Will the Original Doctor Stand Up Please?

Celestia paced across her private quarters. Where was Luna? She had told the royal guards to fetch her at least, what, seven minutes ago!

The door opened and Luna stepped in, shutting the door behind her with her magic.

“What is it Tia? Why hast thou woken me up when thou  knows that I need my sleep so that I coulds’t raise the moon when the dawn comes?”

“Luna, tell me, do you remember a pony, a  brown pony that came and went in a blue box?” Celestia said, trying to keep the urgency out of her voice, and succeeding, for the most part.

“Yes, of course I do Tia. He came and visited me in my banishment every now and then. He always came and talked me down for the edges of insanity, whenever that danger threatened.” Luna said, confused. Why had Celestia called her down from her room, interrupting her sleep to reminisce?

“Do you also recall the rhyme that we were told as children? The one about the Canterlot Mountain and looking at the sky?” Celestia’s outward calmness was cracking.

“Yes, Tia,  I do. Now why, pray tell, have you called me down here when I should be sleeping, if only to talk about friends long gone and a filly’s rhyme.” Luna’s patience was wearing thin.

“Do you remember all of it? All of it Luna? This is very important, so bear with me for a moment, little sister.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Recite it.”

“What?” Luna exclaimed.

“Luna, please recite it for me.”

Luna stared at Tia. Had she finally lost it, ruling for several millennia? It seemed to her that it was best to indulge her for the time being, and to reserve judgement.

“When the backside of the Canterlot Mountain is gone,

Look out for the River’s song.

When the River’s song is here,

Watch out, for the end of him is near.

Look to the sky for the falling rain,

the tears of a pony, who is in pain.

Without that pony in a box,

the evil that feared him will walk.

Listen to the River’s song,

Or else all will be gone.”

Luna finished the rhyme, and contemplated the meaning of it for a moment.

“You know, I never realized why thou would think that it would makith a good children’s rhyme.” She said, looking at Celestia to see if the entire exercise had a point to it.

It did.

“You might not have noticed this yet Luna, but the backside of the Canterlot Mountain has indeed, as it would seem, disappeared. Upon hearing about this, I immediately thought of the rhyme. Tell me, is it all possible that it was meant as a warning, and time has changed its meaning into a children’s rhyme?” Celestia asked her sister, who remembered these sorts of things better the Celestia.

“Tia, could it just be a magical anomaly that the backside of the mountain is gone? I mean, sure it is possible, and would explain why the rhyme is so dark, but no, I don’t think that-”

Luna was interrupted by a commotion outside the Princess’s door.

“Let me through!” Came a mare’s voice, full of authority, and hiding a threatening voice beneath it.

“I’m sorry, but the Princess has instructed us to let no-one through until they’re done.”

“Trust me, sweetie, they’ll want to see me.”

“I can’t let you through, I’m sorry. How did you even get past the entrance guards, Mrs..?”

“Mrs. Riversong. I got past them because the simply weren’t there.”

    The conservation continued, but Luna and Celestia weren’t listening to the ongoing argument between the royal guard and Riversong.

“Does thou think?” Luna whispered.

“Think that we’ve misheard the River’s song in the rhyme as when is should be Riversong? Yes, Luna, I do. This can’t be a coincidence. Guards!” Celestia said, raising her voice to be heard through the door on the last word.

“Sorry Princesses, I’ll be escorting Mrs. Riversong out of the Royal grounds, sorry to have disturbed you.” Came the response, the royal guard thinking that he was screwed and was going to lose his job. Eh, newbies can be so insecure.

“No, that won’t be necessary, bring her in please.” Celestia said, before the guard could actually act on his words.

“Princess?” Luna and Celestia waited for a moment, and the guard realized who he was talking to.

“Oh, of course, right away Princesses, of course.” He said, calling through the door.

Then, talking directly to Riversong. “Wait, I’m supposed to go through first!”

And then, talking to himself. “Oh, there goes my job.”

Riversong had gone through the door without the royal guard. In fact, the guard was still at his post turning around to look at Riversong.

Celestia gave him a raised eyebrow before grabbing hold of the door and closing it. The last thing Celestia and Luna saw of the guard was his worried face, and his partner's back shaking, as if laughing.

But matters were about to get much more serious for the two rulers of Equestria.

“Riversong, mind telling me what you’re here for, why you incapacitated the two entrance guards, and why there is a massive part of the mountain missing?” Celestia questioned the newcomer to Canterlot.

Riversong, a manilla colored unicorn smiled at them.

“Oh, sweety, the answer to all three of those questions is quite simple.”

