The Doctor and his Wandering Heart

Chapters

When it was Impossible to Be
Out to Lunch
A Date without Destiny
The Shadow of History

When it was Impossible to Be

Chaos and cacophony, bright flashes of yellow and orange fire shooting out from the walls and various instruments doting the central console, heavy, metal clanging as the room around him fell apart, drowning out every thought he could possibly try to have through the pain shooting through his body. It was enough to make him forget how he even ended up in this situation. He was certainly dying, oh that was very clear with what he was feeling. Bones crack as they morphed, muscles scream as they tightened, contracted, shortened, changed. He’d never felt a death quite as unique as this one. But through it all, something enlightened him. He could not think through it all, but there was one thing he could do that never required an ounce of thought. Something engrained in every bone he’d ever had, something imprinted on every mind that ever thought his thoughts, something that he never could forget to do, even if he wanted, for whatever reason. Run.

And so he ran, away from the bursting console he was fruitlessly staring at. He bid his aching, changing body to turn and make the way toward the door, the maelstrom of sound cut through by the sound of his feet clanging against the thin metal walkway. He made it to the door, shoved it open and closed his eyes, not daring to see what was on the other side for some reason. Either a very wise, or very poor choice, as the horrid symphony of destruction behind crescendoed with a terrible boom. Something exploded, and the force was enough to fling him directly out of the wondrous blue box he loved. And then he felt himself in a free fall, the sound of disaster replaced with the deafening whistle of air quickly blowing past his ears. The pain in his changing body was quickly replaced with agonizing numbness, the air was freezing cold. The only thing he could feel was his body plummeting through hail, hard icey stones pummeling his body, leaving aching welts that powered through static numbness. At this moment, he began to wonder if his amazing physiology was a blessing or a curse. He was going to survive to be sure, he was still in the midst of his cycle, but the next few moments would be very, very painful. He tried to push that thought aside, and started to prepare himself for what was sure to happen.

After a few minutes of intense freefall, unable to pry open his eyes since they closed, his back crashed against the ground through a thick blanket of snow. His body had settled on his new appearance somewhere in the midst of that fall, so now he had nothing to distract himself from the feeling of his body compacting against itself as he smashed into the frozen ground. It was so hard he may as well have hit concrete, his spine and ribs shattering, exploding from the compressive force. He had to lay there, breathless for a few moments being buried in the snow while his body reformed itself into a state that wasn’t… Completely and utterly broken, for the lack of better words. He still suffered as his body healed. In the oppressive cold, he could feel himself freezing. He could feel individual cells icing over, popping, and then being pulled back together by the left-over regenerative energy in his body. If there was any consolation, it only happened once for every cell in his body. Something was stopping it from happening again. He was left confused over what that was, but at least he would not need to go through that pain again. When he felt he could move again, he unsteadily shifted himself over onto his stomach, and started to blindly crawl out his snowy grave, and along the white desolate landscape. Every time he tried to open his eyes, they were instantly dried by the blistering winds, and even if he could keep them open, he noticed each time they opened all he could see was the thick sheets of snow in the air. All he could do was crawl, and hope he would eventually make it to civilization. If there was even any civilization to find.

After hours that felt like endless days of crawling through snow, he had to stop, and just lay there in the snow. His body was no longer destroying itself as it froze, but it was still freezing. His limbs became cold and hard as ice formed in his muscles. If he wasn’t going to die, he was at least going to sleep there, an organic brand of cryostasis. After hours of feeling his body slowly turn to ice, the only thought he could have anymore, was that he hoped the freezing of his brain stole his consciousness, and he would not need to experience the hundreds, maybe thousands of years until he was found. As he was in the midst of accepting his seemingly inevitable fate, he heard the crunch of snow under people’s feet. Maybe that fate wasn’t as sure as he thought, but he couldn’t bid himself to talk, or move. His throat and extremities frozen too deeply. He could only hope whoever they were could see him through the snow, and had the mind to save him.

“Captain! There’s somepony here, in the snow!” A voice shouted out through the whistling winds. Masuline, only a few inches away from him. He was so, so lucky they were so close, and cared to tell a superior about him. Though, he must’ve misheard him through the screeching winds. ‘Somepony,’ instead of someone or somebody.

The squeak of squashing snow soon continued, as at least eight more joined the first in looking at him as he sat there in the snow, unmoving.

“By Celestia, he doesn’t have any protective clothing! Somepony load him onto their back, we need to get him back to the city, quick!” Someone shouted, probably that Captain the first person shouted for earlier. They found him, AND wanted to help him, enough to turn around immediately? He thought he couldn’t be luckier, until he felt himself being lifted out of the snow. With no feeling of touch around his body. A race with telekinesis, even better. They had to be advanced enough to help him from his advanced state of freezing. He let his consciousness let go, a nap at this point wouldn’t hurt, and by anything and everything, he deserved it after the ordeal he had been through in the previous few hours.

He was roused from his sleep by the sound of new voices, though in his tired fog, he could hardly make most of it out, and his tired eyes refused to open to attach the voices to faces. He tried his best to make heads or tails of what was going on, but his tired mind kept losing track of conversations.

The first thing to wake him was a femenine voice, they sounded worried. It sounded like a title of some sort, fury something or some sort, but it was lost in the haze. From the way their voice tracked from far away to close, they must’ve been running toward the group. The Captain, the person he assumed to be the Captain, replied, going through the motions to assure whoever it was he was okay. And then she gave the normal replies. It’s okay, I’m okay, so glad you’re okay. He’s heard it all before. Too many times before really, it was just a drone of noise at that point. He was almost… annoyed by it, which worried him. Though that thought was pushed aside as the woman revealed the source of her worries. Apparently the weather that greeted him as he jumped from the box was abnormal, and started so suddenly that she was worried for their safety. Abnormal weather patterns, never a good sign. Was it caused by him, or were they the cause of his being here somehow? Questions that distracted him as they themselves wondered aloud what could have been the cause. Questions that made him miss another voice’s arrival. Another woman, voice was higher up than all the rest, they must’ve been taller. Royalty of some sort, one of them used the term ‘Princess,’ which piqued his attention. If he was going to get any help or information from these people, he’d need to understand their culture and way of life.

Though he didn’t get much of that. He was treated to more information of a personal nature, apparently the captain was also related to this Princess. He was saved by royalty, very interesting, very unusual. Advanced monarchical societies were usually protective of their nobility. Though, he can’t complain, if he was saved by a member of the ruling class, that must afford him some purchase to better treatment from the society later on.

A certain type of treatment was much more important at the moment though, as the apparent Princess pointed out after their initial discussion was done. She gave an order to bring him to some sort of castle, and offered to look him over. Noble nepotism, now an enemy. A low rank in the military? Helpful. A probably non-medically trained person trying to examine a near dead man that isn’t actually the species he would appear to be? A problem. A problem that made itself apparent very quickly, as they attempted to move one of his limbs. With an icy crack, pain shot up his arm, in his back and then to his pain, shutting him off like a switch. Frozen muscles cracking like ice. To no one’s surprise, very painful, a type of pain he had the pleasure of never experiencing before, a pain even he could not withstand at this weak point. Mercifully though, the pain didn’t last long as consciousness fled from him to hide from it.

