The Twin Dilemma
Sunset wrung her hooves as she waited for Dr. Stable to arrive. She had never been at all fond of waiting. Ascending into a being of pure chaos had done nothing to help with that. Theoretically, she could use a fraction of the power that she kept contained within the shell of her body to transport herself, Dr. Stable, and indeed the entire hospital into Twilight’s bedroom without so much as dropping a tongue depressor. A large part of her, the part that was based in an almost feral need to help her friends, wanted to do just that and damn the consequences. The rest of her was very forcefully repeating over and over again the list of reasons why that was a terrible idea and would lead to far more headaches for many more of her friends later on.
You had to be careful with chaos magic. If you didn’t stop to think about the consequences of using it, you’d end up like Discord. Sunset had suffered quite enough falls from grace in her life already, thanks. So she sat in a side room, wiggling in her seat as her willpower wore away with time. How long had she been waiting here? It had been about noon when she’d arrived, and she’d been shown into this private consultation room in about three minutes. Since then, she’d been sat here for… awhile.
Sunset frowned, tried to think about that. Failed. Something weird was going on here. Could she remember the face of the orderly who’d shown her in here? She was pretty sure it had been a stallion with a white coat, but her memories were hazy. She couldn’t remember if he’d been a unicorn, pegasus, earth pony, or what. She couldn’t even remember if he was a pony at all.
Something was very wrong. She struggled to her hooves, only to find that they had fallen asleep. She stumbled to the door, almost falling over herself, and crashed through into the hall, straight into Dr. Stable. They both went flying in a heap of papers.
“Oh! I’m so sorry, doctor,” Sunset said, pulling herself upright. “Here, let me help you with your papers.”
The gold-coated stallion stared at her for a long moment, as though he wasn’t quite sure who he was talking to. “Er, papers!” he said, blinking a few times to clear his head. “Papers, yes, very good of you, Miss Shimmer.”
Sunset frowned at him as she shuffled the dropped pages together. “Something wrong, Doc? You don’t seem quite yourself.”
Dr. Stable flinched and let out a small shriek of horror. Sunset took a step back. The doctor removed his glasses and polished them frantically. “I’m terribly sorry, I’m not feeling at all well, I think perhaps I’d better take some time off, please take up any problems with my assistant!”
He fled down the hall, leaving Sunset holding his papers and watching his tail flapping in his wake. Half the doors in the hall were ajar, with ponies staring out at her. Sunset sighed and clutched the papers to her chest. “Right,” she said. “Can anypony tell me where I can find Dr. Stable’s assistant?”
“Lunch date,” one orderly volunteered.
“Well, someone get her, a thaumic IV, and whatever other medical equipment necessary for treating a magic drain over to the castle right away. Twilight’s had an accident.”
The orderly nodded and took the papers from Sunset’s hooves. “Right away, miss. Will you wait and come with us?”
Sunset shook her head. “I’m afraid I’ve got another, much less pleasant visit to make. Her brothers still need to know what happened.”
Button knocked on the door. Technically, he could have let himself in -- he still had his key, after all. But, since his mom wasn’t expecting him, he decided to take the path of not giving her a heart attack when she heard someone bumping around the house. After a moment, he heard hooves coming up the hallway to the door. It creaked open. “Hello?”
Button wrapped the mare in a big hug. “Hi, mom!”
There was a long pause. Button received no answering hug. “Well,” said the mare in a voice that definitely wasn’t his mother’s. “It might be a little early for that.”
Button pulled back in surprise. The white mare grinned at him, perhaps a little awkwardly. “Hello, Button.”
“Nurse Redheart? What are you doing here?” A cold fear seized Button’s heart. “Oh, Celestia. Is mom okay? Is she sick? Is she hurt?”
Redheart blinked, taken aback.
“Red? Who is it?”
Button glanced around the nurse. His mother stood in the entrance hall, holding a mug of tea. “Uh. Hi, mom.”
