The Ambassador

“You found a way to time travel.”

Dr. Whooves continued to smile proudly. “Yes, indeed. And rest assured, our past adventures have taught my wife and I that time travel should only be used for the most important of events,”

Derpy smiled blushingly, and only nodded in agreement.

“But really, does it get more important than this?” The doctor finished.

Twilight was astounded. “I can’t believe it. I truly cannot. Time travel is a tricky field, and even the most advanced of Unicorn magic can barely scratch the surface.” Twilight felt a wave of dread overtake her. “You are aware of the possible consequences of time travel, I assume?”

Dr. Whooves shrugged, still grinning. “Mostly theories at this point, I’m afraid. But don’t worry. Dear Derpy and I have enough sense not to meddle with the past. Luna knows there’s so much that could go wrong there!”

Twilight’s face flushed upon hearing this, and she cleared her throat to distract their attention from it. “Yes, well, I’m flattered to see that you went to such lengths to see us off. It really is a joy to see you two again.” After all, she hardly saw them when they were alive. Or, alive in their actual lifetime. Except right now, technically? Time travel is awfully confusing.

“See you off?” Dr. Whooves scoffed. “We’re here to join you!”

Twilight cringed. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We’ll be gone for a very long time. You’ll return to your present time a year older, at least.”

“And that’s a year of our lives well-spent with our friend,” Derpy chimed in.

The Doctor wrapped a foreleg around Derpy. “Trust us, Twilight. We’ve put an awful lot of thought into this. It wasn’t a decision made on a whim.”

Twilight still grimaced awkwardly. “Well, if you’re absolutely sure…. Welcome aboard.”

~~~

“Fascinating… so exciting… look at all the stars…” Dr. Whooves scurried about the ship, interrogating anypony he saw, inspecting all manners of gadgets, and attempting to peek out of every available window.

It was actually a blessing that the good doctor had joined them. When they weren’t rocketing through space, Lightning Strike was coordinating time and distance to formulate windows for space jumping. To make the journey faster, large quantities of magic were used to hurdle the ship vast distances.

It’d continue on fuel while the magical energy re-charged, then jump again. It was handy to have another pony gifted in calculating and recording details. If they were off-course by a fraction, they could smash into an asteroid within milliseconds, or end up inside of a star.

Despite the irksome task of managing the ship, Twilight found she enjoyed simply gazing out of one of the windows. Everything looked so marvelously different. She felt a twinge of longing when they passed the Sun. The Sun in which the spirit of Celestia blazed.

Twilight couldn’t shake the feeling of betrayal that came when she cast an enchantment on the ship to protect it from the Sun. According to the humans, the Sun could do a lot more damage than just stinging the eye of those that swept their stare over it.

While these ponies were her charge, it was far better to be safe than sorry.

~~~

“So… you’re from the past?”

Blazing Skyward was initially befuddled to see two newcomers join the crew before takeoff. But the Princess obviously knew them; they must have some sort of purpose. It wasn’t Blazing’s place to question Princess Twilight’s decisions.

But when she overheard the dusty brown Earth Pony chatting with the cross-eyed Pegasus, she heard more than one mentions of time travel. And this fellow was awfully uninformed for a member of a space crew. Some time after the eccentric pony questioned her about what kinds of suits are worn in this century, she decided to confront him.

“Well, the cat’s out of the bag. Yes, my dear, dearest Derpy and I from 100 years this day in the past.” The Doctor admitted.

Blazing raised an eyebrow. “Derpy? Is that because of your…” she made a circular motion around her eyes.

Derpy smiled. “It’s Muffin. Doc just was gentlecoltly enough to ask what made me so derpy when we first met,” the mare explained, with playful sarcasm. “It just stuck.”

Doctor Whooves only chuckled awkwardly.

“I’m guessing you’re the one who figured out the whole… timey-wimey, wibbly wobbly stuff.” Blazing addressed the doctor.

“Yes, well, I’ve always had a thing for time. But I certainly wouldn’t have made this possible without my dear wife.”

Derpy gave Dr. Whooves an appreciative hug.

“So, what about you, Miss Skyward? What manners of tales lurk in that mind of yours?”

Blazing shrugged. “Nothing really. I mean, I’m a pretty famous Wonderbolt. My mom was a Wonderbolt for a while, too, before she broke her wing. Both of my great-grandparents were pretty good Wonderbolts. Kinda runs in the family.”

Doctor Whooves laughed warmly. “Well now, one wouldn’t exactly call that nothing.”

“Which Wonderbolts were they?” Derpy asked. “We might have known them.”

Although Blazing very much doubted that the two could have personally known them, she obliged. “Rainbow and Soarin Dash.”

“Great whickering stallions, you don’t say?” The Doctor gasped. “If I’d known the great-granddaughter of Rainbow Dash was going to be here, I’d have tried persuading that rascal a little harder.”

Blazing Skyward cocked her head. “Huh?”

“I toyed with the thought of accompanying the Council of Friendship to this time,” the doctor expounded, “But they were unsure how it could possibly benefit Equestria to suddenly have them alive and in the flesh running around once more. They were very insecure of the idea, so I tossed it, never spoke of it again.”

This was boggling Blazing’s mind. “Wow. Well, that sucks. I’ve always kinda wanted to meet Rainbow Dash. I bet she could’ve shown me how to do a sonic rainboom.”

“No doubt,” Derpy offered. “She’s the best flier in all of Equestria.”

Blazing only smiled. “Yup. So I’ve heard.”

~~~

Twilight hummed quietly to herself as she read. They had only gone a day into their journey, and she was already bored. All of her reading material had already been finished.

It wasn’t exactly rare for Twilight to find nothing to do. Her kingdom didn’t require much ruling, actually. Ponyville was always just Ponyville.

Delegating tasks and presiding over projects were always a treat. But now, there was nothing to do until they reached Earth. The beautiful orb that made up the Equestrians’ planet had long since disappeared from view.

“Oh come on. I’ve spent a century like this. A few months are practically nothing.”

~~~

“Longest 5 months of my life.”

That’s saying something, coming from a century old Alicorn. Twilight had spent most of her time playing with her gravity spell, turning it off and on at random in her dormitory. When the others weren’t singing, dancing, and telling stories, they would ask Twilight to use the spell in the home space below the deck.

She knew it was good to take her mind off of things, and Twilight suspected that’s what all the ponies wanted at this point. Nopony wanted to lose their minds out of boredom. Blazing Skyward and Ash came up with a tag game for them to play in zero gravity.

It was pretty fun, provided you didn’t lose momentum and end up stuck floating in the middle.

Doctor Whooves and Lightning Strike had to call cease during games every now and then, just so that they could get the ship to jump again. So when Lightning came galloping to Twilight’s quarters in the middle of the afternoon (in Equestria, at least), Twilight figured he just needed her to turn the spell off for a jump.

She was pleasantly surprised to hear his words:

“Your Highness, we’ve arrived.”

Twilight now gazed out the window at the blue and green sphere in the distance. It was no bigger than a marble from her point of view.

“How long before we land?”

Lightning grinned. “By the end of the day. One more jump, a small one this time, and we can dock on the space station.”

“Perfect! Have Crabapple organize provisions for landing.”

Most of the crew crowded around the window, gazing in awe at the alien world.

Fizz tapped his chin. “How do you think they chose the name, Earth?”

The others shrugged and mumbled in thought.

“I mean, Earth means land right?” Fizz continued. “Sure is an awful lot of water for a planet called land.”

“It’s pretty, though.” Indigo Plateau said. The ponies all nodded in agreement.

“Indeed.” Twilight said, transfixed. “I wonder what could possibly be going on down there.”