Chapter 1
It's Also About Time
Twilight Sparkle struggled to get her breathing under control. This wasn’t the time or place to panic.
Behind her was the library door she just came through, left wide open. Thick black clouds almost turned the day into night, crackling with thunder and lightning. At the heart of Ponyville’s central plaza there was a vortex of swirling magical energy, white as fire, and in its midst stood a lion. He smiled, in the way a predator does as it slowly approaches its utterly trapped quarry, knowing that victory was already at hand, and with it the spoils. He could’ve hardly added anything to the effect by licking his lips, and yet, as though to taunt her, he did.
Twilight’s knees shook. Everything inside her screamed at her to run, run as fast as she could. And what was worse, not only were her instincts entirely correct, as this particular lion was twice her size and could thoroughly mutilate her without even trying - they didn’t even sense half of the danger she was in. It was the thinking part of her brain that reminded her that lions were among the creatures in the world capable of their own brand of magic, confirming that what she saw in front of her eyes was very, very real.
“Twilight Sparkle! A pleasure to finally meet you,” the lion thundered gruffly as he slowly stepped closer.
It’s not too late to teleport, Twilight thought. I already distracted him for, like, ten seconds. That’s more than enough time to evacuate the town, isn’t it? No? Rainbow Dash is helping! Still no? Right. “The pleasure is probably all yours,” she replied, meekly.
Strangely enough, even though lightning streaked through the sky in its utter turmoil, she had no trouble at all hearing either the lion’s or her own voice. Once again her memory supplied her with unpleasant information, reminding her that high magical pressure has a tendency to dull certain frequencies of sound.
In the light exuded by the magical vortex, all of the lion’s features were easy to see, and that included the teeth, pointed and interlocked in that damned rictus of a smile. “Celestia’s faithful student. A true prodigy, possessed both by raw talent and an unstoppable drive to hone it by the search for knowledge and the refinement of application. Some might say you are the most powerful unicorn, no, magic user alive on this planet.”
Twilight had read too many Daring Do books to enjoy being praised like that. In the triumph of victory, villains liked to cast themselves in even more glorious light by touting the virtues of the do-gooder they were just about to defeat. In the books, a moment like this was usually followed by Daring Do’s unlikely comeback, utilizing any sort of oversight on the part of the villain or just plain good fortune to scrape just by and win the day. Twilight wasn’t Daring Do, though, and this was not a book. At least not one she was writing.
“As for myself, I was named Merrok, or He-Who-Reads, in the tongue of my tribe. I am a lion sorcerer of some renown, but you have never heard of me. And I have come to deliver a sad truth about the use of magic, treasured Twilight Sparkle.” A bolt of lightning suddenly struck the vortex, and was apparently sucked in, causing it to flare up, briefly concealing Merrok’s features. The short absence did nothing to make them any less intimidating when they were once again visible.
“Potency, talent, training, knowledge - in the end they all pale in comparison to the greatest power thinkable. That … of preparation.”
Twilight’s eyes darted to all corners of her view. It was hard to see anything for the blinding light around the lion sorcerer and the darkening sky above, but surely there’d been enough time by now. They had to come back, if only so she could try and tell them to run away with the others. They’d have to listen to her this time, wouldn’t they? They probably wouldn’t, Twilight suspected, and that thought brought to her heart chilling fear for the safety of her friends - and also a strange feeling of warmth, knowing she could count on their support in the greatest of dangers.
“I’ve studied you very precisely, coveted Twilight Sparkle. You are quite worthy of study in many respects - but most particularly from the perspective of lion sorcery. You are what we call an amplifier. Magic used around you has a tendency to increase in potency by mere proximity to you. The effect is hardly noticeable with unicorn magic except in the rarest of circumstances, but as you might already be able to tell - lion magic benefits from it rather spectacularly.”
Twilight was shaken from the train of thought that had been racing in her mind. As he was talking about it, she’d started to feel it around her. This Merrok character hadn’t set such a dramatic scene to lie to her - that much became painfully clear.
Yet she also felt different about herself. Somewhat more awake. More on edge. Less frightened. Could it be …
“Ah, I see you’re catching on,” Merrok chuckled - and then his gaze turned to steel, his toothy smile completely gone - except for a glint in his eyes. “The amplification works both ways. By now, no magician on the face of the world might stop me - with the exception of yourself. Being more naturally talented, you possess greater potency. Which brings us back to the true power.”
In the corner of her eye, Twilight saw a rainbow-hued splotch turning larger - and she saw Merrok move his head downwards. There might have been something jovial, a streak of the scholar inside Merrok, before - now she saw a lion on the prowl through and through. A lion engulfed in a vortex of magic, stirring ever faster towards a climax. There was no distracting anymore. The moment for Twilight herself to act had come …
And gone.
Before Twilight knew it, it was no longer Merrok surrounded by the white fire that evidently made up the manifestation of lion sorcery, it was herself. She was trapped. And it was shifting, ever shifting, to achieve its purpose.
