The planeswalkers of Ponyville sat in Ditzy Doo's living room. Between them was more than five thousand years of unimaginable experience, the friendship of dozens of other travelers of the æther, and knowledge of countless spells that the scholars of Canterlot would consider against the understood laws of magic, nature, and/or decency. And a teapot.
"So," asked Ditzy, "how about next Thursday?"
Pinkie considered it, then shook her head. "No can do. It's Silver Platter's birthday and she's actually in Ponyville for once. I couldn't miss that party."
The pegasus nodded. "If only for her daughter's sake."
"Oh, Spoon's not a bad filly. She's a good influence on Diamond Tiara."
This prompted a raised eyebrow. "And Barrin was a good influence on Urza."
The party pony gave a wry grin. "Well, if Tiara starts building a robot army, we can worry."
Both laughed at the mental image. Ditzy swirled the dregs in her cup. "Seriously, though. I'd like to get the rest of the story. I mean, you literally made Equestria! How could I not?"
"Well, I made Ungula. Equestria was Faust's work. Though the author does tend to use the latter as a synecdoche for the former." Pinkie added a bit more tea to her sugar as the grey mare decided it best not to ask. "Anyway, the point is that you promised Twilight that you'd find a hole in all our schedules and she'd go full-on Cream of Wheat if she wasn't there for the rest."
"'Cream of Wheat'?"
"Even crazier than oatmeal."
Ditzy considered this. "So where does 'mutant energy being' rate on the hot cereal scale?"
"Ooh, tough one..." The earth mare sipped a mixture that would destroy lesser pancreases. "I don't think they make one that crazy." She paused a moment more, coming to a decision. "Hay, while we're off topic?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, I'm kinda working on something for you, but I need some information from you before I can go any further."
"What do you need?"
Pinkie nervously spun the teacup in her hooves. "Promise you won't be mad?"
Ditzy held back a sigh. That was Pinkie for you. One minute she's revealing ancient cosmic wisdom, the next she's acting like she's Dinky's age. "I promise."
"Cross your heart, hope to..." The other planeswalker trailed off, faced against the logistic conflict of the Pinkie Swear when applied to pegasi. She grinned sheepishly. "Um, I'll take your word for it. Anyway, I kinda need to know what... what happened to Address."
"Oh." Funny, the blonde didn't recall putting any lead in the tea. Why the sudden dead weight in her stomach?
"I-if it's too personal—"
"No, no, it's fine." Ditzy sighed. "If I can't tell you, I couldn't tell anypony." She took a deep breath, steadying herself for the memories. "I was about eight months pregnant with Dinky..."
Ditzy loved her husband, but he was doing an awful lot of hovering for a wingless pony. "Are you sure you're going to be alright?" he asked for what felt like the twentieth time that morning.
The pegasus rolled her eyes. "Address, look at my flank."
"Honey, you're beautiful and I love you, but—"
"I said 'look at my flank,' not 'mount me.'"
"Okay," he said uncertainly, "I'm looking."
"What do you see?"
"Bubbles." The unicorn had no idea where his wife was going with this.
"Not a 'Fragile' stamp?"
Now he did. Ears drooping, Address sighed, "No..."
"Then I'll be fine." Ditzy gave the stallion a peck on the cheek. "It's just a routine checkup. You've got nothing to worry about and a post office that needs running."
He gave one last plantive look. "Could you at least stop by to say hello on your way back home?"
"Promise not to delay delivery until I do?"
The unicorn smirked. "I promise nothing."
The gravid mare gave a good-natured sigh. "Then I'll just have to tell Nurse Icehooves to make it a rush job, for the sake of everypony's mail."
Address nuzzled her gratefully. "See that you do. Love you, Derpy Girl."
"Love you, Stud Muffin."
Ditzy left the hospital pleased, if still unpleasantly chilly in some personal areas. She was on track for having a beautiful, healthy foal in just ten short weeks. Furthermore, once she delivered, she wouldn't fly like a stunned cow anymore. "Trouble before you're even born," she whispered. "This better not be a sign of things to come, my little pony."
Her maternal reflections were interrupted by bumping against somepony else. "Sorry!" Way to go, Ditzy, she thought, only other pony in the street and you manage to knock into him.
"Hmmph," grunted the stallion. "Cursed place. Twisting body, twisting mind. Dare mock the mad? Hmmph."
