The first in a series of Dr, Whooves Fics written by DJ Leftwing and Twilight Sparkle.
The Doctor finds himself unintentionally transported to an alternate dimension, in which everyone is a pony, including himself. While still adjusting to his new body, The Doctor must concern himself with the threat to the peo...ponies in this world that he has brought with him. After all, silence must still fall.
As a warning, this story does include spoilers about the Doctor Who universe, so if you haven't watched the show, all I have to say is... I warned you.
This is the first of a series of stories that I'm writing with my friend, Twilight Sparkle.
I would also like to thank Dr. Colgate and Theirum for being my pre/proof-readers.
After faking his own death on the shore of Lake Silencio, The Doctor returned to the catacombs of The Silence to replace the head of Dorium before setting out on the next segment of his journey through time. On discovery of The Doctor’s survival, Dorium asks for an explanation…and The Doctor provides.
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“The Teselecta. A Doctor in a Doctor-Suit. Time said I had to be on that beach, so I dressed for the occasion. Barely got singed in that boat.”
“So you're going to do this, let them all think you're dead?”
“It's the only way. Then they can all forget me. I got too big, Dorium, too noisy...time to step back into the shadows.”
“And Doctor Song? In prison all her days?”
“Her days, yes. Her nights... Well, that's between her and me, eh?”
“So many secrets, Doctor. I'll help you keep them, of course...”
“Well, you're not exactly going anywhere, are you?”
“But you're a fool nonetheless. It's all still waiting for you... the fields of Trenzalore, the fall of the Eleventh. And the question!”
“Goodbye, Dorium.”
“The first question! The question that must never be answered, hidden in plain sight. The question you've been running from all your life. Doctor who? Doctor who? Doc... tor... WHO?!!
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With a smirk on his face, The Doctor turned his back to the blue head of Dorium, and without another word, entered the TARDIS. He strode up the entrance ramp towards the console, where he absentmindedly started to flip various levers and switches, not caring what he was doing. Once satisfied with the configuration of the controls on that side, he ran to the other side of the column, where he proceeded to repeat the ritual. After turning a few more knobs, spinning a small sphere, and turning the crank on what looked like an eggbeater, The Doctor reached down and grabbed hold of a hammer, which he used to hit a flashing green light.
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“And away we go!” he shouted, throwing his arms above his head and releasing the tool, causing it to go flying behind him. He listened as a resounding crash indicated that it had broken something. Shrugging, he returned his focus to the panel in front of him, as the TARDIS came to life around him.
The central piston started to pulse with an eerie teal light as it began to move up and down in its glass cylinder, accompanied by the characteristic engine noise that The Doctor had come to love. The entire cabin lurched, as the blue ship jumped into the time vortex, speeding away towards its unknown destination. The TARDIS continued to rock violently, paying no heed to the lack of bumps or friction in space, as it attempted to dislodge as many items from the shelves around the room as it possibly could. Fortunately, The Doctor had secured all of his artifacts, and thus could focus on his own wellbeing. He constantly stumbled around the control room, desperately trying to grab ahold of some sort of solid object. At one point, he got a grip on an orange handle the jutted out from a side panel, but as soon as the time machine tilted the other way, the handle pulled out of the wall and released a small spinning top across the floor.
‘So that’s what that handle did,’ he thought as he stared at the orange piece of plastic in his hand, now completely useless. ‘I better find something else to hold.’
This task was easier thought than done, as it seems that the handle had some sort of grease on it, making his hands slick and unable to grasp anything in the room. On one attempt, he managed to flip the emergency brake lever, disabling it, and rendering the TARDIS silent, but was unable to maintain his grip and continued to stagger about. Eventually, after one particularly massive rock, The Doctor hit his head on one of the railings surrounding the central console, knocking him to the floor, where he rolled off the upper platform and to the deck below. The crazy movements slowly stopped, as the machine came to rest in its destination, just as The Doctor slipped into the black void of unconsciousness.
**********
“Thanks Rarity, this looks perfect.”
“Anytime dear, patching things up is what I do after all.”
“Okay, I won’t forget. Now, how much do I owe you?”
“Owe? Oh no, no, no! I can’t make you pay for just a little patchwork. It was honestly nothing.”
“But it just feels…wrong not to pay.”
“Think of it as a gift for all the times you’ve helped me in the past, okay. Now shoo, I have other work to do, and I’m sure you have a library to look after.”
“Okay, okay. I’m leaving. See you later Rarity!”
“Bye Twilight!”
The purple unicorn mare walked out of the Carousel Boutique and squinted as the bright summer sunlight hit her eyes. Blinking a few times, she focused, and once she got her bearings, trotted off towards the Ponyville market square to pick up some supplies for the library kitchen. Using her magic, she retrieved a list and quill from her saddlebags and held them up in front of her face. She quickly added a check to the box next to “Retrieve scarf from Rarity’s” and looked down at the next item, “Go shopping (see sub list a).” She placed her main list back in her bags and removed a smaller list from the side pocket. This list was specifically for shopping, listing everything that she needed to get by the end of the day; first item, carrots.
Carrot Top was having a very busy market day today, and you could easily tell by the line in front of her stall. It could be seen stretching all the way to Applejack’s stall…which was right next door. While the line may not have been some huge, long, winding monstrosity of a queue, it was still more than Carrot Top was used to having, and she was in a great mood because of it.
After a short wait, Twilight approached the counter and started to browse the carrots lying on the wooden surface. As was the norm, all of the produce was of exceptional quality, having been grown by an expert gardener, and the librarian had no trouble finding a few carrots that suited her needs. As she was paying for her food though, the happy orange mare running the stand decided to strike up a conversation, and being the friendly unicorn that she was, Twilight couldn’t refuse Carrot Top the attention.
Thanks to the delay at the carrot shop, and a few others in various other places, it was early evening by the time Twilight was able to return to the library, much later than she had originally intended. Fortunately, going shopping had been the last thing on her list for the day, and a late arrival home would not drastically affect her activities for the day. She trotted up to the front door, and without thinking, pushed on the wood. The door did not open, having been locked when she had left that morning.
“Oh, well that was silly of me,” she chuckled, quickly floating the key out of her bag and unlocking the door. As she placed the key back in her pockets, which required she look at where she was placing it, Twilight pushed through the door to the tree and ran smack dab into the side of a great big blue wooden box.
**********
It may have been mere minutes, or it may have been hours since The Doctor had been knocked out, he had absolutely no clue. The only things that he did know were that his head hurt and that the TARDIS had landed. He reached up and grabbed hold of the floor panel of the upper deck, using it to pull his body up and onto his feet. He looked around, and noted that everything appeared to be in its place, meaning that there was no immediate organizational crisis to deal with. Slowly, he worked his way back to the upper platform, where he turned one of the various monitors towards him so that he could see. After hacking at a keyboard for a minute, The Doctor found out that his entire computer system seemed to have been messed up, not even being able to tell him where in the universe he was.
‘Well, maybe that’s a good thing. If I don’t even know where I am, nobody else will either.’
The Doctor quickly made up his mind to stick with this location, wherever it may happen to be, and turned the main computer system off. He followed this by opening a small drawer, which contained a key. He grabbed the key and wandered off down one of the many corridors that branched off of the central hub, looking for the room with all of his file cabinets in it. Eventually, he found the room, and flipped the light switch on the wall to illuminate the storage room. There were thousands of file cabinets, all lined up next to each other in rows. Every single one of them looked exactly the same. Same shape, size, and color; and only he knew which of them his key fit in.
