It’s not the sort of thing you should forget, standing in a room while magic pours back into a wound that even as it fills up is being healed over. But the fact of the matter was that over the time she’d been in 990, Twilight had forgotten, and the magic rush surrounding her was giving her a rude reminder. How could she have been so blind to the fact that the rush had been nowhere near dying down when they’d left?
Thankfully, it wasn’t anywhere near as severe as it had been when the magic was flowing out, so the others weren’t affected, mostly anyway. Rarity was clutching her head in pain, but what she was feeling was probably peanuts compared to what was going through Twilight’s head, which was lots and lots and lots of magic. It seemed to find a vacuum in her magic reserves and pour into every space it could until… until…
The magic needed burning off, and the usual method wouldn't cut it.
She knew a spell for that now…
Part of her was screaming at herself, trying to stop doing what she knew she was going to do anyway. Was this what da Colton felt, as he gained what he thought was mastery over the spell that made him and the spell that would eventually break him? But the other part… she had all this magic, and it shouldn’t go to waste, and she wanted to know…
The spell formed around her in an instant, and it obeyed her command. “Prophetia.”
It wasn’t like the first time; but the first time, she hadn’t been ready for it. She hadn’t become used to it. Instead of a rush of meaningless words and images, Twilight found herself simply stood there, in a courtyard in Canterlot. Ponies surrounded her, but they weren’t important. Some sort of procession was coming down the Broadway, heralds for—
She stood in the Crystal Empire. The Crystal Heart lay in shards at her hooves, as stormclouds rolled in. Princess Cadance was saying something, but it was lost on her ears. She was too busy watching.
She stood amid the burning remains of the Ponyville library. Pages fluttered to the ground. Her home was gone.
She stood at the heart of the pandemonium of the Grand Galloping Gala, watching the calamity play out before she’d even entered the room.
She stood in a house with another purple unicorn, who turned around and saw her—
She stood in a Manehattan theater in the 7th century. She saw herself and two pegasi, and Stalleonardo da Colton. The stallion sighed towards her past self, and turned to her now. “That’s not why the prophecy calls her that!” he shouted at her.
She stood at the edge of a cliff. In front of her a wall of fire was engulfing the world—
She stood in a dark cave, and she was very, very alone. She collapsed onto the ground. How could this be?
Somepony stepped in front of her. A black, chitinous leg, full of holes. Even though she knew she shouldn’t, she grabbed for it, something to hold onto.
She looked up.
Anthem smiled down at her. Then the tall unicorn spread her wings and bent down to Twilight’s ear—
“Twilight,” said Princess Celestia.
Twilight gasped. Prophetia was still whirling around her, threatening to drag her back into the future or the past with no notice, but for the moment she was back on the floor of the vault and she had her forelegs wrapped around one of the Princess’s. She couldn’t… she…
“Princess!” It was her own voice, but she spoke alongside the Twilights of the past and the Twilights of the future. “Please!” There was only one way out of this. “You need to cast Erasure!”
Princess Celestia nodded, and lowered herself down to Twilight’s level. “You only needed to ask,” she said softly. Then her horn lit up, and everything went white.
“No, that’s not how it works,” Twilight repeated to a horrified Rarity. “Erasure doesn’t mess with my memory. It simply detects when I’m in the process of starting to cast a spell that’s forbidden, and… stops me. Only the Princess can cast it and it requires the target’s explicit permission,” she added, hoping that would help. “I know that I know Prophetia, and the time travel spell, but when I go to find them they’re just… not there.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” said Rarity dubiously. “I hope I never have to find out for myself.”
Twilight patted her on the back. “As long as you don’t do what I did and go casting a spell that you’ve never seen before that turns out to be something that causes a lot of trouble for other ponies.” Her friend gave her an even more dubious look. Not that she could blame her. Twilight was no stranger to Erasure, but somepony just finding out about it probably would leap to the wrong conclusions, and a spell that actually edited your memory would of course be horrific. Good thing a spell like that would be something she wouldn’t touch with a barge pole.
Just as an extra precaution, Princess Celestia had delicately removed the page concerning Prophetia from da Colton’s workbook, and was just finishing up flicking through the rest of the pages that hadn’t fallen out in case there was something else in there that Twilight hadn’t even found. With any luck, if there was, Trixie hadn’t found it either. The Princess (along with Princess Luna and Spike) had entered the vault as soon as the magic rush calmed down enough to permit them, but there had been no sign of the magician on the surface. Given how persistent she'd been, though, there was little doubt she'd keep trying. At least there wasn't much need to worry too much about the Iris; at this point it was basically a paperweight, and, as the construct had said, it would survive.
