Feedback

by RQK

5 - Working

Queen Chrysalis approached a small ledge and looked at the floor below.

Several changelings went about their day-to-day routines as they attempted to maintain the nest. A few of them flew up to the walls and covered them with a sort of slime. The walls responded by changing shape, flexing their proverbial muscles, before returning to their enigmatic motions.

Others still buzzed around each other, engaged in aerial games as they looped and swirled around each other in intricate and indeterminable patterns. Small crowds gathered below them, throwing around several wagers on who would come out on top.

It made her smile. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her subjects brimming with so much energy. It was infectious, actually.

Chrysalis heard a lone drone touch down behind her. She looked back just enough to see who it was out of the corner of her eye. “Xagnax, report,” she commanded.

Her trusted lieutenant gave a quick salute. “I have the normal news, My Queen,” he buzzed. “The outer watch reports normal activity on the grounds. Zharzan has also reported back about a possible food source forty klicks south of here.”

“Excellent,” Chrysalis said without turning her head. “Send several scouts down there and take detailed surveys. I want to know what we’re eating.”

“I have saved the best news for last, My Queen. Word has come that Twilight Sparkle has died.”

Chrysalis actually paused at that point. She dragged an idle hoof across the dirt. “...What did you say?”

“Twilight Sparkle is dead.”

Had she heard that right? Her old enemy now gone from the world? Her old enemy out of the way?

Chrysalis sneered. Then she threw her head back and laughed. She snickered and snorted and guffawed and the echoes of each report carried far throughout the vast cavern; some down below even gave her quick glances.

“My Queen?”

“Oh!” she cried as she wiped away a tear. “This is rich! Twilight Sparkle gone. I love it.” She yielded to her laughing fit once more.

Xagnax suppressed a smile in order to appear presentable. “What should we do in response, My Queen?”

Chrysalis blinked. She placed a hoof to her chin in thought. Even if Twilight was gone, Shining Armor and Mi Amore Cadenza were not. And the other Princesses. And those things that Twilight Sparkle called friends. They were all there.

Her muzzle twitched. That was a thought. But a thought that would need time; it surely would not be realized soon.

“We will do nothing for now,” she concluded. “Perhaps, on a later date, I will send those putrid Equestrians my regards. ...But not now. We will continue our current trajectory. Do you have anything else to report?”

“None, My Queen.”

Chrysalis waved him off, “As you were then, lieutenant Xagnax.”

The drone bowed, and with a buzz of his wings, he sailed past her, flying off to retire for the day.

Queen Chrysalis, for a few brief moments, went back to watching over her children. A wide and malevolent grin, one so wide that even her backmost teeth were bared, spread across her features.

---

Sunset Shimmer glanced at the page that sat in front of Spike and frowned at how blank it was.

The six of them—Rarity had gone downstairs to answer the door—sat in a circle behind the hourglass. Sunset, per her habit, had taken a seat right next to the old (but no less clean) fixture. Each of them idly worked, busying themselves as they tried to overcome the first obstacle:

“How do we go about this?”

As the evening sun’s golden hue steadily overtook the room, the rumblings in their stomachs and their increasingly voluminous yawns became more frequent.

Twilight Sparkle lay near the hourglass in her own time, studying the book that she had copied off of Sunset Shimmer with a greater attention than she had afforded it before. Every so often, she would jot down a note or two on some scratch-parchment on the side.

“Diiiinner,” Rarity announced as she ascended the stairs, “is served.” Several trays and dishes, full of delectable delights, levitated behind her. The wettest steam, so thick it could be seen and felt from a distance, wafted off the tops, accompanied by the tender crackle and pop of heated soy.

The six on the floor rose with elated cries and even a few enthusiastic jumps. In rapid succession, they practically stole everything away from her. They set the assortment in the middle of the circle and immediately began passing out plates and utensils and otherwise serving themselves.

“Yes, well…” Rarity trailed off, taken aback.

“Hey, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said into the ball. “We got dinner!”

“That’s nice, Pinkie,” Twilight replied in a curt manner.

“Ah’m starvin’!” Applejack exclaimed as she piled on some mashed potatoes before taking a seat on the floor.

“Heh, it’s like a slumber party,” Sunset mused, taking her own seat.

“Certainly… um… we don’t have a table,” Rarity stuttered. “I mean, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time we’ve eaten on the floor, but we’re in a castle and eating on the floor is soooooo… garish.”

