Chapter 1

They were a perfect match.

He was a headstrong stubborn stallion who spent his days alone with no one to talk to but himself. He had had many friends over the course of his life but they had all died or left, never to see him again. He spent his lonely days traveling the world until all the views and landmarks had blended together. Nothing was special anymore. He had seen, smelled, heard, felt and tasted everything there is to see smell hear feel or taste. He had outlived all the friends that had not left him. He eventually stopped trying to make friends entirely to avoid the misery of losing them. He had continued this for many years. Or at least until he met her.

She was a lighthearted cheerful mare with laughter in her eyes and a silly smile plastered across her face. She didn’t have very many friends on account of her clumsiness and the ones she did have weren’t very close. She also spent many of her days alone, like him, in the clouds, dreaming of someone she could be with all the time. Someone who wouldn’t mind her crossed eyes or clumsiness. Someone to snuggle with on cold rainy nights and play with on warm sunny days.

The y had met completely on accident. He was on his way to ponyville for probably the fiftieth time in his life. She was sleeping on a cloud above the road. As I said she didn’t have many friends, so she was picked on all the time for various reasons. A small group of Pegasus was flying nearby. They kept looking in her direction and giggling to themselves. Eventually one of them quietly flew over to her cloud and looked back at his friends with a big smile on his face. He turned around and gave the cloud a strong kick, poofing it out of existence and causing her to wake up and scream as she fell, tumbling through the sky towards the unforgiving ground. Her wings had locked up in the confusion keeping her from just flying away.

He heard her screaming and looked up to see the grey Pegasus falling out of the sky, golden mane whipping around her fear stricken face. He ran down the road as fast as he could towards her. He dove under her, catching her just before she hit the ground. They tumbled down off the road and down a hill before coming to a stop in some bushes.

Both had their eyes closed tightly and their teeth clenched. Tentatively, he opened an eye to find her on top of him, holding him tightly and shivering. She slowly lifted her head and looked around. Her breathing slowed back to normal and she finally looked down at her rescuer.

Her yellow eyes het his and they both froze. He had become accustomed to reading expressions over the years but he couldn’t read hers. He stared into her beautiful golden eyes, not even acknowledging the fact that they were crossed. She stared right back into his. His eyes seemed to hold the secrets of a thousand years of life and an entire universe.

“Um” he began, “are… you okay?”

She stared back at him, still mesmerized by his eyes. She shook her head and climbed off of him, smiling sheepishly.

“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks” she pawed at the ground shyly and tried not to look up at him.

“What happened?” he asked, “Why were you falling? Your Pegasus, you could have just flown”

“I—I don’t know” she said, truly confused, “sometimes when I get scared my wings don’t work. I was sleeping on a cloud, but then… the cloud was gone.” She thought hard, her mouth contorting into a funny little scowl, “I just don’t know what went wrong.”

“Well your safe now” he said climbing to his hooves. “I’m the doctor” he smiled holding his hoof out to her.

“Dr. who?”

He ignored the question. He had heard it so many times it was starting to become a joke. “Just the doctor.”

“Oh, okay, I’m derpy” she shook his hoof awkwardly.

“Derpy who?” he asked jokingly.

“Nope” she grinned, “derpy ‘hooves’.”

They continued to chat as they climbed the hill back to the road and started off towards ponyville. They grew close quite quickly and learned that they had very much in common. They were both lonely, somewhat rejected by society and different from everyone else. By evening they felt like they had known each other since they were foals. They left ponyville and started down the road they had met on.

As they turned the corner she saw a big blue box sitting next to the road. It looked a lot like a telephone booth but unlike any derpy had ever seen. It was quite a bit larger than an average telephone booth and appeared to be made out of wood, not glass. It had a light on top and a small door in the front. Across the top it read “POLICE BOX” in big white capital letters. The doctor turned to derpy with a glum look in his eye.

“I have to leave now” he said quietly, looking at her with a look of dismay.

“But you just got here!” she protested

“I know. But I never stay in one place very long.” She gave him a look that pleaded him to stay. “I don’t want to leave any more than you want me to.”

A little tear formed under her left eye. She didn’t cry very often but she had grown attached to the doctor. “Will I ever see you again?”

He sighed. He hated when they asked that. “Probably not”

More tears started to brim in derpys' eyes and she sniffled. “You can’t leave; you’re the closest friend I’ve ever had.”

He trotted over to her and put a foreleg around her shoulders, “I know. I’ve lost more close friends than you can imagine”

“That doesn’t help” she sniffled.

He scowled. “I never was very good with people” he thought to himself.

She looked up into his eyes for the millionth time that day, “i'll never forget you”

“Nor I you” he gave a little smile and wiped the tears from her face. He unlocked the blue box, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him. Derpy watched in sullen amazement as the box began to slowly fade in and out of existence with a soft whooshing sound. She stood there a few minutes after it had disappeared, then turned away hanging her head, and started her slow walk back to ponyville.

“—on second thought—“derpy gave a surprised yelp as the doctor stepped out from behind a tree in front of her, “—why don’t you come along with me!”

Derpy regained her composure only to lose it again running up to him and giving him a big hug. “Yes! I will! Let’s go!”

“Whoa whoa whoa! Slow down!” he laughed, “we’re going!” he led her past the tree to the police box that had reappeared behind it.

He opened the door and motioned for derpy to enter. She hesitated.

“Won’t it be a little – cramped, in there?”

He laughed again, “oh no! Just go on it!”

She stepped inside and her jaw hit the floor. The inside of the box was a cavernous round room with a raised platform connected to a few flights of stairs. At the center of the platform was a huge clear tube with some sort of piston inside. A table covered in all forms of switches and doohickeys wrapped all the way around the piston.

“Its – its big—“she started to stutter in amazement.

“Yes. It is bigger on the inside. This is the tardis. It’s the universes most powerful spaceship and/or time machine. Could you grab the door for me?”

She closed the door and followed him up the stairs to the raised platform. He began pushing seemingly random buttons and pulling seemingly random switches. The piston began to slowly move and the sound she had heard earlier echoed through the room.

Their adventures had begun.