//------------------------------// // Turn Back Time // Story: A Few Years At Sunset // by Swordguy00 //------------------------------// Twilight ran towards Carousel Boutique, where she ran past several ponies. "Have you heard about the cutest filly in Equestria?" One of them said as she trotted happily towards the rapidly amassing crowd. They bottlenecked through the front door and several of them pressed their faces against the shop's floor to ceiling windows. Twilight begrudgingly nudged past practically every pony in town, Ms. Cheerilee, Mayor Mare and even Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara who were shoving each other violently. "I want to see her first!" Silver Spoon declared. "No me." The other screamed. "Rarity." Spike's lullaby-like hypnotized voice was unmistakable. He was one of the many folks packed against the window, except that his entire belly was crushed against the glass as other ponies began to pile on top of the window, uncaring that they themselves were being stepped on or that they may be stepping on others, creating an image of a vine crawling up a tree. Finally negotiating her way to the front of the horde and finding Rarity standing on top of a stool that she had placed on her sewing table. "Who wants to roast marshmallows after this?" Pinky Pie muttered as she got punted and rolled as pony after pony bumped into her getting to the entrance. "Oh Twilight! Thank Celestia. You've got to help! Everyone thinks I'm too adorable!" She was trembling in fear as they got closer and closer. "YOU ARE, YOU ARE!" Everypony chanted together. At this both Twilight and even Rarity rolled their eyes. "Some ponies would do anything for this sort of a fan club." Twilight quipped with a smile. "You're hilarious my dear, now please get me out of here." She looked around the room for a solution. As hooves reached for her tail and mane Rarity began to get nervous as the precarious tower of furniture began to wobble "Um… Twilight." She laughed nervously. Just then Berry Punch head butted the sewing table, shaking it and knocking it off balance. All Twilight could do was watch as Rarity fell. But a second or two before she hit, something thought impossible occurred. The shrieks of the ponies stopped, Rarity was silent with her mouth open in mid scream. For a brief inconceivably small attosecond, time had stopped and then in almost the same time there was a loud boom and Rainbow Dash appeared on the stairs with Rarity slumped across her back. "Twilight come on!" She said as she put her friend off her back. "Where did you come from?" Twilight asked as she ran alongside Rainbow Dash and Rarity. "Just waiting for my grand Daring Do style entrance." Rainbow grinned. "Glad you're having fun Dash." Twilight remarked as they ran for cover in Rarity's bedroom. Twilight paced, trying to think of a solution. She then pulled the long queen sized white sheet off her bed. "Here Rarity, put this on!" Twilight commanded as she threw the oversized sheet at Rarity's feet. Rarity just looked at it and tilted her head in confusion. "I don't understand what's going on… it's so strange." Rarity was on the verge of tears. Twilight walked over to her friend turned filly and hugged her. "It'll be okay, for now we have to get back to the library." "How's a blanket going to help that?" Rainbow Dash asked raising an eyebrow to Twilight's nonsensical plan. "It has to do with how everypony sees her right, well what if they can't see her at all?" Twilight grinned and then nodded to Rarity. Rarity dried her tears and hummed a tune to herself as she wrapped herself comfortably in the blanket making sure she was totally covered "Winter… wrap up, let's finish our holiday cheer." She stuttered through the torrent of emotional stress all this was. "Now get on my back Rarity, you'll just look like a bunch of sheets if you stay still." Rarity, now looking like a cross between a toilet paper mummy and a cheap excuse for a Halloween ghost costume, nodded at Twilight and she levitated the filly onto her back, folding her wings back over her friend to ensure she didn't fall off. "Okay, everypony ready?" Dash nodded with a confident smile and Rarity gave a muffled yes. "Let's go then." They opened the door and Twilight noticed something right away, there was a calm quiet, except the slightest shuffling of anticipatory hooves, like they had been waiting for them this whole time. "Okay Rainbow." Twilight whispered. "Go in front of me." Rainbow nodded and took the lead as they slowly descended the stairs. As they came into view of the first floor, everypony froze and stared wide-eyed and unmoving at Twilight and Dash's sudden presence. "Uh, hey everypony!" Rainbow laughed nervously but tried to keep her composure. "Where is Rarity?" Spike asked at once, climbing on top of Derpy's back to get a better view of his friends. "She asked us to do her laundry!" Rainbow spat quickly. “Yeah!" Twilight nodded following the lie quickly. "But if you wait here she'll be down to greet all of you… she's just fixing her mane and putting on her most formal attire for the occasion… she said you all deserve it." "Laundry, huh? That's odd. I know for a fact that Rarity does her laundry on Saturdays." Spike leered at the bundle. "Today is Friday!" The dragon pointed accusingly at Twilight as if he'd just cracked this mystery wide open. "She wanted us to get a head start on this stuff, Bad stain you see." Twilight smiled innocently, holding