What do you do with an angry Ursa?
Snoozeberry collections in centuries past (as Twilight remembered from an exam she’d taken) always required two things: the utmost of care not to ingest any residue, and a pony, nominally an agile pegasus, to distract and otherwise placate the Ursa living in the area who would be none too pleased that their ‘crop’ was being stolen. Okay, so the comparison with catnip may have been a little exaggeration, but the smell of the berries drove the giant star-bears nuts, especially after the plant had been disturbed. Otherwise, the bears would just chow down on them, and being as large as they were, by the time winter was rolled out they’d have eaten enough to hibernate properly. The Ursa that had attacked Ponyville had come from the Everfree Forest, and there was no doubt as to whether snoozeberries grew somewhere inside.
Flim and Flam had probably been on the trail of a very, very old (and completely untrue) rumor that deep in the forests west of Manehattan were a variety of snoozeberry that provided an energy boost, rather than a relaxant. While Twilight knew that wasn’t the case, the general population of Hoofington likely didn’t, so even if they’d noticed the distinct lack of coffee they might have believed the twins’ story. If it wasn’t for the fact the machine was still in town Twilight would have thought they knew that what they were spinning was a load of ponyfeathers. They wouldn’t even have tested it, they’d have collected the berries, stuck them on a train, brought them straight here and started creating their concoction. The presence of the apple juice would dull the berries’ effectiveness but wouldn’t eliminate it completely. Cheers, they’d say, and bottoms up, completely unaware that they’d be sending the entire town to the best night’s sleep they’d ever get. In the morning, nopony would remember a thing about the night before.
Meanwhile, angry about the theft, an Ursa would follow the smell down the railway line, moving only at night, damaging the tracks and causing the eventual closure. It would take days to reach the town, but inevitably it would, arriving just in time to meet a slumbering population.
And that was the first part of the story of the Hoofington Ursa Major. Ponies would wake up, unaware of the previous night’s commotion, to damaged buildings and a trail of destruction. Those few who either hadn’t partaken of the mixture or who bore a slight resistance to the berries’ effects would say they’d seen or heard a bear, memories that seemed treacherous but were, in fact, truth. A town legend would be born.
Most of this would only occur to Twilight after the fact. She had more pressing concerns first and foremost.
First concern was the Ursa Major itself. It would be coming from the direction of the railway, along that main street, heading for the square. If she could keep it on that route, it was a fairly wide road, it would just about fit. Second concern was chasing after Trixie, who had taken off - directly towards the bear’s roaring - at a sprint.
“Trixie, stop!” Twilight called after her, all care for trying to stay incognito gone, struggling to keep up. She wasn’t exactly in shape herself but Trixie was fast. “What do you think you’re doing?!” No answer. Another roar, louder. Wait… she wasn’t going to… “Please tell me you’re not going to take that thing on! You can’t possibly win!”
“Why? Because you couldn’t?!”
Twilight skidded to a halt, lost for words. “I…”
Ahead of her, Trixie slowed to a stop too, and looked back. “What’s the matter, Twilight Sparkle? Afraid that the Great and Powerful Trixie is going to outshine you?”
“That’s not what this is about, Trixie! That was never what this was about!”
“Hmph. You may have easily been able to vanquish an Ursa Minor, but Trixie will prove that she is capable of much more!”
“I don’t doubt that you’re capable, it’s just going after an Ursa Major shortly after experiencing magic fatigue is a—”
“Spare me the details!” Trixie snapped. “Trixie has recovered sufficiently. She will defeat this Ursa Major.”
“Trixie—”
“Did you forget?” There was that cocksure smirk again. “Trixie did prophesize it, after all.”
“Oh, no—”
There was a loud bamf, a puff of smoke, and Twilight just glimpsed Trixie’s tail disappearing into an alleyway. Fantastic. And the worst part was she was right. A caped pony facing a monster. But… that’s all it showed. Trixie was just assuming that because she faced it, she won… and now she was charging it head on. She wasn’t waiting for the prophecy to come to her. She was making it happen. Was it really just a big self-fulfilling prophecy, an infinite loop? So far, things hadn’t changed. The initial time travel to Skyview Lake had had no apparent repercussions. The explosion in the Meditation Chamber had always happened, as had the teleporting of the telescope. An Ursa Major would attack Hoofington.
But what would happen if Trixie defeated the Ursa Major too early?
