I Waited

The day after my visit to Canterlot, I decided to visit Twilight and Starlight to see how things were going since our talk, and it seemed to be relatively... better.

Despite this, however, Twilight was no longer working with Starlight on the spell. There was no negative reason for it, other than what happened. It turned out that the guilt still ate at her, no matter what, and she simply didn't want to accidentally contribute to another potential accident.

Starlight wasn't angry in the slightest—even she had some doubts. But the unicorn continued her research and efforts. Twilight only contributed by providing the mare with the books she might need, but nothing beyond that.

When I first arrived over at the castle, Starlight was downstairs, and Twilight and Spike were in the library restocking shelves with Clanks, who... and I thought I was seeing things differently... was looking very... chippy?

"Uh, Clanks?" I wasn't worried, but genuinely curious. Had he gotten a-

My train of thought derailed when Clanks practically screamed my name and ran over to give me a near-deathly grip. "How are you today? I'm so glad you came over to see us! Did you miss me? I bet you did~!"

For a robot, he sure runs pretty fast. And hugs really... REALLY tightly.

"Uh...?" I just stared at Twilight, wanting to know.

"It's a bit of a work in progress," she explained, "but I was trying to add more emotional inputs to his brain. Basically, make him feel more pony-like."

That definitely makes more se-hnngh!

"Clanks, buddy, can you let go? I'm starting to go numb everywhere."

"Oh!" the robot said in realization, and immediately let go of me. "Sorry, pal! I didn't mean to hurt you! Are you okay?"

"Uh... I... yes?"

"One second," said Twilight as she illuminated Clanks with her magic. A moment later, the robot seemed to power down, before turning back on slowly.

Clanks rubbed his head as if he felt a migraine—and he probably did feel it.

"I believe the personality enhancer spell needs more work on it, Twilight," he said in his typical not-monotone voice.

"I know, Clanks," Twilight giggled. "How are you feeling now?"

"I feel fine now. Thank you."

"Good," I spoke up, "because I don't think I could last with you all hopped up on happiness and laughter all the time. Pinkie being happy is one thing. You being happy is a deathtrap for anyone in your clutches. No offense."

Surprisingly, Clanks actually laughed, even if it did seem... artificial. "I find no offense taken."

Letting out a subtle sigh of relief, I turned back to Twilight. "So, uh—is Starlight-"

"Basement," Spike said, a grin plastered on his face, like he knew I was going to ask that from the start. I mean, it was true, but...

Thanking the young drake, I excused myself from the trio and made my way down to the basement. It'd been over a week since I last came down here, at least to them. But to me, it's been well over—

"Twilight? Is that you?" I heard Starlight call from the bottom.

"It's me!" I called back as I reached the basement. "They told me you were down here, and I figured I pop and see how you're doing."

"In general 'how I'm doing' or the spell 'how I'm doing?'" she asked me, not turning away from the platform.

"Eh, both."

"Good!" she exclaimed. "Reeeeal good."

"That's not sarcasm, is it?" Honestly, I couldn't tell.

"Nope! I'm actually doing really good."

"How so?"

Turning herself around, she was wearing a pair of white goggles and an excited grin. She fumbled with the goggles, eventually lifting them over her horn.

"I think I finally found a way to prove that the spell works properly!"

"How so?"

"With this." As if pausing for dramatic effect, she unveiled a stopwatch—an electronic stopwatch. I looked at her, and then back to the watch, and then to the platform that contained an apple, a bone, and a pineapple.

"I'm assuming that you're planning to strap this watch to those three objects, perform the spell on all three at the same time, and see if the time's changed on any of them?"

"Well... um... well, yeah, basically." Starlight paused for a second, then cleared her throat to break the silence. "Now, I've done some modifications to the spell. They're tiny little changes that can really help when it comes to testing. Instead of twenty seconds, they'll come back after they hit the ten second mark. BUT, in the case of us as we stand now, I've modified it so that they reappear exactly five seconds after I cast the spell. So, if I did it just right, and they reappear after five seconds, it won't say five seconds. It'll say TEN."

A little confusing, but it still made sense.

"Have you tested it like this before?"

"Not exactly. Originally, I had them reappear after five seconds, but it wasn't enough—for all I knew, I probably teleported them to another place instead of another time. This tweak should tell us for sure if it worked. You can take a look for yourself."

