I admit it – I got a little careless. Our recent successes with finding allies and friends in alternate universes led us to get complacent. I let the others persuade me to be a little more lax in our approach to new worlds and rather than wait for Shining Armor to get more free time to join us as our primary precautionary defense, I decided that we could handle the initial meetings with just our own resources and proceed sooner. Yeah, I could make a decent shield – alicorn power is nothing to sneeze at even if it’s not my specialty. And, of course, Twilight is better than me. However, shields were Shining’s forte and he outclassed both of us. Our overconfidence nearly got us killed.
It started as each foray always did. Twilight adjusted the “tuning” of her dimensional portal maker, opened the new gateway, and our team stepped through. My co-ruler would follow as soon as she completed her usual analysis, provided we had not emerged into an incompatible environment and had to retreat. Whenever I was part of the contact team, Penny always accompanied me in her role as my bodyguard. My son, Gallus, insisted that we needed additional protection, so he was next to come through, dressed in his Royal Guard armor.
The scene was familiar – lush garden beds and shady trees separated by manicured lawns. However, I quickly noticed a significant difference in this version of Canterlot Castle’s Royal Garden – the heavily fortified walls surrounding it. And just as fast, we were spotted by the soldiers there. Pegasi immediately launched themselves in our direction even as a siren summoned more guards. I had put up my shield the instant that I had stepped through the portal, so it easily stopped the enchanted arrows that came hurtling towards us moments later.
“What the buck?!” exclaimed Gallus even as he drew his magically enhanced sword. “Who attacks without even giving a chance to surrender peacefully?”
Good question. We’d been met with caution and suspicion before, but this was ridiculously hostile. I raised my voice. “Don’t shoot! We come in peace!”
The pegasi stopped firing, but I thought it was because they saw that their arrows weren’t working and not because of my words. That guess was confirmed when a squad of unicorns arrived and started hurling assault spells at us. My shield was taking a battering and it was a significant strain on me. I tried again to de-escalate the situation.
“We surrender! We wish to parley!”
I might as well have been shouting at a wall. The attacks continued unabated. Just then, Twilight emerged from the portal and she looked about in confusion.
“What’s happening?” the alicorn mare asked.
“Big problem, Sparkles. Better go back,” I replied.
“I can reinforce your shield,” she rebutted.
I dithered. Between us, I reckoned that we could withstand this assault indefinitely. Then I saw something that made my heart freeze. “Twilight – go back now! Gallus – don’t let her dawdle!”
The lavender alicorn protested, but Gallus’ military training kicked in and he swept her up in his forelegs and dived through the portal. I felt Penumbra grab me in one of her wings and begin to drag me back too. She had spotted what I had – Celestia was coming. Her mane was a solar flame and her horn was lit with the brightness of the sun. I had seen Daybreaker once before and this wasn’t her, wrong eye color. That didn’t make this angry solar alicorn any less scary – I knew for sure that she wasn’t intending to have a chat. I strengthened my shield to its maximum even as Penny backed us away through the dimensional gateway. Just as we stumbled through it and fell onto the marble floor, I felt my shield shatter from an irresistible blow. There was a flare of heat that was cut off abruptly as Twilight shut down the portal. My head throbbed with the pain of my disrupted magic and my flank felt singed.
“Are you alright, Dad?” Gallus asked.
“Nothing that a quick healing spell can’t fix. How about you, Penny?”
“I’m going to need a bit more than that,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
I got back onto my hooves and turned to have a good look at my herdmate. She was gingerly holding out the wing with which she had grabbed me. A large swath of it was an angry red from severe burns. I winced in sympathy.
Twilight said, “I’ll go grab one of my healing potions!” She disappeared with the usual flash of teleportation.
“Look at this,” Gallus said.
I turned my attention to whatever my griffon son wanted us to see and gulped. The wall opposite to the portal was scorched and some of the marble was even melted. That could have been us!
“From now on, no trips without Shining Armor!” Penny grated out with a scowl directed at me.
