THE CHRONOMANCER
Pay attention, Goldfish, I shall not repeat myself.
Some say time is a pony-created construct. I beg to both challenge and reaffirm that very notion. Ponies, you see, constructed no such thing, but the universe's behavior has always intrinsically lacked sufficient identifiers in which to describe the transformation of three-dimensional objects. As such, a necessity for a higher principle was born, a concept that matter would only transform, grow, decay, or change if given time to do so, an additional axis to the development of states of matter. In a purely three-dimensional space, there is no experience save for the present, as such a dimension cannot know change. Conversely, in a four-dimensional space there is only the near future and recent past, the idea of a 'present' being something no organic consciousness has the capability to truly behold.
We live in a four-dimensional space. A four-dimensional world, a four-dimensional kingdom, with four-dimensional clueless denizens and a four-faced four-dimensional empress operating for self-interest under the guise of a princess of her subjects. A Dictator who wields the capability to control not only the three dimensions her subjects live in, but who seeks to master the fourth so as to assert absolute, unquestionable power. The ability to foresee disasters, circumvent coups, re-attempt any diplomatic meeting, take millenia-long vacations on a whim all of which would take no time at all in relation to the alpha timeline in which we all currently inhabit.
Alpha timeline. Remember that term, it will be important in a moment. For now, we must move on from the present. If you've been paying attention, you should be able to tell me what that means.
- - - -
Consciousness returns to me by my will, the cold packed stone of a long-abandoned wine cellar greets my hooves, and the collapsed roof of the hut it belonged to let in just enough light to see by. The small dark green pegasus mare across from me blinks exactly once, before stumbling and failing to right herself with her wings in time. She falls forward and threatens to crash nose-first into the floor, but as a courtesy to my new devout follower I ignite my horn with a heavily modified Feather Falling spell: Power delay, exponential growth, t constant scaling from 0.1 backwards to roughly -0.7, with a timeout command after 2.4 seconds, rounded for simplicity.
As she's about to slam nose-first into the floor, her velocity is suddenly cut into a tenth, and quickly the remaining forward momentum is transformed into potential energy in the other direction. That potential energy is fed through the spell and begins magnifying itself, for every moment that passes it is able to convert a slightly larger amount of the now quantumly-locked energy into kinetic energy as she flows backwards through time. After about 1.5 seconds she's falling upwards at an equal rate to which she fell, and at 2.4 she's nearly upright as the spell fades, leaving its' siphoned momentum with her. It's just enough to right her, without a newton of force left in excess.
"Are we still in the Alpha Timeline?" I ask, giving her no time to contemplate any of what just happened. If she is to be of use, she must be able to think quickly and deduce under pressure.
"Yes." She responds, her body releasing the breath of air she'd attempted to exhale before it was rewound back into her lungs.
"Explain."
She takes about half a second to focus her eyes on me, and there's a small twitch of her wings as she attempts to summon some source of stored knowledge in her mind to the surface.
"Your theory of Major Timeline Continuity suggests that any timeline sufficiently different enough from the Alpha would crumble without a perpetually-charged Chrono-anchor to bind it to the Alpha. Since we entered this room, you've cast only silence wards, a custom-modified meditation spell with aspects of Astral Projection and what I can only assume is Chronomancy, as well as a zone of truth, though I wasn't meant to see that one between layers 7 and 8 of your spell. Unless that in itself was also a test, which I don't have any way of knowing."
I stoke my beard thoughtfully. It wasn't a test, I cast it every indoctrination, but it was an excellent observation to notice the circle amidst my ritual which did not belong. This mare shows promise. Perhaps I could use it as a test, now that I think about it.
"Explain how you just told a lie in a zone of truth," I continue, a judgemental thousand-yard stare piercing into her as she looks puzzled for a moment, but immediately she begins thinking. I'll allow her no more than thirty seconds. If she can't figure it out within thirty seconds, she'll be too slow in the field. Impressively, she only needs twenty.
"We're not in the Alpha timeline. A Zone of Truth isn't a ward of divination, and so it only limits the subjects' responses to what it believes and perceives to be true. I believed we were in the Alpha Timeline, so I was able to say so."
