Aeroticades
Part OneWhen I first met the Doctor I didn’t have a clue who he was. I guess you could say that about meeting most ponies for the first time, but then with most ponies you can sort of work out what kind of pony they are. The Doctor was different.
I found him wandering about Sweet Apple Acres just as the light was fading, just as I had gone out to the orchards to watch the sun set. I always do; I have for years. And even though I’ve spent more time with my new friends since meeting them at Pinkie’s welcome party for Twilight, I still try to come out by myself most evenings. Having that bit of alone time helps me to collect my thoughts.
Also, Sweet Apple Acres looks at its best during the sunset. Well, either then or during the sunrise, when Big Mac and I get up early to start the day’s apple bucking. But I’m always too busy to properly enjoy the sunrise. For the sunset, though, I can sit and watch, and think about the day that has passed without being distracted.
For these reasons you can imagine I was a little unimpressed when somepony disturbed me during the sunset a few days ago. It’s fine, I don’t dislike company, but this was unexpected. What’s more, he was the most suspicious looking colt I had ever seen.
He was a bay colt, with a short spiky mane and an hourglass as his cutie mark. He was trotting shiftily through the orchard trees, pausing from time to time to look at some tree in particular, or pick up a fallen apple off the ground and look at it. It was as if he was looking for something, but he didn’t want anyone to know he’d lost it. That didn’t explain why he kept examining my apples, though.
Now, Sweet Apple Acres isn’t private property, and heck, we welcome guests. But something about him made me feel he wasn’t here for apple pie. What could he possibly hope to find in my apples?
I might not even have noticed he was here at all, if he wasn’t constantly muttering to himself. I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, but it was something to do with apples, ponies, and a word I had never heard before.
Well, I thought. Sweet Apple Acres isn’t private property, and any pony is free to wander through. I don’t blame them either; I can’t be the only one who enjoys the tranquillity.
I tried to concentrate on the sun and Pinkie’s “Pre-Party Day Week Party” from earlier, but the colt’s barely audible voice kept breaking in on my train of thought.
“Apples and hmmfllmm maybe this one might flblsfgb no not really supposing dhmmalsf through the vortex of swwwswssss”
It was no use. The sun had set by now anyway, so I gave up and turned my attention to the colt.
“Excuse me!” I called out to him. He froze in his tracks, and turned straight away towards me, eyes wide. I could just make out in the dimming light some thin object in his mouth. The end seemed to be glowing blue, but almost as soon as I noticed it the blue glow disappeared.
There was a pause while I looked at him and he looked at me. He pulled the thing out of his mouth and tucked it behind his ear.
I trotted towards him, saying “Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wasn’t expecting to see anypony around the orchard tonight. You know, what with the festival.”
“The ... festival?” His accent seemed a little odd. A bit ... clipped, for want of a better word. I had never come across it before.
“The festival! You know, the Festival of Masquerades. All the ponies dress up in ridiculous outfits and pretend to be all high-society, while wearing masks to hide their real identity.
“I would be there myself only I hate playing dress-up for anything except Nightmare Night, especially with the ludicrous dresses Rarity’s tried to get me to wear in the past. You must be not from round these parts if you haven’t heard of the festival.”
The colt chuckled. “I suppose you could say that. Yes.”
I squinted a little. “So whereabouts you from, then? Can’t say I recognise your accent.”
“Oh ... a way off. Nowhere very interesting really. Well, depends what you call interesting – well, doesn’t really matter. I’m a bit of a traveller, truth be told. You know, just passing through.”
My eyes lit up. A newcomer to Ponyville! Here was my chance to show off some Apple family hospitality! I jumped up to him and began shaking his hoof violently, saying, “So you’re a visitor! Are you visiting anypony in particular? Do you have anywhere to stay? How long you staying for? What brought you to Ponyville?”
“I, uh ...” the colt seemed a little uneasy as he extracted his hoof from my energetic grasp. “I have a place to stay that’s a little out of town, don’t worry. I’ve had a couple of days to settle in and look after myself. I guess I’m just a sightseer, passing through.”