As Twilight had guessed, Hoofington’s Equus Day celebrations were rather disrupted by the world magic going in both directions, but now that everything was approaching normal, they were more likely to blame the out of control magic on something mundane. Just like they were blaming the rainclouds that were suddenly over the square on the town’s weather patrol, who would no doubt be summoned up by Wind Chime for allowing something like this to happen. There was no pleasing that mare.
Sitting there, she realized that with everything that had been going on before - which in real time had only been about twenty minutes ago, but thanks to time travel, had actually been more like an hour and a half - she hadn’t really gotten a proper look at the vault, besides a cursory examination spell and the first impression. Above, the ceiling seemed far higher than it ought to be, with distant vaulted arches supporting… what was probably the courtyard, actually. Perhaps some of the smaller side areas ran under the museum, but there was no way the building could just sit on top without falling in. Then the blackness faded down into the blue-green lights that the Iris had activated, and which were now apparently powered by the magic plant. It was a vast space. She could only imagine what it looked like when the Lifebearer was still using it for… whatever she was using it for. The construct, Anthem, hadn’t looked like the sort of pony who’d hoard treasure.
If somepony were to ask Twilight, she’d say the pony had been more of a student or a researcher than anything. Takes one to know one.
Said magic plant was being heavily scrutinized by Princess Luna, who every now and then would make tutting noises, and mutter the word “stupid” under her breath. Planting a living organism directly into the leylines wasn’t stupid, Twilight thought. Inspired, maybe. A little reckless, sure, especially with the lack of safeguards, but imagine the benefits!
Or would the benefits already be out there? Would the Lifebearer have put the results from this into action before moving out of the vault in the first place? Gah, so many questions to which she’d probably never get the answers.
At this point her friends were all over the place. Rainbow Dash had retired to another of the siderooms for a nap; Pinkie Pie was regaling Spike with a heavily embellished account of their adventure; Fluttershy was with Princess Luna at the plant, occasionally offering insight; Rarity had wandered off in search of ‘any fabric’ to get inspiration from; Applejack was doing her own measurements of the main chamber, walking from one side of the room to the other then shaking her head, apparently dissatisfied with the results, and then repeating the action. They were way past due for a break. And now Twilight had the chance for one too.
“Breathtaking, isn’t it?”
Twilight nearly jumped at the sound of Princess Celestia’s voice as the alicorn walked up behind her. “Princess!”
“Here.” The workbook levitated down, and Twilight carefully took it in her own magic. “It should not be much of a problem any more.”
Flicking through it, Twilight noticed, with a little relief, that some of the pages on artefacts which she’d skimmed over and expected to be removed were still there. It sort of made sense. Some of them included sketches of said artefacts, and it would be helpful to know if somepony picked something up and it turned out to be a doomy evil thing of doom. While she was thinking about it, she made a note in her thought journal to cast another return charm on it, but this time to bind it to the library itself. That way it couldn’t go walkabouts. Oh, and she needed to ask the Princess to visit the library too just to make sure none of those loose pages had anything dangerous on them as well—
Then an implication of the Princess’s first sentence hit her. “Princess?” she ventured.
“Yes, Twilight?”
“Have you been here before?”
Princess Celestia sat down beside her, and closed her eyes. “Once, a very long time ago. It is a place I never thought I’d see again.”
“You mean you knew the Lifebearer?”
A nod. “She was a very talented pony named Anthem.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. Wasn’t that the… “But I spoke to a construct in the Iris that resembled the Lifebearer, and she said that Anthem wasn’t her real name…!”
The Princess smiled at her knowingly. “Did she?”
She did… Twilight was about to say. But, now that the Princess was drawing attention to it, she didn’t.
“Perhaps it is best if I do not tell you my real name… You may call me Anthem.” Nowhere had the construct said that Anthem wasn’t actually her name. Twilight had thought she implied that, but… Another thought occurred. In the tower with Reeds, the Iris had actively prevented her from lying. She’d thought that was just a quirk of the magic, a little sage advice. But maybe that was how the Life-bearer… how Anthem acted. She’d never told any untruths, just phrased things in such a way that you misconstrued her meaning.
Just like she’d made Twilight act towards Reeds, actually.
“Anthem was an incredibly talented botanist,” the Princess continued. “It may not look like it now, but this was once similar to a greenhouse.” Twilight looked up, and imagined open air above them, natural light shining down onto their faces. “Some of today’s more unique plant life was cultivated within these walls, several species rescued from the brink of extinction. It was that skill for which she was given her title. I do not know why she abandoned this place, however, or what she would have been working on last.”