“Ah, this one right here,” he said to himself as he placed the key in the lock and turned, only to find that it was in fact not the correct cabinet.
“Oops, maybe not, it’s actually this one!”
…
“No, not that one either. Maybe this one?”
…
“Arrrgh! How many of these aren’t it?”
**********
“SPIIIIKEEEEE!!!!!!!!” Twilight yelled up the stairs where she knew the young dragon was probably still sorting books. No sooner had she finished her yell than her assistant came jogging around the corner from the room…and proceeded to fall down the stairs, landing face down in front of the irritated librarian.
“What is this blue box doing in the library?” she asked, pointing one hoof at the mysterious box that had found its way into the room at some point during the day.
“I don’t know, I didn’t hear anypony deliver it.”
“So you mean it’s not yours?”
“Nope.”
Intrigued, Twilight turned back to the wooden monstrosity and gave it a closer look. It was made of wood, that much was obvious, but it had been painted a nice blue color. At the top of each side, there was a white panel that read “Police Public Call Box.” On the top, Twilight could make out something that looked like a lantern. As she was observing it, Twilight had been slowly walking around the box, and she eventually got to the final side, which played host to what appeared to be a door.
“Should I open it Spike?”
“I don’t know, don’t you think it might be a prank?”
“I don’t see why anypony would go to this much trouble just for a prank.”
“Well, go ahead then. Open it.”
Tentatively, the librarian reached out a hoof and pressed it against panel. The door did not budge, for the exact same reason her door earlier did not open, it was locked. Unfortunately, this time Twilight did not have the key, and she was about to feel disappointed, until she remembered her unlocking spell. She stepped back from the door and started to focus energy into her horn, causing it to glow with a purple haze. The same haze could be seen surrounding the small keyhole on the side of the box, and after a few seconds of this, a small click was heard.
Again, Twilight pushed her hoof against the door, expecting it to open, but again, the door refused to budge, keeping the curious unicorn out.
“How odd, that spell has never failed me before,” she said aloud, and then amended to herself, “Of course, I’ve never actually used it before.”
“Hey Twi, maybe we should get some sleep, it’s getting sort of late. You can worry about the box in the morning.”
“Spike, I think you’re right. A clear head will definitely do me some good.”
With a course of action decided, the purple pony and her assistant trudged up the stairs to the bedroom, where she collapsed on the bed and fell asleep almost instantly, dreaming of a certain large wooden rectangular object, and what might be inside.
**********
“Aha! Found it!” The Doctor exclaimed as he finally found the drawer that the key belonged to. Opening the drawer, he reached in and grabbed the single item that was lying in the bottom, a compact disk inside a clear plastic case. With the object in his hand, he closed the cabinet and returned to the main control room.
Carefully, he removed the disk from its case and inserted it into the tray that he had originally gotten the key out of. Pushing it back in, he listened as the cd started to spin with a quiet whirrrr, waiting for the auto-run to pop up on his screen. After about a minute of waiting, he smacked himself on the head as he muttered something about Windows being stupid and disabling auto-run. He quickly opened the program manually, and without even reading the instructions, began typing a long, complicated code that went on for a couple hundred characters.
He pressed enter, and then slammed his face into the keyboard when a box popped up on the screen that said, “There is an error in the confirmation code, Please try again.”
Pressing enter again, The Doctor watched as the entire code was erased from the screen, and then he set to work typing it again.
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A little over an hour later, The Doctor finally succeeded in typing the code correctly, and he was finally able to progress to the next window. Clicking a dropdown box, he selected an entry that said “3 Years”, and then clicked next. On the final screen were two buttons, one said “Yes”, and the other “No.” Above the buttons was a single phrase, “Are you certain?”
With a sniff, The Doctor whispered a goodbye to the TARDIS, feeling a sadness begin to well up from the self-induced loss of his one true love. Before he could change his mind though, he clicked the button marked yes, and then stepped away from the console as a large message in red appeared on all of the screens in the room.
TARDIS DEACTIVATING: THREE YEARS
Without a sound, all of the controls, screens, railings, platforms, and various other objects in the room started to disappear, eventually leaving The Doctor standing inside of a barren wooden police box.
He leaned over and picked up the single object left on the floor, a small metal key, which he placed into his coat pocket before opening the door and stepping out into an unknown world.
**********
Twilight slowly opened her eyes and yawned, using the backs of her hooves to rub her eyes. She blinked a few times as she adjusted to the bright sunlight shining through her window and into the bedroom. She squinted through the glare to read the clock on the wall, but finding it impossible to read the clock in her current position, she begrudgingly crawled out of the bed. With the sun no longer rendering her blind, the purple mare once again looked at where the clock should have been, only to find she was looking at a blank wall. Confused, Twilight turned around and looked at the wall on the other side of her bed, and saw her clock there, right beside the window where it had always been. She spun around once again, and realized that the light that had woken her up was actually not sunlight, but light from the main library that was shining through her cracked bedroom door.
“I swear I turned all the lights off before I went to bed,” she said to nopony in particular. She cast a quick glance at Spike’s bed and found it to be empty, making it obvious that the young dragon had most likely woken up with an urge for a midnight snack.
“Oh for the love of Celestia, that dragon can never get enough to eat.” Twilight opened the door the rest of the way and began to trot downstairs, making sure that she didn’t make too much noise so that she could catch her assistant by surprise. At the bottom of the stairs, she found that the light was in fact coming from the kitchen, so she very carefully tip-hooved over to the doorway and prepared to teleport directly to the other side of the wall.
Picturing the kitchen in her head, Twilight began the preparations for a very short range teleport. It was a simple spell, and she pulled it off without a hitch, materializing in the kitchen without a sound. She looked at the table, where she was expecting Spike to be sitting with a plateful of gems, to find a tall creature with two legs and a bow tie, eating out of a bowl filled with nuts and greens. Twilight found it impossible to speak as she stared at the alien sitting in her kitchen, simply standing there watching it chew as it stared back at her in an uninterested manner. After a minute of awkward silence for the unicorn, she finally found her voice, stammering out a “H-h-hello.”
The alien put down the pecan that he was holding in his strange five limbed appendage, and replied.
The Doctor very slowly stood up from his sitting position on the ground, dusting himself off as he did so. Making one final adjustment to his bow-tie, he spun around to face the building that he had just been forcibly evicted from…by a purple horse.
“Well, that’s the first time that’s ever happened,” he muttered as he looked up at the house, taking a mental note that it appeared to be a tree. Taking a few steps, he approached the door and was about to knock, when he heard the sound of shouting coming from a little farther down the street. While unable to distinguish the actual topic of the argument, The Doctor could easily tell that it was a female that was shouting, and she was probably shouting at someone else. Figuring that talking to the resident of the tree probably wouldn’t turn out that well anyway, he quickly decided that he was going to investigate the nature of this argument, and possibly try to help. Hopping back off the doorstep, he quickly walked down the dirt road in the direction of the voice. With every step, he was able to understand more and more of what was being said. Eventually, he was close enough to piece together the conversation, which turned out to be between two females, not just one.
“…THEY DON’T EXIST!”
“But they do Bonnie! There’s so much evidence of it! You have to admit it, you just have to.”
“NO! I am NOT going to admit they exist. I put up with your nonsense most days, but when it starts interfering with MY sleep, it’s just gone too far.”
“I’m so close to a breakthrough though! See, I can wiggle them now!”
“Arrghhh! Get those things away from my face! Out! Get OUT!”