"Ooookay, backing away now..."
As Ditzy did so, the grizzled pegasus spoke again. "Halt!" The voice suddenly carried so much authority, the mare found herself obeying before she could even think. "You. You carry the scent of power."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Ha!" It wasn't really a laugh, more of a shout that happened to sound like one. "You? Beg? You need not beg." The bizarre pony began to pace around Ditzy. She noted his cutie mark, a glowering dragon's head. He pressed on. "No, you are a wolf among lambs. A dragon amidst newts." He stopped in front of her, pausing in his rant as he came to some mad epiphany. "A dragon? The dragon spoke of a dragon. Could it be? Could it not?"
The blonde moved to one side. "Um, I'll just..."
One of his wings snapped open to block her path, seemingly without his notice. Ditzy's eyes widened as she took in the appendage. It was a thing of skin and scales. This pony had the wings of a dragon.
Oblivious to her terror, he continued his raving. "Told to seek dragon, but not brooding mother. No, hatchling is what the dragon wants. But the egg has not hatched. What now, madman?" The dreadlocked stallion nodded to himself. "We wait."
A chill ran down the mare's spine. "Madman," he'd said. Madman. This was no pony. This was a planeswalker. "What are you doing here?" she asked warily.
He gave another shout-laugh, staring into the distance. "She asks wisely. What brings the grown man to the land of ponies?" He wheeled to face her. "Innocence? Whimsy? Friendship? Ha!" With every word, he stomped forward, forcing her to back away. "No, it is the dragon that brought me here. He holds the madman's leash, he sics his mad dog on this world of prey. And the dragon's quarry is you."
"M-me?" Ditzy skimmed through her memories of the Multiverse. She certainly would've remembered attracting the attention of a dragon. Wouldn't she? "What dragon?"
"Dark dragon. Smart dragon. Giant wyrm of hate." A hint of fear came to the disheveled pony's bloodshot eyes. His words grew hushed. "Elder dragon. 'Walker dragon. Rules our fate."
She blanched. Tezzeret had hinted at a draconic superior. The Myojin had given it a name. Jace had told her its story. The oldest, cruelest, most powerful being in the known Multiverse. "Bola-"
"NO!" A hoof slammed over her mouth."Speak not the name! He will hear. He will see."
From what she'd heard, Ditzy didn't doubt it. Moving the limb aside, she asked, "Why me?"
This struck the mad planeswalker as the height of comedy. His laughter was harsh, brutish, and long, interspersed with breathless repetitions of "Why me?"
The blonde decided to take the opportunity to move away, resuming her course to the post office. Even if she wanted to have a duel in the middle of Ponyville, she was in no condition to do so. With her body busy nurturing another life, her magic was as slow and clumsy as her flight.
She didn't get far before the transformed madman pounced in front of her. "Why you?" he snapped. "Why you? Why anyone? Why anything? The dragon wants. The dragon gets. To ask why is folly. Come with me."
"Why? Where?"
"The egg must hatch."
Much as she wished she didn't, Ditzy understood. This crazed minion had convinced himself that one of the most ancient evils of all time wanted her child. She crouched and flared her wings. "Not on your life."
He snorted and smacked himself. "Fool! Egg thief! Mother guards the nest."
"You'd better believe she does." Slowly, she felt the mana coalesce. She just had to keep talking to him, keep him distracted.
"Mother guards the nest. Mother is the nest." He grinned, arcane fires bursting to life in his eyes. He began to bulge, his voice deepening as his body reshaped itself. "Take the mother. Take the nest. Take the mammal."
Ditzy braced herself, but she knew it was an empty bluff. All of her available resources were devoted to the one spell still taking shape at a snail's pace. She was pretty much helpless.
Then something went straight through one of her adversary's leathery wings. With a noise that was half pained whinny, half furious roar, he shrank back to his still formidable equine form, then whirled around. "Who!?"
"Me." Address Unknown pawed at the ground, surrounded by a swarm of magically suspended envelopes.
The dragon mage hesitated for a moment, confused. Then his nostrils flared and he sneered in comprehension. "Broodmate comes to protect his clutch! Think you a hellkite, little drake?"
The unicorn said nothing. The letter he'd sent through one wing rose again and threaded through the other as he recalled it.
