There was a momentary pause as this statement was given time to sink in before Flitter spoke suddenly, made her presence known again.
"Hold on," she repeated, approaching the supposed 'Doctor,' but being careful to keep her distance in case he tried to violate her personal space again. "'The Doctor?' 'The Doctor' who?"
The stallion grinned like it was some sort of in-joke. "Just the Doctor," he said, smoothing his tattered jacket as best as he could with his hooves.
"Okay," Rainbow repeated. "Doctor of what, then?"
Here, the stallion hesitated. "Uh, well," he began, and winced. "Well, usually people don't ask me that. I suppose one could debate the details on that, so…take your pick, I guess. I…suppose I never really settled on any specific area of focus, so…"
"So you're not really a doctor of anything, are you?" Flitter asked skeptically.
"Oh, I'm a Doctor all right," the stallion claimed, turning to Flitter. "Just probably not the kind you're used to, Miss…?"
The pegasus mare's narrowed eyes narrowed further still. "It's Flitter."
"Well, Miss Flutter, as I was saying, I'm definitely a doctor, just not your usual kind," the strange stallion said as he pushed past her, back towards the area where his mysterious box hung above them.
"I'm Flitter," Flitter was quick to correct.
The Doctor ignored her and gazed up at his box. It was smoking considerably less now, but still seemed to be in a poor state. "Right, need a plan of action now," he murmured to himself. "Let's see, first I'd like to examine myself properly given this peculiar regeneration I seem to have experienced…" he looked himself over again with an aura of amazement as he said this. "…but I'd need the TARDIS to do that, and she's going to need time to mend before I can be able to conduct that full scan…I suppose I'll need something to preoccupy me in the meantime…mingle more with the locals, then? Might explain a thing or two…" he suddenly belched another ball of golden energy from his mouth, again to the shock and amazement of his three onlookers. "…eh, and my regeneration is still trying to stabilize…ought to try and take it easy for a little while then…" he suddenly turned to the others. "You wouldn't happen to have anything to eat handy, any of you? I'm not entirely sure what you…well…ponies can or cannot have in your diets…but I'm feeling a little peckish nonetheless and wow that sounded weird to say with this new voice. Peckish, peckish, peckish, peckish…funny how words can sound totally different with a new voice…"
The others stared at him for a moment, but with varying reactions. Flitter gazed at him with a look of growing distrust, Rainbow gazed at him with an expression of puzzlement, while Spike looked thoughtful, and seemed to be the only one actually considering the Doctor's question.
"Well," the dragon began finally, "We've got some food downstairs in the kitchen, and I guess you could have some of that…"
"Excellent!" the Doctor said, jabbing a hoof at Spike as he approached the little dragon again. "And…sorry, but remind me your name?"
"Spike."
"Well, Mister Spike, could you point me in the direction of said food? In addition to hungry, now I'm also curious to see what sort of foods you ponies actually eat. Should be a learning experience either way, so…"
"Well, the branch we're standing on leads to a staircase, and that goes back down to the balcony that heads inside…"
The Doctor looked in the direction Spike pointed in and grinned. "Right then!" he declared, moving to take the lead of the group. "ALLONS-Y!"
He started forward, the others following, but then made an abrupt stop again.
"Wait a minute!" he declared, reflecting back on what he just said. "I've done that one already! ERRGH! Okay, need a new catchphrase, new catchphrase, new catchphrase, new catchphraaaaaase…" he proceeded to prance in place impatiently as he pondered his apparently pressing dilemma. "OH! OH! I've got it! You'll love this! GERONI—no, I've done that one as well! AUUUGH!" He fumed to himself for a moment, but then reluctantly relaxed, letting out his breath in a single whoosh of frustration. "Well…I'll figure that out later, so…let's just get a move on."
With a wave of his hoof for the others to follow, he proceeded on towards the staircase, stumbling briefly as he adjusted to walking on all fours before slipping behind the tree's enshrouding shrubbery. The two ponies and dragon stared after him for a few moments, then at each other. Of the three, Spike was the only one grinning.
"He called me mister," the dragon stated proudly.
Rainbow couldn't help but smile at this, rubbing the dragon's spines with her hoof. "Yeah, so he did," she stated, then urged him forward. "Now we better catch up with him before he goes and does something else weird."
