A lifetime of monster hunting, nearly three hundred years of life thanks to the powerful magics that extended her lifespan and kept her alive in most fights against monsters, and now she owned a plantation.
Twilight looked up at the roof of her bedroom. The last of her gold spent on a plot of land near The High Mountain, building a plantation for wine and cider. The smell of apples and grapes greeted her as she slid out of to check on her family. Sometimes she couldn't believe it herself.
She was taught that mutants were hated, considered unnatural mistakes of nature. To fix the mistake, nature made mutants infertile. Somehow, she was the exception. A mutant with both wings and a horn, she had children with either wings or a horn. And then they found love of their own, and gave Twilight mutant grandchildren as well.
"Our little monsters," their father once said with affection. A kind farmer, not particularly special aside from his decency and fair share of looks. Twilight saved his parents from a dragon raid, and then killed the dragon and mounted the head above their door. On that day, Ripe Apple spent his days following Twilight on her adventures.
First from afar, admiring her as she completed contract after contract until the time came when Twilight was hired to clear a forest of High Fiends for a logging industry. She planned to fight one at a time but met her match when she hunted a High Fiend and its mate into their nest.
The fiends left her to die in those woods, and that was exactly what would have happened if Ripe Apple hadn't been there to pull her back to safety.
"Just repaying you for what you did," he explained, as if any pony would have risked themselves to save a mutant. It was an affection Twilight didn't think she needed, but coveted once she had it. She spent years living an independent life, free from the interests of stallions that Lander represented so well.
But, as Ripe Apple helped in her travels, he became a steady rock she would return to, whether he was waiting at a camp in the countryside or a tavern room in a big city. Monster hunters were travelers, with their castles as the closest thing to home. In this regard, Twilight was the same as every other hunter. But soon, she realized Bach Tor'al was just a place where she could winter out, while Ripe Apple and his family was a true home wherever she went.
"A line of fertile mutants," Twilight mused as she watched her grandchildren play in the vineyards. "What will the world be like now?"
She turned to her left, as if to receive and answer, but Ripe Apple had been dead for twenty years. He lived to see his children become adults, and they lived to bury their father. Twilight sat and watched, knowing she'd live to see them all pass, unless her magic failed and ended her extended life short.
Still, she was glad she didn't have to witness Ripe Apple grow too old. He had grays on his head when sickness took him, and without training to handle monster hunter potions, there was nothing Twilight could have done to cure him. Even if there was, there was nothing to stop him from growing frail and forgetful, and he would have withered away with age regardless.
She spurned mortality but respected it at the same time. She saw its purifying effects throughout her life as a hunter, but also felt its stings. When Lander was gored by a Mountain Dragon, when Guerrier was outnumbered by a Corpse Eater pack, and when Ripe Apple coughed his last breath and the life evaporated from his eyes, they all hurt like a fresh wound, and left scars bigger than any sword.
Twilight scoffed. "Bet Rainbow Dash would be strong and just tough it all out..."
The memories came back like a seizure, throwing Twilight off her seat. They came in sharp flashes as the old memories merged with the new as her old personality struggled to overpower who she was now. First the memories of the Card Master filled her head, and then one by one the cards themselves took hold.
Part of her didn't want to believe what she saw, but the other part -the stronger part- knew that her life was a lie. Her mind stripped bare and her body used like a toy in the Card Master's twisted game. But despite everything she knew, her life still felt as real as the rest. They weren't fake in her mind, no matter what the other memories said.
Welcome back Princess.
Twilight couldn't see through the images flashing in her mind, but she recognized the Card Master's voice. She recognized the black fog eating away at her world, drawing her back into the nothingness where the Card Master could taunt her. Her old self demanded her body back, rejecting the old memories as fabrications of a magic card. Her new self said it didn't matter, and her life was still hers.
Twilight grappled with the decision to a standstill, even when the resurgence of her memories subsided and the card she had lived in faded away into the Card Master's body.
Mutants. What an age it was, so simple in their beliefs.
Twilight wasn't sure what the Card Master was, but every fiber of her being, both the old and the new, demanded she strike him down. He was like a mannequin of cards, with a blank face. She wasn't sure if he even needed to breathe, but she started with a chokehold anyway. Twilight took flight, pushing the Card Master until they collided with a wall of solid darkness.
Twilight beat his head into the fog, scattering cards onto the floor with each hit.
Are you done?
Twilight punched the Card Master across where his jaw should have been, causing cards to flutter off his face.
