Lightning crackled through Twilight's new castle. It skittered over the crystal walls, ran electric fingers over the thrones, crackled on the table in the centre of the room.
Twilight stared at the display. She'd seen it before, and had made a plan for just this eventuality. She felt the wind through her mane as the air in the room moved and shifted, swirling around a central point. She averted her eyes as that point glowed, releasing light from the temporal differential. And she looked back at just the right moment to see a pony appear from nothing, right in the centre of the table.
She really hadn't been expecting that particular pony, though.
“Time Turner?” she asked. The brown stallion with the hourglass cutie mark was a well-known Ponyville resident; he repaired clocks and watches, had a truly excellent sense of timing, and – importantly – he was an earth pony, and thus unable to cast magic on his own; including the time travel spell that Twilight had just seen him arrive with.
He held out one hoof to cover Twilight's mouth, leaving a ring of brown hoof polish. Twilight noticed some sort of device wrapped around his forelimb; something with a tiny keyboard on it, buttons that looked far too small to use with a hoof. “No time to explain. I've only got a few minutes to deliver my message.”
Twilight nodded. 'Keep Quiet And Let The Time Traveller Talk' was, after all, the next item in her plan.
“It's going to be a bit cryptic,” said the stallion, lowering his hoof, “for which I apologise; but trust me when I say that this message is of vital importance.”
Twilight nodded again.
The stallion cleared his throat and looked into the distance. “Beware the Sun.” he said; and then “You will be betrayed.”
“I'll be what?” asked Twilight.
“Betrayed,” said the stallion. “Turned on. Attacked, by someone very close to you.”
“That's ridiculous!” said Twilight. “None of my friends would -”
The stallion put a hoof on Twilight's mouth again, rubbing off a little more hoof polish to reveal the grey beneath it. “No time to argue,” he said, the wind around him already picking up as his time spell began to wear off. “Just remember – whatever else happens, whatever you think will happen, no matter what – do not, I repeat, do not tell –”
There was the sound of an explosion in reverse as the stallion vanished from the Castle of Friendship.
Twilight stared for a long moment at the spot where he'd vanished.
“Don't tell who?” she asked, mystified.
“Twilight?” asked Spike, stepping into the room with a feather duster in one claw. “Are you alright? Did something happen? I heard a noise...”
“Well,” began Twilight, and then she stopped. ”Don't tell” she thought. Could it have been – don't tell Spike? ...no, surely not. Still, betrayed? By someone close to me? Who's closer than than Spike?
“Twilight?” asked Spike again.
“Ummmm.... nothing!” squeaked Twilight. “Absolutely nothing happened at all!”
“Really,” said Spike, folding his arms. “Well, 'nothing' appears to have left two circles of hoof polish on your muzzle.”
“Oh, um, er.... I've got to go!” Twilight said, running for the door.
Spike shook his head and sighed. He took his feather duster and went to dust off the table. He took one look at it, sighed again, and went to go and fetch a bottle of hoof polish remover.