The Doctor ducked behind a nearby barrel and watched as the door to a nearby house was opened and a strange equine shaped creature was shoved through it and out onto the street. The door was quickly slammed after that, and the creature lowered her head and stared at the ground. After about a minute of just sitting there, the mare started to fiddle with something that was attached to her fore-hoof, eventually removing it and tossing it into a trashcan sitting beside her porch. With a sigh, she turned away from her house and started to trot down the street, away from where The Doctor was crouching.
Curiosity spiked, the Time Lord carefully tailed (pardon the pun) the mysterious creature as she wandered through the empty streets of the town, weaving between buildings and once even crossing over a small creek. Eventually, the two reached the outskirts of the settlement, and the mare found a bench to sit on and look over the field in front them. The Doctor watched as the creature positioned herself on the bench, finding it odd that she spent an extraordinary amount of time trying to sit with her back against the backrest and her hoofs hanging over the edge.
‘It’s almost as if she’s trying to sit like a human, even though it’s obvious that it’s difficult for her. I wonder why…possibly a medical condition, or maybe she just finds it comfortable.’
Continuing to observe from a distance, The Doctor failed to realize that the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, very gradually lighting up the scene and casting overly elongated shadows across the field. He only noticed this fact when he noticed the tip of the mare’s shadow slowly creeping towards the bench as the sun rose higher in the sky. Deciding that his curiosity was getting the better of him, and that the sun would render his current hiding spot (behind a tree) practically useless, he walked up behind the distressed mare.
She had a light aquamarine coat and a similarly colored mane with a white streak running through it. The thing that shocked The Doctor the most though, was the fact that poking through that mane was what appeared to be a horn, a unicorn horn. ‘Land inhabited by unicorns, how interesting.’
“Excuse me, but why are you sitting like that?” he inquired from behind the bench, still out of sight to the strangely seated equine.
“Oh, no reason that you would be interested in,” she replied, still looking out at the field, not really caring who it was talking to her.
“Try me,” he shot back, crouching down so that he would be able to hear her better.
“Well, okay. Please don’t laugh but I have this belief that these creatures called humans used to live in Equestria, but somehow went extinct. I’ve dedicated a lot of my life into researching them, and I’ve discovered that this is similar to how they sat. That’s why I sit like this.”
“So, I guess that means that humans don’t exist here?” he queried, finally understanding why the librarian had freaked out so much when she had seen him.
“No. Nopony ever believes my theories. They all say that I’m crazy and that I should spend my time doing something else.”
“Did you just say nopony?”
“Ummm, yes. That is the word. Of course, the humans said nobody, since they weren’t ponies.”
The Doctor couldn’t help but chuckle a little at the terminology, somehow finding it funny that this race would create their own pronoun to describe themselves. As he was laughing, the mare, which he now knew was a pony and not a horse, started speaking again, this time with a slight sound of exasperation in her voice.
“See, you too. You think it’s all just a bunch of applesauce; that Lyra is just being stupid again, believing in things that don’t exist. You’re just like everypony else, so quick to judge.”
“No no, *snort* you’ve got it all wrong. I am definitely not like everybody else. I just find it funny that you said everypony. It’s just such a funny word to me,” he quickly clarified, trying to subdue his amusement as he did. Finally, he got his laughter under control and was about to speak when the mare beat him to it.
“You mean that you believe me? Nopony has ever believed me before.”
Oddly enough, during the entire conversation, the mare had not once turned around on her seat to look at her addresser, most likely because of the position that she was sitting in. Despite the reason, The Doctor decided that he ought to reveal himself to this pony creature, since she probably wouldn’t throw him out of her house on sight, especially since they weren’t in a house currently.
“Well miss, Lyra was it? I do believe you, and would you like to know why?” He saw her nod her head, “Well maybe if you turned around and looked at me, then you would see why.”
Slowly, Lyra pushed herself off the bench and onto the grass underneath, having a slight bit of trouble with the landing but eventually regaining her balance. After shaking her mane, she turned around to face The Doctor, and what happened next probably should have been expected, but obviously wasn’t. The greenish unicorn screamed so loudly that The Doctor almost had to cover his ears, finding it difficult to believe that one creature could even make that much noise. Next, she stared saying “Oh my gosh!” again and again very rapidly until she had to stop for breath. And then she did it again.
“Shhhhhh!” The Doctor hissed, placing his index finger over his mouth as he did so. Luckily, this got Lyra to stop her constant noise, but only for the reason that she was now busy examining the extended digit.
“Is that a finger? I’ve always wondered exactly what they looked like. Spike has something that I thought looked like fingers, but Twilight always said they were claws,” she said in a much calmer voice as she got uncomfortably close to the somewhat annoyed Time Lord. “And I was right; you do have five on each hand. This big one is a thumb, right?”
The Doctor yelped in pain as the green unicorn bit the tip of his thumb as she tried to maneuver it into a different position. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize that they were so sensitive. I guess that makes sense though, since you don’t use them to walk around. Can you pick something up for me? I really want to see you…”
“Do you ever shut up?” he interrupted, taking a step away from the hand obsessed mare.
“Yes, sometimes I do, but it’s usually when…oh, I get it.”
“Thank you. Well, if I remember correctly, you said your name was Lyra, right?” She nodded, not wanting to annoy her newly acquired human any further. “Okay, well I’m The Doctor, and as you probably know, I don’t really know that much about this world. If you wouldn’t mind…”
“Mister Doctor? Could I just ask you a quick question? Don’t humans usually shake hands when they greet each other?”
“Yes, why?”
“Can I shake your hand?”
Nervously, The Doctor extended his hand to the outstretched hoof of Lyra, and quickly shook it, much to the delight of the green pony.
“Okay then, as I was saying, I would really appreciate it if you could tell me more about this planet, because oddly enough, I’ve never heard of a planet inhabited by ponies before.”
“Oh I’d love to! But it might be better if we went back to my house to do that, since this field is used for picnics during the day a lot. You’d probably cause a huge fuss if anypony saw you.”
With an agreeing nod, The Doctor began to follow the giddy unicorn back through the streets of the town, following the same route he had taken previously. Along the way, he answered a few of the questions that Lyra posed to him, some of which included:
“How many other humans are there?”
“Do you also have fingers on your feet?”
“Why is your name The Doctor, I thought humans had more individual names?”
And, “Why are you all dressed up?”
Eventually, the two arrived back at the home of Lyra, and were about to enter when said unicorn got a brilliant idea.
**********
Bon-Bon was just finishing removing some of her baked goods from the oven when she heard a knock from the front door. Carefully, she put the cookie sheet down on the counter before trotting into the living room and to the primary entrance to the abode. She was quite certain that it was Lyra, returning to apologize for waking herself up with the stupid obsession with humans. Opening the door, she found that she was right, as a weeping aquamarine unicorn came stumbling though.
“I’m so so so so so sorry Bonnie, I didn’t mean to wake you up, and I promise that I’ll stop messing around with trying to make fingers and other things,” she sobbed, placing her forehooves around Bon-Bon as she did.
Carefully shoving the sad mare off of her, Bob-Bon smiled, “That’s good to know, what suddenly brought you to your senses?”
Much to the confectioner’s surprise, Lyra instantly switched from being sad, to grinning with the biggest grin that the cream mare had ever seen.
“I found a better way to study! Doctor, if you wouldn’t mind!” She shouted the last sentence back over her shoulder towards the door, which slowly creaked open, and a two legged shadow stepped through. Once the door was closed once again, Bon-Bon could see that this creature was not a pony, or any other creature that she had ever seen or read about. As a matter of fact, the only place that she had ever seen anything like this creature before was in…Lyra’s notebooks.