They hurried after the mysterious stallion and caught up with him just as he arrived back down on the balcony and was heading into Twilight's bedroom. By that point, he had figured out more about his surroundings and seemed quite delighted by what he saw.
"Aw, it's a building!" he cried as he stepped into the bedroom, looking around in an appraising manner as the others joined him. "A building inside a tree! How awesome! And so homey too, I love it!"
"It's just Twilight's bedroom and study," Spike commented aloud, not sure what was so special about it, as used to it as he was now.
"Twilight?" The Doctor turned to look at Spike questioningly. "Who's Twilight? Have I met her? Or him? Still unsure of the gender nuances around here…wherever that is…"
"Her," Spike confirmed for the Doctor, now with little hesitation. "Me and Twilight live here, and you haven't met, 'cuz she's not here tonight."
"And you better be glad she isn't otherwise you'd likely be swamped in questions from her by now," Rainbow added, who could only imagine how the bookish unicorn would react to all of this.
"Well, there's nothing wrong with that," the Doctor said, as he stopped to gaze at a picture sitting on the room's mantelpiece. "I love a good question. Questions are awesome! They're the best way of finding out things, you know."
Flitter snorted at the obviousness of this statement, rolling her eyes.
The Doctor heard. "Just letting everyone know, Miss Flatter. Covering all the bases and all of that, but back to the more important question, I'm assuming the food is down that staircase over there, correct?" he pointed with one hoof at the staircase leading further into the tree.
"Uh, yeah," Spike confirmed, following the stallion's pointing. "Um, down the stairs, across the lobby, and through the door on your right."
"Thank you!" the Doctor said and hurried on down the stairs. "Don't wait up!"
As Rainbow watched him go, Flitter stepped up beside her. "Are we sure we should be letting him have free reign like this?" she asked with a note of worry.
"Oh c'mon," Rainbow stated, who had started to take a liking to the curious stallion. "What harm can he do?"
"Yeah, he seems perfectly capable and logical to me," Spike added, coming to Rainbow's defense.
They suddenly heard a series of thuds echo up the staircase as something heavy tumbled down the latter half of it.
"I'm okay!" the voice of the Doctor called up a moment later. "I just tripped! Not used to walking around on four legs, but I'll adjust! Hopefully!"
"Oh don't give me that," Flitter argued to the other two, ignoring the incident. "Have you two looked at him? I don't think he's entirely…you know…all there."
"Oh it's a library!" The Doctor was next heard shouting from downstairs. "A library in a tree! How delightfully ironic!"
Flitter gazed knowingly at the others, as if this proved her point.
"Well, I think it's a fair enough point," Rainbow argued back. "Having a library in a tree is kinda ironic, when you think about it."
"But I wonder, how does the tree feel about it?" The Doctor was heard continuing, thinking out loud again. A pause, and then, "Oh good, it's okay with it if you're wondering, I asked it! I speak tree, in case you didn't know! Though I might be a little rusty…trees aren't exactly exciting conversationalists, you know…"
Flitter maintained her gaze, unwavering all throughout this.
Rainbow gritted her teeth for a moment. "All right, so he might be a little…nuts," she admitted. "But…in a good way. I…don't know how to explain it, but he seems trustworthy, like he knows what he's doing. I mean, I look at him, and just feel…safe."
"Yeah," Spike agreed. "I'd even go as far to say that he knows more than either of us…wiser than any of us…maybe even older than any of us. I don't think he's any ordinary pony. He's something…more." He turned thoughtful. "He's…aw hay, I don't know how to explain it. But he seems intelligent and…special. Like he's earned the right to call himself what he does."
Rainbow nodded in agreement with what Spike said, then thought of something else that she had almost forgot. "And…think about where he came from for a moment," she continued, "In a flying blue box that, in case you forgot…" she pointed upwards with one hoof, letting that speak for itself.
Flitter got it, and gazed at Rainbow for a moment before her eyes went a little wider, suggesting she hadn't stopped to think about this. "Do you mean to suggest that he's—"
She was suddenly interrupted when there was a loud, shattering crash from downstairs. The three looked in the direction of the noise, then, exchanging glances, proceeded to hurry downstairs to investigate. Downstairs, in the kitchen, they found the Doctor rooting through the library's fridge, and seemed to be throwing rejected items haphazardly out onto the floor.
