The Handmaid

by GMBlackjack

III - The Handmaids

Aradia flew over to her alternate selves, smiling at them welcomingly. They smiled back at her, but didn't say anything - they were in the middle of a discussion.

"...and as we can plainly see, we've got ourselves a wasteland here. Total annihilation."

"Cool," another Aradia said.

"Well, yes, but the point is not to stand in awe here - though you can feel free to. The point is that a lynchpin of sorts has been broken. Timelines have diverged from utter desolation to pointless chaos to war to... probably more boring things. A mixture really."

"This isn't new news," yet another Aradia said. "We get it, the six of them are the heroes of this world, yadda yadda."

"Again with the yadda yadda," the previous said.

"Don't you get that we are functionally the same person?"

"You didn't have a zebra drop a bucket of anti-changeling goo on you five minutes ago."

"Fair."

Another Aradia - possibly the first one who had spoken, Aradia had lost track of her other selves - spoke up. "Look, we can compare notes on how different or not time has made us, but I think that'd be a waste of time."

"We are maid of time," another Aradia said, causing all six of them to chuckle. "How can we waste it?"

"We still could stand to actually get to the point: finding why this happened. What broke the lynchpin of those six friends? We know there was someone messing with time who wasn't us."

"Wasn't the Doctor either," a new Aradia said, appearing from nowhere, making past Aradia - that is, the Aradia this story is about - relieved to no longer be the 'latest' one to arrive. Though this new Aradia seemed pretty... singed.

"What happened to you?" one of the Aradias asked.

"Centaur beam of death," she muttered, dusting herself off. "Before we fix this I want to go back and make sure he knows not to mess with the Handmaid..."

There was that title - the Handmaid - again. Why had she - or her future self anyway - taken the title of her Ancestor? She didn't know... She didn't say anything about that though, her future selves had things to deal with. She did say something else, however. "Oh! I was just in that timeline. Got out of there before I could get singed!"

Singed Aradia chuckled. "Ah, the wisdom of your alternate versions..."

"I know right?" an alternate Aradia said.

"Has anyone gone back to the lynchpin yet?" yet another Aradia asked.

"I have. Can't tell you what I saw yet though."

"Oh. Okay. Which of us goes back to become you then?"

"Her," the Aradia pointed at an Aradia that had just appeared. "Go to the rainboom."

"The what?" the new Aradia asked as she dusted herself off from industrial soot.

"The rainbow-y thing."

"Oh! Okay!" She vanished.

The Aradia the recently-vanished Aradia would become eventually shuddered. "Jegus, it took me a painful amount of time to find it..."

"What did you see?" past Aradia asked, feeling like she should be part of the conversation instead of just watching her future selves. She didn't think they realized she was from their past yet - a bit confusing since usually she was good at remembering these things, but still fun!

"Starlight. A unicorn that we frankly have ignored a lot. She's got it out for Twilight and wants to make her suffer."

"How'd she do this?" Singed Aradia asked.

"Starswirl's spell."

Every Aradia facepalmed - except past Aradia because she had no idea who Starswirl was.

"You know something we don't?" an Aradia asked her.

"I couldn't tell you if I did!" past Aradia snarked.

Several of the Aradia's giggled - self-trolling was always fun! They didn't see why their old friends had hated it so much.

"Enough of that," another Aradia said, appearing right then and there. "Turns out Starlight's redeemed."

"Which timeline you from?" Singed Aradia asked.

"Core - Twilight turned her around and set the timeline back to normal - by their perceptions anyway. We've still got a mess to clean up here. Time is still fractured eightfold."

"Think it could be... her?" an Aradia asked.

"Seeing as we haven't seen her since the use of the Juju, I doubt it. It wouldn't happen here."

"You know saying that makes it more likely."

The wasteland winds blew through core Aradia's hair. She just smiled. "Yes, I know. Maybe I'm just hopeful."

"We're all hopeful!" An Aradia that past Aradia was pretty sure hadn't spoken yet said.

"We're Maids of Time, not Hope," Singed Aradia mentioned.

"Who cares? Anyway, core Aradia, what did you do?"

"Nothing," core Aradia responded. "I really just took notes and waited to see what happened. They think the issue is taken care of, no need to worry them with unstable timelines. Obviously, we want the Core timeline to win out, but the other seven need to retain some manner of existence to ensure their loop continues as it should."

A ninth Aradia appeared. "We'll need to make sure the points we, Twilight, and Starlight exist are kept stable."

"Where are dream bubbles when you need them?" core Aradia muttered.

Singed Aradia rolled her eyes. "...Well, that could work and - wait. Hold on. One, two, three..." She counted all the Aradia's. "Nine. There are only eight timelines! Who's using loop clones?"

