Twilight had nearly lost hope of ever finding Pinkie Pie. Nopony knew where she was, most not even seeing her for several years. With nothing to go off of, and nopony left to ask, searching for her should have been arduous and time consuming. And yet here she was, just outside of Fluttershy's cottage, beaming widely and waving at Twilight as if it had been ten days and not ten years since she'd last seen her.
Pinkie Pie bounded over and wrapped Twilight in a hug. “I missed you...” she said softly, then separated, still smiling. “Go figure huh, the minute I stop looking for you, I find you!”
“You were looking for me?” Twilight asked, blinking in surprise.
Pinkie Pie nodded vigorously. “Uh huh! I came to visit Applejack a couple of days ago. I sensed she was sad, and she said you came back! You really came back Twilight, after all this time!” She bounced a little in place. “Anyways, Applejack told me you went to visit Fluttershy and Big Mac, and they told me that you'd already gone to Canterlot.” She gestured behind her, to where the castle would normally be visible, save for the fog. “So then I went to Canterlot. I figured you'd have gone to the castle, but when I visited Princess Luna, she had no idea you'd come back!” Pinkie frowned at her, wide-eyed. “I was really worried, I thought maybe you weren't able to teleport to Canterlot, but then the guards said you did try to visit. Luna thought you'd probably gone to see Rarity, so she sent the guards to her place.” She shrugged. “Guess you weren't there, but they found you eventually!”
That explained why Rarity showed up with the Canterlot guards at Sweetie Belle's flat. “Why didn't you come see me in Canterlot?” Twilight asked.
Pinkie Pie shrugged. “I'm a busy pony, but Rarity's busier, and the guards said she took seeing you again really hard. So I thought it would be better if Rarity visited first. Princess Celestia came to see me, then said she wanted to cut the visiting-Twilight line.” Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes with a smile. “By the time it was my turn, you'd already gone to the Crystal Empire. Then you went back to Canterlot, then to Cloudsdale.” Her forelegs tangled around each other as she tried to point at all the different places Twilight had been in the last few days. “I was about to go to Cloudsdale to find you, actually I was halfway there, but then I had to go to Ponyville first.” She beamed again. “I really didn't think I'd see you here, Twilight, but I'm so glad I found you!”
“Pinkie...” There were a million things to ask. “Where were you, before you went to see Applejack?”
“Hmm...” Pinkie tapped her chin. “I thiiiink I was in the Fillydelphia suburbs, cheering up some school ponies.” She smiled. “That's what I do now, Twilight. I travel town to town and find ponies who need cheering up! I throw a lot of parties and try to make everypony happy!” She gestured Twilight to follow her, then trotted into the fog. A crazy pink contraption slowly came into view – it looked like it had bicycle pedals connected to a large fleet of wheels, a propeller, a steering wheel, and multiple pull handles. Pinkie's famous blue party cannon sat on the back of it. “This is the Party Mobile!” Pinkie cheered, gesturing to it. “This is how I get from place to place. Cool, huh?”
“Wow...” Twilight circled the vehicle curiously. “You built this yourself?”
Pinkie giggled. “Oh, not all by myself, no. Cheese Sandwich helped me with it, and some other ponies, too!”
“Cheese Sandwich?”
Pinkie waved a hoof dismissively. “Long story – the short version is I have a lot of new friends who I guess you'd never have even heard of, Twilight.” She stared at Twilight with wide eyes, her expression slowly drooping into a frown. “Twilight...” she said quietly. “I know you left because you did a time spell, but...” Her huge blue eyes filled with tears. “Why? I thought we agreed never to ever mess with time again!”
