Early one morning, well before dawn, Twilight backs into the hallway outside her bedroom. She takes a slightly clumsy right-hand turn to head towards the kitchen. Her eyes are half closed and her mane is messy. As she walks, she smacks her lips a couple of times, perhaps trying to clear some of the sleep from her head. She rolls her neck to stretch it.
She mumbles a greeting at Pinkie Pie, who hits back with a cheerful, “Morning!”
“Wait... Pinkie?”
Twilight stops and takes a few steps backwards, eyeing Pinkie Pie sideways.
“Morning? Why are you in the hallway?”
“I'm just visiting. Don't mind me!”
“Visit– What?” Twilight rubs an eye and looks Pinkie up and down. “What's with the catsuit?”
Pinkie Pie is wearing a black catsuit. And an eye patch. She is also humming slightly.
“Oh, this thing? Tradition.”
“Uh-huh. Do I want to know which tradition?”
“Probably not!”
“Because – historically – a black catsuit is often involved in the 'I am sneaking into a place I should not be' sorts of traditions.”
“Kinda,” Pinkie admits.
Twilight leaves a pause in the air, just on the off-chance that Pinkie will explain herself. When she does not, Twilight sighs gently, gives Pinkie a soft, warm smile and continues.
“You know you don't have to sneak into my hallway.”
Pinkie giggles.
Twilight finally notices the humming. Pinkie isn't making it with her throat. There's just a slight humming noise coming from – well from all of her. Twilight squints slightly, tips her head to one side. Takes a sniff of the air.
“Wait. You're time travelling?”
“Yup.”
“You're time travelling!”
“Ah-yup!”
“From–”
“The future!” Pinkie rears up and makes an arcing gesture with her front legs. “The wonderful world of tomorrow!”
Twilight waits until Pinkie gets back down on all four legs before asking, in an offhanded, overly-casual tone.
“Like, actually tomorrow?”
“Uhm, a bit further on,” Pinkie says, vaguely.
“Hmm.”
Twilight takes a breath to compose herself, preparing to enter 'lecture mode'. Pinkie interrupts her.
“I know, I know. 'Fabric of space-time', 'meddling with fate', 'the Fluttershy effect'. Yada, yada. You're going to warn me enough already. I've got the message.”
Under her breath, Twilight mumbles, Not well enough, I see, then more audibly says, “That's 'the Butterfly effect'. And–”
“Yeah, that. You made me promise to only do the one thing before you sent me back this time.”
“I sent you back in time?” Twilight's tone hits incredulous.
“Yeah. It took a little while, but I guess I convinced you...” Pinkie blinks and asks, “'Convince'? Time travel makes tenses so confusing...” she just stands with a thoughtful expression for a bit.
Twilight waits for Pinkie to finish explaining, so she can get on with the important task of telling her why time travel is such a bad idea. And then she remembers that simply waiting for Pinkie to explain something almost never works.
“'Convinced', I think. From your point of view. Right...”
She readies herself to get back to delivering admonishments, before realising something amiss, “Hang on... You've been standing here for, what, a couple of minutes now. At least. The spell I used to time travel,” she winces slightly, “before, didn't last this long.”
“You will get better at it. Or you improved it. Are going to refine it? Something like that. You're good with complicated stuff like time travel spells!”
Twilight doesn't know whether to sigh at the attempts at temporal grammar or to accept the compliment. She finds herself doing both, with a light smile.
Pinkie continues, “And you are going to have quite a bit of practise, by now,” she pulls a sly grin.
That catches Twilight's interest. But Pinkie makes an 'oops' noise and covers her mouth with a hoof. Twilight raises an eyebrow to urge Pinkie to continue, but Pinkie just shakes her head. Eventually Twilight realises Pinkie is now committed to staying silent and focuses on what she's already learned.
“Multiple travel events? Well... at least that spell only caused a pointless but stable time-loop,” Twilight says, mostly to herself. Then, more quietly, “I hope that's what it always does.”
She checks quickly to see if Pinkie might let something else slip but her hoof is still over her mouth.
Twilight considers the possibilities and gently asks, “So, do you have a message or something?”
Pinkie makes a muffled, slightly indistinct noise that's probably a 'yes'.
“Pinkie, you've already talked to me.”
Another muffled noise. This one is impossible to interpret.
“Come again?”
Pinkie quickly blurts, “I've said too much!” before covering her mouth again.
Twilight weighs up her options and decides that berating Pinkie about her time travel etiquette now can't be productive, since apparently this is going to happen anyway. And that Pinkie is probably the wrong pony to blame anyway, really. She looks at her own hoof and tuts.
