The library had been silent for minutes, before distant laughter from outside disturbed my concentration. I had managed to convince Spike to play with the Crusaders for the afternoon. Not that I don't like his company, but he can be a bit distracting when I play. Apart from that, my opponent tried to avoid running into Spike. I could understand.
My opponent, that was the familar, young mare sitting across the board. She had her eyes closed and seemed relaxed, if somewhat bored. With a small grin, she spoke: "You should stop thinking about me and get back to the game. But don't think about it too hard, it's going to be a bad move anyway."
I was about to protest her taunt, but kept silent. She certainly knew what she was doing. Instead, I looked at the board again and surveyed the part, where White had played her last move. When the game had started, we had taken turns in occupying the star points with black and white stones in a symmetrical fashion. With the ninth move, I had broken the symmetry and taken the center star. She had responded by strengthening her position in the lower left corner.
I was not willing to give up the corner just yet, so I decided to threaten to cut her group and placed my stone. She did have the upper hand, however, and made use of it. I could not take the whole corner, that would have been too daunting at my skill level. But after an exchange of around two dozens moves, I had succeeded to take half of it. We could both connect our groups to the territories on the respective sides, so the battle for the corner seemed to be decided for now.
I leaned back to take a broader look at the board. We were on fairly equal standing, both controlling roughly the same area of the board. The sole exception was the center star, currently occupied by me. But I knew White would not bother with it for now. A common saying was, that the middle of the board was made of hay. Tempting, but bland and not worth anything. The corners and sides could secure or blunder a victory.
Taking a sip from her tea cup, White instead barely looked at the board before placing her stone deep inside my territory on the opposite side of the board. A bold move, I was sure of it. Unfortunately I could not see the tactial advantage of it. And if didn't see it, nor did she. She was just playing by memory. I scrunched my face, thinking hard about that move. If I did not respond to it properly, it could cost me a lot of territory.
The library fell silent again, as I thought and thought and thought. For minutes, the only movement was when White levitated her tea cup again to take a sip. Eventually, she let out a small sigh and spoke again.
"It should be any minute now."
"What? What do you mean?"
"The game. It will begin properly any minute now. With the addition of another player."
"I don't understand. There can be only two players, Black and White. And who would that third player be anyway?"
"Oh, you will know. After all, I just told you, didn't I?"
"Yes, but just telling me doesn't cause me to..." I trailed off, thinking about the implications. Of course she was right. Of course she told me. Of course telling me will eventually cause me to tell her. I should have thought sooner about how I could exploit this predetermism. She certainly did exploit it to the fullest extent. She had no choice actually. This match must have been really boring for her, knowing every move in advance. Suddenly, the whole idea did not seem appealing anymore. But I still wanted to win. Maybe if I just had the same advantage, this would actually be a fair match. I knew what I had to to. It was obvious, really. And the rules never said anything about getting help from yourself. Or at least, some version of yourself.
I looked at White and tried to read her expression. She looked a bit amused, slighty annoyed and overall fairly bored. If she knew what I was about to do, she didn't show. Well, she did know. I knew she knew. And she knew I knew she knew. Setting recursive thoughts aside, I stood up and turned towards the empty space in the room. I gathered up magic for a few seconds, channeling the energy into the summon spell. Should a year be enough? Better two, giving me enough time to forgive myself, if things went sourly.
With a pop, a pony appeared in the empty spot, facing me directly. I looked into my own face, only older. Lavender coat, purple and violet mane, a crown sitting on the head behind the horn, feathered wings-
"Wings?!" I slumped back on my haunches and stared at the alicorn before me. She smiled at me like you would smile at a foal, then turned her head.
"Hello, White."
"Princess." White nodded as she spoke, not surprised in the slightest. Well, of course not.
"But- I'm not- What- HOW?!" I stammered, my eyes still fixed on the pair of wings on the back of the alicorn. The 'princess' took a step towards the table and levitated the tea pot.
"I'll just pour myself a cup. I know you're not in the mind for etiquette."
"Just how are you an alicorn?! And what is this about calling yourself Princess?"
"Oh, it's rather simple, really. You have to bugger Celestia about it for a while and she'll make you an alicorn. It's just that nopony ever has the guts to ask her outright. I heard a rumor from Shining Armor, that with Cadence a minor case of 'liquid persuasion' was involved. Granny Smith makes the good stuff. No word to Applebloom about that, though. We don't want to mess with the very curious process of how a filly get's her cutie mark in distillation."
"And how did you know to ask-" I began, then realized, then trailed off, then fought against a rising headache. "Oh, right. You told me just now." I buried my head between my forelegs, groaning in the process. "This was a terrible idea."
"On the contrary, my dear. You won't believe the benefits of being a princess. Now that I think of it, you literally won't believe it for another two weeks. Oh, and bring chocolate cake to Celestia, not vanilla. Don't ask me how I know; I don't know, apart from, well, knowing that I know because you know I know." The Princess scrunched her face. "This is hard to explain. I suppose it has to be. Otherwise you'd know how to explain it to... you, in two years time."