Preparation. The true power was preparation. The damned lion had said it right to her face. This was a spell specifically prepared just for her, and it had connected, faster than she could possibly react. She’d only been able to think about distracting him, and never thought that he’d been distracting her all along. Thoughts furiously rushed through her mind in these split seconds.
It reminded her of something. Herself, in a black jumpsuit, appearing out of nowhere in front of her. Time magic. Chronomancy. Never mind the name, that was it. A prepared chronomantic spell.
Chronomancy required a target location in the time stream - it couldn’t simply make her disappear. It could be pinpointed to a specific moment in time, however - and Merrok knew when that moment was. He’d be waiting. After all was over. With her taken out of the picture, his amplified magic could achieve whatever ends he wished - and he simply would have to wait for her to reappear, replenish it, and resume his business. He could keep it up forever, giving her no chance to fight back. Preparation, the true power.
Anger filled her. There was no time to even think it, let alone think it through. “My RUMP!” Twilight yelled, and let magic burst through her horn.
Suddenly, everything was peaceful.
Twilight looked at the central plaza of Ponyville. Above was a blue sky, beset with the occasional wispy white cloud. There was no lightning, no thunder, no rumbling, no magical pressure, no dreadful lion sorcerer out to exploit her for limitless magical power.
Or was there? Twilight immediately started to look around. It certainly didn’t look like it. Had Merrok already achieved his goal by just displacing her in time, and no more plans for her? Very doubtful, he might have just as well cast a spell to kill her. He needed her again - but he wasn’t there now to take advantage of her. The likeliest explanation was that her desperate plan had actually worked. A plan she only now started to grasp.
She let herself fall back on her hindquarters, then lay on the ground, shuddering, her hooves covering her head.
What had she done?
The only thing, she quickly reminded herself. Merrok had specifically crafted this spell, just for her. She’d had no way of countering or evading it, but she sure as Magic Kindergarten was able to disrupt it. Some burst of magic of her own would throw some element of it out of whack, maybe cause it to fizzle, maybe cause it to do something else entirely - perhaps even something unsafe, perhaps even deadly. There was no way to calculate the possible consequences. And that was why it had been so necessary - precisely because of the incalculable consequences, it would in all likelihood ruin Merrok’s schemes.
In that respect, it had been the only plan. The right plan, definitely. And it had also put her life on the line. Without a moment’s hesitation, against everything taught to her about magic safety and the disruption of spells, she’d taken the equivalent of a coin toss to decide if she lived or died.
“What have I done,” she whispered.
Ponyville was empty. This was her thought the next time she actually focused on her surroundings rather than the dreadful events that had come around so suddenly. Weirdly empty. And quiet.
Naked panic took ahold of her. Disrupted chronomancy - how long had she been gone? Just how wrong could things go in just how little time, that Ponyville was now utterly bereft of life?
“Can I help you?” somepony said behind her, worried.
Twilight’s mind was still working at adrenaline speed. A pony or other being capable of speech and emotion. Inquiring another pony about their wellbeing, without revealing worrisome facts about the world, as would have been the case if instead of “Can I help you?” what was said had been “Another survivor at last! I thought I was the only one!” or “Braaains.”
Of course, mind working fast or not, if she really wanted to get to the bottom of all her raging fears, or the most immediate among them, she had to turn around. So Twilight took a deep breath, and she did.
Another pony, in fact, another mare, just her height, with a pearl-white coat and a curled mane colored in parts mulberry, in parts rose. A horn on the forehead. Eyes green, and clearly worried, and now that they met with hers, widening with shock. An expression Twilight soon shared.
“Sweetie Belle,” she whispered.
And there it was. The anchor that struck the ground, brought her mind down from swirling through the skies and finally gave her some degree of rest.
Twilight cried.
“There, there,” the white mare cooed as Twilight sobbed into her chest, stroking her head gently. “When you’ve calmed down a bit, could you tell me your name? I mean, just to make sure … ?”
Twilight sniffed and rose to her own hindquarters again, looking through misty eyes at the other pony she’d found. “Twilight Sparkle.”
“And I’m Sweetie Belle. You’re right.” Sweetie Belle smiled reassuringly. “You probably have a lot of questions. Maybe you’d like to go inside?”
“In … side?” Twilight looked past Sweetie Belle to see the entrance to the library, quite open. “Of course.”
Inside they went, and Twilight found herself uneasy as she looked around. The books were … still there. It felt familiar, but wrong, somehow. As if there was a coin waiting to drop. The books were the books she knew, and they were still wrong. Helplessly, she looked at Sweetie Belle again.
Who was the same size as her. Who had a cutie mark now. Who was an adult.
“How long?” she forced out, enrapt with shock.
Sweetie Belle herself looked shaken. She herself clearly hadn’t expected having to explain what she had to explain now. If she was prepared for it in theory, all of that had escaped her in the actual moment. “Ten years,” she finally said. But there was nothing to add that would change the number, and what it meant.
