Years passed. Princess Celestia replaced Sharp Beak with a succession of wardens. Her second protégé proved her mettle by defeating a monster of prophesy and breaking a thousand-year curse. We received a second picture for the Big House refectory wall depicting a blue-grey alicorn princess. I got my paper and compiled my encyclopedia. I became the expert on almost everypony and every creature in Tartarus.
I became the most trusted inmate in Tartarus. Both by the inmates who knew me because I told their stories fairly—ferreting out even the most unfortunate truths to provide them catharsis and relief from hiding guilt—and the staff because I made sure I had the answers to any pony-resource question. I learned to be humble and was— mostly.
Warden Lavender Lather chose me as her chief deputy with the authority to do anything short of traveling back to Equestria. I endeavored to remain both humble and ethical. I remembered a very important lesson: all ethics are situational.
Life was... strangely, good.
I often woke before dawn when the air felt cool and the world, small that it was, held hope. The dawn painted the east vaguely purple with a splash of orange. I simply dumped a cold pail of water from the well by holding the rope and lightly kicking the bucket to splash me from dock to muzzle. I'd practiced for weeks, years ago, and now never missed.
The cold shocked me awake and got my heart pumping. I felt better than I had at twenty, though I'd recently celebrated my sixtieth. I reared, shook the water from my mane, and whinnied as the pail swung, clunking the sides of the well as it descended by its own weight down the shaft, the weighted crank slowly unwinding and squeaking as it did. In so doing, I glanced at the cloudless sky.
"Uggh!" I cried, stumbling and bashing my side on the well post and stubbing my knee on the stone wall. For an instant I hopped around, trying not to fall but straining like a contortionist to look skyward.
Stars!
I saw stars!
And I don't mean phosphenes at the back of my eyeballs, either. Real Equestrian stars and constellations.
Tartarus's sky formed at the interface between realities. It looked like the shell of a turtle painted in abstract. It had plates. At night, illuminated by the restriction zones and often at twilight before a rainstorm, you could see the lines as light refracted along the surface of the dome. The sun and the moon cast light into Tartarus, but tunneled here by magic, so I had been told. Tartarus' sky was a skylight tube into the basement of reality.
Ceilings had no stars.
But suddenly— stars.
I started vibrating in place, twitching, a thousand thoughts and actions flitting through my brain, none of which got a modicum of control. I screamed in frustration.
Another early riser approached with raised eyebrows: Chocolate Chip, a pony who had spent his life subtly breaking things and chipping at the minds of ponies throughout Equestria. I understood Chip's schtick, as did most ponies now that he'd confessed all. I trotted in place for a moment, then cried, "I forgot to bank the hearth fire! The bed's going to catch fire!" I galloped away as the shocked brown-speckled white pony jumped aside and started laughing his flank off.
"Stars, stars, stars!" I muttered myself as my body, still glistening wet from my rustic shower routine, began to cool uncomfortably. Like a train on the track, I unerringly approached our house.
Could I tell Crinkle Paper?
I slowed to a trot as the fields ended and the the city began. Walking past the familiar dilapidated adobe buildings, smelling the early morning porridge on the hearths, I knew that everything I had thought I would do this day was like ashes in the wind. Everything felt different.
Something had broken Tartarus. I knew it in my heart.
That meant my theory was true. Over the years, I'd become less certain. It became more of a wish or a belief like "Tomorrow would.be better." Suddenly my doubts had vanished. Today I would meet Sunset Shimmer for the second time; it would be the first time for her. She mustn't recognize me three years from now as she perceived time as being from her past.
Could I tell Crinkle Paper?
Would she believe my story, even with the evidence? Could I convince her to go along with my plan?
I had stopped and found myself trotting in place again, filled with incredible nerves, like a 10 year-old colt.
If what I believed was about to happen did happen, I would soon become the most infamous fugitive in Equestria. I'd need to the leave the country immediately.
But I would be free.
One side of me thought, Well, you've grown to like it here. What I did. How I felt. Who I knew. All my relationships. My friends.
The other side thought, You did this already. Time played itself out irreversibly. I would succeed.
When filly Sunset Shimmer arrived (note, not if), no matter what I did it would end up with me escaping Tartarus and sending the filly back to confront Princess Celestia. This had already happened. Time had pretzeled.
The question was, how soon would anypony notice my disappearance?
Well, ponies went on walk-about all the time, didn't they? Who would believe anypony could actually escape?
True. Cerberus would need to visit Ponyville. But still.
Maybe this thing could work.
But if it didn't. If I got caught—if we got caught, did I want to sentence Crinkle Paper to my fate? Celestia would not be amused by my antics.
But— if it succeeded, could I bear to be separated from her forever?