“Oh!” Tender Care barely paused to set her mug down on a side table before running and wrapping her son up in a bear hug. “Button! This is such a surprise!”
“You’re telling me! Oh, mom, watch the bag, watch the bag…”
Tender swung him around and pulled him inside. “Oh, sweetie, it’s been so long! Come and sit down.”
Almost before Button knew what was happening, he was sitting in an armchair, being asked questions a mile a minute by his mother, who was sharing the couch with a patiently amused Redheart.
“So,” Button interrupted. “You’re dating again?”
Tender paused for a moment. “Er, yes.” She toyed with her ear. “I was waiting to tell you until a few more dates, but…”
Nurse Redheart chuckled. “It’s been three months, hon. How many more dates was it going to take until you decided we were serious?”
Tender blushed. “I-- well, you know…”
“I’m happy for you,” Button said warmly.
Both mares smiled at that. “Thank you, sweetie,” Tender said gratefully. “So, what brings you back to town?”
Button paused for a moment. He couldn’t tell Mom that the only reason he was here was an accident on the railway. She’d be pretty hurt. “I’m just stopping by on my way to that big tech conference in Baltimare. You remember, I wrote about it in my letter three months back?”
“And the one two months back, and one month back, and last week…” Tender said, chuckling lightly.
“Oh.” Button went a bit pink. “I guess I went on about it more than I thought.”
“I’m so proud of you, Button,” Tender Care said, smiling at her son. “How long will you be staying?”
Button fished his train ticket out of his bag and looked at it. “I leave about half past ten tomorrow.”
“Overnight, then? I’ll be sure to make up your room before dinner.”
“Oh, I can take care of it, mom. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your date.”
“Well, if you’re sure, dear. Now, tell us about… Red? Babe? Your bag is flashing.”
Redheart glanced at where her saddlebags were hanging on a hook on the wall. Indeed, out from one of the pockets, a bright blue light was rising and falling with regular intensity. “Oh, shoot. Looks like I have to go.” She trotted over and pulled out a device that appeared to mainly consist of a large blue gemstone.
“What’s that?” Button asked.
“New tech for the hospital, courtesy of Princess Twilight. It was originally meant to serve as an alarm if someone spilled something on a book, hence the name ‘pager’. She modified it for easier communications for medical workers. See this screen here? It tells me where I need to go…”
She trailed off as she gestured to the screen. Written in big, easily-read letters were the words Castle of Friendship. Urgency level: Orange.
“I’ve got to go.” Redheart shoved the pager back into her bag, not even bothering to shut off the flashing light. She raced out of the room, and seconds later, Button and Tender heard the door bang open as the nurse rushed out.
Tender glanced at Button. “So, er… how was your trip?”
Button was already pulling his bag back across his shoulders and following Redheart out of the house. “Button,” his mother warned. “We don’t want to interfere with Redheart’s work, or any of the other nurses or doctors.”
Button looked back. “But one of our friends is hurt. I want -- I need to be there for them.”
Tender pressed her lips into a line and nodded. “Alright. But if the doctors tell us to leave--”
“I will, no arguments here.” He paused. “We?”
“Like you said. Our friends have gotten hurt. I don’t intend to wait around at home all alone.” She rose from the couch. "And I still want to hear about your trip. Tell me as we walk."
Button smiled as his mother grabbed her hat from the wall. Together, they set out in the direction of Twilight’s castle.
“I… I don’t know what it was,” Caramel said, toying with a mug of strong, sugary tea. “It all happened so… so…”
“Fast?” Apple Bloom suggested.
“Not really,” Caramel said. “No. 'Fast'... it doesn't cover it. It didn't need to be fast. It just… was. Like it always had been, that’s how it happened.”
Caramel, badly shaken after what had just occurred on the street, hadn’t objected to the Crusaders helping him home, and couldn’t quite find it in himself to stop them from investigating further once Dinky had explained to the other two what they’d missed. Now the three Crusaders were sat around the candymaker’s living room, listening to his account.
