The Generation That Even Time Has Forgotten
Chapter 4
“I swear, if this ‘Kimono’ pony is anything like those other ones, I’m gonna scream,” Twilight mumbled to herself as she tried to find the residence of the alleged ‘Wisest Pony in the Land’. The directions were pretty simple, but this pony lived quite a ways out of town, and Twilight’s hooves were starting to hurt from all of the day’s excitement. Just as she was about to give up, she finally found the large colored rocks that lead to a blue gazebo type structure. It didn’t look exactly like a house, but Twilight couldn’t care less either way. After jumping from rock to misaligned rock, she hopped onto the ledge of the building and collapsed.
“So,” a calm, seemingly 'all-knowing' type voice started behind her, “Are you the pony who is in need of my assistance?” Turning her head, Twilight saw that the speaker was a similarly colored purple earth pony with a dark purple mane. Her cutie mark, upon closer inspection, appeared to be two yellow paper lanterns.
“I take it you’re Kimono?” Twilight asked as she scrambled to her feet. The other pony eyed her suspiciously.
“Yes,” Kimono continued, “And you are a unicorn...” Twilight shifted uncomfortably.
“I—Is there something wrong with that?” she inquired nervously.
“Well, no. It’s just, why are you in Ponyville if you’re a unicorn?” Kimono looked rather puzzled. So much for Wisest Pony in the Land.
“Well, where am I supposed to be?” Twilight was equally confused.
“Well, Unicornia, of course. Why wouldn’t you know that?” Kimono asked.
“Unicornia? That was Princess Platinum’s proposed name for Equestria. Am I on an alternate timeline or something? Is this the Equestria where we didn’t learn the magic of friendship on Hearth’s Warming Eve?” Twilight brainstormed. Kimono stared blankly at her and vigorously shook her head as if to clear it from all of the information.
“Quite frankly, you’re being more confusing than Minty when she asks for advice.” She laughed slightly. Twilight recounted Minty’s annoying antics. Maybe this pony wasn’t so crazy after all?
“Well, in any case, I need your advice. The other ponies were no help, and you are the only lead I have left.” Twilight stated in a way that left a sour feel in the air. Kimono seemed rather oblivious of the negativity.
“I know all that. I don’t exactly understand it, but I know it,” Kimono slowly answered, like she was making sure that everything she was about to say was the truth before she dared speak it.
“How do you know?” Twilight asked, for this pony was obviously not a unicorn. A small smile came across Kimono’s face and she turned to face the sky.
“The winds carry all of this world’s secrets. They tell them to every pony they pass, but I’m the only one that understands them,” Kimono recalled mystically. A gust of wind came after she finished. She reared up onto her hind legs to let all of the wind get in her hair. When the wind died back down, she got back on all fours, looking happy and refreshed. “Oh, I’ve wanted to tell someone that for ages, but none of the ponies really care for philosophy. They just gave me the title of Wisest Pony in the Land and called it a day.”
“Well, I don’t have time for your philosophy, either.” Twilight stamped her hoof impatiently. “I have no idea what’s going on, nothing here is the same, I am somehow out of the loop of everything, and everypony here seems to have a lower IQ than normal, and-”
“Why do you do that?” Kimono cut in abruptly. It was unlike her to interrupt another pony, but the question had been itching away at her mind for awhile. “Why do you say ‘everypony’?”
“Come on, it’s basic Equestrian!” Twilight rolled her eyes, since the answer was so obvious to herself. Kimono, once again lost, chose not to try and figure out what Twilight Sparkle meant.
“Well, in any case, I think I know what to listen to to solve your problem.” Kimono smiled warmly.
“Ugh, finally,” Twilight mumbled under her breath, but Kimono paid no attention to her as she braced herself and squeezed her eyes shut. Twilight raised an eyebrow questioningly, but decided it was best not to interrupt. After all, as long as she figured out what was going on, she didn’t care about the method of retrieving the information.
A gust of wind suddenly swirled around the ponies, even though there was no sign of a breeze before. The ponies’ hair flew around in all directions, but the mystic purple earth pony didn’t move. Her mind was set at finding the answers, and nothing could distract her. Twilight looked around worriedly. She had no idea how long this process would take, and she was already losing precious time. Thankfully, however, Kimono lifted her head and her mane laid back comfortably around her neck. The wind left as mysteriously as it had came.
“I have your answer,” Kimono started. Twilight beamed with excitement. Was this finally the break she was hoping for? “U—unfortunately...” her voice faltered.
“What? What’s wrong?” Twilight asked worriedly. Kimono kicked the ground awkwardly.