Twilight went numb. “Ten years.” She looked around. Ten years, and barely any books in the library had even been touched. There was no way it would have looked like that after ten years if she had been living in it.
And there, finally, were the facts of what had happened to her, and the spell. She’d changed the spell’s target location through her disruption, and instead of what Merrok had planned - a day, a week later, whatever had served him - it had been ten years. Transported through time, ten years into the future. In the time in-between, Sweetie Belle had grown into an adult mare, and evidently Ponyville still stood, and the library still stood. That was a good start - she surprised herself by thinking as matter-of-factly as that - but she had to know more.
“What … about the others?” she asked, scarcely audible.
Sweetie Belle stared at her for a second. It was almost as if Twilight Sparkle was made of glass; she looked as if one wrong word could shatter her completely. She had to know, but she was scared, so scared, of the answer. And Sweetie Belle realized, suddenly, that Twilight needed something more than anything else. Or rather, somepony. A friend.
“Wait right here,” she said, and made sure to smile as brightly as she could muster. Don’t be afraid, she found herself praying in her head, and it was weird thinking this way about a pony she last remembered to be rather taller and older and wiser than her. The smile was reciprocated, weakly, and Sweetie Belle wasted no more time.
Left utterly alone, Twilight could barely sort her thoughts. Sweetie Belle had done well to smile as she did, because it kept Twilight’s fear just subdued enough for her to simply sit and stare at the door rather than breaking down, until she’d come back. It was a dreadful wait all the same.
And then it ended, and somepony other than Sweetie Belle entered. Somepony familiar - wearing a very familiar hat.
For the second time that day, Twilight cried.
“It’s so good to see you again, Twi,” Applejack said, gently, patting Twilight on the back as she covered her mane in tears, hugging her tightly. Applejack herself couldn’t resist spilling one or two, which she hadn’t planned on, but that was okay. “Everythin’s fine.”
“It is?” Twilight asked, releasing Applejack from her tearful embrace and staring her in the eyes.
Applejack smiled in return. She looked older, it struck Twilight - not all that much, since ten years weren’t enough to make Applejack an old pony - but she looked calmer and more reassuring than Twilight ever remembered her being capable of. Wiser. More experienced. Almost motherly. There were very few times Twilight had ever felt that grateful for anything.
“It is now.”
Twilight let out a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t enough quite yet. “The others,” she said, somewhat hoarse.
Applejack took a deep breath. “To tell ya the truth, Twilight, I was kinda asked by Celestia, in case ya ever showed up an’ such, to get ya straight to the palace and not tell ya a word of anythin’.”
Twilight nodded slowly, understanding, but miserable.
Applejack looked at her, and narrowed her eyes as she made a decision. “But like hay am I gonna do that to you,” she said, grinning defiantly. “Pinkie ‘n Rarity are in Canterlot. Rainbow Dash’s up in Cloudsdale. Fluttershy ‘n me are still hangin’ on ‘round these parts. Not sure where Spike is at right now but he seemed alright last time I saw ‘im. We all made it out, is what I’m sayin’. And now I gotta shut it. Princess’ orders an’ all that.”
Twilight giggled. For the first time since she’d found herself where she was now, she stopped feeling frightened altogether, even if just for a moment. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Now, guess we should leave fer the train station or somethin’?”
Twilight shook her head. “If I can’t ask you questions about what happened, I wouldn’t survive the train ride. I’ll take a shortcut. You’ll come along, right?”
“Oh, right, teleportin’! Mighty handy thing! Almost forgot ya could do that,” Applejack said, the slightest shadow crossing over her eyes for a brief moment. They’d all sworn never to forget. But some things get murky over time, no matter how hard you tried.
In place of a reply came the popping sound of Twilight’s spell resolving …
… and the two reappeared in front of the palace entrance, bringing sudden excitement into what had been a quite ordinary day for the two members of the Royal Guard out front.
One of them didn’t stop looking wide-eyed at Twilight even after the initial shock had passed and they’d struggled back onto their hooves. Evidently he had recognized her. “Excuse me, ma’am, you wouldn’t happen to …”
Twilight nodded, adding a courteous bow. “Twilight Sparkle, kind sirs. She isn’t expecting me at this precise hour, but I believe the Princess would wish to see me right away.”
What Twilight didn’t know nor would ever find out (since the Royal Guard treats such things with quite military discretion) was that “If you find Twilight Sparkle, bring her straight to me” was a ten-year-old outstanding order of the highest priority, assigned by Celestia to every single branch of Equestrian governmental power. It had almost become a natural part of the initiation procedure for recruits accepted into full service, in fact, to receive and be briefed on that order right after completing their oath. “Finding Twilight Sparkle” had, over time, become a sort of byword for tasks that seemed futile, but by duty could not be abandoned. She had become more of a legend than an actual pony. Meeting her in person, now, was akin to meeting Canter Claus.