The next time he woke up, he was in a hospital bed. A surprisingly comfortable hospital bed at that. Usually they were all too firm or too soft to feel good for anyone, or right down the middle in horrid compromise that made no one happy at all. At long last he was able to open his eyes and take in his surroundings. And the bed was far from the thing he was most impressed by at the moment he opened them. He was in a hospital room, usually clones with bare furnishing that tried and failed to make them seem like a room someone could live in, but not this one. It had a king sized bed with finely quilted purple sheets, nice and heavy to beat away the cold. Granted the furnishings were rather sparse, just a bedside table for each side, and a writing desk with an inbuilt mirror, but everything seemed to make out of dark, fine wood. Those on their own would be an amazing hospital room, but the room itself was also amazing. The walls themselves were made of crystal. Most of them were smoothed flat, but the corners were left in a natural state, with all the odd angles that came with being a crystal. How incredible, he’d never seen anything quite like that in all his years. Bid by his desire for knowledge, he tried to get up and out of the bed, only to tumble straight off the edge onto the floor.

How strange, he’d never lost control like that after a regeneration. Turning his gaze down at his legs, he found the source of his stumbling. Four legs. Not even any feet to speak of, just flat hooves. “Well, that's maybe the last thing I expected in a regeneration.” He said, taking a moment to examine his voice. It was deeper than he liked, a bit gravelly. Familiar almost, but he couldn’t quite place who it reminded him of. No one he really knew, surely, he could tell that much. Voice wasn’t the main concern now anyway. Four legs. A quadruped Timelord, was there no barrier of possibility he couldn’t cross eventually? Carefully rolling onto all four limbs, he slowly started pushing himself up away from the floor. Standing wasn’t horribly different, there were two whole extra limbs to balance on. Walking though, walking would be more difficult. One foot in front of the other would be the best way, the only problem was the severe lack of feet, and the addition of two more feet should there have been feet.

Slowly, carefully placing one… Leg? Hoof? Forward, he placed his forward weight on it to test if he could stay stable. Stable enough, he determined, and then moved another limb forward, back legs, opposite side. He’d seen animals walk before, he could probably copy them easily enough. Once more, forelimbs, same side this time, and then again, rear limbs, opposite side. And sure as his hearts beat, he moved forward. Trying again faster, he was moving along as if he always had their four legs. A natural. A natural at walking, surely he had never reached such lofty heights before. He would have to pat himself on the back and figure out how this happened later, for now there were much more pressing things to see to. Find his saviours, find his TARDIS, and then save the day from whatever was going wrong this time. Hopefully in that order.

He strode toward the door, idly brushing one of his new hooves against the desk as he passed, giving himself a quick glance in the mirror that was built on top of it. A very blocky face structure, ridiculously large, sideways facing eyes, small nostril slits. He opened his mouth, looking at his teeth as he brushed his tongue along their bottoms. Flat grinding teeth. Just as he expected, not even the slightest of ideas what he was supposed to be. Something evolved from an herbivore prey species, obviously. Four legs, flat ends… Hooves? He did have a long snout. Could it be some kind of sentient equine-esque creature? Just as possible as anything he’d ever seen and everything else he hadn’t seen too.

As close as he’d get for now, what about himself? White… Coat? Coat was the proper term for horses and ponies, right? His mane was also white-ishm just a bit darker. Silver, silver was the proper term. It was pretty scruffy, short on the sides, longer on top making for a horrid nest of bed head. A similar situation a bit lower, silvery hair outlining his chin and the top of his lip for a surprisingly well tame goatee. Thank goodness whoever saw him was able to find him, it’d be easy to confuse him for snow with how lightly coloured he was. Brown eyes. Freakishly large brown eyes, it should be pointed out again. The bags underneath them were unnaturally large as well, either thanks to the naturally absurd eyes, or his utter lack of a sleep schedule. The only other thing that seemed to be of any note was a tail, matching in colour to his mane and facial hair, it was by far the neatest hair on his body, just falling straight off the little nubben of muscle it was attached to, just long enough to hover above the ground save a few errant strands whos tips brushed it.

He gave himself another once over, walking in a circle to check everything. Nothing else seemed to be of note, so he finally finished the trip to the door, stopping a foot away to stare at the door handle. Hooves, a round door handle. Walking came easily enough, hopefully grabbing things did as well. Carefully shifting weight off one hoof, he raised that one up and pressed it against the door knob, and twisted it. To no effect. With a displeased hrm, he tried just generally tencing all the muscles and the leg and twisting again. For absolutely no reason that would make sense, the handle twisted with it, and he was able to pull the door open.

Only to find someTHING standing in front of him already. It looked not entirely unlike him, except this one had a ‘softer’ facial structure, with a shorter snout and more curves, and they were unnaturally purple, with three a three toned mane of other pink-purple hues, similar to her tail. That was already incredibly strange, but she also seemed to be an admixture of two mythical creatures. A unicorn horn jutting out just below her hairline, and wings sprouting from the small of her back like a pegasus. She made the first introduction, smiling at him and speaking up. “Oh, you’re awake! The doctors thought you’d be out for a few days at least. Good thing I came to check up on you.”

He stood silently for a few moments, trying to scan over her body with his eyes as nonchalantly as he possibly could. He obviously failed, because as he looked down, the amalgam of mythology tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow at him. “Yes, I suppose so. I’d hate to be left to wander around on my own.”

She, if he was correct to judge by her softer features and the pitch of her voice, opened her mouth to reply, only to pause and lean forward to peek around the room. “Wait, you got up without the medical staff? Geez, I thought Rainbow had an impressive recovery time. There were talks of cutting off one of your legs.”

He cringed at the thought. There were only two possible outcomes to that, either he actually lost his leg, or he regrew an entire limb in front of a team of medical professionals under the employ of national leaders. He didn’t know which situation was actually worse.

“Yeah,” The woman started, reaching out with one of her forelimbs to tap the counterpart on his body, “that wouldn’t be any good at all. I’m glad it didn’t come to that. I’m Twilight Sparkle by the way.” She lifted the tapping limb up, offering the limb with her hoof facing upward.

Taking a guess he lifted up his own limb, placing his hoof against her own. Luckily, she started to lift his hoof up and down. A handshake with hooves. If hoofshake, if you will. Putting on his best smile, he looked back up to her eyes. “Hello Twilight Sparkle. I’m The Doctor.”

Out to Lunch

“Your name is ‘The Doctor’?” The woman, or mare as equines were called if he recalled correctly, asked. “Somepony’s parents had lofty expectations, didn’t they?” She said with a titter, a small smile creeping over her face. Muzzle?

‘Somepony.’ So that really was what he had heard earlier. If there was any doubt about his assumptions before, they were now solidified by an utter lack of respect for convention by this species. Somepony, not someone, not something, and not even something else as ridiculous, like somecreature. No, somepony. And the translation matrices in the TARDIS were obviously working, since the chances of this species he had no idea about speaking a language he personally knew were so astronomically low that it didn’t even bear consideration. So that must have meant that they didn’t have a word meaning ‘someone’ like every other race he had ever known. How stupidly silly.