Even the tiniest of deviations from the way things originally unfolded would ripple upwards into major changes ten years later. The disappearance of a Hoofington legend seemed minor at the outset but who knew what it had gone on to inspire. In the past, everything was important, and the past left lasting impressions on the future… and on the environment…
Something was off. What path would the Ursa have to take to cause the same pattern of destruction as there had been in 1001? There had been damage to the roof of the Cakes Confectionary, which was on the other side of the market square. There was no reason for the Ursa to go further than would be necessary to reach the snoozeberries, unless it was chasing something…
Bang. A firework exploded somewhere ahead of her.
ROAARRR.
Her ears flattened. No longer was that the sound of a giant star-bear crabby because its berries had been taken. Now it was the sound of a giant star-bear that had been provoked.
Okay. Think, Twilight, think! Her magic was starting to return much sooner than she’d expected it to, but it wasn’t yet strong enough to do what she’d done to the Ursa Minor, let alone calm an enraged Ursa Major. That wouldn’t even work this time, since that particular combination of spells had played to the fact that it was only a Minor. Plus, no cattails here to break, no water tower to vandalize, no barn full of cows (who had been thankfully reasonable once they learned why Twilight had done what she did) to milk. All she had to work with was the town itself.
Correction. A town, a machine, and barrels full of snoozeberries…
Another firework exploded, closer. Now the Ursa was visible, swatting at the aerial bombardment, taking out a chimney stack, exactly as huge as Twilight had read about. Whether the other unicorn liked it or not, Trixie needed to know about her plan before she could set it into motion. She wasn’t going to like it, but she didn’t have to. It might not even work.
The main problem with that though was nailing down the magician in the first place.
This was, Twilight decided, as she resumed running down another side street towards the Ursa Major, one of the stupidest decisions she’d ever made.
“(Trix—)” she started, in a stage whisper, but immediately gave up as she realized she was never going to be heard like that. “Trixie!”
A scrabbling noise drew her attention upwards to a bridge which carried the railway over the side street, and she looked up to see Trixie regaining her footing. “What are you doing, you imbecile?!” she shouted downwards, then looked behind her and jumped just as the Ursa’s claw demolished the bridge, landing on a roof nearby. “Are you trying to sabotage Trixie’s plan?!”
Twilight herself dived for cover in an alleyway. “I’ve had an idea!”
“Can it wait?” Trixie jumped again, into a hay cart, and a pile of roof tiles slid and smashed onto the street when the Ursa tried to catch her. “Trixie is busy!”
ROAARRR.
Bamf. Trixie cast another smoke bomb in the middle of the street, but before she could disappear in any other direction Twilight used what limited magic she had to drag her into the alleyway. “(What happened to defeating it?)” the lavender unicorn asked, hoping that the creature couldn’t smell them for the berries.
“(Trixie was working on it! She admits that her fatigue had not yet passed as much as she thought it had!)”
The Ursa roared again, and stomped on the hay cart.
“(If what you’re doing doesn’t work—)” Trixie glared at her “(If it doesn’t work, I’ve got a plan.)”
“(Be quick about it!)”
“(If you can keep distracting it, I think I could reconfigure the Flim Flam brothers’ machine to increase the potency of the snoozeberry juice! That would knock it out!)”
“(That will not be nec—)”
“(Defeat it first, fine!)” They had to get moving again soon, otherwise this wouldn’t work. Either the Ursa was going to get to the market square before the ponies, or it was going to start smashing into the houses proper rather than just the rooftops. “(Otherwise, I’m open to suggestions!)”
Forever seemed to pass in a moment as Trixie tried to weigh up the decision. “(Fine! The Great and Powerful Trixie accepts your challenge, and will vanquish the Ursa Major first!)” She scrambled up on top of a coal bunker. “(The game is on!)”
It was astonishing how nimbly Trixie was darting across the rooftops; Twilight was pressed to keep up in the street running parallel to the Ursa. She needed to reach the square first, with as much time to spare as possible tinkering with the Applespresso. It was a long shot, but given how strongly the apples had overpowered the snoozeberries in terms of smell, they had to be concentrating the apple juice before it went into the mixture. Swapping the insertion points and putting the berries in instead of the apples would be a start. Extra precaution would have to be taken that none of it splashed onto her by accident. Licking one put you under for ten minutes, eating one would send you to the land of nod for an hour, but half a dozen barrels with increased potency? There was no precedent.
