Adventures in the TARDIS

I arrive at a place that is the closest thing I call home. I have no official legal standing here. Truthfully any other pony could come here and stake a claim. Since only I tend to come here, though, it is the only real reason I can call this “my” place.

I get a feeling this building wasn’t even finished with its construction and already it is basically in condemned status. That happens sometimes. Deals fall through or funds run out. If a project gets abandoned before it finishes, then it remains in a state where it can decay faster. At least it has walls. Pretty much all I can say in its favor other than also offering a fantastic view of the city’s main Palace. That shines like a brilliant beacon in the distance.

I like to come here and gaze upon it through this wide opening which would have been a window had the building finished its construction. As it stands, it's just a square opening that is exposed to the outside elements. Only a flimsy and shredded curtain stands as this opening’s only barrier and even it isn’t worth much to speak of.

I often come here to think, to rest, and delude myself into thinking I have sanctuary here. Tonight, however, my mind remains troubled.

For a moment, I try to concentrate on the Palace itself and try to imagine what it must be like to be welcome there. To be surrounded by such opulence.

When I really think deeply on it, I can’t help but suspect that being and living there doesn’t make a pony happier in life. It just raises the standards of living to the point where only thee most extraordinary luxury is absolutely required just to be “okay”. If it’s anything less than the utmost best in life, then those with such high standards probably tend to remain miserable in general. What must it be like to require utter perfection just to be satisfied with anything?

Whenever I stare at The Palace, I don’t feel a sense of jealousy like one would normally expect. It’s there if I concentrate on more specific aspects of such a lifestyle such as good food, abundance of said food, warm blankets, and the secure feeling of a palace full of loyal guards. Beyond those details, the feelings I’ve always gotten from that sight is “extravagant prison”. I don’t know why, but I keep getting a feeling of relief not to be there.

To me, the only true treasure in that place is Princess Arielza. The pony I’ve never met, and only seen once, yet somepony I passionately love anyway. I don’t really know why I feel this way, but eventually I noticed this feeling is too strong to ignore.

It’s painful to want what I can’t have.

On this dark, largely quiet, and chilly night, my thoughts dwell elsewhere. Mostly they are drawn to recent revelations that have turned my perspective in life upside down.

Neighzer Ralmsha, the leader of my own thieves guild, has not only been transformed into some vicious monster recently (which thereby confirms such creatures exist as well), but he’s been in cahoots with the Grand Vizier of Neighbriais, and that pony is not only a fellow member of these monsters but the leader of them as well. I wonder how long that’s been true. It also seems Dispatcher has a personal grudge against me. I don’t know why, but my gut tells me it's related to the history of my life that I can’t recall.

All this time, I thought I had sanctuary among the Red Sands. They promised me protection in exchange for joining them. In hindsight, I just realized that of all the times Captain Grimwald has ever found me, it tended to occur during one of my assigned missions on behalf of the Guild. In other words, if the Red Sands Guild just happened to know where my position was, they’d also be able to secretly tip Captain Grimwald to that fact. That’s probably why he’s been unusually lucky in finding me.

And yet, if I think about it carefully and take into account that the leader of the Red Sands, the current leader of this city, and Captain of the Guards are all secret accomplices to each other then it also leads me to believe that Captain Grimwald never really intended to capture me. Instead he only pretended to try. The real goal might have been to give me an additional incentive to stay with the Guild. To try to convince me that I needed their protection or else Grimwald really would capture me.

Who else might have been involved? Has anypony . . . anywhere . . . ever . . . truly been on my side? Is there anypony out there that actually cares for me?

“Hey Swift Step!” cheers a familiar young voice shortly behind me. I turn to look and see the red pegasus colt Red Star step into the moonlight. His eyes are alight with great cheer as he says, “I heard the heist mission was successful. Way to go! I knew you could do it!”

I just stare at him as happy tears slowly rise to my eyes.

