"And that is where I came in," said Dr. Zimmermare, quietly applauding my narration.
"Mind if I reiterate everything up to this moment?"
"Such a keen memory!" he chuckled. "I'd like to see how you do! Go on - what happened next?"
"Welcome to my home, miss..."
"Sparkle. Twilight Sparkle," I said.
"I see you're not from around here."
"I'm not...I'm from the past."
"The past?"
"I'm a time-traveler. I just got here from the year 1,850,168...I think...it's kinda hard to remember." I put my hoof to my forehead. "And I have a splitting headache."
"You poor dear!" the elderly man exclaimed. "Why don't you stay with me for a little while?"
"Oh, I couldn't possibly-"
"Nonsense, my dear! I don't get company very often. You stay here as long as you like."
"Thank you."
"You're quite wel- would you like some tea or something, Ms. Sparkle?"
"I would, please. Thank you."
He started off into his manor; and I, being new to this environment, followed him to a bright, vast kitchen.
"What flavor would you like?" he asked. "I'll see if I can brew it myself."
"Um, anything herbal's fine."
Dr. Zimmermare made a hissing sound and levitated a container with his horn. "Is hay alright? I can oblitherate it into a tea for you."
Hay tea? I asked myself. I wonder what that tastes like.
My curiosity got the best of me then. "Sounds good...i-if it's no trouble."
"Of course not!" the scientist retorted enthusiastically. He began the brewing process.
This is where we had our conversation about my friends and the spark. I'm just gonna skip right ahead to when we began to establish where I am. We just sat down here in your parlor, sipping this...tea of yours, Dr. Zimmermare.
"So...what year is it?" I asked you.
"5,318,008," you replied.
"Quite a big jump," I remarked.
"Indeed," you affirmed. You took a sip of your tea. "I would like to say that I don't normally take in ponies who I find scampering through the streets of Hoovesville. Something clearly drew me to you."
"Who knows," I said, failing to take a sip.
"Maybe it was the fact that you were running for your life away from those police officers."
"Those ponies were not the police."
"Oh? Who were they, then?"
"The Temporal Manipulation Squad."
Dr. Zimmermare gasped. "Those ponies!"
I nodded.
"Oohhh, you're in deep trouble, Ms. Sparkle. The TMS are strict keepers of space-time. They will not rest until time has been repaired in all dimensions. Every jump you make and every interaction you make in a foreign time only increases their tension towards you. And there is no escaping them - trust me."
"How do you know about the TMS?"
"They have been present in Hoovesville for millions of years, they say. And with each passing year, more and more unicorns master the art of time-travel, and they become more and more ravenous and malevolent with each jump somepony makes into another time, be their intentions good or bad."
"Other ponies can travel through time?"
Dr. Zimmermare nodded. "Indeed, they can. Times have changed since your present date, Ms. Sparkle, quite dramatically. In your time, the art of time-travel has hardly been touched upon, and only really looked into by the highest-level unicorns in Hoovesville." It was here I learned that Hoovesville was the new Equestria. "But, knowledge spreads, and now almost anyone can get their hooves on the magical abilities to travel through time and change history. It is the TMS's job to ensure that everything contained within the space-time continuum remain as it were, and not be changed by anypony. And they will kill anypony who stands in their way or dares to change the fate of time itself."
"That probably explains why they're after me, Dr. Zimmermare."
"Indeed, it does. The good news is, they won't find you here."
"Why do you say that?"
"I may be a unicorn, but age has made time-travel for me difficult. And so I've been trying to mimic the art of unicorn time-travel with my own technology, since I am an intelligent scientist. I've been anything but successful. The TMS simply doubt that time-travel is possible without the manifestation of unicorn magic. They won't think to look here. They think I'm stupid...or perhaps dead."
"None of this explains why it's dark and stormy outside. Are we in some sort of epic pony war?"
Dr. Zimmermare chuckled. "Oh ho ho ho, ooh, oh, no," he said, calming. "It's just a heptic storm. Should pass in due time. Give or take a day or two. You may stay here - safe and sound from the TMS - until it passes."
"And you don't mind housing a refugee?"
"I appreciate the company," he said gaily. "Everypony here thinks I'm either crazy or dead. I'm very lonely. And it's nice to see a friendly face every once in a while."
"Me too," I said.
"You're lonely, too?"
"I am, Dr. Zimmermare."
"Oh, please, call me Luis, Ms. Sparkle."
"...I am...Luis."
"How is that now?"
"My friends - the ones I told you about while you were brewing the tea - all left me twenty-five years ago. The first to go was Rarity. She went to Manehattan and sent us a few letters, promising to return as soon as possible, and keep writing should her arrival be delayed..."
A tear rolled down my eyes as I remembered the disappointing words of her first letter back home.
"So, did you ever hear back from this Rarity you speak of?" he asked, taking another sip of the piping-hot beverage he was holding.
