“No matter how often this happens, I still hate it,” Dinky muttered, sitting on the sand next to the campfire.
Tootsie Flute, who seemed busy watching her hooves, raised her head and shrugged. “What happened?”
“I was in that place where Carrot Top was my mom,” Dinky replied. “I was just going to school and then suddenly I was in the middle of the desert.” She looked around. “Why are we even in the middle of the desert? For someone to save us?”
“I’m afraid no one’s coming to save us.”
Dinky and Tootsie jumped, startled. Ruby Pinch went into the circle of light from the campfire, her expression as dire as her words. She sat on the sand and looked at the flames.
“What’s up?” Tootsie asked.
“I ended up wandering across some ruins,” Ruby replied. “Apparently the Crystal Empire is now in the middle of this desert.”
“Damn. And I almost started to like this place.” Tootsie stood up and groaned, seeing that her tail was full of sand. “Is it the future or the past?”
Dinky raised her eyebrows. It’d been a few weeks since she became aware of the fact that her life was constantly switching between various places, scenarios, even family members; but so far, she avoided long travels in time and space. The only “place” as they called it, that was outlandishly out of her usual timeline was about fifteen years before when she, Tootsie, and Ruby somehow became Twilight Sparkle’s classmates in the Magic Kindergarten.
“I’m guessing future,” Ruby said. “I’ve seen a rat the size of a cow.”
“It couldn’t be a cow, such creatures don’t exist,” Tootsie muttered.
“Maybe in this place.” Dinky scratched her mane. “The sooner we leave it, the better. I’d like to go back to the time when Ponyville exists.”
Tootsie smiled, looking into the fire. “When exactly? It’s quite a broad definition…”
“Well…” Dinky shrugged. “Umm… Our time, I guess?”
Ruby sighed. “I wish I ended up in my time…”
“What?” Dinky asked. “We were there just yesterday…”
Ruby shook her head. “Correction: we were in your time. Your and Tootsie’s.” She sighed. “If by ‘your’ time you mean the one you remember from before you noticed the changes, then my time would be one where I was one of the first students of Starswirl the Bearded.”
“What?” Dinky exclaimed. “But he lived long time ago…”
“And apparently so did I,” Ruby replied. “Those were more civilised times. I was just talking with Starswirl that the theory that everything is made of atoms is pure drivel and then I suddenly got pulled inside of the house by some uncultured hag because I wanted to take a look at the zebra. Then I learned that she was my mother and that the existence of atoms had been scientifically proven.” She shook her head and closed her eyes. “Just my luck.”
“That’s bad.” Dinky nodded. “But it explains your history grades. And at least you still end up in Starswirl’s era from time to time, right?”
“Yeah, sometimes,” Ruby replied. “But it’s not the same when you know that one day you’re there and then you can suddenly be someone else, somewhere else…”
“Like in the middle of the desert that was Crystal Empire.” Tootsie tapped her hoof against the ground. “Also, it’s not that bad. You know what’s worse?”
“What?” Dinky asked.
“One day, there was a parade in Ponyville,” Tootsie said. “I saw some filly watching it from the balcony of her house. I went to her and asked her what her name was.”
Ruby furrowed her eyebrows. “And?”
“She said she didn’t have one.” Tootsie shrugged. “And she couldn’t see anything wrong with that.”
Ruby shrugged. “Well, in Starswirl’s times, I felt like that after every of his parties. Somehow, those didn’t make it to the history books.”
“That’s not the worst part,” Tootsie said, blushing slightly. “On the next day, I went to that house and it turned out no one knew this filly. She was, like, gone.” She shrugged. “Every time we are in Ponyville I look for her, but she’s never appeared again.”
“So?” Ruby asked.
Tootsie sighed. “She existed and now she doesn’t. Think about it. This could happen to any of us.” She looked at Ruby and Dinky, her eyes wide. “In fact, it can still happen.”
Dinky trembled. “Thanks. Now I won’t sleep tonight. Or ever.”
“Nonsense!” Ruby exclaimed. “There are probably plenty of places where we don’t exist. Same with that filly. We just don’t visit that particular universe where she is.”
“How can you say?” Tootsie asked. “Also, if there are places where we don’t exist, how come we never visit them?”
Ruby sighed. “Which part of ‘we don’t exist there’ you don’t understand? If we don’t exist in a particular place, we can’t remember it, quod erat demonstrandum.” She smirked. “Starswirl the Bearded taught me logic. You can’t beat me.”
“Well, he also taught me, though it’s not my native place.” Tootsie turned to Dinky. “Don’t worry. If you hang out with us more, you’ll catch up with his lessons too.” She looked back at Ruby. “And you demonstrandum nothing. The universes where we don’t exist may not exist either, and that’s why we don’t remember them. There’s no way for you to disprove that theory, just like I have no way to disprove yours. I call it a draw.”