In the light of that, the royal guards at the entrance of the Palace on this particular day handled their duty admirably. “I sh-sh-shall escort you to the th-throne room,” the one who had recognized Twilight right away (he’d actually memorized her picture in that first briefing of his, being rather taken by the spirit of the thing) managed to declare.
“Well then,” Applejack said, “Ya’ll go on ahead. I’ll catch up with ya later.”
Twilight turned abruptly to look at her, suddenly struck with a pang of fear. But Applejack smiled and winked at her in a way that brought it to a swift end. She was still the same old Applejack - you could tell when she was telling the honest truth. And so Twilight was able to let go and leave her behind to enter the palace gate, escorted by the increasingly nervous guard.
Knock, knock.
Celestia looked up from important government documents that she’d put off reading for what felt like millennia, and silently rejoiced at the distraction. Nevertheless, there were protocols; during the one hour allocated every day for her paperwork, there were few things she was allowed to be disturbed for. It was the only way she got anything done. She briefly wondered what this particular interruption might be about, but then figured it was better to simply find out without delay. “Come in!”
When the door opened, she almost wished she’d left herself more time, because she couldn’t help but jump in surprise, losing the magical grip on her feather and spilling tiny drops of ink all over the latest weather report, when she saw her. Not very regal. But then, a moment later, she didn’t care.
As Twilight Sparkle slowly stepped into the room, Celestia rushed around the desk towards her, and when there was no distance left between them, they hugged fiercely in a way Twilight could barely remember they ever had. Maybe they hadn’t, and if they had, Twilight had been much younger then. It didn’t matter; it felt like the natural thing to do.
It wasn’t a long hug, all things considered, but by the time it was over, the door to Celestia’s study was closed and the two alone. The guard might have gotten the timetable wrong in the excitement (the throne room had been empty, quite embarrassing), but in this particular moment, he fulfilled his duty to the Princess with perfection.
“I cannot tell you how relieved I am to see you,” Celestia said in a calm and even voice, full of emotion regardless.
“I’m sorry you had to wait for so long,” Twilight said, “but I couldn’t modify the spell, just disrupt it. There was no other-”
“I know, Twilight. Many of Equestria’s best scientists have devoted much of their time to deciphering the events of ten years ago, and they’ve succeeded quite cleanly. It’s best we take things one after another, together, wouldn’t you agree?”
Twilight took a deep breath, and nodded, expression turned from touched and slightly teary-eyed to serious and attentive in a heartbeat.
“Merrok cast a spell - you disappeared. Your friends launched an attack - I believe Fluttershy struck him a particularly fierce blow-”
Twilight couldn’t help but flash a bright smile of pride.
“-and he finally found himself forced to keep them away from him using a barrier spell. He kept the spell up even as the Guard arrived, led by your brother, to take him into custody. Your brother deduced rather quickly based on Rainbow Dash’s - her being the closest to you at the time - account that Merrok had not actually killed you but somehow displaced you, and made the connection that Merrok was merely holding out under the barrier until you returned.” Celestia’s expression darkened as she paused. “He struggled to break the barrier - but he failed, time and time again, until the barrier broke on its own a couple of days later and Merrok was left unconscious, utterly depleted of energy. We never managed to revive him. We sent his body back to his homeland - learning of his name as a result - but to this day we do not know what exactly he was planning. Yet it was clear that what he’d been waiting for had not occured as he had wished. But you remained gone. Until today.” Celestia looked at Twilight, inquisitively.
She nodded. “I reappeared in Ponyville, maybe half an hour ago.”
“There was considerable magic residue left behind that could be analyzed. There had been no experts on lion sorcery in all of Equestrian history before, it being rather rare even in the distant realm of the lions, but of course, you had disappeared in an effort to save Ponyville itself. Much of the scientific community saw it as their duty to find out what happened to you and potentially even save you, and Luna and myself added our own efforts to theirs. In the end, we managed to reconstruct the spell. It bore striking similarities to the rare chronomantic spells we have stored in our libraries. There was plenty of unicorn magic energy among the residue as well, however, so we came to the conclusion you must have disrupted the spell at the very last moment with a magic burst of some kind. That is accurate, isn’t it?”
Twilight nodded. “I noticed similarities to a time travel spell I’d recently studied and realized it had a fixed target. I found no other way in time.”
Celestia gazed at her in a mixture of amazement and pride.
Twilight fidgeted, mildly blushing. “Erm, Princess? What is it … ?”
“It took us about a year of studying the residue and lion magic in general to even think it could have been time magic. I never suspected you knew after what surely couldn’t have been more than a second, just from studying time spells.”
Twilight looked down, scratching the floor with a hoof in embarrassment. “I kind of … did more than just study them. I used one. One of those that allow you to send messages in person to your former self.” She ducked, awaiting her due - at this point, long overdue - punishment.
Celestia blinked. “That wouldn’t happen to have been around that one day I met you in the Starswirl-the-Bearded wing in that strange getup?”