**********
“Do you think we should take her to the hospital?”
“Naw, she’s only fainted, she’ll be fine.”
“Oh that’s good, do I smell cookies?”
“Probably, she said she was going to do some baking this morning.”
“You think she’d mind if we had a few?”
“I don’t think so, as long as I get to see you pick something up.”
Twilight slammed the door and quickly ran over to the window. She used her magic to pull the curtains apart slightly and look out onto the dimly lit street, trying to find the alien that she had just thrown out of her house. She found the bipedal creature, and saw him stand up and brush himself off before looking back up towards the library. Twi turned around, letting the drapes fall back in place, and for the second time within the period of the day ran into the side of the giant blue box in her living room.
“What in the name of Celestia is this thing doing in here anyway!” she yelled as she used her hoof to rub the end of her nose, winching as she pushed too hard.
A soft purple glow surrounded the offending parallelepiped as Twilight attempted to pick it up with her magic, much to the magician’s surprise however, the container did not do as much as budge. She tried again, but the box stood fast, never even moving a millimeter from its location.
“How is it that I can lift an Ursa Minor, but this box refuses to move?” the perplexed unicorn wondered aloud, beginning to pace around the blue phone box. “Not to mention I can’t even open it.”
A hoof was raised and pressed against the door of the blue box as Twilight contemplated her next move. She was quickly thrown off of her train of thought as the panel gave way under the pressure and allowed her access to the interior. With a light thunk, Twilight found her face and chest pressed against the floor, while her hind legs remained standing upright, which for a pony is a fairly uncomfortable position. After shuffling back onto her hooves, she looked around the now accessible inside, which seemed to be nothing more than the expected interior of a giant blue wooden box.
“So….it’s just a box?” she asked herself as she reared up to look out the windows. “If it’s just a box, then why can’t I move it?” The last half of the sentence was said angrily, as the librarian attempted to vent off some of her anger at the immobility of such a simple object. Needless to say, it did not really work.
“Twi? Are you down there?” a young voice from the top of the stars called, followed by the appearance of Spike.
Returning from her adventure inside the box, Twilight called back up to her assistant, “Yes, I am. And where were you? I didn’t see you in your bed earlier when I woke up.”
“I was in the bathroom. Why are you down here? Were you messing with the box again?”
“Yes and no,” she replied, taking a seat on the floor as the dragon joined her at the bottom of the stairs. “I was woken up by a light in my eyes, and it turned out to be coming from down here. I looked at your bed and saw that you weren’t there, so I assumed it must be you getting a snack or something. I came down here to check on you, but it wasn’t you.”
“Who was it? Did Pinkie do that weird teleport thing into the library again?”
“No, it wasn’t Pinkie…though she’d probably understand this better than I do. It wasn’t a pony, but this weird…thing. I don’t even know what it was; I’d never seen one before. I think it was a he because of how low it talked, but all it said was that it was a doctor.”
“There was an alien in our house? What was it doing?” Spike asked, getting excited over the news.
“He was eating a salad.”
“That’s all?” he finished, suddenly becoming less interested again. What fun was it to say you had an alien in your house if all it was doing was eating a salad? Everypony did that.
“Yes Spike, that’s all. I threw him out onto the street a couple minutes ago.”
“Are you sure that was the best idea? He might get in trouble, or hurt somepony.”
“I panicked, okay! I’m not used to having strange creatures inexplicitly appearing in my house,” she huffed, standing back up and turning back to the mystery box.
“Really? Twi, that’s happened at least four times in the past two years. Seven if you count Pinkie as a strange creature.”
With a sigh, the lavender unicorn turned back towards Spike. “You’re right Spike, but none of them were as strange looking as this one. I mean, this one walked on two legs and had theses weird claw-like tentacle things on his arms.”
“Twilight, I walk on two legs, and have claws. You never freak out when you see me.”
“His coat was all different colors, and it looked like there were places that he didn’t have any fur at all, or scales, or feathers.”
“Okay, that does sound a little weird, but it sounds like the Zecora thing all over again. You’re judging somepony before you actually get to know them.”
“Spike, you’re absolutely right. If he comes back, I’ll definitely have to apologize to him. Maybe he’s actually friendly. In the meantime though, help me try to move this box.”
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Excerpt from Twilight’s Journal
Yesterday evening, a giant blue box mysteriously appeared in the middle of the library. A strange alien creature also broke in and ate some of my salad supplies. The two might be related, but currently I have no idea. Needless to say, the box refuses to move by simple means, so I’m going to log my different attempts at re-locating it. I have already tried pushing and levitating it, neither of which worked. My next attempt will be levers.
Well, I tried a lever. Actually, I tried about 15 different levers, all at the same time. It still didn’t work, and the box is still sitting in the middle of the room. I guess pulleys will be my next approach.
Guess what diary, they didn’t work either. Now I’ve got a huge spider web of ropes and pulleys hanging from my ceiling and walls. I’m beginning to think that this is a hopeless pursuit. I’ll try a couple other things first before giving up though. Onward to explosives.
Well, I did find out something of interest, my floorboards are not immune to small impact explosions. There are about seven or eight small dents scattered throughout the room now, and I have Spike cleaning up the ashes of the empty shelf I accidently disintegrated. The box is still there though, so it was all for naught. Maybe I just need to use more force.
Well, I teleported (yes, I tried teleporting it too) over to Sweet Apple Acres and asked Big Mac for some help. He came back to the library with me and tried moving the box, but somehow, not even he could budge it. I’ve seen him move houses before, how can he not move a box! Oh well, maybe Pinkie will have a solution.
I borrowed a party-dozer from Pinkie (I still don’t know what she actually uses them for, but it is good for moving large amounts of dough she said). Sadly, it also didn’t work, and I now have tread marks running through my library. Still, it will repair itself by the end of the day, it always does. I did just think of an interesting solution though, and I’m going to give it a shot.
Somehow, the bucking box is immune to gravity. I opened up a hole in the floorboards underneath it, and do you know what it did? It just floated there; didn’t move an inch. I am starting to get really pissed at this thing. I’m running out of ideas, and it’s only 10:00 in the morning.
----------
“Twilight, maybe you should take a break, you’ve been at this for hours,” Spike said as he tugged on Twilght’s mane, which was beginning to look increasingly frazzled.
“But I’m so close Spike, I can feel it. Just a few more tries?” the crazed librarian pleaded, looking at her assistant with her best pair of puppy dog eyes.
“At this rate, you’d make more progress if you just moved he house,” the dragon commented sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he continued to hold his caretaker in place.
“Spike, you’re brilliant!” Twilight exclaimed, suddenly surging forward out of Spike’s grip. Placing her four hooves as far apart as she could in order to get a more stable footing, Ponyvilles resident magician began to channel her magic into the tree around her. “Hold on tight Spike!”
“I was joking Twi! JOKING!”
The tree trembled, and with a lurch, became uprooted and began to float. To Twilight’s great pleasure, the box stayed in its exact position, breaking through the floorboards and coming to rest in the basement. Very carefully, the library began to descend, and the box decided to stay attached to its new floor and moved downward with the library. Following a heave much like that of an earthquake, the house re-settled into its hole, and began to repair the ground around it.
On the inside, the librarian and her dragon assistant were busy getting back up on their hooves and feet, respectively. Twilight wandered over to the new hole in the floor and looked down into the basement. Resting on the concrete floor at the bottom of the stairs was the blue box that she had been trying to move all morning. After a quick bout of excited hopping around, she set to repairing the opening, which was a much simpler task than moving immovable boxes.
