Doctor of Equestria

Having completely ignored his grumbling about being called Frank, Derpy watched as he got all excited about the town.

"Why do you keep calling that box a she?" she asked, heading towards the street where they could find a bite to eat.

"Why? Because it's a she, that's why," he replied confidently, "My ship's always been a she.”

Without really thinking about it, she'd stopped walking and started flying alongside the Doctor as they went. "And what's wrong with Frank? If we tell everypony you're 'the Doctor', you're going to confuse somepony who wants medical advice..." She giggled at the end, thinking about him complaining about the name again. A little harmless fun for herself.

“I never really liked the name Frank. It just never sounded right. Besides, I tell everyone I'm the Doctor! I've been assumed to be a medical doctor plenty of times before, so it would hardly be the first time."

He was the one giggling now. In nearly 2000 years of life, he'd been mistaken for one quite a number of times, so it wouldn't bother him at all if any of these strangely colored ponies that he was observing passing by asked him. That is, assuming he could keep his attention on their questions. Everything was so new and so much brighter than he was used to, and he was growing more curious about those flank marks that Ditzy had called 'cutie marks'. He just had to ask, but forgot momentarily as he looked to the pegasus now flying beside him.

"How do you do that? With wings that small it should be impossible for an equine to fly at all!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"How do I...fly?" She fell to her hooves once she started trying to think about it. She shook her head to knock the thoughts out of it, and once she'd stopped thinking about it, she was flying next to him again. "Well, I just sort of...do. Flap flap and float float. I've never really thought about it any more than that. I mean, I know as well as the next pony that pegasus bodies are smaller than other ponies, and our bones are lighter, too. And then there's this."

She smirked and flew up, staring down at him as she landed on a cloud, waving excitedly down at him. The Doctor looked up in pure astonishment and had to rub his eyes just to make sure he wasn't seeing things, but sure enough, she was standing up on it still before she came flying back down to his side again.

"Wha...I...but that...that's impossible!" he stammered, "Clouds are made of water vapor! Gas! You should be passing right through it!" He was utterly confused, and the Doctor was rarely stumped by something. Now his curiosity was just fueled further. "You're defying known laws of physics! Oh, that is just brilliant!" He was beginning to like this place more and more, whatever planet he was stuck on at the moment.

He smiled, almost madly so. "Ha! You lot, just keep flinging one surprise after another at me! Speaking of which, tell me, Miss Doo, if you could, what are those so called 'cutie marks' for? Do they serve any sort of purpose? Why do some of the children have them but others don't? And why is every one I'm seeing so different? Are they like fingerprints where no two are quite the same?"

"Cutie marks are our talents. Didn't you ever learn that in school?" she asked in disbelief. "Most ponies can find work related to their cutie marks... You have to figure out what you're good at before you get your cutie mark. What are fingerprints? Is that more stuff about fish? Some ponies are similar, I suppose, there are just a lot of ponies." He was so curious, but she couldn't help thinking he was a bit crazy. How did he not know any of this already?

"So these cutie marks are something that's earned? That what you're telling me?" the Doctor asked, ignoring her jibe about learning it in school. He'd gone to school, just not any pony ones! "That makes makes sense; now I can see why my 'cutie mark' would be an hourglass. I suppose my talent IS time after all, though 'saving the universe' might've been a little more appropriate..." The concept was such a strange one to grasp, yet at the same time it made perfect sense.

She stopped and pointed her hoof, "Oh, that's the Hay Burger right over there."

"Oh! Brilliant!" he said, his ears perking up. His eyes looked up toward one of them, trying to see the ear but not quite able to. "Now THAT is a strange sensation; gonna have to get used to that." He giggled again. "Well, let's not waste any more time Miss Doo!" He approached the restaurant and went right inside without even waiting for her. That's just how he was like; impatient.

His initial reaction to her standing on a cloud was funny. He was just so excitable about everything, it seemed. "Yes, I suppose they are earned. Or learn-- HEY!" She flew after him as he trotted into the restaurant. "What do you mean 'saving the universe'? Are you really so grandiose, Doctor?" she asked.