For the first time in about eight months, I allow a small grin a moment on my face. She is capable of becoming a devotee, at least intellectually. There still remain many trials and tests of character, but the great filter has been passed.
"That is correct, while my spell does allow us to communicate for prolonged periods in an instant, it is not through instantaneous transference of knowledge, it is through this." I motion vaguely around us with a forehoof, and she seems to have already pieced the nature of my spell together. "What you experienced prior to what seemed as though you were waking up was shared consciousness. We came to understand each others' immediate thought processes, which I have primed prior to every departure for that purpose."
This is the part a lot of devotees have trouble grasping, and this pegasus seems no different. The idea of shared consciousness isn't precisely what happens during the phase shift between timelines, but it has the highest success rate with being understood, and so a little white lie keeps things moving.
She puts a contemplative hoof under her chin, and stares past me for a few moments longer. "We have infinite time because once we're done here, you'll send us back to the Alpha timeline. It's not possible to instantly do anything in an Alpha timeline without traversing to a parallel timeline to do it. That's the fourth dimension of Chronomancy, the ability to traverse timelines across anchors?" She asks, slightly less confident this time. Which is to be expected, as this isn't spellcraft her or her world have ever seen to my knowledge. Her guess is close, but just misses the mark.
"I will sever this divergent timeline from the Alpha, and send our consciousness back entirely. It's much more energy efficient and with less risk of complication than attempting to reassemble the data of two full ponies across timelines." It's my bread-and-butter solution for the possibility of an assassination or incursion under the guise of a devoted believer in my magic. If a pony tries to kill me here, it doesn't affect the Alpha timeline, and because I don't immediately gain the knowledge of the entire encounter after casting the spell, I know I can't trust them since I never make it out. "The complete and total control of Time in an Alpha timeline is indeed impossible, at least in a world with a rational set of laws governing it. That isn't to say you can't bypass it, though. For example," I light my horn and weave a spell I've cast thousands of times over hundreds of years, Delay. As I do, from my perspective absolutely nothing seems to happen, but the pegasus looks like she's recovering from witnessing a miracle. While nothing has changed from my perspective, I simply blinked out of existence for about ten seconds relative to the speed she's experiencing this timeline.
"This is the potential of my field of study, you see. To set a temporal ambush, to never wait, to never sleep, to have all the time in the world to learn all there is to know. The selfish purpose of Chronomancy, a selfishness I wish for us all." I wait patiently for her to commit the display to memory, and I'm certain she'll have come up with half a dozen applications for being able to jump forward in time by the time we're on our way back.
"When you imply there is no such thing as total control over an Alpha timeline, are you meaning to say you can't travel backwards in that timeline?"
I nod. "Not only is it impossible in the Alpha timeline, it is impossible altogether. The only means of traversing backwards through time is through the use of premade anchor points, streaming your consciousness backwards, which results in diverging Alpha timelines. Utilizing such magic comes with many risks to the fabric of spacetime itself, as having multiple Alpha timelines strains the veil between the infinite possibilities the universe may have. Without proper handling and preening, it would cause the collapse of the fourth dimension altogether."
Her eyes go wide at that, and she ponders the implications of something so drastic.
"Time would just stop? How is that-" She cuts herself off, shaking her head. "Sorry, I have the information to figure that out. More of a reaction than a question, I'm sure you get it." She nods the small apology, but furrows her brows and casts her gaze downwards nonetheless, truly taking in the possibility of a universe in which time is no longer a factor, and everything just stops. It's a terrifying prospect, but one she and all of my followers must come to terms with sooner rather than later.
While I understand her desire to come to terms with it this very moment, it's something she'll have to do on her own time. I have an operation in Ponyville to plan over the next two months that I would prefer to not have to make another trip across timelines to sleep for. I dispel the Zone of Truth while she's lost in thought, and clear my throat.
"Are you willing to obey my every command without hesitation or question?" I ask.
"Yes."
"Would you be willing to kill a creature I instructed you to without hesitation, if you understood it to be necessary?"
"Yes."
"What if it were not necessary?"
She doesn't respond. She stares at me with a calculatedly level look, attempting to see if this is a test of morality or a test of faith. While I understand the merits of either answer in this scenario, it's neither. It's a test of honesty that a zone of truth could never facilitate. Honesty not to me, but to herself.