“Twilight, you realize I was just joking about moving the house, right?” Spike asked as he dusted himself off.
“Yes, but it worked didn’t it?” the unicorn in question countered.
“Yes, I guess it did.”
“Then no harm done! Let’s go return this party-dozer to Pinkie and then we can go get some lunch.”
A nice fire crackled away in the fireplace, casting comfortable warmth throughout the room. The Doctor sat in one of the two armchairs that occupied the space, listening as his new friend muttered to herself in the kitchen as she attempted to make tea. The Doctor had no idea how a hooved creature would be able to manipulate the ingredients, but he had seen stranger feats throughout his travels, so he gave it little thought. Instead, he took the time to observe the room around him. He was seated in the den, with two dark red armchairs on either side of a small circular coffee table that was centered in the room. To his left was the fireplace, and to his right was the door to the kitchen. On the wall across from him, he could see a couple of bookshelves which held various knick knacks as opposed to books. He also saw a few framed photographs of Lyra and her roommate in various locations around the town. Behind him was the back door to the townhouse; it led out to a small garden that Bon-Bon kept for ingredients.
As he turned his head to look at the artwork hung on the rear wall, Lyra entered the room carrying two cups of tea with her magic. She set them down on the coffee table with a light clink, catching The Doctors attention and causing him to spin back around. Lyra positioned herself in the other chair, taking care not to upset any other furniture as she spun her hooves around to face outwards, again ignoring the regular pony seating style. The Doctor picked up his cup and took a sip, visibly relaxing as the familiar taste of green tea met his tongue.
“Ahhh, that’s more like it,” he sighed as he leaned back in his chair. “That’s what I needed, a nice cup o’ tea.”
“Oh good, you like tea. Some ponies don’t like tea, like Bonnie, and Carrot Top. I once even heard a rumor that the Princess actually doesn’t like tea, but I think they determined it was all just the work of Discord.”
“There’s another thing I learned. So you’re ruled by a princess?”
“Two actually. There’s Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, though Luna just got back from 1000 years banishment on the moon.”
Taking another sip, he nodded to indicate she should continue.
“I don’t really know much else about her banishment, all I know is that she returned as some evil Nightmare Moon creature last Summer Sun Celebration, then Twilight and her friends went and defeated her. Ever since then, she’s been a princess again.”
The Doctor arched an eyebrow in confusion, setting his cup down to let the tea cool a bit. “I’m confused now. What exactly are you talking about?”
“The Summer Sun Celebration is…”
“Actually, forget that topic. Let’s start at the beginning. Where exactly am I?” he interrupted.
“Oh, you’re in Equestria. Ponyville to be specific.”
“Equestria…that’s interesting. Never heard of Equestri…oh, oh wow.” Suddenly, he began to snort, and then full out laugh as he realized the pun in the name of the country. “Oh, that’s good. Equestria, and you’re all unicorns. I am just loving this place more and more every second.”
“Actually, we’re not all unicorns, just some of us. There’s also earth ponies and pegasi. Then the princesses are alicorns, which are sort of a mixture of all three,” she explained, just now picking up her tea and taking a drink. To her surprise, The Doctor followed the path of her cup quite intently as she set it back down on the table.
Without warning, the out of place Time Lord reached in to his coat and pulled out what appeared to be a toothbrush and pointed it at the teacup. Lyra jumped at the sudden movement and was about to ask what he was doing before her hearing was assaulted by a high pitched whine.
“Make it stop make it stop make it stop please!” she quickly shouted out, fumbling her forehooves around in a desperate attempt to cover her sensitive ears.
The noise stopped as The Doctor withdrew his dental hygiene tool and took a glance at the side of it, arching his brow again, now even more confused.
“It doesn’t appear to have any sort of life, nor is it connected to any sort of levitation system. How in the world did you just pick that up?”
“With magic of course. All unicorns can do magic.”
“But magic isn’t real,” he muttered, placing the utensil back in his pocket and then leaning on his elbow as he continued to stare at the cup.
“Yes it is, see.”
Again, the turquoise glow surrounded the cup and it slowly began to lift into the air, stopping about half a meter above the tabletop. The Doctor swiped his hand back and forth underneath the levitating teacup, confirming that there was indeed nothing supporting it from underneath. He repeated the process until he was satisfied that the cup was, without a doubt, magically suspended in the air.
With a sigh, he returned to his reclining position, where he closed his eyes and began to massage his temples. “At least that explains how you can manipulate objects. I still don’t believe it’s magic, but for now, I’ll stick with that explanation. Also, my head hurts, any idea what that means?”
“You’re getting a headache?” she guessed.
“A headache? I’ve never had a headache before. It feels weird. Is there anything you can do about it?”
“Yes, I can make some herbal soup. Give me a few minutes.”
Lyra pushed herself off of the chair and made her way into the kitchen, leaving The Doctor alone in the den. Picking up where he left off earlier, the Time Lord turned back around to investigate the rear wall. It was much like the wall that he had already examined, covered in pictures of Lyra and her flatmate. They were interesting photos, because instead of looking at the camera most of the time, Lyra tended to be looking towards Bon-Bon. ‘I’ll have to ask her about that,’ he thought while he let his eyes roam across the wall. As his gaze neared the far corner, a slight movement caught his eye, and he quickly whipped his head around to look at the source.
A pale, suited pony stood before him. It did not have eyes, only deep shadowed sockets. Its mouth was covered in skin, and its nose was flatter than any of the other ponies he had yet seen. ‘What? How did he, it, get in here? Definitely doesn’t look like anything like Lyra or her roommate. As a matter of fact, it reminds me a little bit of the…’
“No. You can’t be here. I don’t even know exactly where I am, how can you be here?”
The pony spoke without any movement, almost telepathically. It had a sinister voice, similar to how one would imagine a snake talking if snakes could talk. “We know how to follow a man Doctor, especially if it is no ordinary man that we are following. You have brought us here, and now this world shall be ours as well.”
“No, I won’t let you. I may not know these ponies, but so far they’ve been nice to me, and I refuse to let you bring harm to them.”
“It’s not like you have a choice.”
“Who are you talking to Doctor?” Lyra asked as she walked out of the kitchen. Distracted from his conversation, The Doctor turned to face his host, and thus lost the memory of the conversation that he had just had.
“I don’t know. Nobody I guess. Is that the soup?”
Lyra set the bowl down next to the cup on the table. Taking a deep breath through his nose, The Doctor took a quick note as to what was in the soup in case he ever got one of these headaches again.
“Okay Doctor, maybe you can tell me a little about yourself now,” the unicorn said as she pulled herself back into the chair, this time sitting as any other pony would with her legs tucked underneath her. “You don’t act at all like the humans in the research books were said to.”
“Well, I’m not even really a human, I just look like one. I’m a species called a Time Lord, and I’m from the planet Gallifrey.”
“So humans don’t exist?” Her face fell as she misinterpreted The Doctor’s statement.
“No, they do exist. I’m just not one of them. Anyway, I travel through time and space in my TARDIS, which is sort of like a space ship I guess you could say.”
“You can travel in space? That is so cool!” Lyra exclaimed, a huge grin overtaking her face as she leaned toward The Doctor.
“Time and space. Don’t forget the time part.”
“Oh, time travel isn’t fun. Twilight does that all the time.”
“She does? Who is this Twilight you keep mentioning? And how can she time travel?”