Somehow she managed to pull him toward the counter with her hoof once she caught up to him in the restaurant and wrapped one around one of his forelimbs. What was with these ponies? They were defying logic! Oh, he was going to need to find a library after this.

"Why, yes actually. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff I've gone and done," he replied with a smirk to the mare's questions.

"You seem more like a storyteller than a doctor."

"Oh I've got a story or two to tell," he admitted with a wink.

She looked to the pony working the counter and ordered. "Two hay burger meals, with horseshoe fries, and a couple of drinks, a water and..." She looked to the Doctor, unsure what he would like to drink. "So, Doctor, let's wrap up ordering and you can tell me your story."

“If you say so Miss Doo, so long as we can eat outdoors. I do so love a sunny day." He looked over the menu, his eyes scanning over it at incredible speed. "I was fancying some melon juice early, but some...unfortunate circumstances have made me lose my appetite for it. I think I'll have some apple juice then. I'm craving some apple juice. I wonder if I'll like apples now. I thought they tasted like rubbish before, but maybe my taste buds changed enough to like them again."

She looked at the counterpony to make sure he got that, and waited for a moment for the tray of food to come up. "Here it is. Yeah, there's some nice weather out, let's go out to eat!" she responded with a grin.

The Doctor found himself grinning when she nudged him, watching as Ditzy carried the tray in her mouth all the way outside. He trotted along after her, ecstatic he was mastering walking so easily. He sat down across from the mare, impressed she'd carried the tray with everything on it so easily.

"Carrying things with your mouth; now that's another thing I've yet to see. Seems like today is full of new things for me to see. I've held stuff in my mouth in the past, but never to carry heavy things. You ponies are brilliant you are; building an entire town of all things! How do you lot even do that?" he asked.

Ditzy sipped at her drink and thought about it for a moment. "I don't really see what's brilliant about it, but okay!" she happily exclaimed.

She continued on, "I'm not exactly sure how to build a building myself, but I know that a long time ago, the Apple family settled here after generations of being nomadic. And after that, ponies just kept coming, and the town just kept growing. If you really want the details, I think the only pony old enough to have been there is person is Granny Smith... BUT-" she pointed at him, anticipating some spontaneous response, "-you are supposed to tell me a story, Doctor. And we can go from there." A smug little smirk crossed her muzzle as she started in on her fries.

"Oh come on, you can't tell a story like that to someone like me and expect me not to ask a bunch of questions!" he complained with a pout, though his grin returned a second later, "Alright, Miss Doo, you win. I am, if anything, usually a man of my word, or stallion now I suppose..." He chuckled at the thought. "Well, ask away then. I'll answer any questions you have if I can."

He watched her as she picked up one of the fry containers, his brow arched in curiosity. He looked to his hoof then, trying to figure out exactly how she'd done that while waiting for any questions she might have. It would seem like he wasn't listening, but he was.

"Well..." she thought as she munched, "How exactly do you save the universe? What is that box? How can a box be a she? Is she a nice box? DOES YOUR BOX LIKE MUFFINS? Where are you from? What's the universe like? Are there other ponies with strange crashing boxes like you where you come from? Why are you staring at your hoof like that?" She pushed the tray towards him so he could reach his food, "Why don't you know anything about being a pony? Are you really a changeling? Did that gold re-general stuff taste good? Is that like a burp where you're from? What's so fascinating about everyday ponies? What's your weird fascination with fish?" She stopped and took a drank, then ate some of her hay burger and awaited a response.

Ponies around them were staring at the pair as they passed, but the Doctor seemed to take no notice of them as he stared with a blank face at Ditzy Do. He blinked a few times, before he burst out laughing.

"Ha! And I here thought I was the only one that asked a dozen questions or more in the span of ten seconds!" he said before he began to calm down, "Well to start, I'm from a place very far away from here, very far. I travel in that box; it's also my home." His mood seemed to go a little south when he came to the question about there being 'others with crashing boxes' even though he still smiled. "There were others that traveled like me, but...not so much anymore." He wasn't going to go into detail about what had happened to his people, so he kept moving with the questions, his bright mood returning again.