Ouch.
She grappled him, locking his head between two hooves and slamming herself on top of him, forcing her weight onto his neck. The Card Master relaxed his body and slipped out of the hold, sending his cards flying into the fog. He reformed behind Twilight, standing calmly and waiting for her next move.
Twilight's face twisted in frustration. She spun around, her horn blazed with magic, and lobbed a heavy ball of energy at the Card Master. He effortlessly swatted the attack aside with one hoof, still standing in a casual position.
"Why won't you just die?" Twilight asked.
Later, perhaps. For now, there's some pony I'd like you to talk to.
The Card Master waved his hoof in the air and Twilight felt the ground shift. They both stood still but moved apart, and the more Twilight tried to catch up, whether by flight or by running, the Card Master only seemed to get farther away. Once he was completely out of sight, the fog slipped away.
Twilight panicked, bracing herself for another card to ensnare her in its magic, but as she closed her eyes and waited, she didn't feel a change. She opened her eyes and saw she was in a hallway that didn't end. The walls looked like finely polished marble, and felt no different than the wall of fog. Stranger was the floor, decorated with a purple and gold velvet carpet, yet it felt cool to the touch and smooth like the stone.
"You took everything from me," said the Monster Hunter. The Princess turned around to face the pony.
"I didn't need you in my life," the Twilights said in unison.
The Monster Hunter scoffed. "You're a glorified janitor. You clean up messes and bow humbly to those who shirk their duties."
"So I should accept your life?" retorted the Princess. "You, who killed when you were paid and charged ponies for saving their lives from monsters."
"Could you have done what you've done if you weren't supported by the Crown?" The Princess hesitated and the Monster Hunter knew it had made a point. "The common ponies support their royals, who in turn support you. I skipped the middle-pony and claimed the gold directly."
"I'm a Princess of Equestria," she replied sternly. "No pony pays me taxes for what I do."
The Monster Hunter shrugged. "Of course not, they simply put their wealth into the royal treasury. And where does your money come from?"
"Fine." The Princess crossed her hooves. "That doesn't change the time you stole from me."
The Monster Hunter snarled. "And it won't give back the life you stole from me!"
The Princess snarled at herself. "You lived a lie! A fabrication of the Card Master's magic. You had my body and a blank slate for a mind, how can you justify that your life is better?"
"Sure," the Monster Hunter nodded. "I'm just the bad copy. The fake one. Of course a royal like you is better than some pony like me. I've seen the same attitude in all kinds of royals so it must be true."
The Princess stomped her hoof. "I never said I was better-"
"No, you just said I was worse," interjected the Monster Hunter. "Big difference, I know."
"So what now? Do you plan to take your life back and rob Equestria of one of its princesses?" She stepped back, aiming her horn to prepare a spell.
"As much as I would love to, I can't," replied the Monster Hunter. "The others are waiting."
The Princess nodded. She didn't know much about the Card Master, but she was clever enough to guess what she was in for. She followed the Monster Hunter down the hallway, passing door after door. Each was the same, twice her height and made of heavy bronze, lightly etched to look like fine polished wood, but marked with the memories they locked away.
She looked at one and saw a face, cut off and nailed to a wall. Another showed her a vision of a castle being founded on the tallest mountain in the world. One even showed a wedding, the bride in tears as the husband slandered her for impurity. Finally, the Monster Hunter stopped and pointed to her door.
"Here it is."
The Princess watched the door, but she didn't see what was behind it, she remembered it: Digging actual shit holes in the snow, shooting magic out of crystals, and watching friends die for nothing.
"One last thing I need to tell you," the Monster Hunter said. "It's about when you first became me."
"Go ahead, say it," the Princess replied. She waited for the Monster Hunter to take a breath, evidently having the thought for some time. "Go on, just get it-"
The Monster Hunter punched her. It was hard, right in the jaw, and it knocked her over.
"That's for losing your memory," she said.
The Princess grabbed her face and got off the floor, wincing at the pain as she felt a tooth loosen. "What was I supposed to-"
The Monster Hunter punched her again. In the exact same spot.
"That's for getting it back." The Monster Hunter gave a shallow bow to the Princess and stepped away from the door, letting the Princess recover in her own time. She coughed a bit and spat out a tooth, and when she was ready, the Monster Hunter unlocked the door and beckoned the Princess in.
"Go on."
The Princess gave a short glare at the Monster Hunter as she entered the room.