“Start at the beginning,” Rumble said gently. “What were you doing before… it happened?”
“Nothing, really,” Caramel said, setting his tea aside and folding his hooves in his lap. “I was just going to the market to pick up some ingredients -- my usual supply of sugar, flavorings, gelatin*, things like that. I hadn’t made it a block when I heard a voice.”
“Did you recognize the voice?” Dinky asked.
Caramel shook his head. “It sounded sort of familiar, but it wasn’t anypony I knew well. There was something of a Lawndon accent about it, very fancy, but what I really noticed was how thin the voice was. Like it wasn’t all there.”
“But it was rough,” Dinky said. “A little gravelly.”
Caramel’s eyes widened. “Yes! You heard it too?”
“Only a little bit, once I’d grabbed you. But go on, what did it say?”
“Something like, ‘You’ll be a prime source, won’t you?’. That was the phrase he used, ‘a prime source’.”
“So it was a male voice?” Rumble asked.
“I think so,” Caramel said, after hesitating for a moment. “I can’t be sure. But it felt male, I guess? Does that make sense?”
“What happened after that?” Apple Bloom asked.
“Well, that’s when everything went gold and time stopped, like Dinky said,” Caramel said. “But I barely noticed that when I just…” he trailed off, visibly frustrated. “There’s no word for what happened in the Equestrian language.”
“Then explain it,” Rumble said. “The more detail we have, the better.”
Caramel nodded, staring into space. “My life… changed. I could remember my childhood, growing up, what I had for breakfast this morning, everything like that. But I could also distinctly remember a completely different life growing up out west, moving to Appaloosa, working as a cooper.”
“A cooper?” Dinky asked.
“Barrel-maker,” Apple Bloom said. “Go on?”
“Well, like I said. I could remember both lives, each with just as much clarity as the other. And what’s more, I could always have remembered it, if that makes sense? It wasn’t like I forgot it, or the memories were implanted in my brain, or anything like that. They had always been there, but they hadn’t always been there a second ago. Does that make any sense?”
“Not really,” Bloom admitted.
“I think I follow,” Dinky said, nodding. “Keep going.”
“Okay,” said Caramel. Then he paused. “Also, in the new life, I’d been born a mare, and identified as nonbinary. I don’t know if that’s relevant or not? Wait, is it alright to out an alternate version of yourself?”
“Relevant as anything else, I guess,” Rumble said. “And I think since the pony in question is an alternate version of you, you’re probably fine? I dunno. I think you need a moral philosopher and a theoretical physicist to get anything close to a definitive answer on that one.”
Caramel nodded, staring into his cup of tea. “Alright. Well, then I remembered growing up as a dragon, out in the Badlands. About then I got the wherewithal to scream, and I breathed fire. Somehow, I’d turned into a big, golden dragon, about two heads taller than Spike. And I could still remember the other two lives. And it kept going like that. The lives all kind of blended together, but I remember that at one point I was a pre-unification peasant. I was a workhorse. I was a fashion model, a doctor, a changeling drone, a spy. I was things that I can’t even fully comprehend, now that I’m back. I think I passed through every sapient species in the world, plus a few besides. I existed in the past, present, and future, across Equestria and beyond. And every time, I could remember every life I’d passed through before.” He let out a long breath. "I can't remember much of it now, and thank Celestia for that."
Nopony said anything for a long minute. “Is this where I come in?” Dinky asked.
Caramel took a deep breath, nodded. “Yeah.” He looked at her, with clear difficulty. “Thank you. I honestly don’t think my mind could have handled much more of that.”
She looked away. “It was nothing. I just grabbed you.”
“And probably saved my life.”
“Yes, well.” Dinky coughed. “You’re welcome.”
Caramel dropped his gaze back to his cup of tea. “Well, anyway. You grabbed my hoof, and suddenly I was free. Then the rest of you came running up, and that was that.”
