Twilight rubbed her bleary eyes as she rolled away from the open window. The intrusive sunbeams may have won the battle this day, forcing her out of peaceful slumber, but she was determined to win the war. Sluggishly, she gave in to their demands, tossing off the covers and climbing off of the pillowy mattress. A swish of magic set the comforter back into resting position, and she made her way to the door with a grumble.

“Dumb sun. You won’t be so smug and radiant when I put that Dark as Night spell to good use later,” she said to herself. The sunbeams did not respond, most likely because they were scared stiff due to her threat and not at all due to the fact that they were intangible rays of light and could not experience fear.

Though she was at least three long hallways away from the kitchen, she could smell the delicious telltale aroma wafting from that direction. Spike was no doubt up and about already, and if her nose wasn’t fooling her, he was making her favorite—blueberry pancakes. She quickened her pace, eager to chow down.

The first thing she noticed upon entering the spacious dining room of the castle was the setup on one end of the long table. Two plates sat adjacent, with aligned silverware and folded napkins occupying the space. Nearby, a vase contained a blooming tiger lily for decoration, completing the image of a quaint breakfast for two. Twilight smiled warmly at the gesture; after all of their years living together, Spike knew well how to cheer her up after a stressful day.

When she poked her head into the kitchen itself, she saw the dragon himself standing on a stepstool in front of the stove, still heating a pan with his own breath. As she approached, he flicked his wrist, tossing the pancake deftly into the air and flipped it onto the other side. It landed back in the pan with satisfying sizzle, and Spike pumped his fist in victory. She couldn’t help but giggle at the silliness, which inevitably caused him to jump in surprise.

“Morning, Twi,” said Spike with a cheery wave of his unoccupied claw. “You’re up just in time for breakfast. I made your favorite!”

“I could smell it all the way across the castle,” she admitted sheepishly. A quick stretch loosened up her back muscles as she sighed in relief. “I slept like a log after staying up late with my report.”

“Sure looks like it. Even your mane looks like it spent an extra hour trying to escape your head,” he said, pointing to the shiny refrigerator.

“Yeah, I should really go take a shower and clean myself up.” Twilight pulled at some of the loose strands experimentally, though her reflection did not improve. “Are you alright to finish cooking by yourself?”

“You know it!” Spike gave a salute. “Breakfast shall begin upon your return, Commander Sparkle!”

“At ease, Sergeant Spike,” Twilight said with an exaggerated roll of the eyes. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

After a quick stop at her bedroom to grab a few towels, she made it to the adjoining bathroom and stepped into the shower. The cool stream at first helped wake her up fully, but before long shifted into a soothing hot flow of water onto her back. She had done much more walking yesterday than she was used to, and it showed in her hooves as the water cascaded down them, loosening the aching limbs. She spread her wings, allowing water to flow between the feathers.

For a moment, she entertained the thoughts of flying between places instead of walking everywhere, but despite the lessons she had been receiving from both Rainbow and Fluttershy, her flying abilities were not quite up to par. Besides, walking everywhere helped her meet and greet some of the townsfolk who always greeted her back jovially.

“Plus,” she thought aloud, “it’s probably better for me to be on the ground so I can meet as many ponies as possible. Who knows when one of them could be my soul mate?” She chuckled, turning around to let the water hit the lower part of her back and her rear legs. “Well, I suppose that literally the timekeeper knows. It’s just a matter of time until—”

Twilight stared at her forehoof. Surely her mind was just playing tricks on her, the last vestiges of sleep blinking their way through her mind. Her right foreleg was not bare, and definitely did have the timekeeper on it. She lowered her leg, closing her eyes and rapidly counting to ten. She had to be imagining things, and when she brought her hoof back up, she’d see the little device ticking away to a final time of... She brought it up to eye level to check, yet still her leg remained bereft of anything but her wet fur.

”I forgot to put it on!” She shrieked, launching herself out of the shower and barrelling out of the bathroom. In moments, her bedroom was in shambles; the comforter lay in a heap on the floor, her pillows sat beaten and protruding feathers, and every drawer was thrown open, with several hanging precariously off their hinges. Just as she was leafing through every page of the Equestrian Economic History, volume 7 textbook on her nightstand, she was struck with an epiphany. She had never taken it out of the study!

Still dripping water with every step, Twilight gave a triumphant shout as the knowledge returned to her, and she bolted down the hallway toward her study room. The last thing she needed was to put it off and lose more research data than she already had! Using her magic to steady herself, she performed a precision slide around the final corner and sprinted the last stretch of hallway. As she slid to a halt in front of the locked door, she fumbled for the key above the doorframe, seizing it in her magic and shoving it roughly into the lock.

Sure enough, upon her entry she saw the timekeeper still placed on the desk exactly where she had left it the night before. Without hesitation, she levitated it into place before pressing down firmly on the device. A tingle shot through her body—perhaps more of a shiver—as the device latched itself to her foreleg. Twilight only let out the breath that she didn’t know she was holding when the clock face lit up and began the calibration.