Even if Trixie regarded it as a challenge, a straight up head-to-head duel, it looked like she was rather enjoying misdirecting the Ursa’s attention. It was getting twice as many claw marks in the rooftops, but the bear was definitely slowing, and taking more time to swat at what it probably regarded as a bothersome insect. Actually, Trixie probably thought of this as no more than another show she was putting on… no, she was like that most of the time. She treated everything as a show.
Hoofington as a bustling town in the day with friends was difficult to navigate. Going through the same town at night, eleven years in the past and with an enraged star-bear behind you was pretty much the equivalent of a nightmare, one from which Princess Luna couldn’t rescue you. Especially seeing as Nightmare Moon was probably looking down on the unfolding incident with amusement, if that was what she’d done on the moon. Every so often Twilight would glance up and see the outline of the Mare in the Moon looking back, and it made her shiver. She had to focus. No distractions this time. Without staying on the main street, she had to get to the market square as fast as she possibly could.
Two dead-ends and a tangle in a pony’s forgotten washing later, Twilight finally burst through a fence into the market square, and made a beeline for the Applespresso machine.
“Sorry, guys,” she muttered under her breath, using her recovered levitation to remove the hose used to pluck apples out of the barrels. “I’m going to have to borrow this…”
After the events at Sweet Apple Acres, Twilight had wished she’d gotten a chance to examine the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000. Shrewd businessponies like the brothers would never have allowed it, but it would have been a valuable opportunity to examine their take on magitechnology - and valuable experience for fiddling with the Grande Tempo Applespresso Mk. 3. For once, she was glad Trixie wasn’t around to belittle her, because this time she really did have no idea what she was doing.
However, she was sure of one thing - there had to be an easier way to build a machine than this. ‘Needlessly complicated’ was how she’d describe it. More than half of what she’d removed so far was completely redundant. While she couldn’t say for sure, a lot of it was just stuff they’d put in to make it look impressive. Dummy capacitors that weren’t connected to anything, a thaumic ignition module that was broken, you name it, they’d faked it. Somewhere underneath all that was the key workings of the Applespresso. Hopefully she wouldn’t make such a complete mess of this that it wouldn’t work any more.
Just about the easiest part was swapping the insertion ports, so the snoozeberries would take the place of the apples as the stronger component in the mixture, then, as an afterthought, doing away with the apples entirely, to make a 100% pure snoozeberry… cider? Was that what you’d call it? Whatever. There was a dial that dictated ‘caffeine strength’ in the machine’s cockpit, but, like most of the contraption, it was only for show, and had broken off as soon as Twilight touched it. One of the brothers had probably been making stealthy adjustments with a switch somewhere inside the machine as necessary. Of course, they’d built it. They knew what they were doing.
They were also probably holed up in a hotel somewhere unconscious from their own concoction, and even if they’d be willing to divulge their secrets, which they wouldn’t be, they were going to be flat out until morning rolled around.
Ah! Here was a control box for… something. Rather unhelpfully it bore a sticker with the words ‘beware of the leopard’. For goodness’ sake. Twilight tugged on the wires, checking to see it was actually integral, and when she confirmed that it was, she pinged it. Very quickly she realized she shouldn’t have and hurriedly pinged it again to turn the ice-cream stand muzak off, but the damage was done; the Ursa roared and increased its pace. She needed more time, she needed an understanding of the machine, she needed… she needed to move the Applespresso. Could she drive it and make the necessary changes at the same time? Only one way to find out… Making sure not to spill any, she loaded up the barrels of berries, secured them, and jumped into the driver’s seat. Now, how did one go about driving this thing?
After a few false starts she’d worked out that the idiots had got the steering rack the wrong way around, they’d installed the wheel motors sideways and the wheels themselves were so misshapen it felt like she was riding a mobile earthquake, but she was confident enough to move it. Now, how close was… the Ursa…?
She looked up at it.
It looked down at her.
ROARR-bamf. A cloud of pink dust exploded in its face. The distraction was just long enough for Twilight to accelerate out from underneath the Ursa’s descending paw.
“Hoi! You’re supposed to be fighting Trixie, you overgrown star-chart!”
“Are you fighting it or just making it angrier?!” Twilight shouted up at her, as she navigated through the mess of chairs whilst trying not to shatter her teeth with the vibration.