"Aw man," Spike groaned under his breath. "And I'm the one who's going to have to clean that all up."
"I told you," Flitter whispered.
Rainbow proceeded to step around the mess. "Uh, Doc…is there a problem?" she asked.
The Doctor jerked in surprise and banged his head on the roof of the fridge. "Ow!" he mumbled as he pulled his head out and looked at Rainbow. "Oh, don't mind me Miss Dash," he explained. "I'm just trying to figure out what foods I like now. It's always a bit of a process of trial and error with new regenerations."
"…Ah," Rainbow stated, who wondered still just what the stallion meant when he said 'regeneration.' "Well, not to sound like I'm complaining, but you're making a bit of a mess."
"Hmm?" the Doctor hummed as he looked back at the room and the mess he had created. "Oh, I suppose I have, haven't I? Hmm, messy Doctor, me, I'll have to keep an eye on that." He proceeded to root through the fridge again, sampling foods at random, but this time making it a point to put it back if he wasn't interested in it. "Anyway, I already think I've got a good idea what I like and don't like, but then again, I have a surprisingly diverse selection to choose from, a lot more diverse than I would've expected…there must be some anatomical differences from your pony digestive systems than the ponies I know of back home…"
"So where is home for you anyway, Doctor?" Spike asked suddenly as he started to clean up the mess.
"Oh well," the Doctor began, pulling out a container of sour cream and licked a dollop of it out of its container with his tongue before returning it to the fridge. Flitter pulled a face. "Just a little place you've probably never heard of called Gallifrey."
"Gallifrey?" Rainbow asked, repeating the unfamiliar word as she watched the Doctor. "Where's that?"
"Good question! It's…complicated. I was actually in the process of trying to…simplify all of that when I wound up here—Well…that's my overarching goal now at least…I'll admit that I had gotten a little distracted just before I wound up here. See, I had stopped off to check out this new power factory that had been built just at the close of the twenty-second century, only I, naturally, turned up just in time for everything to go haywire and to find that factory on the verge of going kaplooie, so I went to use the TARDIS to try and shunt some of the excess power of the would-be explosion into the Void so to keep the blast from destroying pretty much everything on that continent…only the energy proved to be more than the TARDIS could handle in one go, and the space around the opening into the Void I had made began to destabilize and…" the Doctor suddenly paused while in the middle of tasting a leftover daffodil and daisy sandwich. "Actually…now that I think about it…maybe that's how…yeah! Hole into the Void destabilized, force of the blast pushed the TARDIS through that hole, got flung out of my universe and into the Void…yes, that's it! This is whole different universe! Which would explain why my regeneration went all wonky, oh of course! New universe, new rules, new style of regeneration, whole new apparent species of body as a result! Duh!" Shaking his head, he resumed going through the food in the fridge. "Honestly, I don't know where my head is right now…"
"Uh…did anyone else catch all of that?" Spike asked, as he carried a stack of foods the Doctor has discarded and returned them to the fridge.
"I…think I might, but…I'm not sure I believe it yet…" Rainbow admitted, and poked the Doctor in the flank to get his attention again.
It worked better than expected. "Whoa!" the Doctor exclaimed, jerking suddenly from the touch and banging his head on the roof of the fridge again. "Watch those ha—hooves, Miss Dash!"
"Sorry," Rainbow quickly apologized, a little surprised by the reaction, but shook her head and focused on the bigger matter. "But Doc…are you seriously claiming you're from…well…" Rainbow couldn't bring herself to say it, finding it so implausible it was hard to consider it might be true.
"Oh, if you think that's cool, I haven't even told you about my two hearts yet!" the Doctor said brightly, finally collecting a selection of foods out of the fridge and putting them on the nearby kitchen table.
"Wait…two hearts?"
"Anyway," The Doctor continued, not acknowledging Rainbow's question. "Figured out what pony foods I like. I especially like the oats. And this sandwich." He pointed at the sandwich in question. "What kind of sandwich is this anyway?"
Spike glanced at it as he put other abandoned foodstuffs back in the fridge. "Uh, daffodil and dandelion," he answered. "It's Twilight's favorite."