Several sets of eyes attached to mouths already full of food looked up at her.

Rarity scowled. Slapping a hoof against her face, she mumbled, “I don’t know why standards are so low.” With a huff, she situated herself into the circle and took a bite as well.

“But Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, nearly pouncing on the ball, “you should eat with us too!”

“No. I have to figure this out, Pinkie,” Twilight replied offhoofedly.

Rarity placed a hoof on the ball. “We are going to figure this out, so why don’t you take a break for a second and come eat with us?

“…Well,” Twilight conceded, placing a considering hoof against her chin, “I guess I could grab a sandwich from downstairs. There’s plenty of spare food in the pantry. Probably Moondancer’s doing.”

Rainbow Dash nearly fell over. “Wait wait wait,” she began, placing her hoof on the ball so Twilight could hear (which had become a common habit). “You mean to tell me there was food downstairs this whole time?”

Spike deadpanned. “Of course there’s food down below. Just graze anywhere.”

Twilight threw her head back and cackled as she disappeared down the stairs.

Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, gave him a stink-eye. “Thanks a lot for the help.”

“Yeah, even I knew where to look,” Sunset said. “You know, because I’ve lived here before.”

“Well, when was anypony gunna tell me that!?” Rainbow Dash cried.

“Uh—”

“Yeah, I didn’t even know that!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“That would have been useful earlier, Sunset!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Um, sorry?” Sunset tried.

“We have food now though so let’s not worry ’bout it,” Applejack chided.

For the next few minutes, the seven friends (along with the eighth inside the ball who had indeed reappeared with a sandwich in tow) ate in relative silence (although they did make some small talk or occasionally asked for dishes to be passed around).

About halfway through the meal, Sunset stood up. “So hey, now that we can focus a little bit better, let’s have a serious go at this. Everyone agreed?”

Everyone nodded affirmatively.

Using her magic, Sunset drew upon a simpler spell: she created a chalkboard out of thin air and placed it near her own spot. After taking one last bite of some green beans, she levitated the chalk up toward the board. “So, besides writing off collecting those things Twilight talked about, what else do we have? Spike?”

Spike looked down at the blank piece of paper in front of him and then frowned back at Sunset.

Sunset cringed. “Okay. Well… I think…” She looked at the board. “I think we don’t really have any other options. I think we have to put collection back on the table.”

“But there’re so many…” Fluttershy squeaked. “I don’t know if we’d be able to get them all.”

Rainbow Dash snorted, “Yeah. There’d need to be a few hundred of us to do that. Which—”

Pinkie Pie gasped. “Dashie! I thought we agreed not to talk about the Mirror Pond!”

“…I wasn’t thinking about the Mirror Pond—”

“No buts! You don’t talk about the Mirror Pond. That’s the first rule of the Mirror Pond.”

“Maybe we don’t have to,” Sunset cut in, shooting Pinkie Pie a piercing glare. “Maybe we just need the most important ones, or something like that.”

“I don’t know…” Fluttershy trailed off uncertainly.

Sunset lifted the chalk up toward the board. “Well, why don’t we pretend we did that for a second,” she said and wrote the word collection on the board. “If that’s really where we’ll get our information from, then we managed to fill quite a few pages in the book Twilight got from me.” She frowned and said, “…Will manage to fill quite a few pages in the book I will give to Twilight.”

Pinkie Pie nodded, “That’s trueeeee. There were a couple hundred pages at least!”

The rest of them shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess,” Spike said. “Let’s see where this goes.”

Sunset nodded as she took the chalk and underlined the word on the board.

“So now, that must mean our task now is to figure out how to acquire these things,” Rarity said.

“Well,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, “we don’t even know what to do with them when we get them.”

“That’s true…”

“You’re both right. We’ll have to figure the both of those out,” Sunset said, writing each on opposing sides of the board.

“But,” Rarity argued, “it’s not going to do us any good if we aren’t able to find them in the first place.”

Applejack wolfed down some more mashed potatoes. “Ah reckon we should start with that then.”

“What if we had a machine?” Pinkie Pie suggested, hoping to her hooves and spreading her forelegs ecstatically. “Then we could use science to track them all down! That’s what Twilight would do!”

The rest of them hummed affirmatively and exchanged nods.