"We did," I said, glancing down to the liquid I hesitated to ingest. "She wrote to us, pratically every day, and I- we could tell she was both happy to be there, and also resentful of leaving us behind. Ultimately, she did. She was unable to compromise with Hoity Toity about his business plan, and she remained in Manehattan for...well, for as long as I've seen."
"What a pity," he mumbled, a glaze look in his eyes. "You didn't visit one moment in time in which Rarity was with you again?"
"I was escaping from the law enforcement, Doc- I mean, Luis...I wasn't exactly looking around for her."
He made no immediate reply. "What about the other girls? You said there were four others, correct?"
"Right."
"What happened to them?"
"Rainbow Dash joined the Wonderbolts, and, well, pretty much the same thing happened to her. She got caught up in all her glory as the newest Wonderbolt that she forgot who we were, and then, the next thing we know, the only way we were able to see her at all was if we bought tickets and attended a Wonderbolts show...in Cloudsdale. Some 'loyal' friend she turned out to be! Oh, sure if the Shadowbolts offer her a gig - screw them! But the Wonderbolts, well," I pretended to chuckle. "That changes everything!
"Then there's what happened to Applejack. She invented a great, new apple cider which not only put her previous recipe to shame, but was even easier to produce. It became so popular, ponies from every corner of Equestria and beyond were coming in for a serving."
"Then what happened?"
"The Apple Family became so rich, their fortune overwhelmed even Filthy Rich. And that guy was loaded back when he existed. I bet his great, great, great granddaughters are still up to their ears in wealth. Granny Smith, being that her time in Equestria was limited due to her age, decided to celebrate her granddaughter's success by taking the entire Apple Family on a trip around Equestria - just for the heck of it!"
"And they were gone for twenty-five years?"
I shook my head.
"No. They returned after a few months, but by then, I had already gotten used to her absence. When she got back...I don't know...things just didn't feel the same anymore because she had been away for so long. I tried to rekindle our friendship, try to restore the spark which I thought still lingered in the depths of my beating heart, but, apparently, I had overestimated everything. Part of me wanted nothing to do with her, Rainbow Dash, or Rarity. And that was that. She moved on, and even though we grew distant, I knew I hadn't."
"What about um...Pinkie Pie?"
"Celebrity cake designer and party planner."
"Fluttershy!"
"Animal guru. She travels the world helping animals, healing them, and violently protesting against animal cruelty, thanks to that monster Iron Will, giving her some balls."
"Well, it's no wonder you came to the future, miss. You certainly had a lot to cry about, and I could easily see anypony wanting to escape: find someplace they can call home and live gaily, instead of being surrounded by misery."
"My explanation exactly...but I cannot help but miss my friends."
"I'm sure you do," Dr. Zimmermare uttered softly. "Sounds like you did a lot together as friends. And don't get me started about that spark you mentioned!"
I failed to acknowledge Dr. Zimmermare's latest retort as I glanced down to the cooled beverage in my hooves. He must've noticed the ever-so-gentle movement of my eyes.
"Aren't you gonna drink your tea, madame?" he asked quite cautiously.
I scrutinized it. "What exactly is this again?"
"I told you: it's that hay stuff you said you liked. Just oblitherated into a drinkable beverage, and then microwaved."
"So it's hay juice?"
"I believe you mean hay tea," said Dr. Zimmermare, trying to make his hoofiwork more formidable than it was.
I actually did the devil's due and sipped it. Although he was accurate in its ingredients, I have to admit that Dr. Zimmermare, sadly, is no cook. Which is ironic since he's more scientific than I am. "What happened then?" he asked as I gagged the rest of my drink down my throat.
"Well...that's actually when my life started to turn around for the better...before I got caught up in all this and got the TMS after me."
"I'm listening."
I sighed. "Well, with all the extra time I had on my hooves, I studied magic like crazy. I dove right in to every book on magic I could find, and I finished them in record times because I didn't have the magic of friendship to distract me. Then I got permission to enter the Star Swirl the Bearded suite in the Canterlot Archives, and found that damn time-travel spell again, memorized it, and then mastered it in a matter of days.
"I found - and still do - temporal manuipulation and time-travel fascinating. It amazes me how you could send someone into the past a thousand years and have them return to you a thousand years later in just a single second. It just blows my mind!" I threw my hooves up in the air, tossing the cup I was holding and causing it to crash-land on the carpeting. "Oops," I uttered, blushing.
"It's alright," Dr. Zimmermare set his cup down on the end table next to his large armchair. "You were saying?"
"I was...intrigued by these sciences which nopony has hardly touched upon, and that tore me apart. There was so much to this world that we can learn and discover - right in front of our faces - and we don't even realize it!"
"True," Dr. Zimmermare nodded once. "But there are reasons why pony civilization took so long to technologically advance. And there are reasons why the TMS exists and why they're after you."
"Really?" I leaned my chin against my hoof. "Why is that?"
Dr. Zimmermare gave a devilish grin.