Inside was completely unlike the hall. It was a well equipped apartment, with space and a kitchenette. It wasn't as refined as the marble walls outside or the soft velvet carpet, but it felt more comforting to be in a modest home. A fireplace kept it warm, because outside the apartment window was a storm, and the rain hit so hard it could have been hail and it would have sounded lighter.
A stallion sat by the fire with a warm cup of tea and a magazine. He wasn't young, the gray hairs in his mane were creeping in, but he watched Twilight with a deep, youthful interest.
"Ponies think this is bad weather," he chuckled. "But we know bad weather, don't we?"
He had a degree of unfamiliarity with the Princess, but she understood what he meant. "Snow up to your knees, and every flake your body warmed and melted would just freeze in the night and cover you in ice."
"I hated it. Dunno why I thought I wanted to fight in the war, there are plenty of other ways to serve." He looked down at his cup.
The Princess watched and waited for a reply, but pressed her question when he seemed too lost in thought. "Do you regret it?"
The Soldier shook his head. "Of course not. I made friends up north, even if most of them are dead now. Remember them?"
The Princess nodded. Of course she remembered them, they were her squad mates through the war. White Feather and his crystal gun, Peterstone and his farmer's accent, even Half-Lance, who's body was probably frozen in a ravine in the ice.
"You missed the best part, when you left," the Soldier said. "Got a letter that I was relieved of my duties. Dad died back home and I needed to manage our shipyard. Equestria's navy needed its ships for the war."
"Was that the last time you saw them?"
The Soldier shook his head. "Peregrine stopped by a few times, Hardfield visited regularly before doctors found a tumor in his chest. We had some good times but for the most part we went back to our lives."
"I don't think the Card Master wants small talk," the Princess said, after a moment of thought.
The Soldier disagreed. "You gotta remember. Only way to do that is by talking."
"But I do remember."
The Soldier levitated his cane to his side and stood up. "I didn't talk about it when I got back. I was told my dad left me our shipyard, so I took control of it and made sure ships were built on time." With a slow hobble, he walked over to his kitchenette and pulled a bottle of wine from the top cabinet.
The Princess looked at him. "Should you be-"
"Try to stop me," the Soldier grumbled before continuing. "Anyways, I worked at the shipyard 'till I married a nice mare who wrote for the newspaper. She interviewed me, asking about the war, and I told her all the things she wanted to hear. She had a nice smile when I talked about the horrible things, like ponies getting shot the cold wind, so I kept telling her those things."
"You said you didn't talk about it."
"And I didn't," answered the Soldier, grunting as he twisted the cork from the bottle. "I told her what happened, the battles we lost and won, the shit food we ate because there was too much snow and ice to cook anything right. I told her all that but it wasn't the truth."
He poured the red wine into two glasses and looked over at the Princess. "How did you feel when you were in a fight?"
The Princess shrugged, thinking it over. "Scared, I guess. At least until some pony died. When Half-Lance died I felt angry. When Peterstone died I felt angry."
"Remember the base we defended?" the Soldier asked, and the Princess nodded. "The cold wasn't the worst part. What did it for you?"
"Ambush on a few crystal ponies. Saw a dead one close up for the first time."
The Soldier nodded and sipped from his glass. "Yeah, I remember that one." he gave her the other glass, and the Princess drank happily. "Wasn't what did it for me though. For me, it was watching a rookie die in a pile of shit."
The Princess looked at the Soldier with a face of disgust.
"It happened a few days after the ambush you talked about. A bunch of colts fresh out of boot camp came to the base, acting as relief for all of us who needed a break from the cold. Before we left, we had to show them how to do things right, so I took a squad out and showed them which hills were safe cover and which cracks had massive ravines under them."
"And the shit?" the Princess asked, still unsure if she wanted to know.
"We were out for a while so we stopped to dig a waste pit," he said.
"Hated those," the Princess added.
The Soldier nodded. "Made it really deep 'cause we were near Shiny territory, and we couldn't leave a trace. Once it was done we all went, waiting in line and giving what privacy we could to whoever was going. Finally we were all done and walked away from the stench and left the last guy to do his thing. We looked away, and before we knew it we heard a shout and splat."
"Shinies?" the Princess guessed.
The Soldier sighed. "Wet ice. I knew he was green, but I turned away as he sat right up at the edge and slipped head first into a pit of shit. Decided I had to pull him out myself, no magic included."
The Princess set her glass of wine aside, suddenly feeling a little sick. "Sorry to hear that."
