every mother in the world could take it, why do you think your wife can't?"

"I-I don't know, it's just..." He winced and paced a bit more as she screamed again. But the screams became more sparse and were mixed between with gasps and more yells. His eyes became pinpricks, and Tomato had to tackle the Alicorn in order to snap him out of it. "Umbra..." He whimpered, and he sat at the door for a few seconds before getting up and pacing again. There was a final scream, and then it was just sobs mixed with gasps. A shooting star crossed the sky unnoticed by the majestic creature. Orbitus fidgeted at the step before Cherry opened the door, her hooves covered in blood, Orbitus almost collapsed, if not for the proud smile on Cherry's face.

"She did it fine, her first birth I'm betting?"

"Uh... yes, is the um... is she, and..."

Cherry smiled. "She'll be fine, and you have a beautiful baby girl, a unicorn, or maybe a pegasus, but she has both traits."

"Actually... we have all three, we're Earth Ponies, Pegasi, and Unicorns, all mixed together with something else." He smiled with relief. "A girl? Can I see her?"

"Hold your horses sir, there's a procedure we must follow with this, first of all, the first face she sees needs to be her mother's, the first scent too, so no barging in yet, but soon enough, and second, my husband needs to give you something."

Orbitus turned around to Tomato, who held up to him a cigar and was holding a match in his other hoof. "Cigar?"

Orbitus and Tomato were smoking, and Orbitus felt extremely relieved. He could hear the crying of his daughter, and knew that everything would be fine. As he and the Earth Pony sat in silence he observed the sky. "The sun... it's been moving much slower than normal... hasn't it?"

"Yep, the unicorns have been taking their sweet time with it since the factions started appearing, and now the Pegasi are overworked to water everything more, which is causing problems in the whole system, and without that water, look at this; a field of dead crops."

"... I'm... we're here to change that." Orbitus said with finality. "Me and Umbra, we'll change that." He looked down at the suspicious farmer and smiled. "We owe you a great debt, you know."

"Nah, it wasn't nothing, but there's no need to make up for anything, it's part of our family's code you know, the Tomahto family hospitality. Centuries old, and will last millenia and more."

"I insist... if only a thank you for your hospitality." He launched from the ground and took to the sky with the sound of thunder. Tomato Paste watched the sky in uncertainty, but soon he let a broad grin go over his face as he saw a huge amount of clouds spill over the horizon. "My gift to you Tomato family!" And rain sprinkled over the entire land.

"What should we name her?" Umbra said softly. Nuzzling against their pristine white-coated foal. Orbitus drew himself closer, and brought some of her dull pink mane up with his horn.

"She's beautiful, she takes after me quite a bit... but she has your eyes, your mane, heh, even your wings." he considered the tiny sleeping foal. "But... I think she'll be the future master of the Sun." He bit the inside of his lip. "Our beautiful Celestia."

Umbra smiled. "Then the next one will be Luna if it's a girl, and Eclipse if it's a boy, alright?"

"Alright... just look at us, she'll probably raise the moon all by herself one day, just to spite me and her future sibling, won't you Celestia?"

"Well, this is Unicornia, eh?" He smiled at the big city in the mountains. There were castles lining the stone of the mountain, and from them stretched out lawns and towns and other works of architecture. "Maybe I underestimated the technology of this place." The Doctor commented. He pointed his screwdriver at the Tardis and smiled as it vibrated out of existence. "A second out of sync, and now for-" He was stopped by the sun noticeably shifting forward about a foot, well it was probably the width of the Earth, but from where he stood it looked like the sun had moved only a foot, but it was still something impossible.

Until he remembered where he was.

"So, the unicorns are having trouble controlling it." The Doctor walked down the paths, noticing the many Pegasi in the sky, and the occasional Earth Pony, but the city was mostly made up of Unicorns. The Doctor came to a large playhouse, and laughed out loud when he saw a statue of the six founders, including a rendition of himself, in front of it, holding a big comical stone heart with wireframe flames around it.

Everywhere there were banners for one leader or another, vying for some elected position, apparently Equestria had made it over ten thousand years as a successful democratic republic. He noted that all of the banners entitled different kinds of 'Utopia'. Egalitarists, Communists, Socialists, and a few things he could assume the meanings of, such as Aerialist, Terraneanist, Edenist, and Enchantedist party leaders were all in a big campaign against everyone else, all in the hope of creating a perfect government. And from the amount of protests and radicals in the streets, he could see it wouldn't be long until one form of 'paradise' was forcibly put into action. Through the election or revolution, who knew?

A Pegasus flew up to him and forced him to take a flyer, "Vote Swift! Vote Smart! Brother," and the Pegasus was off. The Doctor regarded it for a while and frowned. He was interested in stars, not revolution. But seeing as he was here, he'd be caught up in it eventually. He needed to find Luna, or that... Starswirl guy, if he was around, but it was unlikely, he was Clover's father, and it was pretty likely he couldn't live 20,000 years or so.

But what did he know? Magical ponies.

The Doctor stopped by a town directory, and he quickly found a college of the magical arts, one claimed to be the greatest amalgamation of magicians in the entirety of Equestria. It was called the Five Point Star College for Gifted Unicorns. The Doctor walked up to the secretary's desk and whipped out his psychic paper. "Hello, I'm on official business to see Starswirl, is he in?"

