Chapter 1
“Princess, I came… as quickly as I could,” Twilight Sparkle panted as she galloped past the stony-faced guards and into the Royal Study. “You mentioned in your letter that it was something important. Is the Crystal Empire okay? Do you need us to help out again?”
Oh gosh, I hope Shining and Cadence are fine. We didn't actually see what happened to King Sombra that day…
Her mentor looked up from a stack of scrolls, smiled, and said, “Nothing of the sort, Twilight. But I do have a lesson for you today, and it involves your study of magic.”
I knew it!
Twilight quickly ran through her mental catalogue of the arcane arts and found to her delight that she’d revised each and every branch of magic within the last week or so. She was ready for whatever her teacher was going to throw her way. Maybe a new spell? A new study on the magical aspects of the pre-Star Swirl the Bearded era? Or an ancient artefact from Equestria’s earlier civilisations?
“Walk with me, Twilight.”
The sun princess set her scrolls and stationery into a neat stack on a desk and began trotting out of the study, and Twilight had to suppress a squeal of gleeful anticipation as she followed after.
“This pertains to your recent accomplishments in magic,” continued her mentor as they made their way towards the throne room. “Your successful application of gravity reversal has convinced me that you are more than capable of casting half of the spells in Star Swirl’s repertoire.” She afforded Twilight a smile of pride, then added, “But my concern is that you may not yet have a full understanding of the implications of your prowess.”
Twilight’s steps slowed. “What do you mean?”
“I’m sure you recall your first experience of time travel.”
Oh. That.
She grimaced at the memory of how she’d single-hoofedly managed to create a self-fulfilling prophecy and unnecessary crisis that had involved just about half of Ponyville. Still, it had gotten everypony to clean up the place, shore up unstable buildings and revise safety regulations, which wasn’t exactly a bad thing. But then there was the part where she’d actually snuck into the Canterlot Archives…
She felt her cheeks redden, and let loose a nervous chuckle. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean.” Her hoof went through her hair as she recalled just how frazzled she’d let herself become over something that could have been avoided all along.
But it seemed that the princess had something else on her mind. She maintained a pensive silence, and Twilight decided not to press her for details, focusing instead on their surroundings. Princess Celestia seemed to be taking her to one of the more private wings of the palace; it was no less resplendent than the rest of the place, but it was more practical and homey than officious. Shafts of orange sunlight lanced into the hallways through the great clerestory windows, and the alicorn’s coat took on a similarly vivid hue whenever she trotted into the light. It was almost sunset.
“I have a confession to make, Twilight.”
She turned away from the windows and found her mentor gazing apologetically at her, with drooped ears and brow. “Huh? What for?”
“I had… underestimated your abilities.” The princess pawed at the thick carpet on the floor in an uncharacteristic manner, and continued, “When you were given the task of protecting the Crystal Empire, did you ever wonder why Luna was so stern with you?”
Twilight blinked. “Actually, I had been wondering about that. I thought it was because she was worried that I’d mess things up.”
Celestia shook her head. “No, Twilight. She wasn’t afraid that you would fail; she was afraid that your magical attempts to protect the empire would result in overkill.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Okay, now I’m confused. She was worried that I was going to do it too well?”
There’s no such thing as overkill in a test!
“Rather, let’s say that she was afraid you might have tried a spell with unintended consequences. She wanted to be around not to ensure your success, but to prevent said consequences from taking place.” The sun princess paused to let that sink in. “I have been following your progress on magic and friendship, but had underestimated the astounding speed at which you are learning to perform new spells; dangerous ones, even. Luna’s assessment has turned out to be more accurate. I know it might seem paranoid of her to have such an opinion of you, but given her experience as Nightmare Moon, she is not very keen on letting history repeat itself.”
Twilight realised that she was gaping, and quickly brought her jaw back into place. “Wait, hang on – are you saying that she’d thought I’m capable of that?”
“To be fair, the fact is that you are far more powerful and skilful than the vast majority of unicorns in living memory. And to put things into perspective: have you given thought to what might have happened if your gravity reversal spell was applied as an enchantment rather than a continuous, channelled form as you had done?”
Twilight hadn’t, but she gave it a try anyhow. It would have been easy enough to change the application process.
“Now, imagine if you had enchanted a living being other than yourself,” suggested her mentor. “Imagine if that somepony had fallen into the sky, and ‘dropped’ out of your magical reach before you could remove the enchantment. And now, imagine if that somepony wasn’t a pegasus, and was high up in the sky by the time the enchantment wore off.”