No.
I'd tell her as soon as I could support my claims—
—When I could prove it a fate accompli.
—That we lived in a time paradox.
—That it was our destiny to leave Tartarus, then Equestria for good.
I found myself sitting, clacking my hooves together as I thought. The dawn had brightened as I looked about me. The pale blue sky washed out the stars unless you looked carefully, and nopony would. However, more early risers had come out and about. One, a mint-green pegasus named Ladle (a poisoner) slowed as she caught my eye in her emerald gaze. "Ya learn something interesting, there, Stockings? Spit out."
I grinned way too widely. I stood and said, "Soon everypony will know. It will be momentous!"
"Wow. Can I tell everypony?"
"Nah. Let's let them be surprised by the events of the day." I winked.
She winked at me as she trotted off excitedly.
The best way to manage this would be to stay aware. I could not check all 1363 dry land restraint zones, nor just the 405 that were empty. Were Sunset Shimmer and I to interact, and we had to, she would come to me. Somehow. To Central. Had to be. I put on my khaki officer uniform, leaving Crinkle Paper sprawled adorably legs up in bed and snoring lightly, and raced out to find Jewel.
"Someone new is showing up today," I told her. She lay coiled in the morning sun on the black pavement that sparkled with gold and silver mountain rock, absorbing the new day's warmth. She'd taken being kicked out of my bed by Crinkle Paper as a snub, but didn't let it get in the way of her business of gathering information and disseminating gossip.
She tensed. Her head rose from the center of her coils to look into my eyes with her slit whiteless emerald-green ones. Her irises pulsed. Her neck flattened. "Who?"
I shrugged. I didn't want anypony recognizing Sunset Shimmer and connecting her to my past. I had ceased mentioning Sunset the day Crinkle Paper had given me my revelation; the better part of a decade since Twilight Sparkle's magic storm. Pressed, ponies might remember the Sunset Shimmer I had interacted with had been nearly full grown when I'd ignored my better judgment and gotten caught. This Sunset Shimmer would be a very young filly. It would make no sense to connect the dots. Importantly, ponies shared names. Tartarus housed two Cornstalks and three Bright Blazes.
I didn't want my past nor her future explained to Sunset. I needed every opportunity open to deal with what happened after she arrived.
I added, "Just look for them coming to Central." I used a plural to obscure what I knew. "When they do, find me. She's a dangerous one."
"Sssh-she?"
Oops.
Jewel chuckled and nodded her glittery cobra head. "We're all dangerous here, White Stockings."
I could not help but act preoccupied as I went about my rounds. When one too many ponies, including the warden commented about my absentmindedness (I almost walked into a closet door), I hid in my office and reviewed my research. Lavender Lather had mentioned my The Denizens of Hell on her last trip to Canterlot. I didn't think she'd showed it to either princess, though. She might trust me, but ultimately I was an inmate.
I proofread my biography of a royal golden stag trying to improve my concentration. That the stag was female was my intro into another story of culture and habitat clash between ascendant Equestria and others of the Hoofed (which I had wrote into a proposed doctoral thesis, not because I had hope but because I had time). The golden stag's story wasn't unlike Princess Forest Green's story, but also a story of empires and deep suspicion of the Eugenic-Touched. That meant ponies (from horses) and cattle (from aurochs) and a few lesser "domesticated" sentients. Celestia had barked a lot of hooves while she built Equestria in what was called the new world by the oldest of those inmates who slept the eon away in the restriction zones. It lent credence to the speculation that the princess originally came from the Saddle Arabian peninsula.
I stopped.
If I escaped, what would come of all my work? I stacked the manuscript and stared at the five reams of hoofwritten paper. Princess Celestia had dangled the idea of parole before me even as I so infuriated her that she sent me to Tartarus.
My actions in the next hour or days would determine my fate, or seal it. I could easily imagine her placing me in maximum restraint for years... decades, even.
I found my hoof tapping manically on the table top. I growled, separated the stack to show my contents page and studied the list. If Tartarus was really broken, might the restriction zones fail—?
My heart seized up.
I knew these monsters! I began to shake. I rubbed my face, trying to prevent myself from running to Lavender Lather and blabbing everything I knew. I forced myself to review my red-star inmates. I did that for about half an hour until I was so full of nerves that I went for a run to exhaust myself.
Jewel found me late morning. She intercepted my path by springing at me such that I skidded and reared at what my horse-brain considered a snake strike. She yelled, "What's the matter with you, and more importantly, how did you know? None of the deputies were told to expect new inmates!"
I settled to all fours, breathing hard and sweating. "You startled me."
"I had to. You galloped by me on Second Street. You never go galloping!"
"Uh, yeah. Too much coffee?"