Dinky let out a loud groan. “Enough!” she yelled at Tootsie and Ruby. “Lots of difficult words about nothing, and no answer!” She shuddered. “We need to look for it, instead of talking.”
“Not much can be done here.” Ruby shrugged. “Equestria seems to not exist anymore.”
“Yeah…” Tootsie nodded. “But Dinks has a point. That’s something worth devoting your life to. Finding where do little fillies go when they don’t exist.”
“Do you think I didn’t try?” Ruby asked. “Starswirl and Celestia didn’t know why some ponies seem to keep changing places, universes, whatever you call it. And why, with some exceptions, they don’t seem to notice that. I read every book I could find in any place I visited, but there was no answer. One life is not enough to find it.”
“Remember that we have a few of them to spare.” Tootsie looked at herself. “That’s kinda annoying, by the way. We still look like we’re twelve, but we probably lived longer and learned more than any pony could. Also, with a few ridiculous deaths on top of that.”
Dinky trembled. “What? You can die in some universes?”
“Yeah.” Tootsie’s face paled, though she tried to keep her voice casual. “In Ruby’s ‘civilised’ times, no less. Turns out, twelve is a good age to end up in a battle between House Blueblood and House Armor over a few acres of land. Also, an arrow in the guts isn’t good news, especially when antibiotics haven’t been invented yet.”
“How is it to die?” Dinky asked. “I’d hate to get stuck lying in the coffin in some universe, waiting to switch to another.”
“I wasn’t lucky enough to get a coffin,” Tootsie said. “First I was trying to explain those two guys trying to throw me into the pit that I wasn’t dead yet, and then I was in Sweet Apple Acres, taking a walk with Lyra and Bon Bon.”
“Also, you died already,” Ruby said to Dinky. “You’ve said your baby sister dropped a couch on you. Do you think you survived that?” She shrugged. “In our case, death is an instant trip to another place.”
“What if it’s the case with all ponies?” Tootsie asked. “They just don’t know it happens, just like they don’t know why their families, occupation, cutie marks, and other stuff keeps changing.”
“Maybe,” Ruby said. “But I still don’t know how do you want to find out what’s going on. Are you going to travel across whatever universes we’re randomly thrown into, hoping that one day you’ll find somepony responsible for that, so you can ask them what’s going on?”
“That’s the only way to do it,” Tootsie said. “We have time. All of it, I guess. We need to look for patterns, similarities… Like that we all look similar, except for the colours…”
“No, that’s because my mom gives us all manecuts, and she only knows one,” Dinky said.
A half-smile creeped on Ruby’s lips. “Do you think her trademark manecut causes that? Also, I think it’s all a waste of time.”
“It’s as good a way of wasting time as any other,” Tootsie said. “Especially if we spend it sitting in a place like this one.”
Dinky gave the campfire a long, stern look. “Well, there’s a way to leave it…”
In a flash, Ruby rushed to Dinky’s side and grabbed her hoof. “Wait! Jumping into the fire is not the best idea. I mean, back in Starswirl times, burning at the stake was a common, umm… form of entertainment.”
“Civilised times, huh?” Tootsie muttered under her breath.
“Shut up, Toots,” Ruby said. “I mean, it takes long and stuff. And this wood is definitely too wet.” She shrugged. “I mean, suicide as a form of switching to another time and place is sometimes quite handy, but this will hurt more than a couch dropped on your head.”
“Yeah, and what do you have against this particular place?” Tootsie asked. “Granted, it’s not like that one time when first I was at school with Amethyst Star and then she was an adult, making me peanut butter sandwiches, but it’s not that bad. I mean, it’s warm, no one wants anything from us, there are apparently some cool ruins nearby…”
“Yeah, remember the Crystal Castle?” Ruby asked. “It’s still standing, but the Crystal Heart is gone, and there’s a skeleton of an alicorn hanging from the ceiling.”
Dinky winced. “Alicorn? Is it Cadance?”
Ruby shrugged. “If we’re far enough into the future, it could be Flurry Heart.” For a moment, she was staring into the flames. “Wouldn’t hurt to check. Those are very nice ruins.”
Dinky turned to Tootsie. “Does it happen to everyone?”
“What?” Tootsie asked.
“Going crazy from all that universe switching.”
“Nah, that’s Ruby being Ruby,” Tootsie replied, standing up. “But to think about it, now I want to see those ruins too.”
Dinky groaned. “Okay, I’m going with you. There has to be someone who’s not crazy in every company.”
“You just wanted to jump into the fire,” Ruby muttered. “That’s surely a sign of sanity.”