Dinky frowned. “So you didn’t hear the voice again?”
“...No. Why?”
“Well, I did. It said I was ‘resistant’, called me a ‘whelp’, and said something about more focused efforts. Then the gold light faded and we were back in normal time again.”
Caramel shook his head. “It was instantaneous.”
Dinky frowned, deep in contemplation. “When I was running up the street,” she said at last, “did I look particularly golden?”
Caramel looked up at the ceiling, his face screwed up in contemplation. “I think I may have been too busy with the world’s worst identity crisis to notice,” he admitted. “Why? Did I?”
“I don’t think so,” Dinky said.
“Ah reckon yer coat would make it a little hard to tell,” Bloom noted.
Caramel looked down at himself. “True enough.”
“When I grabbed you, I got a better look at you,” Dinky said. “The whites of your eyes were definitely more golden than usual, and I don’t think you were breathing.”
“So, what are you saying?” Rumble asked.
“I think that either whatever froze time restarted it, then refroze it to include Caramel this time, or froze time within a time freeze,” Dinky said.
“...Which means what, for those of us who didn’t get our cutie marks for time travel?”
Dinky thought about that. “The full implications are unclear without more evidence. The only thing I can be sure of is that whatever it was used an obscene amount of power doing it. Even freezing time once over a localized area would be pre-ascension Twilight-level magic. Twice in a row? That could be pulled off by a group of regular unicorns working in tandem, Starlight Glimmer, or a similarly powerful magic generator. Add in whatever was happening to Caramel, we’re talking alicorns and draconocci.”
Everypony stared at her for a long minute. Rumble let out a long huff of air. “Well, that narrows down our list of suspects, at any rate.”
“Which means it’s a cryin’ shame it don’t seem like any of ‘em woulda done it,” Bloom said. “Outta the three in town, Twilight an’ Sunset ain’t got the motive, an’ this just don’t seem like Discord’s style.”
“How is freezing time specifically to mess with somepony ‘not Discord’s style’?” Caramel asked.
“They go for humiliation, not complete loss of identity,” Bloom pointed out. “Besides, with time frozen, there ain’t nopony around to watch.”
Caramel nodded grudgingly, acknowledging the point. “So, what, Celestia did it?”
Dinky sighed. “I sincerely doubt it. I think that we may need to consider that we may have another Sunset Shimmer on our hooves -- another half-ascended draconequus or alicorn setting off weird magical effects around Ponyville.”
Caramel blanched at that, and Apple Bloom paled. Rumble merely gave a long sigh out the sides of his mouth and pushed back from the table. “We’d better go talk to Twilight,” he said.
“Hey, G.”
“Yeah, Dash?”
“You ever worry we’re slowing down as we get older?”
Gilda took a long sip of her lemonade. “Nah. We’re just chillaxing.”
“Good, good. Just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.”
“Yeah. Hey, pass me that box of eclairs.”
Dash rolled over on the sunbathing cloud she was sharing with her old friend to shove the pastry box in her direction. Gilda didn’t even look over. She just grabbed a fistful and gobbled them down, one by one. “Damn, these are good,” she muttered around a mouthful.
“Gonna have to thank Pinkie later.”
Gilda made a face. “Do I have to?”
“If you do it well enough, she’ll probably give you another box for your flight home.”
Gilda weighed that in her mind. “Eh, alright. So, how’s it going with, uh… Apple Horse?”
“Applejack.”
“Right, what I said.”
Dash snorted. “Riiight. It’s all good. I spend three nights a week at her place. I’m thinking of hauling my cloudhouse over Sweet Apple Acres.”
Gilda snorted. “U-Haul, much?”
“Hey! I’ve been dating her for like, ten years now. I’m taking it slow.”
Gilda looked over at Dash and lowered her sunglasses. “Yeah. Maybe slower than I’ve ever seen you go. You put a ring on that hoof yet?”
