Come on everypony smile, smile, smile
Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine
There was a sharp crack as I hit the alarm to turn it off. I must have hit it harder than I thought, because I heard something spark and smelled a faint scent of burnt plastic. Looking over at the clock, the display was black. “Serves you right,” I grumbled. “There’s gotta be more than that one song on the radio.”
The clock flickered and resumed playing.
Yes the perfect gift for me
Is a smile as wide as a mile
I groaned and fished around behind the bedside stand and pulled the plug. “No point in trying to go back to sleep now.”
After a quick trip to the restroom I headed downstairs for breakfast, eager to cook a nice meal and drink a copious amount of coffee. I opened up the fridge to an interesting sight, it was empty. Everything I’d bought yesterday was gone.
Closing the door I went to the pantry, finding it was also mostly empty. No coffee, just some oatmeal and a little soup.
“Did someone break in just to raid my fridge?” I scratched my chin. “Maybe Dash came back and raided it. It has been a couple days.”
I looked around for any other signs somepony had been inside, but everything seemed to be in place. Upstairs I found my saddlebags near the mirror. Inside the bathroom my medicine cabinet also hadn’t been raided. It contained some semi-valuable medicines, and a lot of Zecora’s potions that could be used for fun times. One in particular was a fast acting poison joke potion, and another was an antidote. You never knew when something like that would come in handy.
“Well I’m either going crazy, or it’s time for Equestria’s bi-annual apocalypse.” A quick glance out the bathroom window revealed no changeling swarms, giant soul-suckers, cotton candy clouds, or zombies. “Or not.”
Downstairs I was able to find some depressing oatmeal to eat for the third day in a row. I went outside shortly afterward, heading towards the castle to see if Spike had gotten a letter back from Celestia.
“Good morning, Minuette,” I said.
“Good morning, Dawn.”
A couple houses further down I heard a familiar mare call out. “Looks like someone has a case of the Mondays.”
I groaned loudly. That line was cliche and grating on my last nerve. “One of these days, Rose. Pow! Right in the kisser.” I leapt into the air and flew towards the castle quickly. As I passed by the construction site I saw them beginning to lift a wooden beam into the air, and a brown pony starting to walk towards it.
The Deja Vu was too strong. Swooping down, I grabbed the familiar looking pony and pinned him to the wall.
“What?” He gasped and tried to push me off.
A moment later the beam fell next to us.
He blinked and glanced to where he would have been standing, then back at me. “You saved my life! My name is—”
I ignored him as he spoke. All the pieces began coming together in my head. I hadn’t seen the future, I’d lived it. Every morning this pony stepped under that beam on this construction site. My radio played the same song, my pantry was empty, my neighbor had the same asinine greeting.
“Fuck, this is totally a time loop isn’t it?” I asked.
“Time loop?” the stallion inquired. “It wouldn’t be my fir—”
“Screw this, time to call in a favor and make Celestia magic my problems away.”
I took off towards Canterlot, rapidly accelerating as I gained altitude. It felt good to be flying and giving myself a workout, and the wind whipping through my mane and tail took my mind off the weirdness lately. I’d expended most of my patience reliving this day just three times. It was time to make a princess earn her paycheck.
As my wings fell into a familiar rhythm I became more aware of the changes in air pressure over my feathers, subtly detecting the weather. I began to feel a familiar tingle of magic, but it didn’t seem to be pegasi magic. The charge built over my wings, as if I were trying to form a storm cloud or shoot a lightning bolt after a cloud. The tension built a little higher, mimicking a high pressure system, and I began to feel nauseous. I was about to drop to the ground and land quickly before I got sick. Before I could, I noticed a wall of purple magic in front of me, just about half a second before I collided with it.
Come on everypony smile, smile, smile
Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine
I shot up in bed and rubbed my head to soothe a sudden headache. Instead of recalling a dream, my last thoughts were off a building pressure before suddenly hitting something that felt like lightning, only a lot less pleasant. The next thing I knew, I was back here in bed.