Twilight slowly opened one eye to look up at her. “... Yes,” she admitted, hesitantly.
“I always wondered why you never kept the hairstyle.” She smiled fondly at the memory.
“You’re not angry?”
Celestia shook her head. “I could never be angry at you for being curious. Though if you’d asked for my advice, you can definitely imagine it would have been that time magic can have very, very drastic consequences if mishandled and is best left alone. But in this case, the knowledge gained from having used the spell had a hand in saving you, so to some extent you proved me wrong, and I don’t take offense to that.” Celestia smiled, and warmed Twilight’s heart to the core, because that smile said everything about just how proud this particular teacher was of her student.
Sadly, that was over quickly, as a shadow fell on Celestia’s face. “I know you must be eager to rejoin your friends, so I will press on quickly.”
Twilight sighed and nodded. “Of course.”
“We could tell that you had disrupted the spell, but all signs also showed the spell actually took effect, and displaced you in time. What we could not tell was just how far. What we did eventually manage to do was trace back the time stream, and when we found the moment you disappeared, we actually detected that in that place the time stream itself was, for lack of a more descriptive term, bent.”
Twilight just stared, as Celestia was clearly expecting some sort of reaction to her dramatic finish. “What does that mean? How can you bend the time stream? Even its existence is merely theoretical,” she took on a thoughtful expression. “Or, was, ten years ago.”
“Precisely. Using divination magic we can now backtrace all points that were once the present - the past, for all intents and purposes - though we found it impossible to focus our perception. Imagine looking at our world from all directions at once, seeing everything at the same time; it would be too vast and too chaotic to tell anything specific apart. But we could tell that at that particular moment, and no other, the stream was shifted in a definite pattern. That moment was the very moment Merrok’s spell had taken effect. By taking something that very definitely existed and ripping it out, the time stream suddenly flowed in a different manner than before - since your no longer being, well, there changed what would happen from that point forward.”
Twilight adopted a thoughtful expression. “Alright. That sounds plausible. Though if the time stream is that hard to read, what makes you so sure you got all this right?”
“We tested it,” Celestia replied, matter-of-factly.
Twilight’s eyes grew wide. “Didn’t you just tell me time magic is best left alone?”
Celestia gave her an affectionate smile, and Twilight could see a glimpse of pain in her serene eyes. “For all we had found out, it was still a mystery when you’d re-enter the time stream, and we doubted we would ever solve it. For all we knew, it would take a hundred or a thousand years. We had to find out as much as we possibly could, just to maybe find a way to get you back sooner.” She smiled, and winked at Twilight. “That would be the other reason I didn’t scold you before. Some things are important enough that I will disregard my own advice.”
Twilight smiled, blushing, and nodded for Celestia to continue.
“We held the experiment in a controlled environment, using a simple non-living object - a weight - and placing it on a pressure plate, which while being pressed would obstruct the flow of water into a bucket. We cast Merrok’s spell, reconstructed to the best of our abilities, to displace the weight ten minutes into the future.” She paused, breathing in deeply. “It disappeared. Water started to flow. Ten minutes later, the weight was back, and the water stopped.”
“The spell worked,” Twilight said, nodding as she reconstructed the experiment in her head. She smiled inwardly. She could almost see how the scientists attending the experiment must have been relieved, having finally confirmed that Twilight would, in fact, eventually come back, even if they didn’t know the exact point.
Celestia just nodded, smiling, though there was less joy in it than Twilight would have expected.
“You employed the divination magic again, and found another bend in the time stream, which allowed you to confirm all parts of your theory.”
Again Celestia nodded, and smiled. “You’re still just as astute as I remember.”
Twilight blushed. She coughed and tried to recover her focus. “That’s actually pretty scary though. Every time the spell is cast, it causes a bend like that. That’s probably an excellent reason not to ever cast it again.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” Celestia murmured and let out a sigh. “I’m not finished yet. Please pay especially close attention now, because this part is why I insisted you came to me as soon as possible, preferably without talking to anyone.”
The air in Celestia’s study suddenly became quite a bit harder to breathe. Twilight gulped, but sat, and listened.
“Shortly after our efforts to reconstruct Merrok’s original spell had begun, one of our especially dedicated scientists had devised a variation on it - more specifically, a theoretical counterspell.”
Astonishment overcame Twilight. Most counterspells worked by creating fields of anti-magic, or stronger magic, that would negate or overwhelm the crucial spell patterns of the target spell, thereby preventing them from taking effect. Twilight’s own last-ditch magic burst had been what experts would term a partial practical counterspell, since it had not prevented the spell effect entirely, but altered it, and done so by altering the spell’s pattern. Spells that could not only disrupt a spell’s intended effect, but actually undo the entire spell, however, required a vastly different approach; they had to retrace the changes to reality made by the original spell and reverse them with exact precision. Such spells were called theoretical counterspells, because every spell in existence had to have one - in theory. They were fiendishly hard to craft even with a write up of the original spell at hand. It seemed almost impossible that one was made for a spell that was undocumented in its original version and was based on lion magic.
