"Explain to Trixie again what we're doing here."
Starlight sighed. She spoke out the side of her muzzle while her focus remained mostly on the book levitating in front of her. "I just wanted to do a little more research into time spells. They've always held a lot of interest for me, but I... haven't exactly had great experiences with them in the past."
Trixie, laying on the floor of the library, flopped onto her back with a bored sigh. "That doesn't explain why we're doing this so secretively."
Starlight finally turned away from the book to shoot Trixie a raised eyebrow. "We're not being secretive."
"Starlight, we're in Twilight Sparkle's library at three in the morning," Trixie droned.
Starlight winced. "Okay, so maybe I'm underplaying my past experience with time magic." She swallowed a lump down her throat and returned to studying her book. "Let's just say we do not want Twilight to catch us doing this."
A loud fumbling noise erupted behind Starlight, nearly causing her to drop the book, as Trixie suddenly shot to her hooves and sprang to look over Starlight's shoulder.
"You mean to tell Trixie that we're defying Twilight Sparkle?!" She hopped in place, giggling. "Well, why didn't you say so! Trixie is now very interested."
"Of course you are," Starlight merely mumbled with a roll of her eyes.
A few more minutes of reading, and Starlight's ears perked up. Trixie had been attempting to follow along, but was in fact hopelessly confused by the book's diagrams. At Starlight's reaction, however, she showed renewed interest and leaned in intently.
"I think I've got it," Starlight exclaimed brightly. "In the past, time magic has always been a relatively untapped field. The few spells that do exist are either unstable, unreliable, or require a massive amount of power."
Trixie blinked innocently. "But… you cast it before? You're not that powerful."
"First of all, thanks…" Starlight grunted, but quickly sprang back to her excited tone. "In truth, I didn't perform the magic purely on my own last time. I commandeered," she coughed awkwardly, "borrowed a pretty powerful artifact."
"So… why?"
Starlight cocked her head to one side. "I'm sorry?"
"Well, Trixie is all for sneaking about Twilight Sparkle's house and doing things under her nose," she paused to snicker, "but what are we going to do with this fancy new time travel spell?"
"Oh, uh, well the academic ramifications alone will shake the world—"
"Ugh!" Trixie flopped onto her back once more. "You sound like Twilight Sparkle."
Starlight blushed and quickly averted her gaze. "Well, I… n-never mind. Let's just get this done." With that, she tossed the book aside and stood proudly. "Now, keep in mind, this will just be a preliminary test of theory, but if it works correctly we'll be one step closer to perfecting time travel!"
"Yes, yes, less words more magic!" Trixie rolled into a sitting position and clapped her hooves.
"Heheh, sure thing, Trixie..." Starlight said through a smile.
A blueish-green glow illuminated the late night library, emanating from Starlight's horn. The glow intensified by the second, growing brighter and brighter until Trixie had to shield her eyes with a hoof. A low whine filled the air, and an indoor breeze shuffled the pages of loose books scattered around the room. Starlight squeezed her eyes shut in concentration, and when she reopened them, they were glowing even brighter than her blinding horn.
Trixie stared into the back of her hoof, and watched as the hairs of her coat rose on end. Arcs of blue electricity jumped between the raised hairs and danced across her entire coat. Butterflies fluttered through her tummy and a sinking feeling settled in Trixie's gut.
The magical wind steadily built up until it was practically a typhoon, tossing books and looseleaf paper haphazardly about the room. Trixie ducked with a barely restrained yelp as an encyclopedia whizzed by her head.
"Um... Starlight?" Trixie's voice was barely audible above the intensifying noise. "Starlight, Trixie is having second thoughts. Perhaps we could simply dip Twilight Sparkle's hoof in warm water instead—"
A white flash, a deafening noise, and then nothing. Darkness retook the room, and silence once more occupied the air. A few pages fluttered to a stop, and remained perfectly still. There was no sound in the room, not even a breath. The library was empty.
The next sensation Trixie felt was not a pleasant one. In fact, it was a rather unpleasant combination of sensations. It was completely dark, and yet surprisingly warm. The air was dry and hot, almost oppressively so. She was lying down on rough, sandy gravel, and it chafed against her coat with every slight twitch and shift of her aching muscles. To top it all off, her mouth was dry as a bone, and she had a splitting headache.
Trixie voiced her concerns about the situation in the only way that seemed appropriate.
"Unnnnngh..."
"Trixie!" Starlight's voice cut through her headache like a knife, but was nonetheless a massive relief to hear. "Oh, Trixie, thank Celestia you're alright. You... are alright, right?"
Trixie groaned again. "Trixie is... fine." She focused and cast a beam of light through her horn, hoping to illuminate the room. Nothing happened. A gasp flew from her lips. "Trixie is blind!"
There was a pause, just long enough for Starlight to blink awkwardly.
"Trixie, your eyes are closed."