He was pulled from his internal monologue by Twilight clearing her throat into the fetlock of a raised hoof. Pushing the thoughts aside, he finally replied. “I suppose they did. Though, I don’t think anyone- Ahem, anyPONY has called me exclusively ‘The Doctor’ ever. Just ‘Doctor’ would be fine, Miss Sparkle.”

The mare waved the hoof she had up dismissively, smiling and chuckling once again. “Oh, no need to be so formal, Doctor. Just Twilight is fine. But good effort! Being called ‘Miss’ is one of the least formal introductions I’ve had since I became a Princess.”

He forced a smile back, chuckling back until a thought hit him. “Wait a moment, Princess…” He trailed off and looked down, scratching his chin with the tip of a hoof. She was a Princess, and that voice, that voice was familiar… “You’re the one who broke my leg!” He exclaimed, his head shooting back up to glare at her.

Twilight’s first reaction was to physically cringe, leaning back away and recoiling her neck closer to her body. “I was only trying to help, I admit that I might have been overzealous and acted with a bit too much haste. But there’s no way I broke your leg, or else you never would’ve been walking again, let alone walking so soon.”

He huffed and looked down, lifting his leg to idly kick it through the air. She would have had a point were he a normal ‘pony,’ but he couldn’t exactly explain that he was a time traveling, dimension traveling alien, could he? Regrettably, he’d just have to acquiesce. “I suppose I’ll have to give you that, but it still was very far from a pleasant experience.”

The pony in front of him slightly relaxed, but continued to grimace. “I can’t argue with that. Again, I want to say that I am truly sorry. I didn’t know you were in that poor of a condition.”

He wanted to chastise her, scold her for being so foolish and improper, but he bit his tongue. He couldn’t be too angry, he was saved, his leftover regenerative energy stitched him back together. And her face was alarmingly disarming. Probably something in the absurdly large eyes tricking the insides of his reptilian brain. Before he could come up with something that straddled the line just enough, she interrupted.

“You must be hungry though, after whatever happened. I was just checking up on you before heading to lunch with my brother and his family. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind at all if you joined.” She offered, letting her grimace dissolve into a friendly smile.

“I couldn’t even think of denying. Thank you for the offer.” He replied. Denying would have been a stupid thing, no one ever denied dinner when asked by royalty, and this gave him the perfect opprutuinity to bump elbows, or fetlocks, or ulnas, with the local nobility. No faster way to make inroads to information. And a good chance to scan what kind of diet the upper echelon had, and from there he could probably figure out what the species as a whole would eat.

He followed after the Princess after she started with his confirmation. The hall's walls were made of the same flat crystal as the room was, decorated as finely as well. Sturdy wooden tables adorning it every so often, oft with flowers on top or a painting hung above, sometimes both. It had one long continuous carpet, straddling a line between dark blue and purple along most of it, adorned with a pattern of a few sky blue criss crossing, wisping lines that turned into hollow hearts in the middle of the carpet, large ones in front of every door, smaller ones in front of every set of tables. Fancy and yet surprisingly simple at the same time.

While examining the carpet’s pattern a set of legs appeared in his view, looking up he saw something that only raised more questions. It was another pony or at least a facsimile thereof, only made of translucent crystal instead of flesh and bone. It was also wearing clothes, a black maid’s dress covering up most of its form, leaving only small parts of its smaragdine body visible, half of its rear legs, the hooves of its forelimbs, and the head. No horn, no wings either, he observed, just like him.

Now he had to wonder, was he nude? The Princess wasn’t wearing clothes, but the serventry was, so was nudity something like a status symbol? If so, he couldn’t yet tell if it was a blessing or curse that his clothes mysteriously disappeared somewhere between jumping out of the TARDIS and hitting the ground. Next question was, what did it mean that he and that thing did not have wings or a horn? Obviously neither of them could have flown with wings like the Princess had, nor her either, so were they evolutionary cling-ons like a human’s tail? Or maybe they weren’t wings at all and this was the pony equivalent of a Habsburg chin. The horn was an obvious evolutionary boon though, so there was no point in trying to figure that out. Maybe he was just a certain sub-species of pony, just a pony while this Princess Twilight was a pegasus-unicorn hybrid. A pegacorn, perhaps.

The last, most pressing question, what was that thing? No bones to be seen, so was it some kind of pony golem made of gemstones? Was it sentient? Having passed it a few steps ago, he craned his neck back to look at it, matching eyes with it. Fairly quickly it noticed his looking, and looked back, smiling and waving. Returning the gesture as an afterthought, he turned away to close his eyes and think.

Sentient then. Sentient creatures based on old human mythology, in both flesh and mineral forms, with himself being turned into one of the former. No way the two weren’t somehow related. Maybe the TARDIS’ chameleon circuit malfunctioned in the explosion and did this while sensing something here. She did seem to have the most uncanny ability to dump him right where he needed to save something or someone. If that was the case, it would make sense if the crystal based life form was native to the giant crystal building, and that the Princess was foreign. So was he here to be their liberator? He placed the idea aside until he had more information, and opened his eyes just in time to see his escort take a turn for a set of doors.

A purple glow surrounded the doors for a moment, opening inward before the aura faded. That confirmed their telekinetic abilities if it was needed. He followed the Princess into the room, the aura surrounding the door once more to shut them as he walked in far enough to not be hit by their swing.

The room was a dining room, walls lined on both sides with massive windows with large, deep purple curtains tied open with golden sashed. The dining table in the center of the room was made of the same crystal material as the walls, ornately carved with hearts instead of having a tablecloth set on top, though it was covered with crystal dinnerware. Plates, bowls, glasses, pitchers, decanters, flower vases, even the silverware were all made of silver. As interesting as that was, and it was interesting as it was gaudy, he was far more interested in the ponies at the table. Another one with both wings and a horn, and one with just a horn. The pegacorn was bubblegum pink, with a purple, pink, yellow tricolour mane. She was wearing what seemed to be some form of jewelry, a simple gold necklace hugging her barrel, and a small, simple crown resting on top of her horn that resembled half a fleur de lis. Another member of the aristocracy, another with both horn and wings, made of flesh and bone. He was starting to feel more and more sure of his earlier assessment of the situation with the crystal being.

The other one there had a simple white coat, with a mane made up of three different blues. He, however, was wearing armour. The armour looked decorative more than anything else, but armour nonetheless. Mostly purple, with gold filigree, and a pendant set into the chest with a purple star as decoration. And again, a normal creature. Bodyguard, soldier? One of them was a sibling to the Princess escorting him in any case, and since one was another species…

“Shiny!” The Princess to his side called out, rushing forward toward the table as the soldier did much similar, meeting one another halfway through and crashing into a hug. A bit like a pair of siblings would. Maybe he should just stop making assumptions. But that did raise a few more questions. The two looked nothing alike, aside from being different species they had totally different coat colours, and different hair colours. If he were being generous, they both did have hairs with strips of over tones of the same colour, but this ‘Shiny’ only had two instead of three.

Ignoring that for now, he glanced over toward the pegacorn who was already looking back at him. The two kept an awkward silence while the two hugged for what most would probably consider too long, The Doctor not wanting to put himself at a disadvantage by offering a greeting first, the other probably too worried about making an introduction to someone who entered a room and was not formally introduced first.

Lacking such social graces, The Doctor cleared his throat, briefly glancing back at the hugging siblings. The two let each other go, smiling awkwardly as they took a step back from one another.

