• Published 10th May 2014
  • 6,946 Views, 85 Comments

Instability - Eakin



Twilight tries to return to the past and warn herself of Tirek's escape

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Instability

INSTABILITY

After extensive study, Princess Twilight Sparkle had reached a single, definite conclusion: caves really sucked.

The four alicorns who shared the cave, really a miserable hole in the ground with delusions of grandeur, toiled together in grim silence on the task at hoof. The three eldest Princesses were exhausted. More exhausted than any of them had felt for thousands of years, in fact. Without their magic, exhaustion came on far quicker than it ever had before.

Twilight, by contrast, was a bubbling ball of energy. Not that she was cheerful, or upbeat, or even especially hopeful that this last-ditch plan would work. But she was quite literally bubbling and crackling as the combined magic of her and her companions constantly threatened to overflow from her body. It was a pain keeping it under control, but she was going to need every single scrap of it if they had any hope of changing what had happened.

A low rumbling shook the cave, and a few pebbles clattered down onto the four from the ceiling. “He is drawing closer,” said Celestia.

Luna and Twilight said nothing in response, only turned back to the parchments before them as they tried desperately to reconstruct the spell they needed. If one of the other Princesses had only thought to tell her then that there was a copy kept in the Starswirl the Bearded wing of the archives before Tirek had arrived, this would already be over. But then, between him and Discord there hadn’t really been... well... time. It was hard not to appreciate the inherent irony.

Cadence spoke up. “If he’s finally finished off Chrysalis and her swarm, he’ll be able to redouble his efforts to find us. Never thought I’d be sorry to believe that the old bug is gone.”

“The enemy of my enemy,” said Luna without looking up. “Tirek does not seem the loving sort. She knew from the start that it was either victory against him in battle or a slow death by starvation. In the end, she chose the more honorable path.”

“This is all my fault,” muttered Twilight, not for the first time. “I should have fought harder, or studied more, or... or something! All of Equestria, and my friends...”

“You did your best for them. Tirek is to blame, and nopony else,” said Cadence, trotting over to nuzzle her sister-in-law on her unscarred cheek. “Why don’t you take off that silly, torn-up stealth suit. It’s far too tight on you. In fact I can barely even see the outline of your wings under that thing.”

“Isn’t that kind of the point?” asked Twilight. “It would be impossible for Luna or Celestia to make supply runs without being noticed, and my cutie mark would stand out if ponies could see that I still had one.”

“I suppose most ponies would believe anypony with such a crazy mane cut would be a Princess, would they?” Cadence tousled the singed remains of her once sparkling and glorious mane. Even using enough magic to restore that risked alerting Tirek to their location before they were ready.

“Rarity would have found a way to make it work. She was always... always...” A falling teardrop smudged the equation she was scribbling down, and Twilight rose up from her spot knocking over a small pile of pebbles in her haste. “They were all always there. And now they aren’t. And if I’d taken Tirek’s deal they still would be.”

Celestia joined Cadence, draping a comforting, if dirty and oily, wing over Twilight’s back. “If you must blame anypony, blame me. I’m the one who entrusted you to keep our magic safe, and you did so in admirable fashion.”

“I wouldn’t call the way I flipped out back there ‘admirable,’ Princess. You weren’t there. I was going to give up my magic, I almost did. But I kept imagining what he might do with it, all the disasters and suffering he might cause in the future. I was so worried about the future I let a disaster happen right in front of me. But I guess that’s what I’ve always done, isn’t it?” She sniffled and wiped some of the snot off her muzzle. “I panicked, and...” she trailed off as bits and pieces of that second, desperate round of fighting against Tirek flashed through her mind.

Fire. Lightning. Darkness. Pain and confusion all around her.

Stepping into a hot, wet puddle. Looking down. Seeing pony blood covering her hoof, blood that wasn’t hers.