Another pause.
"...Trixie knew that."
When she wrenched open her eyes, the light immediately caused Trixie to wince and hiss through gritted teeth. Squinting, Trixie pushed up to a shaky standing position. Blinking away the last of the blinding brightness, she was finally able to take stock of her surroundings, only to freeze in place. Her mouth slowly fell open, and all pain and discomfort she'd felt vanished completely, replaced by a quickly growing sense of sheer dread.
"Now, Trixie, don't freak out..." Starlight desperately raised her hooves in a placating gesture, attempting to gain her friend's attention.
Trixie didn't see it. Her eyes swam in desperate zig zags across her surroundings, while her brain tried its best to process what she was seeing.
The library was gone, for one thing. Almost the entire palace was gone. A few walls of shattered crystal remained standing, and interspersed among them were even more piles of crystalline dust and debris. Beyond the once-walls of the castle of friendship, there stretched a seemingly endless ocean of dull red-brown dirt. A hot wind whistled across empty vastness, kicking up cyclones of red dust and flinging them from nowhere to nowhere.
Of Ponyville itself, there was barely even an inkling. Several stones, polished smooth and round by the ever-present winds, were scattered without any particular pattern around where the town once stood. One slightly larger stone stood out, surrounded by an unusual amount of rocky chunks. It was only after staring for 30 seconds that Trixie realized that it was where a statue of Celestia was supposed to stand tall and proud in the town center.
There was no green. Not even a blade of grass stood to be seen between her and the horizon. The sky was dull and red, and random gray clouds were scattered sparsely through the atmosphere. It was then that Trixie saw the sun, and if she'd been breathing before, she stopped then. The sun was massive. Easily several times its usual size, and glowing a deep and foreboding red, like a bloody wound in an already blood-stained sky.
"Trixie..." Starlight's voice shattered the silence like a gunshot to Trixie's stomach, "...don't freak out."
Trixie whirled around with such force she nearly flew off her hooves, and when she stared at Starlight it was through a huge plastic grin that made the other mare flinch hard.
"Starlight Glimmer."
"...yes, Trixie?"
"You mentioned having bad experiences with time magic." Trixie's eye twitched above her unflinching grin. "Trixie thinks that now would be a good time to elaborate on that."
Starlight took a half step back from the manic magician, simultaneously rubbing one forehoof against the other awkwardly. "Well, actually... it was pretty similar to this, if you can believe that. We've simply gone slightly too far into the future. I've been here before."
Trixie exhaled the longest breath she'd ever held in her life. She slouched low as tension seemed to visibly drain from her body, and when she looked back up at Starlight it was through a deeply relieved smile.
"Don't ever scare Trixie like that again, Starlight." She giggled, and the sound echoed eerily across the dead terrain. "F-For a moment there, Trixie was utterly terrified that something had gone horribly wrong. Phew! Now, if you would be so kind as to take us back. This place is dreary and the sun is ruining Trixie's complexion."
Silence, but for the desolate whistling of the wind.
Trixie raised an eyebrow. "Starlight?"
Starlight sucked a breath through her teeth. "Well, you see..."
"Starlight, take us back."
"It's not quite that similar to last time."
"Starlight... take us back."
"We don't need to panic! We just need the Cutie Map to take us back." Starlight grinned hopefully.
"Starlight, take us ba— wait, the what?"
Starlight blinked. "You know, the Cutie Map?"
Trixie merely stared.
Starlight sighed. "The big magical table that Twilight and her friends sit around."
"Oh!" Trixie brightened. "Why didn't you say so? Let's go then!"
With that, Trixie trotted off through the remains of a dilapidated crystal doorway, deeper into the castle ruins. Starlight followed with a silent shake of her head. The two of them made their way by memory through what little remained of the building. Attempting to follow the usual hallways led them to a large pile of rubble blocking their path, but once they realized that few of the walls were more than knee-high, it became a simple matter of weaving through the remains of other side rooms.
Finally, they found the large circular area they'd been looking for. Trixie was still ahead of Starlight, but upon reaching the room she froze up completely, causing Starlight to trot headlong into her backside and nearly topple the pair to the floor.
Regaining her balance, Starlight huffed, "What's the hold... up..."
Her voice trailed off as it caught up with her eyes. The room was just as rough as the rest what they'd seen so far. The roof was long gone, along with any trace whatsoever of the tree-made chandelier that once hung from it. Most of the walls were still standing, though barely any higher than an average pony's height. Of the six chairs, only a few legs and crumbled bits of crystal debris remained. But what captured the attention of the two lonesome ponies was sitting dead center in the room. It was a fine pile of crystal gravel, the largest piece barely bigger than a hoof. The Map was no more.
It was several breathless moments before anypony dared to speak.
"Now, Trixie... don't freak—"
Trixie screamed.