I raised my head from the ground, where I had been busy rubbing my temples. "This headache won't go away anytime soon, won't it?"
White snorted and said "Turn the headache into being grumpy. Always works. Just make sure to apologize to Spike about this time tomorrow. You won't have meant to push him into the mud, after all."
I sunk my head down to the floor again. There was temple rubbing to do.
A few minutes later, White and the Princess had ceased to bend my future into a Gordian Knot and we returned to the game again. They said it was better to finish the game sooner than later. I played much faster after that. Still, my analytical mind wanted to analyze every situation carefully and with full attention.
But soon I found myself throwing more and more glances at the Princess, looking for an approving nod or a shake of her head. I'd hover the stone over the place I thought would be most probable, then glance over to her if she nodded or shook her head, then either put the stone down or continued with the second most likely, and so on. Sometimes it took a while to find the right position, sometimes there was only one sensible possibility. It seemed that Time enforced not just a stable situation, but also the simplest. White, instead, continued to play with the same expression again and again, just playing by memory.
The board began to reflect our conflicted causal relationship with strange, but beautiful patterns. Every stone, every group, every influence across empty space had its place and connection determined not just by the stones played before, but also the ever narrowing possibility space of future moves. A walk on the game tree taking strange and rarely visited turns. I didn't think anyone had ever played a game similar to this.
Another player may have looked upon the board and judge at a glance, that this game had been played by madponies, without any regards to the many unwritten rules of the game. And yet the board held an internal logic so pure and true, it could only be described with at least four-dimensional diagrams and equations. For every move I made, White had the perfect counter. And yet White could not do anything without the Princess knowing it before the move was even made.
About halfway through the game we dropped any pretense that this game was anything but recreating a game already played. Or going to be played anyway. Look, the past sometimes lies in the future, alright?
We finished the game in a fraction of the time of the first half. The board was almost completely filled with stones. Only the eyes of individual groups, of which there were six, showed any open space. Not a single stone was captured during play; a strange, but logical consequence of not making any unanticipated move.
"There is nothing left to do. I pass." I said to White.
"I pass too. Thank you for the game."
"Thank you as well. Let's count, shall we?"
"You go right ahead and count. I could just tell you, but when messing with Time, one should be careful to not cause one ontological paradox too many."
"That is... probably good advice." I answered and started counting the stones on the board, while the Princess and White bartered over the remaining scones and tea. Their bargaining good was, who got to gift me with "it", although I had no clue at the time as to what they meant. A short while later, I finished counting.
"The game stands 175 and 6 for black, 174 and 6 for white. That means... wait, under which handicap rule are playing again?"
"None, according to your own ruling from the game against Pinkie last summer."
"Oh, so that means..."
"Everyone's a winner," the Princess began.
"Everyone's a loser," White continued.
"This game was completely pointless," I finished.
"Oh don't worry." White answered. "You get to play this game twice over."
With these words on her lips, White nodded towards the Princess, then simply vanished from one moment to the next.
"Well, it has been fun, but I'll be in the middle of a boring staff meeting. Just remember: Chocolate, not vanilla," the Princess said and vanished too, leaving me standing alone in the room.
I cleaned up the dishes and packed the game away, just in time for Spike to return. He looked exhausted and had several bruises.
"Welcome back, Spike. What was it this time? Cutie Mark Crusaders Bear Wrestlers?"
"Hey Twi. No, that was last month. Today was Cutie Mark Crusaders Mechanical Engineers. I had no idea in how many ways pipes and kettles can blow up. I would enjoy a blast of hot steam a lot more, if it didn't come with high velocity brass plating to the face."
"Oh! Sounds like Applebloom... You know what, nevermind. How about hot soup for supper? I have a new recipe I wanted to try for a while."
"Sounds perfect. I'll just wash up."
As Spike ascended the stairs he called back: "By the way, that is a lovely vase. Where did you get it?"
"Vase? What vase?" I looked around and discovered a vase sitting near the table where we played the game half an hour ago. It was strange, that I had not noticed it before. I wagered either the Princess or White had left it. Was this the gift they mentioned?
"Oh, a friend gave it to me," I absently answered Spike, who had already reached the upper floor.
It was indeed a lovely vase, with lots and lots of colorful and intricated patterns. The material was milky white and almost translucent. It'd fit well on a shelf with a rose or maybe a tulip? I picked the vase up and repositioned it a while across various shelves until I found the optimal spot. I intended to cast a keep-alive spell for the flowers on the vase, but first needed to know more about it before I could formulate the spell. Magic is a science, not an art.
My first spell was a simple two-alliteration divination to see how old the vase was. As I build up the star field and connected it to the vase I immediately felt a pressure rising in my horn. I tried to abort the spell, but it was futile. The spell failed and the magical backlash rushed down my horn. It was about as painful as you'd expect it to be.
Rolling on the floor and massaging my head, the only verbalization I could muster reflected my mood at the moment perfectly.
"I hate you, Twilight Sparkle."
