A Matter of Time

by BoredAuthor817

Chapter 3

Sunset awoke on a soft surface, a heavy blanket draped over her. She opened her eyes and raised slightly, her head still spinning. She heard something fall next to her, but didn't bother to see what it was. Looking around, she surmised that she was in one of the guest bedrooms. The curtains were drawn, but she could see daylight peeking through and around them. She let out a groan and fell back onto the pillow.

“Sunset?”

Sunset heard the sound of gentle movement as Celestia made her way to the bed.

“Sunset?”

Sunset let out a moan.

The princess let out a sigh of relief. “Good, you're awake. You had us worried. How's your head? You hit it pretty hard on the floor.”

Another groan.

Sunset felt a cold compress placed upon head. It made her aware of the slight bump on her head, and the pain she was apparently in.

“There,” smiled Celestia, “feel a little better?”

Sunset gave a silent nod. “What happened? How long have I been out?”

“Only an hour. As to what happened: that's not exactly clear. What's the last thing you remember?”

Sunset sat up, holding a hoof to the ice pack to keep it in place. “Freaking out. You told me that seventeen years had passed since I entered the portal.” She looked to her former teacher for confirmation. Celestia adverted her eyes, but Sunset received her answer. “Well then...” she let her ice pack fall.

“Look,” Celestia said, softly, “I understand this is quite a bit to take in—”

“Understatement.”

“Of course. However, both Twilight, Starlight, and I are here to help you—”

“Help me? I came here to help you. When Twilight told me that you had gone through a year in the same time I had gone through a few months, I...I didn't know what to think...”

“Yes, it is a bit of a conundrum how two parallel worlds can go through time at different rates.”

Sunset's eyes grew wide. “Wait...you knew?”

The great alicorn closed her eyes and bowed her head as if in shame. “I'm sorry, Sunset. I've known for some time. So have Twilight and Starlight.”

Sunset almost jumped out of bed. “Since when?” she exclaimed.

“For about two years, our time. Twilight first noticed it on one of her visits to you. She was shocked when she returned that about a week had passed here when she was in your world for only a few days.

“Later, when Starlight was over, while she claims to have been with you for only four days, she was gone from here for twelve.

“Perhaps the most telling is in the form of your journal and how you've recorded the events of less than a year of your life over the course of almost two years ours.”

“So?” Sunset leaned forward, “How do we fix it?”

“We don't.”

The unicorn growled. “What?”

“Control yourself, Sunset Shimmer.” her voice stern, “Twilight and Starlight did their due diligence and researched the matter. Our world and that world have always had different time rates. Starswirl noticed it himself when he created the portal. Though, he never bothered writing it down...”

“Then, how do you know—”

“Long story” Celestia said, simply.

“Well, it would have been nice if he did give anyone traveling through a heads up!” Sunset yelled, “If he were still around, I'd give him a firm...” She let out a grunt and smashed her fore-hooves together.

“You may just have that opportunity.”

“What?”

“Long story. Point is, you have been experiencing some sort of temporal anomaly.”

Sunset looked down. Suddenly, her physics lessons from CHS returned to her. “Time dilation. Einstein's theory of relativity.”

Celestia tilted her head. “I'm sorry?”

“Scientific theory from the other world. Two observers experience time differently based on their situations. Generally attributed to the effect of gravity on each of the observers. Most often applied in the case of space travel.”

“Doesn't everyone travel in space? You can't move through solids.”

“Outer space” Sunset clarified. “Leaving the earth, traveling among the stars.”

“People do that?”

“Only a select few, but it's a dream for most.”

“So, this theory of relativity...”

Sunset took in a deep breath. She found it amusing that the student was about to school the teacher. “Basically, it infers that two people—er, ponies—of the same age will experience time and age at different rates based upon their situation. If one leaves and travels in space, she will experience time and age at a slower rate than the one who stays behind.”

“How does gravity play into this?”

“There's no gravity in space. However, in our case, there must be some sort of gravitational difference between the two worlds to allow for such a time difference.

“Have you any calculations on how much of a time differential we're talking about here?”

“Best as we can figure, you've been experiencing time at one-third the rate we have.”

Sunset perked her ears. “Wow...”

“Indeed.”