A warm breeze caressed the terrain of a dead world. The red sun beat down on countless hectares of dust and loose debris. The breeze flew through it all, picking up bits of sediment and carrying them aloft with it. Sometimes for long distances, sometimes for short. The dust was all the same. Countless breezes had picked it up countless times before and mixed it about until it finally formed a homogeneous blanket across the entire landscape.
This particular dust, on this particular breeze, had a unique opportunity not afforded in eons. As it blew across the surface of the earth, through a red clearing like any other red clearing, where once stood a small town unlike any other, the dust on the breeze encountered a pair of living ponies. One of these ponies was sitting calmly, watching the other one hyperventilate in a panic.
"Trixie, please, calm down. It's not the end of the world."
"It literally is the end of the—" Trixie coughed suddenly, hitting her chest with a hoof to clear her lungs. "Stupid dust! You will rue the day you crossed the Great and Powerful—"
"Trixie." Starlight deadpanned, brows furrowed. "Stop yelling at the dirt, and calm down."
Trixie opened her mouth to retort, but paused, closed her eyes, and took a deep, calming breath.
"Haukkkt!" She coughed again through the taste of ancient dust. "Celestia damn this place!"
Starlight rolled her eyes. "Listen, Trixie, we can't just give up hope alright?"
"Not with that attitude, we can't."
Starlight ignored her, and pointed one hoof towards the east. "Look, Canterlot Mountain is probably our best bet. If we can get there, maybe we can find one of the princesses. And maybe they can help us get back to our time."
Trixie nodded slowly. "Okay, Trixie trusts you." She looked towards the mountain, but winced hard. "However, that is a long walk..."
Starlight snorted, then stood up and began walking away. She called out over her shoulder, "If you'd rather stay here, be my guest."
Trixie blinked. She sat silently for a moment or two, alone with the wind, before scrambling to her hooves and galloping after Starlight.
"Starlight wait uuuuupppp!"
They walked for the first hour in mostly silence. Occasionally, one of them would comment on the heat, or the dry air, or how a particular rock they passed looked similar to a rock they passed ten minutes ago. In truth, there wasn't a lot to talk about. The red sun beat down on their backs, the wind blew lonesomely across the wastes, and they walked. If they didn't have Canterlot Mountain to their front, growing steadily larger in their vision, then two ponies might not have been able to tell that they were moving at all.
Eventually, despite the oppressively monotonous atmosphere, somepony simply had to break the silence. That pony ended up being Starlight.
"Do you suppose we're walking on a road?"
"Hm?" Trixie blinked several times, as if startled out of a trance.
"It's just..." Starlight tongued the inside of her mouth for the right words. "I know there used to be a hoof road to Canterlot, not to mention a railway, but everything's so flat."
Trixie hummed in thought, casting her gaze about them with renewed focus. After a few moments she seemed to perk up, only to deflate with a defeated groan.
Finally, she said in a breathy whisper, "Trixie cannot tell either."
Starlight shrugged. "Well, it was worth asking I guess."
"No, Starlight, you don't understand." Trixie spoke without looking away from their surroundings. "Trixie has traveled far and wide, both in Equestria and beyond its borders. In that time, Trixie has seen roads older than the Crystal Empire, or railways hundreds of years old.
"They always leave a mark. No matter how ancient, no matter if the rails themselves have long faded to dust. Trixie has always been able to see the... flow of the land." She groaned. "It's hard for Trixie to explain, but it's almost as if the land remembers where ponies have built paths and roadways. They create etchings that Trixie can read like tea leaves—not that Trixie reads tea leaves, that's a hack job."
Starlight shuddered. "So... you can't tell where the old roads were, now? Or the rails?"
"No," Trixie murmured with a shake of her head. "This land is... completely and totally flat." A shaky breath left Trixie's lungs. "Starlight, just how far into the future did you take us?"
"I... I don't know."
"...Are you sure we'll find the princesses in Canterlot?"
Starlight inhaled a long, slow breath. The dust tasted bitter.
"I don't know."
From what they were able to tell, the sun had only barely risen when the two ponies found themselves stranded in that wasteland. They'd made good time walking, and by the time they approached the base of Canterlot Mountain, it was well into the afternoon. The massive red sun hung behind them in the sky, casting their long shadows across the red-tinted world before them.
"I still can't get over how big it is..." Starlight murmured from where she walked directly behind Trixie.
"Hey!" Trixie exclaimed with a scrunched up nose. She turned around to glare at Starlight. "Trixie does not appreciate that sort of—oh, you meant the sun."
"Hm? What was that?" Starlight mumbled, still gazing skyward.
"Um... nothing!" Trixie quickly stammered, the red sunlight hiding the colour of her cheeks.
"Why do you think it's gotten that way?" Starlight idly mused.
Trixie shrugged. "Perhaps Celestia has gotten fat."
"Snnkt, Trixie!" Starlight tore her eyes from the sky to snicker at her friend.
