Chapters Doctor Whooves - Silence is Golden
The Doctor and Luna clutched to the TARDIS's controls and decorative columns, respectively, hanging on for dear life, yet having a good laugh as they spun through time and space. Luna couldn't believe how fun time travel could be when her life wasn't in danger, she was having the time of her life! She finally understood what The Doctor loved about travelling, somewhat. It was still scary as all get out, but in a good kind of way this time.
The TARDIS finally stopped spinning and settled with the classic whirring noise. The Doctor flipped a final switch and spun around, switching from pilot to host mode. With a big enthusiastic smile on his face, he said, "Alright, I've set the TARDIS's controls to random," he looked towards the door, eyes glinting mischievously, "Out those doors could be anywhen, anywhere, in all of time and space."
"Is that dangerous?" Luna asked, inching towards the door like a giddy schoolgirl.
"Probably," The Doctor admitted, "but isn't that what makes it exciting?" they shared a laugh, and he continued, "I thought it fitting for your first formal trip as my new companion. So..."
"So...let's go?" Luna guessed.
The Doctor made a face, "I like to say, 'Allons-y', but-"
Luna planted her hooves on the doors, "Well then, Allons-y!" she cheered, and threw the doors open.
Outside was a bitterly cold, frozen landscape; wind whistled across the vast frozen plains loudly. Tall frozen mountains rose from the horizon, and a cold blast of wind blew into the TARDIS, taking a rather large blast of snow with it.
Luna immediately clutched her shoulders and began shivering furiously, "It's f-f-freezing!" she objected loudly.
She suddenly felt a warm, heavy coat being draped over her shoulders, and turned to see The Doctor placing the heavy coat over her shoulders.
Luna took the coat gratefully, "Thank you, but won't you be cold?" He was wearing a simple brown trench coat which draped over his legs.
"Nah, I'll be fine," The Doctor said, stepping out into the snow, "I'm a timelord, remember?"
Luna chuckled, "Well, I'm an Alicorn, but I still need a coat,"
The Doctor just looked at her, then turned around, "So, where do you want to go now?"
"You mean we're staying on this chunk of ice?" Luna asked surprisingly.
"Why not?" The Doctor asked, "It's where the TARDIS brought us, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah, but-" Luna responded.
"And just think for a minute," The Doctor suggested, waving grandly to the frozen landscape around him, "It may not be a tourist destination, but we are on another planet . Just think about that for a moment!"
Luna regarded that fact. She was on another planet. She took a few experimental steps outside. It just felt so weird! she began bouncing around gleefully, enjoying herself.
She suddenly stopped bouncing, blinking repeatedly, as if she had just forgotten something. She was suddenly holding a strange looking piece of technology in her hoof, with no memory of how it got there.
"What have you got there?" The Doctor asked curiously, taking the device and inspecting it.
"I-I don't know," Luna responded, "It just...appeared."
"It's a tape recorder," The Doctor concluded, "and it looks like it's got a new message on it," he looked up at Luna, "Shall we?"
Luna nodded, her curiosity overwhelming.
The Doctor clicked a button, and the tape started playing.
A charming voice emanated from the tape, "I have to record this, or else you'll forget it."
"Who are you?" The Doctor's voice came out of the machine, to the surprise of Luna and The Doctor himself.
Even more surprising, Luna's voice came out of the machine, "Ooo, he's cute!"
The strange voice answered, "Look, I'll answer all of your questions, but first, you have to listen to me."
There was a pause on the tape.
"Alright, good." The voice said, then continued, "First thing you need to know, Doctor, I'm half Silence."
"Silence?" The Doctor's voice asked, "What's a Silence?"
"They're a race of aliens, who have a very peculiar defense mechanism, when you look at them, and then look away, you forget ever seeing them in the first place. That's why I'm recording this, because as soon as you turn your back, or look away, you'll forget what I looked like, or what I said."
"So you record it, that way we can listen to you after we forget you said it?" The Doctor's voice clarified.
"I suppose it worked," The actual Doctor said to Luna.
"Yes," the voice answered, "Doctor, there's a refugee camp about a mile east of here, and they're in trouble. I've helped them as best I can, but I need your help."
"What kind of trouble, exactly?" The Doctor's voice asked.
There was a pause, "You'll find out when you get there."
"Should we go?" Luna and Luna's voice asked The Doctors simultaneously.
"If there is life in trouble," The Doctor's voice said.
"I will do anything I can to help," The Doctor finished.
"One more thing," The voice said, "There's another pony in the camp, helping the refugees. She claims to know you. A miss River Song."
"Who's River Song?" Luna asked.
The Doctor thought for a moment, "I don't know."
The recording stopped.
The Doctor turned towards Luna and extended a foreleg like a gentlecolt, "Shall we?"
