Starlight gestured for the both of you to stand close to her. "I'll get us moving. Are we ready?" Neither you or Luna offered objection. Her magic flared brightly and encompassed the three of you. "I never went with this much... mass before."

Her words were becoming drowned out. You were all hurled out of time. To your left you could see countless other trios also taking off. To the right, another infinite collection, but you moved past them all so quickly. They drifted away or towards you, but eventually all the groups were gone, bound to entirely different points of time and probability. It seemed that choosing to go was a major point that many lines shared, but where they would go was up for debate.

Some of them weren't even trios. You were certain you saw one that had Celestia, and one without Starlight at all, and another with just Starlight. It was all gone too quickly to catalog them.

Starlight suddenly tapped you on the shoulder, startling you. "Don't think about it too hard," she cautioned over the roar of cause and effect. "I'd say you get used to it, but you don't, not really."

Equestria, or was that Earth? It flowed around you in a streak of light. You could feel the pull of gravity. You were falling with the planet, magnified with the acceleration through time. Was that the falling sensation that time travel came with? You felt more like a satellite than a person that had been standing perfectly still before. On the plus side, it meant you wouldn't appear in the middle of space when you arrived.

You arrived.

With a rough lurch, all three of you were forced to stagger as you hit the ground with a skid. It was dark, but there was a light. On top of a nearby hill, Celestia was clearly visible, wings spread wide.

Starlight cocked a brow. "Celestia should not be where humans are, why are we here?"

Luna guiltily blushed. "I felt my sister so intensely..."

Starlight sighed softly. "This isn't a... Look, time travel isn't easy. We're going nowhere for at least a moment while I regain my breath."

Luna pointed to Celestia on the hill. "Then may I suggest we see what has brought us here?"

You had a guess what may be happening, but you couldn't be sure. Was this where Celestia made her mistake?

Starlight brightened. "I take it back, good job Luna! We can stop her from making cutie marks in the first place."

And create a new splinter world?

Starlight put a hoof to her face. "Right."

Luna glanced between the two of you before she began walking towards the hill, just to stop. Her eyes were skywards, so you looked up there too to see that the Mare in the Moon was hanging there in full sight.

Luna trembled and backed a step. "I... never saw it from this side..."

Starlight looked awkward a moment before she rose to two legs and pat Luna gently. "This is the past."

Luna gave a firm nod. "Yes, clearly... It is still unsettling. We should endeavor to not be seen. I have no reason to be... now..."

You agreed with that. Spotting Luna would create an instant break in time. Could Luna hide herself?

"Ah, excellent idea." Her horn shone as she shrank down and became a perfectly normal unicorn of no special appearance. "Let us--"

Starlight rose a hoof. "Can you do me?"

Luna raised a brow before she nodded and soon she had you both appearing as two other unicorns. You all looked like brothers and sisters.

You had hooves. You had tried to avoid that until that point, but there you were. At least it was temporary? You staggered after the mares awkardly, trying to get used to the new limbs and general bodyshape. The oddest part was that it didn't come with any particularly strong sensations. One moment you were a child of man, then a horse.

The hill, as you approached it, had other ponies you hadn't been able to see from a distance. They were gathered around Celestia with weary faces in a wide circle. No resistance was made as you casually joined that circle. It was quite a gathering. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of ponies were all gazing at Celestia. Some of them had cutie marks, some of them did not.

Celestia spoke. Her voice was the Royal Canterlot in level, booming and easily heard. "Good ponies, we have persisted through many a dark time, but I have found something, our salvation! It will bind us together, no longer warring among ourselves. No longer will we be adrift in a universe we feel detached from. We will play our part and make a better world."

There were some hopeful murmurs and some confused ones.

Starlight grumbled a bit under her breath. Luna just stared unblinkingly.

Celestia turned to display her own cutie mark to the crowd, going in a slow circle. "Destiny has given me my purpose. It has been blessed on some of you as well. Why does it only come for an entitled few? I know some of you believe that we at the top control this."

Soft murmurs agreed with that sentiment.

"I'm here to tell you that's true."

