The Way It Might Have Been
Applejack hollered as best she could to the excited crowd of foals. “Alright little ponies, are you ready for the Turkey Chase?”
“Eyup!” yelled the crowd. (Nopony was quite sure where the idea of imitating Big Mac had come from, but by this point it was tradition.)
“I said, “ hollered Applejack, “are you ready for the annual Ponyville Turkey Chase?”
“EYUP!” screamed the crowd, this time much louder.
“Does everypony have their ribbons so they know what team they’re on?”
“Eyup!”
“Does everypony know which pen to put the turkeys into when you grab ‘em so you get points for your team?”
“Eyup!”
“Is everypony thankful to be here on this beautiful Thanksgiving?”
“Eyup!”
“Bic Mac, let ‘em fly!”
Big Macintosh pulled a lever on the side of the large cage they’d constructed, and the turkeys went running madly into the crowd. Several foals got their forelegs around one, only for the bird to suddenly scramble away.
Soon both fowls and foals were running in all directions, with fillies and colts shouting out half-baked strategies to their teammates as the entire square descended into happy chaos.
At the opposite end of the square stood a brown stallion with an hourglass for a cutie mark. He watched the foals in their game, muttering numbers under his breath.
“Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen…Twenty-six, Twenty-seven…no, no that’s not right! One of them’s missing!”
He made a lap around the square, poking his head in every hiding place he could think of. He was about three-fourths of the way around when he found what he was looking for: A little brown-and-white colt, huddling in a quiet alleyway.
“A-ha!” said the stallion, and the colt jumped. When the colt showed his face, however, it appeared as though he’d been crying.
“Oh my!” said the brown stallion, “Terribly sorry. I was just wondering where you were. I’m the Doctor.”
“I’m not sick, sir” said the colt, revealing a Trottingham accent.
“Oh, I’m not that kind of doctor. Not usually, at least.” He glanced behind him. “I just couldn’t help but notice that you weren’t a part of the game just now. You could always join in, you know.”
The colt kicked a hoof idly and looked at the ground. “I…I guess I just didn’t feel like it, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Well it’s Thanksgiving, and…I guess I didn’t feel like I should be part of it. I’m sorry. It’s a little hard to explain.”
The Doctor looked at the still-drying tears on the colt’s face. “What’s your name?”
“Pipsqueak, sir.”
The Doctor smiled slowly. “Is that right? Do your friends ever call you ‘Squeak’? I had a friend named Squeak once.”
“Was he a mouse?”
The Doctor chuckled. “You know, Berry Bubble asked me the same thing, once. Fact was, I didn’t have an answer. Squeak was invisible, you see, so, bit hard to be exact on the matter of species.”
Pipsqueak stared at him for a moment. “You’re a strange pony.” he said finally.
“And you’re not having a good Thanksgiving, are you?” replied the Doctor, taking a seat by his new companion. “Anyway there’s no harm in being strange. It’s a strange universe. Might as well blend in.” He shuffled through his saddlebag. “Do you want a Jelly baby?”
“A what?”
“It’s these candies. These little-” He held one out on his hoof. “You’ve never seen these?”
Pipsqueak shook his head.
“Well, there’s a whole bag of them here, if you want one.”
They sat in silence for awhile as the Doctor munched on his candy. Pipsqueak looked off towards the children playing in the square.
“If I had to hazard a guess” said the Doctor suddenly, “I’d guess that you feel a bit left out. Weren’t invited to the party, I suppose. Is that it?”
“Oh no, sir! That’s not it sir. They-they did invite me. They’ve been quite kind…well, apart from Diamond Tiara I suppose, but that’s not a problem, really.”
The Doctor looked at him for a long moment, then craned his neck back to look at the sky. “Well, this is a riddle, then. Obviously you want to go, you were invited to go…but here you are in a little alleyway, instead of joining them yourself.”
He looked down at Pipsqueak again. “So I’m guessing…it’s not that they didn’t want you, but that they didn’t understand.”
“Understand, sir?”
“Yes, yes, understand. They don’t understand, because there’s something they don’t know. Something you didn’t want to talk about. Something…that made you sad.”
The Doctor leaned in. “Can I tell you a secret?”
Pipsqueak looked at him.
“I’m not from around here.”
“Oh?”
The Doctor nodded. “I didn’t grow up in Ponyville. I didn’t grow up in Equestria, actually. Actually I didn’t grow up with four legs, but that’s a story for another time. Point is, I’m a long way from home. And I don’t know a lot of ponies around here.”
He looked off toward the crowd in the square, and Pipsqueak followed his gaze. “And it can be hard sometimes, starting over in a new place. Meeting new people. Even when the ponies are lovely – and these ones are, by the way – the fact remains that you miss the folks you once knew…”
Pipsqueak looked up at him, but the Doctor didn’t seem to notice. “Old friends,” he continued, “and grand adventures. Things that…things that were so precious, so personal, it feels like no one could ever understand. And the fact is you don’t always want to move on. You say to yourself ‘Now wait, wait just a moment, this can’t be right. I had plans, you know. We had plans. All of us. We were going places. We were…trying new things…' and then…somehow it all just…didn’t happen, the way you’d hoped. Time took a different turn.’“
They were quiet for awhile, until Pipsqueak spoke up.
“Do you ever talk to your friend?”
The Doctor seemed to pull himself out of his reverie, slowly and reluctantly. “Squeak? Unfortunately he’s far away right now. Haven’t heard from him in a long time.” He sighed. “And what about you? You must have had friends in Trottingham.”
Pipsqueak sniffled. “I did, sir.”
The Doctor smiled gently. “I’m sure they miss you, just as you miss them. And that’s alright. But you know…making new friends doesn’t mean you have to give up on your old friends. Even if it’s been a long time.”
“It feels like forever.”
“People have a funny way of thinking about time. They think that all we have is the present. The past is over, and the future may never come and all that, but that’s not how I see it. Truth is, the past is still with us, here in our hearts, you know? We carry it along wherever we go. And the future will come. It always does. Onwards and Upwards, Pipsqueak. That’s the only way to do it.”
“But I’m supposed to say I’m thankful for something. How can I do that when I feel so sad?”
The Doctor put a foreleg around him. “No matter what you’ve lost, there’s always one thing you can say.”
“What’s that?”
The Doctor smiled. “Thanks for the memories.”