“How’s that plan of yours coming along, Twilight Sparkle?!” was the retort. “Trixie doesn’t see you doing any better!”
“I’m trying, I’m trying!”
“You’re very trying!”
Twilight yelped as she narrowly missed falling roof tiles on one side, then ducked for cover as on the other the Ursa smashed the fountain in the middle of the square. “Are we really gonna do this now?!”
For a Flim-Flam invention, the Applespresso was actually quite fast, setbacks considered. Its turning circle was atrocious, though. Trying to turn left out of the square nearly got her squashed. If she accidentally drove down into a dead end, she was toast. Now was the perfect time to regret not having any sort of map on hoof. She was going to have to play it as it came, with her attention split between the road ahead, the machine beneath her and the Ursa behind her. All she had to do was find the part of the contraption which dictated the concentration strength of both juice entrance ports. Easy, right?
Another left turn. Cardboard relay set, useless, chuck. Right turn, cooling manager insulated with a back copy of Apple Farmer’s Monthly, probably important, accidentally dropped on the next right. False mustache labeled ‘Property of Flim’, throw back to be crushed by the Ursa. Empty wooden box labeled ‘flux capacitor’. Hourglass timing system. How much more was she going to have to—
Concentration control box. At last. Twilight jacked all of her spare magic into powering it up, then realized she’d need to sacrifice a little to get the engine pumping and the juice flowing. No problemo, that was doable… With an enormous hiss of escaping air, and a noise resembling a broken pair of bellows, the Grande Tempo Applespresso Mk. 3 wheezed into life.
Unfortunately, as she discovered moments later, it was Grande Tempo in name only. She facehoofed; she should have seen this coming. Why would the brothers put time and money into making the machine fast when they could make it appear fast while actually having made their applespresso in advance? After all, nopony but them was going to be operating it or poking around inside it; what need was there for the machine to be quick if it could make them a quick bit or dozen? If they’d known it would be needed to work quickly whilst being chased around the town by a wild Ursa Major, then maybe… no, of course not. They’d charge double for that.
“I’m going to need a little more time!” Twilight shouted, over the combined noise of the Applespresso, the Ursa, and all of Trixie’s spells. “How are things on your end?!”
“Trixie is still—” the magician darted out from under a paw, and fired another firework into the bear’s face “—winning!”
From down where she was, it didn’t look like winning, but Twilight held her tongue. Raw magic alone just wouldn’t cut it now. Maybe if that charm still had anything left in it… it glinted in the moonlight as Trixie leapt across the street in a single bound. No, if anything, prolonged exposure to it would probably cause a subtle magic drain as it tried to restore its energy. It was basically useless now. It would take magic on Princess Celestia’s scale to charge it up anywhere near its original level, and that would probably be a bad idea. Funneling the same magic used to raise the sun into it might even make it explode.
At its current rate… five minutes, at least. That’s how long it would take for the Applespresso to export the concentrated snoozeberry cider. That’s how long they needed to keep giving the Ursa the runaround. Whether they could keep it up for those five minutes… that was an entirely different question.
On the next bend, Twilight was nearly thrown from the cockpit. Clearly Flim and Flam hadn’t put any effort into making sure their machine worked smoothly whilst moving, too. (Come to think of it, the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 had always been stationary whilst in operation as well; they must not have figured that out in ten years of iterations.) If the ride got any rougher, she was going to need to divide her attention again, this time between driving and making sure the Applespresso didn’t fall apart underneath her.
Another bend. Twilight drew breath. Cafes, restaurants, she knew this one. Coming up on her right would be the building that would eventually become the Cakes Confectionery. An odd feeling welled up inside her, sort of like deja vu in reverse. Here came the Applespresso from one direction, here came Trixie and the Ursa from a slightly different one. Everything that was happening now had already happened. But… she had a bad feeling about this. Something was going to happen, she just didn’t know what.
A yelp a moment later interrupted her thoughts. Up ahead, she could see Trixie scrabbling for grip on the roof of the future-Confectionery, having apparently put a hoof wrong and tripped, getting her cloak caught in the guttering. From the side street opposite the Ursa roared, now even angrier from all the firework dust in its face, preparing for a strike the unicorn wouldn’t be able to dodge. Twilight had to do something, even if Trixie tried to turn it on her.
She yanked the steering left and the Applespresso veered right, scraping up against the storefronts. “Trixie! Let go!”
