"It's amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday." - John Guare
Twilight's friends looked to one another, then to her. One moment the group had been sharing a hug. The next, Twilight was bounding around the room claiming to have been able to perform Star Swirl's time spell.
"But Twilight," said Rarity. "I thought you told us only an alicorn could cast that spell."
"And I might not know a lot of alicorns," declared Pinkie. "But I'm preeeety sure they have wings."
Twilight laughed, at her own wonderful sense of understanding, not at her friends' lack thereof. "I was told the spell needed alicorn magic. And an alicorn isn't just a unicorn with wings. She's the product of a deeper kind of magic. A magic that even Star Swirl didn't understand, but that you five taught me." Twilight beamed at each of her friends. "Being a princess isn't about the crown. The magic an alicorn uses is different because of what's inside her. I thought I needed the Elements of Harmony, but even with Star Swirl's spell they're useless by themselves. Your friendship is what let me become an alicorn in the other timeline. And so it was the magic of our friendship I used now to cast the time spell."
Each of the other ponies gaped at their friend's revelation. From the very first night where they had defeated Nightmare Moon the five had been forced to continually re-evaluate the power of their friendship. Now the group was trying to process the fact that together they had the power of an alicorn. Then Rainbow declared, "This... is... AWESOME!" The pegasus did a mid-air loop. "That means the six of us are like princesses!"
"I can hardly believe it," said Rarity. "All my life I wanted to marry royalty from Canterlot to become a princess, but what I really needed was in Ponyville all along."
"Does this mean I have to be a princess now?" asked Fluttershy, slightly curled up at the thought. "I don't think I can handle that kind of pressure."
"Ohmigosh!" shouted Pinkie. Bouncing around and then heading for the door at the end of the hall. "We need to throw a party, RIGHT NOW! I'll go get the balloons and streamers, oh, and cake! Lot's of cake, with extra frosting and--"
"Hold on!" Applejack grabbed the pink tail of her friend before she bolted out of the building. "I think we need to do something else, first." She looked to Twilight and the purple mare understood.
"Right," Twilight said. "I was able to cast the spell, but that doesn't mean this is over. We need to figure out how I can correct the timeline." She pondered for a moment. But only for a moment. In her mind, there really was only one possible solution. "I think I should go back to the day the Everfree went out of control and tell you all how to use the Elements to fix it. That way Celestia won't die and half the town won't get destroyed."
"Uh, aren't you forgetting something?" Rainbow Dash flapped her wings as she gestured toward Twilight's back.
Twilight shook her head. "I can't risk doing anything else. That might mess up things all over again!"
"Hold on," said Applejack. "I know ya made some mistakes before, but with all of us together, I'm sure we can--"
"I won't take this away from you!" Twilight shouted. Her breathing suddenly became heavy and her friends stared at her in shock. Taking a deep breath, Twilight continued in a low voice. "If I go back and tell myself not to use the spell at all, it'll ruin everything. Rainbow Dash won't be a Wonderbolt, your farm won't be a huge success, and Rarity won't be living in Canterlot. You'll all be in Ponyville living average lives instead of living your dreams."
The three tensed up at this. Applejack bit her lip. Rainbow Dash looked to each corner of the room without making eye contact with anypony. Rarity was frowning. Again, Twilight was feeling her friends pain, and she hated being the cause of it. I won't be the reason my friends are miserable.
"But Twilight, what about you?" Fluttershy reminded her. "If you do that, you might save Celestia, but you wouldn't become a princess."
"I'm willing to make that sacrifice," declared Twilight. "I won't let getting wings and a title stand in the way of my friend's happiness."
"Absolutely not!" yelled Rarity. "You becoming a princess is about more than wings and a title. It is the oppertunity of a lifetime!"
"It's a symbol of our friendship!" Pinkie Pie pointed out.
Rainbow Dash nodded. "Come on, Twilight. You think we'd let you give up something like that?"
The unicorn sighed as she shook her head. "No, I guess not."