"What?" Trixie threw up her forelimbs. "Maybe she ate all the plants too."
"Heeheeehee," Starlight giggled helplessly.
"And all the buildings! And all the ponies! Heheheh!" Trixie joined in the laughter, only to realize Starlight wasn't laughing any more. "Starlight?"
"They're really all gone," Starlight mumbled. She was staring at her hooves. "There isn't a living soul left here, there couldn't possibly be. And now we're stranded here, and it's all my fault."
"Now, Starlight, it's not all your—"
"I lied about why I wanted to research time magic."
Trixie blinked. "...say what now?"
Starlight sighed long and hard, and her shoulders sagged as if finally burdened by the dead world around them.
"Trixie, I was trying to show up Twilight Sparkle. I never cared about academia or the studies that would come out of this spell."
"Oh, is that all?" Trixie shrugged. "Trixie understands that. Twilight Sparkle deserves to be shown up."
"No, I… it's not the same. I don't want to beat her." Starlight gazed out across the vast empty lands that once held all the life in her world. "Twilight has done so much for everypony; she's done so much for me—"
"Pshh, that high horse? She may think she's great—"
"Don't even start, Trixie," Starlight droned. "You may not get along with her, but you know I'm right. Where would either of us be without her?"
Trixie grumbled, but reluctantly nodded her head.
Starlight continued, "She lets me live at the palace, she teaches me, and once in a while I get to participate in 'saving the day'." Starlight punctuated the last bit by kicking up a hoofful of red dust, which scattered away into nothing on the wind.
"I just… I want to contribute something. I want to be useful." Starlight paused, as if searching for the right words. "I feel like no matter how much I try, I'll always be playing catch-up to her accomplishments."
Trixie nodded slowly. "So… time magic?"
Starlight chuckled ruefully. "Even Twilight has never been able to perfect time magic. I figured that if I could do it, that would finally be it. She could finally look at me as an equal, as a peer. After everything she's done for me, I'd be giving something back to her that she'd never been able to get on her own.
"But I messed that up, too. Now we're stuck here." She lifted her eyes to meet Trixie's, and they were brimming with moisture. "Everypony is Equestria is gone... What if the princesses are gone too? Will we be trapped here, alone, until we're nothing more than dust like everypony else?! All because of my dumb inadequacy complex?!"
Trixie winced at her friend's tears, and after only the briefest hesitation leaned in to wrap Starlight in a warm hug. They stood like that for several moments, embracing at the base of the mountain, shrouded in red light and dust. Surrounded on all sides by lifeless desolation. Finally, Trixie broke the silence in a soft voice.
"Hey, Starlight," her voice was soft and kind. "We can't give up hope, remember?"
"That's what I said to youuuuuu," Starlight sobbed into Trixie's shoulder.
"Yeah, that was... what Trixie was going for."
Starlight's sobbing slowed, quieted, and eventually became a light giggle. "Trixie, you're cheesy."
Trixie patted her friend's back. "Trixie knows." She gripped Starlight's shoulders, and pushed until the two were face to face. Looking into moist eyes with a smile, she said, "And besides, there is a bright side to all this. If there's anypony who it's worth being stuck alone at the end of the world with—"
Starlight inhaled sharply.
"—it's the Great and Powerful Trixie!"
"Uggh!" Starlight pushed Trixie's hooves away. "You're incorrigible!"
Trixie only giggled, and it wasn't long before Starlight broke down and joined her. The two of them were soon lost in an uproarious fit of full on laughter, and suddenly the surroundings felt a little bit less desolate.
It was Trixie who managed to bring her laughter under control first.
"S-So... So, Starlight," she paused to wipe a tear from her eye, "are you ready to find the princess, or shall Trixie have to carry you up the mountain?"
"Snnkt," Starlight rolled her eyes, but couldn't help one last giggle from escaping. "Come on, Trixie, let's go."
As Starlight walked off, Trixie sat in place. "What?" she shouted after Starlight. "Do you think Trixie couldn't do it!? Trixie used to pull a whole cart all the way across Equestria!"
"Let's go, Trixie," Starlight's voice echoed back down the steep slope.
Trixie dutifully followed along, grumbling all the while.
When they reached the city proper, both mares slowed their pace to barely a crawl as they gazed about with wide eyes. Where once stood a proud archway marking the entrance to the city, now stood two stone stumps, a few paces apart. Most of the outer walls were worn down to smooth rubble, and a few platforms were absent entirely, sent tumbling down the mountainside unknown years ago. Still, it wasn't how destroyed the city was that occupied both ponies' complete attention. No, it was the parts that remained standing that took the breath from their lungs.