Incredibly talented was an understatement, if she was able to pull off something like that magic plant. Now Twilight was imagining a jungle surrounding them, and Anthem walking between rows of colorful flowers and trees. She almost wished she could time travel back again just to see it.
Thinking of time travel… Twilight set her expression. Now was the time for some answers. “Princess, how long have you known?”
“Known about what?”
“The time travel.” After everything, there was no way she didn’t know. Sensing Princess Luna in 611, collecting the painting in 656, sending the painting to Rainbow Dash, the letter which Twilight had sent her about the column…
Princess Celestia chuckled. “Not as long as you might think. I had my suspicions, of course. The letter you sent me about the lake was a little confusing, I admit, but once I had time to work it out, everything fell into place.”
“But the painting—”
“Ah. I thought you might bring that up.” The alicorn hummed to herself for a moment. “Let me tell you a little story. Three and a half centuries ago, I was asked by a good friend to visit his city.” She sighed. “It was burning.”
“The Great Fire…” Twilight murmured.
“Yes. But more specifically, he asked me to catch a falling star, and when I got to the city, there was indeed a falling star, and something else falling as well.”
That something else would be the painting, and… oh. The falling star was her. Twilight blushed.
“While I never found where the star landed, I caught a painting, with a book jammed into its frame. Tucked inside the book, on the back of a sheet of paper detailing some magic-nullifying stone—” oh, Twilight had forgotten about that! “I found another letter, that gave me instructions on what to do with them. I was to hide the book in the library in a town called Ponyville, and to store the painting, covered by a cloak, until I knew who to send it to.
“He also gave me one more instruction. One of the pages in the middle of the book was blank, and I was to copy a spell into it.”
She was trying not to let it show, but the unicorn’s mind was reeling. So da Colton had written that letter on the back of that paper about the stone, knowing she’d pick it up, and knowing it would make its way into the Princess’s possession? And— so the Princess put Prophetia in that book? To be honest in the rush to get to Hoofington she’d forgotten clean about the page burning up. So it wasn’t a closed loop! “So who did write Prophetia?”
“Who do you think?”
“Star Swirl the Bearded.” Who else could it have been? It was his time travel spell, and Prophetia had used elements from it. The actual solution was the obvious one, it just wasn’t one she had considered.
Something still wasn’t right. Twilight frowned at her mentor. “I can’t believe you’d just let your student do something like that.”
“Ah,” said the Princess again. “A little embellishment of the history books, I’m afraid. Stalleonardo da Colton was not, in truth, my first student.” Twilight’s jaw dropped. “I offered it to him,” she clarified. “But he refused. I believe he was already aware where his true destiny lay. I began calling him my student out of respect afterwards, perhaps in a little wishful thinking, and began the School for Gifted Unicorns to help guide bright young fillies and colts in his honor. Do you know what became of him, in the end?”
Twilight remembered. How could she forget? “He told me the history books don’t mention everything, and ran off.” A rather inglorious end to such a great stallion, really, even given that in the end he tried to overthrow the Princess. “He asked me to ask you what happened in 617.”
It was only for a fraction of a second, but Twilight knew her mentor, and she was sure that for a moment the Princess was scared. But it was too late to retract the question, it was out there, and whether she got a response or not, she knew that something happened then.
There was a resigned sigh. “In 617, I… I made a mistake, one I paid a heavy price for.” Princess Celestia looked up at her sister, who was now watching them from a distance but clearly listening to everything. “I lost hope. I was convinced that there was only one way my rule would end, and…” she swallowed. Nopony should ever see her like this, Twilight realized. Then the Princess sighed again. “But da Colton saved me, and taught me a very valuable lesson. He showed me that no matter how impossible the situation may be, I should never lose hope. That was why I respected his wishes; I trusted him to do the right thing. And look; now I have my sister back.”
Princess Luna wasn’t crying. She very definitely wasn’t crying, because she was clearly making an effort not to. To be honest, Twilight felt like crying a little too. She had no idea how hard it had been for her teacher to be essentially alone for a thousand years. Why would da Colton want her to ask about this, if it only brought Celestia pain to think about it?
Past truth… “There’s something else, Princess.”
“Hmm?”
“When I cast Prophetia the first time, I saw you, and there was a line about you seeing a ‘past truth’.” Really hoping it wasn’t another painful thing, Twilight plunged on. “Then I saw you in the gardens on the day of the sonic rainboom in 990, and you had that same expression on. What was the truth you saw? Um, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“It’s quite alright, Twilight.” The Princess’s bright mood from earlier had returned, thankfully. “Da Colton built me a water clock to count down to my sister’s return.” Princess Luna raised an eyebrow. “Despite his assurances, I think deep down I was not entirely convinced it would happen. Then I saw the sonic rainboom, and the build-up to your explosion, and for the first time I truly believed I’d see Luna again.”