"So come on," said AJ. "Let's think! How do we get everythin' back ta how it's supposed ta be?"
"Just go back to the beginning," said Rainbow Dash. "Go to wherever Twilight found the spell and stop her from using it. Piece of cake."
"It isn't that simple," said Twilight. "In this timeline, I never actually found the spells."
Dash raised an eyebrow, "But if you never found the spell, how did you change time?"
"I made the changes at a point in the timeline before I'd found the spells. That changed everything from that point forward, and one of those changes was me not finding the spells in the first place. In the end that's what happened, creating a paradox. Before yesterday, I would have told you that that was a serious problem, but Discord's revelation to me proved that effect can never precede cause. The timeline never had an infinite loop of effect and cause because the timeline only holds true to its past, not its future. It's like the timeline isn't aware of what will happen tomorrow, because tomorrow hasn't happened. So it just works with whatever happens today. Am I making sense?"
Most of her friends were looking dazed and confused by this information. But Pinkie, who was nodding and smiling the whole time, said, "Yup! And I'm sure we all see the solution!" Everypony looked at her for that statement. "Well, isn't it obvious?" she asked.
"Pinkie," said Dash, annoyed. "If the solution was obvious we'd have already tried it by now!"
"Whatcha thinkin' Pink?" asked Applejack.
"I just thought that Twilight could go to the beginning before the beginning." Her friends looked at her quizzically. "You know, back to when all this really started." Pinkie seemed to believe this explanation was sufficient. The others did not.
"We're gonna need a might more than that, sugarcube," said AJ.
"Okie dokie!" Pinkie pulled a large easel out of nowhere and held up a pink marker. "So Twilight said that all of this is one big timeline." Pinkie drew two lines up the sheet running parallel to each other. "That means that the present is like a train running on a track." Pinkie connected the two lines with many little lines and drew a train with a small gift-box as its cargo. "See, this train has a present. Get it, like the present, but also like a present?" Pinkie smiled and her friends motioned for her to continue along with the explanation. "But a train is really big! Like so big that it takes a lot of horses or coal or hoof-bumps to move it. So usually it stays going straight, but Twilight pushed it a bunch of times! And eventually, it went on a different track."
"Hang on," said Rainbow. "If there's only one timeline, how can there be more than one track?"
"There isn't," said Pinkie, pointing to her diagram. "See, one track. And that track goes wherever the train does."
"But trains follow tracks. They don't make them as they move." Applejack objected.
"Well, the time train does. If it didn't then how could Twilight change the future?"
"The analogy isn't perfect," Twilight pointed out.
"Well, duh!" said Pinkie. "If it was a perfect analogy then I would be explaining all this timey-wimey stuff in terms of actual wibbly-wobblies! But that wouldn't make any sense! Unless you know the Rudimentary Quantum Dilation Distillation Relativity Time-Mechanic Hypotheses, but I don't think we want to go into the RQDDRTMH right now.
"So anyway, to change things back, you want to push the train when Twilight came to Ponyville! That's far enough back that none of Twilight's changes will have taken effect, but not so far that it'll change anything she hasn't already changed. So everything from that point onwards can be undone because the train won't get to the same stations it did when Twilight went back in time before." Pinkie Pie set down her marker and grinned at all of her friends.
"There are stations now?!" Rainbow Dash groaned and shook her head. "You know what, I'll let you guys figure that stuff out. I don't think my brain can work with time travel."
"I didn't understand most of it," said Fluttershy. "But I really liked your drawings Pinkie." Pinkie Pie smiled widely at that.
Twilight was often confused by how Pinkie's understanding of some subjects could combine with a lack of understanding for others. Time travel would not be a subject she thought Pinkie could handle, but the explanation was surprisingly sound.
Rarity then asked Pinkie, "What could Twilight change when she got to Ponyville that would prevent her from making all those other changes years later?"
"I don't know," Pinkie shrugged. "I'm just the idea mare. I'm sure Twilight can work out the details."
