All The Time In The World
Chapter 1: Over And Over Again
The alarm clock rang its annoying ring that jarred Twilight out of her dreams. Each rattle of the hammer struck either bell on the clock’s top like a wrecking ball smashing a wall, and made Twilight wince.
After unsuccessfully attacking the clock with a hoof to turn off the annoying ringing, Twilight settled for throwing the it against the wall to quiet the ear wrenching clattering.
Twilight smacked her parched lips together, swirling her tongue around in her mouth to produce some saliva for the arid desert that was her mouth, and struggled to get her eyes open. Her lids felt like lead weights fighting to drag her down and drown her back in the cool waters of sleep once more, but with great struggle she managed to keep them peeled. Quickly, she hopped out of bed.
“Ugh… I knew that late night study session was a bad idea,” Twilight mumbled weakly to herself, and trudged towards the bathroom adjacent her room, while all along the way stumbling about.
Books laid disorganized around the bed, creating huge piles of hazardous objects for the unwitting to dodge through while only half awake.
Fortunately, Twilight managed to avoid the worst of these obstacles on her way for the bathroom doors. Unfortunately for her, the last obstacle, in the form of her assistant Spike, spelled her certain downfall, quite literally, after she tripped over him with both forelegs.
“Wah!” Twilight tumbled forward into a heap.
Lifting her face up from an open tome, one that filled her nostrils with the scent of old ink and parchment, Twilight drearily asked, “Spike, why are you sleeping there?”
Spike seemed to grumble back at her. “Because this is where you placed my basket,” he replied, and attempted to push her off of himself, seeing how Twilight had upturned his sleeping quarters. “A better question is why are you tripping over me?”
Twilight rolled her eyes, still sprawled on the ground, and gestured a hoof towards her destination. “Because you were in the way to the bathroom?”
Spike rubbed one eye with a claw; he stared at Twilight, then at door she had been trying to reach. “Twilight, that’s the closet,” Spike said, pointing towards the nearby door. “That’s the bathroom.” His other claw pointed towards the opposite end of the spacious room, towards one beside the hallway exit.
Twilight blinked, still frowning, then got up and scratched the top of her mane in an embarrassed fashion. “Oh yeah… Heh, sorry about that Spike. Guess I’m still not used to the castle rooms.”
“It’s what I’m here for,” Spike replied in a snarky, half-hearted tone. He then threw himself back in his basket, his blanket following suit to shroud himself in its snuggly warmness. “If you need to know where the exit is, too, I’ll be happy to point that out as well.”
Twilight frowned sourly, but didn’t turn around. While she wanted to chide him on his snarkiness, she supposed she was the one who had woken him up in such an unconventional manner. Plus, Spike could get a bit grumpy when he didn’t get enough sleep. Just like her, really.
Entering the bathroom, Twilight set about and quickly completed her morning rituals. They hadn’t changed much since her days in the library, in fact. Other than her new wings, which added a couple of minutes in preparation to get them straightened and proper looking they were the same. If Twilight had known so much effort had to be put into maintaining one’s wings, she almost would have thought about opting out on them. In her mind, they were basically an extra mane to take care of; and there was two of them!
Not like she could exactly complain, since she was one of the few ponies in Equestria that had both wings and a horn. So, she just got used to them, such as learning to sleep on her stomach instead of her back—if you thought falling asleep on an arm was bad, just wait until you wake up with an asleep wing—and went about her daily business with two extra appendages. But, oh, did those extra appendages mean extra duties.
With a final stroke of the toothbrush and a spit in the sink, Twilight was done with her preparations. Looking in the mirror, she saw her face. It looked the same as usual, with the only clue of her royal title being her wings. Really, if she wanted to, she could lean down and they wouldn’t even be visible. Just regular, old Twilight, before the princess ascension and all her duties.
It was a nice consideration, but eventually, she’d have to stand up, look at her wings, and remember who she was, and what she had to do.
“Twilight, are you done in there?” Spike called out loudly, followed by further knocking of the bathroom door. “We got a busy day ahead of us!”