For her part, Princess Luna seemed unwilling to meet her sister’s gaze. It seemed both of the royal sisters had things they’d rather not tell each other.
Deciding she’d better leave them alone for a while, Twilight got up and headed back into the room with the plant, as she’d remembered something else she’d seen in there. It was still there; amongst the magical construction frames was the other book. Unlike the workbook, it was covered in dust, and it didn’t look like Trixie had even touched it. Was it another thing that had been left in here?
Cautiously, Twilight lifted and opened the book. One thing was for sure - if it contained any spells, any spells at all, she was taking it directly to Princess Celestia. The first few pages were covered with atrociously bad horn-writing, which she could barely read. A few words she could pick out and translate, like ‘species’ and ‘food’, but as soon as she thought she was getting somewhere with a sentence it ran directly into another one, and the meaning was immediately lost. A couple of the pages even looked like they had no punctuation at all. If this was a book from before the vault was abandoned, one that belonged to Anthem, was this her writing?
Then after six pages the rest of the book was completely blank.
Not a thing. No hidden magical words, nothing that would suggest some sort of invisible ink, or even any hints that the writing had just faded. It was as if Anthem had gotten six pages into the book, and then packed up and left. Frowning, she flicked back to the last page that had been used, and tried to read it.
There is no [something something something] ready for at least [something] see [’air furnace’, doesn’t translate, maybe a name] [something] LORDS [something] finally understanding eternal… she blinked. What? No. She had to be mistranslating that. Eternal life?
“…Princess?” she said aloud, not taking her eyes off the book for a second in case she was reading it wrong. “Can you come and take a look at this?”
She’d addressed the question to Princess Celestia, but instead Twilight got both alicorns. Well, they did both know Anthem, if Luna’s reaction to the dream had been any indication. They would be the ponies to ask if she had been looking to achieve… gulp… “I think,” Twilight said, her voice wavering slightly, and lifting up the book to show them, “Anthem was looking into eternal life.”
Both Princesses shared a glance, then the elder sister lifted the book out of Twilight’s magic and stared at the page intently for a while. Hopefully she’d have a better chance of deciphering what was written there, and could tell Twilight that she’d just made a simple mistake. Right? They would tell her that’s not what she actually wrote, right?
Oh dear.
“Oh dear,” muttered Princess Luna, once she’d been shown the relevant passages. “Such a stupid pony.”
Princess Celestia glared at her sister, then returned her attention to Twilight. “Your translation is close enough. It seems she was indeed in pursuit of the secrets of eternal life.” Now it was Princess Luna’s turn to glare, and the unicorn got the feeling that there was a bigger picture she wasn’t being told about. “As I said, Anthem was unmatched for her botany skills, but she did spend most of her life quite ill. Eternal life would certainly cure that problem.”
A possibility had occurred to Twilight, one that was both exciting and very concerning. “Do… do you think she succeeded?”
“I would like to think that she’s hiding just out of sight,” chuckled the Princess. “And given that we woke up one morning and she was gone, I wouldn’t put it past her to have achieved it. Wishful thinking, perhaps.”
Twilight’s brain was working at full capacity. Another thing that the construct had said in the Meditation Chamber had just gone click. She’d asked Anthem if she was called the Lifebearer, and her first response was ‘Was?’… past tense. At the time Twilight had thought it was just a momentary misinterpretation of the question, but if Anthem had managed to attain eternal life prior to the construct’s creation in 468 ERC (whenever that was), then the construct would have no reason to believe that the real Anthem wasn’t still around…
Still, the more she thought about it, the more far-fetched it seemed. Anthem seemed to have been Princess Celestia’s friend; if she had been alive during Princess Luna’s exile on the moon, wouldn’t she have supported her? There would surely be tales about such a talented botanist, and from what she’d seen, the legend of Mistmane was referring to somepony completely different, and it was also too old. If she were still around, there would be more recent stories, but there were none.
Gahhh, too many questions that would have to go on the backburner.
“I am sure if she were still with us she would have made herself known by now,” Princess Luna put words to Twilight’s thoughts, though she still didn’t seem too happy. Maybe, despite being friends, she and Anthem didn’t get on too well. “It is no use dwelling on the past, sister.”
“And I completely agree with you, Luna. Let’s leave the past to the past, shall we?” The elder sister smiled at Twilight, the warm smile that Anthem had also worn. “I think I shall find that scroll in the Canterlot Archives and secure it properly.”