“Twilight is the librarian, and her special talent is magic. That’s how she time travels, but she can’t travel in space. I’ll go introduce you to her later.”
“Magic…right, forgot about that. So yeah, I ended up here because I need to go into hiding for a few years so that people start to forget about me. I was getting too involved with events back home.”
“Well you can’t hide if you look like that; you’ll stand out like a sore hoof.”
“I was just thinking that. I’ll need to regenerate, which means I need to almost die so that the process will start…now how to do that is the question.”
“You could just leave, that would be better than dying. Didn’t you say you had a ship?”
“Yes, but I disabled it right after I landed so that I wouldn’t be tempted to leave if I didn’t like where I landed. It’ll be three years before I can leave unless I can activate the emergency override, which isn’t going to happen. I’ll have to regenerate. It’s either that or hide in a house for three years.”
“That would be boring! You should do the regeneration thingy, whatever that actually is. I’ve never read about humans doing anything like that before.”
“Remember, I’m not human. Time Lords do this thing when they die where every cell in their body is replaced, so they get a whole new body, and escape death at the same time.”
Lyra’s face contorted into a confused scowl, trying to understand what The Doctor had just told her (remember, the ponies had not yet discovered the individual cell). Sighing, he shook his head, placing his hand on his forehead as he did so.
“Oh my gosh, is it another headache? Do you need more soup?” Lyra queried, suddenly concerned.
“No, just a little exasperated this time. Let’s just say, I’ll get a new body. I still have to figure out a way to trigger the reaction though. You wouldn’t mind stabbing me, would you?”
“What! No! I only just met you, and you’re the only human I’ve ever seen in real life. There is NO WAY that I am going to stab you. I’d much rather make soup.”
“Okay then, I’ll still have to find some way though.”
“Maybe Pinkie Pie can help. She always seems to be able to come up with solutions to unanswerable problems. Nopony is sure how, but she tends to be able to.”
“Okay then, let’s go visit this Pinkie Pie character.”
“I was thinking it would be better to get her to come here, since you don’t want anypony seeing you in that form. Right?”
“Good call, you can go and get her. I will wait here.”
With that, Lyra hopped off her chair again and after a quick farewell, exited through the back garden door. The Doctor leaned back and closed his eyes, deciding that a quick nap could never hurt.
----------
The Doctor awoke to find a pair of blue eyes staring at him from the opposite chair. Quickly rubbing his eyes to clear them, he discerned that the eyes belonged to a cream colored mare, the same one in the photographs, the same one that he had helped to prank earlier, resulting in her being put to bed in an unconscious state. It appeared that she had now woken back up.
“Hello,” The Doctor said as he began to extend his hand before realizing the mistake, “I’m The Doctor.”
The mare didn’t say anything, but instead simply continued to glare at him, unblinking, unmoving. All she did was sit there with a scowl on her face, scrutinizing the strange alien creature that was sitting in one of the armchairs in her den. Said alien creature did not know what to do in a situation such as this, so he stared back at her, hoping that eventually one of them would think of something to say. Eventually, The Doctor decided it would probably be best to apologize for scaring her earlier, but as he opened his mouth to do so, he was interrupted by the mare.
“You realize that being scared into passing out is absolutely no fun, right?”
“Yes, and I’m sorry for that. I was only going along with Lyra’s plan, I had no idea you would be that scared.”
The mare’s frown slowly began to wane as she realized that she had made an inaccurate assumption.
“So it was Lyra’s plan, not yours?”
“Yes, I was just following her here when she suggested that we surprise you. She never said that you would be scared.”
“Okay, that’s fine I guess. I’m going to have to yell at Lyra now though, which is never fun.”
“Well, now that that’s cleared up, introductions! I’m The Doctor.” This time he remembered that a handshake was not in order, so he refrained from reaching his arm out.
“And I’m Bon-Bon, Lyra’s roommate,” She said as she extended her forehoof towards The Doctor. She noticed the confused look on her guest’s face at the action. “I’ve spent enough time listening to Lyra’s ramblings about humans to know that they do something called a handshake when they meet somepony new, and I noticed you almost doing so earlier, so I thought, may as well.”
The Doctor shook her hoof, even though the hoof/handshake was from side to side instead of up and down.
“There. So you’re an actual human? I can honestly say that I’m surprised. I always thought Lyra was a bit crazy for thinking that you existed, but now I see she was right. She’s still a bit crazy, but she was right.”
With a sigh, The Doctor explained for the second time that day that he was not a human, but a Time Lord, and that he only looked like a human. The cream mare nodded at his explanation, only interrupting once or twice to ask a simple question, and once he had finally finished with his tale, Bon-Bon actually applauded, or did so as well as a seated pony could.
“That’s quite a wonderful story, though sort of sad, you being the only one left.”
“It’s not so bad, don’t have to play by their rules anymore. Travel does get a little lonely at times, but that’s why I usually have my companions!”
“There are more of you? Why hasn’t Lyra brought them home too? Or is that where she is now?” the host asked, looking slightly worried at the prospect of more guests.
“No, they aren’t here with me. I came here to try to hide. You see, I was starting to interfere too much with events, so I faked my own death to go into hiding. Lyra went out to find some pony named Pinkie Pie, because apparently she might be able to help me regenerate. She said something about her being good at impossible stuff.”
“Pinkie is definitely good at stuff like that, but I probably would have suggested Zecora.”
“Who is that?”
“She’s a zebra that lives in the Everfree forest. She’s really good with potions and herbal remedies and such. I get a lot of my herbs from her. Pinkie…well, she’s more of a ‘I’m completely out of other ideas’ kind of solution,” Bon-Bon explained as she got out of the chair and started heading towards the kitchen.
“So which way is the Everfree Forest?” inquired the Time Lord, also rising from the armchair and stretching his arms. “I think Zecora sounds like a more likely solution than Pinkie Pie.”
“It’s to the South. Just head out the front door and turn left, then keep going,” the mare called from the kitchen. “I’ll tell Lyra where you went when she gets back. Also, be careful, the Everfree can be really dangerous.” The last warning went unheard by The Doctor unfortunately, for by that point, he was out the door and heading in the direction indicated by the mare.
‘Let’s get this regeneration over with so that I’ll actually be able to get something accomplished here.’
**********
The bell above the door to Sugarcube Corner dinged as Twilight and Spike entered the shop. After a short wait, the two were joined by their confectionary friend, who popped up from behind the counter, even though there was no possible way that she could have been hiding there.
“Hey Twilight! Hey Spike! Did the party-dozer work? Because if it didn’t, I can lend you my party crane, since the party crane is soooo much more powerfuller than the party-dozer, but there’s no way the party-dozer didn’t work, right?” Pinkie spouted off in one breath, all the while bouncing up and down in the typical Pinkie Pie fashion.
Once she had processed the information, Twilight offered up her well thought out response. “You have a party crane? You know what? I’m not even going to ask; and to answer your question, no, the party-dozer did not work.”
“So you need the party crane now, right? I’ll go get it!”
As the pink mare turned around, she found her tail caught in a purple glow as Twilight held her back.
“No Pinkie, I moved the box in a different way, I’m just bringing the party-dozer back.”
Suddenly, the door burst open to reveal the smiling face of an all-to-familiar teal unicorn. The intruder rushed over to the counter, paying absolutely no heed to the pony and dragon that were already there.
