The Passage of Time

by MasterFrasca

Twilight's Folly

"Twilight!" I yelled out of breath, bursting through the door and nearly knocking over her dragon assistant, Spike. Instead of being pummeled by my body, he just jumped back and dropped the pile of books he was carrying. “Sorry about that Spike,” I apologized, panting and almost buckling over from my sprint. I had run non-stop from the alleyway where I came back across town to the Ponyville Library so I could see Twilight and try and straighten this out. I needed to see her before something happened to Lily, if it didn’t already.

“It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened,” Spike sighed, bending over to pick up the overturned novels and nonfiction titles that had been launched from his grip by my startling presence..

Reading a few of the books, I saw interesting titles that I would have never connected to the baby dragon, like Cupcakes from Canterlot: A Recipe Book for the Best Pastries of Royalty and Assorted Muffins and Pies. “Are you going out somewhere with those books, Spike?” I asked, helping to levitate a few volumes back into his arms. I assumed that if he was going out, then Twilight must also have been away. She always seemed to have something for him to do whenever I had seen the two together.

“Yes, actually, Colgate,” he answered with a smile. I looked around the library to see if Twilight was just inside, looking at a book or writing a note or something else she was always doing in here. I couldn’t catch a glimpse of the purple pony, and Spike continued on, saying, “I was about to go down to Sugarcube Corner to drop off these books for the Cakes and Pinkie was going to give me my first lesson in baking...” He trailed off a bit when he noticed that I was looking behind him for Twilight, and simply told me, “Twilight went out to grab a bite to eat and get some supplies for her studies in Astronomy. She told me she might be out for a bit, though, so I’m not sure what else she plans on doing.”

“Thanks Spike,” I said, helping levitate one final scroll back into his pudgy arms, “I hope you have fun making pies and cupcakes and whatnot!”

“Thanks a bunch, Colgate,” the baby dragon replied, shutting the door with his tail while I faked a smile. As soon as he was out of the room, I raced over to look through the massive shelves of reading materials to see if I could find anything that could even remotely help with my problems. I needed to find some help quickly, even if Twilight was my first choice.

Skimming through the titles I could only find two books that caught my attention. The first was a guide on accidental magical disappearances of objects and ponies and what to do in situations where they may occur. The clever book, titled My Invisible Friend and Me, had many reverse spells for things like invisibility potions and spells as well as fixes for failed transportation and teleportation spells, but there was no chapter or section about freezing ponies in time at all, much less unfreezing them from a time paradox. The second was about a time traveling pony that oddly resembled a stallion I knew quite well, but it was a work of fiction and the jargon in the text seemed too confusing for me to even understand what was going on half the time.

I started to panic now that I really had no other option other than to reveal myself to Twilight. I didn’t want to do that, but losing Lily was more of a fear than losing a well-kept secret from a part time friend. I looked around to try and remember where I had found the two titles, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of the Library’s layout. Skimming through the titles again, I noticed that the books were not in alphabetical order, nor were they labeled in any way besides a color on the spine. Those colors weren’t any any semblance of an order in themselves as most of them were scattered around the room sporadically.

Realizing that I was pressed for time, I gave up and left the two books on a table in the center of the tree, feeling slightly sorry for inconveniencing anypony who had to clean those up. I threw down the novel and the guide and ran for the door, expecting to throw it open and make a mad dash for the downtown market to look for Twilight. Right as I was about to open the door with my magic, though, a purple aura surrounded the frame and the door swung lazily open. I tried to stop myself in time, but ended up tripping and careening right towards the purple unicorn standing on the other side at full speed.

She reacted quickly and caught me with her magic just before we collided, dropping all her things and breaking a bag as well. It felt as though I had slammed into a wall, but at least I didn’t take the mare out. She set me down on the ground and sighed a bit, realizing how close I had come to completely tackling her over before saying, “Good afternoon, Colgate.” She rose an eyebrow before asking rather accusatively, “Any reason you were about to burst out of my library at full speed and almost knock me out?”

I blushed a good bit and averted my eyes when I told her, “I was actually about to go look for you.” Noticing that she was looking over my shoulder into the library, I added to relieve her, “Don’t worry, it isn’t about the library. Nothing’s wrong in there save a book or two out of place.”