Where Ponyville was a town of wood and thatch, and had faded away completely into dust, Canterlot was made from the mountain, and the mountain still stood. The city had still clearly suffered as much as the rest of the world. Most buildings the mares saw were comprised of knee-high stone rubble worn smooth with time. The streets were cracked beyond repair, and even torn up in spots. Piles of smooth stones and ancient rubble littered every street corner and intersection, and once proud towers had become shattered trees stabbing their pointed ends towards the bloody sky.
And yet, in spite of it all, the place was still Canterlot. Surrounded on all sides by a red-brown waste that stretched flat to the horizon, Starlight and Trixie could still recognize streets and storefronts, manors and schools. As they stepped into the dead heart of the city, their hoofsteps echoed coldly down streets and alleyways devoid of anything living or dead.
"This is... worse than Ponyville," Trixie uttered through a shaky breath.
Her voice reverberated down the street until it became one with the wind that whistled shrilly between ancient stonework.
Starlight could only nod dumbly. They kept trotting, moving through empty streets and over ruined walls where buildings once stood. Skirting around ones that were any higher than they stood, for fear they would collapse at the slightest breath of a living creature. Their aimless walk took them past restaurants where they'd gotten lunch, and past shops where they'd picked out new hats. All of those places were gone, shattered and made smooth by the winds of time.
Said wind seemed almost to have a voice, as if the city itself was moaning a dirge, mourning the souls that once brightened its streets. The song seemed to ebb and flow around each corner that the pair of stranded time travelers took. Between ruined houses, collapsed arches, and caved in domes of once-beautiful masonry, the song flowed. If the two mares held their breaths, they could almost imagine that it carried the voice of a pony.
"Wait..." Starlight stumbled to a stop in the middle of some random dilapidated street.
"What now, Starlight?" Trixie turned around. "My hooves are tired too, but we still have a lot of city to search if we—"
"Shhhh!"
Trixie recoiled, only recover into a glare. "Trixie will not be—"
"Shhhhhhh!"
"Okay, sorry, jeeze..."
In the ensuing silence, the song returned, only this time Starlight closed her eyes, held her breath, and listened. She listened with all the focus and patience of a master magician. Her life of magical studies had given her such mental fortitude that she could even slow her own heart with sheer force of will and focus, and by directing all of that focus purely towards the song, perhaps she could—
"Hey Starlight! Trixie can totally hear somepony singing!"
Starlight released the sigh to end all sighs, and when she finally reopened her eyes, leveled the mother of all glares upon Trixie.
"What?" Trixie blinked innocently. "Trixie thought Starlight would be happy about this revelation." She turned and galloped off up a random street. "Now follow Trixie! It seems to be coming from this way!"
Starlight remained for another moment, just a moment, then followed after Trixie. And her exasperated groan followed the both of them.
As they followed the song through the city, it became more and more clear, until it was undeniable that somepony or something was definitely singing. There were no lyrics, and the melody seemed to flow without any repeating patterns. The song was low, mourning. Just the sound of it would have made the time travelers want to cry, if it wasn't too busy filling them with the joyous prospect of finding another living soul.
Their chase led them higher and higher towards the mountain's peak, up wrecked stairways and ramps, until finally opening up into a large courtyard. The stone of the courtyard was paler than the rest of the city, probably once an immaculate alabaster. At the far end of the courtyard was a huge gate, or at least the crumpled remains of it. Beyond the gate was the largest ruin they'd seen yet.
Trixie was the first to find her voice. "The Royal Palace," she gasped.
The Palace wasn't in any better condition than the rest of the city, for the most part. The walls had long since caved in, and the large building's greater weight had only assisted it along the road to collapsing into rubble. One corner stood out from the rest, however. Two walls came together, mostly intact, and at their joining stood a four-storey tower. A chunk of the second floor was missing, or rather laying at the base of the tower in a heap, but otherwise it stood as a reasonably put together building.
It was from there that the singing was clearly emanating.
The two ponies entered through the bottom floor of the tower. Neither of them dared to speak, though they weren't sure if it was from fear of being discovered, or from fear of interrupting the song. Not that it would have mattered, as the song was far louder than either of them could hope to raise their voice. It very nearly rattled their bones as it issued forth from the top floor of the tower. Starlight and Trixie folded their ears tight against their skulls and continued ascending the spiral stairs.
They passed through the wrecked second floor, where the wind blew in and jostled their manes and the red sun was visible through the gaping hole in the wall. They ascended through the third floor, where all the furniture had aged to dust and now sat undisturbed in piles across the stone floors. Finally, they reached the fourth floor, where an open doorway waited, yawning.
Trixie shivered and half-stepped behind Starlight, who merely tightened her jaw and boldly took the last few steps.
When Starlight marched through that final doorway, her hoof came down upon the stone floor with an echoing clap that shattered the air like a gunshot. For the song had stopped, completely.
"Hello, at last. I've been expecting you."