“I -- well --”
“Useless,” Gilda said, with relish.
“You take that back!”
“Propose to your marefriend, and I will.”
“Jackass.”
“Dweeb.”
Dash sighed and fell back into the cloud. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I should get married to her. I want to get married to her. But…”
“But?” Gilda said, crossing her talons.
Dash covered her face with her hooves. “I always thought she’d be the one to propose to me,” she said.
Gilda clucked her tongue.
“I know, I know,” Dash said. “But she’s always been the driving force, y’know? Every time we take it to the next level, it’s because of something she suggested, after I had about three weeks to come around to the idea.”
“That’s unlike you,” Gilda said.
“I know,” Dash groaned. “But she’s so comfortable with this, and I’m… not, y’know? I’m comfortable being with her, and I wanna marry her and maybe have kids? Probably have kids, the Apples are pretty big on that, and as long as I don’t have to carry them, I’m cool with that. But well… you know. She’s just so easy about love, and I’m not.”
“Huh. Hey, Dash?”
“Uh-huh?”
“You’re an emotionally repressed layabout nitwit who doesn’t know how good she has it.”
“I know you are, but what am I?”
“I’m serious.”
“I know, I get it…” Dash sighed. “So you think I should propose to her?”
Gilda threw her claws in the air. “A miracle! She can be communicated with!”
Dash rolled over and tackled her. “Oh, so that’s how it is?” Gilda said, laughing. “I try to give you life advice, and this is how you do me? Alright, you asked for it, ya little--”
Their conversation fell to grunts and growls as they wrestled for dominance, until finally Dash managed to get Gilda in a headlock.
“Hah, hah, how the heck did you do that?” Gilda growled. “I’m like, three times your size!”
“Does it matter? Say uncle!”
Gilda tried to shake Rainbow off, but the pegasus just jumped up, pushing Gilda to the cloud. “Awright, awright, uncle! Uncle!”
“Ha!” Dash let go and flew up. “Laydeez and gentlemen, the undisputed champeen!”
“Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. Let’s see how ya do in round two!”
“Hi, Rainbow!”
Both Gilda and Dash paused and looked down. An orange pegasus was waving up at them.
“Oh, hey, Scoots!” Dash zipped down to ground level, leaving Gilda still stumbling to stand upright. “I didn’t know you were back in town!”
Scootaloo grinned as Rainbow tousled her mane. “Yup. Just graduated!”
“What? And you didn’t invite me to the ceremony?” Dash looked hurt, but tried to play it off. “Oh, was there an eggheads-only rule in place?”
“Nah. I just didn’t think you’d want to fly all the way out to the college just to see me get some dumb piece of paper for math.”
The rictus smile on Dash’s face said that Scootaloo had thought wrong. “We already know how good I am, right?” Scootaloo said, worry tinting her voice. “It’s fine, right?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah! Don’t need a dumb diploma to tell you how awesome you are,” Dash said, forcing her smile a little wider.
Blessedly, at that moment Gilda swooped down to the ground, inspecting Scootaloo closely. “So you’re the famous Scootaloo.”
Scootaloo blinked. “Uh, famous? Me?”
“Rainbow here never shuts up about you,” Gilda said. “Same deal with Gabby. So you’re my two friends’ favorite pony.”
“Well, favorite,” Scootaloo scoffed, studying her hooves. “Me? No. Rainbow’s favorite pony has to be Applejack, right? And with Gabby, it’s probably split between all six of us Crusaders…”
Gilda stared at her for a long moment, a slump in her beak. “Well. So far, I’m not wildly impressed.”
“Gilda!” Dash looked horrified.
The griffon jerked a claw at Dash, suddenly grinning again. “See? You’re her favorite.”
Scootaloo turned beet red. “U-uh, anyway. I was gonna invite you over to Holiday and Lofty’s to catch up. I didn’t know you had a friend in town, though. I’ll catch you later!”