“Sorry about that, it’s just been so long since I’ve seen him. Running Equestria is infinitely more time consuming than saving it.” Twilight offered, turning back toward her guest.

“Oh, that’s quite alright, I just noticed that the other esteemed Princess was a touch curious about me.” He replied, looking back over to match eyes with the pegacorn, hoping his assumptions about a race based hierarchy were right.

“Oh, right, of course! Doctor, this is Princess Cadence, obviously. Cadence, this is-” Twilight paused in the middle of her sentence, a small frown crossing her face as she lowered her voice to a mumble. “No, that doesn’t sound grammatically correct. I mean it’s your name so ‘this is Doctor’ would be correct, but that sounds silly.” She trailed off to herself, trying to figure out which way to introduce him was correct, each time coming to a circular logic of ‘this is Doctor’ sounding wrong, and ‘this is The Doctor’ sounding too impersonal and imprecise.

After the fourth go, the Doctor just shook his head and introduced himself. “Nice to meet you both. I’m the Doctor, or just Doctor if you please. I wasn’t fully conscious, but I believe I was the cause of some interest earlier today.”

The two thought for a moment, before the Princess, Cadence, stood from her seat. “You’re the pony we brought in from the snow storm? The doctors said you’d be unconscious for weeks, if you were lucky. How are you up and walking?”

That was a good question. A very good question that he had not readied a lie for. And now the pressure was on as every pair of eyes in the room fell on him, each one demanding an answer in their curious gaze.

“Well, it would sound unlike me, but I must’ve been very, very lucky. Usually when things go my way, it’s due to my towering intellect and my charmingly good looks, so all of my luck must’ve been waiting for this moment to come out of hiding.” He spoke, letting every first thought he had fall out of his mouth, hoping that they would either accept it, or be disarmed by his ego.

It somehow worked, as Twilight just shrugged to herself. “Well, it wouldn’t be the most absurd thing I’ve ever seen. Maybe you’ve got a bit of Apple in you, those ponies are hardier than Crystal Ponies.”

Shining and Cadence chuckled behind her, so he quickly joined in, letting his lips part for a smirk. Always laugh along to a joke, no matter how much sense it didn’t make. A bit of apple? Apple a day keeps the doctors away, he could understand that, but a bit of apple to survive plummeting from the sky and getting your frozen muscles snapped like a fresh carrot? All the thinking about carrots and apples reminded him though, he was fairly hungry from his regeneration. His grumbling stomach also stood as a fairy good reminder.

Thankfully his hosts took notice and returned to their seats, or took their seats in Twilight’s case. “We can talk about this later, you’re probably starving.” Cadence said, and then raised her front hooves to clap them together. Three servants came out from a door behind the Princess, though one saw him taking a seat near Twilight and quickly poked their head back in before returning to the other two, who delivered a plate of salad to the nobles. A moment after, a fourth came out with another plate, delivering it to The Doctor.

Rocket, cherry tomatoes, and pine nuts. How… Surprisingly austere. He quickly peeks around to check the plates in front of the others around him, and sure enough they had the same meal as him. Hardly a meal even, more like a snack. And these were royalty? This is hardly the opulence he expected from what he thought were going to be racial supremacist dictators. None of this made sense.

Internally huffing he grabbed a nearby fork and stabbed his salad, bringing a healthy bite to his mouth. He contemplated as he chewed, trying not to choke up as the cherry tomatoes popped on his tongue. New body, new tongue, and this tongue hated tomatoes it seemed. There must be something going on here, something must have drawn him here or the TARDIS never would have ended up on a strange world even he had no information about. Maybe it was just a side effect of the rapid deconstruction going on in the control room, but then the question was what caused the TARDIS to explode like that. Actually, that was going to be a pressing question in either case.

He picked up another forkful before he noticed he was using the fork. He looked at his hoof, seeing it curve slightly around the handle of the fork. No digits, no telekinesis, no glue, just a flat hoof wrapping around a fork somehow. At least he wasn’t going to need to devise some strange system to hold things without hands. He put his new forkful into his mouth and looked aside to see if he missed anything lost in thought.

No one else at the table was doing anything, they hadn’t even touched their salad, all eyes were staring at him. Not just at him, but at his rump as he hadn’t seen fit to scooch his chair in. As soon as they all noticed he noticed their staring, they immediately grabbed their forks in their sparking, glowing telekinetic fields. Interestingly, it seemed to emanate from the horns on their heads. Fascinating.

“I hate to come off as accusing, but it is rude to stare.” He spoke up before his mind is done wondering about the connection between telekinesis and horns. If he had thought it, he never would have said something like that to royalty.

At least they took it to heart, all of their cheeks flushing in embarrassment. The first one to speak was Twilight. “Sorry about that, Doctor. It’s just… Unusual to see, um.” She pauses, looking away from him to the wall on the opposite side of her. The rest followed suit, though not as obviously. They at least looked near his eyes, Cadence at his teeth, Shining at his nose.

The Doctor blinks at their silence, raising his eyebrow and making a subtle rolling motion with one of his hooves, rather rudely telling them to go on in silence.

Twilight breaks the awkward silence again, turning her neck back to look at him. “Well, it’s just… You’re a rather old pony, as things go. And you don’t have your cutie mark.”

“Cutie mark?” He asks right away, a gut reaction to the absurd name of whatever it was she was describing. The rest of the room reacts in minor shock at it, blinking into wide eyes at it.

“You don’t know what a cutie mark is?” Cadence asks, her voice concealing a light feeling of concern. It makes him notice just how big of a mistake he just made.

“I know you must’ve hit your head, but cutie marks are fundamental stuff. They’re your destiny.” Twilight explains, her voice concealing her concern less well, coming out in a bit of a whine.

“Ah,” The Doctor starts, setting his fork down in his salad. “I never did buy into that whole ‘destiny’ thing. Never quite agreed with me, like bad cheese.” He explains. He already messed something up, maybe being candid about it would fix it. The rest of the room seemed confused by his explanation, Twilight’s one eye arched high above the other.

A Date without Destiny

“You don’t ‘buy into’ destiny?” She asked slowly, like she was trying to comprehend how she could even ask that question, let alone that somepony could make it a question that should be asked.

“I don’t agree with it. Why should some abstract concept make up my future for me? Besides, isn’t the belief that all things are predestined a bit boring? What is the point of striving to do anything else, better yourself if you are simply destined to do something?” He explains, picking up his fork for another bite as the rest of the room becomes stunned at his words, simply staring at him in disbelief or confusion. Maybe, just maybe, being candid about this was a poor choice.

“How can you just… Disagree with destiny of all things? That’s not really just a thing you can ignore.” Twilight replies after a moment, setting her fork down and pushing the plate away a little bit to emphasize how seriously she took the topic.

“Why can’t I? Am I destined not to? It’s already established I have very little respect for it, if you can even describe destiny as an ‘it.’ What is it, who decided it should be so? Why should I follow the orders of nothing but some preconceived notion that the universe desires something should be just so?” He counters, following after Twilight to push his plate away.

