Daybreaker

by Lets Do This

Encounter Beneath the Midnight Sun

They returned to the time-lens portal in the Forest, unlocked it, and returned home. And found that it was now very late in the evening.

Starlight and Trixie looked at each other, and then at Twilight, who hadn't said a word all the way back. The lavender alicorn trudged along with her head lowered, her shoulders and wings sagging in despair.

"Um... might be a good idea to think about dinner!" Starlight suggested brightly. She nudged Trixie. "Whose turn is it to cook, do you remember?"

"Uhhh... I call not it," Trixie replied, dispiritedly, trying for her usual archly cynical tone and failing.

"And a good night's rest," Starlight went on. "We've been on our hooves practically the entire day. And maybe the answer will become clear if we're thinking about it when we're not dead tired."

"Yeah. Great. Sounds like a plan." Twilight's tone was flat, lifeless, devoid of hope.

"Come on, Twilight!" Trixie said. "You know the world doesn't end in... um, however far back we were. Obviously, things worked out somehow. Celestia doesn't stay Daybreaker forever! She gets better!"

"But we still don't know how!" Twilight came about to face them, an utterly devastated look in her eyes. "And I'm still not sure whether by going back in time we haven't somehow been the cause of it all!"

Starlight shook her head, even as her own guilt nagged at her. "All the safeguards we wrote into the spell are in place, and active. I checked them while we were on the way back. The time-lensing effect is working perfectly. We can't be responsible for any of this!"

Twilight sat down with a thump. "And that just makes it worse!"

"Pardon?"

"If we're not to blame..." Twilight sighed. "... then Princess Celestia, my teacher, my mentor, my greatest and most wonderful friend -- she's to blame! She let it happen, and she enjoyed it! I just can't take that!"

Starlight came over to sit next to her, and cautiously put a forehoof around her for a gentle hug. "I hear you, Twi. I don't know her half as well as you do, and I don't like seeing her behaving like that either. It was bad enough in my dream -- but knowing that it was real..." She stopped, feeling Twilight tense up. This wasn't helping.

Starlight thought fast. "What about," she suggested, "moving the target end of the spell forward in time? Seeing how things resolved themselves?"

"I'm afraid to," Twilight said. "What if just by looking at things, we're somehow confirming them? What if we find out that no matter how far ahead we look, Celestia never recovers? That our history has been altered irrevocably, and we're just dead ponies walking, waiting for history to catch up with us?" She sighed, rolling her eyes. "When it was just about historical research, it was one thing. But this is the future of Equestria we're talking about! We can't just sit here and do nothing!"

Starlight nodded, and hugged her again. "It's hard to let go, isn't it? So... maybe you shouldn't. Why don't you go write down everything, like you were planning to? Not to find an answer, just getting what you've seen down on paper. Get that load off your shoulders, and maybe once it's all sorted out and on paper you'll have a better idea what to do next."

Twilight was silent for a long moment. Then she nodded. "Good idea. I'll do that!"

"And Trixie and I will find Spike and see if the three of us can come up with dinner. Worst case, we order in a pizza and hay-fries. How about that?"

"Fine." Twilight got up and trudged away, heading for her library. "Gimme a yell if I can actually help... with anything."

Starlight watched her go, uneasily. This morning I wanted to get her out of the library, she thought. And now I've just sent her right back into it. Yeah. Smooth move, Starlight!

Shaking her head, she collected Trixie, and they set off in search of food.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After a rough paper-plate-and-mug meal around the map table, Twilight was back sitting in her library again, very late at night, staring at the page before her. She'd done what Starlight suggested. She'd captured her notes from the day. Or at least, an initial overall sketch. She could fill in the details in the next draft.

And it had been like pulling teeth, every word. Having written it, she began to understand why the histories she'd read had been so uselessly circumspect. And she began to feel empathy for the historians who'd written them. There were things you just didn't want to write down, because writing them down meant acknowledging them... and it somehow forced you to accept them as real, when that was the last thing you wanted to do.

Even having gotten it all down on paper, it still wasn't enough. She still felt uneasy, sitting here doing nothing... when back then things were going to Tartarus in a hoofbasket!

Trixie was right, of course. Somehow, it all did sort itself out. But how, for Celestia's sake!