Except for Spike. “Okay,” he said, “but so we build this thing, and then how would it know what to look for?”

“Ah think Twilight would be able to tell us that one,” Applejack replied.

Rarity nodded as she dug her spoon into her own share of mashed potatoes. “That’s very true. She knows more about these… What are they called? Stones? She knows more about them than anypony.”

Spike shrugged before biting down on another gem. Pinkie Pie, meanwhile, did a celebratory backflip in place.

“But won’t we still lose time if we have to take the time to build it?” Fluttershy asked.

Sunset cringed.

“I mean,” Fluttershy continued, “don’t we need as much time as we can get? Four days isn’t a lot of time to cross the world. Or make the journey back.”

“I’ll need time to examine these things too. A day, maybe,” Sunset groaned.

“So, really, I guess we only have three days.”

“Some of these things might be a whole three days’ journey, even for Rainbow Dash!” Rarity cried before flailing herself backward onto the hard plaster floor.

Rainbow Dash looked up from her plate of food, scowling from behind scattered bits of corn stuck to the rim of her lips.

“It’d be nice if we had a way to be back here whenever we want, like,” she said with a shrug, “uhm, some way to…”

“Do that teleportin’ thing Twilight did sometimes,” Applejack finished.

Several eyes turned Sunset who twirled her piece of chalk about and about.

And, after a moment, Sunset shook her head. “I’d need time to develop it. Sorry.”

Rainbow Dash groaned and threw her hooves into the air. “Gah! Why don’t we have enough time!?”

All of them fell back into a listlessness, idly twiddling their hooves or taking further bites of their now-cooled meals. In short order, they fell into more relaxed and uninvolved states.

Meanwhile, the sun continued to sink lower and lower.

Spike drummed his claws against his arm as he stared at his plate, his brow furrowed in a focused expression. And then he gasped. “Wait! I got it!” he exclaimed, hopping to his feet. “If that’s really it, why don’t we just get nine days’ worth of time? Let’s have Twilight do it!”

“What are you gettin’ at?” Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow.

Spike spread his arms triumphantly, “I’m saying let’s have Twilight do it! We don’t have to wait for the crystal ball because we’re already a few days ahead of Twilight. We could have Twilight find out where the stones that we want are, and we can have her think of a way to get us home! So all we have to worry about is going out and getting them.”

“Oh... for dang’s sake.” Applejack laughed and slapped her plate. “Why didn’ we think of that earlier?”

Rarity nodded with an impressed frown. “Doing it the old-fashioned way,” she said.

“We’re getting our regular time loop game on!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, pumping a hoof into the air.

“Uh, Pinkie Pie, we don’t have a ‘regular time loop game,’” Applejack replied with an amused grin.

Pinkie Pie giggled, “Don’t worry, not everypony does.”

Spike walked toward the ball. “Let’s see if Twilight could do it then go from there.” He picked it up before he finished, “And hope we don’t have to start all over.”

Twilight flinched. “What huh?” she said as her quill streaked across the page. She then looked down, saw her error, and pouted.

“Twilight,” Spike said, “we need some things from you.”

“Okay.”

“We need you to make a machine that will find these stones you were talking about.”

“Okay, Spike,” Twilight said, jotting it down on a small notepad.

“And then, when you’re done with that, we also need a way to instantly teleport home by ourselves.”

Twilight wrote that down as well. “Okay, but what do you want those for?”

Spike looked up at the rest of them for support before he looked back toward Twilight. “We’re gunna put together the spell that you have on you. We’re really close to having a plan, we just need to know if you can do that.”

“…Yes, but…” Twilight sucked in an uncertain breath. “I would need a few days.”

“Yeah yeah, we know,” Spike continued. “And then, when you do, could you hide what you come up with somewhere so we can find it?”

Twilight took a moment to flip through some pages in her journal before she used her magic to grab a book off the top shelf. Twilight idly scanned the cover for a few seconds, humming thoughtfully all the while.

She then grew wide-eyed. “Ooooh, I see what you’re doing!” she exclaimed, whirling around. She cantered toward the hourglass, and after looking it up and down, she smirked. “Okay, if I succeed in both, I’ll put them in there. Go check there now.”

Sunset, who had been drinking out of her cup at the time, suddenly spit all of it out and then pounded at whatever had remained caught.

Fluttershy stood up. “Sunset?” she asked, her voice full of concern. “Are you okay?”