“Alright then,” she said, her face revealing that she wasn’t entirely convinced by the squinting of her eyes. She was probably still cross from trying to catch me while dumping all her stuff on the ground. “Why, then, were you running as fast as you could out of my library? What’s the emergency?”

“Here,” I offered, avoiding the question as long as I could, “let me help you pick up your stuff.” It was the best I could offer for almost tumbling into her.

“Thanks, Colgate,” she said picking up nearly every object in sight and arranging them at speeds that made my head hurt into her few bags, and then walking into the Library to unload them, “but I can get it. Now, tell me what you needed me so badly for.”

“Well, Twilight” I said sighing and getting ready to reveal my secret at last to her, “How much do you know about time spells?”

She hesitated a moment and looked at me with a slightly shocked expression before shaking her head and said, “Well enough to know that they’re no easy task.” She levitated the bags over onto the table that held the two books I had hastily pulled off the shelf and skimmed through. Noticing that they were out, she picked them up and proceeded to put them back where they belonged before continuing on. “You won’t find any books of it for public use, though, because many time-bending spells are dangerous and easy to hurt oneself with. I don’t even try the subject myself, knowing the dangers involved and the impracticality of many of them. I can guarantee that you won’t find much to help you out in this fictitious series, though,” she said levitating the book about the time-traveling pony back into place on one of the lower shelves.

She levitated the quills and ink out of her bag and into a few drawers,accidentally spilling a bit onto the hardwood beneath. After finishing her task, she concentrated a bit longer and a magic aura surrounded the newly-made ink blot on the floor, causing it to fade away ever so slowly. I was amazed at just what she knew to do, and slightly confused why she didn’t try even a few time spells since they did exist. I had always seen her reading through a book whenever I came in to get a novel or two to read whenever I went on a trip, but I rarely ever saw her actually practicing magic. She was the Princess’s student, so I assumed that a scholar like her knew the ends and outs of nearly everything magic related. I guess she just practiced in private.

“Twilight...” I began, wondering if she would look at me like I was crazy once I asked about time-stopping spells. I paused to make sure she was really listening to me, because I didn’t want to have to ask this burning question more than once.

“Yes, Colgate?” Twilight called out, turning her head slightly and cocking an ear towards me. She was still organizing her supplies, already down to the last bag. Items were flying every direction, slowing down just enough to gracefully land on a table or a shelf. “I’m listening.”

I took a deep breath and let it out before asking, “How much do you know about time-stopping spells?”

Her graceful placing of her items faltered just after the words left my mouth. A few quills that she had meant to put on a table flew over their intended target and hit the wall behind it with a damp thud. Everything else she was holding froze in the air, only bobbing slightly from her levitation spell. She slowly turned around and set everything that was levitating back on the table with the last bag. “Time-stopping spells,” she slowly repeated, pausing a moment and staring off into space, “don’t exist. There isn’t any way a pony can bend time so much as to break it, and even if they had somehow broken this rule, the power required to cast something on such a large scale would be a challenge for even the Princesses themselves. I can’t help you out in trying to do the impossible, Colgate.”

“I can do it,” I said to her with a straight face. She laughed a nervous laugh thinking I was kidding, but after a few seconds, she stopped laughing and just stared at me with an expression of mixed skepticism and nervousness. “Don’t believe me?”

I closed my eyes and willed time to slow to a standstill. A few moments later, the silence of the Frozen World surrounded me, and I wanted to try to do something to prove that I hadn’t simply teleported as I had seen Twilight do on many occasions. Although she would be impressed by it, I didn’t have time to show off my magic. Looking around at what was there, I saw the few quills that had been knocked off the desk when I had asked about the spells, and I got the idea to arrange them into some words. Picking up the quills with my magic, I levitated them on the table in front of Twilight, attempting to arrange them into the simple phrase “Hi.” Unfortunately, my penmanship was not the best and the “h” looked more like an “n,” but I didn’t have any time to be picky.

Closing my eyes once again, I thought of a clock frozen in space, willing the hands to fall into motion. After a few moments I heard a low vocal sound that sounded like a record being played slowly on a machine. The sound sped up with the rest of the word and I heard the tail end of my name being spoken by Twilight. Leaning over her shoulder, I asked with a smile on my face, “Believe me now?”