Astonished gasps ripped through the crowd.

"But only so far in that I will fix that, tonight, here." She stopped circling and her horn began to glow, hefting up an odd thing. At least it would be odd to the other ponies. You were fairly sure it was some kind of touch tablet? To the others, a magic wand of some sort or another.

She manipulated it with her magic easily, but you couldn't see what was displayed on it at that distance. "Purpose will no longer be the gift of the few, but the shared possession of all of ponykind!"

Starlight leaned towards you and hissed, "I thought she made cutie marks! I can clearly see plenty of them scattered in this crowd."

Celestia tossed her head back as the tablet was flung high into the air, giving out intense waves of energy. Magic? As it washed over the crowd, ponies began to gasp and cry in shock. It quickly became clear that ponies that didn't have cutie marks were gaining one. Most of them, at least.

That included you. With a powerful tingling itch, your flanks throbbed as you were blessed, or cursed, with a mark of your own. You looked back quickly to see what had happened to see a very curious mark indeed.

* ~~~~~~~~~~~
* ~~~~~~~~~~~
* ~~~~~~~~~~~

Three dots with squiggled writing after each. What did it even mean?!

The tablet exploded in a shower of light and magic. "It will be, forever forward. Ponykind will realize the potential that had always lurked within its hearts. Know yourself, and your place will become self-evident."

The crowd became a deafening roar of applause and thundering stomping of hooves. She had awakened the potential for any pony, big and small, to receive their mark.

Luna tapped both of you. "We should go."

Starlight and you followed Luna away from the celebrating crowd. She looked over her shoulder once you had all moved far enough. "I am most deeply unsettled... Sister never mentioned any of this to me."

You shrugged a bit. Didn't Luna find it odd that every pony had a mark when she came back?

"That was a thousand years," noted Luna. "Everything was changed and different in countless ways. So all ponies had marks. Just another difference. Celestia had confessed to making marks. I..." She frowned. "They were less common still when I... before I was banished. I can only venture Sister had been working for some time to bring this about." Suddenly her eyes locked on you, specifically your flanks.

Starlight followed her vision and gasped. "You too?!"

Luna thrust a hoof at Starlight. "You have caused the stud to be contaminated!"

"Me?! You're the one that chose this time! I wanted to go to where the humans last were, not this!" Starlight waved a hoof at the lit hill. "We're not closer to an answer, now are we?"

You sat on your new pony haunches and raised a hoof at them both. You loudly insisted they shut up, and they did, looking at you with frazzled expressions.

Look, it took centuries on centuries for the marks to degrade ponykind. Your one lifetime of having one wasn't going to make a difference. Besides, maybe it'd go away once you were human again?

Luna raised a brow. "Worthy of an attempt." She lowered her horn towards you and you were human, though seated in an awkward position. You stood up and had a peek. Unfortunately, your rump on either wide was still adorned with the curious mark.

Starlight raised a brow. "That makes me wonder, how did Careful get her mark?"

Luna shook her head. "It came naturally once she was on all fours and she found her purpose."

You took a slow breath as you adjusted your clothing to fit as well as it ever would, being pony clothes on a human. They had learned at least one important thing.

Luna raised a brow. "What is that?"

Cutie marks were not made by Celestia. They were with ponies from the start. She may have made them more widespread, but they were there the whole time. You also mentioned the device she was fiddling with sure looked like a human one.

Starlight lit up. "Really? It looked like some kind of magic wand from where I was."

You were certain of it.

Luna stood quiet a moment before she nodded. "Very well. We have little choice but to finish what we began. Starlight, can you take us onwards? We have more to see."

Starlight took a slow deep breath. "I have it in me to take one more hop. A round trip is usually my limit, then I try to build up reserves."

Author's Note

https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-XQV6T5KF/

The choice was made, and things have been seen.

But what now?

1) Return to Base
2) Convince Starlight to show Luna the spell
3) Convince Starlight to go back in time
4) Try to find bits of that tablet
5) Hey, deep past Equestria. Time to see the sights!
6) Let's free Luna ahead of schedule