One Life to Love

Chapter 12: In Time, Everything Will Change.

Ditzy and the Doctor fell into the blue box together laughing, the door shut behind them quickly to keep out the mob of angry wedding goers that was sure to be behind them. They sat laughing at the loud bangs emanating from the door behind them for a few moments before the doctor shot up and trotted to the console in the middle of the box. Ditzy took a bit longer to recover from her fit of laughter after realizing that she was still in her wedding dress. Finally, the blonde-maned pegasus walked up to the Doctor and smiled, removing the large white garment from her flank as she did.

"That was brilliant, amazingly, awesomely brilliant Doctor," Ditzy spoke as she stood and watched the Doctor from her side of the console. The Doctor chuckled at her enthusiasm and kept tweaking little things on the console, obviously preparing it for another trip.

"Yes, yes, brilliant, but then again I suppose it is the TARDIS, she's quite brilliant all the time," the Doctor answered. He  turned one final lever, then leaned forward as if directing it. "Aren't you darling."

Dizzy cocked her head to the side and lowered an eyebrow as she smiled at the quirky Doctor.

"You named the box."

"Well why would I not, it seems to me that a ship able to travel through space and time would be in need of a name after all." The Doctor pulled a level and the familiar sound of the TARDIS starting up filled the room."Besides, what's wrong with the name, I think TARDIS is a lovely name, a good name, a proper name."

Ditzy leaned her head back in confusion, thinking she'd hit a nerve with the time traveling pony. She took a moment to let any negativiy the Doctor was feeling let itself out before moving towards him and sitting at his side.

"What's it even mean then?"

"It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. So basically, it's just a fancy way of spaying spaceship and time machine lovechild."

Ditzy narrowed her eyes in annoyance at the odd time traveler, a look that was replied to with a smile from the Doctor. "OK then, what's a Lorianis?"

"Nasty creatures, parasites in my opinion. They can mate and produce offspring with any creature in the universe. So the mates of their species go out and use other life forms as food factories. Because their food source is babies. Their ranked as one of the most vile species in the universe because of that."

  The roaring of the TARDIS suddenly stopped just as Ditzy began to contemplate what becoming a baby factory meant, and the image that implanted into her head was not a fun one. The Doctor made a movement with two of the appendages on his K-law and the doors to the TARDIS swung open. Ditzy and the Doctor stepped outside, and were immediately greeted with a dismal view. The skies seemed to have lost all color, and the streets shared a similar absence. Something was terribly wrong.

Ditzy and the Doctor trotted through the streets of the unfamiliar city, the Doctor seemed intrigued, but Ditzy just felt fearful. The Doctor suddenly stormed towards a large poster and started dancing in place, pointing at the poster with his K-law and smiling. "Look Ditzy, it looks like someone wants us."

Ditzy strode up to the poster, and her eyes widened. The poster was riddled with faces, some were covered over with the words 'apprehended,' or 'slaughtered.' Two particular faces stood out among the random assortment. There, side by side upon the poster, was her face with the word 'Derpy,' posted under it alongside the Doctor's face.

"Doctor, this is not good." Derpy turned to the Doctor, the fear evident in his eyes.

"I think it's awesome, it's exciting." The Doctor smiled, continuing to marvel at the poster."It means something exciting's about to happen."

Ditzy was about to respond, but was suddenly cut off by a large ball of energy shooting between them and frying both of their pictures. They both turned in fear at the origin of the blast to see a purple unicorn with dark hair and an eye patch over her right eye. Her black K-law burned with the same light as the blast of energy from before.

"Hello Doctor," the unicorn started,"it's been a while."

"Yes it has Twilight Sparkle,"the Doctor began,"but not long enough a while for me."

***

The Doctor, Ditzy, and Twilight stood outside of the TARDIS quietly. Twilight had been explaining things to the two time travelers as best she could in the five minutes it had taken to get here.

"So basically, things have went really sour, OK, how can we help?" The Doctor smiled cheerfully.

"Don't Doctor, this timeline ended up this way because you tried to help. I lost all the friends I ever had, all of them, even Rainbow Dash, because you interfered with the Elements of Harmony. So when you take that little blue box and fly  away, don't get in the way. "  The bright energy burst from her K-law again, and she pointed one of the appendages towards him menacingly as she spoke. Her eyes became filled with tears."I will not let another version of me grow up without Rainbow Dash, not like I did."

With that, the Twilight Sparkle from the future walked away, leaving the Doctor and Ditzy alone. After a moment, the Doctor just trotted happily into the TARDIS, with Ditzy following close behind.

"So what are we going to do now Doctor," Ditzy asked, walking up to him as he started to tinker away at the TARDIS' controls.

"Nothing, that's what, we weren't even supposed to end up in this time stream, but something brought us here, and that's not good." The Doctor suddenly stopped his tinkering and looked up at the blonde mailmare. "Your eyes, I just noticed, they don't always do that do they."

"Do what?"

"That thing where they go to different sides, that's odd, is that why that poster had your name as 'Derpy?"

Ditzy blushed, Derpy was the nickname the ponies of Ponyville had given her. It was true, that the odd name had been given to her because of her eyes, but it was originally supposed to be out of affection that the name was given. Some ponies though, they just couldn't tease someone enough.

"Yeah, it is, but I don't really like it very much. I would rather have some other name than that."

The Doctor cocked his head to the side and lowered an eyebrow in curiosity. "Really, I kinda like the name Derpy, it's a lovely name. Very well then, what name would you rather have?"

Ditzy thought for a moment, turning her head from side to side in wonder. Finally, her head shot up and her eyes widened in delight as she realized her answer. "Rose, I want to be called Rose!"

The Doctor scrunched up his face, thinking hard about her choice. He pressed a button on the TARDIS and the whirring of what Ditzy had by now considered the engine of the Tardis returned around them like an old friend. "Rose huh. Well, it's not what I would have chosen, but I'm not the one in charge of names am I, if I was in charge all the colts would be called Bob and Jerry, and all the mares would be called Miss PrinPim. So anyway, where do we go next Rose."

Ditzy, no, Rose smile at the time traveller as she walked up to the console of the TARDIS beside him. She leaned on a bar nearby and smiled."We have a time machine, let's just press some random buttons and see where it get's us."

"Oh I am going to like you." The Doctor proceeded to press random buttons on the controls and smiled. Ditzy returned his smile and looked toward the door of the TARDIS. Her eyes were drawn to the wedding dress beside it that she'd worn only this morning, or maybe it was a morning that had not happened yet, or even one that happened hundreds of years in the past on some far away planet. Anything was possible.

Everything was ending, and yet at the same time, everything was beginning.