Rainbow screamed. She flailed madly until she fell and hit the ground. Jumping to her hooves, she wildly looked around.
She was standing in her bedroom at home, chest heaving and heart pounding. The bed's blankets sat in a heap around her legs. Outside, the morning sun shone across Ponyville.
The bedroom door burst open and Rarity ran in. "Rainbow, I heard that from clear downstairs! Whatever could be the matter?"
"What happened?!" Rainbow yelled. "Where's Starlight? Where's Twilight?" A realization struck her. She pressed her hoof to her side. It was decidedly flat.
"The foal! How long was I out?!" She grabbed Rarity. "Rarity, where is she? Please tell me she's okay." Tears formed in her eyes. "If something happened to her, I'd—I'd—"
"Rainbow!" Rarity said. "You're not making any sense. Look, the foal's right there."
Rarity put her hoof to Rainbow's side. Feeling it again, Rainbow noticed her sides did curve outwards, but were much smaller than they had been.
"Wh... what?" More vigorous prodding confirmed the presence of a smaller womb.
Rarity pushed Rainbow's hoof away. "Dearie, if you keep doing that, she's going to be born with a dent."
Looking into Rarity's eyes, Rainbow didn't see a hint of anger. "No, there was the Roundhill, and—and that thing with the sparkles, and Twilight and that bright beam... and... did I die?"
Rarity reached up and stroked Rainbow's mane. "It sounds to me like you had a bad dream."
Since she'd noticed, she felt that her belly lacked the weight that had become familiar. "A dream."
She stumbled out of the room in a daze, leaving her confused wife behind. "A dream." The calendar on the wall caught her attention. She flipped the page to the next month. Days that had been crossed off or written on were empty. If the calendar was correct, Rainbow's dream spanned a month and a half.
"No. That wasn't a dream. It couldn't have been." She flipped the page back to what was allegedly the present.
Rainbow hurried downstairs.
"I gotta talk to Twilight."
---
Rainbow pushed open the door to Twilight's map room. Inside, she found Twilight and Starlight looking over some books.
"Twilight!" Rainbow called.
"Oh!" Twilight looked up. "Hello, Rainbow. Is there anything we can help you with?"
Rainbow paused. Looking down, she said, "You don't know."
Twilight tilted her head. "Know what?"
Sitting, Rainbow put her hoof to her head. "About the Roundhill."
"What's a Roundhill?" Starlight asked.
"Something's wrong," Rainbow said. "Something is seriously wrong. There is some real freaky magic stuff going on."
Twilight and Starlight looked at each other. Then Twilight walked up and sat next to Rainbow. "I'm sure we can figure it out. Tell us what happened."
Rainbow took a breath. "You two were investigating some magic weirdness, and found out that it's coming from a place called Round Hill. But turns out Round Hill is a really huge creature that we called the Roundhill. You thought it was dead, like a hundred percent certain. Something about how big it is. But it's not. It's alive, and you woke it up. It killed you, it killed me, and the way those death sparkles were going, it killed everything."
She paused to breathe again. "And then I woke up and now it's a month and a half ago and I'm not as pregnant as I was. And all this is really weird, okay?"
"Round Hill?" Starlight asked. She levitated some scrolls and looked through them. "Round Hill, Round Hill..." she repeated, searching.
Twilight's eyes went to the floor for a moment before she looked back up. "You're saying you died in the future, then went back in time to today?"
"Yeah, something like that."
Standing up, Twilight said, "I'm sorry, Rainbow, but that simply isn't possible."
Rainbow's eyes widened. "What?"
"Time travel like that doesn't exist. You can't wake up as your younger self. Magic doesn't work that way."
Rainbow got to her feet. Again, the lack of weight in her belly was clear as day. "But you two have gone back in time like a dozen times."
"Yes," Twilight said, "Bodily. If you really time traveled, not only would there be a second Rainbow Dash from this time, but you would be another month and a half pregnant." She pointed at Rainbow's side. "And you're clearly not."
Starlight looked up from a scroll. "She's right. You'd be violating several fundamental laws of magic."
"I don't believe this," Rainbow said. "Twilight, please. I'm not making this up. This is some end of the world stuff going on."
Pacing back and forth, Twilight looked at Starlight. "Something does seem strange about this."
Raising a scroll, Starlight announced, "Found it! Round Hill might be the source of the disturbances. It's not very likely, but it's not impossible either."
With a sigh of relief, Rainbow said. "Good. I'm not going completely crazy. That's the place. That's where the Roundhill is."
Twilight hummed in thought, then said, "Assuming that's true, how did she come across this knowledge?"
Starlight scratched her chin. "A magic vision?"
"In a pegasus?" Twilight looked Rainbow over. "It's not unheard of. But visions only last a few moments. There's no way she could have one a month and a half long. Unless..." A book hovered off of the shelf and opened in Twilight's face. "The vision might have only been for a minute or two. Her mind wasn't able to recognize it for what it was, and her imagination filled in the gaps."
Stepping forward, Rainbow said, "So you're saying I'm not smart enough to know magic when it zaps me in the face."
With a forced grin, Twilight said, "It can be very hard to recognize visions, especially for pegasi and earth ponies. If your vision was particularly intense, then you could easily have mistaken it for your own experience. You have fuzzy memories of most of it as a result, I'm sure."
"I remember all of it crystal clear, Twilight." Rainbow's eyebrows dropped.
Starlight walked up to them. "We should hear Rainbow's account of her vision. Tell us what you saw the Roundhill creature doing."
"Yeah, all right." Rainbow closed her eyes and recounted the final moments of her life.
When she finished, she opened her eyes to see Starlight and Twilight taking notes.