Oh no…
Twilight gasped when she realised the implications. Casting the spell on herself was not a big deal, but for Spike... If her little assistant had fallen into the sky that day, and there was nopony to catch him…
She then realised that she must have frozen in horror for a moment, for she found that there was suddenly a hoof placed comfortingly on her shoulder. “I – I hadn’t considered that, Princess,” she whispered, looking up to her mentor. “Oh, I’m sorry! I was so eager to pass the test, I didn’t really think things through, what if – ”
She was cut off when Princess Celestia embraced her with a wing.
“It’s all right. If anything, it was my fault for not preparing you. Which is exactly what I intend to do from now on.” She began trotting once more, and beckoned Twilight onward with a wing.
As the carried on, the alicorn said, “History is filled with examples of magic gone horribly wrong, or used for evil. It is not common knowledge, but did you know that it was Nightmare Moon who made the Everfree Forest as we know it, today?”
She did what?
Twilight shook her head.
“I assume she wanted to spite me. She enchanted the land and twisted the local flora and fauna to grow out of control just before I could finish banishing her. And it worked; we lost our home to all manner of monsters and were forced to relocate to a highland town, which you would recognise today as Canterlot.”
“I think I can see why Princess Luna was so serious, now,” Twilight replied soberly.
“Discord is another example,” continued Celestia. “As I am sure you are all too familiar with.”
Twilight nodded.
“And then there is King Sombra. A unicorn consumed by greed and the lust for power. And he was a stunning prodigy right from the moment he joined the Everfree College of Unicorns, long before he proclaimed himself king.”
Is she comparing me to him? There was a bit of emphasis on the unicorn part. She looked up to the princess and saw her gazing back intently.
I guess she is.
“Just like Nightmare Moon in her time, he was able to curse the Crystal Empire before Luna and I could fully turn him into shadow. This was only a few decades before Luna herself succumbed to her growing resentment.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that ‘curse’ part,” Twilight said. “Is it really the kind of curse I’m thinking about?” Her opinion of the supernatural was still largely the same, but given her mentor’s experience, perhaps she shouldn’t be making that kind of assumption anymore, even if it was based on solid research…
“By ‘curse’, I was referring to magic cast with malicious intent. What King Sombra did had nothing to do with the supernatural.”
Phew.
“But the fact remains that he was skilled enough to perform a spell that had severe consequences for a very large number of ponies. Would you care to guess what kind of spell it was?”
Twilight put a hoof to her chin as she set her mind on it. King Sombra had made the city disappear for almost a thousand years. Had he sent it into another plane of existence? Probably not; there hadn’t been any spatial disruption in the area, as far as she could tell. Making it ethereal was unlikely, too, since the ponies within were clearly the same ones that had lived under his rule. Which meant that they were over a thousand years old, which was kind of impossible, unless… No, that couldn’t be, could it? Her eyes widened.
“I believe you might have found the answer, my dear student.” There was a hint of pride in Princess Celestia’s words.
“It was a time spell, wasn’t it?” she asked. “He sent the Crystal Empire to the future.”
“To a time when the spell holding him captive would most likely have broken down, so that he could reclaim it without having to enslave a new population,” the princess finished for her.
“But how could he have done that? Star Swirl’s time travel spell only works for going into the past, and it cannot be used on objects beyond a certain mass other than yourself, let alone a whole city!”
“You have only seen the variant that I have judged safe enough for study by the best of students. And even then, most cannot manage going more than a few hours into the past.” The sun princess frowned, as if remembering distasteful, then added, “The spell that you studied had a built-in temporal anchor, so that anypony who tried it would still return to their original point in the time stream. There are variants with far fewer… restrictions. And,” here, Celestia gave a mirthless chuckle, “I believe that you are beginning to see possible consequences far worse than a misspent weekend of fretting.”
No kidding. What if I got stuck a thousand years in the past? Or the future?
Twilight gulped and nodded.
“But I’m not here to tell you that such powerful magic should be sealed away for all eternity. They can be used for good, or at the very least, some measure of expediency. Come, we are almost there.”
Twilight trotted after her mentor and asked, “Where are we going, exactly?”
Princess Celestia’s horn glowed golden, and she pushed open a massive, creaky, ornate door that led into a dim chamber. Several braziers came to life, casting their flickering light to reveal a room that was hexagonal in shape with three other doors similar to the one they had just come through. There were no windows of any sort, and the place was bare of furniture save for a little desk with a large notebook, quill and ink pot sitting on top.
The princess levitated the notebook over, scribbled something onto a page and said, “My daily duties typically involve correspondence with one hundred and eighty-seven students, diplomats and ministers from all across Equestria, plus the regular business of running a kingdom and listening to the petitions of Canterlot’s nobility.” She paused as Twilight made a mental calculation, before scribbling some more and adding, “Which doesn’t exactly leave me much time for anything else.”