“T-Twilight!” Spike appeared in the doorway, leaning on the frame and huffing as he regained his breath. “What’s wrong? I heard you - hah - shout from all the way in the kitchen! … And why’s the whole hallway floor wet?” Upon seeing her still dripping water onto the carpet, he added, “Did you run out of towels? I could have sworn I just restocked your bathroom a few days ago.”

“Fine! Everything’s fine!” Twilight panted as she pushed the wet strands of her mane out of her face, catching her breath after her mad dash. “I never put on the timekeeper before I went to bed last night, so—”

“That’s why you got water all over the floor and made me jump out of my scales? Jeez, Twilight!” Spike slapped a claw to his forehead. “I thought you were in danger! Don’t scare me like that again!”

“Eheheh… sorry. I just hope nothing was disturbed by forgetting it overnight.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense now,” he said as he came to her side. “What’s it say, what’s it say?”

Twilight shushed him, silently watching as the numbers on the face of the timekeeper spun lower and lower. Before she knew it, the timer reached its end and beeped its success, just as Rainbow’s had done yesterday.

“That’s good, right?” Spike asked, tapping the clock face. “So you’ve already met your soul mate too!”

“Oh, how could I be so forgetful?” Twilight fretted, absently smoothing the back of her mane out of habit. “What if I could have met my soul mate in my dream? Then I would have known who it is for sure! Maybe I should send a letter to Cadance just to check procedures or see some of their calculations, or—”

“Twilight!” Spike grabbed her leg, forcing it to stop its increasingly frantic motions. “Everything’s fine. We saw the same exact thing happen with Rainbow’s yesterday, remember?”

“That’s true…”

“Besides,” he said with a snort, “whoever heard of someone falling in love during a dream?”

She shook her head with a sigh. “After what I’ve heard of these things, I’m not ruling anything out yet.”

Author's Note

I'm sorry.

Synopsis of the remainder of the story:

Twilight's second timer is a few days longer than Rainbow's had been. She thinks nothing of this coincidence, knowing that Rainbow probably met someone at the Wonderbolt Academy or elsewhere. She frets over what to do, inevitably deciding to tally up everyone she knows and start crossing them off a list.

Rainbow stops by often during the next few days. At first she is excited, but becomes increasingly more agitated and worried as her timer ticks down. In an attempt to calm her down, Twilight makes dinner for the two of them. They share a tender, platonic (in Twilight's eyes) moment. She emphasizes this, to Rainbow's chagrin.

Fast forward a few days. Twilight has gone on a few dates from the most likely candidates on her list, though all the while she feels like she's exploiting them, knowing that her timer is still days away from finishing. She decides to pay Rainbow a visit, knowing her timer was close to finishing. Rainbow has shut herself in her house, though Twilight reminds her that clouds aren't the best home security. (at this point, Rainbow knows Twilight's timer does not line up with hers)

She is evasive and quiet, deflecting Twilight's questions. Rainbow says she figured out who it was, but can't tell her. Twilight grows frustrated at this, trying to draw it out of her in increasingly personal ways. Rainbow lashes out, tears streaming, telling her how much it hurts, more than any training accident or physical injury. Knowing that the person you love doesn't feel the same way. Twilight pieces it together.

"It's you," Rainbow choked out. "It's always been you."

Twilight is silent. The words don't come. They can't. She knows her timer hasn't ended yet. The weight of it on her wrist is immense. Rainbow bolts out the window and flies off.

Twilight shuts herself in the library. Blinded by anger, she yanks off her own timekeeper, noticing with a huff that it hasn't stopped counting down. She throws it across the room, piling a bunch of pillows on it in a means to shut it out of her mind.

Her friends come by to console her. Fluttershy tries to avoid the topic but when pressed mentions how Rainbow is acting. Won't open up to anyone. Spends her entire time throwing herself into her weather job, taking double or even triple shifts. The group has a sense of what happened but wants to hear it from Twilight.

She explains what happened, beating herself up over not acting in the moment. "All because of that stupid clock."

Through encouragement, she goes out to find Rainbow. She finds her kicking the hell out of a particularly stubborn cloud. They talk after a moment of tension. Rainbow notices she doesn't have the timekeeper on her wrist anymore. Twilight says it doesn't matter anymore. No clock is going to decide her fate when her heart is screaming at her to do what she has to. They kiss.

Meanwhile, back at the library, Spike is cleaning up Twilight's room after she left. He finds the timekeeper under the pile of pillows just in time to watch it tick down to zero.

<I had no plan for the rest of the story after this point. Either it was going to end here, or I would do a few vignettes of their lives together in the future. I had at least one of these vignettes planned out:

Twilight and Rainbow are having a particularly bad fight. Rainbow is still not convinced that the timekeeper made the right choice. It is revealed later that she was worried about this device controlling her destiny, something she always took pride in blazing for herself. They reconcile.>