She paused for a moment.

“I’m looking for my husband. Only doesn’t know he’s my husband, so don’t tell him.”

//{0}\

    Whooves stepped out of the TARDIS, and glanced around the new planet. The inter-universal locator had wigged out, so they had little to no information on the planet. Which means it was time for the Doctor’s patented ten step, ten second information gathering information plan!

First two seconds- Basic overview. Simple enough in this case. Lots and lots of sand, sorta looks like the those deserts with those big rolling dunes, except these were majorly red, with definitive streaks of green and yellow sand, which suggested that they had formed that way, and that there was little to no wind activity on the surface.

Next two seconds were composed of the smelling and whipping out the sonic screwdriver. Smelling was a bad idea though. When he had told Twilight that he had expected the planet’s surface to smell like sulfur, he hadn’t expected this! It smelled like sulfur all right, but that was in the background. For the most part, it smelled like it had just finished raining, which was impossible since the sand had those definitive streaks in it. Maybe there was a stream nearby, or something to that effect.

And then the next six seconds were purely devoted to sonicing the surroundings to check for anything extremely out of the ordinary. And there indeed was, except that Whooves already knew about this abnormality.

Grabbing Twilight, he steered her towards the other pair of ponies. One brown one, check. One purple pony, check.

“Come on Twilight, time to meet the neighbors, shall we?” The Doctor said to Twilight. Raising his voice, he shouted across the hundred meter gap between the two pairs.

“‘Ello there!”

“Doctor!” Twilight admonished the brown pony.

“What now Twilight?”

“You heard that he fainted, maybe it would be best for us to go slower, to give him a chance to get used to the idea of two of him?” She asked.

“What do you mean, him a chance?”

“Well, my alterant seemed to be handling this better on the screen then your alterant did. He wasn't even on the screen!”

The two continued to bicker at each other like a married couple until they reached the middle ground between the two TARDIS’s. It was now a waiting game to see how long the other party would take to get their nerve up to meet them.

//{0}\

“Doctor. Just stop worrying about it and go and meet them. Or are you going to make me go meet the neighbors all by myself?” Isabell asked, baiting the Doctor.

“Of course not! We are getting back into the TARDIS and leaving. We’ll find somewhere to hide out while I find a way to fix this and get back to our universe!” he exclaimed, slowly backing into the still open TARDIS.

“Well, I’m not, and I’m going to go meet them. They seemed nice on the com.” She said, already heading out towards Twilight and Whooves.

“Isabell you get back here right now! I mean it! I will leave without you!” He shouted after her

//{0}\

“What do you suppose he’s yelling at Doctor?”

“I have no clue Twilight, but I don’t want to get involved in this one.”

//{0}\

Isabell kept right on going, ignoring the Doctor’s yells, and eventually reached the other pair of Doctor and companion.

“Hello there! I’m the Doctor, but for sake of keeping us all sane throughout the course of this, call me Whooves. This is, of course, is Twilight Sparkle. Say hello Twilight.” Whooves said.

“Hello, as the Doctor said, I’m Twilight. It’s a pleasure to meet you, you must be Isabell.”

“I am, and it’s a pleasure to meet you both also. I’m glad we got to meet, but it’s sorta deadened by the means.”

“Ah, yes, about that. You coming in to our universe is sure to create all sorts of problems, but as with all things, the universe will find a way to set things right! And by that, I mean that it will simply get used to having two of two ponies in it.” Whooves said. “Anyhoo, what is your Doctor doing?”

Isabell looked back at her Doctor. It looked like he had gone inside the TARDIS, but was now running towards them at full gallop. He came into audible range.

“EVERYONE MOVE! IT’S A PIT TRAP!” He yelled at them.

The three ponies at the center of the clearing shared a glance. Pit trap? What?

And then all hell broke loose.

In between all the ponies holes had started to open up. This meant that all the sand was starting to pour into said holes and drag down any organism that was unlucky enough to be caught in the current.

“Doctor!”

“Isabell!”

“Twilight?”

“Doctor!”

“Everyone to the sides, quickly!” Shouted the once human Doctor. He had already reached an edge, safe from the sand and was pacing, worrying about the others.

“Doctor, take flight!” Shouted Twilight, how had managed to teleport to the edge right next to the Doctor.

And take flight he did. But instead of flying to safety, he went after Isabell, who was quickly approaching a hole in which the sand was still falling.

He got there.

He grabbed hold of Isabell.

He was pulling.

And then they were gone, underground and in the hole, lost to the world, the world that the two ponies on the surface at least.