Sunset straightened herself up. “Yeah yeah, Fluttershy,” she said, trying to shoo her away. “It’s nothing, I’m okay. Thanks.”

Taking one last deep breath for good measure, she turned her attention to the large hourglass. All of the sand still rested at the bottom, so she used her hoof to flip the hourglass over. It offered no resistance despite being twice her size. The soothing feel of the metal frame brought a smile to her face. It was just like old times.

After a few mesmerizing seconds of watching the sand fall (and listening for the telltale ssssh of the sand falling into the bottom chamber), she used her magic to pry the plate off of the top chamber.

On an unspoken cue, Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and lifted herself above the apparatus and reached in. She then fished out a lacquered box, small enough to be carried with ease yet big enough to command a grip.

Sunset magically grabbed at a letter taped to the front of the box. An idle glance at its contents revealed another note. Unlike the fateful note of farewell, the typography was much more even and meticulous, more like the hoofwriting that she remembered.

My friends,

Hopefully you are reading this just after I told you to search the hourglass. This kit contains everything you’ll need to collect the stones.

Use it well,
Twilight Sparkle

The seven of them of them shared smiles. “Well alright then, we know she can do it,” Applejack said, jamming her hoof into the air.

“Nice going, Spike!” Rainbow Dash said as she touched back down.

Rarity leaned over. “You were fantastic, my Spiky-wikey,” she agreed as she nuzzled him on the cheek.

As Sunset took the box from Rainbow Dash, she looked at the letter again. Part of her almost couldn’t believe it. Sunset stood there and marveled at the box, completely unaware of herself levitating the plate back onto the top of the apparatus. She had seen better boxes back in her day. And she couldn’t think of a case where a box would be anything spectacular. Yet, somehow, the fact the box even existed eclipsed every other aspect of it.

Spike made this happen by forcing a time loop, she thought as her body jittered with excitement. This...!? This is incredible! I have to look more into this time stuff!

Spike blushed. “It was nothin’.”

“Are you kidding!?” Sunset cried. “That was brilliant, Spike!”

“Oh, go on!”

Sunset excitedly clapped her hooves together before turning her attention back on the box. “Wait wait wait wait wait. Wait. Wait.” Sunset gave her noggin a slight rap to put herself back on focus. She looked at the note on the box again and read it over twice. A new thought formed and she threw it in with the other thoughts to see if it would blend.

“Okay,” she finally concluded, “she isn’t specific about what’s in the box. That’s good stuff.”

The other six looked over at her with questioning expressions.

“The contents of this box are in flux right now, and that’s really good for us. It gives us the chance to favorably collapse the probability function,” Sunset explained.

Everyone else besides Pinkie Pie frowned. Sunset could even see the proverbial thought shooting past their heads.

Sunset puffed her cheeks in embarrassment. “I mean uh… look. Okay, sorry, I got carried away there. Basically,” she held the object up in presentation, “anything could be inside this box until the moment we open it. We have the chance to decide what’s in the box. So, we should think about how many of us are going out to collect.”

Immediately, four sets of hooves and a set of claws went up. Sunset wasn’t sure if it was because they understood what she said or if they were just blindly following the last part.

“I should go,” Spike argued.

“...I should stay,” Fluttershy whimpered.

Rainbow Dash blew some hair out of her face. “Uhm, I don’t think that’d work out so well. I think all six of us should go.”

“Well, I’ll need some help here,” Sunset said, “since I’ll have to build something that can read the stones, and probably work with Twilight to figure out the math she’ll need for the spell.” She paused, and then added, “I’m a little rusty.”

Applejack nodded. “Spike,” she said and pointed, “you know this place up ’n down. Ah think you’d be a big help here.”

Spike mulled that over. “You got that right,” he said, beating his chest as he puffed it out pridefully.

“An’ Fluttershy… you can fly,” Applejack pointed out. “You’d be able to get to a lot of places much faster.”

Fluttershy cowered. “Yes, but I still don’t think it’s a good idea…”

“Well, why not?”

Fluttershy frowned. “Go to the furthest reaches of the world all by myself? I don’t know if I can do that…”

“Of course you can, dear,” Rarity said, draping a hoof over her friend’s withers. “You’ve helped us face down far worse things than a road trip.”