“No argument, dear.”
Penny recovered with no lasting ill effects. Shining thoroughly chewed me out for my carelessness. I just shut up and took it like a stallion. I think his sister copped even worse. He was absolutely right, of course. Our explorations were never going to be one hundred percent safe, so there was no excuse for slackening the safety precautions. Even if we never encountered anything like that again, I would always be mindful that the next time might be the last. And it wasn’t as if I just had myself to think about either. Since I was always accompanied by family members, even if I survived, I could lose one or more of them. In the future, Shining Armor insisted that all initial ventures into new dimensions would be carried out with him being responsible for everypony’s safety. I agreed wholeheartedly. We worked out new protocols for all our subsequent expeditions to mitigate the risks.
Remarkably, despite that disastrous trip, enthusiasm for further exploration was scarcely dimmed. The benefits that we were seeking from Equestrias with useful technologies or magical techniques were too important to the future that we had envisaged for our world. And making new friends was never a bad thing either.
The next world we visited was as friendly as they come. Its history was also very similar to ours up until the point where our Royal Sisters had left. Theirs never had that moment, nor was there a Mark Wells. However, there was one major difference from every other Equestria we had been to – all births here were fraternal twins, and they were always a colt and a filly. As a consequence, this world did not have the gender imbalance that others coped with, resulting in a different social dynamic. It delighted Sparkles that the Twilight and Shining of this dimension were fraternal twins. She was not as thrilled when she found out that Celestia and Luna were also twins. Guess which one was the stallion!
Much is said about alicorn immortality. Experience has shown that we’re far from being actually immortal. Personally, I’m pretty sure that we just age very, very slowly. One dimension did a lot to support that supposition. It appeared that when a pony ascended to alicorn status in that world, their age virtually froze at that moment. Celestia was seventeen upon ascension and, eleven centuries later, she still looked it, pink mane and all. Luna was sixteen and I was taller than her! Cadance was a mere fourteen when she gained her horn which must have made things interesting when she got the hots for Shining Armor later. Twilight was twenty though. Lucky mare.
“Something’s wrong,” Shining Armor said with a strained grunt.
This latest version of Equestria looked unremarkable but I could sense that something felt off. My wife nudged me and pointed at the sky.
“Trixie thinks their weather control service is slacking on the job.”
I looked up and frowned. When you have virtually total control over the local weather, you don’t do things by halves. Normally, every Canterlot we visited enjoyed clear blue skies with maybe a few scattered fluffy white clouds for the benefit of pegasi. If rain was scheduled, it was usually overnight so as not to inconvenience the majority of the citizens. Also, when the weather service did bring in rain clouds, they were carefully calibrated to deliver precise showers. I was not seeing that now. Angry and tumultuous storm clouds were rolling in with no sign of pegasi trying to tame them.
“We might have to shield against a downpour,” I said.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to shield against anything soon,” Shining replied. “My magic is depleting rapidly.”
It suddenly clicked as to what felt wrong – I could hardly feel any background magic at all. The stallion must be drawing almost entirely on his internal reserves. Using my affinity for unicorn magic, I could see only one dim ley line in the sky. The ground likewise barely responded when I tried to draw magic.
“Let us take over the shield,” I said. “Trixie and I have huge reserves of power.”
“What if you need that for other reasons?” he queried.
“We’ll retreat if it comes to that. If low magic is the only problem here, we should be able to cope. Keep your reserves in case we require them.”
He nodded and let go of his shield as soon as I threw up one of my own. We would soon find out if we needed it because Royal Guards were approaching. The pegasi were flying much slower than any I had seen before and the unicorns and earth ponies were not far behind because of that. The winged ponies did not hover when they reached us as they normally did in other dimensions. Instead, they landed – I guessed that they were conserving their magic. They held up their weapons warily until the rest arrived and followed suit.
“We are peaceful visitors,” Trixie declared to the unicorn who seemed to be in charge. I did not recognize him at all. Another difference. I realized that the Royal Guard anonymizing spell common across many realms was not being used here.
