Flash!
I sighed, leaning back and sitting down. It hurt so much to feel like that, to feel so powerful and in control. My lip curled slightly at her flash of golden light in my peripheral vision; I couldn't look at her. "Twilight... You stopped it." She sounded relieved. "I didn't think–I mean of course–" She didn't even know what to say.
"Don't thank me." My voice was laced with anger; with sputtering, pitch black hate. "Just leave me alone. I need to figure out how to actually fix your mess." I really should’ve looked into getting a better heart, I’ve become so cruel with it.
I heard her hoofs stepping across the invisible line I never told her about, "Twilight—You're right, I should've listened to you about this. But now that you're helping, we can make everything right!"
When her hoof rested on my shoulder, I couldn't stop myself as rage and hate burned at her hoof, I lashed out. I took a small guilty satisfaction in watching her tumble to the ground with a very confused and now bloodied expression, but… Inside I felt a sickening revelation.
"Princess!" Twilight ran the half hoof distance to her mentor, bending down and frantically looking her over. "What do you think you are doing?!" She yelled at me.
I tried to ignore her as I peered down at Celestia, who looked away from me. "Don't touch me." My eyes darted to Twilight's, her eyes were wide and concerned, but mostly she seemed mad at me. I didn't linger.
Celestia didn't move, she didn't take Twilight's hoof when she offered to help her up either. She still didn't even look at me. "I'm sorry, Twilight." Sorry doesn't cut it, nor is what you did the entire reason.
Blink
I appeared in Twilight's laboratory, she had it installed into one of the many large rooms in the Castle of Friendship. It was also connected to the advanced magics and alchemical devices section of the library in such a case as she needed a refresher before continuing with a risky experiment.
It was brilliant, I will never take this system for granted. The things I created in this laboratory, the lives I saved. The lives I ended. I shook my head softly, my magic reaching out and accessing the books I needed. Unfortunately, this is before I had perfected the tagging spell—which added a unique magic signature to whatever it was cast on, making finding books with magic as quick as thought almost—so finding them took a little bit longer than I'd have liked.
"Just who do you think you are?" Twilight called, startling me slightly. I hadn't noticed her arrive. "First you illegally, and immorally I might add, rummage through my memories, then you straight up back hoof Princess Celestia, and now! Here you are, stealing my books!” She flopped her hooves around like a headless chicken. “I can see that you're an alicorn," I turned back to her with a raised eyebrow, waiting for her to finish. "And I can see your resemblance to me, not to mention the fact that Celestia referred to you as Twilight."
I blinked. "Your point? Look, I have more important things to deal with than whining children, please kindly see yourself out."
"This is my castle!" She stomped. "If anyone should get out, it's you!" She realized where this was going quickly. She brought a hoof to her chest, closing her eyes, in—out. She extended her hoof with her breath. "Look. You're obviously related to me somehow, I don't actually know how, it could be time travel, cloning—I honestly don't care which right now." She paused. “...Pinkie, I swear to Celestia’s toiletry if you mirror pooled me in my sleep again I’ll …” She shook her head and opened her eyes, "Nevermind...But I want answers."
"Answers?" I levitated the books around and dropped them on a pristine white counter. "Answers." I echoed, watching her nod slightly, already unsure. I nodded along. "I'm you. In the future, I bucked things up big time." I trotted over to her slowly. "Then sixty–three years, two months and eight days ago—to be precise—Celestia went to the future where she found me, unfortunately alive and wanting to find peace. It was my time to die, I'd earned it fair and square and it would’ve been for the greater good that I did."
As I approached, she kept backing up. "But no. No matter how much I begged. No matter how much I pleaded and threatened, how many of her playthings I killed, she wouldn't let me die.” I hissed softly, biting away a ‘bout of frustration. “She wouldn't even let me get someone else to do it. Then she blackmailed me, using the life of my precious student—a young filly you would've been teaching the values of friendship, peace, magic and really big words to in a year—as a betting chip." Her flanks bumped into the wall behind her, and I stood only a hoof or two away. "And now she’s gone. Now the timeline is screwed, and I have to fix it because if I don’t, the entirety of creation will suffer for her mistake."