Celestia coughed. Twilight broke out of her stupor. “Now that we had determined we had successfully reconstructed Merrok’s spell, it was time to test that theoretical counterspell. So we did.”
“What happened?” Twilight asked, breathlessly. There were all sorts of implications there. Undoing the spell would arguably have to undo all changes made to the time stream. But surely that was utterly impossible. It was hard enough to believe that a spell would exist that could break time itself - how could there be a spell that would unbreak it?
“The bucket was empty.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “Because now the weight was never gone in the first place, and there could never have been a water flow.”
“Exactly. But there’s more. Here is the experiment protocol. It was kept by my research assistant.”
Twilight looked at a small, tidy notebook that Celestia had pulled out of the bottom drawer of her desk. Her horn glowed as she turned and studied the pages. The experiment setup was described in exhaustive detail, as well as its components and objective; and finally, a close account of the exact events as the experiment was undertaken.
Everything matched Celestia’s retelling, of course … right on through the spellcasting. It was woven without a hitch, by these accounts, and Twilight could tell the similarities to what she’d felt when she’d been close enough to observe the spell being cast. The way the white fire swirled around her - just about the same happened to that weight. Yes, they’d definitely got the spell right. Celestia had said as much.
Her eyes stumbled. “Particles vanish as expected in the resolving of the spell. Test object remains present,” it said there, in somewhat shaky handwriting, which when compared to the neatness of the rest was evidence of great exasperation on part of the writer. The book went on to protocol not only the examination of all components for possible, unexpected faults - anything to salvage the experiment in some way, even though it was clear from the also documented reactions of the scientists on scene that none could find any explanation for why the spell had failed, even though by all appearances it had resolved just as planned.
Finally, she looked up, to stare at Celestia in confusion - though the beginning of the truth started to piece itself together as she looked into that grave expression of hers. It hadn’t come as much of a surprise to her that the unicorn tasked with casting both the reconstructed time displacement spell of Merrok’s and its theoretical counterspell, according to the book, had been Celestia herself - but the book had been strangely silent on her reactions to the experiment’s failure, hadn’t it?
Twilight’s expression slowly cleared up, and her eyes grew wider as her thoughts raced, and she found herself saying it as she understood, in an excited whisper. “Undoing a spell that manipulates time makes it so the spell was never cast in the first place. The theoretical counterspell worked - it placed the object back where it belonged, undid the bending of the time stream - and as a result, nothing untoward ended up happening at all - it just seemed like the spell didn’t work.”
Celestia simply nodded.
“I don’t understand. You just told me everything that originally happened as if you’d been there. How did you still know it?”
“I didn’t and still don’t, actually, Twilight. All memories about the spell successfully resolving were gone - because it never happened. There is also no longer, or that is to say, there never was a second bend in the time stream. Everything I told you before - it wasn’t recollection. It’s, in fact, little more than fiction.”
Twilight blinked, and ruffled through her mane with her hooves in exasperation. “But... How?!” was all she managed to articulate.
Celestia went behind her desk and opened her bottom drawer again, then placed a small letterweight taken out of it on the desk, right in front of Twilight to see. A flash of Celestia’s horn later, Twilight could see something painted on it, clear as day; a tiny golden C. “I found this mark on the weight. As you’ve noticed just now, it’s obscured; ponies other than me cannot normally see it. I know this because the magic of the mark is my own.”
Twilight thought for a moment, trying to decipher the relevance of the event. Her eyes widened when she succeeded. “But you don’t remember ever making it.”
“Exactly.”
“And it appeared the moment the spell was supposed to take effect?”
Celestia nodded, smiling as she watched the wheels turn in her student’s mind. It felt a bit like watching a Wonderbolts Derby.
“The object of Merrok’s time displacement spell is removed from reality at one point in time and put back in at another, into the future. The theoretical counterspell will do the same, in reverse, to put the object back where it belongs in the time stream, into the past. That’s all it’ll do, though, because it’s just the counterspell to the original spell. Everything that happened to the object will stick, because every time the time stream is changed, it’s not in the time stream.” Twilight nodded in understanding. “You must’ve made the mark before you cast the counterspell.”
“Whether I, or my alternative self, made the mark on a hunch or because I or she realized what would happen, I cannot say. Either way, there is an important question to ask. What if the object of the time displacement spell is not a non-living object?”
“The counterspell will undo the displacement - but it would bring that pony back in the state it was at the time of the counterspell, not the original spell.” Twilight had seemed fairly sure while she was saying it - it was perfectly logical, after all - but she still eyed Celestia expectantly.
And there it was. The moment she grasped all the reasons. The reason Celestia had wanted her to come instantly. The reason it had been so important to tell her all of this as quickly as possible. The reason there was no mention in the official experiment protocol of Celestia telling anypony about the mark - she’d always kept that to herself. The reason Celestia now looked at her with those sorrowful eyes. And of course, she also grasped the implications, and the implications of those implications.