"Daffodil and dandelion…Really? Well now it's my favorite, too," the Doctor declared and helped himself to another bite from it. "Though," he continued as he chewed, "I notice that there were a lot of grains and vegetables and fruits, but not much else in the way of other foods…oh but of course, you're ponies! Your diets obviously would include those foods only…which means that's going to apply to me too of course. Heh, I guess that means I'm not getting a hamburger anytime soon."
"Why, what's a hamburger?" Flitter asked, approaching the table and surveying the array of foods the Doctor had gathered.
The Doctor hesitated. "Uh…it might be better if I don't tell you," he said instead. "Easier on your stomach I think, Miss Flinger, ooh, and speaking of which, I am okay calling you 'miss,' and not 'missus,' right? There isn't a Mister Flapper you return to every night or anything like that?"
Flitter blushed a little. "Um, no, it's-its' just me at home," she explained.
"Good to know!" the Doctor said, as he began nibbling on some frozen hayfries. "I just ask to double check, not because I have any interest or anything like that, of course, and probably wouldn't even know if I did. Keep in mind that I have no idea yet on how to judge if a pony is considered pretty or not."
This seemed to touch Flitter the wrong way. "I'm…told I'm pretty," she said a little worriedly, then glanced at Rainbow and Spike for confirmation. "Right?"
The two exchanged glances quickly.
"Oh, of course," Rainbow answered.
"Absolutely!" Spike added.
"No doubts about that at all!"
"You can rest easy, Flitter!"
"You are very pretty."
"Well…not as pretty as Rarity, but—" *whack* "—Ow! Rainbow Dash!"
"What Spike means is that you're…um…as pretty as you'll ever need to be, Flitter! Perfect just the way you are!"
"Uh…yeah, what Rainbow said!"
"How do you eat these with hooves, anyway?" The Doctor suddenly asked, trying to grab an apple, only to have it roll away from him every time he touched it with his hoof. He attempted to pin it between his two forehooves only to have it pop out from between them and roll further away. He gave up. "Bah! Apples are rubbish, anyway." He started sorting through the other foods he collected to eat. He paused at a bucket he had pulled out and peered inside it briefly. "Oh, that's right!" he said, remembering why he had pulled it out in the first place. "I wanted to ask—why is there a bucket of gemstones in the fridge anyway?"
Spike was at the bucket in an instant. "Hey, those are mine!" he said, taking the bucket from the stallion and protectively clutching it close to his front.
The Doctor pulled a puzzled expression. "Really?" he asked. "Why keep them in the fridge, then? I mean, granted, it'd be the last place for a thief to look for them, but still…"
"I keep them there, because these gems taste better cold," Spike explained, pulling out one of the gems and nibbling on it.
This apparently intrigued the Doctor, because he was suddenly in front of Spike, watching the dragon chew on the gem excitedly. "Oh no way, you eat them?" he cried in amazement. "That's astounding! You must have really good teeth! Ooh, and one heck of a stomach, too! Question; how well does your body process them? Are the gems broken down entirely, or are there still little bits leftover in the remaining—"
"Okay, subject change!" Spike interrupted, pulling a disgusted face as he realized where the question was heading. "That's not something I particularly care to discuss, thank you."
"Oh! Sorry!" the Doctor apologized, putting a hoof over his mouth. "Got a little too excited there. Sorry, it's just this new regeneration seems overly eager to learn new things, and doesn't want to stop and think about whether or not I'm crossing a social line, so…"
"Oh that is IT!" Flitter suddenly snapped, looking angry. She pressed her snout into the Doctor's. "I've had enough of your senseless babbling! I've been trying to make sense of you, figure out what you're really going on about, to no avail! Well no more! I want ANSWERS, and I want straight ones!"
"Flitter!" Rainbow objected, moving to pull her back. "Get off his back! You're being rude!"
"No, no, that's all right, Miss Dash," the Doctor assured the blue pegasus, unfazed by Flitter's outburst. "If Miss Fatter wants some answers, I'll certainly oblige."
"Flitter! IT'S FLITTER!" Flitter corrected angrily. "Which is more than I can say about you! Who are you?"
"I told you, I'm the Doctor."
"That doesn't mean ANYTHING to me!"
"It usually doesn't to people meeting me for the first time."
"Then explain it to me! Because I'm starting to suspect you're just playing with us! Trying to mess with our heads, catch us being gullible for your own twisted enjoyment!"
"I assure you, that is not the case."