"She bet the life of another pony, Twilight—not even somepony who said she could do it—somepony very important to me, somepony who would've been very important to you, and she lost. She bet the lives of every one of your friends, of every pony in Ponyville. She bet your life, your sister-in-law’s life, her life and her sister’s life, all without asking if she could, and she’s losing that bet! And here I am! Cleaning up her mess. And here you are, bothering me and making it take longer."
I sighed, and started towards her again, watching her squirm against the wall, unable to concentrate enough to cast a teleport spell. "I want you to go, Twilight. Leave—Ask her about the student she murdered, I want you to use those. Exact. Words. Now get out of my site." I jabbed a hoof on her chest roughly. "I dare you to try and find a reason to make me feel bad after what she's done."
Flash!
I was temporarily blinded by her bright teleport. She overloaded it in her panic to get far away from me, she likely overshot Canterlot by a mile. No matter, she’ll get there soon enough. I huffed, turning back to my work.
«♦»
She came back, but she didn't talk to me anymore thankfully. She just sat far away from me, in a corner. She barely even looked at me, and when she did, her expression looked like she didn't know what to think of me anymore. "What was the future like?" She finally asked me. I paused, sitting the books and beakers down slowly.
"Excuse me?"
"The future. Celestia said everything was dead, but then you… You seem to have really enjoyed yourself. I guess I’m looking for a first hoof reference." She shrugged a little. “Princess Celestia only saw the end. What was the way there like?"
I sighed deeply. "It was... Complicated."
"Complicated?" She picked up one of the parchments, glancing it over. "How?"
I took the parchment from her, rolling it up as I placed it right back where she found it. "No touching." Then I snorted. "Oh the same way it’s complicated now. Boring politics, the royal families, the upper class and their opinions. Money. War." I heaved onto my hooves, my back popping as my magic sat everything in it's place.I sighed, smiling soflty.
“Oh but at times? It was… It was beautiful. Peaceful. No complicated politics, no wars or danger. Just… Cake. Oh sweet Mothers, so much cake…” I glanced at her, gesturing her over with my hoof. “Come here."
"Why?"
"I wanna show you something." I sat her with a level stare.
Her mouth moved, but then she closed it and trotted over to me. "I want you to open your mind." I said, placing my horn to her head. "Just think about life. Love and loss. Peace and war. Life and death, love and birth." My magic nudged further and further in, being far more gentle at the mind prodding this time. "
Think about the beauty of life, Twilight." Especially due to it being a dual access telepathy, meaning she'd have access to my memories too—if I allowed it. Her eyes closed, and I closed mine. “And now… nothing.”
Blink
"Where are we?" She asked immediately, before my eyes had even opened. "I don't recognize this place." She looked around the amber halls. Sunshine sparkled on the white marble walls, making everything a yellow and warm hue.
"This is a memory I saved." I trotted to her, running a hoof across the walls, smiling a little. "After… well...this—among a few other memories—was all I had to keep myself sane. I had trinkets in the real world of course," I sighed, looking back to her. She still looked very confused. "But let me show you."
I trotted ahead of her, Twilight falling into pace behind me. "Won't this harm the time stream even more? Me knowing all this?"
"It's already pretty bucked. There's not much that could wreck it entirely. Destroying Canterlot or the Castle of Friendship being on the list of 'Don't ever do this' because their destruction is set points." I heard the distant thump of a sonic rainboom. "Besides, Celestia already prevented this from ever possibly happening, this is more akin to reading a really interesting book now."
Twilight obviously did too, as she ran ahead of me to find it. I galloped after her, knowing exactly what the noise was. She soon reached the end of the hall, rounding onto a balcony.
"Sweet Celestia..." She whispered, standing bipedal over the railing and looking around. "Where is this?" She marveled at the marble buildings that streaked into the clouds like rays of sunshine.
"Trottingham, the City of Sunlight.” I leaned over the railing, taking in the sights. “The new capital city of the Equestrian Republic." I said, resting against the railing next to her as I too took in the view.