I was a little disappointed by this. “Oh, ok then. Do you want to come and have dinner at the barn? You could come and meet the Apple Family! None of us go to the Festival of Masquerades anyway; Granny Smith bakes a special apple pie and we have our own sort of little celebration to make up for it.”
The bay colt gave an apologetic grin. “Sorry. I should really get going; I find it’s best not to stick around any one place for too long. Besides, you don’t want the hassle of a guest all night.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” I said firmly. “But if you can’t stay, then at least let me give you an apple as a guest gift. No, I insist,” I said, as he began to protest.
I trotted through the trees. One of Bloomberg’s cousins was nearby, and it gave the juiciest of apples. I called back to the colt, who was trailing a little behind me, “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name ... ?”
“Call me the Doctor,” the bay colt answered.
“You’re a doctor?” I replied. “Have you met Nurse Redheart? She could use a little help actually; it’s just her in Ponyville who knows really anything about ailments -”
“No, not that kind of doctor,” the colt cut across me. “Just the Doctor.”
By now I had found Bloomberg’s cousin, Pippin, and delivered a swift well-placed kick to the trunk. Two apples fell out of the tree neatly into my outstretched hoof. I took one and offered the other to him saying, “The Doctor? What, that’s your name?”
I was getting a little confused by this visitor, and he didn’t help matters by examining the apple I had given him extremely closely. I did my best to fill the silence.
“It’s a Pippin apple,” I explained. “We have all kinds of Apples here, including some you probably won’t find anywhere else. It’s a slightly curious colour, but I promise you it’ll be the sweetest thing you ever -”
“Don’t touch that apple!” With a sudden urgency he knocked the apple out of my hoof just as I was about to bite in to prove my point.
“What in tarnation!” I protested, but he held a hoof up to stop my words. In a flash he had whipped the device from behind his ear and trained it on the apple. The end glowed blue and shone onto the apple, emitting a high-pitched sound.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “What’s going on? It’s just an apple!”
“Yes, ooh yes, and that’s what they want you to think,” the colt, or as I suppose he wanted to be called, the Doctor, replied. His eyes had lit up and all of his prior uneasiness had now given way to an energetic fervour as he examined the offending apple.
“Aeroticades, cleverest airborne virus there is. It burns up in the excess carbon dioxide in your lungs, so it attacks you by the next easiest route; your food! It hibernates, waiting for some poor unsuspecting soul, or pony, to eat the food, and then ... well, then it’s got you and you’ve no hope. But!” And here the Doctor flashed me a smile, “That’s exactly what I’m here for!”
I shook my head. Too much information, all at once – I didn’t have a clue what was going on. “Wait, what? Air ... tick whatsit? Food? Apples? You saying my apples are infected with some kind of disease? Cos I promise you, mister, or Doctor or whatever you want to be called, we take good care of our apples here. Never had a complaint from a customer.”
“No, you wouldn’t have, the aeroticades is still relatively dormant. It hasn’t yet reached maturity – the hive is probably up in that tree. Even though this one is fairly juvenile, it was still just about ready to go to work on you, and the result would not have been a pretty sight, I promise.” The doctor leant in closer with his blue device. “Don’t worry; aeroticades isn’t dangerous until it gets inside you. We’re safe, thanks to some close timing on my behalf ...”
Suddenly the apple dissolved and seemed to rot at a hideously accelerated pace. It crumbled into the earth at an astonishing rate, and what looked like a cloud of red dust rose out of it, emitting a dim red glow in the low light.
“Unless, that is, I irritate it with sonic waves. Run!!”
I didn’t know what to say, but there wasn’t time to say anything. I took to my hooves as fast as I could behind the Doctor, who seemed to know where he was going.
In the darkness I would quickly have lost my way if I didn’t know Sweet Apple Acres so well. I knew for sure that we were going in the opposite direction from Ponyville ... which meant, also, in the opposite direction from the barn. And away from Granny Smith, Big Mac and Applebloom.
“Wait, do you know where you’re going? Ponyville is the other way!” I shouted to the Doctor.
“Yes, just follow me! You’ll be safe, I promise!”