Luna took his foreleg with her own, "Let's," she answered with a smile.
They walked towards the west.
Doctor Whooves - Silence is Golden
"So what do you think of all this, Doctor?" Luna asked, bundling up tighter in her coat as they trekked across the frozen planet.
The Doctor had been deep in thought, and was snapped out of it by Luna's question, "Well, I always try to help those in need, and if this Silence-Pony, whatever he is, tells me these ponies need my help, I won't turn my back."
"But why do you do it, Doctor?" Luna blurted out, asking the question she had held in for quite a while, "With your TARDIS, and your knowledge, you could do anything! Go anywhere! Why do you stop at all? Why do you do the things you do?"
The Doctor thought for a moment, thinking about how to answer. After a moment, he took a breath and said, "Let me give you a bit of history about the Timelords, Luna. And feel lucky, not many ponies have ever heard this..."
Luna watched him with rapt attention, eager to learn.
The Doctor paused, gathering his thoughts, then began, "Timelord is not a species, Gallifreyan is. Timelord is a rank, and order, of sorts. Gallifreyans are given to the order as young children, very young. When they reach the age of eight, they are taken to look at the Untempered Schism, a hole in the fabric of reality, just a child. We stare into the raw power of the universe, taking it all in. Some would be inspired, some would run away, and some would go mad."
"What did you do?" Luna asked, interrupting but achingly curious.
"I ran, of course," The Doctor sighed, "And I never stopped running."
Luna said nothing, fully absorbed in the story.
"After that milestone, young timelords begin their study," The Doctor continued, "working, doing chores, and studying the sciences and arts until they reach young adulthood, at one hundred eighteen."
"What?" Luna asked suddenly.
The Doctor ignored her, "When we reach that age, we choose our name. As you have probably guessed, 'The Doctor' is not my real name, it's the name I chose when I entered the order of the Timelords. And a name is a special thing, very special. I suppose I'm lucky in that aspect, While you are only known as Luna, and nothing more, Timelords have three names; the name their parents give them, the name they choose when they mature, and their real name. A timelord's real name must never be spoken aloud, it has terrible power." The Doctor looked out into space, thinking. Then he returned, "But I'm getting ahead of myself. The name a Timelord chooses, their title, it's not something to be taken lightly. The name you choose is a promise, a promise that all timelords are honor bound to keep, until their very last death."
Luna ignored that last bit, "So you chose...'The Doctor'." She confirmed.
The Doctor nodded, "The Doctor is the pony who fixes everything, the one who makes everything better." He stopped walking and turned towards Luna, looking her in the eye, "And that's what I do, I fix things, and I make them better. That's what I've done for 900 years, and that's what I'll do as long as I live."
Luna nodded, slightly apprehensive, and slightly excited after learning all that history. She had gotten a peek into the passion of a timelord, and she loved it.
But The Doctor was already past it, reinvigorated by his renewal of his beliefs, he picked up the pace, walking towards the east slightly faster than before, "Come on, then, Allons-y! I think I can see the town just over that hill!"
Luna had to run to keep up with him, but she smiled like she was having the time of her life, and she was. Travelling with The Doctor, seeing new things...in that moment, she knew she wanted to do this forever.
She wasn't the first.
The Doctor was right, there, over the hill, was a town! A small collection of oddly shaped buildings jumbled together in a big mess, they were almost at it!
But then, suddenly and without warning, what looked like ten ponies in strange suits, wielding enormous guns, burst out from in between the buildings and pointed their weapons, The Doctor and Luna in their sights.
The Doctor and Luna skidded to a halt, sitting down and holding up their forelegs as a sign of surrender, "What on earth is this, now?" The Doctor asked, outraged at the sight of the guns.
Then, one pony walked ahead of the others, wearing the same strange suit. But then the pony held up its hoof, and all the other lowered their weapons.
The pony reached up and removed its helmet, to reveal underneath an earth pony mare, with dirty yellow fur, and a big, curly, dirty blonde mane. she smiled and said in an I'll-probably-kill-you-someday-but-not-today voice, "Hello sweetie."
"Oh no," The Doctor rolled his eyes, "Don't tell me you're archaeologists, are you?"
"And what's wrong with that?" asked the mare in a snappy voice, though she didn't seem upset.
"I'm a time traveler, I point and laugh at archaeologists."
The mare smiled and held out a hoof to shake, "River Song, archaeologist."
Doctor Whooves - Silence is Golden
"Someone get that poor pony a proper snowsuit before she catches cold," River Song instructed her team, gesturing towards Luna. She then quite forcibly grabbed The Doctor by the hoof and lead him off to the side, saying, "You're coming with me, pretty boy."
"Pretty boy? " The Doctor repeated, shocked.
Luna giggled, and was then lead away by the strangely suited ponies.