"Am I wrong? No filly has ever been committed to Tartarus, correct?"
My heart skipped a beat. "As in young pony or young creature—"
"Now you're acting weird."
"Can't say historically because of the lost records, but other than Brandywine—"
"He's a colt. I can see tell difference between mammalian genders, not just between ponies."
"—who was a colt, not that I am aware of."
Jewel swayed. An oh-really gesture for her. "Speaking of Brandywine, he's escorting the new inmate. I guess he evaded your search or Celestia has some extra secret restraint zones."
"Brandywine? Brandywine!?" I began trotting in place. "La Loca vowed to kill—"
"Her son?"
"This isn't good. This isn't good!" Or maybe it was. Pandemonium might make good camouflage. I dashed in the direction Jewel had sprung from.
"Are you interested in who he escorted?" she called after me.
I ought to appear so. I stopped and she pointed the opposite way with her rattling tail, toward the southside where ponies held a produce trade-and-swap today. As I trotted after her, she said, "Celestia forbid you ponies should lose your favorite chef. Taste is highly overrated," the glitter snake said, her scales grinding loudly on the ground as she made haste.
"A filly?" I prompted.
She looked back at me. Were her reptilian face capable, her eyes would have narrowed. "Are you being upfront with me?"
"What? You're a truthsayer, now?"
"Now you're definitely acting weird. You're going to love this—she's a real piece of work—calls herself 'The Queen of Cliffside.'"
My throat closed up. Bad since we were really hoofing it. I quickly got that tickle that would turn into a guilty cough I needed to suppress. I'd heard that phrase, somewhere. Sure, I could see Sunset calling herself a queen.
When I said nothing, she clarified. "She calls herself Sunset Shimmer."
I snorted.
"I know."
Absurd, isn't it? I self-censored and didn't vocalize, but a thrill galvanized me. It was real. Everything I'd deduced was real. Something—really, one specific alicorn-powered unicorn foal—had discombobulated time badly. What would happen had happened.
I had hopped on the pretzeled-time train nonstop to somewhen.
I prevaricated, saying, "A wannabe imposter foal turned megalomaniac villain?"
"Is that you trying to be hyperbolic? Seriously? White Stockings, are you okay?"
I shushed her as I noted somepony jumping from a produce table to an awning, then flapping and fluttering briefly to reach a tile roof with a minimum of clatter. I stopped. The hair on my spine rose and my ears went down. Usually, even that small attempt at flight brought the warning caw of a rainbow crow. The nightwing hid behind a chimney; Jewel swiftly figured out where I was looking.
She said, "And you didn't notice the lack of rainbow crows flying over the city? What's—"
I waved a hoof and snuck around so I could keep and eye on Pear Brandy and get closer to the street. I picked my way past produce stalls. Except for when I squished a tomato and had to give a hard stare to quiet an albino mare named Red Eye (a former demon wrangler), I made it forward without alerting anypony and looked down the street at an approaching new inmate.
Their reticence made me remember my somber arrival. I whispered, "You, of course, told everypony."
She chuckled quietly. "Sunset Shimmer, baby tyrant. She got sent here for trying to pull off Princess Celestia's wings. Like a butterfly. Mostly succeeded, too."
I cringed. If true, this was real news. Nothing I'd heard before. Or it wasn't my Sunset Shimmer...
The clatter of hooves against the stone and tar pavement grew louder and the hushed crowd even quieter. Two sets of hooves. And...
That looked like Brandywine from the descriptions I had of him, but he looked less like a foal and more like a full grown colt on his way to being a stallion. He had a distinctive gold-brown coat burnished as if to reveal black metal at his hooves and his nose. He sported a copper mane shot through with lines of gold—just like Pear Brandy.
I gasped when I spotted his companion.
She was very obviously still growing into her hooves and arguably still a foal, but large for her proportions. Her coat shined a pure shade of yellow, as did her mane. Distinctive red streaks reminiscent of tongues of fire made her unmistakably the Sunset Shimmer I knew.
If asked, I could claim it was dye, of course. Nopony here but I had ever seen her. Not the same Sunset Shimmer. An imposter.
The filly's turquoise eyes alighted on everypony in her mute audience as I retreated further into shadow. Her suspicion looked very much like experience to me. Experience fighting. This "queen" thing… It implied evil.
She failed to look where I forgot to keep looking.
A big gob of spit struck Brandywine in the face. In the eye! He reared, then stumbled, as Sunset Shimmer instantly reacted. She swooped her head around, jerked as she saw danger from above, then leapt upward as a shadow streaked across the road.
Pear Brandy only just dodged Sunset Shimmer's lunge, barely keeping the filly from connecting and likely completely ripping apart her left wing membrane. La Loca did a barrel loop and spiral, and as Sunset Shimmer's front hooves hit the pavement, so did Pear Brandy's.