"Um-" The confused unicorn mare stared at the paper. "y-yes sir, but what is the representative of Climatic Magics have to do with he Arch Mage?"

"I can't tell you, I have to speak with Starswirl directly." The Doctor sighed, and gave his most intimidating glare. "What's your name?"

"Um, he's in his tower," The unicorn pulled out a glowing bead and levitated it into the air. "Just follow the bead."

"Thank you." The Doctor walked on in a huff. Following the glowing bead. He frowned as he entered a labyrinth of staircases and halls, unmarked doors, and students following beads. He went this way for a half hour before coming to a tower's spiral staircase, and he noticed the bead moving straight up. He decided to just fly up the center of the staircase, bypassing several college students walking down.

He fluttered over to the door and opened it up with his mouth. He ducked as a fireball flew over his head. "Oh, I'm sorry, but all the staff know not to barge in during amniomorphic fireball hour." Said a rough voice from within the room, the Doctor slowly raised his head and looked over the class, seven unicorn students were all making fireballs of different colors in a reflective bowl of magic in the same shade. "Now then, who thought it was a good idea to interrupt my classes?"

"Um, well, me. It kind of involves your daughter, Clover?" The Doctor was then teleported to some other room, one that was very dark. He was also surrounded by floating cutlery.

"How do you know that?" Starswirl squinted his eyes. "Who do you know she was my daughter?"

"Sh-she told me. Um, could you put down the many-" a knife came to his throat.

"Impossible, she died so many millenia ago..." he looked up at him. "Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor, has she told you about me?"

"The Doctor? What kind of title is that?" Every time the wizard moved his hat and cloak made twinkling bell noises. "Who are you, your name sir, how could you possibly know my daughter? Did she leave some sort of message for you?"

"I'm Private Pansy!" The Doctor shouted. And the wizard stopped, every piece of cutlery falling to the ground.

"You- how? That was over twenty thousand years ago, she said you just went off and disappeared, and whenever I asked about you she just smiled and went silent..." a broad smile appeared over the wrinkled lime green face of the wizard. He brought the Doctor into a hug. "It's been so long since someone mentioned my daughter in any way beside the mare who founded this country." He then became very dark and angry. "And then only a few short millenia later they're making a mockery of it! She should be remembered as the greatest unicorn who ever lived, yet now they just throw a play where she's bullied by an over-dramatic princess, who I knew as well, and that's the only mention... a name in the history books, a bullied character in a play..." He turned to the Doctor. "You know her, don't you?"

"She's smart, and creative, we made a three player tic-tac-toe together, she admired you, and when Platinum got carried away she'd tell her. She was a powerful mage, who wouldn't let her emotions run wild even when she had a right to." The Doctor dodged another hug. "But... now that you know who I am-"

"No I don't, you're Private Pansy, sure, but... how could you live this long? And why haven't you come to me before?"

"I'm a time traveler, if that explains anything."

"Ha! I've time traveled before, it's painful, and hard and useless, you just end up creating the situation when you need to time travel, and then it's gone forever..."

"Not the way I do it, it's not magical... well not exactly, my people, not Pegasi you can tell, but-"

"Something else entirely, but your appearance isn't a disguise..."

"-my species, we call ourselves Time Lords, invented, or grown, or maybe just discovered time machines that we call Tardises. We just ride inside them and it takes us when and where we want to go in seconds."

"Then... I could see my daughter again?"

"... Starswirl, I came to talk to you about something else, actually."

"What would you have to talk about beside my daughter?"

"The future of the world, or rather, the sky." The Doctor eyed the designs on his cloak. "Do you know what stars are Starswirl?"

"of course I do, they are two-dimensional shapes, with several points that stick outward."

The Doctor sighed.

"They are often used to represent magic in textbooks, my parents were both magical theorists, so Starswirl is actually a magical/scientific technique."

"Well, 'stars' mean something else where I come from. But... I'm trying to figure out the right-" a flash encompassed them as they teleported again. This time on a balcony. "What is that?" Starswirl asked, pointing to a bright light that flashed across the sky.

"A-a comet..." he frowned. "some call them... shooting stars."

"I haven't seen anything like that in my life." Starswirl said. "Like a single fragment of a firework."

"So you don't know anything?"

"I know quite a bit, what does that light have to do with stars? Why is it called 'shooting'?"

The Doctor sighed and started toward the edge of the balcony. "Sorry friend, can't tell you, might damage time."

"Time can be damaged?!"

"Heh, Starswirl, don't die just yet, I think I'll be having some great conversations with you in the future."

"Come back here Doctor!"

The Doctor took off, dodging two attempts to teleport him, and several capture spells of various kinds, but for some reason he could tell the wizard wasn't set on capturing him seriously. And sure enough, the wizard had a smirk on his face as the Doctor flew back to where the Tardis was hidden, a second out of sync.

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PS. "Starswirl the Bearded, father of the amniomorphic spell", want to know what 'amniomorphic' means? It means 'bowl forming', so does this make Starswirl a hairy potter?

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Comments

[Pax]

Hmmm. Well appealingly the doctor went back to a time when stars never existed, and I bet that in this section of the story line, is when we find out why Celestia hates The Doctor.

[BronyGamer]

Iseewhatyoudidthere.png

[SP00KY NINJA-PON3]

Yes, yes it does.

ANDIAMO!!!