Her own screams as one of Tirek’s horns slipped through her defenses and the sharp pain in her face as it connected. She’d never realized how much she appreciated depth perception until it was gone.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” she whimpered. The tears bottled up under this stupid patch stung at where her eye had once been. “I wish I had spent more time with them. But there was always something I had to do. Like the dam breaking and the cleanup from that. And then the dry spell afterwards because nopony had thought to make sure the water tower was full. And I was so busy with that I didn’t even realize what was unfolding right in front of me when Cerberus escaped. I missed all the obvious signs because I was so focused on the ‘what if.’ And they paid the price.” Nothing could be worth that kind of sacrifice. After she’d broken the others out of Tartarus in a bold and, frankly, stupid and impulsive raid she’d finally run out of ideas.

“Know what cheers me up when I’m feeling melancholy? A snack. We might still have a few scraps of food left in the back. Can I get you anything?” asked Celestia.

Twilight forced a chuckle through her tears, for the other’s sake more than her own. “Got any cake?”

“Hmm, sorry. Next shipment doesn’t come in until next Tuesday morning. But we do have a variety of delectable lichens to choose from,” said Celestia. Twilight grinned. It had become a bit of an inside joke between them, in fact. Whatever they didn’t have right now, it was always coming ‘next Tuesday morning.’

Fresh food? Next Tuesday morning.

A hot shower? Next Tuesday morning.

Hope? Next Tuesday morning.

They’d even named their little hideout Next Tuesday Morning. Although days of the week didn’t mean much anymore. Twilight couldn’t raise or lower the sun without sending out so much alicorn magic she might as well draw Tirek a map straight to them.

Another rumble, more powerful this time. Guess he didn’t need that map after all.

“I have finished. We are ready,” said Luna, with a final flourish of her quill. “It is a touch sloppy, but with sufficient power it should give you a minute, perhaps more, to pass on a message. Be wary, your mind may be a touch addled from the feedback. And you remember what to say when—”

“COME OUT, COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE, PRINCESS! WE FINISH THIS NOW!” Tirek’s bellow echoed through the cave, and just like that the moment had come.

“We will delay him, but you have to go now. You can change this,” said Celestia. She wrapped her faithful student up in a brief but forceful hug. “Goodbye, Princess Sparkle.”

Cadence flew out towards the cave entrance, and Luna gave Twilight a curt, respectful nod before she followed. Celestia hesitated only a moment, and as Twilight began to channel her power and form the incantations in her head she too galloped out with a warcry towards her inevitable doom.

Well, thought Twilight as she wielded the full power of four princesses as a blade that shredded the laws of space and time like so much streamer paper, here goes nothing.

-----------

“Twilight! You’ve got to listen to me!”

“Who are you? I mean, you’re me but I’m me too. How can there be too mes? It’s not scientifically possible. You are not scientifically possible.

“Twilight, please! I have a very important message for you from the future!”

“You’re from the future?”

“That’s right, now listen.”

“What happened to you? The future must be awful.”

“Please, I don’t have much time.”

“Is there some sort of epic pony war in the distant future or something?”

“Actually, I’m from Next Tuesday Morning. But that’s not important right now.”

“I can’t believe time travel is really possible. How did you, I mean I, figure it out?”

“The time spells are in the Canterlot archives, but that’s not—”

“Really? Where? I’ve never seen them.”

“They’re in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing. Now you have to listen to—”

“Is time travel fun? Or does it hurt? I have so many questions for—”

“I have something extremely important to tell you about the future! And I only have a few seconds so you’ve got to listen! Whatever you do, don’t—”

Author's Note:

Shout out to /u/meditonsin over on reddit for the idea.

Comments ( 85 )

I'm impressed. Not even a day until we got darkfic of this episode.

4368581
I went into the tragedy department, but damn do writers go fast. Still, kewl story brah. :heart:

Dayum son, you write fast!:rainbowdetermined2:

:raritydespair:

The best/worst part is where this is fairly believable. Tirek really wasn't a muck-about villain. I could easily see him doing something atrocious, like this implies.

Have an upvote, you damn bastard.

Well thats a much more interesting story of what happened to her.

Well, that didn't work.

Heh, realized where this was going partway through. Poor Twilight.