Enraged, the other stallion charged, flames licking out of his muzzle. As he exhaled a torrent of flame, the mailpony vanished.
He reappeared next to Ditzy and gave her a kiss. "I thought I'd run into you if I started the route now."
She was still processing his arrival. "You can teleport?"
Address smirked. "I teleport mail to other cities all the time."
"You can teleport yourself?"
"Not far or easily, but... Ditz, this really isn't the time." He looked back at the dragon-winged pony, who was trying to incinerate the swarm of messages that were slicing through air and skin alike. "What's with this pony?"
"He's insane."
"That much I gathered."
His wife sighed. "Look, it's a long story, and I'll tell you if we're still alive afterwards."
This cracked the expecting father's confidence. "'If'?"
Ditzy thought it best to change the subject. "Do you see that glowy patch right in front of us?" Her spell had finally progressed to the point of visibility, though at the moment that meant it made an area of dirt road brighter than usual.
"Yeah..."
"Get him in there. It's our best hope."
"If you say so, Derpy Girl."
She pecked him on the cheek. "Good luck."
"I'll need it," admitted Address. "There goes the last of the junk mail."
As the ashen remains of a Publisher's Clearing Barn entry form fluttered around him, the mad stallion turned back to the couple. His wings were ragged and his body filiggreed with paper cuts, but any pain he felt only fueled his rage. "You have no more fangs, drake."
"None I'm willing to lose," corrected the mailpony. His magic brought something out of his saddlebags. "But I still have these."
The planeswalker's gaze locked onto the new threat. He spat a stream of flame at it.
Address simply moved it to hover over the other shoulder, trying to ignore the coat-singing heat.
"You're just distracting him," whispered Ditzy, "right?"
"Nope." Both spouses ducked as a wider swathe of fire passed over them, its caster slowly approaching.
"You really think you can beat him with a roll of stamps?"
"Watch me. Go right!"
The two ran in different directions, avoiding a blistering pulse of energy that left a thin molten trail in its wake. Faced with seperate targets, the dragon mage opted for his objective, moving to intercept the pregnant mare.
"Wrong choice, buddy!"
Sarkhan Vol looked behind him. The mate had looped around and was charging him, horn down. The madman sneered. His matted tail reshaped itself into a dragon's maw and belched fire at the fool.
Amazingly, the fool ran straight through the flames, not even flinching. The planeswalker halted in astonishment and the slightest bit of grudging respect. He could see the shining burns, the still smouldering coat, but the pony seemed not to care.
The minion soon cursed his weakness, for once he was still, the beast's paltry magic wrapped its talismans around his waist with surprising speed. Vol turned fully, snapping the fragile length of paper, and drew heavily on his mana bonds. It was time to see just how much dragonfire this insect could withstand.
Address had different plans. As the other stallion took a deep breath, he plowed into him. One foreleg pinching his foe's throat shut, the mailpony channeled the most magic he ever had. The loop of stamps that wrapped around the pegasus's barrel came out to enough postage to send something to the Moon and back. As his horn flared into overglow, the purple pony could feel that it was more than enough to convince his magic that this was just another package. Half-blind from his own display, he thrust himself and his fearsome freight through space with a shout of "Special delivery!"
As Ditzy watched, both stallions materialized just as her oblivion ring finally finished forming. To her eyes and her horror, planeswalker, pony, and prison seemed to explode in a blinding display. When her vision cleared, there was no trace of any of them.
"After I had Dinky, I checked out the spot every way I knew, but it was as if nothing had ever happened." The pegasus shook her head. "I didn't know what else I could do. Officially, Address was missing, presumed dead. What could I say?" She sighed. "The one thing I still don't understand is why nopony else ever looked out their window or something."
Pinkie considered this. "What day was it?"
"Megan eighteenth, 5868. I'll never forget that day." Ditzy frowned, perplexed. "Why do you ask?"
The party pony nodded to herself, confirming something against her vast database of festivities past, present, and future. "There was a block party on the other side of town. Given who'd attended, the area near the post office would've been just about deserted."
"Oh..." The blonde slumped. "Why'd you need to know this, anyway?"
Pinkie grinned. "Well, if I didn't know where he went, how could I get him back?"
So great was her shock that Ditzy's eyes were perfectly aligned for the rest of the day.