Twilight hesitated, realizing with a pang that this was the first time any of her friends had actually asked her about her original motive. Pinkie had done it straight away. “I...” Twilight sunk to her haunches, staring at the ground in shame. “Well, the spell was just supposed to be to look at the future. I never intended to actually time travel.” She sighed. “Basically, Princess Celestia wanted me to do a really important job in Canterlot. I'd have to move away from Ponyville, and I-I guess I was worried what everypony would think, and how they would do without me...” Twilight gestured around the foggy Ponyville outskirts with a hoof. “Guess I got my answer,” she said flatly.
Pinkie nuzzled her head against Twilight's neck, and Twilight sunk into her. “Twilight,” Pinkie said slowly. “You know moving to Canterlot isn't the same thing as disappearing off the face of Equestria, right?” That was true, but it had felt close enough at that time. Since the spell implied glimpsing the future, not travelling to it, it had seemed low risk, even if it wasn't perfect. “I mean, really – 'a future without you', 'a world where you've long been forgotten', I don't think any of that would have happened if you'd just moved to Canterlot!” Twilight's mind struggled to remember why those lines were so familiar as Pinkie Pie kept talking. “Rarity moved to Canterlot, and I know she's too busy now to hang out with me, but that wasn't always the case - ”
“Pinkie Pie,” Twilight interrupted urgently, breaking away from her so she could face her directly. “Were you... reciting lines from the time spell I used to get here?”
Pinkie frowned at her. “Yes...” Twilight stared at her and Pinkie met her gaze with equal gravity. “Twilight, there's something you should probably know...” Pinkie trotted around to the Party Mobile and gently picked up something in her teeth.
“Is that...” Twilight gasped. Pinkie Pie nodded and unrolled a scroll in front of Twilight. 'Time travel – seeing the future'. The same title that had attracted Twilight to read it back in the Canterlot archives. She read through the spell again, careful not to say a single word out loud. ‘If what one seeks is a clearer view, speak these words aloud to see a future without you. Past to present, and onward from there, seek what is sought; be not unaware. Concentrate now on a place and a time, and you shall then go there with the help of this rhyme. Leave your worries and abandon your caution, as you are now in a world where you have long been forgotten.'
This was it. This was the same spell that had landed her in the future. “Pinkie Pie,” Twilight said in disbelief. “I don't... why do you have this? I thought all of the time spells were destroyed!”
Pinkie nodded. “Yes – they were all destroyed because this one,” she tapped the scroll with a hoof, “was missing.” She stared at it intently. “That's how they realized you'd messed up a time spell, after all! I remembered about it and went back to the Canterlot archives just to check. Caused a bit of a kerfuffle with the guards.” She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. “I didn't let them know I took it, though. It was too important to get it to you – I mean, what if they destroyed this one, too?!” She flipped the scroll around and pushed it closer to Twilight. “The interesting part is on the back, though.”
Twilight flipped the scroll around. She had read the spell up and down before reciting it, and hadn't noticed anything on the back, but like Pinkie said, another several lines were now etched into the worn parchment. She read them quietly, her eyes widening at every line. 'Now that the future without you is clear, you must understand that you don't belong here. For better or worse, this is not your fate; you belong to another time and date. When you are ready and learned all you can know, simply say these words, and then you can go. You have seen the future and paid the cost, now return to your time before a decade was lost.'
Twilight slowly smiled. “Pinkie... this... I can go back!” she exclaimed, giddy with excitement. “All I have to do is say this spell, and - ”
“No, wait,” Pinkie said, and Twilight's smile faltered. “Twilight, you told me you came here for a reason,” she continued seriously. “You wanted to know how we would react if you moved back to Canterlot, right? Not how we would react if you died.” She stared at Twilight intently. “You can't go back until you figure that out – otherwise you did that spell for no reason!”
“I-it doesn't matter,” Twilight protested. “I should have done what the Princess told me to do in the first place and go back to Ponyville and tell all of you there. Now I can do that!”
Pinkie Pie was quiet for a moment. “Twilight, this whole place, everything that happened...” She looked around, though there wasn't far they could see with the fog. “Do you... do you think it's real? ...Am I real? If you go back... what happens to us?”