“Pinkie Pie! I need your help! My new friend needs help finding some way to re-cognate or something, and I told him that you might be able to help, so hurry!” Lyra said as she attempted to grab hold of the baker with her magic, only to find the effort blocked by Twilight’s magic already having control over Pinkie.
“Lyra! Calm down. What do you mean by re-cognate? That doesn’t make any sense; it just means to think again,” the scholarly mare asked.
“It might not have been re-cognate, but it was re-something. You might actually be able to help too Twilight, you’re really smart, and he was interested in you being able to time travel anyways.”
“Fine, but just because I’m curious as to what he was actually talking about that got you so psyched to come and get Pinkie. There isn’t much that gets you this excited.”
“Oh, it’s not the request that got me excited, it’s just the fact that I was right this whole time!” Lyra exclaimed, grinning even wider than before as she said it.
“Okay, I know I’m going to regret this, but right about what?” Twilight deadpanned.
“Well, this must be the Everfree Forest,” The Doctor mused as he stared at a wooden sign that clearly stated, “DANGER, KEEP OUT!!” in big red lettering. Never one to pay much heed to warnings, The Doctor simply walked past the sign and proceeded to enter the wood.
“Okay, I’m supposed to be finding somebody by the name of Zecora, so I’ve just got to find out where they live…” he said to himself as he looked around him at the gnarled, twisted trees. “Shouldn’t be a problem!”
Three minutes of boring walking later…
“I’m lost,” The Doctor stated as he tried to determine which direction he had just come from, only to realize that every tree looked the same as the one next to it. “I am so terribly lost.”
A bird of some sort screeched in the distance, followed quickly by a rustling in some nearby bushes as a small flock of sparrows evacuated the territory. The Doctor spun around at the noise, only to come face to face with more trees which seemed to be darker than all the rest around them. The bark on these trees was a very, very deep brown. They were so dark, that had The Doctor been human, he would have sworn that they were pure black. However, they were the only variation in the forest that the lost Time Lord could see, and therefore, they presented the most logical path to follow. With a snort, The Doctor pushed his way through the branches of the trees, and emerged on the other side.
Standing in front of The Doctor was a castle. Not a magnificent, pristine castle like the one that one would find in Canterlot, no, this was a castle straight out of a nightmare. It was a massive structure, built entirely of a black marble brick, held together with a dark gray mortar. Most of the structure had fallen into disrepair after thousands of years exposed to the damage of the Everfree, though there was one tower that remained intact. At the top, a lone tattered flag flew on a stone flag post. A mild wind blew through the clearing, weaving through the remains, and at times moving in such a way as to cause a whistling howl to come up from the stone, almost as if the building itself was crying in agony. When the stones were silent, so was everything else. While at most times, one could hear the rustling of small animals or the call of an owl, in this clearing there was absolute silence, save for the wind.
The Doctor took a cautious step forward onto the remaining floor, and finding that it would support his weight, proceeded to walk towards the remaining tower. It was a total of twenty meters as the bird flies, but due to detours made necessary by the decayed state of the once grand structure, it took The Doctor close to thirty minutes to actually reach the base of the tower. Once there, The Doctor could see that the tower was in fact a lot taller than it originally appeared, and much less stable than one would think. The structure was riddled with holes where bricks had come loose over time, and he could even see that the spire was swaying in the wind. Very carefully, The Doctor pushed open the wooden door, only for it to fall off of its hinges. Inside the tower, placed at the exact center of the room, was a pedestal carved out of white marble, offering a direct contrast to the black surrounding it. The top of the pedestal was carved in the shape of a talon gripping a sphere, indicating that the stand was intended for an orb of some sort. However, the claw was empty. Whatever it once held was gone, stolen or lost long ago.
The Doctor approached the mysterious carved holder, and slowly reached his hand out towards it. His fingertips were about to touch the stone before he realized what he was about to do and jerked his hand back. Instead, he withdrew his sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket and aimed it at the pedestal. After a short wait while the screwdriver did its work, The Doctor was informed, that the pedestal was in fact made of marble and that there were no harmful effects associated with touching it. Satisfied, The Doctor returned the tool to his coat, and again reached out to touch the artifact. As soon as his fingers touched the marble, he was frozen. He could not move, not even in the slightest. This was because there was one thing that he had forgotten to take into account, one thing that the sonic could not detect: magic.
----------
The world was black. Not a single thing could be seen, everything was consumed by the oppressing darkness, and no matter how hard he tried, The Doctor could not think of any way to remove the fog that obscured his vision. Suddenly, a voice from somewhere inside his head, a voice that was certainly not his own, whispered to him, “Why don’t you try opening your eyes?”
He was first assaulted by the brightness of the light that seemed to emanate from everywhere, and nowhere, at once. The second thing was the cold. The world around him was freezing, and even his coat didn’t seem to help in the slightest. The Time Lord blinked a few times, slowly bringing his surroundings into focus, and soon discovered that he was standing in a forest. Not the same forest that he had just left, but a different one, a much brighter one. The light had a yellowish hue, almost in direct contrast to how cold the woodland was. The trees were spread out in a haphazard pattern, no two closer than six meters apart. Looking up, The Doctor could see that every single one of the trees was dead, as not a single leaf could be seen. Looking down confirmed that the grass was dead as well, and gave a small crunch whenever he took a step. The forest was perfectly silent, much like the abandoned castle that he had just left, the only difference being that it was not punctured by the wind’s howl. There was no wind.
With a shiver, The Doctor began to wander his new location, hoping to find some kind of exit, or even some clue as to where he actually was, but after what felt like an hour, the scenery around him looked exactly the same. The Doctor glanced at the sky, hoping to find some indication of what time it was, but all that he could see was white, which gradually faded to a light orange as it approached the horizon. This place had no indication of life, no indication of the passage of time, no indication of weather, no indication that it was actually anywhere at all.
Suddenly, it hit The Doctor. This place wasn’t anywhere. It was nowhere, a limbo as one might call it. It should have been inaccessible, impossible to enter; somehow, he had found his way into this forbidden realm. Upon realization, The Doctor began to think. He thought of the place he had left, the abandoned castle, and imagined that he was still standing there, with his hand outstretched and lying flat against the marble pillar. Slowly, the trees around him began to morph, taking on the shape of the tower that he was working so hard to remember, and very gradually beginning to solidify. With a last surge of thought, The Doctor completed the scene, and as the walls came into focus around him, he released the image from his mind. He was once again standing in the tower, the stone pedestal in front of him, and now, gripped in the talon was a green crystal sphere.
The orb was slightly translucent, and inside could be seen a smoke like substance, swirling around as if moved by an unseen force. A light green aura surrounded the ball, and at times a humming could be heard coming from it. The longer The Doctor stared at the orb, the more he felt as if he knew it from somewhere, as if he had seen it before. The orb was hypnotizing, capturing the Time Lord’s attention and drawing him ever closer to it, until finally The Doctor picked it up and removed it from its holder. It was warm, and that warmth seemed to spread through his body as he cradled the sphere, nullifying the harsh wind that was now tearing its way through the ruins.
The once quiet whistling of the wind was now a full howl, and the tower above began to visibly sway in the barrage. A single brick dislodged from the crumbling walls and fell, hitting the floor and smashing into a thousand tiny pieces directly beside where The Doctor was standing. “Run,” the voice in his head said to him, perfectly calmly and without a single hint of fear.
“Hey, that’s my line!” he yelled back as he turned on his heel and began to sprint out the door. The green orb was still grasped in his hands, impeding his motion and slowing him down. However, he could not seem to let it go. His mind refused to tell his hands to drop it, so as he ran, he carried the precious crystal, until he was outside the ruins.