She wasn’t sure what made her ask the question. Maybe the stupidity was infectious, or maybe it was just because she couldn’t leave well enough alone. So Twilight blurted out “Princess, did you ever use the time travel spell?”
Between the two alicorns, the silence was so thick you could have cut it with a cake knife. Ooh. Bad question.
“Sorry, I—”
“Of course I did.”
“What?!”
“WHAT.”
Twilight wasn’t sure who was more surprised, herself or Princess Luna. Either way both of them were staring at Princess Celestia with their jaws almost on the floor. But— wait— she did?! When?!
With a furtive glance to make sure none of Twilight’s friends were listening, Princess Celestia beckoned them closer. “In the days following Nightmare Moon’s banishment, I was distraught,” she said quietly. “I found the spell and I used it, hoping to change something. But the more I tried to change, the more things stayed the same. Did you notice, Twilight, that every action you performed in the past always contributed to the way the present has always been?”
“Well, yes…”
“I examined the spell after my attempts failed. Star Swirl was far too smart to write such magic without creating safeties.” The Princess shook her head. “Those safeties make it impossible to cast the spell if it would lead to a paradox. Essentially, unless you already appeared in the past, you cannot travel there.”
That did make some degree of sense… If Twilight were writing it, that would be the way she’d do it, like her concept of viewing the past rather than interacting with it, only, well, with more interaction. If you went into the past, you were as much a part of events the way they originally were as when you were there living it. Still, to hear that Princess Celestia tried to change time like she had… unnerving as it was it made her feel a little better about casting the spell herself. Both of them had cast the spell to fix a mistake they had each made, and…
“Do you mean to say,” said Princess Luna slowly, struggling to maintain a level of skepticism, “that your time traveling caused—”
“No, no.” Princess Celestia held up a hoof to cut her off. “In the end, I was never able to get close enough to make a difference.” She made eye contact with her sister. “Rest assured that you had no contact with my future self. I tried to be subtle. Too subtle, as it turned out.” A sigh. “I think I was possibly too afraid to risk changing anything bigger.”
Yeah… Twilight knew how that felt. She still maintained that it was dangerous to go into the past under the mindset that nothing you did would ever make any changes to the timeline you left, but once she’d discovered that time travel was involved this time, until she’d got it into her head that she could somehow rescue Stalleonardo da Colton, especially during the detour to 611, she’d been terrified that she’d say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and… Was it any more relieving to know that there were no mistakes with time travel? No, not really.
This was probably going to have to be the end of any questions. She’d been pushing it with that last one, and really the last thing she wanted to do was dredge up more unpleasant memories, again. Besides, she still had an appointment to make.
“Well,” said Princess Celestia brightly, standing up straight again. “This has I think been an enlightening day for all of us.” She spoke louder this time, to attract the attention of the others. “But, I think, it is time to leave. We wouldn’t want to miss the rest of Equus Day, after all.”
At the mention of the day’s event, Pinkie Pie’s ears went to full alert, and she gasped much louder than was necessary. “I totally forgot! Guys!” She grabbed Rarity bodily. “We gotta get back to Ponyville so we don’t miss the rest of the party!”
“And I—” Rarity strained trying to free herself from the earth pony’s grip, and failed. “I need to— Pinkie, will you put me down? I need to schedule an appointment at the spa as soon as possible.” She sniffed, then wrinkled her nose. “Or, failing that, just a bath.”
“I need to make sure all my animal friends are okay,” added Fluttershy. “Angel’s been feeling unwell lately.”
One of them was already on the move. “I must return to Canterlot immediately,” said Princess Luna, clearly keen to put some distance between herself and the vault. Those were some awfully purposeful strides she was making. “There is a… pressing issue within the Night Guard that I need to resolve. Again.”
As the rest of them began moving towards the exit, and she tuned out the conversations of the others, Twilight realized that they weren’t going to be able to get back in when the door sealed behind them, they didn’t have the Iris any more. That meant that the magic plant would be trapped down here again for… well, until Trixie decided she was going to play ball, and nopony would get a chance to study it. Very disappointing. On the other hoof, given what had happened when said magician had tried to do something with it, maybe it was for the best that it was left alone. You really didn’t want anypony with ill intentions to enter the vault and try doing something with the plant, or worse, the world magic. Telegraphing the position of what was essentially a plugged hole in the leyline network would be a really bad idea.
It seemed a real shame that nopony knew what had happened to Anthem. Did she really reach her goal of eternal life, and was she out there, somewhere? Try as she might, there was something in the back of Twilight’s brain that just refused to process something. Anthem’s voice… now that the possibility at least partially existed that she was still around, she was more sure she’d heard it somewhere before. It wasn’t amongst her group of friends, no; each of them had a distinct place in her mind, and she would definitely know if one of them was an immortal botany expert. Neither was it either of the Princesses, though there had been some similar tones in there, like Princess Celestia’s mothering voice.