It was a good question. Twilight had originally assumed she was permanently stuck in the future because if she had gone back, there would be a second version of her in this universe who was ten years older. But the entire point of the spell was to see a future without her in it. It had seemed good enough in that moment – in a vulnerable moment when she'd equated becoming a princess with leaving her friends forever. But Pinkie was right – that wasn't the same thing. It was impossible to imagine abandoning her friends in their time of need, no matter what her royal title was, especially after everything she'd witnessed in the future. “I think parts of it are real,” Twilight said, thoughtfully. “I didn't travel to the future; I travelled to an alternate timeline. A timeline where I didn't exist for ten years.”
Pinkie watched her worriedly. “So even if you go back, everything here would still have happened...” Twilight nodded. Pinkie gave a small smile. “I guess you don't belong here, then – you altered the altered timeline... but, you know, everything that happened, it's all real, in some sense.”
“I guess so,” Twilight said, pulling herself back from her initial excitement. Her friends were still struggling and still needed her help. “And in my timeline, parts of it may still have happened even if I was in Ponyville, or in Canterlot.” Twilight realized something with a start. “But if I go back with that knowledge, I can use it to fix things in the past!” Not everything, but Fluttershy and Big Mac's relationship could be in the open – she could prevent Rainbow's drinking problem – and Spike – she could prepare Spike for her ascension to the best of her ability, or re-rehabilitate him with his own kind if that wasn't possible.
Pinkie Pie bounced in place. “Exactly! But I still think you can fix things in the present, too!” Pinkie Pie hopped to the back of her Party Mobile as Twilight quirked a brow at her. “Okay, so, don't get mad – this is kind of a long story, so...” Pinkie slowly pulled out the tiara of the element of magic, encrusted with a shining magenta star. She offered it to Twilight, who accepted it with a hoof, staring at the artifact wondrously. It looked exactly the same.
But then Pinkie Pie pulled out the other five artifacts. The gemstones within them had dimmed to a grey, and the elements as a whole had lost their bright golden hue, paling significantly. Twilight gaped at them as Pinkie set them on the ground. “What happened to them? And why do you have these, Pinkie?”
Pinkie tapped her hooves together guiltily. “Welllll, I don't know about your first question, but when the guards caught me stealing the time spell, they asked what I was doing in the archives. I really wanted to protect the time spell, Twilight, because I was worried they might destroy it if they found out they missed one. So I told them I was looking for the elements of harmony!” She smiled, putting a hoof sneakily to her mouth as if to shield it from prying eyes. “You know, as a cover story.”
Twilight doubted the time spell was in any further danger given she had safely reappeared, though she appreciated the extra care Pinkie Pie went to for her. Twilight glanced between Pinkie and the elements. “And they just... gave them to you?”
Pinkie shook her head. “Oh no, silly! The guards took me straight to Princess Luna. She gave them to me – she thought maybe with your reappearance, they could be restored.” She beamed and slipped her own balloon-encrusted element over her neck, where it hung lifelessly. Twilight imitated her and placed the tiara on her head. Nothing happened – Twilight half expected something to react to the elements being worn by their bearers for the first time in over ten years. She supposed there were still four others to distribute.
Now Twilight had multiple tasks to juggle – she had two timelines of ponies to help, elements to restore, and her own destiny to sort out. All wasn't lost. Twilight removed the tiara from her head and floated it magically in front of her. “Strange that this one looks normal.”
Pinkie Pie smiled at it. “It didn't used to be like that. They all faded when you left.”
That meant there was a way to fix them. Twilight shifted the element of magic around in her magic, then set it down and moved closer to the faded element of laughter around Pinkie's neck. The six of them were connected directly to the elements, so it made some sense that the element of magic had faded when she left, and restored when she returned. And perhaps Rainbow's betrayal, Rarity's selfishness, Fluttershy's intolerance, and Applejack's stubborn refusal to accept the truth could have affected the elements, too. But she couldn't understand how Pinkie, who stood there giggling like a foal as Twilight shifted the element around with her magic, could have lost connection with the element of laughter. If anything, she seemed to have embodied it. “I'll have to read up on the elements, see if I can find anything that might help.”