Once he was relatively safe outside the castle remains, The Doctor was able to take a better look at the object that he now had in his possession. His earlier observations proved to be correct, and the orb was in fact made of a crystal of some sort. It was not a crystal that he recognized though. Not even the sonic screwdriver could identify the mysterious substance. The clouds inside the globe had stopped spinning, and were now simply floating there.
Unable to think of something to do with the artifact, The Doctor simply placed it into one of his jacket pockets, which were able to easily hold the sphere due to being “bigger on the inside.” With that out of the way, he once again set forth on his journey to find Zecora, and just as before, he quickly got lost.
**********
Bon-Bon was happy, because she finally had the house to herself again. Lyra had gone off to find Pinkie Pie, which could either take all day or a few minutes, and The Doctor had gone off to find Zecora in the Everfree. She could finally return to baking the treats needed for the surprise birthday party that Pinkie was throwing next week for Mrs. Cake. While the pink party mare was superb at making baked goods, she just wasn’t up to par with Bon-Bon on the candy making front.
She had just finished with a tray of hot candies when she heard the front door open and a multitude of hooves come in. ‘It must be Lyra and Pinkie Pie. I better tell her where her human is before she starts to panic.’ She carefully set the tray down on the cooling rack and placed the tongs next to it before turning to head out into the living room. To her surprise, there was a third pony in the room that she was not expecting, Twilight.
“I don’t get it! I left him right here, and now he’s gone. He wouldn’t have just wandered off, he doesn’t even know where anything is,” Lyra said, not even noticing her roommate standing in the doorframe. “Maybe he went upstairs to check on Bonnie!” The mint unicorn turned and trotted up the stairs before Bon-Bon could even let her know of her presence.
“Hello Twilight, Pinkie Pie,” the candy maker greeted, surprising the two visitors.
“Oh, Bon-Bon, you’re awake. Lyra said you were passed out upstairs,” Twilight replied as she sat back down after standing up to spin around.
“Oh, I was, but I woke up a w\little while ago and had a talk with our other guest. Then I went back to baking candy for the surprise p…”
“SHHHHHHH!!!” Pinkie interrupted, suddenly appearing between the other two mares.
“Pinky, neither of the Cakes is here right now, so they can’t hear us if we mention the p…”
“But what if they can still hear us?” she interrupted again.
“IF they could, they would already know about it because I told Lyra the other day when I…”
Suddenly, a scream could be heard from upstairs, before a panicking Lyra came galloping down the steps. She must have tripped over her hooves at some point, because she tumbled down the last few stairs and landed in the room resting upside down against the couch.
“He’s kidnapped Bonnie and run away!” she sobbed as she tried to regain her footing.
“He hasn’t kidnapped Bon-Bon Lyra, just calm down,” Twilight said as she helped the fellow unicorn to her hooves.
“But he has! She wasn’t upstairs in her room and I can’t find The Doctor anywhere,” she said, tears starting to drip from the corners of her eyes.
“I’m not in my room because I got up a couple hours ago to do some more baking,” Bon-Bon said as she walked into Lyra’s line of sight.
“Bonnie!” the distressed mare exclaimed as she flung her hooves around her roommate for the second time that day. “I thought you’d been kidnapped.”
“Yes, I heard. Now could you please let me go, you know I don’t like being hugged.” Once the hugger released the huggee, Bon-Bon continued, “As for where The Doctor is, I told him he ought to try to find Zecora in the Everfree, so that’s probably where he is.”
“Oh okay, that makes more sense then you being kidnapped. Not as much of an adventure that way though,” Pinkie said. “I would have been like a really big game of hide and seek!”
“Yes Pinkie, but it’s a good thing that he didn’t kidnap Bon-Bon. Oh, and I guess we won’t need your expertise after all,” Lyra said to the bouncing pink mare.
“Okie doki loki. I’ll just go back to preparing for the you know what for you know who!” she replied before leaving through the window.
“…”
“So the human is gone?” the more studious of the two unicorns asked Bon-Bon.
“For now, yes. He’ll probably be back later after he visits Zecora’s.”
“Did you remember to tell him to take the second trail into the Everfree, not the first?”
“Everypony knows not to go on the…oh. Oh no.” Bon-Bon sat down on the floor with a hard thump, slowly shaking her head from side to side with a distressed look plastered on her face.
“I sure hope he makes it through all right….”
**********
“Tree, tree, tree, tree, stump, tree, tree, tree. Wait, that’s the same tree from earlier. Or is it? I just don’t know anymore,” The Doctor muttered to himself as he wandered aimlessly in the dark depths of the forest. It had been at least 20 minutes since he had last seen sunlight, maybe longer. The passage of time was impossible to discern this deep in the Everfree. For all he knew, he may have been absent form Ponyville for well over a day, or possibly only a few hours. All The Doctor did know is that he had not yet found Zecora, and that he probably was not going to.
He was about to give up all hope of finding anything meaningful ever again when he unexpectedly stumbled across a stone archway leading into a clearing at the bottom of a ravine. It was a nice clearing, unlike the clearing that the castle had been in. Bird calls still filled the air, there was a nice breeze, and the sky was actually visible above, casting the last light of the sun on the grass. It was twilight, and the setting celestial body placed the scene in a warm orange glow, gently luring The Doctor into a false sense of security.
He was standing in the center of the clearing, admiring how the ravine offered such a stark contrast of appearance to the rest of the forest, when he heard a low growl come from somewhere behind him. Slowly, The Doctor turned around to find that he was staring into two beady black eyes; the eyes of a manticore.
**********
A light knocking came from the far side of the room, causing the three mares that were seated in said room to look up from their game of Ponopoly. After a short wait, the sound came again, and reluctantly, the mint green unicorn got up out of her chair to answer the door. On the opposite side stood a light brown earth pony stallion with a shaggy dark brown mane and tail. His medium blue eyes blinked a few times before he broke out into a huge smile.
“Lyra! I knew I’d find the house again eventually,” he exclaimed, stumbling forward as he attempted to walk inside.
“Doctor?” Lyra asked, carefully helping the ill-balanced individual through the doorway.
“Yes, it’s me. I regenerated, just like I said I would. I’m still not ginger though, and I have the strangest urge to break out into song. Look, I even have this nifty hourglass on my rump!”
“That’s your cutie mark, it represents your special talent,” Lyra explained as she made sure her friend had settled on the couch comfortably. “Mine is playing the lyre, and Bon-Bon’s is making candy.”
“And mine is magic,” Twilight added, causing The Doctor to take notice of her for the first time.
“Hey, you’re that unicorn from this morning. You threw me out of your tree…house.”
“Yes, and I’m sorry about that. I panicked and I may have overreacted.”
“Perfectly understandable. I’m The Doctor by the way.”
“Yes, you told me before. I’m Twilight Sparkle.”
“Fantastic to meet you Twi…”
“Hey! I just realized your accent’s gone!” Lyra interrupted, causing the two to cast a quick glare in her direction. She quickly shrunk down under their disapproving stares.
“Yes, I suppose to you it is gone. I myself feel as if I’m talking in an accent now, it’s a bit strange to tell the truth. I guess anything can happen during regeneration, eh?”
“So Zecora was able to help?” Bon-Bon probed as she returned from getting an extra bowl of soup.
“Actually, I never spoke to Zecora. The regeneration happened a lot differently than I originally expected.”
“What do you mean?” questioned Twilight, who was now holding a legal pad and a quill in her magic, ready to take notes.