I had no idea what I was supposed to be safe from, or even how I was supposed to be safe with this colt I had never met who wouldn’t give me a proper name, but I galloped through the night behind him nonetheless. I had no alternative.
I chanced a look behind, and the glowing red thing was following hot on my heels.
Suddenly I was very, very scared. I hoped the Doctor knew where he was taking us, since I had no idea. We were getting towards the fringes of the orchards, and worryingly close to the Everfree Forest.
“Doctor ... ?” I called ahead, fear creeping into my voice. The thing was catching up with us.
“Just a little further, I promise!” There was a determination to the Doctor’s voice that invited me to trust him a little.
Suddenly a tall blue box came into view that I had never seen before. It was nestled between two trees, although I couldn’t see how it had got there. It was about as tall as three ponies, but it looked as if it could hardly fit two inside. There was an inscription near the top, and another on the side, written in a language I couldn’t understand.
The Doctor leapt inside a door on one side of the box. I stopped, staring. What was he thinking? Was this newcomer really mad after all?
Before I had any more time to think, he poked his head out of the door and shouted “Quickly! Come on, don’t just stand there! Get inside!”
I turned and saw the red mass bearing down on me. We could worry about practicalities later, I decided, for now the safest place to be seemed to be inside the big blue box. I leapt in after him, and he slammed the door shut behind me.
Part Two
I stopped, breathing heavily to catch my breath. The inside was very brightly lit, and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust from the darkness outside.
When they did, though, nothing could have prepared me for what they saw.
I turned to the Doctor, who was listening through the door.
“It’s ... it’s ... we’re ... I mean ...”
He flashed me a smile. “Bigger on the inside, you mean. Yes, I know. Most important, we’re safe in here. Ssh a moment, I’m trying to listen.”
There was a pause while he listened at the door and I stood in disbelief, looking at my new surroundings. We were inside a vast dome – or at least we seemed to be. How could we be?? I had seen from the outside, it was a tiny blue box, and yet on the inside it was utterly vast. The room was bathed in a warm glow, and there was a gentle hum from the central console, which was connected to the roof by a transparent tube. There were other tubes inside that moved up and down, as if the whole thing were ... breathing?
At last the Doctor came away from the door. “Alright, it’s gone,” he said. “Aeroticades can’t last long in open air, especially if it’s a young one like that one was. It’ll have melted into the ground, to find some flowers or something to get its strength back. We’re safe for now.”
He came and stood by my side as I stared. He seemed to take delight in my amazement, and looked proudly about the room.
“Well?” he asked, after a few more moments’ silence. “Don’t you have any questions?”
Finally I found my tongue, and a little embarrassed, I began, “What was that thing? Where are we? What is this? How is this? And who the hell are you?”
The Doctor sat down on one of the curiously shaped bench seats, folding his hooves under himself.
“I am the Doctor,” he began, “and I am a traveller. That thing you saw was called an Aeroticades. I travel around, finding it and things like it that are where they shouldn’t be, and putting things right. That’s why I am the Doctor,” he said, looking pleased with himself.
“Aero-what now? I know all kinds of critters that live around the orchards, but I ain’t never heard of no ... whatever it was you said.”
“Aeroticades. It survives by infesting food, and using that as a vehicle to get inside people ... ponies. Once it’s inside it ... well. It feeds off a person’s lifespan. It eats their time. To everyone else it looks like the person – pony is just ageing very fast, but within a couple of days, they are almost completely dead. Then the aeroticades leaves, and the pony is left to carry on in a very weak and frail body.”
“What do you mean, it eats time?” By now I was very confused and would really rather have been at home with Granny Smith, Big Mac and Applebloom, having Granny Smith’s special apple pie. Before I could worry about them, though, the Doctor indicated a space on the bench seat in front of him.
“I should explain things from the start. Here, sit down. Would you like a drink, Applejack?”
“I ... er ... no, thanks,” I said, sitting by him, folding my hooves under me. “Wait a minute. How do you know my name?”
“I said, I’ve been in town a couple of days now. I saw you and your sister selling apples in the square. Your sister was being a very eager salespony.”
