The Medieval Ages

---In Ponyville---

Pearl Rain had moved past the death of her son, who might be an immortal spirit. The parting gift he gave her turned into a necklace at some point, so she wore it everywhere she went.

One day, as she was returning a book to Twilight, she saw a book that had a picture of a heart that looked as if it were made of the same thing as her fireball.

"Twilight? What is this?" she asked, her heart racing with imagined possibilities.

"Oh? I'm not sure, but you can check it out if you'd like," she responded quickly, preoccupied with her scheduling to think about it.

So Pearl Rain took the book home, and started reading about the centerpiece of the crystal pony society- the crystal heart...

---Present---

"What do you mean? Care to explain why I'm here and not wherever you are supposed to take me? Why I have this?" I cried out, pointing to the knife.

"Something nobody believed could happen. You denied the laws of your universe, and created your own. Since you are no longer bound to any one universe, we couldn't even touch you. Boss said to send you here. No one  knows why, and it was tough to get you through, but here we are. I still can't believe that one spirit managed to sever its ties to reality the way you have. You friend here, he was like you too, only he didn't completely make the cut. He only has some of his memories, and they too will be gone at the end of his current life. Don't be jealous, but he will move on normally," the cloaked figure explained, leaving me more angry, but with nothing to direct it at anymore.

"Hmph. Angry at nothing specific huh? I'd suggest finding somewhere to hone your skills as well as grow a little. I'll just leave you with this: don't use magic to hold a form for much longer than two days- it can mess you up," he said, and left my mind the same way he came in- silently.

What i didn't expect was for me to black out upon reentering my body. I woke up some time later in a daycare of some sort. My black and red cloak had... Shrunk?

"Wha?" I exclaimed as I realized what had happened. I reverted back into my regular physical form- an infant. It would appear that I'd arrived recently, as nopony was flipping out over my cutie mark, and it was still covered.

In fact, I could see Starswirl walking out. I transformed back into the older me and quickly realized what the reaper man was talking about. I could feel a small pressure, and could barely tell that it was increasing ever so slightly. I felt like I could take on a lot of that pressure, but for now I'll just take his advice. I reverted back again and flew over to the pony who thought it must have been funny to leave me there.

"Real funny Einstein. Leave somebody like me here, why don't you?" I said as I flew myself over to him. "What did he tell you?"

"Nothing much. Just that you needed to grow out. What will you do?" he asked, trying hard to conceal a smirk.

"I don't know yet. Maybe just haul ass to some mountain and train. After that, well I don't really know," I replied, ignoring his mirth.

We talked for a while, walking back through town to the library. There must have been some party out here, because there were ponies passed out all over the place.

After some while I finally decided that I should go the mountains or somewhere similarly remote and just build myself up. Partially because being an infant limits me, and also because I didn't want to rely on my magic abilities too much.

"Well, I'll be going... That guy must have some wisdom in him after all. Gotta go out and see the world after all. So many possibilities available in a new world."

"As long as you enjoy yourself. And be careful about using your full abilities. When you turned into a foal again, well I'd be surprised if anypony with magical talent in 3 miles couldn't feel  the burst of released energy. I have never even sensed a magic like that. But before you go, would you mind joining me for a drink?"

"Bwahaha! With a little foal tagging along? You must be joking!" I cried, my sides almost hurting from the laughter.

He laughed too and said, "I was thinking back at my place."

"He he! Not the library I take it?"

"Not quite. It is in the library, but deeper than where you went."

I agreed that a nice drink would do me good. I started to smile even when I realized that I was making a friend. And somehow, it hurt. It hurt to have a friend, to trust someone, even a little. I know he saw it when I started to pretend to smile and laugh, but he didn't press on.

When we got back in the library, Starswirl casted a unique spell- it called down some clouds from the pegasus section and formed a door and key. When it opened, it lead to a house.

"Pocket dimension," he stated as I gaped around. "Clouds infused with magic are good for widening the opening, and once you're in you can make something resembling a lock, and a key spell will open it. With enough magic and some luck, you can even bind the pocket to an object!"

He continued on, and a few hours later I found myself on a couch with a bottle of fine wine talking about the possibilities of using pocket dimensions.

"You know, it's a good thing you're the only one with access to this place. Ha ha! Imagine if somebody caught us like this!" I cried, and we shared a laugh.

"Starswirl, why is there an infant with a bottle of wine on you couch?" asked a familiar female voice from behind the chair I was in.

"Hey crazy lady! *Hic*," I called out, setting the bottle down and turning to see who was interrupting the party, when I met the face of Celestia.

"Hoo hoo! This should be fun!"

"H-how old are you young colt?" She stammered, clearly not expecting a capable infant.

"Well Celestia, I think I'm about four or five days old. Well, if you count the last one, that's another couple months, and before that about 17 years. Ooh *Hic*! And if you count the amount of centuries i've travelled then i must be like 6 or 7 hundred years!"

"..."

"Ooh! I have consciously aged 18 years *hic*! Happy adulthood!" I cried out, laughing along with Starswirl.

"Oh stop it the both of you!" Celestia exclaimed and then blasted a spell that sobered us up so fast we fell over.

“Booo. She’s no fun, is she Starswirl?”

“While I shouldn't be surprised that you speak English, I figure it’s only natural. And she is being an extra party pooper today. Wait. Have you seen her in a previous life set in the relative future?”

“Yes. Sadly, only for a couple of months, Why?” I asked.

“You should just be careful. Who knows how she would react? She is a ruler with supreme power…” Starswirl replied.

“Yeah, yeah, but if she did do something, I’d rather like to just die again. Maybe I’d be back in the time period I left…” I though aloud, leaving Starswirl with a wistful and sympathizing expression, and Celestia actually sitting down with a confused look on her face.

“Well, I think I’ll leave for the everfree forest. Goodbye Starswirl. Study hard and be the best at magic.”

“What the- oh. Closest thing to the old home huh?”

“Yeah. Well I don’t feel like dealing with you today your majesty, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m leaving.”

Apparently, Celestia wasn't satisfied with that, and decided to leap into my mindscape. Her mistake.

“GET. OUT.” I stated as she just stood there. Unsurprisingly, her mental form was identical to her real one. She proceeded to sit there with her mouth agape. “Fine. Sit there. Looks like I've got a few minutes to do something I’I've needed to for a long time now.” I then proceeded to conjure up a fresh green meadow with a couple hills. The sky was still that vast collection of space, but now it more resembled the night sky with all its points of light. Just for fun, I made a Tardis the center of the whole field, only it was midnight purple (favorite color) instead of blue. Inside it, I made a basic room with three walls, and made a table upon which to set my memories and the knife. Upon exiting to the field again, Celestia was now sitting down again staring at the “sky” that was above us.

“..I will leave, but I must first know. Why so empty? Why did your mind have nothing in it?” She hesitated like she wanted to say something more, but I didn't give her the chance.

“Let it be known that if you ever do this again, then so help me god I will find a way to send you to the moon with your sister.” Slapping her across the face with just enough force to prove I had bounds more strength but just gave her a small cut. “Do you want to know what happened to the last pony who barged into my head?” I asked, feeling my anger surge at me. I displayed the memory of the murderer across the sky, and smiled at her shocked expression. “Now, before you leave, I believe you had something you wanted to say?”

“... *Gulp* Are… Are you Sky Gear? You’re all across history! You need to-“

“STOP. I don’t care. At the very least, I want my lives to be surprising, for better or worse. I could tell you how your sister fares in the future, or maybe about a certain special pony you meet. But I won’t because that would ruin the surprise, and make you live centuries for nothing. Be happy that your life is linear to time. You already know where I am going. Don’t come after me unless you have something damn important to tell me about the present, or I will find a way to send you to Tartarus or something.” After saying that, I left my mindscape, and left her majesty to sit there ogling at the scratch I gave her.

I flew high into the sky and eventually found the everfree forest. It was much larger than I had suspected it to be, and even had its own mountain. Once there, I headed for the ruins of a castle and started what would turn into years of the same day over and over again.