her smile a little too wide and too long to seem genuine. "Got lots to do, bye now!" Rainbow added as she walked out the door of the boutique with Twilight not far behind her. The two started to walk towards the library, quickening their pace as they got farther and farther away, though having to magically carry Pinkie Pie didn't help their escape attempt. As the library came into view, Rainbow Dash felt a rumbling beneath her hooves. A din of growls and snarling got louder and louder until they started to hear a faint voice call out. "Gain way!" It was Applejack and Fluttershy seemingly running for their lives. A moment later Twilight and Rainbow knew why, a massive stampede of forest animals was running right at them. "That's not good." Rainbow noted as she bolted towards the library at break-neck speed. "What's…oof… going… on out there?" Rarity asked as her voiced trembled and skipped with every stride Twilight took as she followed Rainbow’s pacing. As the five friends dashed as quick as they could into the library, Pinkie Pie was too bulbous to fit through the door. Twilight enveloped Pinkie in the soft fuchsia of her magic and pulled as the rest of her friends pulled on her legs. With only seconds to spare before the multitude of woodland creatures, normally so docile and well-mannered because of Fluttershy's motherly influence and care, had their fangs bared with looks of rage that Twilight hoped she could forget when she next slept at night. They all pulled together and Pinkie popped out of the wedged space sailing forward and hitting the opposite wall which held a bookshelf, sending books dropping to the floor, some with more prominent thuds than others based on their size. Twilight then turned and put her back towards the door as she breathed heavily. "Fluttershy," Twilight was barely able to catch her breath, "What happened?" Fluttershy mouthed some words but spoke in a raspy tone. "Here." Twilight rolled up a piece of parchment and made a cone, putting it up to Fluttershy's mouth. "I'm sorry Twilight, The bag of animal feed I usually use,” She took another breath; visibly struggling “I couldn't hold onto it, I dropped the bag. As I tried to catch it before it hit the floor, it landed on my neck… and now the animals won't behave at all.” “Oh this is all my fault,” she continued. “Without my counsel and nurturing voice they've become wild again." Fluttershy lamented as she spoke with her gaze toward the floor. "Twilight how do we fix this, there's a stampede outside tearing up Ponyville." Rainbow was pressing for answers. Rarity then popped out of the sheet that had saved her life and jumped off Twilight's back. "Not to mention a mob of Rarity worshippers." Rarity chimed in sweetly, she was starting to remind everyone of Sweetie Bell, including herself. "We can't fix anything until-." Twilight's eyes then went wide with horror. She then raced about the room in a panic searching for the tome that contained what she feared. As she found and opened it up she turned with the same look on her face except now she raced to window. "Okay everypony get together, we have to reverse this spell before it's too late." Twilight commanded. "Too late for what exactly?" Rarity asked as she huddled in between Fluttershy and Applejack. "If we don't get you all back to normal by sundown then you'll be stuck this way, and have to grow up again." Twilight answered not looking up from her book, trying to find the counter spell. "Well it almost is sundown." Pinkie commented, for once with a worried look on her face. "Okay, everyone together, here goes nothing!" As Twilight finished the spell there was a bright flash of light as her friends turned back to their older selves, with Pinkie Pie reverting to her original shape. "I thought you would have planned for this, why didn't you reread the book at some point, check the spell's parameters?" Rarity narrowed her eyes at Twilight. "Because she took it from the Canterlot Castle Archives, and had to put it back before anypony could find out." A voice came from behind Twilight, everyone froze. Twilight sheepishly turned to see the flawless pink coat and multi-faceted mane of Princess Cadence sitting poised on her sister-in-law’s bed. “But the spell doesn’t wear off,” she continued as the princess in pink descended the knotted, rough wood of the staircase “And so didn’t allow for her to sneak it back in a timely manner.” As Twilight lowered both her ears and head, she spoke softly "I'm sorry, this would never had happened if I-" Twilight then looked wide-eyed at the princess who suddenly had a grin on her face. "Wait a minute!" Twilight reacted with a furrowed brow and then a look of astonishment. "Why else you be here at this exact moment?" Cadence just laughed as she lifted a hoof to ruffle Twilight's mane. "Just because you go to steal something from the castle in the night doesn't mean Princess Luna didn't know." Twilight and her friend’s jaws then hit the floor in disbelief. "With how far you've come in your studies Twilight Sparkle, I would have thought you knew to ask either me or Celestia or Luna for help." "I guess I learned a lesson in not letting my pride get the better of me." Twilight admitted as she laughed a little, bashfully blushing as she did so. "She learns quickly." Cadence said as she peeked behind her shoulder to the rest of the ponies who just stood in shock at the blatant disregard for their safety in order to teach Twilight a lesson.