Suddenly I remembered the scene in the street, and cursed myself a filly for forgetting that I had seen him before. Actually, come to think of it, I had seen him really quite a few times before. I just never thought anything of it.
“Ah. Yes, she, er ... she sure was keen to sell those apples.”
“That, incidentally, was when I first noticed something about the apples. They had a curious taste to them, mostly unnoticeable, but it was the taste left behind from an aeroticades hive. That’s why I was looking around your orchard.”
“So you’re ... the Doctor.”
“That’s right.”
“And you don’t have a name.”
“That is my name.”
“...Right. But you must have a home.”
“This is my home!” Again the Doctor sounded very proud, and he gestured with a hoof around the large room we were in.
“But you must live somewhere. You said you were a visitor to Ponyville. And this ... thing sure as heck wasn’t here last time I checked.”
“As I said before, I’m a traveller. This box is how I get around. I don’t come from Ponyville ... and I don’t come from Equestria. Let me show you.”
Suddenly the doctor leapt up, and threw a set of switches in the central console. Sparks flew, a loud roaring sound filled the room, and the lights flickered. As quickly as it had started, the noise stopped, and the Doctor turned, smiling, to me.
“Now,” he said, “Go and open the door”.
“But won’t that aeroticades thing be there?”
“It’s been gone for a while. Besides, even if it hadn’t, it still wouldn’t,” the Doctor replied enigmatically.
“What...” I opened the door and stopped my words. Outside the door was a great vast blackness with the ground far, far, far below. I slammed the door shut and scrambled across the floor to get away from it.
“What ... we! The door! Where ... how ...! What!”
The Doctor laughed and pulled me off the floor with a firm hoof.
“Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe! Here. Come and look.” He encouraged me towards the door, and reluctantly I followed. He opened the door, and we stood and looked out.
All of Equestria was spread out before us, like a carpet. We were miles and miles above it, so far we seemed higher than the sky itself. I could see mountain ranges capped with snow, and the forests nestled between them. Smoke spiralled from some of them taller mountains. The River Equine made its way from the furthest mountain range, sliding through endless forests, and finally ending near a vast ocean. Nopony I had heard of had ever been to the end of the Equine, and the mouth of the river was the stuff of legend. I turned my gaze West, and saw the Canterlot, perched on the side of the mountains, the Everfree forest, and ... Ponyville. Tiny, tiny Ponyville, with Sweet Apple Acres beside it, so small I could hide it with the edge of my hoof.
“If they could see this back home ...” I mumbled.
The Doctor pushed the door gently shut and propelled me back to the bench seat. I sat down, and suddenly realised quite how wobbly my legs had become.
“So, Applejack. I am a traveller, and I travel between worlds. This is my spaceship, if you like. It can travel through time and space.”
“You can travel through time too? Mind you,” I stopped myself. “I suppose that’s hardly more difficult to believe than what I just saw.”
“I can travel through time because I am a Time Lord. The last of my kind.” A seriousness briefly came over the Doctor’s face, before he snapped back to his more energetic demeanour. “But you don’t need to hear my long and boring history! Anyway, all this proves I have come here for a reason, and it’s to rid you of your aeroticades problem!”
I had wanted to ask what a ‘Time Lord’ was, but I had caught the brief look in his eyes, and decided that it could wait. Besides, we had been sat in his time machine thing for some time now, and I wanted to get back to Sweet Apple Acres. So, I said “An’ how do we do that?”
The Doctor giggled. “Dunno. No idea. But aren’t you excited to find out?”
“You’re quite mad. Do you know that?”
“Oh, aren’t you? I’d hate to be a sensible pony.”
I chuckled at that. “You remind me of a friend of mine ... except she lives in a bakery, not in a ... whatever you call this thing.”
“TARDIS!” The Doctor replied proudly. “It means Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. And this is how it works – hold on tight, Applejack – allons-y!”
With great fervour the Doctor threw switches on the central console. The TARDIS gave a lurch and I only just had time to grab on to the bench as we were flung about. I thought that something must have gone wrong; the Doctor, on the other hand, appeared to be quite enjoying himself.