Twilight straightened her back out, held her head up high with her chest out and wings folding tightly against her sides, then walked out of the bathroom. “Wasn’t I the one who was rushing you before, Spike?” Twilight joked with her young assistant.
Spike tapped his foot impatiently in response. “Yeah, and now the tables have turned.” Spike unscrolled the parchment held in his claws, the paper nearly reaching the floor. Licking the end of the quill he was carrying around, he began jotting erratically on the page. “Let’s see… got the morning routine done. Now we move onto breakfast and then the rest of the day’s events, starting with a brunch with the gryphon nobles.”
“Wait, I have a breakfast and brunch?” Twilight asked.
Spike shrugged, already out the door side by side and struggling to keep up with Twilight’s pace. “Yeah, looks like second-breakfast to me, so don’t eat much at first-breakfast.”
Twilight furrowed her brow in exasperation, but continued to listen to her assistant.
“On top of that is a charity speech in Canterlot,” Spike went on. “Some tariff regulations that need to be discussed with the noble court are after that, and then we have tea with the girls.”
Twilight felt her muscles ache upon just hearing Spike’s list. “Is that it?”
Shaking his head, Spike unrolled even more of the list. “Nah, that’s just the stuff we need to get done with before this afternoon. Evening is where things really pick up.”
Sighing, Twilight increased her trot to a small gait, willing the day to end sooner if she moved faster. “Well, we might as well as get started then.”
Twilight could barely stand; her legs were unresponsive, and her hooves felt like they had trotted over broken cobblestones for miles on end. All she could manage to do was the painstaking effort of dragging her broken form to an armchair and hefting herself upon its comforting hold.
After feeling her muscles settle from red-hot to icy-cool upon contact with the cushions, Twilight allowed herself a momentary drooping of her eyes and quick doze. The long hassle of her day had been unbearable, and she felt like she had just finished climbing a mountain. She was finally getting a five minute breather.
Unfortunately for Twilight, she wasn’t even allowed a one minute one. Spike was poking her side in an ever increasing repetition, until Twilight cracked open an eyelid and hissed, “What?”
“Twilight, it’s only twelve o’clock. We still have a busy day ahead of us,” Spike reminded her, shrinking back from her resentful glare behind his list. “And I know how much you hate getting behind schedule and want to be on time with everything and—”
“Yes, Spike, I know,” Twilight replied, her tone now less spiteful. “I just can’t believe how slow this day is going. I feel like the seconds are ticking by like hours and that the sun isn’t sinking any lower in the sky no matter how long I wait!”
“Technically, it’s still rising in the sky,” Spike pointed out.
“I know!” Twilight groaned and shoved her face into a cushion, wishing she could rest there for the remainder of the day instead of reporting to her next duty. “If only there was a way for time to move faster…”
“Well, it’s already going as fast as it can. Anyway, I don’t think I could handle much more,” Spike said, glancing down fearfully at his list. He noticed that tea time with the girls was only in another three minutes, but he was hesitant to remind Twilight of that, especially since her left eye had begun twitching uncontrollably.
“You’re right, Spike… Faster isn’t the answer.” Twilight scrunched her eyebrows, humming under her breath. Making the day move faster would only succeed in making her more tired at a quicker pace. Not much of an improvement, that’s for sure. But if there was a way for time to move slower. Maybe even… “Stop time altogether,” Twilight spoke quietly, and with bated breath.
“What did you say, Twilight?” Spike asked. His friend had that strange look on her face. A look that often spelled trouble, like the time she had attempted to enhance her cooking with magic, which resulted in a flying spaghetti monster running amok in the kitchen.
“Spike, tell the girls I’ll be at tea in a little while,” Twilight proclaimed. Without so much as another word to Spike, she was off, and running out the room down corridors of the castle in a long stride.
Spike continued to stand there in the room, alone, then glanced down at his list and checked off the box ‘Twilight finally snaps’ with a quick checkmark. “Wow, looks like we actually are ahead of schedule,” he remarked.