"...I have no appropriate response." She settles with, and her head lowers a bit at the end as if she's afraid the answer will be insufficient.
"If Dear Friend informed you that he had a plan to kill me, with or without good reason, would you kill him to stop it if that's what it took?"
That stabs her in the heart, but then again that is the intention. The tan earth pony was the one to scout her for the organization, or so he says. In truth, I'm aware they've known each other since they were young. He's likely the only pony she's willing to trust with her life, besides perhaps me when all is said and done. Beyond that, I have no insight, which is why we are here.
Her heart is beating faster, and her breaths are forced and deep, imagining the act of ending her best friend's life in any multitude of ways.
"I require an answer." I pressure. I know what she's going to say already, but I press her more so to spare us both the drama of her internal turmoil.
"...yes." she whispers, staring at the floor, looking beyond disgusted with herself.
"Explain to me how you just told a lie in a zone of truth." I prompt the same question, again.
She blinks, looking up to me then shaking her head vigorously. "I didn't lie."
I continue to stare at her knowingly, and she senses that there's a trick somewhere. She's about to double down on her claim, but her mouth hangs open in silence when the realization hits that she's no longer under any enchantments.
"... I see... So now you'll recast the ward, have me answer again, and see if my responses differ. If they do..." Her expression softens from the troubled confusion into a soft smile, of all things. She looks back up to me with a genuine respect, and bows her head.
"I would not kill Dear Friend under any circumstance." She concludes in an even, respectful voice. "And I'm proud that I'm not capable of betraying that same trust he has for me." She keeps her head bowed down low, and I believe she's waiting for some sort of judgement for what she believes is a wrong answer. She couldn't be further from the truth.
"If you were capable of betraying Dear Friend, you would almost certainly be capable of attempting to betray me. I cannot promise orders such as that will never come, but I will leave you the assurance such decisions will never be made without that ponies consent. Followers of mine perish in the pursuit of a greater good frequently, by no fault of their own, even when they've done everything right. That's the world we live in, Goldfish. The world I'm attempting to abolish, slowly but surely." I've never been one to soothe the minds of other ponies, but over the centuries my sense of empathy has grown at least enough to understand this mare's point of reference. It's all true, too, which helps. The age-old phrase 'I'd rather a thief over a liar' is particularly apt in that regard. A thief will attempt to steal from you, you can prepare for and expect that. A liar, however? You never know what a liar will do.
She raises her head and sizes me up, surprised but curious. Clearly I exceeded some expectation of hers, perhaps she was told that I was a heartless calculating monster who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Perhaps I am, but also perhaps not, and unfortunately for her she won't be able to divine such information with a wayward glance.
"We will realign precisely at the moment we deviated from the Alpha. Prepare yourself, I shall not right you a second time." I warn, and begin weaving the spell to send us home. She sits upright, looking lost in her thoughts. She looks like she's about to start tearing up, but that is no concern nor business of mine. She's proven all I require of her, and this time next sun she'll have her first mission.
- - - -
Sunflowers face east in the morning and follow the sun's path through the sky throughout the day due to the fact that during their younger growing stages they require more sunlight than their adult variants, which tend to face only one static direction. Berry Spirit was a culinary genius who accumulated 2,332 patents across Equestria for his signature artificial flavoring recipes. O negative are universal donors, AB+ are universal recipients. The fall of the Zebra empire was due to its' inability to maintain supply lines during the Zebra-Equestrian war. Purely through logistical outmaneuvering by commander Flanking Maneuver, Equestria gained many advancements in charm and hex magic from the now-demilitarized country and maintain a harsh import tax to this day. Love: Page 357 of the Mare Webster's revised dictionary, defined as-
Shut up.
The flurry of information my mind offers up to me immediately brings on a migraine, but I'm used to that. I haven't not had a migraine since I was a filly. From the moment I wake up until the moment my brain finally fries itself out three days later and allows me blissful silence for three to four hours, I have a migraine. It's hell. I've tried everything. Therapy, self-help, hypnosis, drugs, hard drugs, nothing works. Morphine is about the only thing that kills off the flurry of incoherent factoids, formulae, and history for any period of time. The downside? I have hellish, vivid nightmares when I'm on the stuff, and it impairs my motor function. Sometimes it's almost worth it.