Twilight, to her credit, refused to back down against him and instead squints and looks forward, her lips moving up and down in silence as she mulls over what he said and tries to prepare a counterpoint. “That’s a fair point, I’ll give you that much. But if you don’t believe in destiny, how can you explain things foretold by destiny? Like the return of Nightmare Moon and Princess Luna. She was destined to return from her banishment after one thousand years. And sure enough, she did. And I was there when she returned, because Princess Celestia knew I was destined to be there to save her.”

“Did she know you were ‘destined’ to be there, or did she know that whatever was keeping them away was always going to last one thousand years, and thus knew exactly when she needed to send you, or anypony really, to where she was going to return?” He asked, half making a point back, half asking as he didn’t know the first thing about who Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, or Nightmare Moon was.

Twilight blinked at the question, head turning down just a little bit as she thought about it. That was certainly possible, Princess Celestia cast the spell that banished Luna so she probably could have known when and where she would return, and then chose apprentices to train for her return. She… Couldn’t quite figure out if that was better or worse than what she thought previously. On one hoof, she was always destined to save Luna from Nightmare Moon, and thus destined to everything that followed, meaning she was never in any danger of failing back then, or even now which brought a feeling of safety and comfort. On the other, she possibly could have been groomed from her childhood to be the one chance Equestria had, and it was all too possible she could have failed and doomed Equestria to not only Nightmare Moon, but Discord, Sombra, and Tirek. Though it also meant she could have, and could still fail, but she hadn’t so far entirely on her own merit as a scholar, mage, and Princess. Maybe she could ponder that later, because in the now she had been staring off at nothing for a few minutes, and only snapped back to reality when Shining’s hoof waved up in down directly in front of her eyes.

“You okay there Twily? You got real quiet for a bit.” Shining asked, eyes betraying just a little bit of the worry he felt for his little sister.

Twilight cleared her throat into a curled hoof, magic surrounding her plate as she pulled it back toward herself, The Doctor doing similar since it signaled to him that she was done with their discussion. “Sorry about that Shining, just got a big caught up in thought. But, uh, say, wasn’t Flurry supposed to join us?”

Shining’s face softens a bit as he leans back over into his own seat. “She was going to, but I guess she’s late filing paperwork about her patrol.”

Flurry? Flurry. Why was that familiar? Something about that name tickled in the back of his brain, like a cerebellum mite with indigestion. “What happened on patrol, if I might ask?”

Shining chuckles and lifts a leg up, lazily waving over to him. “Well, you happened to be candid. She and the Scouting Corps found you. Actually, thinking about it, that’s probably what’s keeping her. The patrol group was off route when they found you. That’s gonna make the paperwork a real big hassle. She’s going to have to collect statements from the whole squad and then get them all together in the right order with the right forms.”

The Doctor’s eyebrow moves up on it’s own out of interest, he sets his fork down as more interesting things come out right in front of him. “They were off route when they found me? I hope I don’t sound rude, but breaking orders doesn’t sound like something military types do so often.”

Shining and Cadance cringe back for a moment at the word ‘military,’ their faces scrunching up like someone was pulling a stitch attached to the tips of their noses. “They aren’t a military unit, they’re just a part of the Crystal Guard. But, still, you’re right that ordinarily Flurry keeps a tight leash on the Scout Corps.” Shining answers as his face falls back to a natural position.

“But for some reason this wasn’t ordinary.” The Doctor guesses, already forming an idea of what more than likely pulled them off their route.

“I probably shouldn’t be talking about guard business with you, but I imagine you’re related to it anyway” Shining replies, his tone taking a sudden turn for the serious. Which is responded to with a smack on the forelimb from Cadance. And Twilight, on the opposite limb.

“Shining! You can’t just accuse him like that.” Cadance whines at him, her voice peaking in a high note as she says his name. Though, maybe her and Twilight’s displeasure were for not, as The Doctor chuckles at it.

“Ah, don’t worry you two. This would be far, far from the first time I’ve heard something like that. He’s mild as things go. Just tell me what you think, and maybe I can shed some light on things.” The Doctor offers, lifting his fork up once more to quickly take another bite. “Least I could do for the food and the doctors. Besides, I can tell you’re not really the politician type, I bet you were getting weary of biting your tongue for so long.”

Shining frowned at him, casting suspicious eyes on him as he carefully avoided biting into another tomato, pushing it around his mouth as he chewed the rest of it. “Right. According to Flurry, they saw some bright lights in the sky that appeared to be moving.”

“Bright white light? Coming down toward the ground I imagine?” The Doctor interjected knowingly, only looking at Shining with a sideways glance as he picked at his salad. Mostly tomatoes left now, sadly.

Shining’s frown grew into a scowl, his temper rising as his opinion dropped with everything this ‘Doctor’ said in the past few moments. “That’s right. They reported hearing something like an explosion, and then started moving in the direction they believed it to be heading as the light cut out after that.”

“And I just so happened to be in their path?” He asked, this time looking up from his plate to meet Shining’s accusing eyes.

“That’s right. They also reported a smaller, green light falling in the same general direction as it. Though just a bit off the path.” Shining added.

Green light? Green light… The Doctor suddenly looks down over himself, patting all over his body as if he was still clothed and had pockets to check. “Aha, I didn’t even notice I lost that. Surprised I haven’t tried to grab it yet.”

Shining smirked as if he had just caught him in a lie of some sort, and accordingly moved in for the kill. “Go for what yet? Are you saying you had something to do with the explosion just outside our shield?”

“I can’t say that I know where your defenses are, or where I was when it happened, but yes I am saying I am awfully related to the explosion and lights that they saw. Probably my… Airship, last I recall she was going through some rapid and unexplained deconstruction in the field.” He answered casually, Shining deflating back a bit as it occurred to him he may have misread the situation. That sounded entirely reasonable, an eccentric pony like him making something dangerous, and that thing then malfunctioning in an unexpected way. He’s certainly known Twilight for long enough to know things like that just happen from time to time, to varying degrees of disaster. And part of him very much doubted if he was involved in something nefarious to his Empire that he would be so forthcoming about his answers. But still, there was something, something deep in the pit of his stomach that told him something was amiss, and that he shouldn’t be trusted. He quickly looked to his left or right, and neither Twilight or Cadance shared in his opinion, or at least they didn’t make an expression like they did. He’ll just need to be cautious enough for the three of them then. His gut has rarely steered him wrong before.

“‘Rapid and unexplained deconstruction in the field’ being the scientific term for ‘it exploded and I have no idea why that happened,’ right Doctor?” Twilight said as she injected herself back into the conversation with a knowing smile.

“You could say that. She’s never done something like this before. Well, no, that’s a lie actually. She’s done it exactly once before now. And, now that I think about it,” He stops and sighs, shaking his head a few times before slapping his forehead with his fetlocks. “Everything makes so much more sense. Mostly. At least as to why she exploded, the why of the why is still a mystery.” He mused, mostly to himself, squinting at the open air as he tried to figure it out a little bit more. Last time she acted like this was the Eleventh, that was a hell of a regeneration. The entire universe singing to him through the Ood as he was born, the regeneration energy nearly destroyed the entire control room and busted out the windows. Regenerating into a strange pony creature would probably have a similar effect, not to even think about what killed the last version to cause this regeneration.

“Anything we could do to help with whatever the problem is?” Twilight asked, her voice pulling him out of his thinking.