In fact, she wasn’t even sure she’d heard her before on this adventure.
Argh, it was right there! Come on, what was she trying to remember, it was right in front of her—
Something caught her attention, and she looked up. Next to the entrance of the vault, where some of the lines of light ran down to clearly mark the exit, was a sort of pentagonal diagram with six circles, one at each point, and one in the centre. Some of the circles had differently-colored lights in. A fancy light fixture, some sort of pictogram - but then Princess Luna left the room, and one of the lights, the central blue one, went out. So, what, was it a pony detector? Lights on, somepony’s in the vault, that kind of thing? But there were only three lights left on now, and there were seven ponies and a dragon in the room still.
Pink in the bottom left, cyan in the upper left, and green at the top. Plus the blue one in the middle that had been on when Princess Luna had been in—
Twilight’s gaze shot left to Princess Celestia’s mane. Multicolored, but still predominantly pink. That blue one, she couldn’t un-see the color of Princess Luna’s star-filled mane. Green, at the top… that was a dead ringer for Anthem’s. Why was it on?
Why was the green light on?!
Suddenly scared, Twilight stopped and turned around to stare at the empty vault. Nopony was with them, and yet… was she in the room anyway?
“Twilight?”
Shaking her head, she turned back. Princess Celestia was waiting for her just inside the threshold, looking at her questioningly, there was the sound of the others’ chatter disappearing up into that corridor outside, and the lights— only the pink one was left on, and the rest of the lights in the vault were dimming down. What?
“Princess?” she asked cautiously, looking left and right, suddenly afraid that for some reason she might get tackled by Anthem even though that made no sense whatsoever. “Have you got the feeling that you’re being… watched?”
The Princess’s brow went up. “Not at all. Is something the matter?”
“…No, it’s nothing.” Twilight didn’t want to get her hopes up in case it turned out to be nothing. Not to say she wasn’t going to investigate it, of course. It was over a thousand years old; maybe the spell was on the fritz and it was just, oh, picking up the presence of Spike or something. Yeah. That was probably it. That was much more likely than either one of her friends secretly being an ancient sword-wielding botanist or said ancient sword-wielding botanist being invisible and sneaking around behind them. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Of course, the Princess knew that meant she was going to investigate something, but thankfully she seemed content to let it go. “Do not take too long.” Then she was gone, and as she crossed the threshold, the last light winked out.
Immediately Twilight shot over to the diagram and cast an analysis spell on it. Unlike the one she’d cast before to analyze the whole vault, this cast was much more localized, so she got the results back almost instantly. Then she cast the analysis spell on it again, because there was no way that could be right.
It detected ponies, yes, but… ponies with… alicorn magic?
Yes, that would explain the Princesses, but Anthem? She was just a unicorn! She didn’t have wings! All she had was that green cloak that… actually… would have covered anything that would have been on her back, so… uh… No. A fourth alicorn was so far-fetched she didn’t even know where to begin. Furrowing her brow, she tried to go deeper into the detection spell that turned the lights on in the first place, looking for some sign that she was wrong. She had to be. Magical signatures. But then that— Five of the six lights, all except the bottom right, which didn’t appear to be tied to anything, were tied to recognizably alicorn signatures. Five?
Screwing up was bound to happen at some point along the line, and this time, it happened when Twilight tried to pry a little deeper into those signatures.
A cloudless night below a full moon—
Agh! Startled, she jumped back. Nothing had changed, but… she’d just gotten some sort of sensation out of the darker blue light, which made no sense. Well, yes, Princess Luna was the sovereign who raised the moon, but… She tried Princess Celestia’s. The heat of the afternoon sun. Cyan. A cool breeze on a summer’s day. The top right one, which had never turned on, but she could now somehow tell that it was purple. The sound of the tide rolling on the beach.
Then Anthem’s at the top. Soothing relaxation, the same sensation the Iris had given off.
…Five doors around the round table. Sun/Moon. Lightning bolt bisecting a cloud. Wave. Spoked wheel. Flower.
Did that really mean—
“Twilight?”
Snapping back to reality, Twilight shook her head. She’d been going at that longer than anticipated and the lights in the vault were brightening and why were the green and cyan lights back on—
“Anthem?! Is that you?!” she called out, spinning around.
Rainbow Dash blinked back. “Uh, who’s Anthem?”