All I really needs—
The alarm was cut off by another sharp crack. Hooves were harder than plastic casing, after all. “Damn that’s gonna get old.” I glanced over to find the alarm pancaked against the night stand.
Without waiting to brush my teeth or use the restroom, I headed to the balcony and flew out of my house towards Canterlot. This time I knew about how far out of town I could go before I “hit” the purple wall of death, or whatever it had been.
As I got closer to the wall, I slowed down and landed. I was on the outskirts of town, a little past Sweet Apple Acres. Walking forward I felt the tingling pressure grow, almost walking into the spell before I got close enough to see it. The force field was only visible once I was within a foot or so of it. I reached out with a hoof to touch it, before realizing what a monumentally stupid idea that probably was.
Something was up and I needed to slow down and analyze the situation.
The wall faded to my left and right. I began to fly parallel to it, using the sense of pressure to trace my way along its edge around the town. While curving around town I was able to get a sense for how far it expanded. It headed around the farm, towards Ghastly Gorge, over the Everfree, back around past Fluttershy’s cottage, and to the outskirts where I had started.
With no apparent gaps in the spell to be found, I couldn’t reach Celestia directly. There was, however, one creature in town who would be able to get a message to her instantly, and bypass the strange barrier. I headed to the castle to search out Spike and report my findings. The windows were open at the top of the crystal tree near the bedrooms, so I let myself in and headed over to Spike’s room.
It didn’t take me long to wander over to his bedroom. I found him reading a comic book in a small beanbag chair. “Oh, hey Dawn. What brings you by?” He set his comic down on a small table.
“Spike, this is going to sound crazy, but I think I’m trapped in a time loop,” I explained.
“Oh? Has your future self visited you yet?” he asked.
“What?” I tilted my head and shot him a confused look. “Why would that happen?”
Spike shrugged. “We’ve had time traveling adventures before, it’s nothing new.”
“Of course it’s not. Then can we send Celestia a letter and fix it already? It’s only looped a few days and I’m already pissed.”
He got up and went over to his desk to get his quill and parchment, beginning to write a letter. “Yep, no problem. I don’t remember a loop, sounds like it’s only affecting you. Something similar happened in Power Ponies issue one eighty-seven.” He scribbled down a couple more lines. “And it’s not one of those things where you try to avoid the thing but only end up causing the thing you were trying to avoid, right?”
“Uh, yeah I’m pretty sure it’s more of a 90’s movie situation, and not one of the fun ones like riding a train down a broken bridge until you get it up to eighty-eight miles per hour,” I stated.
Spike scribbled it all down for me. “You know they’re not going to get the reference?”
“Of course, but I’m easily amused. Can you send that in triplicate? Maybe to Luna and Twilight too?”
He nodded, jotting a few more hasty notes before starting to breathe green flames and send off letters. I watched them swirl up into smoke, seeing the faint glimmers of magic shoot off towards Canterlot.
“Now we wait,” Spike said. “You want to play some Ogres and Oubliettes? Guy’s night hasn’t been the same without you.”
“Just the two of us? Maybe we can do some cards instead. I’m really hoping they reply quickly.”
A couple hours had gone by while I played cards with Spike. He had a few bean bags in his room instead of chairs, which proved to be quite comfortable. We pulled up a table between two of them and began to play a game of goldfish while we chatted.
“So, if you could have a million bits and immortality, but an immortal snail would chase you forever, would you do it?” Spike asked. “Remember if it ever finds and touches you, you’d die.”
“I still think it’s a silly thought experiment,” I replied. “I could just move to Cloudsdale and never have to worry about the snail catching me.”
“Hmm, well what if I gave the snail the lowest level spell possible to bridge any gap or confinement that was preventing it from moving closer?”
“That’s better, but a snail’s a bit silly. If you’re going to use it in a campaign, shouldn’t it be something scarier like a mind flayer?”