Pinkie Pie nodded eagerly. “Sounds good – after all, you have lots of time now.” She giggled. “Get it? Time?”
“Ha ha,” Twilight offered with a smile and an eye roll. She waved a forehoof through the fog, though that didn't do much to dissipate it. “Uh, anyways, Pinkie, what are you doing in Ponyville? I'm visiting Fluttershy and Big Mac, if you were heading there.”
Pinkie Pie squealed and bounced excitedly. “Yes, me too!” Twilight watched her with a bemused expression. “Isn't it so exciting? A new little foal!” Pinkie turned back to her Party Mobile and grabbed several dozen floating pink and blue balloons out of it. “Good thing I always keep emergency balloons, right?” She tied them around her tail. “I was halfway to Cloudsdale when I got the spinny tail, bouncy leg, twitchy neck combo! And you know what that means, right?”
Twilight stared at the large array of balloons. “Uh... no?”
Pinkie Pie scoffed at her. “Well duh Twilight, it means there's a baby on the way!” Twilight's eyes widened. “Good thing I was so close by, right? Took me a whole day to get to Canterlot when Blue Jasper was born – but then Moonstone's birth Rarity told me I was a little too early, so I've just been kinda waiting outside.” She crouched down with a giggle. “They don't know I'm here yet,” she said in a whisper.
Twilight hesitated, glancing back at the cottage through the fog. All seemed quiet to her, though the lack of animals outside did make it seem a little too quiet. “Wait, Fluttershy had her foal?”
Pinkie nodded eagerly. “Uh huh! Well, probably. Doesn't usually take long after I get the baby sense.”
“...How long, Pinkie?”
Pinkie tipped her head to the sky as she thought. “Hmm... the foal is probably about an hour old. Could be more, could be less, I guess possible it still isn't born – but I sense absolutely no sadness or anxiety, so I think it must have been born healthy already.” She smiled widely.
Twilight groaned and dropped her voice to a whisper, as if they hadn't been talking at full volume the entire time they'd been outside. “Pinkie, we can't go in there, that's way too soon! Fluttershy needs time to rest, and bond, and - ” Twilight broke off with a start as she realized - “Pinkie, have we been talking for longer than ten minutes?”
Pinkie pulled a timepiece out of the Party Mobile, glanced at it, then tossed it back in. “Yep, dunno how long, but definitely more than ten.”
“Oh no – Apple Bloom,” Twilight muttered, and burst out of the fog toward the cottage. Pinkie followed, tugging a huge trail of balloons behind her.
The air stilled and then whipped up sporadically as Twilight sprinted to the front door. Pinkie squealed with delight as the balloons momentarily tugged her into the air. There wasn't a single animal in the yard – no eyes peered at her from the bushes, no birds were chirping on the trees, and not even the chickens were clucking around the coop. Twilight couldn't believe she hadn't noticed this when she'd first arrived, though in fairness, Pinkie Pie was really distracting. Though as she rushed up the path toward the entrance, a cacophony of growls, squawks, and bleats reached her ears from within, as well as the sound of two ponies yelling.
Twilight burst through the front door, panting. Several raccoons, ducks, and rabbits immediately surrounded her, chattering angrily. Pinkie Pie bounced in moments later, her smile falling as she took in the scene around them. A large bear was blocking the stairs to the bedroom, flanked by weasels, beavers, and other larger creatures. The smaller animals had formed a circle around Big Mac and Apple Bloom, who although were likely the source of the yelling Twilight had heard, had paused in their arguing to stare at the newcomers.