The five all looked to Twilight. The unicorn shook her head. "I'm not sure Pinkie's idea will work. I can't just set the timeline back to the way it was and hope things fix themselves. I'll still end up finding the spells and going back to the past later. Not to mention that I visited events that were supposed to happen anyway, like Spike ruining that book. So I'll still be able to go back to the past and change that. Then this will all start over again."
"I thought you said the future doesn't happen before the past. How can--?" Rainbow Dash interjected, then she shook her head. "Nevermind, just keep going. Sorry I said anything..."
"What about a time capsule?" suggested Applejack. "Ma family makes one every couple generations. We put all sorts a things in there so we can remember our heritage. Then, when we open it up, we can read old letters and see things made from back before we were even born."
"How would my past self know when to open the time capsule?" Twilight asked. "I apparently don't have very clear memories about anything I do while I'm in the past. And I don't want to mess up more of the timeline by knowing about time travel when I first come to Ponyville. So how can I get myself a message without telling myself that I have a message to give myself?"
A voice came from the top of the stairs, "You could give it to me." The six glanced over and Spike sheepishly walked down into the room.
"Spike, when did you wake up?" asked Twilight.
"When I heard all of you fighting earlier." The friends blushed slightly at that.
"Sorry, Spike," said Twilight. "We didn't mean to wake you. You should get back to sleep."
"I already got more sleep than you did!" Spike objected. "And besides, I can't just leave you! Every time you guys go on some sort of adventure I always sleep through it, but back in the Crystal Empire, you guys needed me. I'm not going to let all this happen without being here to help. And I can help." The dragon looked to Twilight. "You know you can trust me to do something important for you. I was with you the whole time you lived in Ponyville, and you even said I was there when you found those spells. If you gave me the time capsule, I could give it to you when the time comes."
Twilight considered this. It was a big burden to place on Spike. He was only a baby dragon, and he was even younger when they first came to Ponyville. I couldn't do that to him. It was just too much of a responsibility for him. I'm sure I can find some way to get the message to the past by myself. But just before she said this to Spike, Twilight stopped.
Trying to do things herself.
Not trusting in others and others' advice.
That was how the mare had ended up in this position to begin with. And how could she ever get out of this hole by continuing to dig as she had been doing? If she really wanted to set things right, she would have to trust somepony else--somebody else--to fix the mess she'd made.
Twilight took a deep breath, and smiled at her number one assistant. "Alright, Spike," she said. "I'll let you take the letter."
The dragon beamed and saluted. "I won't let you down!"
"But what if the change doesn't work because you still never find the time spells?" Rarity asked. "You might give Spike the time capsule, but he'd never know when to show it to you."
Twilight pondered this, but it was Spike who came up with the solution a few moments later: "Well, Twilight said the first thing she did was stop me from burning an old book, right?" he said. "So if she tells me that in the past, I can just destroy it anyway. The Twilight from the past future will understand and the Twilight from the past won't really remember much."
"Spike, you're a genius!" said Twilight, beaming at her assistant.
"Hold on!" Rainbow said. "I know why Twilight gets this stuff, and it figures Pinkie would know something weird, but Spike understands time travel too? How?!"
"When you live with a pony like Twilight," Spike stated proudly to the room. "You learn a thing or two about magic." The six ponies frowned at that explanation. "Okay, fine, it's from reading all my comic books," the dragon admitted. "The whole 'Crisis on Infinite Equestrias' arc had a lot of time travel and stuff. Not to mention the 'Mares of Future Past' series." He then turned to Twilight. "So you really think that'll work?"
Twilight nodded. "It sounds like it should. I didn't even mean to make the first change. So if you stop me then, I bet you'd stop me from making all the other changes."
"And that'd put time back ta normal, right?" asked Applejack.
"I think so," said Twilight. And, as strange as it was to be asking for time travel advice from her party-crazy, scientifically challenged friend, she asked, "What do you think, Pinkie?"