“Look, if I did this, I'm going to remember that you were here – just talking. I promise I won't be upset at you for that. You're not doing anything and you're trying not to tell me what's going to happen.”
Pinkie slowly takes her hoof away from her face.
“You were, uh, quite specific that I shouldn't do anything...”
“Do you know what you're... supposed to be going to have said?” Twilight twists a language without enough tenses to fit the situation as best she can manage. Pinkie seems to understand, shakes her head.
“That's most likely why I thought it was safe enough to send you here. You probably can't help but say the right thing. We can keep talking. Carefully though.”
“Okay...”
“I mean, sending you here isn't likely to be worse for the time-stream than when I did it to myself,” Twilight chuckles, hopefully.
Pinkie makes a little snorting noise and moves as though to hug Twilight, but stops herself short.
“Oh, wait, only talking, no hugging. Just do the one thing that I actually came to do. Sorry,” she hangs her head at little, but she's still faintly smiling.
Twilight makes a mental note that she might have to make this up to Pinkie, who's being remarkably restrained. Perhaps a little positive reinforcement wouldn't be amiss either.
“Hey, you're doing really well. Of the time travel experiences I've had, so far this is definitely going the best.”
“Really? Well, early days, I suppose...” Pinkie says, cryptically.
Twilight decides that puzzle can wait, recalling that her earlier question about 'a message' received some kind of affirmative.
“So... You have a message of some sort?”
Pinkie seems to give her answer some thought.
“Yup.”
Twilight pauses. She knows she probably shouldn't ask, but she does.
“What's the message, Pinkie?”
“Oh, uh, it's not for you. Sorry Twilight,” Pinkie sheepishly smiles, “I think I'm still a little early, actually. But only by a couple of minutes!”
“Uh, huh.”
“I mean, nopony has perfect aim when 'navigating the skeins of destiny', right?” Pinkie continues.
Twilight pulls a hoof across her face and immediately regrets the fact that she's now got to use that phrase – unironically – at some point in her life. Luckily she's saved from having to dwell upon it for too long by the sound of an opening door, slightly farther up the hallway. A sleepy-looking Starlight Glimmer wanders out. She spots the other two ponies in the hall and casually walks over.
“Morning, Twilight,” a nod, “Pinkie.”
“Heya, Glim Glam!”
“I'm... not sure I like that?” Starlight squints at Pinkie.
“Oh. How about 'Starry'?”
Starlight considers this for a second.
“I'll allow it. Are you girls up early, or late?”
“Early,” lies Twilight.
“Neither!” Pinkie adds.
Starlight doesn't really seem to listen to either response. Instead she yawns and continues, “Well I have an early start planned, and you know what that means,” she makes to walk past her friends towards the kitchen but stops and backtracks. She looks at Pinkie again, more closely this time. Tilts her head. Looks at the eye patch.
“Alternate reality?”
“Time travel!”
“Oh,” Starlight ticks a hoof against the floor, “Well, I was close,” she says to herself. Then she looks at Twilight, “I'm going to go make some coffee. You want some?”
Twilight, deciding that her planned 'dangers of time travel' speech may have found a rather more legitimate target, shoots back a glare.
“I mean, uh... Time travel!” Starlight wakes up a bit and spins back to Pinkie Pie, “That's extremely dangerous.”
“I'm not going to have been changing anything,” Pinkie protests.
Starlight spends a few seconds attempting to parse out the mix of tenses. She tries to check with Twilight, who just shakes her head a little. She goes back to talking to Pinkie.
“No changes?”
“Nope.”
“Just... observing?”
“I've got a shooort message. But Twilight says the information content is so low it's hard to measure.”
Twilight quirks an eyebrow. Starlight persists in her line of questioning.
“So, you aren't here to commit evil, then?”
“No.”
“Because... The black catsuit? Eyepatch?”
“No! This is just traditional time travelling attire.”
“Huh. Well... Your very presence still...” she glances briefly at Twilight, “risks corrupting the fundament of creation?”
“I promised Twilight I'd be really careful! I'm not allowed to leave this hallway or do anything. Like, actually anything!” Pinkie makes a little 'eep' noise and asks Twilight, “Do you think that might be going to be okay to have told her so much?”
Twilight doesn't even sigh. She just looks at Pinkie flatly. Starlight seems to consider the answer for a short while before turning back to Twilight.
“Coffee?”
“Starlight,” Twilight chides, “there could be catastrophic–”
“Right,” Starlight interrupts, “but she's clearly using the opportunity to travel the twisted realms of causality more sensibly than I ever did. Frankly it's probably better if I don't know why and I simply leave her to it.”