Right now, though, there's only one thing I need to remember, my directive. I have a mission to carry out, one final contribution to ponykind before I can finally be cured of my ailment. I attempt to bolt up into a sitting position to await my captors once more, but the chains around my waist, neck, flank, and all four hooves keep me shackled against the cold metal plate they're affixed to. Right, forgot about that. I sigh regretfully as I shake my wings against the inside of the metal casing chastising them, several broken joints and missing primaries sending a pitiful attempt at pain in response. My limbs aren't faring too much better, at least two of my hooves are broken, and my jaw feels like it's ready to fall off, but it's probably just dislocated. I tackled Twilight out of the air but cushioned her with my body, and I suffered a lot more damage than I'd hoped for in doing so. The directive was clear, though; No crippling nor mortal harm comes to Twilight Sparkle.
I'm glad for that, she's a good mare. She's done a lot for this kingdom, her brother even helped a work associate of mine in Saddle Arabia once, before he became Captain of the royal guard. Might have even saved her life, with how desperate some of the lesser ponies on the frontier can be. Violent crime resulting in homicide is less than one ten-thousandth of a percent (<0.0001%) of all crimes from the last documented century in Equestria, excluding that one outlier. Saddle Arabia had nearly a 0.8% homicide rate for all crimes including non-violent back then. It was further exacerbated by the P.U.S.H. declaration RL-144-
Shut up, somepony's here.
I can't see them, but I hear something, the sound of soft earth being disturbed underhoof. It's such an incredibly small, delicate sound, but whatever insane enchantments the Princess promised she'd put me under, she definitely didn't spare any expense with the Silencing wards. Though if my instructions are correct, which I'm told they always are, without exception, it's one-way. I need to be careful in what order I say which things, everything counts on it.
The soft noises stop, and I train my ears beyond my own body. It takes a moment, but I hear the slow, metered breaths of another pony. Based on the rate and angle from the ground where my head lies, it's a Mare, about 5'4. From that, I can assume her fur is lavender, she has a starburst cutie mark, and is probably very angry with me.
I wait for her to start the dialogue, she needs to be in control of this conversation. She needs to feel important.
"Are you awake?" She asks. I pause just for a microsecond. That is definitely Twilight Sparkle's voice, but it sounds like she's emotionally distant. Likely rationale infers an emotionally traumatic event, breakup, or mental fortitude training in preparation for an interrogation. Likely the first one, though whether I'm the source or not I have no way of knowing.
"Yes." I answer simply, and there's a few seconds of awkward silence.
"What... What did you want to say to me?" I see a small purple glow dancing around her horn, and a tiny point of lavender-colored light hovers in the air between us. It's eerie only being able to see each other and the ground, the rest of the light being sucked into the black vortex all around us, but at least we can see each other.
"Before that, if there's anything you want to know, you're going to want to ask first." I reply.
"And why would that be?" She raises a brow, an air of annoyance creeping into her voice. The telltale sign of a mare out of patience. Definitely something traumatic, seemingly not just me.
"Because after I give you my message, I'm going to die."
That kills the momentum entirely, and I can see a mixture of shivers running across her body, her mind kicking into overdrive trying to divine how and why, and there's almost a hint of concern before she catches herself. That's right, don't get attached to me. I'm the bad pony, don't feel bad.
"I don't understand what you mean. Care to explain?" She takes a step closer, looking me up and down. I shift the little bit the restraints afford me to hide the worst of my injuries, drawing her attention instead to my eyes as I lift my head.
"I mean exactly what I said. Due to circumstances beyond your control, in a few minutes' time I imagine I'm going to be dead."
"I mean, I heard that, I'm asking how. I can't even cast anything with more output than cantrips in a nullification field, and that's probably because they tuned it down for me since you're a Pegasus." She gets a little closer and presses a forehoof against the large metal panel affixed to the ground I'm chained to. It doesn't budge, and she gets just close enough to sit on the edge of it, barely a wingspan away.
"I can't answer that."
"Well, then what can you answer?" Her tone is still a bit frustrated, but there's an undertone of fear in there I'm not used to associating with the legendary little unicorn. Is it fear that she might be in the crossfire? I can address that.
