The Time Thief

by Reading4HalfMyLife

Loop 62

Astral Plane stepped off the train and breathed in deeply, smiling at the smell of apple pie. The heat hit her almost immediately, and she turned her long mane into a messy bun to help relieve the back of her neck from the searing heat.

She had been to Appleoosa before, of course, but that had been before, when she was just a little filly, going to a rodeo of some sort with her moms and brother. Now she was a teenager!

She was in her real, non filly form. pretty sure she was a teenager now. She had tried to figure out why her fetlocks were so hairy now and had found a disturbing book on Unicorn Puberty.

Made her want to wipe her own mind.

But, now at least why she was taller than her friends: she was older than them! Technically. Even ponies who had pointed her out as the newest Princess of Equestria now looked over this small, muscular teenager, though she did spot a couple of looks from stallions.

That’s weird, she thought, before spotting a candy apple stall.

Oh fuck yeah. She trotted over and undid her bag of bits she had got from her . . last adventure. Putting on her most charming smile, the thanked the mare behind the stall and started walking down the dusty road, eyeing the rustic architecture appreciatively.

. . .Only to come to a stop at the sight of a giant crater in the middle of one of the barren stretches of land on the edge of town.

She carefully levitated the candy apple out of her mouth with a deep, weary sigh. Oh, for fucks sake. I can’t have one normal day now, can I?

A snort surprised her, and she turned her head to see an Earth Pony mare approaching her, a look of amusement written on her face at Astral’s put out expression. “Not how ponies usually react” she commented, coming to stand beside Astral and gesturing towards the bowl.

“Yeah, believe me, I’ve seen, heard and done weirder.”

The mare seemed almost affronted at that, like Astral had somehow offended her towns honor or something. “Well, let me tell you now, missy” she blustered “if you want weird, you should of have seen what happened last Sunday.”

Oh yeah, Sundays a thing.

“What do you mean?” Astral asked, tilting her head, only to curse when her mane unraveled out of it’s bun. Scowling, she fixed the sniggering mare with a deadpan look as she retied it.

“Always happy to have a willing audience” the mare said with a wink and a wave, before gesturing dramatically. “So, last Sunday, me an’ my brother, Apple Crumble, we were walking down the road, mindin’ our own beeswax, mind you, when, suddenly, this huge” she gestured with her hooves “explosion just knocked us to the ground!”

“You mean an earthquake?”

The other mare nodded frantically, pointing at Astral like she had just said the one thing that could redeem her. “Exactly! That’s what I thought too, but then this flash of light exploded from this very spot. We, of course, raced to check it out- Appleoosians don’t run away from danger, but when we got there, all there was, was this crater.”

She leaned inwards, dropping her voice down to a whisper, and Astral Plane leaned in subconsciously, wanting to hear what she said.

“I brought the sheriff down of course, since this may be dangerous, and we all went in to inspect the strange thing. And you’ll never guess what we found?”

“What?”

“An imprint of a pony. Somepony had hit the ground with enough force to create that.”

Astral felt the down on her shoulders and chest rise, stunned, as she turned back to the crater, which was easily as big as a football field. What in the hell would have the power to be able to hit the ground with that amount of force, survive, and get away before anypony could see them.

The other mare, seeing Astral’s expression, smiled grimly.

“Yeah, bet you never seen anything like that.”

---

It had taken a little convincing, but Astral was finally given permission to inspect the strange crater. She was being escorted by the sheriff, who, even though he wasn’t aware she was a princess, wasn’t going to leave her alone out here.

Astral nosed her way around until she hit the middle of the crater, and, sure enough, there was an imprint of four hooves embedded deep into the dirt.

Somepony had hit the ground on all four hooves.

Then Astral tilted her head back, trying to gauge how far and how fast the pony must of have fallen. But math had never been her strong suit, and now the very thought just seemed impossible.

It was only as she was about to keep moving on and try looking around her barren basin when she saw it. She bent down low just to make sure, and yup, there it was.

All three species of ponies were different. There was a lot of crossover between the races, but basically Unicorns were supposed to be small and frail with thin legs, cloven hooves, long tail and a slightly curved horn. A Pegasus was supposed to be thin and lanky with tail feathers and covered in down and feathers, with extra feathers around the base of their hooves and their joints, for steering. And Earth Ponies were tall and muscular with thick, coarse hair covering them, especially their hooves.

That was the traditional Unicorn, Pegasus and Earth Pony, anyways, but, over the years as evolution and crossbreeding became a thing, no pony alive actually looked like that anymore. Astral herself was covered in down while her brother, an Earth Pony, also had cloven hooves.

But even so, most ponies had a distinct sign of what species they were.

And the hoof that hit the ground had feathers on it.

A Pegasus did this?

The very idea was ludicrous. Not even Alicorns, with their especially strong Pegasi Magic, could survive a drop that fast and that hard. And what about the flash of light?

It wasn’t until much later, when Astral had gone back into town and ordered herself some pie and ice cream, that the answer occurred to her.

The Pegasus had been fighting someone . . .

Author's Note:

Had to write these two chapters on my phone, that's why I was late posting sorry!