She looks at Pinkie, “I trust you to be responsible. If things start exploding in seven dimensions, just yell and I'll be here to help. So,” she looks back to Twilight. “Meanwhile...”
Pinkie smiles contentedly at the vote of confidence. Twilight sighs in a huff, mildly annoyed that Starlight has taken to heart an entirely different – if valid – lessen than the one she intended to give. Starlight gives her a few seconds before making a little querying gesture.
“Don't worry, I need to fetch something myself,” Twilight deflects the offer.
“I can grab whatever-it-is for you. I'll only be a few minutes.”
“I think I'd rather–”
“It's not a problem. You look... sorta tired? Why don't I save you the walk.”
Twilight hesitates. She pointedly refuses to look Starlight in the eye when she answers.
“If you're coming back this way soon, could you bring the chocolate sauce?”
“Sure. What you want to snack on is none of my business.”
Twilight cringes slightly.
“I can keep a secret. No problem. Pinkie Pie?”
“Of course I can! Uh, wait, you meant to drink? Oh, no thanks, I'm not staying for very long.”
Starlight shrugs, says, “Okay then,” and gently brushes past them towards the kitchen. As she reaches the corner of the hall she turns back and flashes a little smile.
“Remember, Pinkie. No evil machinations. They make Twilight kinda cranky,” she winks and darts away before Twilight can find a comeback.
Pinkie giggles.
“Oh, is this why you two are going to have had that sass contest? Hehe, gonna be good times...”
Twilight scowls lightly, and asks even though she doesn't want to know.
“Who wins?”
“A–” Pinkie catches herself. She draws a zipping motion across her lips, then gives Twilight a little consoling pat on a shoulder.
“Sorry, can't say. You already know too much.”
The hum emanating from Pinkie Pie shifts to a slightly higher pitch.
“Oh! There's my one-minute warning. Gosh, I was, am, going to be, glad about this morning, soon. I've been waiting aaages to do this!”
“You, uh...”
Twilight's door opens for a second time, and Pinkie Pie wanders out. Her mane is even more of a mess than usual. She glances both directions down the hall. She turns and skips to join Twilight and her future self.
“I thought I heard voices... 'Sup, Twi. Morning, Me.”
She gives Twilight a playful nudge in the flank with her shoulder.
“I thought you just went to get some chocolate sauce. And I'm not complaining here – at all – but you'll need to get quite a lot of chocolate sauce if there's two of me.”
Twilight flushes a deep red.
Future Pinkie Pie grins and addresses Present Pinkie Pie.
“Hey, Me. Did you–” she points at Twilight, “and her, just...” she wiggles her eyebrows in lieu of words, "Y'know?"
“Oooh, well,” Present Pinkie grins, “I don't mean to brag–”
Future Pinkie interrupts, “And do you two plan to...” she wiggles her eyebrows a second time, rather more vigorously, then continues, “with chocolate sauce on top?”
Present Pinkie beams, nods, lifts a front hoof high into the air and waves it invitingly.
Twilight, aghast, thinks to herself, Future Twilight, I am going to find a way to have gotten you back for this in advance.
Future Pinkie obligingly gives her present self a high-hoof and says:
“Niiice!”
Before winking out of existence in a burst of strawberry light.
There is quite a pause before the one Pinkie Pie remaining speaks up.
“Aawww. She seemed nice...”
“She was you. Will be you. Is going to have been you... You're right, tenses and time travel don't play well together.”
Pinkie gives Twilight a little kiss on the cheek, and the corners of Twilight's mouth perk up a bit.
“Did you get the sauce yet?”
Twilight shakes her head slightly, looks at the floor, then mumbles.
“Why would I possibly send you back through time just for that?”
“You sent me through time?” Pinkie asks. And then Pinkie gasps. She quickly grabs and turns Twilight's head so they're looking directly into each other's eyes and says, “Heeey, so I just had this idea.”
“No.”
“If you can send me through time once...”
“Absolutely not.”
“You could send me through time more than once, right?”
“It's a flagrant misuse of power.”
“Pshaaw, of course you could!”
“No.”
“I'll bet it's not even difficult.”
“Not the point.”
“Because now that we're–”
“No.”
“I mean, when you think about it–”
“No.”
“Perhaps if I was–”
“No.”
“Maybe for–”
“Not even for your birthday.”
“Oh.”
Pinkie makes a dejected little noise, but then perks up again before asking, “What about for your birthday?”