One week later
"So you're sure this will get Address back?" Ditzy looked over the "ritual space" skeptically.
"Of course I'm sure!" gushed Pinkie. "I even consulted the Mystical Orb of Fate's Destiny (patent pending.)"
The pegasus glanced at the indicated crystal ball. She couldn't detect anything magical about it, but this was Pinkie Pie. Ditzy wouldn't have been surprised if the party pony could scry through a bowl of cake frosting.
The earth pony continued to bustle about the tent. "Just leave this to the professional," she continued, "I'll have your hubby back in two shakes of a blinking jiffy!"
"Well, if you're sure..."
The pink mare frowned at her fellow planeswalker. "I sense doubt in you."
Ditzy's eyes went to opposite corners of the tent. "It's just that this doesn't exactly feel... reputable." No, it seemed... "mystical." Not the sort of atmosphere she'd felt around the genuinely mystic, but an amalgamation of candles, dream catchers, incense burners, and other foofaraw with which gullible unicorns would surround themselves, thinking that it would make them more powerful. Pinkie's Roamany outfit and the quartet of Screwballs didn't help the credibility.
"Mugwump," added one of the quasiponies, garbed like her comrades in a face-concealing black robe.
Pinkie scoffed at the grey mare's skepticism. "Who cares how it looks as long as it works?" Her expression soured as she adjusted her turban. "Still, I will not perform the ritual with such a Doubty McDoubterson present. Vamoose."
"But he's my—"
"Vamoose!"
"All right, all right, I'm vamoosing!"
As Ditzy vamoosed, she heard the party pony shout "Alright, girls, let's make Mark Rosewater cry!"
This prompted a low, surprisingly synchronized chant by the avatars of discord. "Ooga chaka ooga ooga, ooga chaka ooga ooga..."
The pegasus looked back at the tent. A haze the color of coagulating blood began to pour out of the flaps. She hoped it was mana and not smoke from a poorly placed candle.
A fifth voice cut in over the avatars' chant. It was presumably Pinkie's, but seemed far deeper than her vocal range should've allowed. "I can't stop this feeling..."
The haze poured out of the tent with greater urgency, seeming to reach out towards Ditzy.
"Deep inside of me..."
She tried to move further back, but was quickly engulfed. She thought to take flight, but she was choking on the cloying fumes before she could do more than unfold her wings.
"Girl, you just don't realize what you do to me."
The blonde noted the aptness of the incantation just before she passed out.
Ditzy drifted, as though in a dream. Nothing seemed entirely real. Sounds were muted by the ongoing chant. Vision, smell, and taste were all constrained by the curious smoke, which was sufficiently cloudlike to impede touch as well. Even her uniquely pegasine senses felt uncalibrated and ambiguous, direction and altitude as uncertain as for a pony lost in the Everfree.
Even the flow of time felt vague, but eventually, wonderfully concrete sensations broke through the haze. Strong limbs held her tight against a firm chest. Muffled words in a familiar voice tickled her ears. Lips she knew so well pressed against hers, sweeter than any candy.
Seconds, hours, months... Ditzy couldn't say how much more time she spent exulting in the feelings. Whenever it was that she regained lucidity, she immediately noticed three things. One, she was back in the tent. Two, the singing avatars were nowhere to be seen, while Pinkie was dabbing at her eyes with a hoofkerchief. Three, Ditzy herself was on her side, her limbs entwined with those of a pony she had last seen in a space beyond space.
Hesitantly, she nuzzled the seemingly familiar stallion. The words caught in her throat a few times before she was able to force them out. "Address? Is that really you?"
"Exact postage or it's goin' nowhere," came the sleepy reply.
The pegasus practically squeezed the life out of her husband. She then looked to the earth pony. "Pinkie, I don't think we'll ever be able to repay for what you've done today."
The other planeswalker blew her nose, then smiled. It wasn't her usual incandescent beam, but a warm expression that spoke of a sublime, loving joy. "Be happy with one another. That's my only price."
Ditzy turned back to the unicorn in her hooves. "I think we can handle that."
The reaction of Dinky's peers to her cutie mark had been... mixed. The Crusaders thought it was cool, but beneath their enthusiasm was the undercurrent of jealousy they felt towards everypony who left the ranks of the blank flanks. Other unicorns had been wary. Most were still mastering the basics of magic, and to them, Dinky represented the very equinification of their difficulties and frustrations. Even those who were confident with their horns seemed to avoid her. She had realized that simply knowing that she could hinder their magic shot their confidence, which made their magic worse, which they of course blamed on her. Nopony said anything out loud, but the looks spoke volumes.