“No, I think probably not. Best for me to go it alone, especially right after she’s had such a large malfunction. There’s no telling what could be going on right now with her internal systems. I can’t even begin to imagine what the damage is going to be. It could be dangerous.”

“Dangerous how? You said it was an airship, right? So the main thing to worry about would be a fire, and putting out an airship fire is definitely not a one-pony job.”

“It’s not exactly your garden variety airship. It’s probably the most advanced vessel anypony will ever see. Not only that, but there are some potentially dangerous materials on board, and without a full once over there’s no telling what is or isn’t leaking out all over the base, or burning up into dangerous vapours.” The Doctor explained, gesticulating wildly as he mentioned the leaks and vapours, hoping that that would both satisfy their curiosity about what danger there might be, and dissuade them from wanting to get any closer.

“Vapours? Doesn’t that mean a passing wind current could blow it into the city?” Cadance piqued up, suddenly leaning forward to examine the Doctor and his inevitable answer with a critical eye.

Normally she would be right, but he was more worried about more localized disasters that wouldn’t be affected by the environment. Leaking void stuff or dangerous internet gas could eventually become dangerous to a primitive species like this if they were exposed, especially as long as he stayed there. Not that he could explain any of that to her. “I suppose that could be a very hypothetical danger, yes. Though, the risk of that happening is low, let me assure you that.”

“Not to say that I don’t trust you Doctor, but I have the safety and welfare of my ponies to think about. I have every responsibility to ensure that they are in no danger. That being said, I appreciate your thinking of our safety when we offered our help, and I am considering said dangers when I say this. We will be sending an escort of guards with you to your ship, to ensure your health and safety on the way there, and the health and safety of our Empire and those inside of it.”

The Doctor sighs, sucking on the inside of his cheek. She sounded rather adamant about it, and he couldn’t afford to argue about it for too long. Hopefully he could give them the slip or convince them to make camp far enough away that they wouldn’t see the TARDIS while he fixed her up. “Well if you insist Princess, I suppose I can’t refuse your generosity.”

Cadance nods her head, leaning back into her seat. “I’m glad you agree. I’m sorry for having to put my hoof down but as I said, I have my citizens to think about and if this crash is as dangerous as you seem to imply it is, I can’t afford to be passive about it.”

“No, I suppose this is for the best in a way. I’m not exactly outfitted to just go traipsing around out there in the cold anyway.” He replied. It didn’t seem he would get his privacy, may as well try and get in her good graces by appearing gracious.

“You can borrow a coat from the Scouting Corps since you didn’t have any clothes with you. Speaking of the Scouting Corps, they’ll be the ones to escort you back. To make sure you stay safe, I’ll even send you out with-'' Cadance stops as the door he and Twilight came through earlier opens, this time glowing a bubblegum pink colour.

Another pony walks in, another one with wings and a horn. And two-tone hair, but that fact was less important. The bulk of her mane was a gradient purple colour, going from nearly pink to darker purple, with light blue streaks. Her coat was a nearly white pink colour, and he could only just see her cutie mark behind the golden armour she wore, but it looked just a little bit familiar. Why did it look familiar? The Doctor cranes his neck back for a quick glance at the others at the table. He barely noticed the marks on their legs earlier, but now that he knew it was important it was probably good to check again. Shining had a shield with a stylized purple star, with three stars right above it. The star in the middle actually resembled Twilight’s cutie mark fairly closely. Maybe these cutie marks were genetic as well. He couldn’t see Cadance’s from where he was sitting, but he knew why the new pony’s cutie mark was familiar now. Their cutie mark had the same shield, but the emblem embossed on it was a baby blue, crystalline heart.

“Well, speak of Discord and he shall arrive.” Princess Cadance says with a smile as she raises from her seat. “Doctor, meet Princess-”

“Captain Flurry Heart.” The new arrival, Flurry Heart, finishes for her. She closes the distance between herself and Cadance, quickly throwing a foreleg around her neck for a hug and nuzzle. “You know I prefer being called Captain Mom.”

Mom? Ah, and now that she was standing her cutie mark was exposed. She had the same heart as Flurry, just a bit bigger. Father’s shield, mother’s heart, it made sense that she was their kid. Weird how the few examples he was seeing had familial traits if they were just supposed to show someone’s destiny.

Cadance sighs quietly to herself as Flurry puts her leg back down on the ground and walks past her, turning to look at The Doctor from across the table. “Yes, Captain Flurry Heart. She leads the Scouting Corps that found you Doctor. That means she’ll be the perfect pony to lead your escort group back to your ship.”

Aha! Flurry Heart, that's what he heard when they brought him into the city, not fury. “So, you’d be the one that pulled me out of the snow then, Captain?”

Flurry doesn’t reply immediately, turning aside and walking around the table over to his side. She observes him for a few moments, looking him over with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. “Well, technically one of the privates pulled you out of the snow, I just carried you back. You look… Surprisingly good, considering the state we found you in that is.” She replies, her tone more surprised than accusatory.

“Well, I’m made of tougher stuff than I’m given credit for, I suppose.”

“Yeah, I know that feeling.” Flurry groused, a bit louder than she might’ve hoped, being just loud enough for only the Doctor to hear. “Well your good health aside, even though I’m glad to see it, my Mom said something about an escort mission?” She added, at a volume loud enough to be heard on purpose this time.

“Yes,” Cadance started, having rounded the table herself while they were talking, “those lights you saw earlier today were his ship crashing. According to him, the damage to his ship could be releasing dangerous chemicals he had on board. So I’m assigning a task force, led by you, to escort him through the snow storm to his ship so he can repair whatever is broken before it can endanger anypony in the Empire. Do you accept this mission?”

Flurry immediately lifts one hoof up to her forehead with some seemingly impossible dexterity, but before she can no doubt bark out her reply, the doors into the room suddenly crash inward.

The pony that apparently shoved the doors open was wearing gold, purple trimmed armour over his blue crystalline body. They were panting heavily, wild eyes frantically scanning the room for someone.

“Private!” Flurry barked at the intruder, “What is the meaning of thi-”

“SHADOW!” The private interrupted, shouting his answer out. Suddenly the room became very still and quiet, everyone around the Doctor in various states of surprise, none of them daring to breath. All this fuff over a shadow?

The Shadow of History

The breathless silence was broken by Flurry Heart, taking a few trepidatious steps forward toward the door, “What did you just say Private?”

The Private takes a hard, heavy swallow, nodding a few times as his body shivers. “Shadow, Captain Flurry. King Sombra.”

Ah, it was a name, not the word ‘shadow.’ Things like that did have a way of tripping up the translation matrix sometimes. But then, the question was, “Who is King Sombra?”

Every head in the room swung toward him as fast as they could, each face adorned with varying levels of shock or incredulity. Except for Princess Twilight, who looked equal measures annoyed and angry.

“For Celestia’s sake don’t tell me Sombra is pulling a Nightmare Moon already, it hasn’t even been 50 years yet!” She yelled, a few strands of her mane sticking up at odd angles.

“Twilight,” Cadance began and made an odd motion with one of her forelegs, pressing her fetlock to her barrel and then moved her hoof back and forth away from herself, “I know this is a stressful situation, but as a Princess you can’t let yourself go like that.”