Twilight stared at her friend, who had obviously come back in to find her, and for whom the lights had now switched on again. No. Rainbow Dash was Rainbow Dash, she wasn’t— there was no way that— Come on! She practically got a face full of the pegasus’s magical signature every time she did a sonic rainboom, and there was no alicorn magic there, let alone the magic of two alicorns! So why did she activate both lights?!
“Uh, Twi? Are you okay?” Rainbow waved a hoof in front of her eyes, which were rapidly unfocusing as she tried to work out just what in Tartarus was going on. “Hello? Equus to Twilight!”
No, it was okay. The spell was just broken, that’s all. It was looking for alicorn magic but it was finding Rainbow Dash instead. No problem at all. Oh but now all Twilight could concentrate on was that shade of green which if she thought about it was pretty much the same green in her friend’s mane and did that mean that— hey! She swiped Rainbow’s hoof away from her nose. “What was that for?”
“You were kinda zoned out, Twilight, like super zoned out. You sure you’re okay?”
“…Yeah, I’m okay.” Except she wasn’t. “Hey, uh, Rainbow Dash?”
“Yeah?”
“Do the words ‘rest calm and remember me’ mean anything to you?”
Rainbow appeared to consider this for a moment, though she was thoroughly confused while she did so. “Uh, should it? Don’t think so…”
For a moment, Twilight wondered if she was lying. Then… no. She’d known Rainbow for long enough to know when she was having to come up with a lie on the spot, and she was completely baffled by the question. She had no idea what it meant. But what did that mean?
“Come on, everypony’s waiting for us.” The pegasus walked around beside her and started guiding her towards the exit. “You can hang around in creepy old vaults as long as you want after we get some lunch or something.”
“But—”
“Aw Twilight, come on! Give it a rest already!”
As the two of them stepped over the exit, Twilight felt a slight shiver, and she looked back over her shoulder to see once again the lights of the vault fading. A few steps further, beyond the larger gate, and there was a slight rumbling as the large portal swung shut with a sense of finality, the only illumination being the slot for the Iris, which now seemed very empty. She’d said it enough about the recent events, but it felt like it had been years since she used the Iris to open it.
Or, thinking about it, since Rainbow Dash used the Iris to open it… And on top of that, she found the way in, and she guessed it’d be hiding in plain sight…
No. She needed to stop thinking about this. Maybe the rainboom had something to do with alicorn magic and Rainbow Dash just got a bit of it, just like Spike did when he ate that magical gemstone that gave him the ability to send stuff to the Princess. Or hay, maybe Rainbow once ate a magical gemstone by accident, you never knew. There was a perfectly logical explanation somewhere.
By the time the two of them reached the small chamber under the statue base, Applejack was just jumping back down in to find them. “There y’all are,” she said, adjusting her hat. “What took you so long?”
“Twilight zoned out,” Rainbow explained, brushing past her and spreading her wings to prepare for takeoff. “Too much new magic stuff she wanted to look at.” Then she disappeared up through the stone— and just as immediately came down again, covered in water. “AJ! You could’ve told me it was raining!”
“Y’didn’t give me the chance,” Applejack deadpanned, obviously soaked through. Score +1 for Rainbow Dash’s attentiveness. “Everypony else’s taken shelter at the museum— she’s gone again.” A single blue feather spun in the dust that Rainbow’s second exit had kicked up. “Ready, Twilight?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Goodbye, vault of the lifebearer. Your secrets will remain for another time. There was no point in staying now. Twilight levitated Applejack back up out of the pit (how was she planning to get out if something had happened to them?) then teleported herself straight up and a few feet over to the right and into the rain.
In the rain, the museum plaza looked a lot like it had when Trixie had somehow cleared it. In places there were still ponies hurriedly trying to disassemble stalls, and every now and again a panicked pegasus appeared in the skies desperately trying to keep the clouds under control. Everypony else was sensible and had abandoned the open air for shelter.
It occurred to her after the run over to the museum’s steps that she could have teleported to save from getting too wet. +1 for Twilight’s attentiveness.
“And I thought it was supposed to be clear across Equestria on Equus Day!” Rainbow was complaining as she arrived, hot on Applejack’s heels. “Whose bright idea was this, huh?”
“The clouds appeared as my sister and I approached,” explained Princess Celestia. There was no sign of said sister; Princess Luna had obviously foregone the pleasantries and teleported straight back to the capital. “There were clear skies until then.”
Whoops. The color drained from Twilight’s face.
Spike noticed. “Twilight? Is something wrong?”
Twilight raised a hoof and opened her mouth to explain, took a moment to wonder how Rainbow would react, then went ahead with it anyway. “Uh, Rainbow Dash?”
“Yeah?”
“You know that rainstorm that went missing two weeks ago?”
“…yeah?”