"To answer your next question; I was staring at my hoof because I'm trying to figure out how you even grab anything with it!" He chuckled as he looked to it again. "I mean, it's flat! I have no fingers anymore! How do you grab anything without hands if you don't use your mouth? Plus, what's a changeling? Sounds like a shapeshifter of some sort; met all sorts of shape-shifters in my time; not many of them are very pleasant."

"Changelings are these creepy... like... nega-ponies? I've only heard stories, but they're said to be black, insect-like ponies who can take on the shapes of other ponies. They're good stories, about what happens to bad ponies. Probably thought up to keep the foals in line," Ditzy replied.

"Ooo, an insectoid-based pony race then? Now that is something I'd like to see! I've met some insectoid-based species before, but never any shape-changing ones. I wonder how they do it..." Oh he definitely had to find a library!

He paused to consider her remaining questions after that. "As for the rest, no, the regeneration energy doesn't taste good. In fact I don't think it even has a taste, and it's like a burp I suppose, but it's not something I do constantly. I suspect you'll see it again soon enough though. My body's going to be in the cycle for the next twenty-four hours or so."

He stopped again so he could concentrate on trying to grab the fries. He couldn't get them to stick though, and had to resort to grabbing them between both hooves and nearly crushing them. That didn't stop the Doctor from sticking his nose in the fries and grabbing a bunch in his mouth.

"Mmm, these are delicious!" he said happily, swallowing them down and going for more. He didn't even realize just how starved he was before they were all gone. "Well how do you like that?" he said with a grin at the empty container before looking to Derpy, "Seems I'm a bit of a greedy thing this time around."

He put the empty container on the tray, before pulling it to him so he could pull his juice off the tray and try it. It was a little more sweet than he was used to, but not bad.

"To answer your last two questions, EVERYTHING fascinates me, especially if it's something I don't know about, and there's very little I don't know about in some shape or form. I've traveled all across the vast universe to places you couldn't even begin to imagine. Fish fascinate me as well, but it's not in any sort of weird way. Where did you get the idea about fish from anyway? Because I said fingers? Well, I suppose it's possible, seeing as the word 'fin' is in it, but I assure you, fingers have absolutely nothing to do with fish or their fins - dorsal, tail, pectoral, or anything."

Ditzy looked down nervously, to avoid the staring ponies. She was sure some of them were staring because of the way the Doctor and herself were carrying on, but she'd recognized some of the stares. She got them all the time. She pushed the rest of her fries to the Doctor, and started slowly on her burger.

"I'm starting to get the feeling fingers are a little like claws. Are they sharp too?" she asked.

"Oh, now THAT is a great comparison!" he said, gladly accepting the fries she pushed toward him, "Thank you Miss Doo, and yes, the nails on fingers can be sometimes sharp, especially on the women. Oh that hurts when they slap you and their nails scrape across the skin..." He was getting unpleasant memories just thinking about it. "I'm just lucky I have thick skin, otherwise I would've had a bloody cheek on more than one occasion."

She finished her burger and drink, and waited for the Doctor to do the same. "Wh-when you're done, we can go and see Mayor Mare, and then you can ask Granny Smith all about the founding of Ponyville. I'll answer anything I can in the meantime though!" she said with a bit of excitement as he ate.

First were the other things he had to get done on his mental checklist: finish eating, meet this Mayor Mare (a very bad pun by the way), meet Granny Smith and ask her more about Ponyville, visit the library if there was one... Oh the list just kept on getting bigger and bigger with so many new things to learn flying at him at once! He was getting giddy just thinking about it!

But first was the matter of figuring out how to hold things with hooves, specifically this burger. He eyed it, trying to determine how best to approach the task. He tried holding it on the sides, but it slipped between his hooves; he tried holding it by the top and bottom, but he couldn't seem to get it to roll on its side.

