The Doctor Sleeps
The Dream Lord walked elegantly across the console room of the TARDIS, laughing with a pure evil in his voice. He had never thought, for even a moment, that tricking the Doctor into falling asleep would be so easy.
He did know, however, tricking him into believing that a fake world was real would be much, much harder, even if he managed to make him fall asleep.
The real fun, though, was that he made the slow, flying one fall asleep even faster.
"It was probably the eyes, must get very tired looking at everything with those," the Dream Lord said, now standing in front of Derpy inside of what may or may not have been a dream.
"Who are you? Why are you in my house?" Derpy asked. The last thing she needed right now was another crazy pony in her house. At least, another crazy pony that would abandon her after she took a nap, even though he promised that they'd at least get some ice cream.
"Well then, Ms. Hooves, who might you think I am?" the Dream Lord taunted, enjoying his psychological torture of the Doctor's newest companion.
"How am I supposed to…No! You're not the Doctor, are you?" Derpy asked, angry and hopeful at the same time.
"Of course not, silly pony!" the Dream Lord said, and vanished into thin air.
Derpy sighed, wishing that the Doctor hadn't abandoned her in such a boring location in the first place. The only problem was, she couldn't remember why the Doctor left her, or even the part where he left her, she could only remember being here. All she could remember is being alone, in boring old Ponyville.
Only, there weren't many ponies around anymore. They all started dying, or they moved away, and only a few crazy ponies, or the occasional super dedicated resident, remained. Derpy stayed only for the hope that, one day, the Doctor might return. She wondered how long she'd been waiting.
"Oh, I dunno, about a minute, maybe," she said to herself quietly, although the volume didn't matter, she was completely alone.
The statement, her own statement, shocked her. She could remember all of the time she's waited, years and years without the Doctor, her time with him cut short for no reason. The problem, though, was that those memories were very faint, as though she'd experienced them all while very distracted. Of course, being distracted isn't hard when one eye points in a different direction than the other, but this was a different kind of distracted. This was more like intensely distracted, the short of distracted you are when another pony is running at you for no reason, and all her memories were of the words on the signs of the shops in the vicinity of her inevitable accident. What worried her was that this distraction, if one even existed, was a mystery.
Maybe it didn't even exist. Maybe the whole world around her didn't exist.
She expelled the thought quickly, knowing how foolish the idea was. This world was real; no amount of denial or sadness could change that. The only thing that could change that was the Doctor, Who obviously wasn't interested in returning.
Things were even more confusing on his end of the deal.
The Doctor was in the TARDIS as it flew into a black hole, which could technically be said to be sucking it in. But, that would imply that the Doctor himself didn't set the TARDIS in a course to go into the black hole, which would be completely and undeniably true. The Doctor had no recollection of any events leading up to right then, and then remembered the phone call from earlier.
The Dream Lord was after him. The only problem is: who is the Dream Lord?
All he had said was that the Doctor would have to choose, which made the Doctor very confused. Then, he remembered passing out right above the TARDIS controls, in a null void. Whoever his Dream Lord was, he must have some knowledge of flying the TARDIS.
"Good job, Time Pony, you've figured me out!" the Dream Lord said mockingly after appearing from nowhere.
"So, you're the Dream Lord. I must admit, you're shorter than I expected," the Doctor said condescendingly.
"For some reason, I'd thought you'd be more original with your comebacks, silly me," the Dream Lord said, clopping over to the TARDIS controls, "Although, I do love what you've done with the place. It's just too bad I'll have to destroy it," the Dream Lord taunted, as he once again disappeared from existence, and reappeared on a balcony higher up in the TARDIS control room, "Although, who knows, this one might be the dream!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Isn't it obvious? I told you to choose! Oh, wait, I forgot, you haven't been to the other one yet, have you?"
"Other…one…" the Doctor managed to say, before he passed out of consciousness once again.
The Dream Lord walked over to his sleeping body, and said to himself, "Sweet dreams, little Doctor."
The Doctor woke up to Derpy angrily screaming at him.
"Where have you been, Doctor? I thought we were going to that planet for ice cream!" Derpy screamed, simultaneous to her giving the Doctor a hug, the act of which required a significant amount of balance on her part.
"I thought we were, too. I just had the strangest dream…" the Doctor said, shaking his head in a mixture of lack of balance and ear pain from the close-range aural attack from Derpy.
"So quick to choose, Doctor, I suppose I can just go ahead and leave right now!" the Dream Lord exclaimed, again appearing out of nothingness, before vanishing again.
"Well, that pony is certainly annoying! I wonder what he's been babbling about," the Doctor said, turning around to look for the TARDIS, but found an angry Dream Lord there, instead.
"Babbling? Honestly? You have to know a better word for that for our fun little game, Doctor, as old as you are! Of course, old age forms old habits, I suppose. The question is; how old? Do you know, Derpy? I know you won't, so there's no point in answering, because nopony knows. How about his real name? Still no. Oh, Celestia, I do love hypothetical questions, don't you, Doctor?"
"Yes, I do, but," the Doctor answered, before being cut off.
"It's a hypothetical question, Doctor, you don't answer it! How have you managed to make it this long without learning the basic rules of speech?"
"I'll have you know that I was there when this language was…" the Doctor angrily began, before being cut off again.
"I thought you would have learned the first time, Doctor! This is just astounding, just how big of a twit you can be!" the Dream Lord loudly mocked, before disappearing again.
The Doctor let out an aggravated grunt before he began to look for his TARDIS.
"Oh, no, you are not leaving me again!" Derpy yelled, before flying after the Doctor.
The Dream Lord was very amused by this turn of events, so amused, he almost wanted to end their little game, and thank all the contestants, but, alas, the game keeps going until the Doctor makes a decision.
Of course, he'd have to inform the Doctor of what he'd be deciding, first.