“Thank you, ma’am, but please remain where you are until you are cleared,” he replied.
We did not have to wait for long. An alicorn soon joined the group, but it wasn’t Celestia.
“What’s this?” she said with a puzzled frown. “Two alicorns whom I’ve never seen before and one of them is a stallion? Who are you and where do you come from? And what is that swirling mass of wild magic behind you?”
This Luna spoke without the slightest trace of the Old Equish accent that every other Luna I’d met possessed. Either she’d had better speech lessons or she had never been banished to the moon for a millennium.
Trixie replied, “That is an interdimensional portal and we are visitors from an alternate reality. An Equestria where I, Princess Trixie Lulamoon, and my husband, Prince Mark Wells, rule our version of Equestria in a Triarchy with our colleague. We come as explorers seeking knowledge and friendship.”
Luna smiled. “In that case, Your Highnesses, may I suggest that we go inside before we all get soaked and have a chat?”
It might seem a bit anticlimactic but that was as dramatic as things got. We had a perfectly nice conversation with Luna, although we never did see her sister as she was holding Court at that time. We did learn that this world had a weak mana field and magic was very limited. Pegasi could fly but they could neither cloud-walk nor control weather, which explained the nasty storm outside. Unicorns could make their horns glow and levitate objects but that was the limit of their abilities. Earth ponies were still strong but had no ability to influence plant growth. Alicorns were the odd ponies out here. Unlike every other creature, they produced more magic than they normally consumed. Ponies in their presence were empowered beyond their normal abilities. As a mana source, I guessed that they could be more powerful than the alicorns I knew back home.
History had treated Luna more kindly here. There had never been a falling out with Celestia, and she and her sister had ruled together since they had become princesses. That explained why the Alicorn of the Moon was as conversant with modern language as any other pony. The biggest hit of that trip turned out to be Penumbra. The thestral race never existed in this world and my herdmate got the full ‘exotic foreign beauty’ treatment from most every stallion we met.
Our Triarchy and their Royal Sisters agreed to further meetings, but it looked like their world was more likely to benefit from us rather than the other way around. In the end, it was an interesting visit if not a particularly profitable one.
I might have given the impression that we did these trips frequently. In fact, we had to confine ourselves to no more than one per week due to our and Shining’s other obligations. That also necessitated a roster system for who comprised the contact team. While exploring other dimensions was chiefly my and Twilight’s baby, I only went on about two thirds of the visits. By necessity, Twilight attended them all, but every other slot was up for change. Penny, of course, refused to let me go without her. Chrysalis would come occasionally although that proved problematic sometimes. Our daughter, Diadem, still wanted to go despite that and she elicited a surprisingly better reception. Gallus also came with us a couple more times before his siblings started begging to go too because their foster brother had gotten to do so. Somehow, these serious ventures started turning into family outings. However, I had learned my lesson well and if one of our children was allowed to come along, it was only in the presence of someone dedicated to looking out for their welfare. Besides a parent, I mean.
By now, we had built up a cadre of bodyguards for our herd. While many had been recruited from the Royal Guard, several were among the earliest changelings the Canterlot Hive had hatched. Changelings matured sooner and had the advantage of being able to absorb knowledge through their hive links. However, as the new hive’s sole information repository was Chrysalis herself, the first changelings who chose to go into protective services had to be given additional training in Equestrian methods and discipline. And yes, they genuinely did get to choose. That was something that I insisted upon for the new hive. While Chrysalis was the ultimate authority within the hive, she did concede to the demands of her senior herdmates as she had sworn to do upon joining Trixie’s herd. Okay, not without some spirited arguments, but I’d rather that than blind obedience anytime. It saved me from making stupid mistakes in my efforts to blend changeling and pony societies. Anyway, the changeling bodyguards had versatility on their side and it took a load off our minds when we brought along one of our kids.
