“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” - Søren Kierkegaard
Nopony likes making mistakes. For some, however, mistakes become a fear. The fear of failure. The fear of doing wrong.
Twilight Sparkle was one of these ponies.
While the mistakes she had made had rarely come back to haunt her, Twilight still did everything she could to prevent them. That was part of the reason she read so much. By reading about things she could minimize the risk of mistakes. Her books helped mitigate mistakes by giving her knowledge as a tool against... No. As a weapon against mistakes.
Those books were her constant companion in all sorts of unfamiliar situations. That and the notes she kept for herself on all of her experiments and lessons in both magic and friendship. She had hoped she could someday share her knowledge with other ponies, ponies who also feared failure in the realms of relationships or chemistry, but she'd never gotten around to actually getting anything published. It just wasn't in the cards, at least, not for now.
When she and Spike discovered some of Star Swirl the Bearded's old unfinished spells in the abandoned Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters she let her curiosity get the better of her. She had hoped the discovery would lead to her being able to uncover important knowledge, and to share that knowledge with others. But by casting a spell without doing her homework she almost made a horrible mistake. The same kind of horrible mistake she had made in casting Star Swirl's spell that rearranged her friend's cutie marks. Twilight had put her magic and effort into casting a time traveling spell, hoping that she could use it to return to the past and set some things right. Instead, when she cast it, nothing seemed to happen. Exactly as had been the case when she'd first cast Star Swirl's alicorn spell. Thankfully, her friends were all okay.
Falling to sleep that night was difficult; some of the fear of what could have happened still slipped into her mind. So, she decided not to fight her mind but relax it by working through the day. She thought about everything that had happened, eventually thinking back to a prank Spike had played on her when they were looking through the castle. It had actually been pretty funny, distracting her by making her think he might sneeze on another book. Sadly, even that pleasant thought couldn't help her as she again thought of how she might have lost her friends. But eventually, Twilight did manage to fall asleep.
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In her sleep, Twilight found herself flying in her library.
No. Floating in her library. And she was looking down at herself.
It was a somewhat jarring experience, partly because this version of Twilight didn't have her wings. That thought also surprised her as she hadn't realized how accustomed she had grown to having wings.
The other Twilight was walking through the library talking with Spike. Spike was in front of a red wagon stuffed with various items including a punch bowl and plate of cookies. Before reaching the door, however, Twilight paused and turned to Spike. It took a moment, but soon she caught their conversation.
"The Astronomona-humuna what?"
"You know, that really old big blue book on stars, moons, planets, the universe."
"Right! Check!" Spike proclaimed as he then left the room to head to another wing of the library.
That's the book Spike ruined. This is that night.
And then she was moving. Not the other Twilight, but herself, began to float down toward the scene. She didn't feel the movement. She only recognized that she was moving because the other Twilight was growing closer. She wasn't sure what to do about the matter, but soon her hoof touched the other Twilight's mane. In that instant she found herself standing in the library. She was in the other Twilight's body. Or she was the other Twilight now. Looking on her back she saw no wings.
Curious she tested her legs. They worked. And she tested her horn on a nearby book. It worked. It was as seamless as moving around had always been. Walking into the other room with Spike she saw the dragon rearing back for a sneeze. Without even thinking, she quickly grabbed the book from his claws with her magic just before a green flame burst forth from her assistant's mouth.
The dragon looked between his claws and saw the book was nowhere to be found. "Oh no!" he said. He began to work his way back down the ladder when he saw Twilight and the book on the other side of the room. "Twilight? When did you come in?" he asked.
"Right before you sneezed all over this book," she said, matter-of-factly.
"You saved it!" Spike realized. "I was worried my sneeze had accidentally sent the book to Celestia. That would have been bad enough. Sometimes when I sneeze it's just regular fire and the book could have been ruined!"
"It would have been if I hadn't been here. This book is pretty tough to replace. You would think they'd make more copies of astronomer's almanacs."
Spike raised an eyebrow. "Yeah... so are you ready to go to the meteor shower?"
Twilight raised an eyebrow of her own. "Meteor shower? What are you--" She stopped. Wait. The centennial meteor shower we went to on that night. Spike destroyed this book, lied about it, and we went to the shower anyway.