Past Aradia frowned - everyone was shaking their heads. Did they really not remember being her in their past, even now? That was... disconcerting. She raised her hand anyway. "...I'm from your collective pasts."

Core Aradia blinked. "Not possible. I have no memories of entering this mess before. Where on the timeline are you?"

"Just arrived on Equis, saw the Tree of Harmony and the symbol on it, and was just in Ponyville." she shrugged. "Sorry for not coming clean about that earlier, I was just curious about what you were doing... ...Why do you all look like you've seen our ghost?"

"The Tree of Harmony has no symbol on it..." core Aradia said.

"...no Aries Gear?"

"No."

"...Okay, what is going on?"

Core Aradia grinned. "I have no idea."

Past Aradia gave her the finger guns gesture. "Ah, you!"

An Aradia furrowed her brow. "Hey, what prompted you to come here?"

"The Doctor told me to!"

There was a facepalm times eight combo. Core Aradia groaned. "That... he knows better than to do that what the heck..."

"That would have created a timeline offshoot though!" Another Aradia said. "I don't feel one!"

"Yes... None of us do..." Core Aradia pondered. "...Someone must have done something to the core timeline of us that didn't affect the world's timeline that much... somehow. Initiated a paradox of some kind or other... But how would we be able to encounter the changed version of ourselves at all if that were the case?"

Past Aradia grinned. "Ooooh! I know this one! You exist, right now, in a state of temporal uncertainty in these bifurcated timelines! You can exist in both areas at once because these timelines can't handle splitting for us seeing as their final stable arrangement is uncertain!"

"Past us is smart," an Aradia offered.

"Though this means we can't leave the timelines. Or maybe we might not be able to leave them, can't really know for sure," singed Aradia said. "We can't know how to fix this right if the rest of time has changed for us..."

"You must figure out something eventually, I was in the local future," past Aradia encouraged.

"Thanks for the hope, but we already know that through other means. You know, we did appear at the Tree of Harmony when we arrived as well, only there was no symbol..."

The most recent Aradia scratched her chin. "Hey, what else did you see that might have been different? How'd the Doctor act?"

"He... Well, he only seemed to know of me - you - from legend."

"That's wrong," core Aradia said. "...You are supposed to teach him the ways of time, starting when he was very young. He would have treated you like a mother. Or should have."

"You should go back," another Aradia said, summoning a red gear construct. "Go to the moment you were supposed to meet him, as a foal, see what changed. Find out what happened to the timeline, then report back to this time and the rest of us."

"Good plan," singed Aradia said.

Past Aradia took the gear and nodded. "Where should I be to activate this?"

"Go north. Find the snowdrift thirty-six miles that way."

Aradia looked around the wasteland and narrowed her eyes. "Which timeline?"

"...Core," core Aradia said. "I'll take you." They shifted timelines, returning to the castle and the land of blue sky. They flew out to the north, time accelerated so the journey would only take a few seconds. "Here," core Aradia said, stopping them and pointing at a snowdrift. "That's the spot."

Past Aradia grinned. "Thanks! See you soon!"

"Of course."

Aradia landed and activated the gear, shooting slightly over a thousand years into the past. She took in the cold scenery and smiled - it didn't look all that different, even this far in the past. She saw a town in the distance that wasn't there in the future - or at least not in the core timeline she'd just been in. She saw a small brown cutie-markless colt staring at her from the edge of the town, staring right at her.

She waved at him.

Then a sword rammed her through the back, poking right through the gear symbol on her chest. Her burgundy blood sprayed out in an impressive arc, splattering over the white landscape. She fell to a knee, eyes wide, smile gone.

She... Well, she hadn't expected this.

She fell the rest of the way to the ground, the sight of a fleeing, traumatized colt leaving her vision. The last thing she saw was a tall, dark unicorn glaring at her with a look of utter contempt...

~~~

The Handmaid's enemy was Sombra - or at least Sombra said so. The war with the Crystal Empire is one of the few events that can be traced back directly to the Handmaid's influence, without question. He became obsessed with her - as a true rival, the enemy he was really fighting all these years rather than the armies of Equestria. But when he began to lose the war, he went even further into self-indulgent madness. He wanted to kill the blight on his history in a murderous rage.

He knew he wasn't going to win. So he wanted nothing more than her dead for her meddling.

Comments

[Zodiac-The8th]

Oh no Aradia's dead... For like maybe five minutes because there's no way in the several versions of hell that it was a just or heroic death.

[iloveportalz0r]

Aradia flew over to her alternate selves, smiling at them welcoming.

I am unsure if this sentence has an error

waited to see what happened.They think the issue is taken care of

This is missing a space after le dot/period/fullstop/whatever

Go to the moment you were supposed to meet him, as a filly, see what changed.

A filly? A mere slip of the tongue, I presume