"Makes sense to me!" Pinkie declared.
Twilight sighed and looked back to the friends she was about to hurt. "Are you guys sure you're okay with this?" She asked Rarity, AJ, and Dash.
Rarity nodded, firmly. "Living in Canterlot may have been my dream ever since I was a filly, but I think I have more important things to attend to in Ponyville. My livelihood is not worth everything that's happened. It is your destiny to become a princess. Living in Ponyville is a small price to pay."
"She's right," said Applejack. "I couldn't live a life a luxury knowin' everythin' it was costin' Equestria. Besides, I've been missin' y'all a whole heap." She smiled. "If I don't have as much work ta do, I can spend more time with ma friends."
"Yeah, being a Wonderbolt is great and all, but I was the best chief weathermare Ponyville ever had," Dash reminded them. "And besides, I think Soarin'll like the food in Ponyville. He already loves AJ's pies, so I bet he'd like them even better fresh from the oven."
Twilight flinched. How did I forget to mention that? "Rainbow," she said. "In the other timeline, since you never became a Wonderbolt, you and Soarin'..."
Dash exhaled, a look of pain streaking her cyan face. "You mean I..." The mare looked to her friends. "But..." Her face scrunched in frustration and she turned her head away. None of the others spoke and, in a few moments, Rainbow was fighting to keep from crying in front of all of them.
"Oh, Rainbow," Fluttershy flew over and gave her friend a strong hug. "It's okay. We don't have to change that."
"But we do!" shouted Rainbow. "I can't be the reason Equestria loses two of its princesses!"
Pinkie also rushed over and threw herself around both of the pegusi, "Oh Dashie!"
"I just don't understand what I did wrong," Dash cried. "How can there be a world where Soarin' and I aren't together? And why is that the way things are supposed to be?"
"I can't say why that is," said Rarity, coming over to comfort her friend. "But I can say for sure that we'll be there for you." The others gave nods and "mmhmms" in agreement, AJ also moving closer.
Twilight kept her distance.
She hated causing this kind of pain in her friend's life. It was the reason she'd avoided telling Rainbow Dash about the changes to the timeline previously. Going back and resetting everything really was the only way to be sure this change worked. But knowing it was right didn't make it any easier to do. "I'm really sorry, Rainbow Dash," Twilight said with timid sincerity. "Don't blame yourself. Blame me."
Dash looked up, shaking her head. "No." She broke out of Fluttershy and Pinkie's hug, flying over to Twilight and touching down in front of her. "...Just how could I blame somepony? For bringing Soarin' and I together?” She sniffled, then cleared her throat as she continued. She choked up as she searched for the words to express herself. "This has been the best year of my life. So, if anything, I wanna thank you, Twilight. Thank you, for what you did, even if it wasn't intentional. Thank you, for all that came out of this. Thank you for my life with Soarin'." She tried to smile at Twilight between the tears, but Twilight looked on the edge of tears now. And she could only look away before she cried herself.
Why did fixing things have to mess up so much?
"I wish there was some way we could keep all the good things from this," Twilight said aloud.
Rarity shook her head. "It's just too much of a risk. If you try to change something else, we might end up making this worse."
"Well hey now," said AJ, hoping to lighten the mood. "That spell ain't gonna work 'til Twilight sleeps. So this don't gotta be over yet. We got a whole day ahead of us."
Pinkie gasped. "Does that mean what I think it means?"
Applejack nodded. "Yup. We're having a party today."
The sadness in Pinkie's eyes evaporated as she grew a huge grin on her face. The mare bounded over to the front door of the library in a single leap. "Be right back!" she blurted out quickly as she flew out the door and shut it behind her.
"But, is there really any point in all this if we're just going to forget about it tomorrow?" Fluttershy asked.
"Are you crazy?!" shouted Pinkie, reopening the door and sticking her head in. "Spending time with friends is never pointless. It's the whole point. How can you have a pointless point?" And Pinkie shut the door again. Her friends could help but smile at one another.