"Then prove it! Give use some real answers! Like, where are you from?"
"I already told you that too."
"No you didn't! You just gave us some made-up name and shirked the question!"
The Doctor, for the first time, turned a little stern. "Nothing about Gallifrey is made-up," he said firmly, but continued to be eerily calm.
"I don't believe you," Flitter stated plainly, continuing to press her face into the stallion's. "I think this is all just a trick, some elaborate TRICK some mean pony's playing on us, and you're in on it! So who put you up to it? Was it Pinkie? Oh sweet Celestia, it was, wasn't it? You're probably just some loner of a stallion from Ponyville she's roped in for a prank gone too far, aren't you?"
"I'm not from Ponyville," the Doctor replied calmly. "I'm from a place much further away than that."
"Hoofington, then?"
"Further."
"Canterlot?"
"Further."
Flitter hesitated a moment. "Manehatten?"
The Doctor, however, did not. "Further."
Flitter was starting to lose her drive, her ears drooping a little. "Saddle Arabia?" she asked, her previous firm tone now gone.
The Doctor continued to keep his cool, looking more serious than ever before. "Further."
Flitter pulled back from the stallion now, starting to turn a little pale. "The…moon?" the pegasus asked hopefully.
The Doctor leaned forward to keep their snouts pressed together. "Further," he said with emphasis. "Further than I'm guessing you can even imagine."
A chilling moment of silence fell as everyone stared at the Doctor, realizing he was being very serious.
"Who are you, Doctor?" Rainbow finally asked in a whisper. "Really?"
The Doctor glanced in her direction. "I'm something of a traveler, Miss Dash," he explained. He jabbed his head at the window. "You see those stars in that sky? To you they're just specks of light. But not to me. I've seen them, or ones just like them. They are big balls of gas and fire millions of miles wide that burn for billions of years until one day when they simply wink out, and spinning around them, going round and round at speeds you cannot begin to comprehend, are planets, like this one, lost little orbs that are mere grains of sand in the massiveness of your universe and living on those little specks of dust are populaces of beings of potentially any array; furry, scaly, skinny, fat, kind, vicious, warriors, peacemakers…and right now there's likely one sitting in her own kitchen, looking out her own window at her own night sky, and is looking at your star, right now, wondering if you are anything like her." The Doctor leaned back in his seat. "And I could leave right now and visit her, in person, and tell her the answer before she could blink. Because that is the sort of thing I do. All of you sit and wonder what's out there. I go out and find out, because I'm past the stage of sitting and wondering. Above it, even. I go out and show those people that they are not alone. And then fight for them when they are wronged. Protect them when they are threatened. Comfort them when they are scared." He gazed at the others for a moment. "That is who I am. I am the Doctor."
Another long moment of silence fell. Flitter gulped as the massiveness of what the Doctor described started to sink in, her eyes wide. Spike's jaw was currently hanging open in silent shock, a half-eaten gem part way to it, forgotten. Rainbow just stared at the Doctor as something she had been inwardly denying since the beginning, when that crazy blue box fell from the sky and started all of this, something she had been trying to explain away with other, more likely and common explanations that were now simply not going to hide the matter any longer became clear.
"Doc," she began, speaking slowly and deliberately, "Your Gallifrey is one of those other worlds…isn't it?"
The Doctor could have replied in a whole number of ways to confirm the real question Rainbow was asking. But the answer he gave was the simplest and most straightforward.
"Yes."
Flitter suddenly made a squeak and hurried out of the room. Rainbow glanced briefly in her direction, but didn't want to leave the Doctor. She now had hundreds of more questions she wanted to ask, all of them pressing to come out, and this strange mysterious stallion that had walked out of a bizarre box and talked about regenerations and other universes and space travel was the only one who could give the answers she craved.
The Doctor seemed to know this, and after meeting Rainbow's gaze, nodded his head in Flitter's direction. "Go on, Miss Dash," he urged. He grinned. "I'm not going anywhere just yet."
Rainbow grinned back, then nodded, hurrying after Flitter. This just left Spike, who the Doctor turned his attention to next. The little dragon had barely moved, still working past his shock of what the Doctor had told them, but now a large and silly grin started to spread onto his face.
"You're an alien," he breathed aloud.
The Doctor mimicked the dragon's grin. "Oh yes," he assured.