The voice that greeted them was regal, intelligent, and deeply sad. It belonged to a tall alicorn, who sat facing the lone westward window of the tower. Her mane flowed ethereally behind her, deep purple with a smattering of stars, and two lighter streaks running through it. Her light purple wings were coiled tight to her side, and she kept her gaze locked towards the setting sun while the ponies behind her gaped.
Slowly, achingly slowly, Trixie and Starlight pivoted their heads to face each other. Trixie sharply raised one eyebrow, to which Starlight could only shrug helplessly.
Princess Twilight Sparkle spoke once more, her voice wafting across the room with much effort, "Come now, you've made me wait all this time. Let's not waste any more. Come, sit, talk." A pause, barely a heartbeat. "Please."
After wincing heavily, Starlight Glimmer finally worked up her nerves, stood up tall, and cleared her throat. "Ahem, Twilight, I messed up. I'm sorry—"
"Whoa! What the hay!?" Twilight Sparkle spun around in a flash. She stared at the two guests with wide, wide eyes. "Starlight!? Trixie!? What in the name of the stars are you two doing here!?"
The room fell into utter silence as two mortals shuffled awkwardly in front of a gaping alicorn.
Finally, Starlight squeaked forth, "Uhm, I'm sorry I thought you were... expecting us?"
Twilight blinked hard. "What? No! I was waiting for... waiting for..." In an instant, Twilight's voice dropped low. Her shoulders slumped, and her wings dangled limply to her sides. "Somepony else. Never mind. It was silly anyway."
Twilight glanced back out the window momentarily. "It's nearly too late now, anyway. I suppose she was never coming."
Starlight and Trixie both winced. "Well," Starlight began, "we're, uh, we're here now. I guess."
Twilight looked back up, squinting. "Yes, I suppose you are, aren't you?" She tilted her head to the side. "Why?"
Trixie pursed her lips and stared pointedly at Starlight. "Yes, Starlight. Why don't you explain how we got here?"
Starlight smiled sheepishly. "Well... I was experimenting with time magic..."
Twilight seemed to digest that for several moments of deep thought, before suddenly perking up. "Time magic!" She blinked. "I told you specifically not to do that!"
"Yeah, heheh," Starlight shrunk in on herself. "Yeah you did."
Twilight sighed, but it came out through a smile. "I forgot how much of a hoofful you were, Starlight." She giggled regally, but even that had a melancholy twinge to it.
"So you're... not mad?"
"Of course not." Twilight waved a hoof. "Now come, sit down. I can send you back without any trouble."
"Yes!" Trixie pumped a hoof and quickly pranced into the center of the room.
"No, not yet," Starlight interjected.
Trixie flopped onto her stomach with an exasperated groan.
"I just... I have so many questions, Twilight," Starlight exclaimed through an earnest expression.
Twilight nodded, slowly. "I understand. Of course you do." She hesitated. "Ask away, but know that our time is short." She cast another glance out the window.
Starlight pointed. "See, that! Why's our time short? You keep looking at the sun; does that have something to do with it? Where's Celestia? And the other princesses? And, like, everypony? What happened?"
Trixie stared incredulously at Starlight. "Do you not want to go home?"
Twilight merely chuckled. "Your curiosity is unsurprising, Starlight. I think it would be easiest for me to answer all your questions by simply answering one."
Starlight leaned forward until she nearly fell over. "Which one?" she whispered.
"The question of what happened." Twilight paused, taking a deep breath. "The simplest and shortest answer is entropy."
Trixie groaned.
Twilight continued, "There was no great cataclysm, no apocalypse or final war that ended all life. In truth, Equestria prospered and thrived for eons." A slow sigh left ancient lips. "But nothing lasts forever. Time ends all things, ponies, civilization, life as we know it... even alicorns."
Starlight gasped. "You mean...?"
"They died, Starlight. Celestia and Luna have been gone for… well, longer than I care to remember. Cadance and I, we were young by comparison. We ruled this land on our own until the last of its resources had been consumed, until the last denizens of this world had passed away."
Twilight's voice had remained calm and cool, but suddenly it took on a shakier tone. "I… I had hoped that she would find me one last time, here at the end of all things, but it would seem that she too… s-succumbed, like everything else."
Twilight cleared her throat and seemed to take a moment to collect herself. Within seconds, she was once more a proud and regal princess, sitting tall and mighty in the setting sun.
By this point, even Trixie had sat up and was listening intently. She tilted her head and tentatively asked, "What do you mean, find you one last time?"
Twilight gestured with her head towards great red sun. "Nothing is free from entropy, not even Celestia's sun." A tired sigh escaped her lips. "It, like everything else, is dying, and if my calculations are correct, then this will be the last sunset ever to grace Equestria. The sun will die, and consume what's left in the resulting supernova."
Trixie's mouth hung open for several moments. "I'm... sorry I asked."
Twilight chuckled. "Don't be, my little pony. I'm certainly not. It's been eons since I've been able to give a lecture."