“I -- well, hold on.” Rainbow glanced between Gilda and Scootaloo, obviously torn.
Gilda cracked her neck. “Would you mind if I came along? I’ve just met the pony I’ve spent the last -- oh, eight years or so -- hearing about nonstop. I wanna find out if the rumours are true.”
Scootaloo hesitated. “Well… I don’t mind. And I don’t think Holiday and Lofty would mind too much either. Sure! I’d like to get to know the famous Gilda.”
“Cool.” Gilda paused. “Wait, what?”
“Oh yeah,” Scootaloo said, grinning as she trotted back down the road. “Rainbow talks about you all the time. Gabby too. Guess you’re their favorite griffon.”
“Oh,” said Gilda. She smiled. “How ‘bout that?”
As they made their way into Ponyville proper, Dash couldn’t help but notice a certain extra spring in Gilda’s step. She nodded subtly at Gilda. “And that,” she said softly, “is why she’s my favorite.”
Gilda nodded. “Yeah. I get it.”
Ditzy mopped her brow. The early afternoon sun was brutal. Normally, she wouldn’t be working this late, but her trip back from Canterlot had taken longer than expected. Fortunately, nopony else had been on time today either. Unfortunately, that just meant that nopony had picked up anypony else’s slack. It was like everyone had forgotten how to tell the time or something; Ditzy had delivered mail to ponies who were still eating breakfast, ponies who were just getting home from work, ponies who were fast asleep. There was clearly something funny going on. The question, of course, was whether this was normal Ponyville weirdness or something more insidious. There was no way of being sure until the other horseshoe dropped.
Fortunately, she had just finished her rounds, and could now head home for the day. If anyone had insights on what these weird scheduling discrepancies might mean, it was the Doctor. She hurried down the road, anxious to reach the relative safety of her home before whatever machinations were in store for the day really kicked off.
Finally, she arrived home. Shoving open the door, she threw her hat and bag in the general vicinity of the coat rack. “Honey!” she called. “I’m home!”
No reply. Unusual. She knew the Doctor wasn’t manning his repair shop today, and it wasn’t grocery day either. Of course, with the way today was going, she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the Doctor’s schedule had slipped off course, too.
He wasn’t in the sitting room, or their bedroom, or the basement. He wasn’t in the bathroom, or the study, or the laundry room. The attic was bereft of his presence, and Dinky’s room was vacant as well.
Then she came to the kitchen. Her first thought was ‘Oh no! The Doctor has been kidnapped!” Then the rational part of her brain kicked in and she realized that kidnappers wouldn’t have left a room this messy even if they’d tried to use it to cover their tracks. The slices of jelly toast slapped against the ceiling confirmed it; this was the Doctor’s doing.
She closed her eyes for a few minutes, taking long, slow breaths. Alright. Well, if he’d left the kitchen in this state for this long, justifiably there was only one place he could be, using ‘justifiably’ in the loosest possible sense of being able to justify anything.
With a tight-drawn mouth and a controlled, clipped gait, Ditzy trotted out to the TARDIS and banged on the door. She felt somewhat gratified to hear a yelp of surprise from inside, followed by hasty hoofsteps in her direction. The doors swung open, and Ditzy blanched. The Doctor was covered in soot, smut, and sweat, his eyes somewhat glazed and his mane even messier than usual. He gave her a loopy, unfocused grin. “Ah! Hello, love. How was work?”
“Er, fine, I suppose. Doctor--”
“Brilliant! Say, have you got a minute to run up to Sweet Apple Acres?”
For a moment, curiosity won over irritation. “I suppose so. Why?”
“Change of venue. The console room is pretty big, but not big enough for everyone who’s planning on coming to the party. The barn is a better option.”
“Alright. I’ll ask.”
“Brilliant! I just need to make a few more --”
“Nope.”
He faltered. “No?”
“Doctor. Do you remember breakfast?”