River lead The Doctor a ways away, then withdrew an aged TARDIS blue book from her bag, "Alright, let's do diaries, where are we?"
The Doctor just looked at her, brow furrowed in confusion.
River didn't notice, and was looking through the book, "Alright...Jim the Fish? Have we done that yet?" She looked up at The Doctor for a reaction. Finding none, she muttered, "Obviously not..." then flipped through the book more, "Picnic in Asgard? Have we done that yet?" The Doctor simply looked at her, getting more and more confused. River set down the book and smiled knowingly, "You know, out of all the places I've found you, I never thought here would be one of them."
The Doctor's brow rose on one side.
"You're doing a very good job of pretending you don't know who I am," River remarked.
The Doctor just looked at her.
River's smile faded, "Doctor...you do know who I am...don't you?"
"What did you say your name was again?" The Doctor asked, scratching his head as if he were trying to jog his memory.
River looked surprised, "Doctor, who am I?" She looked worried.
"You know," The Doctor began, moving his hoof ad if he were trying to catch the words he needed to say, "Your..name, your voice, they seem familiar, but..." He just shook his head, then looked up at her, "You're from my future, I know that much, maybe you can help me?"
"Doctor, what's wrong?" River asked, reaching out and placing a hoof on his shoulder.
The Doctor looked up at her and said, "There's something...missing in my memory, something big. I feel like I should trust you, but..." He looked up at River, "I can't remember why."
River thought for a moment, then said, "You never told me about you coming here," She just shook her head, "I don't know what to do."
The Doctor sighed, as if his hopes had been dashed.
"Why did you come here anyway, do you remember that much?" River asked.
The Doctor looked back up at her, "Well, I..." If nopony could remember the stranger who had told him about the creatures in danger here, River probably didn't know about him, "...I received a distress signal, told me there were ponies in danger in this town."
River chuckled, "No, Doctor, I don't mean here, I mean here. "
The Doctor just looked at her, "What do you mean?"
River sighed, "I guess you don't remember." She turned around and began walking away, then stopped and said, "Wait, did you say you received a distress signal from this planet?"
The Doctor hesitated, "Technically, why?"
River turned back around and looked at him, "There hasn't been any sort of life on this planet for centuries. This is a Ghost Town."
The Doctor's eyes widened, "What?"
Luna walked around and around in a circle, admiring the sleek, futuristic looking snow suit. It matched the suits the other ponies wore, but was more flattering to her feminine figure. She turned around and saw River Song walking towards her. She looked as if she had something troubling on her mind. Luna steadied herself as River approached her. She wasted no words, and immediately asked, "Who are you, and how long have you been travelling with the Doctor?"
Luna was surprised at the question, "I'm Princess Luna, but you can just call me Luna, and, well, all of, maybe two, three days, why?"
"And how long were those two days?" River asked, looking at her knowingly.
Luna knew what she meant; what did those two days feel like, "Two months." She answered with a twinkle in her eye, "I'm going to travel with that pony forever." Her mind was made up on the subject.
"That's what they all say," River said under her breath, very nearly inaudibly. Luna heard anyway, but before she could say anything, River continued, "So what do you know about The Doctor?"
Luna hesitated, "Well, he's a timelord, who's a lot older than he looks, and he travels around in his TARDIS, saving ponies' lives."
"Not just ponies," River corrected, "He saves everyone."
Luna nodded, smiling at his nobility. "So how do you know the Doctor?" She asked, curious as to who exactly this River Song was.
River looked out into space and smiled, then turned back and said, "I'm from his future. He might or might not know me yet, but..."
Luna waited for an answer, "...but what?"
River turned towards her, "There's a piece of his memory missing," She explained, "I don't think he even knows who he is."
Luna was shocked, and worried. She wanted to be by The Doctor's side, "Where is he, anyway?"
River was snapped out of her thought by the question, "He said he had to go talk to his invisible friend, what does that mean?"
The Doctor most likely meant that 'Silence' pony, who had told them about this town in the first place. "Well, you see, there was this pony fellow, who claimed to be half Silence, whatever that means. Anyway, he-"
"What?" River looked scared now, "Did you saw he was...half Silence? "
The Doctor walked towards some secluded alleyway of the city. He could now see that it was, indeed, a Ghost Town. All the buildings were abandoned, aged beyond compared, crumbling and falling apart. When he was alone, he said out loud to no one in particular, "Hey, Silence-Pony-Thing, whatever you are! I've got some questions for you!"
The Doctor waited a few moments, then said, "I know you can hear me, answer my questions!"
Suddenly, he blinked as if he had just forgotten something important. In his hoof was the recording device, and he had no collection of how it got there.
"I hope I asked all the questions I wanted to," He said under his breath, then flicked the switch and listened to the new message.