Pinkie Pie laughed and swung her foreleg around Fluttershy’s neck and said, “Yeah! Plus, we’ll be doin’ it too! You can betcha that all of us will get through this!”

“Well, um,” Fluttershy began. But then she sighed. “Oh, alright. It is for Twilight, after all.”

“Are we locking this in?” Sunset asked, glancing around for approval.

The five mares nodded.

“Twilight?” Spike called.

“Yes?” Twilight answered.

“One last thing. Everyone but Sunset and I are going out.”

“Got it.”

At that point, Sunset took hold of the box again. She examined it closely, and then she shared a nod with the others. Tentatively, she opened Twilight’s box.

Another carefully written letter greeted her. For the moment, Sunset set that aside so that she could see the contents inside. Right below where the letter had been situated sat five colored balls, each the size of a gumdrop. Somehow, Twilight’s choice of color with each seemed intentional. Scattered underneath those were an assortment of miscellaneous items, each labeled with a string of numbers.

Sunset examined one such set of numbers. She recognized latitude and longitude immediately, but the third set caught her by surprise. On closer inspection, she recognized them as meters. She figured it had to be depth.

Nodding in approval, she turned back to the letter.

Dear friends,

These five colored balls you see are a new invention! They are

Okay seriously I’ve tried writing this darn letter five times and I keep getting carried away with the technical details so I’m just going to skip that.

This is teleportation gum. You chew on it and it will instantly transport you home. I’ve managed to recreate the method Princess Celestia uses to send letters through Spike, and the gum makes sure it doesn’t happen until you use it.

It only works once, though, so use them wisely! These were pretty difficult to make!

I’ve also listed on the back of this letter several coordinates. I was able to track down twelve of them using the parameters I put into my machine.

In addition, you’ll find several items that you’ll need for the places you are going to. Each of them is labeled with their corresponding coordinate. There are extras so take what you need.

Twilight Sparkle

Spike crossed his arms and laughed nervously. “I’ve never coughed up entire ponies before. Letters, maybe, but not ponies.”

Rainbow Dash swiftly scooped up the red one and said, “Ha! Not too late to learn how, right?”

“That’s dandy,” Applejack said, taking the orange one. “Feels good to have a plan.”

Pinkie Pie did a cartwheel over toward the box. “Gum that lets us teleport across the world! This’ll be fun!” she exclaimed, nabbing the blue one.

Rarity took the purple one and gave it a once-over. “Not to mention the applications these things would have.”

“Well shucks,” Applejack replied. “Not that I’d expect anythin’ less from Twilight.”

Fluttershy, meanwhile, took the last one (the pink one), and then she looked at the other objects in the box.

“Alright,” Sunset said. She turned to the chalkboard and jotted down the several coordinates Twilight had written on the back of her letter. “Let’s talk about who’s going where.”

* * *

Steam bellowed every which way as the train sat ready to depart. Several ponies from all trots of life filed in at a relaxed pace. The conductor checked his pocket watch before eying the snack bar just inside the station door, licking his already-chapped lips all the while. Sunset watched as the others gathered on the platform.

“And my transfer is in Vanhoover,” Rarity said as she rummaged through her saddlebags for the umpteenth time. Satisfied that she had everything, she adjusted her conspicuous sunglasses and gazed toward the evening sun.

“We’ll have a few hours together, at least!” Pinkie Pie squealed. “This is going to be so exciting! I mean, trains are always exciting. Not as exciting as the time I went—” she sharply gasped before returning to her smile from before, “—but I mean, really.”

“We’ll be heading over to the docks as soon as y’all leave,” Applejack said, shifting her own saddlebags into a more comfortable position on her back.

“Ooooh, I so wish I could go where you’re going!” Rarity exclaimed with sparkles in her eyes. “Dirigibles are so... so sophisticated. So grandiose. I don’t have enough chances to ride in those. You and Fluttershy are so lucky.”

Applejack shrugged. “Meh.”

Fluttershy, meanwhile, smiled in return. “It’s okay, Rarity. At least you and Pinkie will be together.”

Over to the side, Rainbow Dash slipped on a pair of goggles so that they hung from her neck before starting some stretches. Her saddlebags had been momentarily set off to the side as she flapped her wings about and whatever else she could do to warm her muscles up.

Smiling at the others, Sunset decided to trot over. “Getting ready, huh?”

“Yeeeah,” Rainbow Dash replied in a vacant manner, “it’s gunna be a long flight.”