Multiple times over the course of the evening Twilight had given Trixie an instruction or suggestion and the latter had always responded either with sarcasm or with a very long pause for thought. This time, she did neither. Instead, she did exactly as she was told. She ditched the cloak, snatched the crystal, dropped, the paw smashed into the roof, and the Applespresso jumped the kerb just in time to catch her before she pancaked on the pavement. Next opportunity there was, Twilight got off that street, putting buildings between the ponies and the bear.
“Trixie had everything in hoof!” Trixie shouted from somewhere at the back of the machine. “She was about to claim her victory!”
“You were about to be flattened,” Twilight called back. “I think the berries are done processing! We’ve tried things your way, now we can try them—”
She yawned.
Now was not the time to be falling asleep! Why would her body suddenly decide that anyway? Adrenaline was pumping, she had been wide awake a second ago… Oh. Oh no. No, no no nononononono. One diluted drop on her tongue, that’s all there was, she’d spat it out, she’d wiped it off… but it hadn’t been enough. The snoozeberries were starting to kick in. Time was running out. They had to find the bear, force-feed it the cider, and knock it out before… before… yawn…
Around them, the town opened up as the contraption burst out into the plaza surrounding the museum. And that’s when things took a turn for the worse.
It had been on the edge of Twilight’s senses, but they were senses that were now occupied with trying not to fall asleep. The bear had gone quiet. Ursa were wild animals, they reacted as wild animals would, but they weren’t stupid, not to mention they weren’t deaf either. All the noise of the machine had been going in one direction.
Few yards had been covered in the plaza when the Ursa kicked the Applespresso straight through the statue of Sweet Royal. Everything broke apart. Twilight had the presence of mind to catch the export barrels as they flew through the air, and just about enough to catch herself with levitation before she hit the cobblestones. Amongst the flying debris was Trixie, desperately trying to shield herself with her own magic. The rest of the wreckage spread apart over the courtyard. All that was left now… was Twilight and the bear.
“Okay,” she managed, struggling to her hooves, another yawn fighting its way out of her mouth. “Got one shot at this. Got to make it count.” Her vision was starting to blur. She wanted to lie down and nap so badly, just for a second…
Tense few seconds passed as she waited for her window of opportunity to open, her now tattered cloak billowing in the wind. Come on, Mr. Overgrown Star-Chart. You know you want to…
The Ursa roared. Now! The barrels shot forwards into its mouth and burst, flooding its throat with concentrated snoozeberry juice. Then it choked a moment, swallowed, and gave a sort of strangled roar that could have been a yawn. It had to work. There were no more options left. Work your magic, snoozeberries.
With the sort of dramatic grace you could only get from a giant star-bear, the Ursa Major hit the deck.
Twilight proceeded to follow suit.
When she awoke, Twilight became dimly aware of Trixie standing over her, and the former opened her eyes just in time to see the look of triumph morph into a scowl. “Nice to know that somepony seems to think Trixie’s impending victory was irrelevant enough to interrupt with a nap.”
“How… how long was I out?”
“Five minutes. Trixie is pleased to announce that she heroically stayed conscious throughout your atrocious driving, and struggled from the wreckage of a hideous accident with nary a scratch.”
The crash… Twilight looked around. Bits and pieces of the Grande Tempo Applespresso Mk. 3 were scattered all over the courtyard, a courtyard that was mostly occupied by the Ursa, which was now snoring like a jackhammer. They’d actually been pretty lucky. One of the statues hadn’t been, guess that explained the absence of Sweet Royal in eleven years’ time, but that was a small price to pay, considering statues of her were fairly common around Equestria. Taking down an Ursa Major with just a few barrels of snoozeberries? That had to count for something, right? Yeah, Hoofington hadn’t come out unscathed, but considering the circumstances, it could have been much, much worse.
“Well, I think we did okay,” Twilight commented, climbing to her hooves. Diluting the berry juice with apples had halved the effects then, so at least Flim and Flam hadn’t screwed up to the point of sending the town to sleep for too long. When they woke up they were going to be disappointed as to the loss of their machine, but they’d bounce back, as soon as they’d outrun the ponies complaining about the lack of caffeine. “We make a pretty good team,” she said, holding out a leg to offer a hoofbump.
Trixie smacked it away. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is entirely uninterested in your observations and is more concerned with the blase way you are blowing off the challenge which you yourself set!”