“Also I wanted to tell ya I carried through with your previous request,” Red Star reports more seriously. “I bought and dropped off the medicine to that old mare like you asked. As for the rest of the money, I donated it to-”

Red Star is cut off, startled, when I suddenly seize him and yank him into a tight hug.

“Ah . . . okay,” Red Star remarks in a muffled and surprised tone. “I guess this is happening now for some reason.”

Right now I feel like it is impossible for me not to do this because his presence has reminded me of something very important. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, I know this pony is, and ever shall be, my loyal friend. I know him well and have been in contact with his memories plenty of times. He looks up to me like a dearly cherished older brother. Because of that, I know for sure there is at least one pony out in the world who isn’t against me.

In light of my other recent revelations, it feels desperately important to hold onto this one thing. Right now he is my anchor that is keeping me from completely collapsing in utter despair and paranoia. For as long as I acknowledge that I do, indeed, have one true friend, then that knowledge emotionally grounds me. It also reminds me that there might be others out there, like him, who might be that way too. All of that is an important reminder.

Ponies who haven’t betrayed me.

Ponies who even love me.

Right now, I don’t think there is any way I can convey to him how grateful I am to him because of the reminder of these facts.

“Ah . . . Swift Step? Are you okay?” the young colt asks me timidly and worriedly.

“I need to thank you for being my loyal friend, Red Star,” I tell him as tears roll down my tightly closed eyes. I shiver as I hold him. No doubt he can feel that. “I can’t possibly express to you how grateful I am to you over this fact. How much I love you for it.”

“Well of course I am your loyal friend!” Red Star replies happily and gratefully, though his voice still sounds muffled due to me hugging him tightly against the fur of my chest. “You saved me from slavery then took me in! You showed me the ropes and how to survive out on these streets even while you were still busy figuring it out yourself. You cared for me and provided enough for not only me but a dozen of other foals. We all look up to you, Swift Step. You’re very dear to us!”

I weaken my tight hold on him a bit when I feel him gripping me tighter. I start to notice him shaking as well. I also feel his own tears start to soak my chest.

“You taught us that we can be valuable too,” Red Star confesses in a bit of a whimper. “Y-you . . . you don’t know how much we needed to hear that! How much we needed to hear that somepony out there cared for us. That we are something more than useless gutter trash. You taught us that life can be worth living after all.”

I tighten my hug on him again. Listening to him explain why he feels the way he does and knowing he’s speaking the absolute truth further solidifies my own sense of self-worth and in some of the relationships I’ve helped to forge while out here.

I am not forsaken.

Actually . . . we are not forsaken as long as we continue to have each other.

“What a touching scene this is,” says a mysterious stallion from somewhere nearby. Hearing that puts both Red Star and I on sudden high alert. We’re still holding onto each other but we also both pop our eyes open and face the direction of this new intruder.

“Forgive me for disturbing you two,” announces the stallion as he steps into the moonlight. The moment he does, I immediately recognize him as a stallion I recently met once. He is the same one who was in the haunted Mon Amarie Inn. The brown stallion with the green necktie.

“While I am loathe to disturb this happy reunion,” the brown stallion goes on, “it's also reassuring to see. By recognizing the fact that you two care so much for each other helps to assure me that I can trust the Princess’s judgment in this affair.”

“Who are you?” I challenge him with a guarded tone. “What do you want?”

“Quite right,” the stallion says in a tone of agreement. “I, too, think introductions are in order.” He bows to me a bit. “My name is the Doctor.” He rises from his bow. “As for what I want, I want to have fun. At this moment, though, I have a more specific purpose, for you see . . . I am here at the behest of Princess Celestia.”

Red Star and I just continue to stare at him silently. This results in an awkward pause between us. To help clear it, the Doctor clears his throat before going on to announce, “Well . . . anyway, what’s important to note here is that I’m a royal Agent of the Princess who is on an assigned mission by royal decree. You, Sir,” the Doctor nods at me, “have become a subject of interest to Her Royal Majesty ever since our last encounter at the Mon Amarie Inn.”