This is surprisingly similar to a story I wrote just the other day. Clearly this is the time for time travel stories, because, you know, we've touched on that so much in the last two seasons. :moustache:

4368609 Make that TWO upvotes sir!

Haha that certainly is a neat way to take this down an alternate route. You should probably add an AU tag though.

Friendly word of advice, if there's character that doesn't have a tag yet, use the "other" tag.

Well, it was a neat idea. The concept was definitely good. However, I did think the execution could have been better.

The Next Tuesday Morning thing was... well, kind of contrived. I think you could have come up with a better explanation for that line. The rest of the explanations for how she looked were fine, I guess, but you're still asking me to buy a lot with the idea that Twilight coincidentally ended up looking exactly like that in two entirely different ways. It kind of stretches believability. As well, I do think that the fic was too short for the idea. This needed more time for development. Right now, most of the story is just explanations for how this massive coincidence came to be.

Although, I will praise the divergeant timelines. I was very impressed by how you managed to justify the different futures by the lesson that Twilight learned from that episode and the events that occurred in it. Very cleverly done.

Have you ever considered submitting this story to Equestria Daily? You can find out how to do so here.

:fluttercry:

The worst part is knowing what is to come.

From anyone else, Eakin, it would be contrived. From you, it is so perfect and so terrible.

I'd like to thank you once again for the story, but I'm not sure I can.

That was fast...

But you do love your time travel, don't you...!

Huh, saw a very similar idea on /r/mlp earlier today,

"Tirek escaped when Cerberus went away from Tartarus in *It's About Time*. What if that started the stable time loop? Eqestria lost, (almost) everypony lost their magic to Tirek, but Twilight somehow got away and traveled back in time to warn herself? It didn't go as planned and started a stable time loop that didn't do anything, but still altered the timeline in a way that let the good guys win?"

Was this inspired or just a coincidence?

Loved the twist at the end. Also, damn you write fast.

.....that fracking twist. :raritycry:

This is magnificent. Some of the best chilling darkfics are the shortest. This definitely fits in with The Cough and Writing On The Wall, both spectacular with their ability to make a reader's blood run cold with so few words. The difference here is in a call to canon events that one sees coming just at the right, or wrong, time. The faint light of hope one has building up slightly as we get to the end is snuffed out with a deliberate and cruelly slow pace.

And you laugh. Muahahaha. C'mon, you know you do. :derpytongue2:

4368641 That comment is about as appropriate as it gets.

And, of course, it's a time loop. :rainbowlaugh:

I'm glad to see that this one has a happy ending. After all, we finally see what instigated the Inventor's Paradox at the heart of "It's About Time."
(And if I'm misinterpreting this, please let me. I'm not a big proponent of Death of the Author, but I'd like to be able to think some version of Equestria doesn't suck in this story.)

In any case, thank you for this. :twilightsmile:

4368691 But if this was the start of the time loopy paradox then it isn't NECESSARILY an alternate universe

I don't get it. Am I supposed to assume that the time trip from "It is about time" never happened?

edit: nvm that; I get it now.

Now will this work by Trunks rules or...

...Damn...that was chillingly impressive.

4369508 I had forgotten about the time loops.

But the twist doesn't really work if you think about it.
Remember the end of It's About Time? Twilight goes back to last Tuesday morning to tell herself not to worry. She's unable to get the message across, thus setting the events of the episode in motion. Unless this Future Twilight somehow cancelled out that Future Twilight, the ending makes no sense.

CCC

Brilliant. Just the nudge that Twilight needed to change history and defeat Tirek. And it seals off into such a neat little stable time loop, too...

Yes! Finally I see something like this. I always thought there was an 'original' timeline and the only thing that made sense was that something was missed due to Cerberus not being at Tartarus. When I learned there was a villain who escaped from Tartarus, I knew I had another piece of it and thank you so much for writing this. I'm glad to see I'm not alone in these sorts of thoughts. :moustache::moustache::moustache::moustache::moustache:

Yikes. Miles of comments before I sleep, apparently.

4368588
Yours too! Really liked it. Could we see a redeemed Tirek in S5, 6, or 7? (Gonna guess no)

4368599
Would have been faster, but transcribing the scene from It's About Time precisely took a bit longer than I would have expected.