"Republic?" She then noted the Wonderbolts flying through the sky, the telltale rainbow trail following them. "Rainbow Dash?!" She yelled, waving her hooves.
"They can't hear you, nopony can. It's a memory of the events in the city for a period of time, they can't be changed." I explained, she nodded sadly. "And that's not Rainbow Dash. She just died yesterday, Twilight, incase you forgot." As her face drooped, I regretted my words. "Those are the Wonderbolts however."
"But that was–"
"That was the Rainbow Squadrons signature move, the sonic rainboom." I said, watching the rainbow trail seem to cut across the sky. "A few decades after Rainbow's passing, the Wonderbolts dedicated an entire new branch to the study and replication of the sonic rainboom, in honor of her."
“They didn’t ever get it juuuust right though. It’s a damn shame too, they were so close…” I shook my head, she just watched them with me as they streaked across the sky, when I saw them fly three and a half inches from the cloud shaped like a cookie with a space monkey riding it—from my perspective anyway—I pulled back. "We should hurry. We don't want to miss it."
"Miss what?"
I didn't answer as I hurried down the mural hall. Several times I had to grab Twilight and drag her along with my magic as she stopped to study something or another. "Hurry up! Was I always this slow?" I grumbled with a soft smile.
"Where are we going?" She asked again, galloped to catch up with me. “And what’s the rush?”
"The council is ending, we get to see everypony and watch the evening ceremony." I smiled as I broke into a gallop. Twilight galloped after me, struggling to keep pace. We eventually round another corner that let out into a massive courtyard, overlooked by rows and rows of occupied benches. In the center was an erected platform.
I skidded to a halt, my hooves skipping across the yellow marble with trained ease. Twilight slid a few hoofs past me, spinning and panicking. She eventually stopped, laying with all her limbs splayed out and her face and belly flat on the ground. "Ow..." She muttered, struggling to her hooves and rubbing her head. But my eyes remained centered on the platform. "You could've gone a little slower." When I didn't answer, she followed my gaze. "Is that...?" I nodded.
"The Council." I trotted up and sat next to her as we watched them debate softly, words of peace and veiled political threats passing illegibly over our heads..
"The Council?” She narrowed her eyes, seeming to scrutinize every detail about them. “They… They’re all alicorns… Where did they all come from? Who are they? I don’t see Princess Celesti–" I nearly smacked her when I moved my hoof to her mouth.
"Shhh. Just enjoy it for now, ask questions later."
She looked annoyed, but thankfully obliged. We sat, her plonking down on the floor soon after me, and watched as the council meeting soon ended, the watching audience all flowing out of the observatorium, off to their daily lives, or to get good seats. The hundreds of hoofsteps thundered softly, the sudden crowd chatter in the otherwise silent instant being quite jarring. "Where are they going?" She asked, noticing them all leaving the courtyard through another hall.
I glanced down at her. "Do you want to find out?"
We followed the council, my eyes lingering on a certain yellow and amber mare as she laughed with her friends, fellow council members. Before we arrived at the Trottingham castle. It dwarfed every other castle, every other city that Equestria had ever had in Twilight's time. "It was built by me and the council over the course of half a century. Thousands of hours and an unimaginable amount of magic, but… It was beautiful." I said when I took note of Twilight's expression.
“We were family, and this was our home. After a while, we all knew normal ponies couldn’t ever be our friends, not our real friends. After thousands of years…” I sighed, “You forgot them. They’d come to say hi and you couldn’t recall their faces, couldn’t begin to remember their names. It hurt, seeing them look at you like that.”
I ignored the look Twilight gave me. "We built the city with the image of warmth and comfort. Like a mother’s hug. But it was also built as the ultimate fortress against our demons, out of fear." It had been my home for a very long time and I had so many memories of this place. The place that never would. “We were so afraid to love. And even more afraid of the remnants of the war. It was all we could do.”
"It's... Huge." She peered up at it, leaning further and further back to no avail. "I can't even see the top of… What war?"
