Once more two kites flew over the gardens of Canterlot castle. But these weren’t just any kites, one was a huge purple dragon and the other an Alicorn in a bit of a lighter shade of purple, the two of them flew together side by side, sharing the sky. It was almost a miracle that they could stay up the way they did without the help of any magic, they looked far too cumbersome to fly but somehow their handlers made it work. They floated along with the breeze, dipping and diving down, the dragon and pony in control of them making sure they didn’t accidentally bump into each other or have the lines tangle up.
“If you want to use your magic we can make them fight in midair. Or I could fly up there and join them!”
“I think I’m fine just like this, Spike.”
Starlight tugged on her line, getting the unwieldy kite to glide back and forth with far more grace than one would expect. Spike frowned and tried to emulate her but only caused his big dragon to wobble back and forth.
The giggling voice of Starlight reached his ears and he glared up at her.
“Sorry, Spike. You need a bit more practice before you can handle a kite like I can.” She patted his head.
Spike grumbled for a bit before a more thoughtful expression appeared on his face and he looked down at the ground in dismay. “Uh, Starlight? Celestia still seemed pretty depressed at breakfast didn’t she?”
Starlight grimaced. She held on to her line to keep it steady before sighing and responding to Spike. “Well… yeah. She did. But this was going to happen anyways even if I didn’t do anything. I’m sure she got really depressed and upset when Sunset left back in our timeline too.”
“She literally made frowny face pancakes.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that was weird.” Starlight shuddered at the memory of Princess Celestia’s very sad looking pancakes.
“We should do something for her, like surprise her with a gift or join her for dinner so she can talk with us. It’ll probably be good for her.” Spike suggested.
Starlight watched as the dragon kite lost its equilibrium thanks to Spike taking his attention away from it for too long. She carefully maneuvered it in the sky with her magic to make sure it didn’t fall or crash into her kite until the wind caught under its wings again.
“Easy there for a second, Spike. You’re losing control of your kite.” She told him.
“Huh? Oh.” He quickly tried to get back in form with it. “Sorry, just got all that other stuff on my mind now.”
“I know. We can wrap up here in a minute if you want and then head inside. We’ll think of something nice to do for Celestia back in our room.” She smiled at him.
Kite flying was Starlight’s go to activity for relaxing and getting rid of stress. She was sad to say that she simply didn’t have enough time for it back in the present. Even before she took up her job as guidance counselor she was a little embarrassed about her hobby for a while and didn’t get to indulge in it that much. It was nice that even though this vacation had taken a few wrong turns and had been a bit hectic at times she still had a few moments like this.
Spike slowly started to reel his kite in, making sure it didn’t go off on its own or hit any trees as he brought it down and Starlight soon followed. Taking plenty of time to reel hers in.
“I wish we could take these with us whenever we return to the present… future? Whatever.” Spike said as he carried his dragon kite back into the castle.
“We can make new ones once we’re back. I love making kites.” Starlight grinned at the thought, her Alicorn kite on her back.
The two of them sat in their room trying to come up with some ideas to cheer Celestia up. Starlight sat with a worn piece of paper in front of her, all her attempts at writing a letter met with frustration as every start to a sentence was crossed out. Spike was doing no better, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling surrounded by wads of crumpled up paper.
Starlight tapped her pen against the paper and sighed. How do you say “Sorry your student just disappeared” in a way that wouldn’t make the recipient cry?
“Maybe flowers?” Spike suddenly suggested from his prone position.
“Eh, not thoughtful enough.” Starlight rejected the idea. “We don’t even know what her favorite kinds of flowers are.”
There had to be some sort of nice gift that Celestia would really like from the two of them. Something that she’d love, something that fit the occasion, something the both of them could make or get and would help cheer her up too. But what?
Starlight’s eyes snapped wide open.
“Of course!” She yelled, jumping up in excitement and causing Spike to yelp in surprise.
“Gah!” He shot up, tail and wings sticking out and frozen in fright. “Don’t do that!”
“Sorry Spike, but I figured out the perfect gift to get Celestia!” Starlight pranced up and down on her hooves.
“Uh, okay, so what is it?” Spike asked the incredibly over-excited unicorn.
She bowed her head down to look him right in the eye. “A cake!”
“A cake?” Spike tilted his head and raised an eyebrow at her. “Really?”