Sunset slumped back down onto the bed. She tried to comprehend the wave of emotions washing over her. Everything seemed to want to hit her at once: anger, relief, confusion, sorrow, serenity. “How...” she began softly, “What do I do now?”

“What do you mean?”

Sunset laid a foreleg over her eyes. “I can't really just simply come back here, now can I? Seventeen years! How much has changed? How much of what I knew, who I knew, is still exists?

“Granted, there have been people incarcerated for a much longer time, but, still, I've pretty much served a long-term prison sentence...”

“Sunset,” Celestia snapped, “try to get a hold of yourself. Yes, your time away from here has been substantial. However, what you choose to do next is solely up to you. But, whatever you decide, know that you have those here, and there, who can, and will, help you.

“Besides,” her body relaxed, “seventeen years is nothing compared to another group of ponies I know.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Long story?”

Celestia smiled. “If you've got the time.”

Comments

[Traveling Soul]

Okey this is realy clever

[Dragonsword35d]

Well, so long as they know, maybe they will keep the portal closed more often. Honestly, the damage they risk is pretty severe. Especially after SciTwi's little Midnight Episode.

[BoredAuthor817]

8548143
To be fair to poor SciTwi, most the magic she accumulated came from the humane6. Any magic that leaked through afterward could be attributed to space/time cracks which affected the portal on the Equestrian side as well. If your door is broken, rain will still come through--even if it is closed.

[Dragonsword35d]

8548179
That would mainly depend on the reason for the portals schedule, I think. If it's an energy thing, then yeah, probably. More likely, in my opinion, it has to do to a cycle where the flow of time syncs up every so often. There is nothing to say the difference in the flow of time is consistent, after all. It could be that as they get close enough to each other's "rhythm", the portal, which acts as a decent bridge and conduit, opens for a few days, then closes again as the difference becomes greater again. And that leads to the rather scary idea that the portal, rather forcefully, if temporarily, syncs the two up again. The stress that kind of thing would put on the worlds, and the consequences, are quite horrifying. Assuming that is the case. And, yeah, SciTwi poking the portal in Friendship Games is where a lot of that train of thought probably comes from.

Clearly, I, too, have given this far more thought then I really ought to.

[Xanderfox]

I was half expecting it to be the case that the Equestrian Year is just much shorter, like it's only 6 months long. They do measure stuff in moons. Also they control day and night length precisely along with when seasons change so they would decide how long days, months and years would be how ever they liked.

[BoredAuthor817]

8548475
8548281

I plan on posting my equations and findings as a blog in the upcoming weeks. My main problem is finding time to write it all down, as I imagine it will be quite lengthy.

Part of writing this story was to explore how Sunset may react to the news, and also to spark conversation.

Dragonsword35d, you have got me intrigued (which is not a good thing because now I have a new obsession).

[Blazeblast4]

8548179
When the portal closed at the end of EqG 1, it was completely solid, while in FG, it rippled when Sunset touched it. That could easily be interpreted as the portal being left open (or a continuity error).

8548134
8548570
Time dilation was a pretty big thing when RR came out, but since then most people have just accepted it or stopped caring.

FiM never really cared about having a timeline. They had vagueish timeframes, but there’s no solid numbers (a kind of symbolic timeline). Trying to piece things into a proper timeline (with or without episode reordering) just breaks everything. Just look at the Cake twins.

It also doesn’t help with the entire character age issue. Originally the mane 6 were supposed to be 12-17 but never had their ages stated (post from Lauren Faust, in another interview she mentions she didn’t want them to be in school because it was too limiting, so that may have something to do with it). Now the writers seem to have put them at early twenties (from a few interviews and tweets), but at the time of EqG 1, it was fully possible that Twilight didn’t change age when going through the mirror. If you watched the summertime shorts, the writers stopped keeping EqG in a linear progression as well.

[aceina]

needs a sequel

[BoredAuthor817]

8638971
Maybe...

Not really planning on one, but I do intend to use the time dilation in some of my upcoming stories.

And thanks for the fave :)

[blargg]

huh... didn't expect the effects of gravity to come up
Just one clarification though: Gravity is in space as it has a seemingly infinite reach, the force just falls off very quickly with distance. Plus... it's required to make things orbit each other
The reason for weightlessness in space is because you are in free-fall