I nodded. “Yep.”
She stared in mute, following me as we approached the castle. It was like approaching a mountain, even though you got closer it didn't seem to get bigger until it was right in front of you and you couldn’t see anything else. We turned and rounded the bend in the outer wall, leading to the ceremonial platform.
I picked Twilight up with my magic and flew us both up to the castle balcony, overlooking town square. I sat us down in the center of the round arrangement of alicorns around me. I saw Starfield, Glowheart, and dozens of my other friends and family members.
Twilight gasped and I followed her gaze. "It's us." She said, taking note of my mane, it was massive. It fluttered up and around like a snake. She sat upon the obsidian throne, Celestia and Luna's cutie marks embossed on either side of the headrest in bright, vibrant colors that contrasted with the dark purple.
No one spoke, not a soul even coughed. My horn exploded in bright purple, casting light across the crowd as everyone watched in silence. The light from the sky waned, the hazy golden beams of sunset cutting out and soon replaced with dark blue streaks as stars lit the sky and the moon appeared.
"The old celestial bodies were gone,” Twilight glanced at me. “I created an illusion across the whole atmosphere, even to nations who dared war with us." I said as Twilight starred at the sky. “Everypony deserved the sky. It wasn’t something I could take from even the most horrible monsters of the world.”
I took a deep breath, relishing the smells of Trottingham, the way the air had moved, all unique to this beautiful city. "But it was worth every day I spent hospitalized from magic exertion to know I was giving the sky back to my subjects. The sky gave our nation hope; gave the world hope."
The light from the other Twilight's horn died, her mane shrinking dramatically, now barely the size of Celestia's in her time. "Her magic will regenerate over the course of the night, don't worry."
The sky shimmered and I sighed. "The memory is ending soon." I trotted over to Glowheart, who obliviously stared through me at her teacher: Me. I wanted to reach out and touch her, just one last time, but I couldn't. I could only watch until her face fizzled from view, replaced by the astral plane. Twilight sat quietly, staring at her hooves. "She took that from you, Twilight. That city. Those ponies. You’ll never see them.”
She stared at me, eyes twitching left and right.
Blink
Our eyes opened in her laboratory at once, our faces inches from each other. "I cannot guarantee a future for you, Twilight. For anypony" I touch my chest, “Though if there is, it won’t be my past,” I moved my hoof to hers. “It will be your future.”
She regarded my words before nodding. I sighed, “Please leave me alone, I need to focus.” She nodded again, turning and trotting from the room slowly. I waited and watched; the door closed.
«♦»
I sat with Celestia, Luna, Twilight and Cadenza around a large table, my designs and plans scattered around it in what some would call a complete mess, but in the words of a great mare? It was organized chaos. It made perfect sense to me, and even Twilight was beginning to see the pattern I had. "I have spent the last day or two designing a spell to circumvent the paradox. What we need to do is go to it’s location and find out where the split started, then we can permanently seal it and hopefully prevent others from occurring."
“And this spell? You’re sure it’ll work?” Celestia asked. “Just a flick of the horn and it’s done?”
Cadenza nodded, sitting aside the white alicorn. "I agree, it… sounds a little too simple. What powers it?"
"Well… Um." We all glanced to Twilight, having seated herself as far from me and Celestia as she could on the other side of the table next to Luna. "If my calculations are correct—which they usually are." Twilight said, a little, almost nonexistent snort as she giggled at herself. "Then it's going to need a power source comparable to the Elements of Harmony in their heyday, or the Tree of Harmony itself. But less spontaneous and nonsensical and more… more consistent." She tapped her chin, giving way for Luna to speak up.
"And what is this... Thing?" She tapped one of the pieces of parchment. "It's hard to tell with such a... muddled drawing."
I snorted. "Well I didn't have time to take it and laminate it, or have an artist redraw my rough sketch." I nodded to where she had poked, "That is the power source. Don't worry about what it is, I'll be dealing with that."
I noted suspicious glances from Cadenza and Luna, but Twilight nodded. She knew me better, enough to trust my judgement anyway. I glared at them but shook my head.