Twilight frowned. “Even if you only took five minutes per letter, that leaves you with only nine hours. How would you be able to do anything else? Unless you stopped sleeping.” She searched her mentor’s face for any signs of fatigue or insomnia, but found none. The princess appeared as healthy and well groomed as anypony else. “So… how do you manage it?”
“How, indeed,” the white alicorn replied. She gestured towards one of the doors to the chamber and held her hoof, pointing.
Nothing happened for the first few seconds, but Twilight could almost imagine the princess counting them down. Just when she was starting to think that something was amiss, the door swung open, and a regal white alicorn strode in. She felt her jaw drop.
Princess Celestia?
She whipped her head back and forth between the two white alicorns. There was no mistaking it: they were wearing identical crowns and breastplates and had the same cutie marks. The second princess smiled and waved at her in greeting.
“But, but, how…” she stammered, then mentally groaned when she realised what exactly was going on. “Oh. Princess! You didn’t actually use a soul mirror, did you? Star Swirl wrote about those – they were outlawed centuries ago!”
“Just a moment, dear,” said Celestia. She turned her gaze to another door, and it opened to admit a third alicorn.
If her eyebrows went any higher, Twilight suspected that they would have disappeared into her mane. She shook her head just to see if she was hallucinating, but all three alicorns stubbornly remained solid, and in plain sight.
“There, now that everypony’s here, we can begin the introductions.” Princess Celestia pointed a hoof at the first newcomer and said, “This is me getting back from a day of reading and replying to everypony’s letters; I personally think of her as Number One.” She then gestured towards the second alicorn. “And this is me getting back from the audience chamber, after a long day of hearing the complaints and grievances of half of Canterlot’s elite. She’s Number Two.”
“And you’ve already met Number Three,” said the two extra Celestias in unison.
Twilight thought she felt an eye twitch. Judging by the half-amused, half-sympathetic looks she was getting from all three of her mentor, it looked like they were enjoying her bewilderment a teensy bit too much for her liking. But that wasn’t at the forefront of her mind at the moment. Oh no, not at all.
Cloning the soul and body is a major risk!
“Isn’t it a bit dangerous to do something like this?” she asked. “Soul mirrors aren’t exactly user-friendly. I mean, I know that you aren’t most ponies, but still!”
“It’s okay, Twilight, I’m not using a soul mirror,” said the original Celestia. “But it is something that can be just as risky. I’m time travelling." She made a circular motion in the air with a hoof. "Looping, to be specific. It’s a simple matter of jumping back to the same, single point multiple times.”
Twilight cast a glance at the duplicate princesses. “So how long until they go back to their own times?”
“They won’t. The variant of time travel that I’m using has no temporal anchors; the jump is permanent. Roughly twenty-four hours into the past per jump.”
“So… there’s always three of you? Even from since I came under your tutelage?”
“Yes, but only on weekdays. Those are the busiest.”
“Actually, now that you’ve mentioned it, time travel would be pretty useful,” Twilight suddenly conceded. A grin split her face when she began to consider the vast array of possibilities. “I could study multiple books at once! Or even practice magical sparring with myself!” Her grin widened. “Or, heck, I could even be my own study group! What if – ”
“And that is exactly what I intend to caution you against, Twilight,” interjected Celestia. The fourth door in the chamber swung open, and all three white alicorns trotted through at a leisurely pace. “Walk with me, my faithful student. There is more we have to discuss,” said all three of them in unison.
Okay, that’s a little creepy.
Still, she obediently trotted after her mentor. Or should that be mentors from now on? And which one was she supposed to be next to? Would Princess Celestia take offence if she didn’t trot with the exact same distance between herself and each of them? Was the foremost Celestia the most senior and therefore the one she should be next to? Or would that be overstepping her boundaries? No, maybe it was better to be behind all of them, but then again, that might be interpreted as dithering about.
Oh, this was so much simpler when there was only one of her!
“Do the rest of the palace staff know about this?” asked Twilight.
“Oh, yes they do,” replied Celestia Number Three. “Everypony on official business in the palace is aware of my schedule. My first round involves nothing but letters, the second, mostly petitions, mediations and hearings, and the third time is when I will do my office work, and finally have some time to myself after that. And today, I am spending a little of that time with you.” She paused, and a scroll materialised in front of her, and Twilight recognised it as one of her many friendship reports.
A thought struck her. If reading those letters were the first order of the day for the princess, could she have been aware of the lessons that she was going to learn even before they happened? She asked, and got an uncharacteristically crafty smile from all three alicorns in return.
“Yes, actually,” said Third Celestia. She then averted her eyes for a moment, as if she’d done something inappropriate. “I hope that you will forgive me for this: part of the reason why I have always been so trusting of your abilities is because I have often been assured of your success before you have even accomplished it, so long as your letter was submitted on the same day as the incident. I do not know if that completely removes the meaning of any trust I have in you, but make of it what you will.”
