Dear Mom,
What do you know about time travel?
Twilight says she was visited by ‘herself, from the future’ or from next Tuesday morning rather. According to her, ‘future Twilight’ had burnt hair, a cut, and an eyepatch. She found a spell to travel back in time in the Star Swirl libary in Canterlot.
Twi’s been really high-strung again this last week. She worked herself up and woke me up at 3am with her pacing, all because she didn’t leave enough time in her schedule planner this month to her schedule planning for next month. I mean, she could let me do the planning, but then she’d probably take more time looking over my scheduling work for problems than it would take her to do her own schedule altogether.
She’s not as bad as the time she didn’t get a friendship report to you in time, but you know I begged you then to come right away. Please help me out here mom. I don't want Twi to end up like she did then.
Spike
Dearest Spike,
Thank you for your concerns.
First, to let you know, time travel magic is indeed real. I am fairly certain I know which spell future Twilight must have used. It is a spell that allows the user to travel back in time for a week. The user is limited to about a minute back in the week.
Time travel magic works on a closed-loop system. I realise you will not understand what that means. Basically, it means that you cannot change the past, because any actions you take when you go into the past already happened. Next Tuesday, this present Twilight will use the time-travel spell to go back in time and attempt to pass a message on to the Twilight of a week ago. There is no strict ‘beginning point’ where this loop begins.
I apologise if that is difficult to understand, but I struggle to come up with an analogy to simplify it for you. If you wish, I can explain it to you in more detail the next time you come to Canterlot.
Please keep me informed of any further updates, but at the time I do not believe this warrants my interference.
Regards,
Mom
Dear Mom,
I guess future Twilight did have a reason to worry. Cerberus came to town. Fluttershy managed to get him to calm down, and Twilight is taking him back to the gates of Tartarus. I don’t know how far away that is, so I don’t know when she will be back.
Twi did a good job with the town, though. Somewhere along the line she went from disaster-proofing to cleaning up Ponyville, but we did catch a leak on the dam. Well, I’m sure you’ll hear more from Mayor Mare’s official update.
Spike
Dear Mom,
We got the notice for Cerberus. When I got the scroll, however, it bounced out and gave Twi a paper cut across the face. Now she’s freaking out because future Twilight supposedly had the same paper cut, and then a few minutes later she had a bad hair accident that future Twilight also had.
I tried to help her calm down by taking her to see Pinkie. This is where it gets weird. A flowerpot dropped out of nowhere from INSIDE the tent, but Twi didn't care about that. She's getting really bad though. She has all the instruhments out so she’s trying to monitor everything.
Spike
Dearest Spike,
I think I know how this is going to pan out. It is tough for me to say this, but please go along with Twilight for now. There is a lesson to be learned here, and though it sounds cruel, it is one Twilight needs to learn.
I assume Twilight will come to Canterlot Monday evening in order to access the Star Swirl the Bearded Wing. Please tell when you are coming, and I will let the guards know. I will stop by as well to make certain events do not get out of hoof.
Regards,
Mom
Hi Mom,
We’re on the train right now. Pinkie Pie is coming with us as well. Twilight got us these really lame dark rubber costumes, so make sure the guards know we’re sneaking around.
Spike
Mom,
I think you were right, Twilight learned something today. I learned something today as well. Urgh, so much ice cream. I wish I could go back in time and tell past Spike not to eat so much ice cream. I don't think past Spike would listen though.
Spike
Wish I could go back and tell past me to get over watch and not battleborn
Very nice chapter. Really like this insight into what was going on in other places.
7916244 I have both - actually preordered Battleborn with season pass. Finally picked up Overwatch a few months later when it became almost impossible to find a match on Battleborn. And the worst part was I found Overwatch to be a MAJOR letdown. I loved Battleborn, but Overwatch was just a big pile of meh to me. No (in game) story, fewer characters, loot boxes that just give outfits, taunts, and other worthless crap (vs actual powerups that aid in your gameplay. Maybe you get useful stuff at higher levels?) No real options for leveling (vs. Battleborn where you can level your player overall, your individual characters, AND a 10 step leveling in-match allowing you to fine tune your buffs during the match.) And the characters are much more interesting - I'll take Orendi any day over any of the bland Overwatch bunch. Plus she reminds me of Discord!
Battleborn was smothered by hype, nothing more. But that was enough. So annoying.
7916344 Thanks, yep. As I mention in my Author Note for the last chapter, It's About Time fits perfectly with the idea Spike was trading letters with Celestia.
7916679 Different takes on canon for different fics, really.
Love it. Very big fan of Spike and Momlestia. Will be following you and hoping there could be more for this story.
"Instruhments" shouldn't have an H in it.
Fuckin' cute.
7918983 This story is in a letter format from Spike to Celestia. So while from a overall grammatical standpoint it's wrong, but that might have been a deliberate choice from the author to have Spike make that mistake.
7916403
See, I think that those are actually advantages of Overwatch over Battleborn. I might be dating myself here, but I've always approached shooters as contests of skill on an even footing*. It should be about which team is better (skills and coordination), not which team spent more time grinding or money buying things. The only part of that that sounds remotely acceptable is the in-match leveling, which would be alright in competitive but sounds like a stone bitch in modes that allow backfilling.
*Well, as even as possible. But I'd really be dating myself if I started ranting about LPBs.
That was awesome
And absolutely nopony got an alert that a certain magic-absorbing centaur got loose? Wow - great forethought there, Celestia. Let's not introduce a system that alerts the Princess if prisoners escape - after all, the prisoners are harmless and have no malicious bones or thoughts in their bodies.
Is it really any wonder why Tirek got so powerful? Not only did Princess Celestia fail to realise he escaped, but she also never bothered to check Tartarus to see if all the prisoners were there, never recaptured him when he was still heavily weakened, and when Lord Tirek regained the ability to absorb alicorn magic, she never smashed the 'Princess Twilight Sparkle' stained glass mural, thus alerting Tirek to said fourth princess's existence.
This should not have been such a lackadaisical (is that the right word?) letter - 'oh hey, the guardian of Tartarus got loose. No big deal - Twilight brought him back. It's not like a centaur managed to escape during Cerberus's absence, after all'. This should've been a dire warning, since there was no-one guarding the gate. Celestia, you're fired.
What a wonderful premise! I don’t know about Spike calling the princess “mom” though. I like the letters and how they fit right in with the episode. Cute chapter.