In the middle of dusting herself off, Twilight paused. “You were the one who claimed it was a challenge.”
“You specifically said that if Trixie’s plan did not work then your plan was to be enacted.” Trixie sucked in a breath. “Trixie was not yet finished. She had everything under control.”
“You were about to be squashed!”
“Everything. Was. Fine.”
Breathe. In. Out. “I’m not going to start arguing with you again. Did you see where my hat went?”
The Star Swirl the Bearded costume was ruined. Several of the key pattern stitches had been torn out, most of the bells that she hadn’t removed before they’d entered the town (that seemed so long ago) were missing, and as Twilight had just asked about, the hat had been blown away during the accident. Rarity could probably fix it, but it would never be the same. Another casualty of the Ursa. She shouldn’t complain. Even though its donning and initial modification had been for nought, its suffering was paltry compared to what could otherwise have been.
Since Trixie was unforthcoming with an answer, preferring instead to sit down and glare icily, Twilight tried to work it out for herself. They’d come out of that street there, and the Ursa had kicked them when they were there… the wind was blowing south southeast… over that way, then. She trotted over towards the edge of the courtyard where it should have landed, hoping to find some sort of clue. It wasn’t going to stay here in the past if she could help it. Now, where was it? Not anywhere on the cobbles, not in that basement window well, it hadn’t blown under the stage…
Wait… the stage?
Her heart was almost in her ears as she scooted backwards to look at what she’d been ignoring. She remembered this stage. It was a little smaller than it was when she’d last seen it, it was slightly simpler, and with a little less decoration, but there was no mistaking that cutie mark emblazoned on the banner above it.
“Trixie, is this…”
“Is it not grand?” Trixie sat down and spread her forelegs in the air. “Behold the humble origins of the greatest unicorn in Equestria!”
So this was Trixie’s home back then. While the ‘greatest unicorn in Equestria’ part was up for debate, ‘humble’ was an accurate description. Aside from the stage out front, which was a perfectly reasonable place for a filly to keep her performance area, it was a perfectly anonymous building on the edge of the museum’s courtyard. Just a house, in a town, like the majority of ponies in Equestria. Twilight had barely glanced this way in the present. A light was on in the basement window; just about visible on the windowsill was a piece of paper with a scrawled drawing on it, and it was fairly easy to guess what it depicted.
The window was also open, and the Star Swirl costume hat was inside. Oops. Somepony would be developing a new clothing style. Once again, things were unfolding exactly the way they had unfolded before. The present was intact.
Speaking of which… forget the hat. How were they going to get back to 1001? Twilight quickly reviewed her notes. The first time, from the mine to Earthen Forest, it had just been a teleport in the presence of Princess Luna’s telescope, which she now knew was charged with her own magic from around about the destination time. From the library to Canterlot was Prophetia and a lightning bolt. From Canterlot to here it was the crystal charm and a teleport. But there was no explanation for the teleport from Skyview Lake back to the mine other than falling back on the time limit that had been a part of the time travel spell she’d cast on the previous occasion. Did they just have to wait, then?
Hmmm. Supposing that was the case, then she ought to be able to detect the spell running in the background somewhere, on a timer or something. Detect Magic should pick it up if she was looking for it, for any trace at all.
There was time magic all right. But it wasn’t where she was expecting it.
“Trixie?”
“What do you want now?”
“Could I possibly, uh, admire the crystal I gave you earlier?”
Trixie’s eyes narrowed, and glanced at said crystal, which she now brought up levitating beside her. “Why?”
It was a mental toss-up between telling her the truth and lying about it, and something tugged her in the direction of honesty. “That’s the charm that provided some of the magic that got us here in the first place, and I think there’s a little left that we can use to get back.” Little being the operative statement. When she’d pulled it out of the bag it had seemed dead, but there was just enough for it to be undetectable unless it was looked for specifically. She’d just not had enough magic to find it then.
At this, the eyes went wide. “W-wait. You’re telling me that this is a—”
Twilight didn’t see any harm in telling her, and nodded. “I don’t know why it looks like the clasp on your cloak, but it’s come from a room in Canterlot castle in… well, a month from now. I thought the trip here had drained it completely, but I might be wrong. If I can see it again, I might be able to use it to teleport us back to where we came from.”
“…”
This… wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting. She’d expected Trixie to react with a boast about how of course powerful magical charms imitated her own wardrobe stylings, not the expression bordering on panicked terror that was now frozen on her face. “What’s the matter?”