While I made a point of mentioning the more interesting encounters we had, many of them were very similar in history to ours up until the departure of Celestia and Luna which became a non-event. In fact, the subsequent arrival of a Mark Wells almost never happened within the band of dimensions that we were exploring. The one time it did though, he was Prince Consort to both Celestia and Luna. I must admit that I found the Alicorn of the Sun the more desirable of the Royal Sisters and I don’t blame him for choosing Celestia over the Trixie he had not met. However, that Mark was demonstrably as fond of the Lunar Alicorn, if their foals were any indication.
Frankly, it made me re-think some of the times our Celestia had spent in my company. Although she seemed to be enjoying her retirement and the freedom it gave her, I suspected there were some aspects of her life that were still unfulfilled. While I know she had some sort of relationship with Daring Do, I recalled Celestia’s kiss that singed Phil’s mane. That told me she was bisexual, so a stallion and foals weren’t off her agenda. An alicorn has plenty of time to get around to those things though, and if the object of her desire was also nigh immortal, that sure left matters open for a future relationship with her. I’d long since come to the same conclusion that most of the mares in life insisted was true – any mare who got involved with me in some way inevitably wanted to mate with me. I had denied that for years, pointing out some who hadn’t. Trixie then shocked me by informing me of the number of times she had been approached in her capacity as lead mare with a petition to join the herd. Not only had she dismissed the entreaties, she hadn’t even bothered telling me about them. As far as Trixie was concerned, if I didn’t already know the mares’ intentions, then they didn’t bear mentioning. As a male alicorn, I suppose I had to be the ultimate catch for a mare, which made me a logical target for those who were unmated. It still stunned me when I learned that Lyra Heartstrings had been one of them.
Anyway, aside from the perturbations that the arrival of one of my doppelgangers caused to that dimension, we were finding that these Equestrias were frequently little different from our own and we were on the cusp of deciding to broaden our possibilities to one of the lower-probability bands. Then we encountered one of the strangest alternate worlds, and this time it wasn’t “my” fault…
The visit started similar to most of the others – I was there along with Gemini and their changeling bodyguard, Helix. Shining had brought along Crystal Shield, the pegacorn alter-ego of his changeling hybrid son, Shiny Button. Crystal and Gemini had been spending a lot more time together and wanted to come along on this trip, so while Twilight waited for us to give her the all-clear, the five of us watched for whoever’s attention we had attracted.
As was normal, several Royal Guards were the first to respond, but we had barely started to introduce ourselves when Luna teleported in front of the guards.
“Something different! Thank Harmony! At long last, something has changed!”
Blinking in surprise and confusion, I said, “I beg your pardon, Your Highness, but I don’t understand—”
The Alicorn of the Moon reared up and spread herself against Shining Armor's shield. I could see that there was a hint of madness in her eyes.
“For the first time in years, something has changed! Please tell me that you are not a delusion conjured by my tortured soul.”
“I assure you that we are quite real. We are travelers from an alternate world. We visit other dimensions in search of allies and new technologies.”
Luna looked at the swirling portal behind us. “A gateway to another world?” She looked back at me, wide-eyed and breathing heavily. Abruptly, Luna turned and galloped into the shade cast by a nearby copse of trees, only to reappear from my own shadow. She moved to within an inch of my muzzle, placing a hoof on my shoulder. “Take me back with you!” Penny took a step forward but caught herself. The guards pointed their weapons and moved forward, obviously displeased at being separated from their sovereign. A pointed stare and a frown from Luna stopped them.
I frowned. “We can’t just bring someone back with us on a whim. Why do you wish to do that?”
The midnight blue alicorn sank to her haunches with a groan. “Thou art looking at the most foolish of mares. I attempted the forbidden and have suffered the consequences for many years.”
I looked about us and, aside from the confused looks on the faces of the Royal Guards, the scene was stereotypically normal. I looked over to Shining Armor who just shrugged helplessly. Turning back to Luna who seemed to be calming down a little, I asked, “Are we in any danger right now?”