“I—I’m not the one that can help you,” she admitted. Twilight’s panic soon turned into anger.
“So you made me go through all your cryptic windy stuff, and then you don’t give me the answer to my problems?!” she exploded. Kimono wasn’t exactly scared, or surprised, for that matter.
“That’s because I can’t give you your answer,” Kimono finished, “But someone else can.” Twilight’s bad mood lightened a bit, but she was still pretty ticked. “Her name is Skywishes, and you can find her near the edge of the valley a bit closer to town then where you showed up.” Twilight sighed and turned to leave wordlessly. She slowly hopped along the multicolored rocks back to the mainland, before turning to the right back to town.
“Yeah,” Kimono sighed, “Goodbye to you, too...”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I’ve been going from pony to pony for the past three hours!” Twilight shouted out to nopony in particular. She knew that none of this Ponyville’s population would listen to any negative thing she had to say, so she was safe to go on about anything out loud without worrying that anypony else would overhear. “If the next pony sends me to ANOTHER pony, I’m just giving up. What was that pony’s name again? Skywishes? What kind of talent could a pony with that name have?” Twilight may have been in a bad mood from all of this commotion, but she really did wonder about the talent of this pony. Could she make wishful thinking a reality? Could she summon energy from stars? The more she thought about it, the more dangerous this pony seemed to be. In fact, she started getting a little hesitant at meeting up with her.
After navigating the candy colored streets (which were quite an eyesore), Twilight finally got to a patch of land where things seemed normal, albeit covered with multicolored butterflies, but at least the grass was green and the sky was blue. In fact, there were barely any ponies at this mountainside, and all of them seemed to be running to other places to be with friends. Twilight looked towards the edge of the ravine and saw a pinkish pony with dark magenta hair sitting and staring at the sky. Then the pony mumbled to herself, and started running haphazardly close to falling. After a minute or two, she stopped, shrugged, and sat back down.
“Eh, excuse me?” Twilight asked timidly, “D—do you know where I might find a pony called Cloudwishes or something?” The pony’s ears perked up and she turned around.
“Oh, hello,” she greeted in a squeaky and grating voice which made Twilight wince. “I’m Skywishes, and from what I’ve heard, you’re Twilight Sparkle?” Twilight sighed, but at least was a little content that Skywishes didn’t notice that she got her name wrong.
“Ugh, yeah, what crazy things have you assumed about me? That I’m insane?” Skywishes sat up and smiled sheepishly.
“Um, actually, I believe your whole story. About the other Ponyville and everything.” A bit of time passed before Twilight was able to word her thoughts into a sentence, and even then it wasn’t that well.
“B—but, what? But, it’s just so... far fetched... for everypony...” Twilight stumbled over her words as she tried to make her point as nicely as she could.
“Well, I’ve believed in something that everybody thought was crazy before, and I was right! So now I believe in everything I hear, even if it’s really crazy.” Skywishes stopped to think over what she said, then started laughing. “ESPECIALLY if it’s really crazy! Oh, you know what I mean.” Twilight laughed nervously at this pony’s philosophy, which she thought was a rather bad one, and also that she had ended with such an odd statement.
“Well, I’ll just get straight to the point then. I just talked with Kimono asking for help, and she sent me to you saying that you have the answer,” she summarized.
“Oh, Kimono!” Skywishes giggled, “She never makes any sense, does she?” Twilight once again pondered how low this pony’s IQ was. The answer seemed fairly straightforward. Kimono saying that nopony here had time for her mystical wisdom turned out to be truer than Twilight thought possible.
“Well then, let’s just try and figure it out step by step then.” Twilight smiled awkwardly as she played along. “How do you normally help other ponies?” Skywishes’ face lit up with the dumb glee that these ponies usually had.
“Oh! I help make songs, make friends, bake cakes, decorate Ponyville, come up with party ideas—”
“Okay!” Twilight quickly cut her off to spare her sanity. “Uh, what is something that other ponies come to you for that only you can do?” Skywishes looked around to think as if the answer was in the sky.
“Well, um,” she stumbled. “Um... oh! I can wish things for other ponies, and then a kite comes, and, oh, you know the rest!”
“Uh, no, actually...”
“You catch a kite, and you catch a wish!” Skywishes shouted excitedly, obviously having said it many times before. Twilight laughed nervously.
“Oh, yes, right.” She flattened her ears. “Can you, uh, make a kite come for me?” Skywishes smiled a big toothy grin.
“Sure! What do you want to wish for?”