They walked across the desert. As soon as they left the campfire, cold air and darkness engulfed them, freezing them to the bone. Dinky lit her horn, trying not to think what’d happen if she got separated from her friends.
A few seconds later a giant moth flew in front of her face. She screamed, backpedalling, but at the same time Ruby turned her head, firing a magic bolt at the moth which exploded into green goo.
“Eww…” Dinky muttered, wiping her face.
“You could’ve just scare it off or something,” Tootsie muttered.
“What if it was a mind-eating parasprite?” Ruby asked. “Those things are no joke.”
“Dinky was right,” Tootsie said. “You’re bonkers.”
“Maybe.” Ruby walked to something that looked like a large block of crystal, half-buried in the sand and kicked it. “Seems that we’re in the town. Have a nice sightseeing and remember not to get lost. Thanks for choosing holiday with Ruby Travel.”
Crystal Empire was indeed hardly a shadow of its former glory. Most of the roofs collapsed; Dinky saw that the street was littered with shards of crystals and small bones. One of the buildings was torn from its foundation, as if some giant kicked it across the square.
Tootsie aimed her horn at the door of one of the houses, basking its interior in the light of her magic. “Completely empty,” she said. “As if everyone ran away, taking everything with them. There should be some scattered pieces, heavy furniture, or something there, but there’s nothing.” She walked closer and winced. “Though this whole place reeks…”
“Let’s hope it’s an alternative timeline and not what’s actually happens,” Ruby muttered.
“Is that possible?” Dinky asked.
“Of course it is,” Ruby replied. “In fact, every single timeline is alternative and they rarely form longer continuities. Like, you have a different family in each of them, right?”
Dinky nodded and looked forward, at the main square. Something about it was not right; it took Dinky a while before she realised what it was. While the rest of the Empire was completely dark, the ruins of the castle seemed to glow. It wasn’t a reflection of their magic; they were too far away. It wasn’t the crystals the castle was built from, either. The light seemed to come from the inside of it.
Dinky trotted across the square. She heard her friends calling her; from the sound of their hoofsteps, she guessed that they followed her.
She skid to a halt by the entrance of the castle. Just like Ruby had mentioned, there was a skeleton of an alicorn there, suspended from the ceiling by a golden chain around its neck. However, it wasn’t the weirdest thing Dinky saw there.
There was another alicorn mare standing in the middle of the castle, in the place where the Crystal Heart used to be. She must have been old. Her skin and mane were dried and bleached by the sun; her bones could be seen under it, and for a moment Dinky thought that the alicorn was a mummy. But then, she took a few steps towards Dinky, narrowing her milk-white eyes and cracking a toothless smile.
“Whoa…” Tootsie muttered, standing by Dinky’s side. “Is that…”
“Princess Flurry Heart.” Ruby took a step forward and bowed. “What?” she asked, turning to Tootsie and Dinky. “This is weird, but she’s still a princess, right?”
“A princess?” Flurry Heart’s voice chilled them to the bone; it sounded like someone was scratching a knife against a pane of glass. “Can a princess still be a princess when the kingdom’s gone?”
“Cryptic conversation?” Ruby asked. “This particular universe keeps surprising me.”
“You’re the Awoken!” Flurry Heart exclaimed, trying to approach them. She tripped and spread her wings to regain balance; featherless and almost devoid of muscles, they looked pathetic.
“Well, we’re quite awake…” Dinky said. “But we don’t know what you mean, princess…”
“You know.” Flurry Heart sat down, taking a deep, laborious breath. “You used to change with the universe, but now it changes around you… Just like it happened to me…”
“Do you know why it happens?” Ruby asked, inching closer to Flurry Heart.
“Yes,” Flurry Heart replied. A long fit of coughing nearly caused her to collapse; her hooves twitched. “F-find… my…”
In a blink, the world around them changed. The night turned to day; as far as they could tell, they were still in the Crystal Empire, but now it was shiny and full of ponies gathered on the main square. Princess Flurry Heart was gone. Instead, Dinky, Ruby, and Tootsie found themselves standing next to the Crystal Heart.
Dinky looked around and saw Crackle Pop, who was her brother in some of the universes she’d visited. He was wearing a t-shirt with “The 1st Anniversary of The Crystalling of Princess Flurry Heart” and the date printed on it. When she looked at herself, she noticed that she was wearing a t-shirt in similar colour, which read “I was in Crystal Empire and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”
Ruby groaned and cursed, causing a few ponies to look at her in disgust. “We were so close, and it had to change now…”
“No matter how often this happens, I still hate it,” Dinky muttered, sitting on the floor next to the Crystal Heart.
Tootsie Flute, who seemed busy watching her hooves, raised her head and shrugged. “What happened?”