Twilight copied Cadance’s motion, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. “Right, sorry Cadance.” She took one more big breath, letting her barrel puff out as she inhaled through her nose, and then exhaled slowly, while every other member of royalty in the room moved toward the guard to get more information. “To answer your question, King Sombra was the dictator of the Crystal Empire before he was deposed in favour of Cadance and Shining. We thought he was destroyed by the power of the Crystal Heart, but he must have survived.”

“An undead dictator coming back for his throne then?”

“Probably. And if he’s able to come back from the dead like that, there’s no telling what he could do if he is able to gather a slave army.”

The Doctor paused for a moment, his expression turning from neutral curiosity to dour anger. “A slave army?”

Twilight nodded sadly, “Yes. I’ve seen it myself, if he’s able to brainwash the citizens of the Crystal Empire like he did then and raise an army, he’d be able to beat Equetria’s army, and destroy Equestrian society as we know it.” She takes another few breaths, repeating that same motion from earlier. When she calmed herself again, she looked startled when she opened her eyes and remembered she was talking to someone. “Not to worry you, or anything.”

“Twilight.” Cadance called from across the room, waving for Twilight to join her as the guard departed back through the door he came in. They were probably planning something, but the Doctor wasn’t able to listen in.
As Twilight joined Cadance and Shining, Flurry broke away and walked toward the Doctor. As she neared she craned her neck around and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Alright, let’s not disturb their little meeting, we’ll go out through the kitchen so we can start getting you to your ship.”

She didn’t stop for him and kept going toward the kitchen, so he followed just behind and beside her. Though they were both stopped when Cadance spoke from across the room, just a bit louder than was strictly needed to carry her voice across the room. “Flurry, where are you going.”

Flurry groaned under her breath, and then muttered something that sounded strikingly like an expletive before turning to her mother. “As the duly appointed Captain of the Crystal Scouting Corps, I was given a directive and thus do fully intend to execute the duties of my station faithfully and with zeal, Ma’am.” She recited, projecting her voice and even saluting as she said ma’am. And then she rushed to turn around and put her saluting hoof on the door into the kitchen. She only had the time to push the door open a few inches before a sparkling, baby blue aura surrounded her body.

“That guard speak your father taught you won’t work this time Flurry. King Sombra is out there, the Scouting Corps isn’t equipped or prepared for something like that. It’s not safe for you to be out there, let alone your guards.”

“It’s just an escort mission mom, the chances we run into Sombra without looking for him are low. Besides, what I said is technically true. You gave the Captain of the Scouting Corps an order.” Flurry reacts, tilting her head down just a bit so she could be sure of her footing- hoofing?- when her mother lowered her back down.

“And I could just as easily change that order. In fact,” Cadance starts, her eyes narrowing just a bit, tensioned nerves tainting her voice with annoyance and possibly even anger, “I order ‘the Captain of the Scouting Corps’ to stay within the walls of the castle whenever a threat deemed to be beyond the scale of the Scouting Corps’ capabilities to handle with or without the aid of the guard at large by the Prince or Princess of the Crystal Empire is within the immediate vicinity to it. Can the Captain of the Scouting Corps follow those orders?”

The Doctor could practically see the pent up emotions falling out of her mouth, almost feeling the bite that comes with the emphasis on the word Princess. At least Flurry doesn’t seem to be affected, simply saluting once more. Though, she hits the floor with a bit of oomph when she puts her hoof back down. “That order seems simple, Ma’am.”

Flurry turns around and lowers her head, her voice similarly turning down to a whisper. “Come on, at the very least we can start getting you fitted for a coat for later.” She leads the Doctor through the kitchen door, her magic lighting up the door for a second to push it inward.

As the two disappear between the closed door, Shining walks up to Cadance’s side from behind, gently placing a hoof on her back. “I know Flurry worries you sometimes Cadance, but I think you were a bit hard on her.”

Cadance takes a minute to think it over and then sighs and deflates, looking down toward the floor tiles. “You’re right, I just thought she’d grow out of it by now. She’s going to take over this Empire from you and me one day, and she’s way behind Twilight. Twilight was almost half her age before she became a Princess, and all Flurry knows is guard protocols and combat and defensive magic. I’m afraid she’ll turn out like-”

Shining silenced that line of thought by moving closer to her, pressing his side against her’s and nuzzling along the length of her neck. “She won’t Cadance. Even if she takes a while to grow into the whole Princess thing, you’ve always been a great mother to her. She won’t turn out like that.”

Flurry led the Doctor through the kitchen without a word, ignoring the sideways glances of the kitchen staff as she weaved through their chaotic cooking line with grace and ease, the Doctor only able to keep out of the way by practically gluing himself to the end of her tail.

When she led him out of a side door and into another series of crystal halls, he was able to walk up beside her and see her face. It wasn’t the most important thing for him to do, but he was worried about her emotional state after her mother spoke to her like that, and he could at least look and see if she was frowning, had wet eyes or something like that without slowing down, so why not?

But, instead of anything like that, she was smirking. Why would she be smirking, she got told off, her mission canceled, and put on the back benches. He knew her type, stern, head-strong military type with authority issues. He’d expert shouting, cursing, disobedience of the highest order, why would she, as a Captain, be so smirk-y right now- Oh…

He peaked side long at Flurry again, thinking about it for another minute, and then smirked back as he noticed Flurry glancing back. This caused her smirk to grow, and her eyes to twinkle with mischievous flare. Oh, she knew he knew. “What’s so funny, Doctor?”

“Oh, you are a bit of a clever one, aren’t you Flurry?” He replied, making Flurry’s grin open up to a toothy smile.

“Me? Well, I suppose I am. But whatever are you talking about, Doctor? I just got the Captain of the Scouting Corps wrapped up in my mother’s red tape. Hardly seems very clever to me.”

“Yes you did Flurry Heart, you did get the Captain into a new layer of bureaucracy. And with great purpose, I assume.”

Flurry couldn't help but laugh this time, reaching up and polishing a random spot on her armour with her fetlock. “Well, I can’t really brag, I came up with this idea forever ago and have been saving it for a rainy day. Seemed perfect for when it’s hailing sideways like this.”

“I can’t disagree, but why not let me in on the grift, I haven’t figured it all out just yet.”

“Well, when I asked to be in charge of my own little division of the guard and be a Captain like my dad used to be, my parents were worried about me not being able to handle the stress. So when they formed the Scouting Corps for me, they put a few lines in the fine print that said I can do something a little bit like this.” Flurry turned on a dime, heading into a room through a door with an ornate silver plaque that said ‘Scouting Corps Officer Rec Room.’ Assuming being with the head of their whole outfit was enough of a guest pass, he wasn’t far behind.

The room was relatively bare and boring, a coffee table covered in magazines, he could imagine they were all years old and had the shipping information in the corner of the cover snipped off, two couches facing said table, a counter and cabinet along one wall with a mini-fridge, a coffee maker, and a microwave, a few vending machines on the opposite wall, and then a little round table with four chairs that took up the space along the rest of the wall. And there were a few ponies, mostly unicorns and pegasi with two wingless and hornless ones mixed in, but the only important one at the moment was a transparent light blue crystalline unicorn mare Flurry walked up to immediately as she was poking and prodding through the fridge.