No wonder nopony was surprised to find me in the Canterlot Archives when I snuck in!
Twilight had to take a whole two minutes to chew through that. Did Princess Celestia’s trust mean any less if that was the case? After all, it wasn’t exactly trust per se, not if success was already assured. Unless it was possible to create multiple time streams if she deliberately failed in order to disprove those reports, which were practically prophecies…
“Is history immutable?” she queried, absentmindedly.
“As far as I know, yes. I have never been able to change anything – or rather, any change that I attempted turned out to be something that had already been done, anyway. Much like your attempt to dissuade your past self from creating a time loop.”
“So… you never interfered? Not even when you might have made a difference?” Twilight was beginning to see patterns. Times when it would have been so easy for her teacher to intervene and lessen the dangers she and her friends had gone through: the green dragon that had threatened to eat Spike, the mean teenage dragons that had bullied him, Discord’s escape, and… “What about my brother’s wedding?” she asked, almost accusingly. “You could have stopped the invasion. Weren’t your other selves there, too?”
Celestia shook her head. “No. I thought that it would have been rude to jump around on that day simply for my convenience, so there was only one of me.”
“But… you could have gone back to warn yourself, right?”
“True. But everything turned out alright in the end, so there was no need.”
Twilight blinked. “But – ”
“And since my future self never came, it meant that I never did make the attempt, anyway.”
“But – but you could decide to do it! Are you telling me that you decided not to do it because you had already decided not to do it because nopony came back from the future?”
Celestia folded her wings and calmly replied, “Yes.”
But I, you – Aargh!
Twilight could feel her exasperation spilling out as excess magic, frazzling her mane and coat. She planted her rump on the carpeted floor and rubbed her temples with both hooves, taking deep, calming breaths in an attempt to reel in and reassemble her rapidly decaying composure. When her heart rate had slowed down to an acceptable level, and her headache was down to a manageable throb, she murmured, “I think I now understand why time travel is such a mess, and why you would want to keep it locked away.” She then looked at all three Celestias and managed a weak smile. “But I still think that it’s a pretty awesome way of managing your life. You could get so much done in the same amount of time!”
“There is one thing you haven’t yet considered in this particular case.”
Twilight opened her mouth to protest, but realised that so far, she’d just had her mind opened to several avenues that she’d not even noticed before. So she snapped it shut and waited patiently.
“Although you can see three of me at once,” began the sun princess, gesturing to her other selves in turn, “my perception of you is still linear. Counting the past two of me, this is my third time seeing you today.”
“Umm, I still don’t see the issue,” mused Twilight.
“Time still passes at the normal rate for me,” her teacher elaborated. “Which means that I practically end up eating and sleeping three times as much in a single day. I seem to recall a certain article by a trio of fillies commenting on my tendency to order three times as much cake as the average pony, which was one of the few times when I had to let my ego take a bruising in order to keep the knowledge of my time looping away from the general public.”
Oh.
That was not very convenient. Getting more work done through time looping was definitely going to be offset by the need to spend proportionately just as many more bits on the daily essentials. Multiply that by several times, and you’d get a recipe for bankruptcy, all right. And then, another, more morbid thought occurred to Twilight. She peered at all three of her mentor once again, as if seeing her in a new light. Those great brows and gentle eyes, filled with the wisdom of centuries of experience. For a moment, she caught a glimpse of the immense depth and weight of memory in those eyes.
“How – how many years have you lost, doing this?” she whispered.
“And now you’ve found the price tag on this little practice of mine,” replied Celestia. “It is theoretically possible for you to live your entire life in a single day, provided you had the resources to support your many selves, and the sheer willpower to go through the same day over and over again, for the rest of your life. However, even if you limited yourself to a milder routine such as mine, you would still be aging several times faster, relative to everypony else.”
“How could you stand it?” Twilight asked. She could feel tears fighting their way out, simply from the thought that she could be gone even before her parents, or her friends, or Shining and Spike. To shove onto them the burden of burying family and friend, all for the sake of mere expediency, even if only a little. If she had tried that to such an extent, it would have been so… so selfish. Selfish to the point of thoughtlessness she might otherwise have attributed to someone like Discord.
A wing draped over her shoulder, and Twilight instinctively leaned into the Princess’ embrace.
“My dear Twilight, I can stand it only because I have yet a very long time to live, according to pony standards. I will admit that it is a constant temptation: to extend my time spent with all of my little ponies before their time comes.” Celestia’s eyes were wet, too. “Luna and Cadence have yet to reach this stage, but when they do, they too will realise just what sort of escapism time looping offers us. To live in the past and experience it all over again, only from a slightly different perspective…” She trailed off, staring ahead at something only she could see.