She was safe here, in her library, at a millenium-plus remove from whatever had happened. And she felt horrible for it. Like she was hiding from the truth, from exactly what she'd set out to discover: how it was that Celestia was able to pull herself back from the abyss.

And what if she couldn't?

Twilight felt an overwhelming urge to go back there, to help out, in any way that she could. Even if it meant destroying her own past. And even if she did nothing else, she just wanted to be there, as the walls came crashing down. So that no one could ever claim that she didn't care.

Uneasily, she got up from the table and trotted down to the audience chamber. The spell was still configured for the right time, so it didn't take nearly as much power to fire it up. Twilight wasn't at all sure it was safe, going back into the past alone like this. But she didn't want to wake up Starlight or Trixie.

So that, whatever happened to her, they'd have plausible deniability.

The Everfree Forest appeared around her. It was still brightly lit as if it was daytime, though a somewhat confused and sleepy owl hooted at her as she stepped out of the dome of energy and headed down the forest trail.

She trotted sadly out of the verge of the forest. And then, totally unsure where to go next, she simply sat down with her back to a vine-strangled tree.

Before her, high on the hilltop, standing tall against a sky like molten iron, was the Castle of the Two Sisters. Its marble towers were limned in disturbing shades beneath the viciously burning light of the midnight sun. The grass on the hillsides was already brown and shriveled beneath the oppressive heat and glare. Leaves on the trees were beginning to crisp and fall to the ground, far too early.

And overhead, in the sky above the Castle, the face still loomed. Her face, the self-proclaimed Queen of All Equestria.

Twilight looked up at the face of her mentor, tears in her eyes.

This is how it happened! Twilight Sparkle fretted desperately. So what do we do NOW?

She sat for a long while, feeling helpless. And very, very tired.

It probably was not a good idea, she reminded herself, to fall asleep back here in the past. This was still the Everfree Forest behind her, even if it wasn't nearly as black and corrupted as it was in her own time. And if anything happened to her, she hadn't even left a note behind. What would Starlight and Trixie do, finding her gone and the spell running without them?

Just five more minutes, she told herself.

Just one more minute.

And in less than a minute, her head sagged wearily, and she was gently snoring.

Uneasy images flashed before her... Daybreaker rampaging across Equestria... towns burning... fields alight... hordes of ponies stampeding across the countryside trying to escape... starving, fighting mobs... and above it all the insanely laughing face, its eyes burning with rage and mad desire...

... and then Daybreaker spotted her. Daybreaker had found her! The tyrant Queen laughed insanely as she pounced on Twilight, imprisoning her in a glittering torture chamber of searing flame, blinding light, and intricately subtle spellwork that Twilight could never... ever... quite... figure out...

Daybreaker tormented her mercilessly... she ripped from Twilight's thoughts the secret of the time-travel spell... and then launched an assault on Twilight's own time, attacking Ponyville, then Canterlot and Celestia herself, annihilating an Equestria that never even knew what hit it... disrupting the timeline beyond any hope of recovery...

and then...

and then...

"Please pardon us... we do not wish to intrude."

The dream slammed to a halt, so suddenly that Twilight was flung overboard, figuratively speaking. It was a long, confused moment before she could piece together her scattered wits enough to think straight.

And when she looked up, a familiar night-blue alicorn mare was standing before her.

"Princess Luna!" Twilight gasped. Then she cringed. "I'm so sorry! I know I should have come to you and Celestia sooner, but I didn't want to bother you, and I so got wrapped up in possibility of researching the questions I wanted to ask of both of you, so I travelled back in time, and now Daybreaker is loose and everything's falling apart, and I just don't see how we ever got out of this, and..."

"Shhhhh! Calmly, my little pony!" Luna soothed. "It is but a nightmare. Which we halted so that we might speak with thee. We do have one question, however..."

Princess Luna peered at Twilight curiously.

"Should we know thee?"

Twilight blinked. And realized the Luna she was speaking to was far too young to be the Luna she knew from her own time.

She leapt to her feet. "Your Majesty?" Twilight asked, puzzled. "You're aware of me? How is that possible?"

Luna regarded her with the dour poker-face that Twilight knew all too well. "Ask thyself! Thou art the one asleep at the edge of our forest."