There was a decision to be made.
A decision of tremendous impact. One that, at a rather emotionally loaded first glance, didn’t seem hard to make at all. “Well, we can’t possibly do that! I mean, it’s been ten years. What right do I have … I’m not even going to ask rhetorical questions, what am I doing? I don’t have the right. You didn’t tell me this because you’re seriously considering …” Twilight, who’d been pacing through the room ranting, caught Celestia’s eyes for a moment, and stopped. The Princess still looked sorrowful, and she still didn’t say anything, but her emotions were on full display. There was so much compassion - she knew exactly what was going through Twilight’s mind at the moment, and on some level, Twilight was both calmed and even more unnerved when she realized Celestia was waiting for her to grasp everything on her own pace. She was seriously considering it. And what’s more, she was waiting for Twilight to do so, too.
Well. It was time to spell it out. Maybe pointing at the elephant in the room would help snap Celestia back to sanity. Or herself. “Princess Celestia, even supposing it’s true that we could cast the counterspell to place me back and restore the original time stream, it would mean that everything that happened in the last ten years was undone. Everything that happened - for everyone. All of Equestria. The entire world. The universe. All of existence.” She paused to take a deep breath. “I don’t have the right!”
Celestia calmly shook her head. “I don’t agree, Twilight. What about the timeline as it should have been? Doesn’t it have a right to exist as well? If anything, a greater right? And what about you? You were forcibly displaced from your own time, Twilight. Don’t you have a right to experience your life as it should have been?”
“I’m not that important!” Twilight insisted. “As far as you’ve told me, the entire situation was defused before anyone was harmed. There is no guarantee that it would turn out that way if I went back.”
Celestia pointed at the mark. “Remember, the mark stayed as the letterweight was displaced back in its original spot in the time stream. It follows that any mark left on you would also remain. You’d remember everything I told you, and everything else you can find out in this time line about Merrok, his spell and magic, to defeat him. It would simply be a matter of preparation.”
A chill went through Twilight’s spine all the way to the back of her head. Suddenly, she was back on the central plaza in Ponyville on that fateful day. She saw the crackling sky, and she felt the fear. Fear not just for herself, but everyone. She had been the centerpiece of Merrok’s plan. His preparation. Going back meant not just having to face him again; it meant giving him a second chance to succeed; to do whatever it was he had been planning to do with his amplified power.
Twilight blinked. She hadn’t heard Celestia talk about it, now that she thought about it. Perhaps that was because she’d been too busy pushing the memories out of her mind. Had she even told her about this? “Princess, have you by any chance found out just why Merrok was interested in me?”
Celestia shook her head, a bit puzzled at the apparently sudden change of topic. “Like I said, we never managed to wake him.”
It wasn’t easy for Twilight, agitated as she was, to delve back into her mind and tell Celestia the details of the confrontation, even though those memories were still fresh, but tell she did. Celestia was fascinated, having many of her ten-year-old questions answered. Though while Twilight knew what specific interest she held for Merrok as an amplifier for lion magic, she couldn’t relate anything about Merrok’s ultimate goals. There were so many uses for power, and then there were power-hungry souls who wanted to obtain as much as they could just for the sake of it.
“But whatever it is he wants, I’m part of it. If I go back, there’s a chance he might get it after all,” Twilight said firmly, “and if I don’t, there isn’t. It’s as simple as that.”
Celestia just looked at her for a few very long seconds, clearly thinking hard and carefully. Finally, she spoke. “Very well. It is, after all, your decision. If you change your mind, find me.”
“My decision?” Twilight repeated, stunned. Somehow, she had been holding onto the conviction that Celestia would decide for her after all.
“You were displaced out of your own time through no fault of your own. We have the means to undo that, and it’s your right to. It’s entirely up to you.”
Twilight shook her head. “But if I fail, the world will be a worse place for it, and I would be responsible.” She stood tall, and looked Celestia straight in the eye. “I can’t do it.”
Celestia looked back. There was a brief pause until she answered, calmly but firmly, not smiling, but with no trace of anger in her voice. “It will be the world as it was supposed to be, either way. Is there a risk that things could turn out for the worse if you decide to go back? Yes, of course. But they could turn out for the better, too, and it’s entirely up to you to decide what’s more likely, and more important. You’re allowed to be selfish. Think about it for as long as you have to, Twilight. Thinking is what separates courage from recklessness, and carefulness from cowardice.”
Twilight felt the sting in those words, even though Celestia made sure to show her deep affection in her expression while saying them. Her eyes turned towards the floor; it was impossible to untangle the knots in her heart in short order. On some level, she was angry at Celestia for dismissing what she had been adamant was her final decision on the matter - and she felt guilty, because she slowly realized her mentor had hit the nail on the head. Whenever she tried to weigh the options - whether or not she could in fact stop Merrok once she got back - she hit a wall. She didn’t want to go back. She was too scared. He was still a lion, with his fangs, standing much too close for anyone’s comfort, especially hers, threatening to eat her alive - and she’d still prefer to be eaten rather than allow him to use her like he planned.