After a moment, one of the other Celestias nudged the sun princess, and she shook her head and offered Twilight a sad smile. “And that is your lesson for today.”
It’s never hurt so much to learn something, before.
Twilight had no words left. Instead, she hugged her mentor tightly, sniffling a little. If all their lives were really so short to the Princesses, that they’d have to bury one loved one after another, all the way through the centuries, she was not going to begrudge them wanting to spend a little more time with whomever they considered their friends.
After a moment of silence, she realised that the other two of her mentor – she’d lost track of who was what number – were standing apart from them. She broke away from Celestia and trotted up to the other two and hugged each of them in turn. Technically, she knew that she was still hugging the same princess, but she decided that the gesture wouldn’t hurt.
“Come now, my student,” said Celestia as she put a hoof under Twilight’s chin to raise her face. “There is no need to be so solemn. Responsibility is important, but just like careless enthusiasm, you should not go overboard with caution to the point of fear.”
Twilight was inclined to be a little disconsolate for the time being. The thought of rapidly aging and passing away before everypony else still weighed heavily on her, but she did try to hide it for her mentor’s sake. She sniffled and nodded at her mentor.
“I think I might have something that will cheer you up.” Princess Celestia turned her gaze to a nondescript spot in the corridor.
With a start, Twilight realised that she had never been in this part of the palace before. She had been so absorbed in their conversation that she’d not really been keeping track of where they were going. But before she could make an educated guess, there was a bright flash of purple light in their midst, followed by a swirling gust of wind that stirred all of their manes and tails. A small explosion of smoke and sparks followed, revealing a grinning Twilight, standing on a sooty patch of carpet.
Twilight did a double take, as did one of the Celestias.
Oh brother, this again.
But Twilight knew better than to open her mouth, this time. She kept her eyes and ears focused on Future Twilight, ready to take in pure, uncorrupted and hopefully un-misinterpreted information.
Future Twilight rolled her eyes. “Calm down, Past Me, there isn’t any crisis on my end of the time stream.” She regained her smile and bowed to Celestia, before turning back to Twilight. “I’m just here to tell you to cheer up – it’s not all bad, so long as you don’t overdo it. And it’s kind of fun.” Then, her lips suddenly settled into a grim line. “Heads up, though. When you travel to Trottingham next Saturday, take the old road.”
“Why?” blurted Twilight, accidentally breaking her vow of silence. “The old road is so run down. Going by train is much faster.”
“I’m from the future. Take the road,” deadpanned Future Twilight. Just as she finished, she began to glow, and sparks began arcing all over her body. She smiled and waved them all goodbye, and disappeared in a flash.
“Did you give me permission to do that?” asked Twilight, still staring at the empty spot.
“Well, you did it anyway, so I don’t think it matters whether I gave it or not,” murmured Celestia. Then she smiled and added, “But for your peace of mind, I am giving it to you, now. At least it brought you out of your melancholy.”
Twilight snorted. “I hope I don’t do this every time I get into a bad mood.”
They trotted on in silence after that, and before long, Twilight found herself in Celestia’s personal chambers. It was as resplendent and comfy as what she imagined a princess’ bedroom would look like, with huge windows and heavy curtains and lots and lots of bookcases. There were also puffy cushions all around, and three huge beds covered in thick blankets.
Wait. Three?
Twilight turned to her mentors and saw one of their horns glowing. The sun’s orange glow faded from the windows as it set into the horizon, to be replaced by bluish silver moonlight as Princess Luna, undoubtedly doing her duty from somewhere else in the palace, raised the moon.
“You all sleep together at the same time?”
“Yes. But not these two of me,” replied her teacher as she levitated an alarm clock over. “It’s two minutes to seven, Thursday evening.”
As the sun princess spoke, her other two past selves were busy channelling their magic, and Twilight recognised the time spell being woven. It was similar to the one that she had attempted, but there was some variation that she couldn’t quite put her hoof on. In any case, they disappeared before she could fully analyse their spells properly.
“Wow, that was pretty clean,” Twilight opined. “No smoke or explosions. How did – gah!”
Two balls of light flashed into existence where the two Celestias had previously stood, and when she blinked, she saw that they had returned.
“Wait, back so soon?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you were going into the past.”
“They did,” replied the Celestia that had stayed the whole time. “Number One and Two of today, Thursday have gone back to the evening of Wednesday to go to bed, and these two of me are Number One and Two of Friday.” She placed a hoof on her breastplate and continued, “And since I am Number Three of Thursday, I’m going to be Number One of Friday when I wake up.”
Ouch. My brain…
Twilight rubbed her forehead and nodded. “Okay, I think I’ve got it. I just need some time to wrap my head around this.”