Starlight smiled. "I think Rainbow's imagination filled in for more than a little of her vision."
"There are..." Twilight looked at Rainbow. "...a few issues with her account."
"Like the whole thing?" Starlight asked.
"Really?" Rainbow half-shouted.
Twilight's cheeks tinged red. "Explaining the impossibilities in, well, all of it would take quite a long time. But it's clear that something dangerous is at Round Hill, or somewhere like it. We just don't know exactly what."
Rainbow scoffed.
"We should investigate it, whatever it is," Twilight continued. "I'll arrange for a train to Round Hill. Starlight, you should come with me."
Turning to Twilight, Rainbow told her, "You'll need a shovel. Pinkie has one. Bring Applejack to help dig. It's not buried very deep.
"One more thing." Rainbow grabbed Twilight and looked her dead in the eye. "Don't use magic on it."
"Rainbow, we don't know what we might have to—"
"Promise me, Twilight." She shook Twilight's shoulders.
Twilight sighed. "If we find a massive black-shelled dead creature under Round Hill, we will not use any kind of magic on it, okay?"
With a smile, Rainbow said, "Thanks. You just saved the world." She let go and took off out the window.
Above Ponyville, she let herself glide. "What in Equestria is going on? I know what happened. I was there. It wasn't some fuzzy magic vision. I remember."
Rainbow blinked a few times, then rubbed her belly. "Do you remember?"
Looking ahead, she saw Carousel Boutique. "Rarity." Her flight faltered and she hovered in the air. "No, she doesn't remember. That never happened. Not to this Rarity. It was the other Rarity who said all that. Who..."
Rainbow sunk out of the sky, then landed on the ground. "Who I told that I refused to do what she said. Because it's my body. My body in some other future that's lying dead now."
Taking a shaky step forward, she quietly went on. "She yelled at me. I yelled at her. I flew away. And then I died. And she died. That was the last time we ever talked to each other. Before we died. That's how it all ended. I'll never be able to tell that Rarity I'm sorry. I'll never work things out with her, because we died. That's gone."
Rainbow walked, then galloped, then flew to the front door of her home in the boutique. She threw it open to see Rarity inside. Rainbow's vision blurred. She shot forward and wrapped her forelegs around Rarity. Chest heaving, Rainbow cried into Rarity's mane.
"Rainbow?" Rarity said. "What happened with Twilight, dearie? Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Rainbow choked out. "I'm okay. I'm just—I love you, Rarity. I love you so much."
She felt Rarity return the embrace. "I love you too, Rainbow. Now what's been going on with you today?"
Rainbow sniffled. "I'll tell you over breakfast, okay?"
---
Rarity set her fork down. "That's an... interesting story."
After taking a moment to eat another piece of toast, Rainbow asked, "So, do you believe me?"
"Rainbow, dearie, you know I love you and I trust you. But Twilight and Starlight are much better-versed in the ways of magic than either of us are. If they say it can't be true, then..."
Rainbow's face dropped.
Reaching a hoof across the table to meet Rainbow's, Rarity continued, "I'm sorry, but I'm sure they'll figure out what's really going on."
"Yeah." She felt a sensation that had long become familiar. "Oh. Rarity, can you get me up to speed on when exactly I am?" Rainbow pushed back from the table and stood up.
"I'm not sure I understand."
"We did the first round of shopping for the foal, right? But you wanted to stop until I got bigger." She looked at Rarity.
Rarity turned a little red. "I... believe the exact phrase I used was the size of an apple cart."
Tapping her hoof against the ground, Rainbow said, "Yeah, that's it! Has the foal kicked yet?"
"You said you weren't sure." Rarity's eyes went to Rainbow's side.
Rainbow smiled. "I'm sure now. She's kicking."
Rarity gasped and hurried to Rainbow's side, placing her ear against her side. Rainbow felt the fluttering inside again.
"I know you don't believe me," Rainbow said, "but I've had her kicking around in there for a month and a half. I know how it feels. In fact, since she's awake, I want to read to her for a bit."
Pulling away, Rarity looked up at her. "You read to her?"
"Yup." Rainbow straightened up. "Started doing that before that whole thing where I died. This time, I'm getting to that right now. I figure all those words and stuff will turn her into a smart little kid. I got a month and a half of my life back, and I'm using it to make our kid the best foal she can be."
"Oh, that's—" Rarity's eyes darted between Rainbow's face and her belly. "—rather sudden of you. Do you mind if I read to her, too?"
Walking towards the couch, Rainbow said, "Sure thing, babe. We'll trade off. Hey kid, you get to hear your mom read to you, too. That'll be sweet."
Rarity smiled. "And you talk to her now. Also, you're her mother, dearie," she said, looking over a bookshelf.
"I don't care what you call yourself, you are her mother!" The words echoed through Rainbow's mind. The other Rarity had said that. The Rarity that this one became, during the fight that Rainbow hadn't told this Rarity about.
Rainbow's steps faltered. She shook her head. That fight never happened. It was gone, erased from time.
Laying down, she said, "Hey, bring over Daring Do and the Hippogriff's Eye. That's a classic."
Rarity had two books already in her magical grip. "Rainbow, have you only read Daring Do to her?"
"Yeah, why?"
Rarity sighed. "She is going to be born wearing a pith helmet. Perhaps some higher literature is in order." A copy of Threads of Fate drifted in front of Rainbow's nose.
"That one has some pretty big words in it," Rainbow said, adjusting her weight. "I don't think she knows them."
Bringing the book towards Rainbow's side, Rarity said, "She's a fetus, Rainbow. She doesn't know any words."
"Then what's the difference between that and Daring Do?"
Rarity glared at her, then opened the book. "Lightning flashed across the blackened sky..."