Elsewhere, Twilight spirited down the halls on eager hooves with a bright and shining smile on her face that oozed excitement. “I can’t believe I never thought of this before!” She laughed excitingly. “A way to get more time! Brilliant! Now I’ll never have to worry about late night studying sessions keeping me from sleep or even dozing off during diplomat meetings. Heck, I’ll finally be able to kick back and enjoy a good book for once! This is the best idea I have ever had!”
Twilight’s speedy run down the halls of the castle abruptly stopped, as a sudden realization hit her like she had just run headfirst into a brick wall. “Actually, now that I think about it, teleporting to where I want to go instead of running all the way there is a much better idea.”
In a bright flash of light, Twilight reappeared in the vast forest of tomes and dusty shelves that made up the Starswirl the Bearded section of the Canterlot library. She had already gotten very well acquainted with it the night she decided to travel back in time to warn herself not to go back in time, thus creating a never ending paradox of her going back in time to continue warning herself to never warn herself. She didn’t like thinking about the implications her little stunt could have on the spacetime continuum, but hey, she decided, might as well as try another go at timetravel.
Walking down the shelves where many an ancient book, laden heavy parchment, sat side by side with scrolls so old they looked ready to fall to dust just by looking at them, Twilight quietly rattled off the names of the different shelf sections.
“Past time travel... future time travel... time paradoxes… time conundrums... ways to make sure you don’t accidentally kill your past selves... don’t kill the bad guys in the past... and… Ah, found it!” Twilight stopped and stared in wonder at the section she just reached. “Time pausing!” she cried out.
After hefting the massive book from its high shelf, Twilight laid it out on the floor and rapidly flipped through the pages right away. “If Starswirl was able to master the art of traveling to and from time in both the past and future, I’m sure he would have a spell that can actually pause time itself. Now, all I need to do is find it.”
Twilight spent a good several minutes searching for the particular spell the book was entitled to contain, all while flipping quickly through pages and skimming their content with a trained eye. She wasn’t disappointed, for in the middle of the tome the spell was printed out clearly, and with everything literally spelled out on how to complete it.
“Let’s see…” Twilight murmured, running the tip of her hoof down the words scrawled on the pages. “It seems time pausing is a delicate business. Rather than pause time, it pulls the spell’s caster out of the normal flow of time, making it appear time has stilled around them when really they have been stilled by time... Huh, more complex than I thought.”
Smirking, Twilight’s horn glowed as she hungrily memorized the spell’s specifications for casting. “But nothing I haven’t handled before!” Her hooves clopped together in front her, all while she giggled happily in excitement.
Building up more magical energies into her horn, Twilight concocted a spell that would be difficult for even the most experienced unicorn. Then again, Twilight was an alicorn, changing the spell from a tedious climb up a mountain to more of a chill trudge up a particularly large hill. Plus, the vast plethora of magic she had at her command now that she was upgraded to alicorn status, meant she wouldn’t even be that tuckered out after finishing.
Usually when she finished off, she was completely beat afterwards.
The spell’s build up was near completion; squinting her eyes almost to closing, Twilight released the spell in one, massive burst of magic. In a great flourish of lights and ambient wind from some unknown source, the entire world seemed to shimmer in a wave of heat.
Nothing could be made out from behind the disturbance of air particles. This only lasted for a few seconds, however, before everything returned to normal..
Blinking, Twilight waved her hoof in front of herself, coughing a little. “Did it work?” she asked doubtfully, noticing no change in her surroundings or appearance. She looked all around, but everything was the same as before.
Shrugging, Twilight made her way to a window by the wall, and looked out. Below her were the courtyards which led to the castle gardens. She could see a squad of guards down there, looking for a split second as though they were patrolling the grounds.
They didn’t appear to be moving. In fact, they didn’t look as though they were doing anything at all. Every stallion and mare in the squad had stopped in mid-stride like a statue.
Looking up, Twilight noticed that there wasn’t a single cloud moving in the sky, either; every single one was just hanging aimlessly in the air, along with a flock of birds that hung like paintings on a ceiling rather than living things.
“It did work!” Twilight didn’t think she could be anymore excited, and revelled in the thrill of getting to do something out of the ordinary. Rubbing her hooves together in glee, and smiling wickedly, she asked herself, “Well, I wonder what I should do now?”