Celestia One and Two of Friday laid down on their beds in silence, and Celestia Three of Thursday came over to her side. “Brace yourself,” she said, and Twilight felt the familiar inter-planar pull that precedes teleportation. Judging by the lurching feeling in her stomach, it was going to be a long-distanced one.
There was a second or two of nothingness, followed by a muted explosion as the world popped back into existence.
“Hoo? Hoo!” hooted Owlowicious.
Twilight blinked in surprise as the owl fitted away from his usual perch on the study table, shedding a few feathers in the process.
“Oops,” said Princess Celestia to the avian. “I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Hoo,” replied the bird as he attempted to smooth down his ruffled feathers.
“Well,” said the white alicorn, turning back to Twilight, “I hope that it’s been an interesting lesson for you. Now that Luna and I have ascertained that you are ready for your next level of studies, there shall be more like it in the future.”
“Will they be as… sobering?” asked Twilight.
I’m not sure I’d want to go through that with each and every one.
Princess Celestia leaned down and nuzzled her on the cheek. “There will be others like it, but only a few. And I will make sure that you are ready for each when the time comes, both intellectually and emotionally. Have a good evening, Twilight.”
“Goodnight, Princess,” she replied, as the alicorn departed through the door. She followed her mentor out onto the doorstep, and watched her leap and soar into the starry night sky. Her form shrank into the distance, until she was indistinguishable from the darkness, only occasionally appearing as a dark shape when she crossed over a star’s twinkling dot.
“Twilight, what was that all about?”
She whirled round and saw a sleepy-eyed Spike toddling down the stairs, and without a second thought, she rushed back inside and swept him up into a tight hug.
“Woah… Okay, you’re awfully clingy tonight,” the little dragon commented. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What did the princess tell you today? She didn’t give you another test, did she?”
“Nope, just an important lesson,” she replied, carefully setting him back on the floor and summoning her checklist. “I’ll need you to take a letter.”
Spike raised an eyebrow. “Umm, the princess just left.” Regardless, he retrieved a quill and scroll and made ready to jot everything down.
“It’s not for the princess; it’s for Mom and Dad, and Shining and Cadence.”
“In that case, the post office is closed, Twilight.”
“I know. But I must do it now, for peace of mind.” Making a mental note to visit all of her friends tomorrow, she smiled at her foster brother and said, “Come on – Dear Mom and Dad…”
“Must’ve been one heck of a lesson,” Spike murmured as he scribbled away.
Twilight broke off her dictation for a moment to reply, “I’ve just learnt how precious time really is when it comes to family and friends.”
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Brilliant story! Has a good balance of humour and morals, and an interesting read
Dang. This is just cool.
...Why is it getting dislikes so fast? That's just weird.
Bwwaaaa? Ok so Celestia uses time travel to get her paper work done, the government to work, and teach? My brain it hurts
Upped and favved- I'm really liking this! I can't read the whole thing now, but I'll be coming back to it later!
no clue why it got some downvotes, but... some people are just like that.
It made me "Dawwwww" and tugged on my heartstrings at the same time. Another excellent story!
you have yet to reach level one of head aich on me. loved the story though cheers
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Thanks for the support, y'all! Glad you liked it!
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Anyways, thanks!
Hehe, yeah, well, not everyone is familiar with some of the aspects of time travel.
Okay, this actually makes a whole lot of sense. I've always wondered why Celestia never interfered with Discord, or Nightmare Moon, or with the Changeling Invasion. Its clear now that she was waiting it out, seeing if she was needed, if she had interfered in the future, before going back into the past and doing anything. And you bring up interesting points; if one knows the future, can there ever be any trust? I would have liked this theme to be explored a little bit more, but you did a great job discussing the implications of immortality, so I'm fine. It makes me curious, as well, if Celestia ever jumped into the future, then came back, just to see what had happened in her future (English tenses get very screwed up when time travel is involved). And the idea of gravity reversal as an offensive weapon is quite interesting. I always find it fascinating the dark implicationsof seemingly benign things found in kids shows.
Well, that was far longer than I meant it to be. TL;DR, Kudos to you. Have a mustache.
1631557 agreed and as to the dislikes well those people must have gotten an ice-cream headaich.
I faved and liked this even though immutable time travel is one of my major pet peeves. It bugs me like almost nothing else. It just seems to mess with free will too much from my POV.
My IQ is over 150, and I am still trying to wrap my bucking head around what I just read. You, good Sir, are a GENIUS!
Faved this one.
The lesson, oh Twilight Sparkle, Faithful Student of the Sun? It is this: Magic always comes with a price. Go back in time to relive your day and you take a day from your life. Celestia is essentially immortal but even she is burning a candle at both ends. For her, it is a matter of her duty to her Little Ponies but I don't think that there are many other excuses.