“You, uh, you can’t have it!” The magician was shaking like she’d just gotten a Phruit Phizz rush. “It’s mine!”
“Please, I’d only need to see it for a second.” Twilight tried levitating it away, but Trixie’s grasp was holding it firm. “Are you feeling alright?”
“I’m fine!” She most certainly wasn’t. She was clinging onto that crystal as if her life depended on it. This wasn’t the Trixie that Twilight was familiar with. “Don’t touch it!”
“This might be our one shot at getting home.”
“Don’t!”
Again, Twilight tried to levitate it out of the other unicorn’s grasp, but it was still stuck. That mare had some grip. But when she went to release her hold, she suddenly found out she couldn’t. “Uh oh.”
“I told you—” Trixie blinked. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything! I—” A wave of that same relaxing magic as before washed over Twilight, though much weaker than before. The look on Trixie’s face pretty much confirmed she’d felt the same thing. Something was about to go down, and Twilight got the feeling she wasn’t going to like it.
They’d both been trying to levitate the same object simultaneously. While they’d been doing that, in a thousand-to-one chance, their spells had synchronized, resonating at the same frequency. The object they were levitating was a powerful magic charm that while not as powerful as it had been before still turned out to pack a punch. For all intents and purposes all three sources of magic were one and the same now, and it was drawing the matrix for a teleport.
Well… this was probably going to hurt.
When the dust settled, all that remained of the night’s escapade was a damaged town, a broken machine, and a small, innocuous octagonal prism which bounced onto the cobblestones.
And moments after that, after the little filly had come out to investigate, even that was gone.
Thought journal, bookmarked entry; April CE 1001, 4:17PM
…
Okay. I guess I should have some of this listed for posterity. Trixie’s gone, but her role in the story’s not over yet, I think. The part of my prophecy which contained her clasp - or the charm crystal I guess - hasn’t yet come to pass, so I’ll probably be seeing her again soon. I’d better, actually, because I don’t have da Colton’s workbook back yet, grr!
Spike and Pinkie Pie never told me how long had elapsed in the present when I traveled to the past last time, but it can only have been a few seconds, because this time all of us - myself, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Spike, Ditzy Doo and Trixie - landed in the library basement before the capacitors had even finished gathering the charge of the third lightning bolt. Confusion reigned, if only for a moment. Trixie absconded as quickly as she could, even firing off a few stunning spells that kind of fizzled out before they really hit their mark. Stands to reason, she’d just fueled our journey back. From the energy expenditure I’d guess we dragged the Ursa Major along too, and dropped it somewhere on the way. We weren’t in control though. Somehow… I think the charm was controlling it.
I’d like to have done some more research on the legend of the Hoofington Ursa, but this being the Ponyville library, there aren’t really the appropriate resources. Should I find myself in Hoofington again I might need to organize a trip to the Hoofington Press archive, if only to get a clearer picture of the already resolved situation. That, at least, has drawn to a close, and the mystery is solved.
The others were reasonably confused with my explanation of the events in Hoofington. After all, from their perspective, we’d all teleported from Canterlot at the same moment, and Trixie had just appeared out of nowhere. At the end of it, I think they got the basics, but I can excuse them for having trouble with the specifics. Hay, I’m hazy on the specifics right now. I’ve had Spike send another letter to Princess Celestia, but I’m still waiting on the reply. I was hesitant about telling the Princess about the time traveling last time, but in typical Princess fashion, she told me I should stop worrying about what her reaction would be and to trust my own judgment.
Oh, Dinky was fine, by the way. She seemed a little dizzy, and was a little confused as to why we were coming out of the basement and why that weird shouty magician from last year had gone galloping out of the building, but I was able to convince her that the whole thing was a weird but known magical event. Naughty of me, I know, but bright as Dinky is, what I don’t want is her proudly going around telling everypony that her mother’s been time-traveling.
So while I’m waiting for that reply, I’ve got some prophecy details to recap, plus a new(?) prophecy that might have been written by Stalleonardo da Colton himself.
Trixie’s prophecy, caped pony facing a monster: PASSED; I can only assume this was me as I was waiting for the Ursa Major to open its mouth.
Trixie’s prophecy, foal’s drawing: PASSED; I was right in guessing that Trixie drew this as a foal, though not that it would actually be me in the drawing. An image like that leaves a lasting impression on a pony, especially a filly like her. I’ve got the awful feeling that this is the reason she wears a cloak and hat most of the time.