Yet for all the envy and scorn, neither group was quite as bad as the others. The earth ponies and pegasi just didn't seem to get it. To them, her talent seemed to be the absence of one. After all, what was the point of a unicorn who made things less magical? The very image of the sputtering wand suggested to them that something was wrong with its bearer. As Diamond Tiara had so succinctly put it, "It's a dud, just like you."
With the beginning of school, all of these attitudes for heaped on her at once. Miss Cherrilee had been encouraging, of course, but it was clear that she was just trying to cheer Dinky up. "I'm sure there's more to your cutie mark than just stopping magic." Really? Did she think that the filly couldn't read between the lines?
Needless to say, the end of the school day had come as a relief. As the other foals stampeded out of the schoolhouse, she trudged, weighed down by her peers' dismissal.
As the filly sighed, she heard her mother. "Muffin?" Ditzy asked concernedly. "What's wrong?"
Her gaze fixed on the ground, Dinky answered, "Everypony thinks my special talent is stupid."
The two began to walk home. "Countermagic is a divisive topic," acknowledged the pegasus. "Some think it's just mean. Others couldn't live without it."
"But that's in the big, dangerous, exciting Monkeyverse," grumbled the unicorn.
"Multiverse, sweetie."
"Whatever. Equestria's nice and happy and peaceful. Nopony here needs somepony who just ruins everything."
"Even in a seemingly gentle place, some things need ruining."
The filly glared at the dirt, unconvinced. "Like what?"
Ditzy smiled, then feigned deep concentration. "What was it again? You were so excited to tell me this morning."
"It doesn't matter..."
Mother nudged daughter. "Humor me, Grumpy Muffin."
Dinky sighed, then monotonously recited, "Poison joke, when properly prepared, could probably act as a cure for the gaze of a cockatrice, 'cause it'll take a stoned pony and make them into a silly one. Because puns." She shrugged. "But that's obvious."
"Really? Because when I mentioned it to Miss Twilight, she spent the next hour in her lab and came back covered in chalk dust, raving about how my little muffin had just revolutionized botanical medicine."
This got the filly's attention away from the ground. "Really?"
"Yup."
She scrunched up her face in confusion. "But.. but anypony could've figured that out."
"Anypony with an intuitive understanding of how magic comes together and how it falls apart." The mailmare beamed with pride. "Those ponies are few and far between."
The two continued in silence, Dinky deep in thought. As they neared home, she spoke up again. "Why'd you go to Miss Twilight? Was it just 'cause of what I said?"
"Partly," answered Ditzy. "Another part was that not all of her mail comes through Spike. And the other part is in my saddlebag." She opened the container and passed its contents to her daughter.
The filly held the book in her azure aura and examined the cover. "The Young Unicorn's Guide to Physics: An Introduction to the Rules You Were Born to Break"
"Or in your case," noted her mother, "to enforce."
The young unicorn's face split into a massive grin. "Wow!"
"And there's one more thing."
"What? What?"
Ditzy opened their front door. An older male unicorn walked out. He gave an awkward smile, clearly unsure what to do. "Hey, kiddo. Good to finally meet you."
Dinky's jaw dropped. The book fell to the ground, forgotten. She was silent for a moment, reworking what had been an abstract concept in her mind. "...Daddy?"
"I... I know I haven't been here for you or your mom," said Address, "but it wasn't because I didn't want to be here. And I promise that I'm not going to leave you again for a long, long time."
For all his daughter cared, he could've declared himself Emperor of Yugoatslavia. "Daddy!"
As the child he just met nuzzled him as though she'd known him all her life, Address Unknown looked to his wife, tears in his eyes. "I'm really home."
Streams running down her own cheeks, Ditzy nodded and joined in the embrace. "You are."
To Here From Eternity XWU
Sorcery
Put onto target face-up exiled nonland card a number of time counters equal to that card's converted mana cost minus X. If that card has no time counters on it, put a time counter on it. If it doesn't have suspend, it gains suspend. (If a negative number of counters would be put on that card, instead put no counters on it.)