"I can tell you that nopony on any side means you harm, at least not as you are now."
"Then why were you stalking me? Why leave me that note on the thermal reevaluation? And where did you even find it?"
Now we're getting back on track, I can work with this.
"My partner and I were assigned to keep overwatch on you, without intervening or giving away ourselves until our last encounter. We were meant to destroy evidence of tampering first, but plans change. We've been in Ponyville for just shy of two months, the day after Lyra Heartstrings' birthday party. The note was to be left per instructions from The Timekeeper, I don't know how it's applied or where it's originally sourced from, I only have it memorized."
She goes a bit pale when I say we've been watching her for two months. Maybe I should have worked up to that, but it's way too far gone now. Hope that doesn't blow up.
We sit in silence for another ten seconds or so, and even though she's looking in my direction, she's staring straight through me, lost in thought somewhere. I know that look, actually. Maybe before the end, I'll let myself ask her something. Surely this isn't against the directive? I just feel a pull to this unicorn, some kind of desire to relate that's entirely foreign to me. Maybe she's somepony who understands, with how much she knows.
"Does it ever get to be too much? In your head?" I ask, unprompted. She shifts her eyes to mine, and she seems confused. "All the information, all the knowledge. Does any of it ever come back up to haunt you? Were you ever able to turn it all off?"
She takes a sharp breath in and tilts her head, and she takes on several mannerisms indicative of concern. That tells me that no, she doesn't have this curse. She's been able to read to her heart's content and only remember things when she wants to. Oh sweet hardcovers she doesn't know how blessed she really is. I'd envy it if I had the desire to anymore. But that's just the sick humor of the universe, born with everything in my head, too stupid to know what it means, and nopony that knows what it's like.
"You're hurt-" she suddenly observes. Her light is floating all over my body, and I hadn't realized I'd let my form relax while I was lost in thought. I've blundered, haven't I? Maybe it's not hopeless, but it's going to be a lot harder to do this if she stops hating me. Please keep hating me, Twilight Sparkle, it'll make it easier for both of us.
"I'm fine, I barely feel it-"
"You have a displaced shoulder and jaw, I see broken ribs, and your hind hoof is bent at a ninety degree angle!" She exclaims, shaking her head, and she leans forward with a small purple aura dancing around her horn as she attempts to prepare a basic mending evocation.
"DON'T!" I yell out without thinking, pulling the half an inch away from her that I'm able. It works, though. She freezes mid-cast and stares at me in astonishment, trying to piece together if I'm a masochist, under duress, or just an idiot.
"I assaulted you. I'm one of your stalkers. You don't help somepony like that," I remind her, giving her a cool and level eye. She just keeps staring at me, before the spell fades away and she shakes her head.
"If you don't want me to heal you then I won't, and I don't forgive you for any of that, but... I don't think this is right, to make you suffer like this if you don't have to. Look, I've had a really, really bad day. Normally I’d have realized you were hurt immediately, but some stuff happened, and I'm, um... The truth is, I am upset with you, but I want to believe you're not just a crazy mare who stalked me for two months then hospitalized me for no good reason. I'm sorry for being short with you to begin with, that was wrong of me, but I want to know what's wrong with you, too."
I wince at the description of events, and I feel that familiar guilt for hurting her like that. This is Twilight Sparkle, huh? The pony who's banished Discord, redeemed Nightmare Moon, and become a student of 'friendship' magic. Before now, I would have said there's no such thing as friendship magic that wasn't woven into a charm spell, but now that she's sitting in front of me, offering to ease my suffering despite me being the one that caused her injuries that must have had her bedridden until the princess mended her... Showing genuine curiosity when I mentioned my plight, I can kind of see how so many ponies look up to her. Suddenly I completely understand why The Timekeeper is willing to risk so much for this mare. Maybe it's the comforting thoughts, maybe it's the fact that I've gotten more than ten times the amount of sleep today than I usually get in a month, but for the first time in my adult life I'm able to wade through the tempest in my mind a bit more clearly. For the first time, I can hear myself think. For the first time, I can enjoy the peace and quiet.
I don't know when, but at some point I failed to fight back my tears. I suck in a breath and look up to her, and she has a strange mixture of pity and understanding on her face. She looks around the dome at nothing, lost in thought while I try to recollect myself. Before long she's beside me, and I feel her press a small object against my chest.