“Aqua Marine, at attention.” Flurry said, going back to her authoritative, projective voice.

The unicorn stood up straight as a card and turned toward Flurry, saluting so fast the Doctor couldn’t even see her leg moving up for it. “Lieutenant Aqua Marine, at your attention, Ma’am!”

Flurry returns her own quick salute, and then replies in her normal voice, “At ease Lieutenant. Lieutenant Aqua Marine, it is in the best interest of the Crystal Empire and my own self interests that I renounce my title as Captain of the Scouting Corps, and thereafter grant you both the honour and the privilege of taking up my mantle, with all the responsibility it carries. Do you accept this title, and therefore swear to protect your charges, and lead them with distinction and honour, in the name of the Crystal Empire?”

“Flurry Heart, I do accept this honourable title you grant me, and thank you for the faith you must hold in me to entrust me with this great honour. In the name of the Crystal Empire, I do solemnly swear to protect my charges, and lead them with distinction and honour.” Aqua replied, almost droning it out as if it hardly mattered.

Both of them said these things with such a calm air, which itself was surprising, but it was almost unbelievable he was hearing that from Flurry. From the few minutes he knew her, she seemed to hold such a great stake in her title as Captain that she was all but renouncing her royal title for it, which he must assume came with no lack of great benefits. So why would she give it up so easily, and why would the other mare hardly react? It hardly made sense.

“Good, now Aqua I need you to prepare a squad as quickly as you possibly can. Also, you can’t come.” Flurry said, quickly turning and rushing out the door. Ah, running, his favourite pastime. He and Aqua sped off after her, making sure they were right by her side in a moment.

“Why can’t I come, what’s the mission?” Aqua asked, flicking her view in between the hall in front of her and Flurry every so often so they could talk.

“We’re going to escort this stallion here back to his crashed airship.” Flurry replied, keeping her eyes right forward, and nodding toward the Doctor as she mentioned him.

“And why can’t I go with you? And more importantly, why did you need to pull out your trump card to get it done?”

“My mom just put forth an edict that the Captain of the Scouting Corps can’t leave the castle if Sombra is outside, basically.”

“But Sombra is dead.”

“Don’t tell anypony, but that might not be strictly true anymore.”

Aqua took the news in rather good stride, only tripping over herself for a second before she broke into a hard sprint, perhaps a gallop as it were, speeding ahead of the Doctor and Flurry and out of sight as she rounded a corner ahead of them.

The Doctor moved over to her other side, taking up the space where Aqua had been. It seemed to be more clear of obstacles that side, and he may have been knocking furniture and crystalline servants before then. Maybe not servants, that Aqua was a crystal being too, and she seemed respected. And that was an officer longue, and they were all made of crystal too. The thought brought his earlier pondering right back to the forefront of his mind as he followed Flurry through the castle’s hall. Slaves they obviously were not, nor were they simple near mindless constructs. The ruling caste obviously placed trust in them, and the crystal constructs didn’t seem to hold any kind of hostility or animosity to them. Maybe they were like the janissaries and raised from a young age, too young to grow those feelings? But that seemed like an awful lot of work just for servile maids. Maybe they were like House Elves and enjoyed their slavery, but beings like that probably wouldn’t be used for war. He was once again torn away from the prodding question as Flurry turned ahead of him, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Somewhere along the way, the hallways turned from decorated pathways to Spartan ones. The lights lining the walls were torches hung near the roof with ugly metal sconces, and the carpet was done away, leaving on the smoothed crystal floor, and the tables and plants were gone as well, leaving the area empty and soulless. This was definitely where the rank and file of their not-a-military military worked.

He turned to the right and followed Flurry through the door, ignoring whatever the placard on the front said. The room was lined on one side with lockers with little cutouts for paper inserts, each one no doubt bearing the name of one of the grunts in the room, a long wooden bench running right down the middle of the room, and on the other were little wooden cubbies filled with what he would assume was their standard gear. Thick whitish-pinkish coats with fur hoods and sleeves, big heavy looking rucksacks, Native Canadian looking snow goggles, and a trapper hat, slash ear flap, slash ushanka type cap. He got to see the kit both on and off, and in the various stages in between as the room was alive with various crystal ponies rushing themselves into it, with a few cubbies at the end left ignored, probably some spares.

Flurry extended one of her wings and placed it against the Doctor’s back, keeping him close as she guided him through the swarm of ponies rushing back and forth between their lockers and the bench, or the cubbies and the bench, or even hopping right over the bench to get from the lockers and the cubbies, or vice versa. He would have called it complete chaos, but things seemed to be moving at a remarkable case for chaos, and Flurry was able to make her way through with surprising ease, stopping, starting, turning, and ducking exactly when she needed to. So either she was just very perceptive, or there was some kind of method to the madness. He chose to believe the latter, as it made him feel a bit better about the competence they might or might not have.

When she got him to the other end of the room, she curled her wings back against her back, and pointed at one of the untouched cubbies at the end of them. She quickly grabs up the coat, goggles, and hat and toss them at the Doctor, each one bouncing off his barrel onto the floor one after the other. “Jump into those, quickly now. Can’t risk mom or Shining Armour finding out about my trick before we’re outside.”

Finding her advice to be sound, he quickly starts stuffing himself into the too-large coat. By the time he was pulling the zipper up over his barrel he noticed how easy it was to do, when he was somewhat expecting it to be a chore to figure out. He could only guess that he was up to pick up walking and using his hooves so easily was just part of the regeneration process, the mind picking up the kind of things you don’t even think about doing like walking, breathing and using hands when you finish regenerating, but no one ever noticed because no other Timelord ever managed to regenerate into a horse.

By the time he was done thinking about it, the hat was on his head, flaps loosely bouncing around the side of his head, and the goggles were flipped up over his forehead… How were these staying on actually, his ears are on the top of his head, so there's nothing for them to… Probably best not to think about it.

He looks around, the room significantly calmer now the troops, or guard as they were supposedly called, standing in two rows beside the bench looking toward Aqua and Flurry at the far end of the room. He makes his way over, moving past one row of guardsponies and occasionally brushing against one as he made his way to Flurry, taking up next to her side as Aqua started to announce their mission to the guards. Scouting mission this, crashed ship that, he knew about it all already, so he took a sidelong glance at Flurry. She was grinning again, practically oozing confidence and excitement. She was very cocky, and he kind of admired that in her. It reminded him of someone, someone deep in the back of brain, someone he just couldn’t quite recall. Someone very important, he could remember that much.

He did wonder how far that cockyness would get her, she did just give up her position as the head of the Scouting Corps, and her position in the aristocracy seemed strained to say the very least. What could her plan possibly be to come out of this on top. He ruminated on that as Aqua Marine finished briefing the guard, and Flurry took over as she started to lead them from the castle, The Doctor unconsciously following in her trail.

Author's Note

I was a bit tight on time to write and proof read the chapter this month, thanks to health reasons so please point out any problems I may have made trying to keep this monthly deadline of mine.

Thankfully though not all of those 'health reasons' were negative. As of this month, I am finally vaccinated against COVID-19. If it's available where you live, I highly recommend getting vaccinated for the health and safety of yourself, your loved ones, your community, your country, and the world. And remember to wear a mask and social distance where ever possible.

Stay safe and stay healthy everyone.