Starlight rolled her eyes and started pacing around the room. “Think about it! Princess Celestia loves cake, cake is for special occasions both happy and sad, it’s the perfect pick-me-up food, it’s something we can personally make and more than that is something I know the both of us are good at making. It’s perfect!”
Spike tapped a claw under his chin, he had to admit that she had a point there.
Finally he shrugged. “Alright, I think you actually have a good idea there. Celestia would probably love a big cake right now.”
“Great, let’s get right to it!” Starlight grabbed Spike with her magic and set him on her back.
“What are you-”
“Fastest way to the kitchen.” She replied and with a pop teleported the both of them into the middle of Canterlot Castle’s currently vacant kitchen.
Spike was slightly disoriented but this was hardly his first abrupt teleport. He flapped his wings and jumped from off Starlight’s back. “Well I guess you were right about that. Should we even be in here though?”
Starlight shrugged. “It’s not like we’ve been expressly told not to come in here, and it’s for a good cause.”
“Yeah...” Spike shook his head but he had been through enough conversations like this to know that he wouldn’t get anywhere by arguing. He looked around the kitchen for a few seconds, everything had been put away by the cooks so they’d need to rummage through it for a while to find everything they needed. “So are you just going to magic it all together when we’ve got the ingredients?”
“Nope.” Starlight shook her head as she opened up a random cabinet. “This cake is gonna come from the heart. No shortcuts.”
“Alright, so what kind of cake?” Spike asked as he started pulling open drawers along the floor of the kitchen.
“It’ll be a chocolate base for sure, then we can decorate it with whatever frosting and put anything else that looks good on top.” Starlight walked over to a large pantry and opened it up to see a wide variety of ingredients and cooking instruments stacked up on its shelves. “Perfect! You keep looking over there, Spike. And tell me if you find the fridge.”
Starlight must’ve looked over a hundred boxes and packages before she found the cake mix nestled on one of the shelves.
“There you are.” She smiled and plucked it off the shelf and went back to looking for any other ingredients or utensils for cake baking that might be in here.
A minute later and Starlight and Spike had assembled an array of flour, sugar, eggs, milk, mixing bowls, whisks, pans, chocolate etc. etc. in preparation for making their big gift cake to Celestia. And this being one of Canterlot castle’s kitchens they had a truly monumental amount of ingredients that piled up on the marble counter like some sort of miniature mountain.
“How big of a cake are we making?” Spike had to ask.
“It’s Celestia.”
“Good point. Three levels at least?”
“It’s a start.”
Spike had made plenty of cakes on his own before and thanks to Pinkie Pie Starlight was more than capable of making one without the aid of her magic nowadays too. And the kitchen here was probably one of the best places for making a high-quality cake one could find in the first place. It took a lot of work but the cake design ended up coming together, three chocolate levels of diminishing size to make it look almost like a wedding cake with a more than generous amount of pink frosting coating the outsides. After that Starlight would draw on some flower designs and place plenty of strawberries and cherries along the edges. She and Spike were confident that even Pinkie Pie would be proud of the cake. And jealous. And upset that she didn’t get to eat it.
With just a little time they had already gotten the first and biggest layer of the cake mixed and put together.
“Careful now, Starlight.” Spike told her as she levitated the bottom layer of the cake into the oven.
“I think I can put a cake into an oven, Spike.” She grinned to herself and started wobbling the cake around. “Oh no, I’ve lost control of my magic!”
“Starlight!” Spike jumped forward to “save” the cake.
Upon which Starlight just pulled it up and let him fly right past it. “Hah, gotcha!”
Spike slid across the tile of the kitchen on his belly, glaring over his shoulder at her when he finally came to a stop. “Pff, yeah, yeah...”
After two more layers had been made and two more uses of the oven every layer had been baked to perfection and the construction of the cake began, Spike painting every inch of it with frosting while Starlight used a more delicate touch to smooth things out and work the designs in.
It took a really long time and a few messes but the cake was coming along nicely.
“Do we put any candles or anything special on top?” Spike asked as he floated above it, surveying the cake from every angle.
“I was thinking of edible flowers actually. But I didn’t see any of those in here.” Starlight squinted hard at the cake to make sure not a single inch was out of order.
“I think we could probably just make some big frosting flowers.” Spike descended and grabbed the piping bag full of frosting, tossing it to Starlight.