The Doctor reaches behind him for something near his flank. He pulls out a mysterious folded black leather thing then flips it open towards me. What I see on it is an image of a caricature of Princess Celestia facing towards the viewer with both eyes closed. She has both of her white wings extended out to her sides. Over her right wing is the image of the sun and over her left is the image of the moon.

“As you can see, this is my credentials as proof I am a Royal Agent of Her Royal Majesty,” the Doctor announces.

Since I still feel suspicious, I push Red Star further off to my side and behind me then I trot forward to meet this stallion. When I stand in front of him, I extend my right forehoof and request, “Let me see that. I want to examine it more carefully.”

The Doctor proceeds to hoof it over as he says, “I realize you might be less familiar with this emblem since it comes from an agency foreign to your nation, but I assure you that my credentials are indeed authentic.”

The moment I hold onto his “credentials” something unusual happens. Firstly, the image fades into what appears to be blank white paper and yet I still sense intense psychic energy from it. Closing my eyes for a moment, images of the Doctor presenting this thing to others floods my mind. Whenever he does, he seems confident that whatever form of credentials he pretends is on it is what tends to be the thing seen to whomever he chooses to present this thing to. By implying what specific image might be on this thing, that image tends to show up on this paper to the viewer.

What is more startling still is empathic psychic impressions that this object was often presented by someone who has centuries . . . yes, centuries of experience while in some alien form of a two-legged creature that walks upright. In a vast majority of those times he shows it to other two-legged creatures with the intention to deceive them, though often not for malevolent reasons. Across all that time, he changed his form multiple times for some reason.

Bottom line is he’s an alien from some other place where forms like the one he had were more common. Only recently had he taken an equine form. At the same time it occurred in a new place where quadruped forms are vastly more common.

Before opening my eyes again, I ask the object I’m holding one final question in my heart, and that is what agency does the Doctor really serve. When I open my eyes, I see the image of some kind of hourglass on the paper that now has a black background which is speckled with many tiny white dots which I assume are stars. I also feel that, despite the deceptive intention of the one who first presented this item, there is no real malice behind that deception. In fact, the owner of this object commonly wishes to protect something.

However, despite this object’s owner’s often benign intentions, I also gain a strong empathic impression that bad things can, and often do, happen around him. Benign intentions do not guarantee benign results. There is a good reason some people, who know this object’s owner, occasionally call him, “The Oncoming Storm”.

I swallow hard as my internal world is once again rocked with yet another startling revelation. First I learned that ghosts exist, then ponies who are transformed into some kind of monsters, of whom some of them have organized intentions against me, and now I have to contend with the fact that aliens exist too?! Just how far is all this recent craziness intending to go?!

“Red Star,” I say with sudden firmness to my voice as I flip this object closed again and offer it back to the Doctor. “I need you to go now. The Doctor and I need to have a private conversation.”

“Are . . . are you in trouble?” Red Star asks nervously. No doubt he’s secretly thinking about my recent heist attempt against Princess Celestia. He heard that the heist was successful despite some setbacks and now, suddenly, a secret agent of Princess Celestia shows up at “my” place. In Red Star’s head, he probably doesn’t consider it safe to dismiss this as a coincidence. After all, I was the primary one to gather information for this mission and mastermind the details.

“Indeed, this stallion is in a great deal of trouble,” the Doctor announces. “That’s the bad news. The good news is I’m here to help solve those problems.”

“Red Star, please go as I requested of you. Now!” I tell him in a commanding and demanding tone.

“Yeh . . . yes Sir,” Red Star agrees nervously then swiftly moves to retreat.

“Thank you for kindly dismissing the boy,” the Doctor tells me gratefully after the red colt seems to leave. “I prefer to minimize the danger to children as much as possible whenever trouble comes knocking.”

“I’m not going to let anything hurt him!” I tell him in a firm tone of insistance. “And you can cut the crap about pretending to be an agent of Princess Celestia. I know who, and what, you really are.”

“Indeed,” the Doctor tells me in a tone of acceptance that belies his curious lift of an eyebrow while still staring at me and putting the psychic paper away somewhere behind him again. “This is most interesting. You’re one astute and talented individual.”