Luna shook her head. “Nay. I can tell thee with utter certainty that, aside from the novelty of your arrival, I know with absolute clarity every detail of every event within Canterlot today, and much of what will happen elsewhere.” She raised a weary hoof towards the Royal Guards. “You are all dismissed. I shall parley with our visitors.”
While a few of the Guards looked uncertain, they nevertheless obeyed and left us in Luna’s company. I said to Shining, “I think your shield won’t be needed. Let your sister know that it’s safe.”
He nodded and disappeared through the portal even as Luna watched. With nothing to stop her, I reckon she was barely restraining herself from following. Then her eyes bulged as Twilight stepped through with her brother.
“Twilight Sparkle! Thou…” She blinked and stared. “Thou art an alicorn? Perhaps thou can succeed where all others have failed!”
Twilight looked understandably puzzled. “What’s going on?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out, Sparkles.” I turned back to Luna. “Okay – from the top! What has happened that has you in such desperate need?”
The lunar alicorn sighed. “I suppose thou wilt not allow me passage until I explain myself. The beginning of my tale starts with the occasion when I visited Ponyville for Nightmare Night and Twilight Sparkle spent so much time and effort showing me how I could fit in once more with the citizens of Equestria. Heartened by this and the citizens’ new love of the night, I sought many ways to dispel my association with Nightmare Moon so that I could stand by my sister’s side, once more, to rule our kingdom. Then I learned of Twilight Sparkle’s attempt to warn her past self of a great peril by use of a time-travel spell and that was when I made my great mistake.”
I raised a querying eyebrow at Twilight.
“It was before you arrived in Equestria, Mark,” the lavender alicorn explained. “My future self suddenly appeared in my home and warned me that a great disaster was going to happen soon, but I was too excited by that event and interrupted her before I learned what it was and she was drawn back to her time. So I spent every stressful moment sending ponies out to check for every possible problem. When the event failed to occur, I figured that we had successfully prevented the disaster but I would still need to go back and warn myself so that it would not happen. I forgot that my past self didn’t give me a chance to explain fully though and that left her stressed out like I had been.”
I said, “But you can’t change the past – you can only cause it to branch into an alternate history.”
“Well, I know that now,” she replied. “That’s why the time-travel only lasted for seconds. As soon as I did something to make a change, it caused a branch and I was forced to go back to the future of the original timeline. I didn’t talk to Luna about that incident though.”
“Nay, I learned of the event from my sister.”
“So, I’m guessing that you tried to change your past?” I asked Luna.
She cast her eyes aside, guilt written on her face. “Aye. I thought if I could persuade my past self and my sister to resolve their problems, I would not have succumbed to the temptations of the Nightmare. So, I studied the spell and sought to alter it to achieve my aims. Instead, I cast myself into a purgatory that made my banishment to the moon pale by comparison.”
Everything still seemed perfectly normal to me. Perplexed, I said, “I fail to perceive the problem. What are we not seeing?”
“I am stuck in an unending loop. Every day has been the same as the previous for decades! No matter how I try to change events, once I succumb to sleep, I wake up to a world reset to the moment that I cast that cursed spell.”
“Groundhog Day,” I murmured to myself.
“Pardon?” Luna said with a puzzled tilt to her head.
“Never mind. Sparkles – you’ve studied this kind of magic more than anyone else. Any ideas?”
The alicorn shook her head. “I’ll have to examine Luna’s modifications before I have any idea how this situation was caused. Considering that it has done nothing like what it was supposed to do, I suspect that there are major flaws in its design.”
Luna groaned. “ ’Tis ironic. My woes started when my sister ignored my needs, but my current problems stem from me ignoring my sister’s warnings. She has ever been better than I at the arts arcane but I believed her not when she told me that what I wished to accomplish was beyond anypony’s grasp. I have talked to her about this many times since but nothing has been achieved in the precious few hours before time reverts once more. I cannot even save notes on what small progress she makes because they only exist in my memory when I awaken.”
“What happens if you try to stay awake during the moment that time resets?” Gemini asked.