Then her eyes grew to the size of saucers. Ohmigosh! This isn't just some weird dream about that night. This is actually that night! Star Swirl's spell... It worked. I'm in the past right now. And that means I just changed history! Spike now didn't destroy this book! What does this mean? What am I supposed to do? Looking at Spike, the dragon seemed concerned over her lack of an answer. I've got to say something. Anything! Twilight gave a fake laugh.
"Oh, right. Of course! The meteor shower that I've been looking forward to for months. That's totally tonight. I'd never forget about anything this amazing and I've been looking forward to spending this time with my friends and having a great picnic. That is definitely going to happen tonight!"
Now the little dragon looked totally lost. "Why're you acting so weird?"
"Huh? I'm not acting weird. I'm just commenting on tonight and how we're going to see that meteor shower. Speaking of which, did you know this meteor shower is caused by a comet that passes by every 100 years? That's why it's so prominent and only happens once a century!"
"I can hardly count how many times you've told me that in the last week." Spike sighed. "Anyway, we don't want to be late. And your number one assistant has taken care of everything!"
"Great! Just great!" The purple unicorn, for now she was again a unicorn, walked with Spike out of the library. What do I do? I don't want to change the future. But, well, isn't that what I already did? I mean, I have my book now. It took me months to replace this, right when I was trying to write those astronomical papers for Astro-pony Quarterly no less. Now that I have the book I could probably get them done on time. She remembered how difficult it had suddenly become to write an academic paper on the interactions between comets and planets when she didn't have one of the most important reference guides to comets ever written. That, combined with other distractions in the following days, hadn't allowed her to finish the paper by the journal's deadline. It had been unfortunate, but since her primary studies in Ponyville centered on the magic of friendship, she knew that any other work or research was on the back burner. Friendship was her main focus and she had learned some important friendship lessons in the weeks following the meteor shower, including how important it was not to worry too much about sending in things, like friendship reports, on time. Still, it had been a dream, if even a minor one, for her to get one of her paper's published. With her new responsibilities as a Princess that now seemed like it would never happen.
Which was okay. It was just unfortunate.
Spike and Twilight left the library to head toward the hill on the outskirts of town where they would meet their friends. Twilight now looked forward to reliving her evening there, gazing up at meteors and laughing with good friends. With the exception of the conversation about her book going much differently on their way up the hill, the rest of the evening seemed to go as it did originally. The last part she remembered was Pinkie Pie again making her joke as Spike fell asleep in the punch bowl.
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Twilight awoke in her bed. The sun rising through her window as always. And her mind took a moment to register the night's events. Did I really go back in time last night? She looked on her back and stretched out her wings. That was no different. A cursory glance around the room didn't show anything out of place. And she saw that Spike was already awake, setting out her writing supplies for the day down in the room below her sleeping quarters. "Spike," she called out weakly and wearily. "Spike, come here."
The dragon's eyes flew over to her and he ran up the stairs on his little legs. On reaching her, he had a concerned look and voice. "What is it, Twilight? Are you sick? Did I set out your quills wrong? Because I remembered the system you set up two weeks ago."
"It's not that." Twilight yawned and stretched out, including opening up her wings. "It's just. Well. I wonder if you remember the night of the meteor shower a while ago."
"The meteor shower?" Spike asked, putting a claw to his chin as he thought. "Let's see... I think so. That was the night Rarity made me that bow tie. And then I fell asleep halfway through the shower."
"Yes, but do you remember anything about a book?
Blinking in confusion, Spike said, "What happened with a book that night?"
"Did you sneeze on one of my books? A big blue book that you ended up ruining?"
Spike's eyes went wide as he shook his head. "No. I swear, I wouldn't ever sneeze on one of your books. That would be terrible!"
Twilight quickly got out of her bed and went down the stairs into her study, Spike following. "Spike, get me the Astronomical Astronomer's Almanac to All Things Astronomy." The little dragon was concerned about what was happening, and so quickly rushed into the other room and found the book Twilight requested. Bringing it back, he found Twilight staring at the wall of her lower bedroom study. She was looking at several mounted copies of journals and magazines. When she saw that Spike was back, she grabbed the book from him and looked through it.