The question is, is this truly complete? I mean you said chapter 1, and this kind of is open ended. There are other implied lessons in the future one that could be neat to read.
1631726 Yeah, I was kind of looking for ways to excuse Celestia from not lifting a hoof in so many episodes.
As for further exploration of the theme, I'm not sure if I would've been able to go much deeper than that without making it a real slog to read through. I've got a feeling that 5k words on an idea is long enough for most people.
1633068 Well, it could be argued that free will still applies so long as you are still unaware of what happens as a result of your actions.
1633196 You can thank Gargoyles the animated series for my understanding of time travel. That cartoon is one of my childhood faves and really gave me a lot to think about.
1634583 Yeah, it's just a one-shot story. Sorry for the confusion. I made the ending like that so that it wouldn't look like an understanding of time travel is supposed to be the pinnacle of Twilight's learning. Maybe if future episodes raise similar concerns, I might be able to produce another chapter exploring those issues.
1635351All I know is you had me LOST lol
Because time and space are fun to play with!
The whovian inside me is sooooooo happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is amazing!!!! All of your stuff could be canon!!!!!!
One problem i can see is, if she judges things by what future Celestia warns her of, what if as an example: in the First episode NMM won and Celestia was banished(or all 3 of her, no future ones would be able to come later since they are banished "in the past"), so she couldnt go back and warn Celestia. Celestia takes it as nothing will happen so does nothing?
A major flaw for something Celestia relies on so much.
Feels the same as Earthquake warnings and such, still doesnt mean they will always be there to warn you.
2445205 Yeah, it's not an airtight theory. But then again, a lot of this depends on which Celestia NMM captures, if it's not all of them. And even if NMM did get all of them, it would only be if the future Celestias allow her, because they would've already experienced it the first time round, and know what to expect. Unless NMM managed to capture all of them separately so that Celestia cannot witness her own capture to prepare herself before jumping back.
NMM would have to be able to take her by surprise three times.
Eh, it gets complicated.
The idea is that history is immutable, so my guess is that whatever has happened will happen, and any action or inaction on Celestia's part will only make those events come true.
2445386
Thats the problem if she captures her(them) in the future, nobody would just appear from the future later to warn her(maybe NNM would create an illusion like she did with Dash but that would be in the present or something), thats why Celestia would just assume all goes well and would not do anything to stop her.
Its not just for the NMM incident, that means that Equestria is doomed any moment Celestia is "destined" to fail (but it actually being her fault since she just wont do anything). And the issue with ALL of time and space being set just... meh why fight something if you know it will get defeated because it is set that it will get defeated. (pretty much what Celestia is actually doing...
no wonder she doesnt tell anyone else about it)
So in short life is not in the hands of the one living it but is already set and you dont have to do anything, Twilight The Overthinker (nice title for her huh xD ) will get a new wave of depression once she realizes that.
hello, im celestia 2 of wednesday.
wow, my head hurts now
1635351 I really hope you get inspired to add to this story. I love the deep, mature tone. Do you acknowledge Twilight's ascension? If so, I would expect that she'll be learning some sobering lessons from this point forward.
2991633 I do acknowledge her ascension. As for adding to this story, we'll have to see. It kind of looks like they're going to give Twilight a pretty sobering lesson on power in the Season 4 opener anyway.
That was a very interesting read. I'm not sure how I feel about The idea of Celestia doing this constantly. It seems a bit implausible to me that she would be able to maintain a time travel routine on this scale and not cause more problems or rumors than she seems to.
During the introduction of the Celestias, I caught on a lot faster than Twilight did, as not only have I seen and read a lot of time travel stories, (and the story description said there was going to be time travel) but in The Chamber of Secrets, Hermione does exactly the same thing in order to fit her ridiculous course load into her schedule. Same rules of time travel too. (Time is consistent and anything you do will end up matching up exactly with what you observe the first time around)
I see you're one of those authors who maintains a canon across all their works. The thing that tipped me off was the reference to Luna's actions in Night Guards. I wonder if were more connections that I missed. I didn't actually realize until that point that I was reading one of your stories. This is where we get into your incredible attention to detail. Things like noting the one Celestia that was surprised by Twilight's time shenanigans, how very inconvenient it would have been for Celestia to have had foreknowledge during A Canterlot Wedding, and even a reference to Ponyville Confidential. I'd forgotten that Gabby Gums wrote about Celestia. (And in fact never noticed until now that the picture of her eating a massive pile of cake was actually sourced directly from the show) Speaking of which, how did they get that story? (And photo)
Good show, thumbs up, and now I think I must read more of your things.
2999322 Yeah, a routine like that is bound to create problems at some point. But it's still fun to mess with everypony's heads.
Regarding time travel, the immutable timeline is my favourite rule. If done well, it's almost like solving a mystery. 