Luna gave them a tired smile. “I know not, youngling. The original spell only sent the caster back twenty-four hours. In my attempt to increase that to no less than a millennium, I poured all my power into the cantrip. Despite my modifications to the spell, I awaken at the same time on the previous day. I arise exhausted each morning and fall asleep later despite all attempts not to.”
Twilight said, “That could be an effect of the original spell’s limitations. You fall asleep because you had fallen asleep in the first iteration of the loop.”
“What if Luna comes to our universe instead?” Gemini queried. “Would that break the cycle?”
“It’s quite possible,” Twilight confirmed, “but I will not allow her to cross into our Equestria before I am certain that we won’t suffer any consequences as a result.”
Luna nodded. “Thou art wise. Fear not – I will not force the issue. Right now, I am enjoying the first novel conversation in far too many years and I have hope where none has existed for even longer.”
Shining Armor spoke up. “How long before the reset? Are we in any danger of being caught up in it?”
I should have thought to ask that. Good thing my friend was on the ball.
“There is still a good fourteen hours before that happens. More exact, I cannot say as I have already explained.”
I said, “Then we can spare a couple of hours before we’re forced to shut down the portal. Normally, we would leave you the means of setting up a permanent portal between our worlds, but I suspect it would disappear with the reset. That means we’ll have to re-open this temporary portal tomorrow. Will you remember us then?”
“I remember every moment of every day of every year that I have spent in this Tartarus.”
“Uh… right. Sparkles – looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you. I don’t think I can be of much help here, so maybe I’ll have a chat with Celestia while you’re doing that. Speaking of Sunbutt, how come she hasn’t turned up?”
Luna looked faintly shocked at my use of the nickname but she let it pass. “My sister is in Ponyville. I chose to cast the spell on a day when she would not be here to stop me. That is where you will find her every day at this time.”
While I could fly there and back easily enough, I did not really want to waste the time doing so. “Perhaps I’ll have a look around here instead. Maybe I’ll find something of interest. Shining – I guess you’ll be staying with Twilight?”
“Of course,” he confirmed.
“Can I stay and talk with Auntie Luna, Dad?” Crystal Shield asked.
Luna’s eyebrows rose. “Auntie?”
“Honorary,” clarified Shining. “You might enjoy chatting with my son – he’s quite… empathetic.”
Well, that was certainly true of a changeling. I wondered if Luna knew of them yet. Not that Crystal would reveal that he was one. He hadn’t assumed his natural form for many years. If it wasn’t for his need to feed on love, he would be indistinguishable from a natural pony.
“I’d like to stay with Crys, if I may?” Gemini asked.
Like I could keep them apart! “Sure, Gem. As long as you two don’t get in Auntie Twilight’s way.”
The night alicorn spread her wings with a warm smile. Crystal Shield and Gemini quickly moved to her sides and were soon draped with dark blue feathers. “I would fain converse with you,” Luna said, “but first I must apprise Twilight Sparkle of the spell that I wrought. Then while she is busy, mayhap thou canst inform me as to how she came to ascend.”
Luna assigned two Royal Guards to accompany me. I may be an alicorn but I wasn’t a prince of this Equestria, so they helped smooth the way while I looked around. I did attract the attention of several nobles and not a few civilians and I threw out a lot of bullshit answers to their questions, confident that everything I said would be forgotten soon. Both the Guards shot me curious looks but I gave them a wink. One of them chuckled at least. I think it was at my declaration that the noble was looking at Celestia’s secret love child!
I didn’t discover anything of particular interest. In fact, due to Luna’s interference, this dimension appeared to be a couple of decades behind in many areas. It looked like we were going to have to chalk this venture up to good will once more. I joined the others again when the portal was down to half an hour’s worth of life and reminded Twilight that it was time to go back. We had a strict protocol of giving ourselves a safety margin and this was one scenario where I definitely did not want to get stuck. While Twilight had trained others in the operation of the portal, because of the time loop, there was no guarantee that we would be here after the reset.