4368609
Yeah, he was a badass. Smart, powerful, and seductive in the ways a good villain should be. Hell of a lot better than Sombra, for sure.

4368641
Except that in a way, it kinda did work. She created the conditions that led to her other-self's victory, although not in the way she intended to.

4368648
It's always time for time travel stories! Hadn't read yours before I wrote this, but great minds apparently think alike.

4368712
Too short to meet their requirements, unfortunately. Couldn't even if I thought it would make it in.

4368823
Let's not kid ourselves; this story is contrived as hell. Much as 4368704 pointed out, it doesn't necessarily make sense. I was determined to force Twi's end state into the precise dialogue from IAT, and some parts of it fell more naturally into place than others. DannyJ mentioned that the story was a bit rushed. Well, yeah. I'd call that a feature rather than a bug. I tried to move quickly enough that readers wouldn't have too much time to overthink things. More to the point, I tend to believe that audiences are more willing to forgive little awkward moments and inconsistencies when:
A) They don't detract from the central thrust of the story, and
B) When the story respects their time and tells itself in a compact manner rather than dragging itself out.

4368917
Did you read the author's note? In fact I even asked the person who posted that if he was okay with me grabbing the idea and filling it out. So in short: totally inspired by that :twilightsmile:

4368995
Interesting that you think of this as horror. In a way, it kind of is. Good horror, I think, is like a magic trick in reverse. A magic trick shows you something familiar, say a deck of cards or something, and does something extraordinary with it by exploiting your biases and perspective. With horror, you present something unnatural and otherworldly, then drag it back and anchor it to something the audience is familiar with. The more intimately familiar they are the greater the impact. In this case I get why you're getting a horror vibe: this Twilight is in a horrible and incredibly wrong situation. She casts her spell and anchors her experience to established canon, calling into question just what you really saw in that scene. But if you think about it, this Twilight's actions led to main Twi's eventual success, so it's bittersweet rather than 100% awful.

The real question is: where did this Twilight end up after she disappeared?

4369308
You're right. You know how IAT is a stable time loop? Look at the name of the fic. Also the artwork. A broken timepiece, and a brand new castle...

4370305
Yes, IAT is a stable time loop. But why can't a stable loop have a particular impetus? Put another way, sure it's stable NOW. What makes you so sure it was always stable to begin with, rather than just trending towards precise repetition over a hundred, thousand, or hundred billion loops?

4370382
When the writers put the escape that close to a known time travel incident, they were basically asking for it.

4370539

Well yes, I know it's contrived, but as you said, you kept it from feeling contrived. It is possibly the single best case of suspension of disbelief I have ever experienced.

You are truly among the most skilled of writers on the site. Your ability to write to audience alone makes you first-rate, not even counting your wonderful stories.

It is now my rule of thumb, that regardless of premise, I will enjoy everything you write. It has not failed me once. :twilightsmile:


It's so twisted - that the first Twilight thought she had failed utterly, and would have likely died thinking herself completely a failure, while in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Such painful irony. Such great joy and crippling sadness, all at once. I don't even know what to feel.

Damn. Let me guess this is the first loop of the time loop? And the rest were really from next Tuesday? Am I right?

I am so very glad you wrote this, so I didn't have to. Excellently done!

4370539
Well, the only stable universes are ones which only contain stable time loops or no time loops at all. But that doesn't mean there aren't a whole lot of unstable states which don't eventually lead to those stable ones... it is always a fun idea for fiction. And I have to admit I enjoyed Endless Eight, with its many very subtly different repetitions, and I like the general idea of stories like that, where the same events play out over and over again, getting better every time. Sadly, it is hard to really keep a story like that interesting unless the loops diverge quite significantly; Endless Eight was fun for me, but a lot of people hated it (and it probably was several loops too long).

