//------------------------------// // 19 - Sombra: Once Upon a Time // Story: Can You Find it in Your Heart? // by Ravenmane //------------------------------// ~Waning Crescent 35, 3349 (11:55 pm)~ Frequent are the times in these past few months where I’ve conjured my early years so vividly in my mind. One particular night has always been one that I’ve kept close to my heart. If one of Twilight’s friends from her school days were to hear it, I fear they would consider it blasphemy. I have considered the irony of the situation as I nearly recounted the tale twice this Hearth’s Warming Eve… ~Waxing Gibbous 35, 2346 (Roughly 12 am)~ The moon was high in the evening sky when I snuck from my quarters. Through corridors and concealed passages I travelled what felt like the width and breadth of the castle. Given the source of my directions, I may have made just such a journey. Despite my exhaustion, I still knocked on a thick oak door in the dead of night. The sound of bells accompanied the opening of locks as I regained my composure. “You never seem to arrive when I tell you to,” asked my former mentor as his door swung open. “Never late, never on time, but always early. For once, that’s something I want to see considering the discovery we’ll make one of these nights.” “You sounded rather vague yesterday,” I replied as he ushered me into his study. Littering every surface were notes, vials, abacuses, and dirty dishes. Indeed, some things never change and I expected no less when Starswirl told me he was on the verge of something important. “That’s because it’s only a theory and not something I intend to make a regular occurrence.” “So how far are we pushing the threshold of magic back this time Starswirl?” “I think I’ve nearly solved the fundaments of time travel but something doesn’t add up properly.” “Time travel? Forgive my ignorance but is that impossible or merely insane?” Starswirl sighed, refusing to look me in the eye. “Call it what you will Sombra, but I have spent my twilight years doing more than functioning as an advisor to the princesses. Imagine it though, if it works then it will be the last thing I’ve done. It’ll be so much more than that infernal mirror experiment.” “Mirror experiment?” “It was going to revolutionize the way ponies travel but I never could get the damn thing to work right. It always went to some silly world where ponies walked on two legs and had hands. I did manage to trap a trio of sirens in that other world without their magic though so it wasn’t a total loss.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “A whole new world out there and you managed to save countless lives in the process of this experiment. Only you would call something like that a failure.” Starswirl looked at me and smiled. “That’s why I like you Sombra. You’re always seeing the upside to a mistake.” “Not always, I get the feeling that this journey was a mistake. Look at my competition, Ionas is the second youngest here and he’s more experienced than I am.” “Yes, but that’s not the point of courting Princess Celestia is it? Age and experience are irrelevant if she still doesn’t like you. Believe me, I’m speaking from experience Sombra.” I hesitated, trying my hardest to forget the final comment. “Still, I’d only be buying time in the eyes of the Empire’s laws.” “Maybe with Celestia’s help, you could make some changes so you and any other stallion of your line wouldn’t be ignored like this. But we’re rather far off topic now, let’s focus on this problem right now.” With a single casual motion, Starswirl conjured a large chalkboard laden with various equations. “In theory it works, but it’s still unstable.” Silence came as I analyzed his formula and did my best to decipher his smudged variables. “Are you compensating for alterations to time you may potentially make?” “Are you mad? You’re asking for a self-correcting equation and magic doesn’t allow for that sort of thing!” “Yes it does, you’re just refusing to see it. You’re halfway there with this paradoxical coefficient, but without enough variance it could unravel all of time and space simply from turning math into magic. By integrating flaws in the spell you’ll stabilize the equation and compensate for the paradox in a more versatile manner.” “Wouldn’t that create alternate timelines instead to shift the paradoxical effect?” “That depends on how far you intend to go to the past or future and for how long. If this is possible then it would be far beyond the scope of magical proficiency. On the topic of magical proficiency, would you attempt to harness this in some device?” “Nonsense, after the mirror incident I realized power such as this is impossible to contain in an object. There are too many variables, especially by travelling into the past.” I nodded. “So very true, how would you be able to close the spell if the object was never invented? I think the spell’s magnitude, or rather duration, needs to be calculated before being able to travel through time proper. By doing that–” “Brilliant,” my former mentor exclaimed. “By forcing the spell to contain its own loop you prevent somepony from going into the past and preventing them from being able to impact the whole of reality and cause it to collapse on itself to compensate.” “Still, any able to use this kind of magic should realize that it is a foolish venture. Nothing can be gained by altering the past or bending the present by using knowledge obtained in the future.” Silence filled the castle past that notion as we worked in silence through the night. Still, it was only the beginning of my work in this theory’s tale. We spent many days and nights arguing and debating potential permutations of the spell. ~Waning Crescent 36, 3349 (12:35 am)~ In those days I never thought Starswirl would even attempt to apply our theory but in this era I’ve learned he put it to practice more than once. Having uncovered that knowledge, I’ve wondered more than once if he understood what he was inviting. I stand by my belief that time mustn’t be altered. I only hope that my former mentor learned to leave well enough alone by those sojourns.