Thanks for the feedback, and happy reading!
My reaction to this story and it's implications:
media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2fv14gf7q1r5wpaw.jpg
My goodness, that was utterly fascinating. And a great moral as well! Fantastic story, Raugos. You really need to write more; Everything you put out is exceptional, without any exceptions.
Really well thought out, and well written. And I see the experiment Twilight is conducting with her past self - can another way taken really change the future, and what happens then to the current timeline?
3603167 Depends on which theory of time you subscribe to. I tend to prefer the ones where if a change is made, the new events will branch off into a different time stream and cannot be perceived by the original timeline.
time travel:
attempt p=np
result: a message saying "DO NOT MESS WITH TIME".
-summary of the time-turner shennanigans in HPMoR.
Rule #1 of Time Travel: DON'T.
You'll hurt your brain, if not your relationships or the entire world by under-thinking or over-thinking what happened, what will happen, what may happen, and what already happened. There are ALWAYS unintended consequences. Always.
I can only see that sentence and laugh. I know it makes perfect sense in context, but it's just too hilarious to me.
Wow.
I'm impressed.
This is probably one of the most accurate representations of the cause and effects of time travel I've ever seen! It's right up there with Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure! Well done Mr. (Ms.?) Raugos, Well Done!
6533934 Gotta thank Gargoyles for that. It exposed me to the concept of closed time loops and helped solidify my understanding of cause and effect when I really should've been paying more attention in school.
I think I must have opened this to read it at some time in the distant past, gone to other tabs, then lost the tab before actually reading the story. VERY glad I decided to "re-read it since I don't remember it".
3603167
Who says it was an experiment? Maybe the train is going to break down resulting in the road being faster? Or she will meet someone in need of help (Trixie comes to mind for some reason)? Actually, that could still be an experiment I guess! They aren't mutually exclusive.
4817488
p = np isn't necessarily impossible, it is just something that nobody has managed to prove or disprove and would have huge implications if it were proved (cryptography, such as for secure electronic communications would suddenly become a very different ball-game).
6437521
Yeah, the FiM setting tends to create stuff like that from time to time...
One of my favorites was when someone once pointed out that Applejack is very pragmatic, and has a distaste for unnecessary complications and too much (unicorn) magic when applied to farming. She very much looks forward to Zap Apple Harvest.
stories like this, are why i go through other peoples favorite lists. with less than 3K views, this obviously fell through the cracks.
I realize this is a five year old fic, but it seems unfinished. Celestia's statements about not trying to change the timeline followed by Future Twilight immediately showing up with advice about what to do in the future...seems like an obvious setup. Future Twilight took the train and then advised past Twilight not to. So if she follows the advice she gives herself, she creates a time paradox.
But then the story ends without that being developed at all, and I don't see a sequel.
8783606 This was just meant to be an exploration of the model for time travel where history is immutable. With the exception of jumping into alternate universes, every action has been and always will be taken in that specific way.
Ah, I guess I could've made that part clearer. The idea was that Future Twilight never actually took the train. No iteration of her ever did. It's a stable time loop of Twilight taking her future self's advice and then realising that it was the better choice only after the fact.
Immutable history versions of time travel are always the most fun to explore.
I do love the explanation for “why didn’t you go back in time?” Where the answer was “because future me never appeared.”
wait why does not make 3 time clones of right now and have them all do her 3 different parts then combine back into one? then she won't have to do the same day 3 times.
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The time travel mechanics don't allow for clones. There's no splitting or combining.
I enjoyed this story more than I expected. But I do have a question:
Why doesn't Celestia form a council of ponies to help alleviate her workload? The ponies she selects may not be as capable as her, but it is a simpler solution than using time travel. The fact that she has been using time travel for a long time proves, to me at least, that for all of her wisdom earned from 1000 years of living, she has not learned the one lesson Twilight herself did in Winter Wrap-Up.
Magic cannot solve everything.
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I cannot remember my exact frame of mind when this was originally written (wow, almost ten years ago!), but the short answer is that I probably didn't take that into account.
The story was meant to explore the practical mechanics, applications and implications of time travel for immortal Celestia, and how mortal Twilight can learn of its unintended consequences.
It was also written in a time when Celestia's image in the fandom was closer to 'wise demigod' than 'immortal princess'. The flaws of this scheme don't affect her to the same degree as a regular pony, and from her perspective, if she's able to shoulder the burden and has already been doing so for ages, why shouldn't she carry on?
Magic cannot solve everything, but it makes for a really convenient temporary solution. And you know what they say: there's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.
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"And you know what they say: there's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution."
What does that mean?
11326165
It's a Russian proverb.
It's pointing out that 'temporary' solutions have a tendency to become permanent because people can't be bothered to revisit a problem and fix it properly.
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Thanks.