"Hold still, this won't take too long. I don't think, at least..." She says. I don't bother to look up at her, and I just let her cast her magic. It feels like some kind of static, and it pokes around randomly at my body, making my fur stand on edge. She could be casting me into the depths of tartarus right now and I would still feel like I owed her the world, the serenity of the moment is that great. After a few minutes she's still casting, but I've managed to blink all the tears away from my eyes and get my breathing back to a controlled level.
I sure did blow it, though. The eleventh hour and I just had to make a fool of myself. I couldn't follow his instructions, I couldn't properly send his message, I couldn't even die right like I was supposed to. All that I put this poor mare through, and I couldn't even control my emotions to respect that.
"I'm sorry for the trouble we've put you through." I start, and my progress keeping my tears down begins to quickly come undone. "I'm sorry, you weren't supposed to get hurt, I just- We were supposed to let you catch one of us, but I, you couldn't- I couldn't let you catch Dear. It had to be me. That's why I tackled you, that's why this happened. I'm sorry, I'm s-" My voice sputters out, and I slink down into a shivering pile on the cold metal tile I'm anchored to while the unicorn beside me lays a hoof on my back and continues casting her magic. My wounds aren't any better, but the pain has subsided a small amount. She probably can't cast anything medical grade with the suppression field up, but she's trying and I appreciate that.
"Dear is the tan earth pony you were with, your partner?" She asks, her voice is a bit strained.
I nod. "Yeah, he's... He's just the best, you know? He's how I met Timekeeper. I don't know how he did it, but he's always had a knack for talking to anypony he wants to. Ponies just naturally love him, it's his gift."
"That sounds- agh, ow- like you two could have been happy without needing to do... whatever all of- Ouch!" The light fades for a moment as I feel her shift to rub at something on her face. "Sorry, without needing to do whatever all of this is about. Why go through all this trouble just to give me a message that's going to kill you?"
The serenity starts to slowly fade away, and I wonder how long it'll be before the migraine returns as I think about it.
"How many books do you think you've read, Twilight?" I ask. It catches her off guard, but she has a pre-prepared answer.
"Not counting re-reads and unpublished or case study documents, in the realm of 3,400 ranging from 100 to 600 pages, not including outliers."
"I've read 39,010, mean length of 187.31 pages. 'The' accounts for roughly 4.7% of all words, including unpublished findings as well as fiction. My first book was 'The Elegant Multiverse' when I was a year and a half old. I didn't understand what any of it meant, but I remembered every single word. My parents thought I was a prodigy, I could answer any quiz about any topic I'd ever read about. At least until they had me tested on unreferenced material, general intelligence. Can you guess how I did?"
Twilight didn't immediately respond, the sound of her labored breathing dominating the conversation for nearly a whole minute until she replied.
"You failed?"
"I bombed it. I was only able to answer a single question out of all 100, because it was an advanced calculus problem that a textbook I'd read through a month prior used as an example. I'm a catalogue, all I'm good for is regurgitating information and being a calculator. And to boot, I can't turn it off. All day, every day, I'm thinking incoherent strings of facts I can't even understand half the time. It's like a song in a language you don't know on repeat every single day. I'm so glad you don't have to deal with it, I wouldn't wish it on anypony." I spill my heart out to her, and by the time I'm done I'm just exhausted. I know I still have a job to do, but at this point I've gone so far off script that I'm unbothered by how long it takes us to get there. For some reason, I'm in no hurry to die right this moment.
Twilight doesn't respond, but that's fine. Just knowing that somepony else who gives a damn is beside me, knows what I'm going through, it's enough. I almost manage to convince myself it's Dear beside me.
I feel her start to sag beside me a bit, but before I can ask if something's wrong the soft pulse of magic that was dancing across my fur recedes, and I feel her pull the object away from my chest. I look over to see what it was, but she immediately falls onto her flank and cradles her head in her hooves, rubbing at her temples gently. I know the onset of a migraine when I see one.
"Aville's Cure-All, the sooner you cast it the lighter it'll be. I can recite the matrix, if you need," I offer, but she shakes her head.