"Ah ha! I have it!" he said triumphantly.

He pulled the burger to the very edge of the table where it sat precariously perched halfway off. He held a hoof down over it as lightly as he could, bent down, and took a huge bite out of the burger - nearly half of it - which left his cheeks quite distended. With a little help of his juice, he got the lump down before smacking his lips.

"Now that is an interesting taste...Can't say I've ever had hay before, or ever liked it. Or did I? I can never remember. Must be the new taste buds with this equine body,” he mused aloud, though mostly to himself after Derpy was finished talking.

He managed to finish the rest of the sandwich using the method he had for the first time, either not noticing or not caring about all the weird stares he was getting. After that, he finished his apple juice, licking his lips in satisfaction.

"Now that hit the spot!" he said happily, "Thank you Miss Doo." He stood up. "Let's get this cleaned up; I'm looking forward to meeting this mayor of yours."

She had to hold back her laughter as he tried to eat his burger, and it became even harder when he finally found a way to eat it. "You're weird, Doctor, and you're welcome." she said with a smile, grabbing the tray and dumping its empty contents into a bin. She put it on the little shelf over the bin and hurried over to him.

"Thank you Miss Doo, I am quite strange aren't I?" he responded cheerfully. People, no matter what species they were, could call him weird all they wanted, because that's exactly what he was. "I'm far more than just weird, mind you. Some might even call me a...madman. Or a madpony I suppose. Now that would be a new one." He giggled like a child at the very thought.

"Come along, Doc," she said and hooked her front leg around one of his and pulled him in the direction of the town hall, a bit of a skip in her step.

Ready to follow her to the town hall, he didn't quite expect was for her to hook her front leg around one of his and start pulling him along. He nearly fell on his face trying to walk on three legs, especially with her pulling him along!

"Whoa!" he exclaimed, "This is another strange sensation, walking on three legs... Bit like crawling I suppose, with one arm lifted? Weight distribution's much different though; when I crawled around I had more surface area to work with than just what the contact points my new hooves provide." Even through everything that smile of his never fell.

She giggled at his stumbling as she pulled him along, "Well, you want to get there fast, say your hellos, and be on the way to Sweet Apple Acres as quick as you can, right? I don't really get the feeling you're the type to sit patiently, Doctor!"

"That's a very good observation Miss Doo," he said, "You're right, I generally can't sit still for more than a few minutes. Seems this new me can sit still longer than that though as long as I'm doing something like talking or whatnot."

She pointed out various things along the way, mostly stalls and the like, since this route goes through the market. "Why do they call you mad, Doctor?” she suddenly aked, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, “Are you angry a lot? You seem pretty happy... most of the time."

His focus split again as she pointed out the various stalls while taking him through the marketplace, splitting between her talking and his eyes absorbing every bit of visual stimuli into his complicated brain. Of course, that focus could be hard to keep up if one got, for want of a better term, distracted easily, so as soon as Ditzy asked why he'd said he'd been called mad, his focus went back to the pegasus.

"Well, I suppose I get angry sometimes. I don't know if I'll get as overly emotional as I did in my last life, or I might get emotional more easily. Who knows! That's the fun of discovering my new personality though!" he replied, "But when I said mad, I meant mad as in crazy, a nutter, off my rocker, touched in the head... That sort of thing." His eyes looked around more. "This is a lovely little marketplace by the way. Lots of stalls selling all sorts of things, even things I'd never expect! Ha, clever ponies you lot are!

"Yeah, but don't trust the cherry stand guy, he's a jerk. I heard he made a pony cry."

"Now that's a mean thing to do," the Doctor said.

She stopped him suddenly, and poked him in the head with her hoof. "Now you're REALLY touched in the head, and there's the town hall!"

Then Derpy went and poked him in the head and said now he really was touched in the head. "Very clever Miss Doo, very clever."

She released his leg and trotted ahead, motioning for the Doctor to come along as she disappeared through the door. "Mayor Mare? Are you here? I brought somepony new to town! And he's really smart and has questions about the town!"