"Then it's decided, Twilight and uh..." Celestia trailed off, staring awkwardly between me and my double. "Twilight will work as a team in finding the split and stabilizing it with the plan Twilight–" She nodded at me. "Concieved." She looked at Cadence and Luna, "Meanwhile, Luna and Cadence and I will remain in Canterlot, trying to calm the inhabitants of Equestria, stop some of the chaos and pretty much manage everything else."
Everypony nodded.
I stood, trotting to Twilight. "Close your eyes." She nodded and rested her hoof on my shoulder. I snorted and closed my eyes.
Blink
We all opened our eyes and glanced around. Twilight said nothing, keeping her eyes glued to her hooves. I looked around, "We need to locate the split. The easiest way to do that is weaken the binding spell you created and close it up again before it destroys anything else." I sighed. "Which means I have to buck up the time stream more.”
“Okay.” She nodded slowly. “So… You have to tell me something about the future that will change something big. Right.”
I nod back. “Alicorn’s aren’t immortal.”
She nodded. “Wait—what??”
It didn't take much. Being this close, even the slightest change caused my heart to flutter strangely. I think the link between my heart and the time split is because I'm in the wrong time. “This way." I pointed and trotted.
“Wait, how do you know that?” She shook her head and trotted along with me.
As we followed the breadcrumbs, but I didn't need to now. Then we heard it, the screeching, horrible noise that accompanied the split. A few more moments of trotting and we had found it. "Alright." I said, marking the ground below it.
Twilight stared at my mark, glancing above it. “...It doesn’t really look like anything, does it?”
I nodded. "Come on, let’s just finish this."
«♦»
“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
― Mother Teresa
«♦»
"How do you know alicorns aren’t immortal?" Twilight asked, her magic working around and carving runes into the ground.
I hummed, thinking as I did the same thing as her. "Well. If I pause and think, I presume that means they were proven to be mortal."
"So somepony died?"
I sighed. "You could say that." I trailed off.
“Who?”
I sighed again. "Well, isn’t that the question." She paused at my choice words, before helping me. "I ponder that a lot."
"I’m…” She stopped, staring at me and carefully articulating the words. “Not sure I understand."
"I'm not sure I do either." I sighed.
I finished the last little bit. "Very rudimentary solution, but it'll do. Twilight?" I turned towards her, two wisps flowing off my horn as I sat the tubed balloons and gems on a crate. "Here: I have two spells you're going to need to perform."
She a little nodded and trotted over. She tilted her head. "But... Why can't you cast these spells?"
I shrugged. ”Just trust my judgement on this." I placed my horn to hers, a little arc between them sparking.
The wisps danced off my horn shimmering and coating Twilight's like a thin sheen of water before fading away. Her eyes grew distant for a moment before she backed up, shaking her head. "Whoa. That was weird, memory spells are weird. Have I ever mentioned memory spells feel really weird when cast on you?" She babbled as the spells asserted themselves in her mind. "Oh. Wow. These spells are ridiculously complex… It’ll take a lot of magic too…” She hummed softly as her mind ran through the little intricacies of the spells.
I glanced away, summoning a few extra folders from her laboratory. "These are the rest of the notes for the construction if you need them, I have something else I need to do in the meantime." I said, levitating the notes over to her. "Don't read them until you know you need to."
She tilted her head, holding them in her magic. "Alright." She said rather uneasily. She cleared her throat and looked left to right, shuffling her hooves. "So what happens now?"
"Now?" I trot over to the machine, all fifteen of rings bands buzzing softly. I took a deep breath as the power started to flood over me, my mane expanding like ink in water.
Cli-Clank
The bands fall through my mane like it was made of smoke, clinking and thunking on the ground one by one. "Sweet Celestia." I heard Twilight say under her breathe. My mane started to glow, the cutie marks of my friends ghosting through it. Applejack, Fluttershy, Glowheart—Celestia. I flinched, looking away from the rising sun. No. She was no longer my friend. "What're you doing?"