"But... the time-lens spell! It has safeguards! It should be preventing you from seeing me -- unless..." Twilight suddenly felt cold. "It's because I'm close to the endpoint in this time." She smacked her forehead with a hoof. "The cutoff! We had to weaken the constraints near the endpoint."

Luna nodded. "Apparently enough that we were allowed to be aware of thy dreams as thou sat here, and thus to enter them. Though it was hardly difficult for us to be aware of thee. Even with the unusual nightmares we are dealing with at the moment, thy dream was, shall we say, of singular intensity!" Luna paused, considering Twilight's words cautiously. "A time-lens spell, thou says? So we take it thee are from our future? A future where these events have reached a... satisfactory conclusion?"

Twilight gritted her teeth. She wanted so much to tell Luna everything, to talk with her, ask her advice. But what if she said too much? Even a simple conversation with the Princess was full of potential landmines. Then she decided the barrel was already over the falls, and at this point hiding anything would only make things worse.

"Yes, your Highness! I'm from over a thousand years in your future. And Equestria is safe. My friends and I help you and Celestia defend it."

"And my sister and I are...?"

"You and Celestia are both safe and well, and rule the land together."

"Well! This is clearly a desirable outcome!"

"But, Princess Luna, about that..."

Luna put up a forehoof to silence her. "Enough! As long as our realm is secure, our subjects are safe, and we -- Celestia and I -- are well and happy together, that is and must be sufficient! The rest we shall learn on our own, in its proper time."

Twilight clamped her mouth tightly, ashamed. I almost mentioned Nightmare Moon! That was not the best of topics to bring up at a time like this!

"But, your Highness, we shouldn't even be talking!" Twilight objected. "It might change history!"

Luna stamped a hoof, and the dream around them shifted, becoming a vision of the reality around Twilight's still-sleeping form -- the Everfree Forest, the Castle, the iron sky, the looming image in it...

Luna's gaze became coldly fierce. "Look around thee, child!" she snapped. "Does any of this look at all the way your history is meant to unfold?"

"Well, no..." Twilight said, cowed by her anger. "I mean... well..." She sighed in frustration. "I just don't know! That's the whole point! That's why I'm here! Nothing was written down, so I had no idea how it happened! I came back in time to find out!"

Luna drew back from her half-crazed outburst. Twilight grimaced, ashamed of herself.

"What is thy name?" Luna finally asked.

Twilight hesitated. In for a penny... she thought grimly.

"Twilight Sparkle, your Highness."

"And thou art an uplifted alicorn, like Celestia and myself."

"Yes, your Highness. In my time, I'm the Princess of Friendship Magic."

Luna bowed her head formally. "Then we greet thee, Princess! And welcome thee to our domain. And to our time, apparently! Now, dost thou wish to aid our Sister as much as we do?"

"Celestia is my mentor!" Twilight said. "She taught me herself. And I love her more than just about any other pony I know! Seeing her like this --" She gestured at the image of Daybreaker, looming in the sky above them. "-- it's just unbearable!"

"I see..." Luna nodded. "Then we concur on what must be done. Yet we know not how it is to be accomplished. I am my Sister's equal in most things, and I could attempt to use my own powers to stop her, but that would at best leave us at an impasse... I could never hope to restrain her on my own. And the way she is now, our sister will not respond well to any such use of force. Every attempt to balk her power, to restrain her ambitions, has driven her even further down the path of madness!"

"Yet somehow she must have recovered," Twilight pointed out, "for her to be the Celestia I know from my time. Maybe it does all work out somehow. Maybe I'm just obsessing about nothing. It wouldn't be the first time!"

Luna glared at her. "Who is to say what the true path of time must be?" She snapped. "If we do nothing, Celestia's mental state may deteriorate further, beyond anything we might do to stop it. Thou wishes to help her, so do we! It only remains to decide what is to be done, the two of us together."

Twilight stared. "But I can't take that kind of risk! Changing the past... using my magic on Celestia! Who knows what might happen?"

Luna eyed her coldly. "Thou art a Princess of Equestria," she said flatly. "It is given to us to make these kinds of decisions, for the good of our subjects. Wouldst thou abandon thy title so easily?"

"But... well... no, you're right! I started this, I need to finish it. But, your Highness --"

"Luna, Twilight. We are both Princesses of Equestria. We have a task ahead of us. For the moment, we are the acting co--Princesses of the realm. We need to put our minds to it together, approach it as equals."