Starlight tongued the inside of her mouth, before finally sputtering, "Why don't you come with us!?"
Twilight blinked, but Starlight wasn't finished.
"When you send me and Trixie back, come with us. You don't have to die here like everything else!"
For a moment, Twilight simply smiled. It was a melancholic thing. When she spoke, her smile never left her lips, but her words didn't bring it with them.
"Oh, but I do, Starlight. Time magic is more convoluted than you know—"
"Well clearly," Trixie grumbled, receiving a jab in the side from Starlight for it.
Twilight continued, "Sending you two back to your time is simple, because it is restoring balance. To put it in laypony's terms, you're going back to where you're meant to be. I, on the other hoof, am meant to be right here. So here I must stay."
"There must be something we can do, though!" Starlight pleaded, eyes misting.
"Oh, Starlight." Twilight smiled and leaned down to nuzzle her old student. "I appreciate your desire to problem-solve, but you two have done more than you could possibly know just by being here, even by accident. Seeing you two again warms my heart."
A tear or two fell from Starlight's eyes. Trixie saw and wrapped a comforting hoof around her shoulders.
Starlight looked up, and a tiny voice squeaked, "Was it a good life, at least?"
Twilight smiled calmly. "It was a wonderful life."
"You really don't have any regrets?"
For the first time since they'd first arrived there, Twilight's calm demeanor cracked. For just a blink, it seemed as if she would break, but Twilight swallowed quickly before the tears behind her eyes could kiss the air, and carried on as stoic as ever.
"Only one regret," she uttered regally. "In all my eons of life, I've known so many ponies. I've had friends beyond even my ability to count. But..." She paused, briefly. "But my best friends. My first true friends... I can't remember them."
Starlight choked back a sob, and Trixie patted her back gently.
Twilight stared out towards the dying sun, her mane billowing slowly in spectral wind. Her voice was steady as a rock, and her hooves never once fidgeted, but when Starlight caught one tiny glimpse at her eyes she immediately saw the barely restrained anguish within.
"I remember names, I think," the alicorn continued, "but even those become lost on the tip of my tongue when I try to speak them." She released another long held sigh. "I've lived... too long. And if I could have died younger, carrying the memories of my most cherished friends, then I would have."
"You remembered us though," Trixie interjected suddenly. "So that's pretty cool."
Starlight swatted Trixie across the back of the head, but Twilight only chuckled breathily.
"In truth, Trixie, that is the real joy that your visit has provided me. Seeing your faces, hearing your voices," Twilight paused to inhale deeply through a warm smile, "it revived so many memories of you two. Memories from the best time of my life. So maybe in light of that, you can grasp what I mean when I say that it was truly good to see you."
Starlight and Trixie both smiled beneath misty eyes.
"Now!" Twilight clapped her hooves together. "We've spent enough time, and there isn't much more left to spend! Let's get you two home before the world ends."
With that Twilight's long horn erupted into a fierce magical glow. She took a step back and allowed a magical field to envelop the two travelers. The wind, which had been mostly absent in the room, quickly picked up to a whirling cyclone. Lightning arced from Twilight's horn to random spots in the room, and a high pitched whine filled the air.
While this was happening, Starlight Glimmer stood stock still, lost deep in thought. Suddenly, Starlight's eyes widened and she looked up with a massive gasp.
"Twilight, wait!" Starlight called out, her voice distorted in the magical field.
Twilight shook her head, her face calm and undisturbed despite the intense magic. "I'm sorry, Starlight. The spell can't be stopped."
Starlight desperately flailed her hooves. "But Twilight! Look down! Look down, Twili—"
And then she was gone. The spell collapsed on itself with an immense thunderclap, and the two ponies vanished, leaving behind nothing but a faint smell of ozone.
Twilight Sparkle, alone again at the end of the world, blinked several times in confusion. She silently mouthed two words to herself, then followed their instruction. She stared at the floor beneath her hooves for several moments, attempting to discern Starlight's meaning. Only after a prolonged staring contest with the tiles did it become apparent that one of the stone floor tiles was wrong somehow.
Twilight tilted her head. The one tile seemed oddly clean, and oddly undamaged. It looked as if the decay of time had been warded away, or at least mitigated somewhat, for that one lone tile. With a furrowed brow, Twilight leaned down and poked at the floor tile.
"How curious..."
Trixie and Starlight arrived in the library with a cacophony of noise and lights. The pair collapsed to the floor with mutual groans, only to shoot to their hooves almost simultaneously.
However, while Trixie immediately began prancing about the room, performing hoofy-kicks, and kissing the ground, Starlight made a bee-line for a particular bookshelf. Trixie continued celebrating by herself for several moments before noticing Starlight's absence.
"...Starlight Glimmer?" Trixie blinked. "Why are you not joining in Trixie's celebration of not being dead?"