And on the other hand, it didn’t seem like she had much reason to take any risk. Displaced out of her time or not - the future seemed decent enough. Her friends were all still there, and there was so much new to see and learn about - ten years worth of scientific progress and Daring Do books to catch up on. It would be a bit weird at first, sure, but all changes felt that way. She’d get used to it, wouldn’t she?
Celestia, joint ruler of all Equestria, couldn’t resist a chuckle as she watched her student lose herself in thought completely, right in the middle of her study. Twilight heard it and looked up, blushing and smiling nervously. “The matter is concluded for now, my dear student,” she declared in an affectionate tone. Then she suddenly broke eye contact and looked past Twilight’s shoulder, faking bemusement. “And I believe I heard a bit of commotion outside. Would you be kind enough to check that out for me?”
Puzzled, Twilight turned around. There was nothing whatsoever unusual about the door to the study, and no sound to be heard. But of course, she herself hadn’t been paying attention. If Celestia had said it, though … Either way, first she should obey proper etiquette in her departing. She turned back around and performed a deep bow. “Thank you, your Majesty.”
She felt a shoed hoof under her chin gently lift her back up, to find Celestia looking at her, shaking her head, with a kind smile on her face - and moist eyes. “Thank you, Twilight Sparkle.”
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GODDAMNIT YOU DON'T DO THE TAGS THING LIKE YOU SEE RETARDED PEOPLE DO ON YOUTUBE!
Now that we have that out of the way, nice fic!
I have to say I found all the logistics about time travel to be a bit difficult to understand, but then again that could just be me. Besides that, I really enjoyed this fic and I’m interested to see where it’s headed.
Interesting premise. Actually, scratch that. REALLY interesting premise. A time travel story not involving Terrible Tragedy and being required to be changed back to What It Should Have Been is really novel. I completely agree with Twilight. It seems unwise to meddle with the time-stream; not the least before the full tale of the last ten years is told. If it ain't broke...
Now, there might be an arguement that Twilight could cram her her with as much information of future events that she can effectively be a metaphorical walkthrough for a Perfect Ending for the next ten years (i.e. knowing when crisis pop up and how they were resolved), though, of course, that has the same risk as going back to fight Merrok, to varying extents. You are trading a future that, at first blush, seems pretty okay for a more uncertain one, as you don't know how much Twilight's presense might alter the time stream, or how much temporal inertia is in effect (i.e. the tendancy of events to broadly happen regardless, but in differing ways. A loose example would be in Command & Conquer Red Alert, wherein Albert Einstein erased Hilter to prevent WW2, but they essentially got a world war anyway, just between slightly different sides.)
Certainly, before the decision would be made, you would want to have a very thorough breifing on the events of the previous ten years before you could make and informed decision. And even then, I agree with Twilight; I'm not sure she does have the right to risk a stable and (hopefully happy) future just for herself; but of course, we still don't know the full picture.
Please continue, I am very much interested in seeing where this goes, especially if you keep on the path seldom trodden.
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I am terrible about keeping on top of stories I haven't finished - which is why you'll be delighted to hear that I HAVE finished this particular story already. All that remains is editing. Stay tuned!
I really don't want to spoil anything coming up, so I'll have to bite my tongue. I'm glad you're enthusiastic about the premise - naturally, I was, too, or this wouldn't exist!
(@yitz, the magic babble - yes, I plead guilty - is much less heavy in the later chapters. Hope you'll enjoy the rest, too!)
Pretty intriguing premise. Looking forward to more
I think you broke my brain.
Well that was difficult to understand but I think I got it in the end. Loved this so far so im gona keep reading, looking forward to see how this turns out.
Hmm. Twilight might not even need to do any extra research to take care of Merrok. Think about it: he throws his specially-prepared, carefully-crafted spell at Twilight, and it fails utterly. No discernible reason, it just doesn't work. That would undoubtedly throw him off long enough for Twilight to get some hits in.
But on another hoof... what if he prepared for his spell not working, and this is part of a trap?
I have to disagree with Celestia and say that she doesn't understand causation. Everything leading up the the time displacement was based on cause and effect -- the way the universe was meant to be. And all the displacement spell did was take Twilight out of phase with reality and return her in phase once a certain amount of time was up (or physically moved her forward... somehow). In other words, logically, the current timeline is the correct timeline. There is no paradox; no reason for confusion or uncertainty; everything happened as it would have happened. So if Twilight chooses to go back, then everything still happens as it happens. There is no logical conundrum. There is, however, a moral one.
No matter how you look at it, going back in time and erasing the future is mass-murder. Death is the ceasation of self; the decay of a person into something that is not a person; Brain cells splitting into their component parts, spreading throughout the world; spreading throughout the universe; something thinking into something not.
Twilight made the right decision in my eyes.
Hoof