I inspected the writings and scribbles on the parchment that made up her spell. Before the test, I hadn't the faintest idea what any of it said or meant, but now I could understand practically every line and curve that made it up. I did notice that some parts were erased or changed to accommodate her tweaks.

"How far ahead will they be going?" I asked her.

"I changed that too. An hour would honestly take too long, so I decided to set it for twenty seconds. So, twenty seconds to wait for them to reappear, and then they disappear ten seconds after they arrive. All in all, it should be a total of about thirty seconds."

"Hmm... is this what you've been working on the past several days?"

"Not several," she corrected. "I only started working on the spell again the day after the whole... intervention. I've been dying to get back to it, but I was busy with... other things."

I didn't ask what other things meant, but I took one more quick look at the spell and then stepped back.

"Think you can perform it on your own?"

"Actually, I tested it out a couple of times before you got here, and it all seemed to work flawlessly. Perhaps you can watch this time and see if anything needs tweaking."

"Sure," I smiled. "Whenever you're ready."

"Always. ... Well, not always, but... ahem, anyway—here we go."

As soon as I was out of her way, Starlight lit her horn and focused on the three objects, attaching to them their own sets of stopwatches similar to the one she showed me. The objects floated over the platform, allowing Starlight to focus much clearer on them. Then, with a click of the start buttons, and a zap of her magic, the objects were gone, and Starlight immediately began to count.

"One, two, three, four... five."

As if on cue, the objects immediately returned, beaming in front of us and then falling back to the platform. Starlight and I walked over and read the times on the watches.

"Ten seconds," I said aloud. "It works."

I looked over at Starlight, expecting her to be hopping all over the place in joy at the knowledge that her spell seemed to be a success—but she wasn't doing that at all. She was smiling, but she was very hesitant. I just had to ask her what was wrong.

"I still need to test it on somepony." She looked at me with nervousness. "I mean, sure, a pineapple and an apple are organic things, but they're not ponies. They can't exactly tell us what they saw or experienced, and just slapping a stopwatch on it tells us it works, but at the same time, it doesn't."

Her lips scrunched up as she leaned against a nearby table. "I don't know how to explain that any-gah!"

She screamed in surprise as three duplicates of the objects appeared out of thin air, fifteen seconds after the originals returned.

"-better."

Using the short time we had, I inspected the variants of the objects before they disappeared. Their structure, their texture, and their overall form. They looked identical to the ones that returned.

"They seem to be just fine," I assured her. Seconds later, the duplicates vanished in a zap of light, returning to land as they did seconds before. "I mean, a few seconds later to arrive, but it works, Starlight."

"Ohhmm...I don't know," the mare nervously rubbed her left forearm with a hoof. "I just need to make sure everything's working exactly as intended before I even think about giving this to Celestia or Luna or even Twilight. Pardon my language, but... I really don't wanna buck this up again."

I could understand her frustration and concern. This was an important project to her, and even a bit to Twilight still. It's not that their work would go to waste, per say—but I knew she wanted this to work as she hoped, and she couldn't without one more thing.

"Well... you can test it on me again."

Immediately, she recoiled. "Absolutely not! Are you crazy? Did you not realize that you got stuck in a time-space bubble for the past three years?"

"I-"

"Not to mention gathering the whole of Equestria just to find you while you were falling into black holes and watching stars explode?"

"Wait-"

"What if all goes wrong again? What if I buck it up all over again and you don't come back next time?! What if-"

"Starlight!"

The sound of my voice raised at her was enough to make Starlight stop her worrisome rambling and look at me with nervous eyes, both from the shouting and from my suggestion. I walked up to her and place my forehooves firmly on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

"Listen to me very carefully. Nothing is going to happen this time. You are doing everything right, and everything is working just fine. All it'll take is five seconds, and I'll be standing right in front of you again."

"But-" I placed a single hoof on her lips.

"No 'buts', understand? Everything is going to be fine. And even if it doesn't, and by some miraculous chance the same thing happens twice and I end up right back in that dome—I know exactly how I'm going to get home this time around."

"That's what I'm afraid of," she spoke, "the spell doing that again."

"Well, luckily, you changed the layout of the spell so much, it'd be hard to do the same thing twice."

"Says you."

"Yeah," I looked at her with a smirk. "Says me. Trust me when I say that."