We made our farewells to Luna who insisted on sharing a parting hug with each of us. Twilight declined, insisting that she needed to stay entirely uncontaminated by the spell’s magic. Only when I saw Luna’s fleeting hurt expression did I appreciate how crushingly lonely the mare’s existence had been for decades. However, while she still looked tired, it was clear that her morale had greatly improved. Hopefully, we would have an answer for her the next day.
“Well?” I asked Twilight as we met up in the morning.
“Luna’s spell is a tangled mess, but for that same reason, it does not have co-dependent cantrips to energize and stabilize it,” she explained.
“In plain Equish, please.”
She smirked at me. “I mean, while it almost certainly can’t be undone, we can simply break it. The reason why Luna is always exhausted is that the spell is constantly drawing on her power. Take away the power source—”
“And the spell collapses,” I finished her sentence.
“Exactly.”
“So, why did the spell create a loop?”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Because she tried to do the impossible. First of all, she wanted to change history and we both know that just creates a new branch. Secondly, she tried to make a spell designed for a twenty-four-hour leap go back over a thousand years. Instead she created an error loop that would repeat on the original timeline for the same number of years.”
I shuddered, thinking of having to re-live the same day for over a millennium. Even my wedding day, as joyful and exciting as it was, would become drudgery no later than the thousandth iteration. “Okay, so what do you intend to do?”
“Bring Luna here and close the portal. That will snap the connection between her and the spell.”
“Are you sure it won’t affect our universe?”
Twilight nodded. “I checked while we were there. It’s anchored in her room in Canterlot where she cast it.”
I snorted. “And sucking on her mana as she slept nearby. Do you think if she got far enough away from it, she might have managed to starve it enough to cause it to fail?”
“Yes and no. I thought of that possibility but I calculated that she would never be able to travel far enough to achieve that in the time available. Instead, Luna would be back at her starting point immediately after the reset.”
“Even if the Elements sent her to the moon?”
Twilight opened her mouth then stopped. “I… suppose that might have worked. I’m glad she did not become desperate enough to request banishment for another thousand years.”
“At least travelling to another universe will certainly be far enough,” I said with a smile.
“I would certainly hope so!” Twilight agreed.
So, we kidnapped Luna. Okay, it wasn’t quite as dramatic as that. The Lunar Alicorn was waiting for us though and beat the Royal Guards to the portal. We told her to jump through and she did so without hesitation. Then Twilight shut off the portal. Luna staggered for a moment before steadying and raising her head high.
“I feel as if a great burden has been lifted from me,” she declared.
“That would be because the parasitic connection to your spell has been severed. That should cause it to fail very quickly.”
“You could go back almost immediately if you wish,” I told her.
“Thank you, but I decline. I have had enough of that day to last me a lifetime. Wouldst thou grant me the boon of staying here overnight?”
We had no problem with that. We got to introduce her to our extended families and gave her a banquet with foods she had not been served in years if ever. Our alliances had given us access to some exotic cuisines. She even met her counterpart in the night club that our Luna owned and ran. I wouldn’t be surprised if she went back to her universe with some grand ideas borrowed from ours.
After probably the best night’s sleep that she had in ages, she was almost in tears the next morning when Twilight confirmed that it was a new day and not a repeat once more. She was almost reluctant to return to her home universe but, when she stepped out of the portal, she found her worried sister waiting for her. The two embraced while explanations were made. Apparently, Luna had left a note for Celestia, telling her that she might be gone for a day and to meet her here in the morning. The Royal Guards were able to point out exactly where our portal opened, so the solar alicorn had been waiting at this spot since sunrise. That was the final proof we needed that the spell was broken.
After disengaging from her sister, Luna came back to us. “Princess Twilight Sparkle – I cannot thank thee enough for thy wisdom. Thou hast my eternal gratitude. Prince Mark Wells – thou hast my greatest thanks for thy campaign to explore other worlds that brought me my salvation. I would gladly bear thee many foals.”
Penny fell over laughing and I facehoofed. Not another one!
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