Pinkie Pie skipped over to the bear, who tilted his head at her. “I brought balloons,” she announced, wagging her tail to show them off. The bear glanced at the weasels and the animals collectively shrugged and moved aside to let her past. Pinkie Pie bounded up the stairs, and the security critters quickly resumed their positions.
Twilight instead walked to Big Mac and Apple Bloom, the latter of which flattened her ears and rolled her eyes. “Good job warnin' them,” she spat.
Twilight's ears went flat. “I'm sorry, I...” There wasn't time for excuses. It didn't matter. “I'm here now – is everything okay? What were you yelling about?”
The mice and rabbits gathered on the ground glanced at each other in confusion. Big Mac looked back and forth between Twilight and Apple Bloom. “So... it was true, then? You brought my little sister here?”
“Yes,” Twilight implored, bowing her head. “I'm so sorry, I had no idea – I meant to come and warn you – I would have told her to wait – ”
Big Mac stepped forward and embraced Twilight in a hug. Twilight froze in confusion, eyes flicking to Apple Bloom, who looked equally perplexed. “It's been years since she's visited,” he mumbled, his voice choking at the end. “And today of all days...” He separated from Twilight, eyes watering as he looked back at his sister. “Ah'm sorry Apple Bloom, just the timin' of everythin' had us on edge...”
Apple Bloom stared away. “I probably didn't explain the best when I said Twilight told me about your foal... didn't mean it as a threat...” She nodded at Big Mac. “Just wish you'd told me sooner. I don't have any arrangements for when ya leave.”
“We weren't gonna leave right away,” Mac continued with a sigh. “But let's not talk about that right now. Got the animals all riled up and Ah'm not the one who's good at corrallin' 'em.” He nodded toward the stairs and gave Twilight a smile. The bear lumbered out of the way, and the other animals skittered next to him. “Go on. Ah'll meet you up there.”
Twilight smiled back, but hesitated as Apple Bloom scoffed and beckoned Mac in the other direction. “C'mon. You and I need to discuss AJ.” She glared at Twilight. “Alone.” Big Mac met Twilight's eyes and nodded reassuringly before pointing Apple Bloom to the couch.
Twilight tore herself away from them and quietly made her way up the stairs. There was somepony else who needed her more.
Dozens of white bunnies, colourful songbirds, and even several butterflies surrounded the bed, where Fluttershy lay with her wings unfurled and draped beside her. Pinkie Pie, whom Twilight had never seen so quiet and still, sat up straight in front of the bed with a giant smile, her eyes wide and teary. A few birds had taken nest in her mane. Fluttershy met Twilight's gaze with a tired smile, and gingerly moved her wing as Twilight approached.
A tiny foal wrapped in a pink blanket blinked at the sudden light, looking momentarily like she may fuss, but then her bright green eyes focused on Twilight. Her coat was a pale red, and the start of a soft yellow mane peeked out from the blanket. Tiny wings had freed themselves, waving of their own accord. “Oh Fluttershy...” Twilight gasped, taking a seat beside Pinkie Pie, both of them transfixed. “She's gorgeous...”
Fluttershy shifted, and Twilight stood to hug her. She could feel tears welling. The foal's eyes followed Twilight curiously as she sniffed and settled back beside Pinkie Pie, who leaned her head against Twilight's shoulder. “This is our daughter, Autumn Crisp,” Fluttershy announced softly. The animals surrounding them chattered excitedly. Autumn Crisp squinted at the light, and Fluttershy extended her wing again to shield her. The newborn's eyes slowly fell shut, and she curled against her mother with a tiny sigh.
In that moment, Twilight's stress melted away. Even if just for one fleeting precious minute, the beauty of this world that she didn't belong in sang to her. Pinkie Pie was right – she owed it to herself to find the original answer to her question, and she owed it to her friends to help them in both the past and the future. But for now, as the songbirds in Pinkie's mane chirped gleefully, she was content to stay in the present.