In one athletic motion, as Pear Brandy's back legs touched down, she swiveled and aimed a furious buck directly at her son's temple. I was so stunned by her actions, I barely flinched before—
A green aura surrounded Pear Brandy, pulling her up and away.
Pear Brandy reflexively flared her midnight blue wings. Sunset Shimmer—for who else could it be?—used her bucking motion and the aerodynamics of her wings to force the nightwing to circle upside down, then slammed the mare down with such force it could have broken her back. Could have, but her aura flickered and the spell broke as Sunset pushed downward.
I laughed in sudden recognition. So it began—the filly didn't understand the limits of unicorn magic; back now three years before she threw me into the wall, trying to kill me and only succeeding in knocking me out.
Jewel reached in front of me to look me in the eye.
I waved a hoof. "Quiet," I hissed as Sunset declared—
"Brandywine is under my protection!" She yelled, "He's mine!"
Sweet Celestia. Young love! Had I know this before—
Brandywine recovered his wits and pushed in front of Sunset Shimmer to prevent her from killing her adversary. She shoved him back as her horn lit again.
The colt reared and touched her horn, flicking away her magic aura.
The filly screamed. She stepped forward and reared over his mother's head, pedaling her hooves threateningly, yelling, "Don't even think of moving!"
The nightwing, stunned, wings splayed limply under her, nonetheless spat out, "Don't let Brandywine's false smile fool you, Queen of Cliffside. He'll stab you in the back!"
I whispered. "You didn't tell them she was—"
Jewel said, "Sunset Shimmer? No. Didn't think you wanted me to."
I started to thank her when Brandywine introduced his filly-friend by name. Oh, boy. I soon learned that Pear Brandy was a member of the Equidoran NIHList separatists. She accused Celestia of killing "Good Princess Rising Moon," an adopted "sister" of Celestia. That gave me an epiphany the zealot would never accept. I would have bet at that moment that the hero of the nightwings had indeed been Celestia's real sister, Luna. Both had been banished or vanquished a millennium ago. I reached for my pen and the sheet of paper I always carried. I had to write it down.
I pretty much missed the rehash of Pear Brandy's crimes, though apparently nopony had told Brandywine the truth that his mother had killed dozens when she framed his father.
A rotund purple earth pony mare with a flowing white mane galloped up. I watched as Brandywine prevaricated in front of Lavender Lather and made it seem that he had handled his mother with his magic, and with nopony disputing it the warden accepted the ruse. Ponies had claimed he was exempt from the no-magic rule. This proved he knew it and so did the warden. He didn't want her to realize something had happened to the rainbow crows, which Sunset Shimmer pretty much proved had happened.
Indeed, with the warden's arrival, ponies were already retreating and scattering. I definitely did hear muttering about the crows. When it looked like Lavender Lather would invite the pair to the Big House, I bolted to assure I got there first.
I rushed into my office and scribbled notes on the manuscript before witnessing the arrival of the guests from a doorway. I did my best to be present but in the shadows. Lavender Lather didn't ask for me. When she ushered the pair into her office, I cringed and started trotting in place.
The same picture of Princess Luna that hung in the refectory hung next to that of Princess Celestia on the warden's wall. If Sunset Shimmer figured out the time aspect of her appearance now in Tartarus, she'd break the continuity of the flow of time. What would happen?
Nothing.
I gasped as I realized the enormity of it. Of course she wouldn't twig to the second princess. There were no titles on the photos. They were tightly cropped bust portraits. There was no context for Sunset Shimmer to think she looked at a picture of an alicorn, let alone recognize the incongruity of it.
And now was already the past, so it couldn't happen. I'd be safe. I was safe. Until I told Sunset Shimmer the message she'd deliver to Princess Celestia and assured she returned to Equestria through whatever means she'd gotten here, everything that would happen would lead to what had happened.
It was destiny. Virtual immunity.
Did I have any free will?
It felt like I did. I waved a hoof. I stuck out my tongue, then had to chuckle at Crinkle Paper who gave me a weird look. I blew her a kiss as she took the stairs up to the lockups and factory floor.
I immediately felt sick inside.
Would I tell her?
I might make the choice, but whatever choice I had made would already have been made. I was really not wanting to do this all of a sudden.
But I had to. Sunset Shimmer had to return with the message to destroy her career as a protégé. I had to assure that happened. Not because I wanted to do so, either, but because I had already done so. It had happened long before I met her.
My head began to hurt.
I stood kneading my forehead when the warden opened her door. The purple earth pony spotted me and shouted, "Stockings! Gather staff to my office, stat."