“Uh, for everything to make sense.” Twilight frowned as she tried to word her request in a sensical way. Skywishes once again didn’t question Twilight, and turned towards the sky. After a deep inhale for preparation, she asked for answers in her usual format.
“I wish, I wish, I wish, for Twilight Sparkle to get an extra extra special explanation about what’s happening to her,” she said in a quiet voice to nopony in particular. Twilight’s eyes darted around as she waited for something to happen, but it soon became evident that nothing would. The idea was kind of silly, because wishing for things never solves anypony’s problems, and she silently scolded herself for thinking that anything would come out of this. She sighed and turned to leave. “Oh! Look! There it is!” Skywishes cried out happily. Twilight abruptly stopped and turned to see a kite (covered with pink hearts, of course) drift through the sky, doing loop-de-loops as it made its way toward the ponies.
“Hurry! You’re going to have to catch it if you want your wish to come true! Well, oh you know what I mean!” Skywishes instructed as she pointed to the kite, which was now soaring just over the edge and flying determinedly to the right.
“A—are you sure I have to do this?” Twilight whimpered.
“Of course! And besides, what else, I mean, what could, oh, you know what I mean!” Skywishes giggled. Twilight didn’t really find any comfort in Skywishes’ response, but decided that she should chase after the kite, considering she had no other leads now and wasn’t going to return to that cafe to ask all of those ponies for more help. After running a bit to catch up with the kite, she strained a bit to get a small glow around her horn to catch the moving object. The kite slowed as it was enveloped in a pink cloud of magic, but Twilight gasped as she saw it break out rather effortlessly.
“The kite is magic? But I haven’t even seen any unicorns around here, and even if there were any, how, and why, would they make a silly kite stronger than my magic?” Twilight wondered aloud. She watched it drift carelessly ahead of her. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen any pegasi here, either.” she mumbled. The kite seemed to have slowed down, appearing to even be waiting for her to catch up. Once Twilight started walking again, the kite ascended a relatively large mountain, up and out of her sight. Even though Twilight was running as fast as she could, she couldn’t seem to see anything at the top. After a few moments, however, she saw a lone tree. In fact, she realized that she had reached the top, which was much faster than she had expected. Twilight looked around desperately for the kite, and for a split second worried that it had gone over the edge. However, lucky for her, she saw that it was stuck up in the tree. Sighing with relief, she tugged it down and waited for her wish to be granted.
“Oh, I knew this was no use... Where am I, anyway?” she pondered. Looking around, she was quite a long ways out from Ponyville. The town was nestled off in the distance, and nothing else of interest was visible besides the rolling green mountains. That is, until she turned around and saw a majestic waterfall spilling off of an even higher cliff. It could’ve been just the light tricking her eyes, but Twilight saw that the water had a definite rainbow color. In fact, it seemed that the water WAS the rainbow, instead of the colors forming by the sunlight.
“What is this? I’ve never read about anything like it...” she gasped in awe. But just as she was admiring the grandeur of the falls, she was answered.
“Why yes, it is rather lovely, isn’t it?” a deep voice rumbled from nowhere. Twilight’s eyes dilated as she backed up at the site before her. Slowly, the picture of an all too familiar draconequus appeared on the rushing water. “But I do wish there was more cotton candy in it...”
“Discord! What are you doing here? What’s going on?” Twilight shouted angrily, though her tone seemed more worried than mad.
“What do you mean? You’re here in sweet old Ponyville!” he said with mock innocence.
“Did you change Ponyville and brainwash everypony like I figured?” Twilight accused. Discord stared blankly at the unicorn, unable to respond. “Ha! I’ve seen right through your plan! The gig is up, now drop the act!” Twilight smiled with pride as Discord said nothing, but then he laughed wildly.
“You never cease to amaze me, Twilight Sparkle! Even I didn’t come up with that! You should consider being my assistant sometime,” he chuckled. Twilight snorted.
“Okay, whatever, just tell me what’s going on!” She stamped her hoof angrily.
“Ugh, here comes the boring part...” he sighed. “Technically, you are still in Ponyville, but the Ponyville of another time. This world is the same, but completely different. Let me put it this way.” He paused before breaking out into an obligatory rhyme filled with riddles.
“This world is not of my creation.
There are no records of this time, with pony segregation.
This is eons before Celestia, even me!
But that also means, there are no Elements of Harmony!”
As the last line echoed around in Twilight’ head, she felt that her eyes wouldn’t function. Everything turned into a blur, and she couldn’t fight the pressure of a large claw closing around her. She couldn’t think, and could barely feel the pressure of the gallons of water pouring down on her as she was pulled into the rainbow tinted waterfall.