“Why are you really here?” I challenge him in a guarded tone.

“It is true that I know Princess Celestia and she knows me,” the Doctor begins. “Who is, by the way, fine. I have her hidden elsewhere in the city and there she plans to stay until certain questions are answered and problems are resolved. While I don’t officially work for her, I really am here at her behest, for the Princess knows, just as I do, that there is a lot of horse dung around the situation within this city and somepony high up is trying to jerk her around. More specifically, the epicenter of the conflicts of this city have been revolving around the Grand Vizier lately as well as the mysterious disappearance of this nation’s previous liege, the Honorable Grand Sultan Nanpour Alabaster.”

“You think the Grand Vizier has something to do with the disappearance of the Grand Sultan?” I check with him.

“Yes,” the Doctor answers bluntly. “And I think you have something to do with his disappearance as well.”

I widen my eyes in shock at him as I ask, “You mean . . .?”

The Doctor nods in confirmation as he says, “You’re a lot closer to him than you currently think. Princess Celestia thinks so as well, for she has been acquainted with the missing Sultan.”

The reason I suddenly feel dizzy is apparently because the world seems to be spinning around me. As a result, I wave about on my hooves unsteadily.

“Whoa. Take it easy, there,” the Doctor coaxes as he reaches a hoof forward to steady me on my left shoulder. “You’re okay.”

I brush aside his hoof then make my way to the wide open square in the wall which would have been a window. I make my way there successfully despite my unsteady gait. Once I am there, I lean forward and lay my right foreleg along the edge of the window at my bending joint. From there, I look upon the shining palace with a distant gaze.

It is, at this moment, I suddenly realize that part of me knew the truth a long time ago. The reason I dismissed it earlier was because I used to think that voice inside me was just part of my conceited ego. The part of me that simply wished I was the Grand Sultan and that I inherently deserved a better life than all this squalor.

The truth is the truth, though, no matter how I feel about it. Somepony, somewhere, had to be him because he once existed for sure. Now that I’m finally starting to fully accept it, a lot of other things in my mind are falling into place. No wonder I loved Princess Arielza despite barely remembering her. No wonder I felt such a heavy sense of duty about this city. No wonder I felt the status of this city used to be better and something new went wrong with it.

There are a lot of other aspects about myself that now make sense when that one missing piece of the puzzle is put into place. Via training and probably also natural talent, the Grand Sultan would be a talented charismatic leader. As well, he would be a good judge of character over ponies. He’d likely be a good judge over the value of material goods too. After all, Saddle Arabia is a merchant nation. One of the best in the world. It’s only natural that its leaders would follow suit.

This would also explain the Grand Vizier’s grudge against me personally, at least partially. I was the pony “in the way” of his ambitions. If he was able to turn me into a criminal instead then maybe it would help him justify his new position in his heart. That seems to make sense but it's just a guess at this point. I really don’t remember him personally.

Why didn’t he just kill me, though? He’s probably the one responsible for the loss of my horn and maybe also the loss of my memories somehow, but if he killed me instead it would ensure I remain out of his way. Why go through all this elaborate ruse?

I close my eyes as I try to contemplate why I am accepting all of this now. That part of me knew this but it didn’t fully click until now.

I suppose, maybe, I was just waiting for some form of external validation. Until then, I kept wondering if it was just the selfish part of my ego talking instead.

Curiously, every time I contemplated the possibility of being such an “important pony”, all that really came into my heart is that I've gained considerable freedom since then. That the Sultan had major political power and considerable resources, but it cost something. A cost that I have lost ever since I needed to eke my way on the streets. There really was a part of me that squirmed with the indignity of this as if I used to have much higher standards, yet all of this was overshadowed by a sense of relief that I think no other pony could have imagined unless they actually personally lived both lifestyles and had a fair chance to compare them.