Suddenly everything stopped. There was a pause.
“So ... you’re telling me that outside that door ... which a few seconds ago was miles up in the sky ... is Sweet Apple Acres?”
The Doctor laughed. “My dear Applejack, I can show you things far more exciting than that. Just you wait and see.”
I felt a twinge of excitement myself at that, and I realised how lucky I was to have stumbled across this colt. Something about him made me want to trust my life to him, and to follow wherever he went.
Part Three
I pushed the door open, and with the Doctor by my side we stepped out into the night air.
The Doctor’s expression changed. He sniffed, then placed an ear to the ground.
“This isn’t good,” he said quietly.
“What? What is it?” I asked anxiously. He didn’t say anything, and I began to get frustrated. “Doctor, what-”
“Ssh. The Aeroticades are agitated. Word has spread about our little escapade with the juvenile earlier and the hive is not impressed.”
I gritted my teeth. “Well, I don’t care. They’re using my apples to hurt ponies, and I want to kill them dead, just like any other infestation.”
“Not like that, Applejack. The Aeroticades isn’t supposed to be here. It came here by accident just like I did; it wasn’t its fault.”
“So what are you going to do? Wait, what do you mean you came here by accident?”
“I’m going to send it back where it came from. It fell through a rupture in reality from a different universe – along with me.”
“A rupture in reality?”
“I’ll explain later. The point is it shouldn’t be here and I’m going to send it back where it came from. And hopefully, I can go with it. I’m not supposed to be here either, and I ought to go home before I cause trouble.”
I was saddened by this last bit of information. I had looked forward to travelling with the Doctor, but I didn’t want to go to a different universe ... whatever that meant. I didn’t understand fully, but it didn’t sound like an easy journey, or one you could return from.
There was no time to question the Doctor, though. He had begun at a steady trot through the orchard, his glowing device in his mouth.
I trotted after him. “What’s that thing called?”
“Mff mff!”
“I’m sorry?”
He paused and removed it from his mouth. “Sonic Screwdriver! Handiest device in the world. And any other world, too.” Then we were trotting again.
Suddenly the Doctor stopped.
“Here. This tree. It was this tree, wasn’t it?”
I looked up. “Yes. Pippin.”
Pippin towered over us in the darkness. Its leaves were utterly still and silent.
The Doctor placed a hoof across his chest. “Well, I’m very sorry for Pippin. He ... She? It has a bad aeroticades infestation. Fortunately it looks like it hasn’t spread to any other trees though – must have taken the first tree it found, and hasn’t had a chance to spread yet.
“So, I got the juvenile to show itself earlier by filling its apple with sonic waves. That should work for the tree ... now.”
The Doctor bent down and held his Sonic Screwdriver to the base of the tree, around the roots. He closed his eyes, and the Screwdriver glowed bright blue, emitting the same whirring noise. For a while nothing happened, and the doctor patiently waited.
“Uh ... Doctor?” I paced back slowly from the tree. The leaves and higher branches were beginning to rustle.
The Doctor grunted something that I hoped was a word of reassurance and held his Screwdriver closer in.
The tree’s branches began to shake angrily. “I’m sorry Pippin ...” I whispered under my breath.
Suddenly a great red mass exploded from the tree. It floated, see-through but definitely more solid than the smaller thing that chased us to the TARDIS. The Doctor jumped back from the tree and stood with his hooves firmly planted in the earth, pointing his Screwdriver at the aeroticades mass as if he had it held in a lasso.
“Hffd vis.”
“What?”
The Doctor hissed out of the side of his mouth, “Hold this!”
Nervously I took the Screwdriver out of his mouth. I instantly felt a tug as the aeroticades mass attempted to make a break for it, but I dug my hooves in and gritted my teeth. Oh no you don’t, I thought, no one infests my tree and gets away with it!
“Right, hold that tight. I’ve got it trapped in a sonic loop, sort of like a lasso.” I was right! “And you!” The Doctor turned to the aeroticades mass here. “What are you doing here?”
I was amazed. I was holding some destructive alien captive, and now the Doctor was attempting to hold a conversation with this thing!