“Got any kings?”
“Go fish,” I replied. Spike drew a card from the pile.
“Well, I think it could be interesting.”
“Oh, I’ve got it. I’d take the money, and then become a lich. Even if the snail catches me, he can’t destroy my phylactery and I’d respawn safely,” I explained.
“That is pretty good.”
“If you want horror though, you should work in some of the stuff from Earth. Got any seven’s?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Spike handed over his seven of clubs.
“Like what if there was a creature that ate everypony’s memories, and you couldn’t even look at it. If you did, you’d instantly forget you’d seen it, rendering it almost invisible. It’d lurk in a town, feeding off the villagers. No one would be able to remember it was there as they vanished one by one.”
Spike nodded. “The false hydra?”
I shrugged. “I was thinking of something from a TV show. I think it was called the silence, but yeah you get the idea. Then as the DM you could mess with the players by forgetting things you’d told them, and claiming NPC’s you introduced them to never existed. That sort of stuff.”
“Hey, that’s good.”
“Got any four’s?” I asked.
“Go fish,” Spike replied.
I turned, putting my cards down. I thought I heard some hoofsteps out in the hallway. It could have been one of the princesses who finally came to fix everything for me. I got up and hurried to the door, opening it to look in the hallway. It was empty and the draperies were still; the hallway seemed a little too quiet.
“Hear something?” Spike asked.
“Yeah, I thought I heard somepony out there but I didn't see anything.” I closed the door and went to sit back down. “Does it usually take Celestia this long to respond? I’m kinda having an existential crisis here.”
“Maybe she’s busy?”
“Luna and Twilight too? I don’t think I can just sit here, there’s gotta be something we can do to fix this ourselves”
Spike nodded. “Twilight used to keep a lot of contingency plans around for emergencies in the library’s basement, but I’m not sure where she moved them after it was destroyed. Maybe you could try Pinkie? She’s the only other pony who likes to stash things for emergencies, though they’re usually cupcakes or bouncy balls.”
“Heh, twenty bits says there’s no way Pinkie’s sitting on an ‘in case of time loop emergency’ kit.”
“Deal,” Spike replied.
I nodded. “Thanks, Spike. I’ll be at Pinkie’s then, and see if she has any ideas to help.”
Going over to his window, I pushed it open and looked outside. It was almost noon and I could make out most of the town in the distance, including a pink rooftop of Sugarcube Corner.
“Good luck, Dawn. I’ll let you know if I get a reply.”
I took off towards town in a gentle glide, looking around as I did so. Ponyville was lively today, including a new cloud house I hadn’t seen before. There must have been a pegasus moving in, and they’d positioned themselves right over downtown where they’d have easy access to most of the stores and restaurants.
Once I passed Carousel Boutique I landed and began to walk the last block to Sugarcube corner. When I got there I found a small line at the counter with Mr. and Mrs. Cake helping serve their customers.
“Hi, Mr. Cake,” I said. “Have you seen Pinkie?”
“Hi, Dawn. Yeah, she just headed out the back.” He pointed through the kitchen to the back door.
I thanked him and trotted through the house, heading out the back and seeing something in the bushes between the neighbor’s house and Sugarcube Corner. I went over to see what it was, when I heard Pinkie. It was a white bit of cardboard on a long stick.
“Uh, oh! Twitchy tail! Twitchy tail!” Pinkie shouted.
I picked up the sign, and turned to look at Pinkie. “Huh?”
She dove behind another bush, wearing a strange umbrella hat, and shouted; “Hurry Dawn!”
Looking around in confusion, I couldn’t see what she was going on about. Looking at the sign in my hooves, it only had two words written on it. “Meep Meep?"
Then I noticed a shadow growing on the ground, and heard some pegasi shouting up in the air. Gazing upwards, I noticed the new cloud house above me, and one rapidly plummeting grand piano.
I gulped.