Trixie’s prophecy, me and Trixie: PASSED; This must have happened just before I woke up from the snoozeberry power nap. The whole triumph thing must just be pride over not falling asleep herself.
All of that is tantamount to one thing; Trixie’s gloating over prophesizing ‘defeating’ me was just another boast, intentional misinterpretation of what she’d predicted. She’d assembled the images into a narrative that put her in the spotlight, and it just aggravated her to no end when she realized that none of it was true. It shows the difference between the two of us. I followed the Princess’s advice and waited for the prophecy to come to me, and while shocked the disparity between my speculation and what actually happened wasn’t really that big of a deal (more relieving than anything). Trixie intentionally tried to cause the conditions of her prophecy, and was outraged when she got it wrong.
Makes me wonder: Did da Colton ever run into a situation like that?
Speaking of, here’s the new prophecy, as transcribed by Spike, that was found on the complete sandstone slab in the Meditation Chamber, Canterlot castle, shortly before it was broken in the magic explosion incidents.
‘So when the day dawns on the great spark’s morn, the past will rise with a thousand eyes. When the chime is heard, fourth before third, do not put all of your faith in the star-shine that shows you everything. // Though the mage opens the life-bearer’s vault, the secret unleashed will not be her fault. The circle be writ, six into three split, Cross the city of nine hundred and ninety.’
I’d previously speculated on the first part, that which still exists in the Chamber, but seeing as I neither have that work with me nor do I think it relevant I’m not adding it to this journal. Instead, I’m looking at it with fresh eyes, and with the experience I’ve gotten over the last week or so.
‘So when the day dawns on the great spark’s morn’: No idea, really. Great spark? Is this my explosion again?
‘The past will rise with a thousand eyes’: Again, no clue. It talks about the past, probably in reference to time traveling, but the thousand eyes part stumps me. I can’t recall reading about any thousand-eyed beast anywhere. …With any luck, this isn’t a beast that pops out whenever ponies mess around with time travel too much.
‘When the chime is heard, fourth before third’: It’s easy to think there’s logic issues here, but once time travel becomes involved it gives you a new perspective on it. I may be wrong here, and probably am, but I’ve heard a bell ring twice in the past couple of days - the bell on top of Princess Luna’s telescope. It rang once when we were in the mine in 1001 (fourth), and once in the Chamber in 990 (third). From my point of view, I heard the fourth chime before the third one.
‘Do not put all of your faith in the star-shine that shows you everything’: Some sort of revealing light, and not trusting what it shines on? Still got no idea here.
‘Though the mage opens the life-bearer’s vault’: It’s pretty obvious by now that mage = Trixie, so this is where she becomes relevant again. ‘Opens’ is a key word that links back to ‘The iris opens up the gate’ from my prophecy, which featured Trixie’s clasp/charm. Trixie will use that charm (is it called an/the Iris? Must check on this) to open the gate to this vault, wherever it is. ‘Life-bearer’ could mean any one of a number of things under the circumstances, a mother, the sea, the planet, and so on.
‘The magic unleashed will not be her fault’: This calls the question of what exactly is in that vault? Whatever it is, this prophecy doesn’t want us to blame Trixie for it. I wonder if Prophetia will lead her there. Either way it’s likely dangerous and should be located as soon as possible.
‘The circle be writ’: Drawing magic circles is antiquated but still an acceptable form of spellcasting.
‘Six into three split/Cross the city of nine hundred and ninety’: Running into the number six in these things normally references the Elements of Harmony. Splitting them across a city - I suspect this literally means Canterlot, CE 990, as there’s at least one part of my prophecy there that hasn’t yet ‘resolved’ by way of forcing its way out of my mouth in a weird voice.
Data is data is data. I now have this to refer back to when necessary. I don’t know if it’ll become necessary, but as has been proven time and time again, there’s absolutely no harm in having it just in case. Tomorrow is the hospital charity drive, and I promised to help with that, so to allow time for my head to stop hurting, and to gain fresh eyes on the whole thing, this prophecy business is now officially on the backburner. The next day is all about ponies in need who aren’t occupied with talk of prophecies and time travel and who knows what else.
Twilight Sparkle out. (I’ve always wanted to say that.)
I wonder if I’m going to have the dream again tonight?