"This is the fourth edition. But when I bought a replacement copy I got the fifth edition. That means this is the original copy. Spike! You never destroyed this book!"
The dragon was now thoroughly confused. Why would Twilight think he destroyed her book?
Next, Twilight turned back to the wall and pointed. "Spike, what are these?" she asked. Twilight thought she already knew the answer.
"You mean your articles for Astro-pony Quarterly and Popular Pony Science? You've had those mounted there since they got published. Is that why you wanted this book? Did you come up with another experiment or something you want to submit?"
A grin came onto Twilight's face as she took down the quarterly journal and began to flip through it to her article. Her article. It was there. The Astronomical Implications of the Interaction of Comets and Planets by Twilight Sparkle.
I'm a published author. I'm a published astronomer! Twilight was now beaming as she brought down the next magazine and opened it up, finding another article - this one with her picture next to it. She didn't have wings in the picture, but she didn't find it jarring after just having spent a night without them. She felt herself getting misty eyed. And through my dreams I will shape my life. "To be a dream come true." She said softly to herself.
This was a dream come true. The spell had not only worked, it delivered on an impossible promise.
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Twilight chose not to share the events of her experience with Spike just yet. She did apologize to the dragon for startling him in the morning and said she'd just had a strange dream. Which was true. Just not the whole truth.
Later that day, Twilight got a visit from Rainbow Dash, who had come to check out the 4th Daring Do book - Daring Do and the Razor of Dreams - for the sixteenth time.
"Seventeenth time," corrected Rainbow as she hugged the book. "Ever since I found out that Daring Do is real these books have been so much more exciting! To think that Dr. Caballeron actually tried to team up with Daring, and that she actually managed to defeat Ahuizotl is just... ah!" Rainbow let out a fangirl scream.
"Yeah," echoed Twilight. "It is pretty awesome. And to think that a pony as busy as she is can still find time to write all these books." She gestured up to the shelves behind her where the entire collection was perched on the highest shelf. "I can't even find time nowadays to write more astronomical articles." Twilight giggled a bit. It felt awkward to say that and have it mean something more than just a fantasy about writing journal articles, but she had to (wanted to) get used to it.
Suddenly, Rainbow's eyes went wide. "Ohmigosh! That's right. You're a published author too!" Rainbow suddenly zipped over next to Twilight and put her arm around her. "Just think! I've got all these ideas for awesome stories and you've got the connections and writing ability. You and I could totally collaborate on our own adventure series. We could even base it on our real lives! Like how we took on Discord or Nightmare Moon! I could come up with the stories and you could fancy them up and send them out. Then you'd have enough time to still write this stuff and I could also become an author. Then, maybe someday A. K. Yearling would let me not only help her live a Daring Do book, but actually write one!" Dash then flew over in front of Twilight and gave her a wide-eyed stare and smile, begging her to make this sudden dream a reality.
It does feel pretty good to get to live out a dream, Twilight mused. Then she gave a grin. The same grin she had given to Rainbow Dash the very first day they had met. "Alright, Rainbow," she said. "You give me a rough outline of the plot, and we'll work on the first draft. Who knows? Maybe we really can come up with something good."
The pegasus gave a squealing giggle. "This is so great! I'm going to get to write a book with Daring Do!" She then stopped as Twilight raised an eyebrow up at her. "Oh, I mean, I get to write a book with Twilight Sparkle." Then, more quietly and quickly, "And-then-someday-Daring-Do." Rainbow then left the library in an excited dash. Twilight shook her head.
Either way it went, it would be fun to collaborate on the project with Rainbow. Who knew? Maybe she would get to expand her published works into fiction novels. She smiled again at the thought of already having been published. I'm an author now. A real-life author!
Twilight walked over to the door that Rainbow had left through and closed it. Then a thought occurred to her. She hadn't noticed someone yet today. "Spike," she called toward the kitchen where her assistant was preparing dinner. "Do you know where Owlicious is? I haven't seen him since last night."
Poking his head out the door and wearing his apron Spike asked, "Who?"
Twilight giggled a bit at the joke. It never seemed to get old. "Very funny. But seriously, where is the little guy?"
Spike stared at her with a blank expression. He had no idea who she was talking about.