The mass convulsed and to my astonishment made some sort of angry noise in reply. Evidently the Doctor understood what it meant as he answered, “I know, it was me who lassoed you! And Applejack here,” he said, giving me a wink. The Doctor began to walk slowly back in the direction of the TARDIS. I followed, keeping a tight hold on the Screwdriver in my mouth.
“But what are you doing in Equestria? You and I both know this is not your home. The Plefad system is the other side of the Medusa Cascade. And in a different reality.”
The aeroticades mass drew itself up and suddenly hissed in a voice. Straining my ears, I found to my shock I could understand what it was saying. “Aeroticades does not care where it is or where it comes from! Aeroticades wants food! Aeroticades will eat everything in the universe!”
“HA!” The Doctor declared. I jumped. “This is not your universe. If your aim is to eat everything in your universe, then you’re wasting your time in this place. And I will not let you touch one hair on the head of any pony, or any other creature that dwells here.”
“Aeroticades is indiscriminate in its hunger! We will eat whatever falls into our path!”
“This land is called Equestria, and I have only been here for a few days, but that is more than long enough for me to appreciate it for what it is. It is beautiful and I will not let you ruin what has taken thousands of years to perfect, with almost complete absence of violence and conflict, excepting a very few isolated incidents.”
“Aeroticades has no concept of beauty! Only food!” The aeroticades mass began to boil into a rage, and the Screwdriver quivered in my mouth. I didn’t dare turn my head to look for fear of losing hold of it, but I hoped we were getting near to the TARDIS. That was assuming the Doctor actually had a plan, other than talking it to death.
The Doctor continued. “I see then, you won’t be persuaded. Very well then, how about this?
“I am the Doctor, and I am the protector of worlds. And I am sending you back where you came from!”
Suddenly the Doctor leapt out of sight. I thought he had given up and made a break for it, but in a flash I heard the roaring sound of the TARDIS, and felt a powerful tug on the Screwdriver.
“Applejack!” The Doctor shouted from behind me. “Let go of the Screwdriver! Let go!”
I released it from my mouth, and as soon as I let go it switched off and fell to the ground. Surely now the aeroticades mass was released!
However, the mass began to groan, and I turned to see the Doctor watching it from the door of the hovering TARDIS. The aeroticades mass began to lift into the air, until with a blinding flash of light it disappeared.
The Doctor brought the TARDIS back to the ground beneath the spreading branches of an apple tree. He danced out of the door, hooting with laughter. “We did it! We did it Applejack, you and I!”
I laughed and danced about with him for a bit, then stopped. “Wait. How could I understand what it was saying?”
“Oh, that’s the TARDIS’ doing. Very clever girl, the TARDIS. It helps you to understand foreign languages, no matter how weird they are or how far away they come from. It must have begun to work its magic on you when it took you up into the sky. Here, look. I bet you couldn’t read that writing before.”
I examined the box, and the Doctor was right. I could now decipher the lettering: the panel at the top said “Police Public Call Box”, and the smaller white sign on the side said “Police Telephone Free for Use of Public”. Goodness knew what a “telephone” was.
“So where has the aeroticades gone?”
The Doctor proudly picked up his Screwdriver from the ground and tucked it behind his ear. “I sent it back where it came from. It was caught in the sonic waves from my Screwdriver – while you held it, it couldn’t go anywhere. When I told you to release the Screwdriver, I caught it in the power of the TARDIS, which is far more powerful. Then I directed it towards the rupture and pulled the trigger, catapulting it through.”
“The alternate reality universe thing.”
“Yep!”
“Which is also where you came from?”
“Yep.”
“And ... where you’re going now?”
The Doctor sat back on his haunches and gave me a look with his head cocked to one side. “The rupture only stays open for a limited time. It’ll close in a few hours, and I can’t stay in Equestria longer than that if I want to go back. No amount of time travel can help, either,” he said, pre-empting my next question.
“So you’re leaving?” I asked, not trying too hard to hide the disappointment from my face.
“Leaving?” The Doctor stood up again. “I don’t know about that. I rather like Equestria. That speech I made earlier has got me quite excited, truth be told.”