He cocked his head. “Er, first meal of the day? Usually involves muffins? Can be continental or --”
“This morning’s breakfast?”
She could see the gears clicking in the Doctor’s head. “The kitchen?” she suggested.
His eyes bulged. “The kitchen!” He started to run toward the house, but Ditzy held up a hoof.
“Let me tell you how this is going to work out,” she said firmly.
The Doctor nodded, wide-eyed.
“I’ll go up to Sweet Apple Acres and ask about borrowing the barn. While I’m doing that, here’s what I want you to do. First, take a shower. Then, clean the kitchen. After that, take another shower, because you’re going to need it after the kitchen. Once all that is done, I’ll help you get the TARDIS to Sweet Apple Acres.”
The Doctor bowed his head, contrite. “Yes, dear. Sorry, I really meant to do the kitchen, but I just wanted to make a few adjustments to the TARDIS and --”
“You lost track of time.” Ditzy said. “Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around today.”
“Right. Sorry.”
She smiled slightly. “I understand. Just don’t do it again, alright?”
“Losing track of time, or trying to reinvent breakfast?”
“Either. Both, actually. ‘Reinvent breakfast’?”
The Doctor broke into a wide grin. “Oh, it was a brilliant idea! A machine that poaches eggs, browns hash, jellies toast while it’s toasting, detects chaos magic, picks up interstellar radio signals, and pours orange juice, all at the same time!”
Ditzy looked at him, eyebrows raised. His face fell. “Too much?”
“Maybe a little bit,” Ditzy said, patting him on his grimy back. “I think they might all do better as separate inventions, don’t you?”
The Doctor sighed. “Yes. You’re right, of course. Picked up too big an energy reading this morning, and that’s what did for the kitchen. I’ll dismantle it once I’ve cleaned everything else up, promise.”
“Thank you, dear.” She leaned in and kissed the least filthy part of his face she could find.
He turned pink under the grey stains as his wife giggled and flew off. With a goofy smile pasted on his face, he tottered into the house. Behind him, the TARDIS doors slammed themselves shut with an irritated snap.
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But of what?
Hmm. Come to think of it, what does Paradox think of all this? Assuming she's noticed.
No one asked you.
The mystery thickens like the substance of time itself. The story description makes it clear that no one's going to figure this out before it's too late, but I hope whatever will happen will be largely reversible.
10298747
Paradox, much like all the deity OCs I have that have yet to be introduced in canon, is... otherwise occupied at the moment. It wasn't only Discord and Luna who vanished for a thousand years, after all. Some were imprisoned, and others went of their own volition.
As for Caramel... well, we'll get to the 'what' fairly soon. The 'why' is a story for another day.
The only thing I remember from The Twin Dilemma is the Sixth Doctor getting up post regeneration, putting on the universe's most garish coat, and then attenpting to strangle Peri to death. Although, apparently this is considered the worst story of the classic era, so maybe I'm not missing much.
I know that it's been implied that a lot of time passes off screen, but... ten years. Considering that these days, one season of the show is about one year of in universe time (as much as time can be said to pass linearly in Doctor Who, anyway), having a whole decade pass is a massive change of pace. Also, it gives you room for piles if side stories if you're so inclined, so that's a nice plus.
I love the casual additions of in-character new tech here and there.
And someone’s blurring people’s timelines. Never good.
Aw, Twilight! You’re a metric now!
Also, I never thought I would like Gilda this much. But she’s really matured into a fine person.
Yeah, you don’t get to marry the Doctor be being slow on the uptake.
I also liked the Doc’s description of his breakfast machine. It reminded me a bit of the ice detector he added to Bessie, back in the day.
And you don’t get the jump on the Doctor without seriously muddling his head. This is about when my worryometer hit eleven. Not all the stuff before, but the fact that they could acknowledge something like that and then blithely carry on as though correlations weren’t worth being concerned over. In Ponyville. With chaos magic.