It has been 5 years since Twilight fist became an alicorn princess. On one of her regular visits to the SSTB wing of the library, she found that not only is it missing, but no one else but Celestial, Luna, Discord, and herself remember it being there in the first place. Also, for some reason Twilight had an unnatural craving for chocolate milk. So after consulting with the other princesses and Discord they come to the conclusion that somehow SSTB's life had been erased from history. So with the combination of the elements, the princesses raw magical power, and Discord they manage to send Twilight roughly "X" years back in time in a giant flash of blue light and a sound that could only be described as an elephant with a breathing problem.
Twilight materialized in a bright flash of blue light. She lay unconscious at the center of a small pony sized crater neer an earth pony settlement. More specifically, just a few hundred feet away from a local farm which was on the verge of harvest. As a few hours past she slowly awoke from a strange dream. After looking around to get her bearings she gathered her thoughts and made a mental checklist to get through her ordeal. After an awkward misunderstanding and a lot of shunning, there was one pony who showed some decency. A modest pony who turned out to be the daughter of the chancellors trusted advisor. She let twilight stay in her shed for the night and fed her enough to sustain her in the morning twilight heads out with a few spare rations that the earth pony could spare as well as a rough map of the pony territories. After a few days of barely scraping by on anything a stranger would spare for a cloaked and hooded pony she finally got out of earth pony soil and entered into Pegasus territory. After being confronted by multiple Pegasus scouts patrolling the area they discovered she was a unicorn and took her to be interrogated by the commander. The commander then decided to delegate the task to a lower ranking officer. The interrogator didn't seem as harsh as she should have. In fact she was almost timid. The thing that stuck out the most was the way she always seemed uncomfortable about being harsh. Like she had never done anything like this before. By the end of an awkward interrogation, the Pegasus decided to let twilight go on her way, but not before sneaking twilight her own daily ration of food saying that she needed it more than they did. So after a few days of carefully treading across Pegasus territory with a few close calls in the under developed land wilderness under the Pegasus cloud bases twilight finally made it to (according to her map) the unicorn kingdom. As she past the boarder she could feel a magical aura in the air almost like a thin mist. As she pressed on she notice the distinct lack of danger/aversive ponies. Just a path that got better worn down, and more distinguished as she pressed on. Eventually the dirt road became boarded by fence, then short stone walls. As well as the path itself went from pure dirt, to scattered stone path, to layered brick. It was a great indicator of civilization. And as the path got better, so did her surroundings. She started to see the occasional hut along with some gaurd towers on the horizon. When she approached the towers she was halted, but after showing she was a unicorn they let her pass without trouble. After making her way into a fortified village she made her way to the market place. After exchanging a few favors she was able to get something to eat. Now that she was in a safe place she got to a quiet area to think. She made another mental checklist she set out in search of a library to do some proper research. After a few hours of asking around and reading what she could she found it to still be the pre-clasical era. More specifically, about a year before the events of HWE so after traveling all around the unicorn kingdom all the while trying to lock onto any particularly large nodes of unicorn magic. After a few days of this she was exhausted physically, mentally, and magically. Currently she was staying at a local inn and paying her way in magical favors ranging from lifting large objects to handling intricate devices. Once she even helped out a senile miner looking for gems. Eventually she decided to just stay in oneO place after finding a slight rise in the magical activity of one particular village. After further investigation she found out that SS lived in a secluded tower somewhere outside the village and that he never gives any specific detail when he does come to town. He merely comes, buys supplies, then goes. So twilight then decided to simply wait for his next visit and pass the time by doing several activities such as odd jobs and reading
In the past, Twilight uses a Background Pony spell and a brown cloak to hide her identity, and sneak around unnoticed by the average pony. SSRB though isn't the average pony. Especially when he's in his prime of about 35. He could practically smell Twilight's magic from a mile away. He was interested by this new unicorn with such great power and even greater potential. After a couple of hours with this mysterious purple mare still trying to sneak around he decided to approach her. Naturally, Twilight was expecting to spend quite a wile before even finding SS let alone approach him. So imagine her surprise when she was approached by the focus of her search, while in camouflage.
After the initial introductions twilight got a bit nervous about sharing details with star swirl. Even being the genius that he is, she doubted even he could take in what she had to say. Eventually she decided the best course of action would be to question SS first to get her bearings on when and where she was. As it turned out she had shown up roughly a year before the events of hearths warming Eve. Tensions between the 3 pony tribes were just starting to boil over. More to the point SS has just recently been recognized for his research in magical theory, and a few dozen spells he has either invented or are still in their research stages not yet discovered. One of these proto-spells happened to be focused on te expansion of the teleportation spell in order to travel through time as well as space. So after a few moments of careful thought, twilight asked one final question "Have you ever heard of Clover the Cleaver?" SS answered no and went on a brief tangent of self murmurs to try to double check his memory. It was also a time of recollection for twilight thinking back to the countless hysterical documents she's read on SS and realized that they talk about him gaining CTC as an apprentice shortly after he gets recognized as an accomplished mage. Twilight's thoughts were going to fast to keep track. So once SS ended his tangent, concluding with a simple "no, sorry. Who is she?" Twilight said "Oh well, um, me actually." Twilight lied not knowing what else she could do, hoping she didn't just mess up the fabric of time. "I have been trying to find you in the hopes that you might consider taking me as an apprentice in the study of magic." After what seemed like an eternity of SS thinking, he said "hmm. You do seem to have quite a lot of potential, And I could use all the help I can get to keep up with all the other big name mages. So how about we go back to my tower and discuss the matter." Back at the tower SS started to ramble on about how he's never invited another pony into his home before, and how everything has a place and what some people might think of as a mess he states is just his way of organization. Of course his breath was wasted as twilight had a very different opinion in the matter of true organization that she intended to share with him later. She watched her step, careful to not destroyed any important tools or artifacts. She was amazed to see that she recognized some of the instruments as museum prices. That made her even more cautious. By the end of the tour they reach a small room.