“Thanks, Spike. I guess that’ll have to do.”
With the frosting and some food coloring Starlight was able to make a bouquet of roses at the very top of the cake. Red, yellow, white, and pink roses covering every inch of it.
“Wow, this actually came out really nice.” Spike said, hands on his hips in satisfaction.
Starlight wiped the sweat from her brow as she pulled back from the cake, finally finished with it.
“Wooh. Yeah, I’m even surprised with myself.” She smiled.
Sitting on the counter-top, anypony would agree that it was a pretty magnificent cake. The three layers made it as tall as Starlight herself and the pink frosting was immaculately spread over every inch, as smooth as an ironed dress. White trim went around the edges of each layer with strawberries and cherries spread at equal intervals and some very pretty frosting flowers and swirling designs across the top layer of pink frosting. And underneath it all was the most delectable of chocolate cake fillings one could ever want.
“Great work, Spike.” Starlight put a hoof over his shoulders.
“You too, Starlight.” Spike responded in kind the best he could, reaching a claw up to put on her back.
And then a loud crackling noise erupted in the kitchen, arcs of lightning appearing in thin air and a white sphere suddenly phasing into existence over the cake. It was at first only the size of an apple but it kept growing larger and larger until it could easily fit a pony into it with no problem. The formerly white sphere also started alternating between every color of the rainbow, bathing the entire kitchen in a myriad of lights, before finally settling on translucent.
At which point a purple Alicorn fell out of the sphere and right onto the cake, smashing it into oblivion. Its remains splattered across the kitchen and all over Starlight and Spike’s stunned faces.
“Ugh, that was not a smooth ride. And did I fall into a cake?! Why did I fall into a cake?!” Twilight said as she stood up from the destroyed cake, her mane and coat absolutely soaked in bits of cake and frosting.
Starlight and Spike looked at each other, the shock of Twilight’s sudden appearance and the destruction of their cake making them both a little tongue-tied. The sphere she had come out of had also promptly disappeared.
Finally Starlight decided to end the silence. “Hey Twilight.”
Twilight’s eyes opened wide and her head snapped forward, looking down from on top of the kitchen counter at her number one assistant and her own faithful student.
She couldn’t help but tear up a bit as she lunged off the counter and crashed into them, crushing them in a big hug.
It’s a good thing there was already plenty of cake on all three of them.
“Starlight! Spike! I finally found you!” She yelled as she squished all of their faces together.
“T-Twilight… can’t… breathe!” Spike struggled to get out as the force of Twilight’s hug started to crush his ribs.
“Oh! Sorry.” She released them and jumped back, blushing. “I got a little bit over-excited.”
Twilight finally took the moment to look around, noticing that there was now splattered cake everywhere and that they were inside one of the kitchens at Canterlot castle.
“Umm… I feel like I’m missing something but why are you here? And were you making that cake? Did I destroy your cake?!” Twilight said with increasing franticness.
“It’s not a big deal, Twilight.” Starlight tried to reassure her. “The cake was just going to be a gift to Celestia but, well, obviously more important things have come up.”
“Right, right.” Twilight started to calm down, mostly. “Okay. I can assume that for whatever reason you thought it was a good idea to come to Canterlot and meet Princess Celestia. I’ll trust your judgment there.” She unconsciously started pacing back and forth, causing Starlight and Spike to worry that she was about to have another one of her Twilight breakdowns. “I’ll also trust that you haven’t done anything to mess up the past, right? You both have enough sense and responsibility to know not to do anything like that. I’m sure you’ve been doing your hardest not to change anything, sure there have probably been some accidents and things done out of necessity but that’s forgivable.”
After finishing that last sentence she swung her head to look at Starlight and Spike, only a slightly manic looking smile on her face.
“Right?” She asked.
This was a rather cathartic moment for Spike. He could very easily get back at Starlight for all the stuff she’s pulled and the crazy shenanigans she’s put him through. It would be so easy to just tell Twilight the truth and throw his good friend under the bus. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and could tell that she had fully realized this as well, a fake smile frozen on her face while her eyes begged for pity and mercy as they bored a hole in his head.
Spike could only sigh. “That’s right, we’ve done a good job of not changing anything. Starlight and I have been really responsible.”
Twilight let out a great sigh of relief. “Whew, glad to hear. We all know that the slightest change can have horrible, unforeseeable repercussions.”