Twilight slowly turned around, and rested her eyes on the tremendous amount of literature and books, literally all around her. Her mouth opened by just the barest hint of an inch. She was struck by a sudden urge… to fall in a nearby armchair and take a long nap.
“Okay, finished brushing up on minotaur yarn spinning history circa 500-650 B.D.—Before Discord.” Twilight clapped her hooves together and shoved another book off her table, then reached for another from the towering stack beside her. “Now time to read about the diamond dog insurgency in the rainbow lands and the great wars over leprechaun gold, and then move onto the gryphon civil war between the turkey and geese clans!”
From the look of the high stacks of books on either side, Twilight had spent her time in still-time doing what she loved most: reading, studying, and most importantly, learning. She was finally able to enjoy her favorite hobby again, even after all the stress and work her new princess title had brought. For once in a long while, she believed she was just a regular unicorn again, staying by herself and reading all by her lonesome, just like she used to.
Pausing in her methodical scan of her current book, Twilight looked up at the clock. Still not a single tick or tock had come from it. She could only guess she had been busy reading for several hours, because her eyes had begun to grow strained and heavy. Yawning, she set down her new book for a moment’s rest.
“Man, no time on your hooves sure gives you plenty to do,” Twilight realized, rubbing her eyes. She cracked her neck, which had become sore from looking over a book for so long, and muttered, “Might as well as quit the spell for now and try it again at another opportunity.”
Twilight began to light up her horn, suppressing another yawn, then froze. The magic faded slowly.
Blinking, she realized she had never discovered a reverse function of the spell in the book. “Hah,” she laughed. “Silly me, guess I overlooked that…” Shrugging, she nonchalantly made her way back to the shelf section where she had found the book for the spell.
Arriving at the spot, and picking up the book in her magical grip, Twilight flipped through a couple of pages until she arrived at the one she had left off on. “Okay, let’s see if there’s anything about a reverse spell...”
Twilight’s eyes went wide.
“No,” she breathed, opening to the next page immediately after the one she was just on. There was nothing but a few ripped pieces of paper still attached to the book’s spine, but no page. It was gone. “No, no, no, no, no!” she began repeating, and set the book down to furiously flip the pages back and forth with her magic.
Twilight collapsed and slapped her hooves over her head. “This can’t be happening! Why would anypony do this?”
Twilight gulped, and flipped all the pages of the book again, scrutinizing every paragraph, sentence and word. Despite the effort, there was still not a scrap of information about reversing the still-time effect. Frustrated, she decided to activate the previous spell again in hopes of making time move once again.
Twilight stood, huffing out an angry breath, and began the spell’s preparation quickly. Before long, it was finished.
The air shimmered like before and magic filled the room, but lasted for much less time and seemed to dissipate immediately.
Twilight waited, but nothing seemed to happen. She looked at the clock on the near wall, but it still hadn’t moved an inch.
“No, it has to work!” Twilight demanded, and immediately set about redoing the spell again. Once more, magic exploded out, but in a diminished way. Nothing else happened. Looking back up at the clock, neither hand made any indication of moving, a clear sign she was still stuck in the same moment.
“Please… no,” Twilight panted, having over-spent her strength with the repeated spells in such a short amount of time. Squinting her eyes hard, she held back bitter tears and whispered, “There has to be a way to return back to real time. There’s… there’s just got to be. I know there is.”
Twilight looked up, to the endless sea of scrolls and parchment paper that contained within them all the knowledge of time-travel and manipulation ever collected. “I can find a way,” Twilight said. Picking herself up, she pulled out a scroll next to her, the first of several thousands, and opened it up. “There’s just got to be a spell that will bring me back. It’s in here somewhere. And I will find it, no matter what.”
Well, she certainly got her wish. A wish that turned from a quiet moment to relax and read a good book, just like she used to, to a horrible nightmare. But a nightmare that didn’t have to last forever. She does have all the time in the world, after all. At least she was doing what she loved the most.
Hopefully just not forever.