The unicorn gestured upwards. “Found it,” she said weakly.
“What?!” Rainbow did a double take, then shot out into the rain and up through the cloud layer. Moments later she skidded to a halt beside them again. “Twilight! What did you do?!”
Sighing, Twilight tried to explain the cloud braking method she’d employed on the journey back from 990, as simply as she could without launching into all of the magical details. Bringing the clouds along with them had just sort of happened, and, considering that they’d still disappeared before, it was yet more evidence to the Princess’s conclusions about the time traveling spell. Another mystery, another solution.
“Aw, hayfeathers.” Rainbow tried to shake herself off, much to the annoyance of everypony else, and looked back up to where the Hoofington weather patrol was wrestling with the black clouds. “First Wind Chime’s on our case ‘cause of them going missing, and now she’ll be on at these guys for letting this happen even though it wasn’t their fault!”
“Leave Wind Chime to me,” said Princess Celestia, and about half of them jumped on account of having forgotten she was there, like it was easy to miss a pink-white alicorn who was half as tall again as they were. “I will meet with her on Monday. I’m sure I will be able to convince her to change her mind.”
“Thank you, Princess.” Even though she’d known that the Princess was going to deal with it already, Rainbow still sounded incredibly relieved. “The rest of the team are gonna be so happy when I tell them. (And then maybe they’ll stop stalking me,)” she added under her breath, earning her a reassuring pat on the shoulder from Fluttershy. “I’m gonna go help these guys out. I’ll catch up!” And with that she disappeared out into the rain again. Less than a minute had passed before the plaza was significantly brighter, and the rain was noticeably lighter. That pegasus worked fast even without her own team.
“Well then.” Princess Celestia stepped forwards. “A brief detour, but I at least need to return to Canterlot now. My sister’s issue was more pressing than my own, but I am not unexpected. The Equus Day celebrations won’t close themselves this evening.”
What time was it? With the trip out to the morning of May 21st, 990, Twilight had forgotten what time it was on April 22nd, 1001. There was no sun visible to tell the hour by, but a glance in through the museum doors to see a clock in the main hall revealed it was almost two o’clock in the afternoon. Wow, that had gone by. They’d missed lunch.
As if it was on cue, there was a loud growling noise, and Pinkie Pie clutched at her stomach in panic. “(Guys!)” she hissed. “We missed lunch!” Then her usual infectious smile spread across her face. “Last one to the Confectionery’s a wet blanket!” In a puff of Pinkie Pie-shaped smoke, the earth pony vanished.
Everypony else looked at each other.
“I’ve done enough running for one day, thank you,” huffed Rarity, leaning out from under the shelter. Wow, the rain above them had nearly stopped. “I will be walking.”
“Me too,” agreed Fluttershy. “Besides, I’d rather stick with one of you. I don’t remember the way.”
“Hay, if you’re both walkin’, Ah might as well walk too.” Applejack took a moment to wring some more water out of her hat. “Comin’, Twi, Spike?”
“You bet!”
“Absolutely.” Yes, she agreed with all of them. No more running today. Twilight turned, and bowed to the Princess. “Goodbye, Princess.”
Princess Celestia smiled. “Farewell, my faithful student, and all of you. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
Oh, Twilight planned to.
Enough with the prophecies, and trying to predict the future. Now, as the alicorn disappeared in a zap of magic, and four ponies and a dragon walked down the steps and into Hoofington’s main plaza, they were in the present. It was time to enjoy the moment, Twilight thought, as she told Spike her version of the day’s events eleven years ago, and ‘Hurricane’ Fluttershy tried not to blush as her nickname got mentioned. What a nickname to have. Pretty clever of Prophetia to know that nickname enough to call her that—
That’s not why the prophecy calls her that!
Stalleonardo’s voice leapt out of the past almost directly into her ear. But if that wasn’t why the prophecy called Fluttershy ‘Hurricane’, then why…
No. It was a mystery for another day. Prophetia was barred to her… they’d have to find Trixie at some point and hope that she didn’t overuse it. No way would she agree to have Erasure cast on her, not unless something drastic happened to change her personality. The Iris? It'd be nice to get that too, though given it had been part of Trixie's reality for eleven years, she might try holding onto it a lot harder. At the very least, Twilight had the workbook back, free from anything dangerous and vetted by the Princess herself. She really needed to have a proper read through it when they returned to Ponyville. What other kinds of fascinating artefacts did Stalleonardo foresee? Were they likely to appear in their time? Ooh, just the thought was making her excited again!
Her own stomach grumbled. Ah. But first, lunch. They all deserved it. Then, back to Ponyville. She had an appointment to make.