“What’s your deal in all of this?” I ask the Doctor as I pop my eyes open and half turn my head over my left shoulder but not enough to look back at him directly. I do, however, fully swivel my left ear at him. “You’re an alien from another world. Perhaps even another dimension. Why would you care about any of us?”

“I have many reasons,” the Doctor announces. “Among them is the fact that other alien forces have also intervened with your culture, and unlike me . . . this one does have malevolent intentions.”

“Oh?” I ask as I turn my head to look back at him more fully.

The Doctor waves a hoof in an arc ahead of him for a second before putting it back to the ground and saying, “Perhaps you are unaware of this, but the Grand Vizier has recently undergone a dark transformation. One that resembles the fables of a vampire, but it is actually an alien parasite that recently landed on your planet. Not only is this creature itself a threat, but so is its tiny ship. It would be no larger than a golf ball, but it is still a vessel that is capable of tremendous gravitational control. That ability can be so great that it can warp the fabric of space and time. That is a concept I am well familiar with.

“Tell me,” the Doctor continues as he lifts a hoof to touch his lips, “do you really have some latent psionic ability? One that allows you to sense the history of touched objects or even other biological creatures?”

“I’ve had that ability for as long as I remember, but I’ll admit my memory does not go back that far,” I confess to him.

“In that case,” the Doctor says, then pauses as he makes his way to me. He does not resume his sentence until he stands next to me and offers his left hoof. “I want you to touch my hoof,” he requests. “I want you to know and understand me better so that you know you can trust me. If you do, that’ll smooth out my plans for us later on.

“I warn you, though, make that contact brief and don’t look into this too deeply. Not only are there some secrets that I must protect, but the sheer enormity of my memories and experiences you could gain might vastly overwhelm you. It could even kill you if you’re not careful so be advised to make this brief.”

I look at his offered hoof then back to his face as I check, “Are you sure?”

He nods as he says, “Yes, but like I said, make it brief. A summary of my life is sufficient to solidify my identity and intentions. That is all that I require at this time.”

I look at his hoof again and swallow nervously. After the warning he just gave me, I’d be a fool not to be somewhat afraid of what I’ll discover. From the glimpse I gained from his psychic paper, that is already enough to convince me that he’s far more than he seems.

In this case, however, my curiosity gives me sufficient courage to make the plunge.

I probably only touch him for the briefest moment. That is enough to bombard me with a phenomenon many ponies call, “life flashing before my eyes” except, in this case, it isn’t my life and it's unusually long. Not just long, but extensively busy. That flash alone threatened to tear my ego asunder. It felt like I leapt into an infinite, bottomless abyss that isn’t empty, but too full of information for me to withstand.

Nevertheless, that flash of information is enough to guarantee certain concepts about him are rock solid now. He is most assuredly an alien with extensive heroic experience. I also feel a crushing sense of weight to him which that kind of heavy experience would naturally induce.

So many losses. So many regrets. So many friends dearly missed.

There is also something else that rises to the surface of my consciousness. The awareness of an ability he had which makes what I just did moot.

I narrow my eyes at him as I tell him accusingly, “You’re telepathic too! You could have just touched my forehead with yours and transferred whatever information you wanted.”

The Doctor nods as he confirms, “True, but if I did it with my own ability then it may leave some room to doubt the authenticity of the information I presented. By allowing you to rely on your own abilities, it can assure you that I’d have no opportunity to edit the information you have received. As a result, you can trust it more.

“Plus, I was curious to see what you’d come up with on your own. I don’t often encounter others with such abilities so I wanted to see how far you could go with it.

“Anyway, after learning all that, I must ask you; what are your intentions now?”

My eye pupils shrink as I look back at the Palace with determination and resolve.

“I had often wondered why I felt such a curious sense of duty over this city. Now that I have that answer, a lot of things are falling into place for me.” I sigh. “Part of me enjoys the freedom I’ve gained ever since I departed from that life, but if there is a force out there that threatens that which I love,” I flash him an angry and determined look, “then I will do whatever it takes to protect it.”

The Doctor smiles at me brightly as he says, “Brilliant!”