“Yep. Wouldn’t want anything like that to happen.” Starlight chuckled nervously and mouthed “Thank you” to Spike.
The look he gave back to her was one that told her she now owed him for life.
“I’m really glad to hear things have been alright with you, and I’m sorry it took so long for me to find you.” Twilight interrupted their little moment as she explained what had been going on. “First off I tried figuring out how you even did this on my own but the spell wasn’t the same as the previous one and I couldn’t figure it out, then it took forever to contact Starswirl and Discord was being absolutely no help at all, and then Fluttershy also went missing for a few weeks and nopony had any idea what happened to her, we had another problem with Parasprites and this time they were at the school, and the Cutie Map called everypony but me off on a mission so I had to run the whole school alone for days in-between looking for a way to find and rescue you two so I’ve been getting almost no sleep whatsoever!” Twilight finally stopped so she could breathe, sitting down and taking deep breaths in and out. “Sorry. It’s been hectic.”
Starlight and Spike now both really didn’t want to tell her how much they had been messing around.
“Okay then.” Twilight said after finally regaining her bearings. “It’s time to go back now though. I’m sorry about the cake but it’s best to head back immediately. Starswirl is on the other end at the Cutie Map, we’ll all go through a new portal and get back to where we belong. And when.”
“One question, Twilight.” Starlight raised her hoof.
“Yes?” Twilight raised a questioning eyebrow, wondering what problem Starlight could possibly have.
“Can we get this cake off of us first?”
Twilight looked down at her body that was still covered in bits of cake and frosting, along with Starlight’s and Spike’s. “Oh. Right.”
A quick use of magic to clean them all up and the three were ready to go back to their own time and put this whole awkward mess behind them.
“Alright, just stick by me.” Twilight said as her horn lit up, Starlight and Spike standing on either side of her.
The glowing portal appeared again, much more controlled from this side, and started expanding over their heads until it could easily swallow all three of them up. Wind kicked around them and the three were slowly lifted off their hooves (and claws) before suddenly jetting into the portal sphere of energy.
Space and time twisted and shook all around them, Starlight could only vaguely see the purple outlines of Twilight and Spike as she was pulled along with them through a kaleidoscope of rainbow energy. It felt like her whole body was being stretched to its limits and turned into rubber. Her mind was sent spiraling and spiraling downwards and somehow she “saw” the light at the end of the tunnel approaching faster and faster, the brightness completely overtaking her until-
She, Spike and Twilight fell out of the portal onto the hard ground. All three of them letting out grunts of pain.
“Gotta work on the landing for this spell.” Twilight said as she got up, rubbing her head.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Spike said as he got up, dusting off his legs. The dragon looked around, noticing that the portal had dropped them off on the ground right in front of Twilight’s Castle. “Why are we here?”
“What do you-” Twilight didn’t finish as she finally noticed just where exactly they were as well. Her eyes widened in shock and she spun around in confusion. “What?! We shouldn’t be outside, we should’ve been taken right back to the Map with Starswirl!”
“Er, Twilight?” Starlight said to get her attention as she too noticed something that was off. “I think we have another problem besides just where we are.”
Twilight turned to Starlight to see her pointing in the direction of the Friendship School.
Or to be more accurate the direction the school should be in.
“The school!” Twilight yelled, wings flaring outwards and holding her head in horror. “What happened to the school?! This should be the present, there’s no question about it! What’s going on?!”
“Uh, Starlight? Twilight?” Spike spoke from behind them. “There’s something else too.”
The unicorn and Alicorn looked back at him to see Spike staring and pointing up at the sky. Wanting to see what he was looking at they followed his gaze and stared up as well.
If it was possible, Twilight’s eyes grew even wider.
“B-But why?! Why is that happening right now?” Twilight was nearly stupefied as she watched the beautiful lights from the Crystal Empire dance in the sky.
“I… I don’t know either, Twilight.” Spike tore his eyes away from the lights and rubbed them. “But I feel kind of weird looking at them, like it’s giving me a headache or something.”
Twilight and Starlight both felt the same way, for whatever reason instead of the normal brilliance generated from the Empire that would fill a pony’s heart with positive emotions the lights currently in the sky almost made them nauseous.
“Just what...” Twilight grimaced as she fought the unpleasantness of the lights. “Just what in all of Equestria is going on here?!”