"All right, then... Luna... I just need to ask..."

She took a breath, and then launched into it.

"Are you actually okay with me possibly changing history?"

Luna looked surprised.

"As ruler of Equestria, we would be remiss in passing up any opportunity to preserve our land and our subjects... no matter how unusual it might be! So yes, Twilight! If thou art prepared to risk thy own future to save us, then... just this once..."

She glanced about conspiratorially, then bent closer and whispered:

"... we are prepared to look the other way!"

Despite her fears, Twilight couldn't help smiling, seeing just a hint of the pranksterish Luna in the Princess's serious gaze.

"Okay. Let's do this!" Twilight said. "So, Princess... I mean, Luna!" Twilight said, a glimmer of hope in her eyes, "could I ask you to wait here for juuuussst a few minutes?"

Then she looked around, realizing.

"Oh. And I'm going to need to wake up now, too!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Mmmmph... mermmm... ermmm... uhh, Twilight?"

Starlight blinked sleepily in the light projecting from Twilight's horn. Seeing she was awake, Twilight stopped shaking her shoulder. "Sorry to wake you so early, Starlight, but it's really important. Go wake up Trixie. I'll collect a few things we're gonna need."

Turning, she raced for the open door of Starlight's room.

"Twilight... what...?"

"No time, Starlight! We gotta move! Now!"

Shaking her head to clear it, Starlight dragged herself out of bed and blearily hunted for a comb.

Twilight looked back into the room. "Starlight! Trixie, now! Go-go-go!"

"Okay! All right!" Starlight grumbled. "You know, I think I liked you better when you were hopelessly depressed!" she yelled after the sound of hooves rapidly disappearing down the corridor outside.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As Trixie herself informed them -- repeatedly -- she wasn't a morning pony. Nor an evening pony, for that matter. And she very definitely was not a middle-of-the-night-what-the-heck-hour-is-it-anyway pony!

Yet when they'd all returned to the Everfree Forest, with Twilight and Starlight dressed in nondescript brown cloaks by way of disguises, and Trixie was introduced to a very surprised-looking Princess Luna, she quieted down somewhat, sensing something big, risky, and above all mischievous in the works. And that was something Trixie was definitely good at!

"And this is Starlight," Twilight said. "She's my student in Friendship Magic, much as I was Celestia's. But don't let that fool you, Princess. She's easily my equal in the application of magic."

"Your Highness!" Starlight said, bowing nervously and blushing at the compliment. "How come she can see and talk with us?" she whispered urgently out of the corner of her mouth.

"Because I adjusted the time-lens aspects of the spell," Twilight told her, "to allow us to be seen and to act in the area of the Two Sisters Castle. It means the spell will run out faster, but we should still have more than enough time to do what needs doing. And if we don't, it won't matter anyway!"

"Oh." Starlight looked mildly dazed. "I love a good desperation play, so early in the morning."

Princess Luna looked at each of them in turn. "And the three of you work together to help our Sister protect Equestria?"

Realizing the Princess's mistake, Twilight was about to explain about her other friends, the Elements of Harmony, and all the rest of it. But then Trixie jumped in between them, hugging Starlight with one forehoof, and Twilight with the other, and smiling at Luna.

"Yep! That's us!" she said. "We're the Reformed Villains Society!"

Starlight and Twilight stared at her, aghast. Trixie didn't even notice. "We've each done something world-shakingly awful," she went on, "and learned our lesson from it. I mean, I once enslaved an entire town while I was under the influence of a magical artifact of great power, which I was only using in the first place to get revenge on a pony I felt had seriously wronged me!" She glared at Twilight.

"Trixie..." Starlight muttered, warningly.

"Oh, but Starlight here turned an entire village into a hypocritical cult of personality, and then later nearly destroyed the entire world with an out-of-control time-travel spell!"

"Trixie!" Twilight gasped.

"And Twilight here, she nearly turned herself into a demigoddess of compulsive friendship, out to enslave the world by being nice to it!"

"TRIXIE!" Starlight and Twilight chorused together.

"What?" she demanded crossly. "I'm just making it clear that we've all had experience in dealing with world-threatening situations like this! So we're the perfect ponies for the job!"