Starlight looked at me, then to the parchment and the objects. I could tell her mind was racing a million miles a second, with the thought of 'should I' or 'should I not.'

"Hey," I whispered gently to her. Those blue eyes of hers looked back. "Do you trust me?"

I remember when she and Twilight asked me that same exact question a week ago, and I told the both of them that I trusted them one-hundred percent. Even after all that happened, I still did. Now I could only hope that she returned the favor.

"Yes. I trust you." And she did.

With a smile, I gently plonked her horn. "Then get that spell of yours ready."

She didn't respond with words, but with a gasp and a blush on her cheeks, and I realized what I just did.

"Oh! Right, horn—very sensitive." I laughed sheepishly. "Sorry."

I walked on over to the platform, carefully pushing the objects out of the way and standing in the center. Of course, it likely wasn't required to stand on the platform, but it was here for a reason.

Turning back around, I saw Starlight's face. She didn't seem as afraid as she was earlier, but she was definitely still concerned, worried even, about going through with this. But there was also the look of determination making its way through. She audibly gulped as her horn started to glow.

"Are you sure about this...?"

I nodded. "No time like the present."

"Well... okay. H... Here I go then."

Her magic began to swirl about and flash as the spell began to take effect. Her aura covered my body, and I could already tell that I missed that feeling. So comforting.

I could hear Starlight breathing a bit faster than usual, but overall, she was focused and staring at me.

Then, as expected, the flash of her horn whisked me away. The light surrounded my body and then vanished a split second later; it felt like I haven't move at all—because I hadn't. I was still in the exact same spot, but it was immediately obvious that I was twenty seconds in the future.

How could I have known that? Because the duplicate of me and Starlight kissing against the nearby wall was enough to let me know just fine.

Their moment was quickly interrupted as soon as they noticed me—well, rather, heard me arrive.

"Well," I started, "that didn't take very long."

Starlight looked away, her face painted a heavy red. Future me laughed quietly. Speaking of future me...

"Do I really look like that?"

"You do."

"Huh... I'm gonna have to say that, aren't I?"

"Yep. But at least it-"

Before I could answer, the spell once again took hold, and I was sent back to my original timeline... of about twenty seconds ago. It was strange feeling myself actually get younger by a few seconds. But by Celestia, it was so rejuvenating.

"You're... you're back." Starlight said, prompting me to look at her. She seemed genuinely scared. "Did... Did it...?"

"Worked like a charm."

"EEEEEEEE!"

Wasn't expecting tha-whoa!

Starlight grabbed me by the forehooves and started dancing and spinning around, laughing and screaming with glee. As soon as I was out of the sudden daze, I began to do the same, flinging her up with my wings. However, I was pretty sure half of her was excited I came back as planned.

Eventually, we ran out of space to dance, and I ended up hitting my back against the wall. There was the initial 'oomf', but it wasn't all too bad.

That was when Starlight wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a kiss. It didn't feel like the typical 'heat-of-the-moment' style kiss—this felt genuine, romantic, and caring. She was really kissing me.

Who knew it could ever feel like this?

Suddenly, the familiar 'vwarp' noise was heard, and the two of us pulled away just in time to see me arrive. It was weird to see me looking right back at... myself.

"Well," he started, "that didn't take very long."

My Starlight looked away from the past me and buried her face into my chest, a red blush plastered on it. I think she was even giggling. I didn't notice that. Past me looked at me for a brief instant.

"Do I really look like that?"

"You do," I told him, realizing I was saying the exact same thing I heard myself answer.

"Huh... I'm gonna have to say that, aren't I?"

"Yep. But at least it-"

Suddenly, he was gone, sent back to fifteen seconds ago, where he would be doing the exact same thing as I just did.

"-won't take long," I finished. "Can't believe I just forgot about that."

Starlight lifted her head up from my chest just to let out a cute, hearty laugh, resting a hoof on my body to hoist herself up.

"Y-You knew about this, didn't you?" she asked me through her laughter.

"... Maybe a little."

She laughed again, leaning against me as she tried to contain it. Ultimately, I started to laugh along with her, giggling and snickering. Tears leaked through her eyelids, both of laughter and of relief. Even as she kissed me again, even as she held me close and never wanted to let me go, she laughed.

Time is funny—and it wasn't weird anymore.