I held my breath. “So – you’re staying!”
The Doctor grinned. “I reckon there are enough adventures to be had in Equestria to keep me busy for a while. Besides, any number of beasties might have fallen through the rupture with me, not just the aeroticades. I need to round them up.
“First job, though, is to take you home, Applejack.”
Suddenly I realised the time and looked up at the moon. “My family! I was supposed to have been home hours ago for the apple pie celebration! They’ll be worried sick about me!”
The Doctor gave a little smile. “We can sort that out, don’t worry.” He stepped inside the TARDIS and I followed. Without a word he set about the controls, and the TARDIS made the same roaring noise that was by now becoming familiar.
The movement quickly stopped, and the Doctor trotted over to the door. “Here we are, madam, final stop, Sweet Apple Acres Apple Family Barn. Crikey, what a mouthful.”
I opened the door. “Hang on, it’s light!”
“Exactly,” The Doctor said proudly. “We’ve travelled through time as well as space. The sun has just set five minutes ago, and you’re expected at home for dinner ... right about now, actually.”
I turned to the Doctor. “Oh, you’re brilliant!” I gave him a hug.
The Doctor smiled. “I have been called that,” he said.
I trotted out of the door, smiling ear to ear. The Doctor followed. I said, “So, you travel through time? That’s just what you do?”
The Doctor nodded. “Time and space. I’m a traveller by vocation.”
I cocked my head to one side. “Do you usually travel alone?”
“Often, yes.”
“And does it ever get lonely?”
The Doctor kept his expression blank. “It can.”
“Would you like some company? Can you take me to see some of these amazing things you mentioned?”
The Doctor’s face lit up with joy. “Applejack, that’s wonderful! Of course! Oh, we have so many things we can do! I can take you back and show you the first Hearthwarming, or we could see the great council of the Elements, or even the First Chaotic Battle of Discord – I’ve been dying to find out how that happened actually – or we could go forward, to see the future princesses of Equestria, or-”
I held up a hoof to stem his eager stream. “Not yet, sugarcube. Now, come on inside and meet my family.”
The Doctor backed off slightly. “I ... er ... I don’t do families. I’m not very good at it.”
“What are you talking about? You’re the most interesting and amazing colt I’ve ever met, it’s not like you can worry about having nothing to make conversation with. I can’t wait to see my sister’s face when I tell her what I’ve seen -”
This time the Doctor held up his hoof. “I’m sorry, Applejack. You mustn’t tell them who I am. Once they know, they’ll get curious about the world outside the walls of Equestria, and when that happens the world will be a very different place, and not necessarily better. The ponies of Ponyville are far better off in blissful ignorance of what lies outside Equestria.”
I thought this was a little bit unfair, but I was tired and didn’t feel like making an argument. “How come you told it all to me then?”
“I hardly had much of a choice!”
I gave the Doctor a long, hard look. “How do I know you’ll come back for me?”
The bay colt flashed a smile. “Trust me, Applejack. I’m the Doctor.”
“Well. Goodnight, and goodbye, then. For now.”
“Goodbye, Applejack. For now.”
I began to trot eagerly towards the barn.
Suddenly something occurred to me and I turned to see the Doctor watching me out of the door of the blue TARDIS. “Hold on ... where will you go? When will you be back?”
He gave a wave of his hoof. “Some time soon, I promise. I need to go and work on my TARDIS a bit; she was knocked about quite badly in her fall through the rupture. I’ll be back sooner than you think. Just watch for the blue box.” With that, he disappeared inside again, and before my eyes it melted into thin air, with the same roaring sound as before.
Applebloom appeared at the door of the barn. “Applejack!” she called, running over, and flying into a hug.
“Whoa there, sugarcube,” I giggled, extracting myself.
“What was that loud noise?” Applebloom asked.
I thought for a moment, then said truthfully “Nothing you need worry yourself about. Now come on inside! I can smell apple pie!”
Author’s note – Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.
This is a definite ending to a short story. It is set up so I can add other “episodes” later if I want to and if people want me to, but for now at least you can consider this the end. For now.