"So am I," he replied. "But that's why we remember them, isn't it? We have to, it's only right. If we can't remember them, who else will?"
The Princess nodded. "No one. I didn't even know what the war was like before I lived it through your eyes."
"Good." The Soldier looked to the door to the hallway. "I think you're needed elsewhere Private."
The Princess followed his gaze and saw what he meant. Outside stood the Princess of the Night, cradling the body of a filly in her wings. She stood up and walked over to her, remembering only the mother and her daughter dying. Over and over.
"An endless loop," said the Night. "Good. We can start."
=============================================================
"Why are we back here?"
The sun was shining and the wind blew through the wild grasslands creating waves like the sea. On a hill was a little hut, all collapsed and burned to a crisp.
"You didn't see what became of the cottage," said the Princess of the Night. "You have to see it, to understand why we failed."
The Night walked up the hill to two graves and gently placed the filly down in the smaller one. Twilight followed her and looked down at the mother's grave, but the body was unrecognizable.
"What happened to her?" she asked.
The Night nodded and raised her horn to the sky. Night conquered day as time flowed backwards, rebuilding the cottage and replacing the bodies. The Princess of the Night moved as well, taking her place in the house and staring at the mother's body in horror. The Night didn't touch anything or say anything, all she could do was turn away and escape, taking flight through a window.
Twilight tried to chase her, but time flowed again like a river drinking the rain after a long dry spell.
"She was a witch!" cried one pony.
"Burn the bitch's house!" shouted another.
Marching up the hill were ponies of every kind. Some were dressed as bakers, other were tailors and blacksmiths. Twilight noted that the larger stallions with axes, probably loggers, were carrying stacks of fresh firewood on their saddles. And then there were a few at the head of the march, dressed well enough to be considered the town leaders.
One of them stood out above all, an elderly stallion dressed in plain white robes. The march stopped outside the mother's cottage, but white robed stallion walked further ahead, almost touching the doorway. He was followed by a filly and a colt dressed in gray robes, who placed a podium and a book before the stallion.
"Colts, fillies, stallions and mares, thank you for coming out here tonight." For a pony his age he spoke with clarity and projected his voice until even those who stood at the back of the crowd could hear him as if he was talking to them face to face. "The Two Sisters know we live in trying times, and grace us with justice and mercy so that we may unite and fight the terrors in the wilds. But while all sins are forgiven by the caring light of the Sun, the punishments are clear."
He gestured behind him with one hoof, pointing to the body of the dead mother. "In death, this mother shall be tried by the Elements, for her crimes against Harmony. But in life, we must do what we can to aid the Two Sisters, and justly punish her for her sins."
The old stallion gave a gentle nod to the loggers to begin laying down their logs while the two grays carried out the bodies from the cottage. The colt dragged the mother along the ground to the loggers, where a pyre had been cobbled together, while the filly gently placed the young unicorn on the ground and began digging a grave.
Twilight wanted to stop the loggers and explain what happened, to give all the ponies the real story, but it was clear they couldn't see, hear, or even feel her. She stood and watched as a funeral was held for the unicorn filly while the colt in gray burned the mother's body like it was just another log on the fire.
When the fire died down and both bodies and been laid to rest, Twilight sat before the two graves in silence. The Night stood behind her.
"It sucks not being able to tell any pony what happened," she told her. "All I could do is watch. How do you do it Luna? You've lived for so long, how can you stand not telling ponies the truth when it's been forgotten."
The Night chuckled. "For a time, I did tell the stories. But that time is now, and whatever leader I am now, I will not be."
"Right, of course," Twilight said. "You're just part of the card too."
The Night knelt and embraced Twilight under her wings. "Not entirely. I was once part of your Princess of the Night, in some ways. Some of her memories even she had forgotten are interred in the cards."
Twilight looked at the Night. "You're part of the real Luna? Did the Card Master take you when she faced his game?" Twilight quickly took back her tone, regretting comparing the Night to the "real Luna," but the Night wasn't bothered and simply nodded.
"And you don't resent him for it?"
The Princess of the Night shrugged and stood up. "This is my now. It always was, even as I was part of the whole. Outside of now is not my concern, so no, I don't resent him."
"But what about Luna?" Twilight wondered, amazed that the Night didn't care about her real self. "If she had you back she could remember, and she could tell every pony-"
"She had her memory long before she played the game, the Elements made sure of that," the Night snapped at Twilight. "Why would she say anything when I am back with her after all the times she's avoided the truth?"