Starlight burst back onto the scene dragging several thick tomes behind her. From the brief glance Trixie got at one book, it seemed to be on preservation magic.
Trixie blinked. "Starlight, are you suddenly interested in making jams?" A beat. "Trixie could get on board with this idea."
Starlight shook her head exasperatedly, and continued rushing around and grabbing more books. "No, Trixie, and I don't have time to explain right now. I'm in the zone!"
Trixie huffed and crossed her forelimbs. "Fine. Trixie will make her own jams."
Starlight was now rifling through an old trunk, and she spoke from shoulder deep in it. "Maybe later, but right now I need you to do me a huge favor." Finally, Starlight popped back out of the trunk, and when she did, she was holding a camera in both hooves. "I need you to fetch Twilight and the rest of the Elements."
A beat.
"Plus Spike."
That night, in Canterlot, two shadowy figures stalked through the streets of the city. Starlight led the way, while Trixie followed close behind. The two of them stuck to the hidden places and darkest shadows along the way, slowly following a path to somewhere only Starlight knew.
"Trixie still doesn't understand why we're sneaking around like this," Trixie whisper-whined. "It's not as if we're stealing anything." She blinked. "Are we stealing something? Trixie can't go back to jail again."
"No, Trixie, we're not stealing," Starlight groaned. "I just really don't want to risk messing this up, so... nopony but us can know about it. Also be quiet. We're sneaking."
The two stealthed their way higher and higher through the city, all the way until the palace gates themselves were laid out before them. Trixie inhaled sharply, but at a stern look from Starlight said nothing. The two of them slithered around the edge of the courtyard, and managed to scale the wall with a bit of magic. From there, Starlight took off once more with Trixie barely keeping up behind her.
Their winding path took them over garden walls, through plazas, and eventually inside the palace itself. Trixie was nearly panicking now, but for Starlight's sake managed to keep silent as the two of them snuck down a corridor and up some stairs. Finally at the top of the stairs, Starlight stopped and held up one hoof. They stood perfectly still, not moving, barely breathing, for a full minute before Starlight allowed them to enter the room.
Trixie looked around in confusion. "Trixie doesn't get it. There's nothing here to steal."
True enough, the room was mostly empty, but for some basic furniture and a lone window facing west.
"We're not stealing anything, Trixie!" Starlight hissed. "Now stand at the door and make sure nopony comes up here. Also be quiet!"
Trixie grumbled under her breath, but dutifully obeyed. She stood by the door, peering nervously down the staircase, watching carefully for any sign of movement in the dark. Behind her, she could hear the sound of Starlight opening her saddlebags, then of stone cracking. Then came the sound of Starlight casting a spell, followed by stone-on-stone grinding, and finally silence.
"Okay," Starlight's voice whispered, "we can go now!"
"Good, Trixie is getting tired of all this stress." Trixie said with a toss of her mane.
She followed Starlight down the stairs and into the hall. Once they were out of the palace and back in the city streets, Trixie dared to break the silence.
"So," she tapped Starlight's saddlebag. "What did we steal?"
Starlight sighed. "Trixie, be quiet."
"What?"
"How curious..."
Twilight Sparkle poked at the floor tile with her hoof a few times. Nothing seemed to happen, so she lit her horn with magic and grasped the tile and ripped it from the floor with relative ease.
For the first time in several hundred years, her voice caught in her throat.
The tile fell limply from her magical grip and clattered to the floor, though the sound didn't register to the stunned alicorn. Finally, after a full minute of utter, unbreathing silence, Twilight managed to relight her horn and shakily lift up what was hidden beneath the tile.
The first tear to be shed in a thousand years streaked down her cheek, and was soon joined by more. Twilight's misty eyes reflected the faces of six smiling ponies, and one baby dragon. Memories began to flood back to her faster than the speed of tears, and before long a sob tore its way from her throat. The next sob escaped through a small smile, and the one after that through a grin.
The faces brought back names, and voices, and conversations, adventures, laughs, parties, and more than anything... memories of friendship, tried and true.
Before long, Twilight was laughing and crying so hard she couldn't tell which was which. Through it all she managed to desperately choke out one phrase repeated over and over.
"Thank you." A hiccup. "Thank you, Starlight. Thank you so, so much."
She hugged the picture to her chest with all the strength of an ancient princess, and all the regality of a giddy librarian. As the room around her grew more and more bright, Twilight didn't notice the red glow. She no longer saw the sun expand until it filled the sky from horizon to horizon. When the landscape around the mountain began to burn, and when the tears evaporated off of Twilight's face, she didn't even notice.
Even as the brightest light in the universe turned everything to white, the last thing etched into Twilight's vision was the smiling faces of her friends, and the last thing on her mind was every single memory from the best time of her life.
"Thank you."
And then it all ended.
Author's Note
Special thanks to FloydienSlip for proofreading!