“You’re sure you can do it?” Sunset realized that was a bad question as soon as it left her mouth.

“Hey, nopony can cross an ocean like me,” she scoffed before starting some hoof-touches.

A loud whistle bellowed out of the engine at the other end of the platform, followed by the conductor’s authoritative, “All aboard!”

Spike looked at the five of them, but specifically at Rarity and Pinkie Pie. “Well, it’s time, I guess.”

Both mares gave each other nods.

“We’ll see all of you again in three days,” Rarity said.

“Eeyup,” Applejack agreed.

“Good luck! Be safe!” Spike said.

Rarity, with a warm grin on her face, trotted over and took him into a solitary embrace. “We will, we all will.”

And without prompting, the other four friends joined in the embrace, sharing giggles and blurting well-wishes. There was a bliss about them that could not be halved even with a wedge.

It had happened so fast that Sunset could only watch. It had been a hug shared between them, friends who had been so intricately woven into each other’s lives. They had each taken cues from each other that she did not know how to detect.

And at the moment, to them, she did not exist.

She was ever the outlier.

Maybe that was how it was; how things were supposed to be.

“See you girls later!” Spike called as they broke to go their separate ways.

Two mares boarded the train and soon pulled out of the station. One pegasus took to the sky, sailing toward the horizon long past Ponyville. Two mares set out for the air docks, intent on boarding their ship toward far-off lands. All were sheltered by the radiant hue of the twilit sky.

Sunset Shimmer and Spike stood on the platform, watching their friends fade into the distance. Even as the train rounded a corner and disappeared into the mountains, as the airship-bound duo disappeared behind a street corner, and as the pegasus became a dot in the sky, the two of them sat as if they were compelled to watch.

Spike grinned and then let off a few chuckles. He stopped short of bouncing up and down as he looked to Sunset with expectation.

Sunset felt some of her hairs even starting to stand on their ends and she too chuckled.

Sharing a nod with each other, they turned back toward the tower with a completely renewed fervor. This wasn’t at all where she had expected to be at the end of this day. But she could tell from the energy everyone had that the possibilities weren’t swimming through just her head.

And Sunset smiled.

Comments

[RowanSkie]

With time travel there's gonna be paradoxes and time loops EVERYWHERE!

THE SCIENCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE.

[EpicShadowz]

That ending... poor sunset.

[Csquared08]

Time travel is pretty tricky business, but it seems like you're handling it well.

[ChangelingQueenDragonfly]

“See ya’ll later!” Spike called

This line seems out of character for spike. It would make more sense if it had read:

"See you guys later!" Spike called

The one you used would've only made sense if Applejack had been the one talking.

[Sarda]

But it's not really a feedback loop if it still only went around once... There must be something else we haven't seen yet

[Alchemystudent]

Ok, Chrysalis is a surprise but a welcome one. I love seeing how she an be a possible threat and how an enemy would react to the death of someone who has caused her misery. It is also good that you are having it make ense and not having her attack while the mane 5 are urrently on a long journey as it would clutter up the stoy.

The time travel was also done expertly. Keeping a good handle on time is always a sticking point with me, so good work. It was a well done choice to have the characters create thier own time loop, as a way to emonstrate how the rules of the world works. IT was alos a great idea to have them spilt off onto their own adventures wich leads to a great scene. Sunset, and her own feels about being seperate. She doesn't know where she belons and how she measures up to ponies who have been friends for so long. It helps move her character along as she finds out about the hero inside of her.

[Corejo]

Were revving our engines here now! I like how you're handling thus whole time travel deal. Clever thoughts go a long way in a fic like this. Can't wait to see what comes next.

[Walabio]

Parchment is animalskin, as is vellum.

[Autumn Maize]

She cantered to the hourglass and after looking it up and down she smirked. “Okay, if I succeed in both, I’ll put them in there. Go check there now.”

Is that why Sunny didn't "remember that much sand" there back in Chapter 2?

[RQK]

7803444 That is the exact reason. Good eye!

[Csquared08]

I forgot to mention this last chapter, but I'm really liking these short mini scenes at the beginning of the chapters. They're a really nice touch and a cool way to include a wider cast of characters without distracting the story from itself.

Yep, past me was right. That was a really cool application of time traveling shenanigans.

[FancyFan]

A nice little starter timeloop there.