Twilight quickly shoved Trixie behind her. "Yes, well! None of us are perfect, your Highness!" she said to Luna. "But we care about Celestia, we're aware of what's at stake, and you can count on us to do what needs doing!"

Luna looked uncertainly at all three of them, but apparently realized she had little option. "Very well. We need to restrain my Sister long enough to convince her to come to her senses, and return to the limited use of her power that we have always felt was proper for our roles as the rulers of Equestria."

"Fine!" Twilight said. "So here's what we'll do. I'll approach Celestia in disguise, and try to reason with her. Luna and Starlight, you'll be my backup if we need to use force. Between the three of us, we should have the power we need to stop her... I hope! And Trixie, you can use your stage-magic to distract her if it looks like she's getting away from us."

Trixie looked at each of them in turn. Scornfully.

"Ah, nonononono!" she said, waving a hoof dismissively. "That's just not how we're gonna pull this off!"

Princess Luna stared at Trixie, astonished. Starlight looked about to say something, but then Twilight kicked her, recognizing Trixie's signature warm-up arrogance, and Starlight fell silent.

Trixie trotted in front of them, snout in the air, smirk on her face. "It can't be any of you. Look --" She jabbed a forehoof at Luna. "She hates your guts right now, so if she sees you we're only making the problem worse!" Trixie's hoof swung on Twilight. "And you... you care too much about her. You won't be able to lower the boom on her in a clinch! And Starlight... well, about you..."

Starlight frowned. "What about me?"

Trixie shook her head. "Hate to break it to ya, besty, but as good at magic as you are, you're simply not show-pony enough to pull off an act like this. We need someone who can dazzle Celestia, astound Celestia, completely disarm Celestia! Make her realize that even with all her power she still doesn't have it all, so she has to listen to reason! And that, my friends, is the kind of performance that can only be handled by..."

THE GRRREAT AND POWERFUL TRRRIXIE!!!

She threw her forehooves wide triumphantly... complete with fireworks.

Luna leaned towards Twilight. "Is she often like this?"

"Often... is not the word!" Twilight whispered back. "Just roll with it, trust me on this! Okay, Trixie!" Twilight said louder, nodding to her. "What's the plan?"

"Huh?" Trixie stared at her, suddenly frightened out of her wits. "No, no, no! You're not supposed to agree with me, Twilight! Not just like that! You're supposed to argue! You're supposed to say it's a dumb idea! You're supposed to try and stop me! What is wrong with you, Twilight! Urrhhh! Now I actually have to go through with it!"

She swung away from them, talking aloud to herself. "Okay, Trixie, chill! You've got this! What's the worst that could happen? Daybreaker could just turn you into a teeny tiny little pile of cinders! Yeah! Worst case! How bad could that be? Okay, so here's what we need..."

And she began reeling off a list of props and materials, which only got more grandiose and insane as she went on, envisioning the stage show to end all stage shows. Somewhere in there was a live rabbit, a keg of gunpowder, and a marching band... and that was just for starters!

"Ahem," Twilight gently reminded her. "Trixie, you've got the three of us, these disguises," she held up the hem of her cloak, "and we're very short on time!"

"Not to worry, Twilight!" Trixie rounded on her, her stage-arrogance firmly back in place. She waved a hoof. "We don't need all that crap anyway. I just came up with a doozy of a plan! And a performer of Trixie's caliber always works best under pressure!" She gestured airily with her forehooves. "So, gather 'round, my willing and humble assistants! And prepare to be astounded!"

Twilight glanced nervously at Luna. The Night Princess glared back at her. This had better be good! her look said.

Comments

[FinalFan]

Luna, you already dragooned time-travelers into helping you possibly change their own past. Dunno how much sympathy you can expect when you complain about their methods.

[Xanni]

I see what you did there. I don't suppose their cloaks are Holocaust Cloaks, are they?

[Lets Do This]

9281470
Ohmygoodness, I honestly hadn't even noticed that. I suppose it's a good thing Trixie isn't mostly dead, huh?

☄And we're gonna need a wheelbarrow.
Trixie...
💥 We could always pop back to the future and see if Applejack can loan us one...
Starlight...
🌙✨ Why didst thou not list that amongst our assets?
Urghhhh...

[Weirdly Normal Human]

9281892
YYYYYEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!!