There's actually a very interesting theory of time travel which states that no stable universe will have time travel in it - basically, in any universe which discovers time travel which allows time travel to back before the time travel spell was invented, at some point, someone will go back in time and prevent time travel from being invented at all. Of course, it is more or less impossible to disprove, short of inventing time travel - which, if the theory was correct, eventually result in that universe no longer existing because at that point it would only exist in a metastable state and eventually be given the push over to nonexistence in favor of a stable state.

Of course, there's always the time travelling hipster as a counterpoint...

boingboing.net/filesroot/201004161615.jpg

Of course, maybe our universe is just doomed.

4368641 Heh, nice reference to the author's other story about time travel.

“Actually, I’m from Next Tuesday Morning. But that’s not important right now.”

What.

Starswirl the Bearded

Stealthsuit

Oh, I think I see where this is going.

Next Tuesday

Yeah, that's where it's going.

Twilight! You’ve got to listen to me!”

I knew it! Oh man, this works PERFECTLY as a predestination primer. Good show, good show!

4370305
I like to think about it as Eakin utilizing multiple time lines model.

Time line 1: Events that you know from "It is about time" never happened; Twilight in that time line uses the time jump spell to warn herself in the past about Tirek. However, she does not know that the spell creates a new time line; it does not modify the existing one in any way.

Time line 2: Twilight in this time line is visited by Twilight from time line 1. Everything happens as seen in the show.

Time line 3: Twilight in this time line is visited by Twilight from time line 2. Everything happens as seen in the show.

Time line 4:... you get the idea.

"It is about time" episode was a little bit confusing since it felt like creators of the show were trying to push the idea of fixed time line model, but events seen in the episode would make it paradoxical.
So the only logical conclusion would be that the show is using multiple time lines model (or variation of that), implying that you have not seen the whole picture in the episode (i.e. there must be a time line that instigated the whole thing).

edit: "It is about time" can still be using fixed time line. Inventor's paradox is actually tolerated by fixed time line model.

...oh my gosh, you went there.

4370539

Except that in a way, it kinda did work. She created the conditions that led to her other-self's victory, although not in the way she intended to.

Well, don't I feel silly. I thought the story was intended as an alternate stable time loop. I much prefer the way it reads when she actually succeeded in changing history, so thanks for pointing that out to me.

That was an interesting take on the time travel line up in the pony universe.

By god that was... something... I feel like a piece of my heart broke off when I realized what was happening... wow....

Whait wat

If you mean that wayyy before, when twilght met ftutre twlight, she was actually warnin' her 'bout Triek, then NO SENSE as her clothing, mane ect... represented her day trying to search for the time spell to warn her about (paradoxxx!)

wtf am me missing teh ssomethign?

Oh, and by the way, the world after Tirek rules over it...wow. Scary shit.

Can I just take a moment to say how absolutely brilliant that was, tying in the whole "Next Tuesday Morning" thing? Like on a scale from 1 to brilliant, it was brilliant. I'm honestly surprised at how well thought out that was.

4377846 Eakin is saying that Tirek originally wins. Twilight apparently didn't have a strong enough bond with her friends to realizing that choosing to save them could get her the final key, and the world went to shit as a result. In the end, she went back from Next Tuesday Morning to the week before Tirek's escape, to warn past!Twilight about Tirek. To tell her to make more time for her friends, to tell her about the time travel spell, to save Equestria. Suddenly you're in the plot of It's About Time. Rebuilding the dam before it broke and making sure the water tower was full? Those were things past!Twilight took care of because she was obsessing about the future, leaving her more time to spend with her friends when those disasters didn't occur. It became a stable time loop when she went to the Canterlot Archives and then back in time. Now Twilight isn't from Next Tuesday Morning, just normal next Tuesday morning, causing the cycle to happen all over again, but with a different original Twilight. Thus leading to the future where she chooses to save her friends and save Equestria.

Exactly my thoughts. I wished for this fic, and it come to true!
gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mr-Burns-Saying-Excellent.gif

4370718
Endless Eight's not on fimfic, is it? Didn't show up when I tried to search for it. Darn it.

4386012 My god, that's fucking smart. Thanks.

4388588
Endless Eight is not a fanfic. It is an arc from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which is an anime (which actually involves multiple time loops; that is just a repetitive one).

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