She jumped sideways in shock before even noticing the precise arrangement of the quills on the table. I took this as belief, but a few seconds passed before she started to mumble, “This is bad... bad... This is terrible...”

“Um, Twilight, all I did was perform a spell, and I’m fine,” I said, leaning over to see she was still staring at the quills that I had placed. “I arranged those quills like that. Sorry, it was supposed to say hi, but I ran out of quills for the rest of the ‘h’ and--”

“No, Colgate!” she interrupted, giving me a look of sheer panic. She looked as if she had just seen a pony die. Is that what it looked like when I stopped time in front of her? “I know that you did that, but you’re not supposed to do it!”

“Woah, what?” I remarked, confused. “I thought you said that time-stopping spells didn’t exist, and that they weren’t physically possible?”

“I-I did, b-but...” she stuttered, making me realize that she knew something that I didn’t. She took a deep breath through her nose and let it disperse out her mouth before she continued on. With a clear and serious tone she said, “Time-bending spells do exist.”

“Well then why did you--”

“But,” she cut me off, not letting me finish my question, “They aren’t supposed to be known or be used by anypony due to their nature and the dangers involved in casting and using them.” She had been looking off into the distance, probably trying to remember the exact reason they were a bad thing. “How did you ever learn about them, much less gain the ability to cast one? I’m even forbidden from studying them!”

“Really?” I commented, not really wanting to tell her that I had learned the technique for casting them from my own parents. “Not even the Princess’s personal student can learn about them?”

“No,” she said, walking up next to me, “I’m not even allowed to discuss them with anypony. I’m not even supposed to be having this conversation! But I need to know how you got information on this. The only books I know of with the spells are guarded by Celestia herself. So tell me how you know how to stop time!”

She trotted further towards me while I slinked away a bit. Her frightened expression turned into one of awe when she realized that I was about to tell her something forbidden by the Princess. “I learned about this from my parents when I was a little filly,” I started, nervous by the curious purple mare standing in front of me, “but I don’t know how to explain it very well. I just sort of close my eyes and pretend I’m stopping a clock.”

She instantly shut her eyes trying to do exactly what I had described, but after a few moments she cracked open one eyelid to check her surroundings. I waved to tell her that she hadn’t stopped the world yet, and she shut her eyes once more. I let her have a few seconds of peace before I interrupted her concentration by telling her, “It takes a little more than that, Twilight. If it was that easy, don’t you think somepony else would have discovered it long ago?”

She blushed and admitted that it was a little silly and pretentious to try and do a spell only by a verbal description. I smiled and continued on, telling her, “There’s also this sixth sense sort of deal where you have to incorporate your magic into this vision of stopping a clock,” I looked away, trying to think what exactly I did when I froze time. Mumbling, I went over a list of things I did, like, “I always imagine that the clock is ticking at normal seconds, and that everything is in working order. Using my imagined magic I then try to stop the clock itself; not simply the hands, but the entire machine as a whole. I think to myself that the entire world stops and even sound and light pause for a tiny fraction of a second. Literally everything freezes...”

Turning around, I began to say how its more of something you have to feel than something that can be taught, but when I did, Twilight wasn’t there. She may have just gone to get something or put something away, but looking at where she was standing, I saw that the bags of ink quills and other paraphernalia had stayed in the same place. Besides, knowing Twilight, she would try anything to get her hands on a spell like that. She must have actually made it to the frozen world, but if she was there, then why hadn’t she come back? It should have been nothing more than a second for me.

Then I realized I never taught her how to come back, but even with that minor detail in the way, she should still be passed out on the floor in front of me like I had all those years ago when I became too exhausted to hold myself in the world. There was no reason for her to suddenly go missing. Starting to panic again, I yelled out her name only to get no response. She had to be trapped in the world with those things like Lily was. Now two ponies were lost in this forbidden frozen world, and I couldn’t let any more get caught up in its clutches.There was no denying what I needed to do.

I had to go in after her.

Comments

[night-feather]

D: Suspense! I hate suspense!

[wkblack]

AAAHHHH!!!! O-O
Needs more chapters!!!
This is fantastic!!!
Twilight is a bit more antagonistic than I would have expected, but it's worth it...

[Skeeter The Lurker]

And Colgate done messed up.

NEVER tell Twilight about a new spell.

It will never end well.

~Skeeter The Lurker