"But if you stay with the Card Master, what do you think will happen?" asked Twilight.
"His plan is known to us, Princess. Soon it will be known to you." The Night turned her head to the forest Twilight had come from when she first entered the card as Luna. "If you wish to know, this is not the now you need. Go, another waits for you."
"Luna, wait." Twilight reached out to grab the Night, clinging onto her wing with both hooves. "You're a princess too, you can tell me more."
The Night shook her head. "I can only lead you to one who can." Slowly, she dissolved into the ground as a black fog, and to Twilight's shock, dragged her along too. Twilight was formless in an instant, but didn't feel as dispersed as her form suggested. In the ground, she could feel the current of time, she could reach out like the roots of the Tree of Harmony and look around for where she was needed.
It was too tempting to explore every moment she passed. Despite her time as the Monster Hunter, she wanted to learn more, to know every story there was to know. But evidently that wasn't going to come true. She sensed the ground coming quickly, as quickly as the dark fog came, and she realized which "now" she was in. Still, she couldn't stop herself from reforming and crashing into a pile of rubble on the floor.
She heard the sound of slaughter on the walls. An earth pony was thrown from the top of the fort and landed next to Twilight with a disturbing crunch.
"When I imagined escaping my time loop, I also imagined a timeline that'd be... happier."
The stallion from the wall, the one hit by a griffon's last grasp at glory, lifted Twilight off the ground.
"You should be dead," Twilight gasped once she realized who he was.
He nodded and pointed to the walls of the fort and the sky above it. "And we were supposed to win." As he said it, a group of griffons swooped down and carried off a stallion in heavy armor, dropping him when they were high enough to make a splat.
Twilight's lip quivered with fear. "How is this possible?" Time was something not to be messed with, as she had learned the hard way in the past. The idea of another dramatic change such as this worried her.
It didn't take much effort to read her thought on her face. "You were a monster hunter. A fully fledged alicorn, in a time when unicorns and pegasi were considered more monster than pony. How could the card accept you without accepting the changes?"
"Changes?" Twilight didn't believe the Card Master had the talent for time travel. "His magic's only in the cards, he's not even a unicorn."
"There is magic in the land older than the trees itself, Princess." The stallion gestured around him, pointing to the air. "It's been here before everything else. Can't you accept that other beings beyond unicorns have magic?"
"But the other times haven't changed!" Twilight said, refusing what she saw. "I spoke to Two Tail and Luna, their cards didn't change like this one."
The stallion laughed. "Your kind thinks of time like a stream of water, always flowing toward the future. You treat every decision like a stone blocking the water, causing ripples for the rest of the flow."
He placed his hoof on Twilight's shoulder, guiding her out the fort and pointing her gaze to the sea, where griffon ships landed and flooded troops onto the beach. "That's the closest thing to time. A mass of water so vast you can never see the end, a churning tide with waves and whirlpools and currents that can drag you out so you'll never be seen again. Drop a stone in that, and the ripples die before they form something big."
Twilight shook her head, trying to wrap her head around the explanation. "If the ripples are so short, how did I cause this?"
The stallion reached out and flexed his hoof. Magic leaked into the card and distorted the space, until they had shifted from the hill down to the beach. "The tides of the sea are strong, Princess. If every action is a rock, then sooner or later that action will surface."
"So what I was, the Monster Hunter, that lead to all this?" she asked, awed by the invading griffon forces. Before, it looked insignificant compared to the trap of the pegasi, but once the front lines landed and crushed the ponies, the rear ships sent its own ocean, full of hungry beaks and lethal talons.
"No matter what happens, the your time will more or less remain unchanged," he told Twilight. "The way it was before, the griffons shut themselves off after the humiliating defeat. Now, they'll enjoy a few years of victory until an army of guerrilla fighters cripples their defenses and send them home. A few different deaths, but many will die, just for the same result."
Twilight turned to the stallion with a stern look. "Card Master has a plan, and so far nothing's been a waste of time. But you're saying ponies and griffons will die no matter what, something I already learned from the other times. What's your point?"
The stallion sighed. "I'm afraid I'm just the farewell message, a final lesson you must know about time. Not to worry, your now will stay as it is when you go back. Of course, that's assuming you don't accept the Card Master's offer."
"And what might that be?" Twilight raised a brow at the stallion.
Wouldn't you rather ask me instead, Princess?