"No, that's alright, I know it. I just don't think I have it in me to force out any more magic in here. Thanks, though."
"Mm." I mutter, turning to face forward again. We both sit there in silence for another couple of minutes. I don't have anything else to say, and she doesn't have anything left to ask.
'It's time to do it, I guess.' I think as I close my eyes, making peace with my decisions up to this point. If nothing else, I'm glad I got to share this moment with her. Maybe in another life she could have saved me from this awful curse in my head, maybe she could have been the one to meet the Timekeeper herself in the first place. But conjecture and fantasy won't help either of us here, there's a bullet and I've got to bite it.
"Twilight, I do have to give you the message." I say casually, lifting my head to look at her. She doesn't want to, but she looks back to me with pain in her eyes.
"I don't want to hear it. I could just leave, then-"
"Then I'd die for nothing."
She keeps staring at me as if she could divine the outcome she wants out of this, but there's far too many moving parts, too many powerful ponies in play. At least she'll come to know the truth of Equestria soon, it's the least I can do to help her on her path.
"I know how this is going to sound, but I need you to do something for me first. I need you to sit next to me, and I need you to scream, as loud as you can."
She looks taken aback, as if she's not entirely certain if she heard me right.
"You want me... To scream? Right next to you?" She confirms, scooting unsteadily towards me.
I nod, taking a deep breath. "Yeah, and before you do, promise me you'll close your eyes and keep them closed, until I'm dead. I... Don't want you to see."
That really unsettles her. She squirms around a bit and itches her forehooves with each other, searching frantically for any possible way to postpone.
"Please, Twilight." I ask, begging her cooperation.
"...Okay. I, uh... Sorry for your ears, Goldfish." I chuckle as she takes a few practice breaths, expanding her lungs and emptying them completely. With one last large inhale, she starts yelling like the town is on fire.
'I'm on the clock now,' I think, and I struggle to lift my face as close to her screaming head as the chains allow, and I speak just loudly enough that only she could possibly hear me over the sound of her voice.
"When you stop screaming is when I'll die. The Timekeeper is right here at this location with us, he's just not at this time yet. As soon as the mana inhibitor hexes and magic nullification wards are dropped, his spell will find purchase and complete. When the Timekeeper appears, he'll open a portal for only a second. If you want to know the truth about Equestria, the potential of chronomancy, go with him. Otherwise, stay here and he'll never contact you again." I stop stretching my neck, and let my tired head fall onto my forehooves. My mission is complete, all that's left is to allow myself to be severed like the loose end I am.
Twilight doesn't stop yelling, though. She keeps forcing out the long outcry for as long as she can, trying to make it last forever. It's a noble motivation, but she could stop right now and it really wouldn't make a difference.
And in an instant, the black dome that had been suppressing all light and sound from the outside blinks away, and a dozen layers of powerful warding magic are waved aside with a flick from Luna's horn as she charges towards us from a canopy barely thirty yards away. In the moment the wards dropped, a slight shimmer began to apparate just in front of Twilight, who had her eyes closed as promised. Within fractions of a second the spell clicked, the inhibitors gone, and the Timekeeper took full form before both of us. A tall, gray unicorn with a long white beard and hair, dressed in cosmically-adorned blue robes. He quickly raised a hoof to Twilight's mouth to silence her. When she opened her eyes, I could make out a massively conflicted war of fear, realization, and panic taking form on her face. She recognized him, surely, he even went to the trouble of wearing his old clothing.
"Come Twilight, with haste!" He commands with the hasty casting of a contingency spell underway. Within moments a small portal popped into existence in front of them, and she sat stock still starting at it, frozen in place.
'She's not going to go through, he's going to leave her behind!' I realize. Star Swirl raises a hoof against my forehead and prepares muttering a swift spell that I'm prepared for, but before I go I reach a hoof out and I'm just barely able to make contact with Twilight's hind hoof. She snaps out of her panic just long enough to look down at me, and seeing her pained expression creates a pit in my stomach. I grin past it, and give her a nod.
'Go!' I silently yell at her.
I see her raise a forehoof and turn towards the portal hesitantly. I think she's about to start moving when the Timekeeper's euthanatos spell completes, vaporizing some small part of my brain, and I never get to see if she takes the leap.