"The machine will require these to limit and control the power source, otherwise it'd do more harm than good." I explain, carefully levitating the rings of iron over to her. “Consider them very powerful dampeners.”
She nodded. "Now what?" Twilight asked. I sighed, looking up at the sky.
"Now you cast the spell."
She nodded, charging up her magic in her horn as her eyes squinted closed. "Ouch… Headache..."
“It’ll pass, don’t worry.”
I leaned down to her, "Twilight?" She opens her eyes, looking up at me even while I'm sitting in front of her. "Please understand that this is the only way."
Her head tilted. "What do you mean?" Then the spell arced out and pierced my chest. Everything turned numb, the lights of the world and the sounds of the spell dimmed and dampened. "Twilight!" She yelled, trying to end the spell. "What’s happening?! Stop it!"
"That won't work.” I blinked, the world fading hazy. “The spell was designed to hijack your magic after it charged, I should know. I used it once myself." The tip of my mane sparked, turning to a purple flame. "Don't feel bad, Twilight." The fire licked down my mane quickly, a smokeless fire eating away at me. “So long as the Sun and Moon remain, everything will be okay.”
She sniffled, pulling at her stationary horn.
"You don't understand—I'm not abandoning you." I raised my hoof to reassure her, but it crumbled away. "My soul will be destroyed, but the magic will remain." My voice started to reverberate, echoing and distorting. "I will become the power source." She didn't know what to say. She just stared at me. "Don't look at me like that, Twilight. We'll meet again, sometime, somewhere." I said, closing my eyes as the world turned white. “You’re only me, after all.”
My name is Twilight Sparkle and today is my fifth birthday! I'm finally older than as many hooves as I got, so now I have to learn to write the numbers. But on my birthday, my mom got me a cool music box! It plays a really really old song from a fairy tale or something.
What was this? The world swam and distorted around me and everything was a brigh, blue and white haze. I felt tiny, but I wasn't afraid.
My name is Twilight Sparkle, today I am nineteen years old. I just met my new friends earlier this year, we defeated Nightmare Moon and saved Equestria! I have a feeling my life is going to be a lot more interesting than I originally thought.
Twilight Sparkle… What a sad mare. She always tried so hard, so very hard.
My name is Twilight Sparkle, today I am twenty-two years old. I became a princess of Equestria yesterday, I can't believe it! I wish there were a book on the subject, maybe I can ask Princess Celestia to write one.
Oh Twilight… You always did love your books.
My name is Twilight Sparkle, I think I'm five thousand years old, give or take a year. After helping two more alicorns ascend in the last few decades, me and the other princesses have decided a new form of government is in order. It's not official, but I've personally suggested a council system, governed by Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.
Ah… The council.
My name is Twilight Sparkle, I am now over twenty thousand years old. I don't remember my birthday anymore, I'm mostly just guessing and paraphrasing with historical texts. Today, Luna died. Celestia too in a way… They have left the chairmare's seats to me, making me the primary alicorn of the Equestrian Republic. I won't disappoint them. I can’t disappoint them.
Who was Twilight Sparkle? Why is she so important? Because of what I did?
I am Twilight Sparkle, I am fifty-seven thousand years old. Today, one of my friends betrayed me. I have no one left anymore, I'm all alone. But I will live on, if only to preserve pony kind. Not because I have no other choice.
I see a face, a face I feel like I recognize. I see a lot of faces.
I am Twilight Sparkle, my estimated age is three hundred and fifty-six thousand, two hundred years old. I have been alone for a very, very long time. I can't remember what my loved ones sound like anymore, their faces are blurs and their memory is tainted by bitterness. I don't need to be kind anymore, there's no one to be kind to.
More and more faces phased into view. That’s right, Twilight. Give in to it.
I, Twilight Sparkle, have died today. I gave up my life out of selfishness and necessity. I have no place in the living world, I belong in the limbo I was stolen from. Retribution is served.
"Glowheart?" I reached out with an ethereal hoof. “Luna? Rainbow Dash…?”
"Welcome home Twilight."
Goodbye, Twilight.
«♦»
“End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien