Off on a Tangent

“And then you woke up,” Rose said.

Lyra nodded, contemplating the glass orb held in her hoof. “Then I woke up, and ran to Twilight’s place to put it into a memory orb before I forgot it. I’ve been replaying it ever since.”

Rose cringed. “Why? It sounds horrible!”

“I don’t usually have nightmares that detailed,” Lyra said. “And… and I just don’t know. The setup, with Twilight and the time travel spell? That actually happened. Except that she did remember me going back in time, and giving her a memory orb that helped her with her math. She told me afterwards that she sent me back with the same orb just to keep the loop stable – she wasn’t going to finish her work in time for the Equinox, but it wasn’t worth risking a tear in the fate web. Apparently the math wasn’t working out like she’d hoped, and messing around with unstable loops was looking way too risky.”

“So you had a nightmare about what might have happened,” Rose said.

“Or else the memory of my time-clone returned to me once the loop was finished,” Lyra said. “I was the only pony who touched the real time-line, right?”

Rose laughed. “Lyra… it was a nightmare. You weren’t even acting like yourself. Murdering somepony just because he asked you to? That sort of thing only happens in dreams.”

Lyra looked down. “I just can’t stop thinking about it.”

There was a clack, as Rose took the memory orb in her teeth, and dropped it into a drawer behind the counter, which she slammed shut. “There,” she said. “Now you can stop thinking about it. So are you going to buy any flowers, or are you just here to brighten my day with tales of adventure?”

Lyra leaned into the bouquet on display, and took a long sniff. She let out a content sigh. “Yes. Give me the flowers. All the flowers.”