Twilight woke up in her bed. Sometimes she wondered if it was normal to be so used to waking up in different places than you had fallen asleep in. But she didn't have time to worry about that. It was still too early. She looked out the window at the sky to make sure it was still morning. She tried to remember where she had left off in her work as she shuffled into the hall. Ghostly lines and curls of text danced in front of her eyes.
She did not reach her goal, Mount Parchment, aka her office. When she arrived the door was blocked by a grinning Starlight Glimmer. "I figured it out!"
Twilight was too tired to really care, so she just mumbled "That's nice" as she made for the door.
"Oh no," Starlight said. "You, missy, are taking a break. You've worked hard enough already. I mean look at you, you can hardly stand!" Her words would have been more convincing if she herself had looked like she had gotten any more sleep than Twilight.
"Starlight, I have deadlines. I can't just drop everything and go to the beach or something," Twilight said. Honestly, Starlight knew how busy she was.
"Too bad," Starlight said, turning Twilight to face down the hall to the castle's entrance, "because that's exactly what you're going to do. Don't worry, I have it all taken care of. You don't need to worry about any of this, just enjoy yourself."
"Starlight—."
"Nope! Don't wanna hear it." Starlight shoved a piece of paper in Twilight's face. "Here's your ticket. You've got a train to catch." There was a sudden flash of light and Twilight found herself at the train station.
"About time you showed up. I was about to come and get you," said Rainbow Dash without warning from above. The rest of the girls were there too.
"Isn't this just the loveliest thing that Starlight's come up with?" said Rarity. "Oh I haven't been to the beach in ages. By the way, here's your luggage. Spike already packed for you."
Twilight grit her teeth. "That's great."
"Is everything alright darling?"
"It's just—" Twilight stood with her eyes closed and took several long, deep breaths. "I'm fine, this all caught me by surprise, is all."
"Perfectly understandable. I can't say I was expecting it myself. But there Starlight was at my door this morning. And, well, you can't say it's not a tempting offer."
Twilight nodded. "You know what? I trust Starlight. I'm just going to try and enjoy this." She climbed up the steps onto the train. "So where is she sending us?" She did not really trust Starlight that much. But it was clear that her opinions were not being taken into consideration here. She was going on a vacation whether she wanted to or not. All her friends were excited, and her misgivings weren’t so big that she wanted to ruin it for them.
The train pulled away from Ponyville. Twilight imagined it pulling her away from all her work and problems. In a literal sense it was, but she hoped it would help her stop thinking about it. It didn't, but that was all the more reason to catch up on some sleep.
She was almost refreshed by the time they arrived at their destination, a tiny little village even compared to Ponyville. It was plain to see this place would not have had so much as a train station if it wasn't for the resort there. In fact, Twilight had learned reading a brochure for the place, the isolation and insularity was just what the resort prided itself on: it was a place to "leave behind all the stresses of normal life," and other platitudes. Fortunately Spike had packed plenty of better reading material.
In any case, she had to admit that "Sandy Shores" was a cozy little place. Certainly it was nice enough to forgive the bland writing style of its advertisements and unoriginal name.
There was nothing to take your mind off the work you still feel like you're supposed to be doing like hot, soft sand under your hooves. And Twilight more than most ponies was attentive to the pleasuring heat of the sun's light, for it was the warmth of friendship.
Her last thoughts of work were words of thanks to Starlight, and then all notions of business got lost in the sun and the sand. Pinkie giggled as she sprang up in an impossible leap to pull Rainbow Dash out of the cloud she was resting in; they both fell to the ground, laughing. Even Rarity laughed a little at the spectacle. Soft warmth and the sound of friends surrounded Twilight as she started into the first book she had chosen to read and soon the world was yet farther removed as the words and letters danced and disappeared as they assembled their stage. In a word, she was relaxed.
Oh yes.
The closest she got to being a princess that day was to tell the workers at the resort not to worry about her being so.
Paradise, it turned out was a simple thing: books, sun, friends. That's all you need. But for the absence of Spike and Starlight, it was all perfect.
They had a spa. Twilight was not much of a spa pony, but she could never remember why when she did make it. It always felt so good. She practically melted under the masseuse's hooves.
Twilight lay on the beach. The sand was soft beneath her, and the sun was gently warm above her. They had been at Sandy Shores for a couple of days now. It always took a couple of days away for her to let herself stop thinking about work. She was just about there with this vacation.
The only thing she couldn't figure out was how Starlight had managed it. Everypony told her not to worry about it whenever she brought it up, which was fair. But still, Starlight could take over the duties of anypony of them, sure. But all of them? Something was up, and when Starlight got up to stuff, it was invariably something big.
Even still, the others had a point. They were on vacation, and how often did they get to do that? And if there was anypony who could pull this off, it was Starlight Glimmer. With Spike by her side no less. Everything was going to be fine, surely enough that even Twilight could just forget about it for a moment. Or two. Or however many moments there were in a week.
Twilight couldn't be bothered to do the unit conversion. That was how she knew she was relaxed and on vacation.
It turned out that whatever the solution to the equation of how many moments there were in a week was, it was not enough. A week later, Twilight lay in her bed for the last night. It was too bad she had to go back to Ponyville; she was not sick of the place yet. Oh, there were a few things she would have preferred. She could never live there, as there was no library. Rarity had also been starting to get fidgety with no fabric on hoof. But all in all, it was a pretty nice little town. She had already scheduled another trip for next summer.
She snuffed the candles on her bedside table, and lowered her head onto the cool fabric of the pillow. She fell asleep quickly; Ponyville was waiting.
So was work. She wished she could have spent a little more time here.
She woke up in her bed. Sometimes she wondered if it was normal to so used to waking up in different places than you had fallen asleep in.
She started. She was in her own bed. In Ponyville. "What..." she said. She threw her door open and rushed into the hallway to see if—yes, she was in her castle. Somehow. Because there was no way she would have slept through an entire train ride.
She saw Starlight standing in the hall. "Hey," she said, approaching her. "I have a weird question—"
"I figured it out!" said Starlight, beaming.
"Figured what out? Were you the one who teleported—"
Starlight cut in again. "Oh no. You, missy, are taking a break."
"I just—" Twilight cut herself off that time. Because Starlight kept talking right over her. She didn't seem to react at all to Twilight's words. "Uh, hello?" Twilight waved her hoof in front of Starlight's face and got no response.
"Here's your ticket. You've got a train to catch," Starlight said, before teleporting her.
In a flash she was in a train car with the other girls. They all looked as confused as she was feeling.
"What's going on?" Rainbow said.
The train lurched under them. "10:25 leaving for Baltimare," somepony outside shouted.
Twilight looked at the map she realized she was holding in her magic. It showed the train's route, with a big circle and the words "Sandy Shores" penciled in south of Baltimare.
Twilight looked up from the map. "It looks like the same one as last week."
Applejack chewed her lip. "Something ain't right here. We should see about getting off this train."
"On it!" said Rainbow, launching herself out a window.
She returned a few minutes later. There was an uneasy look on her face. It was almost redundant when she said: "Something freaky is going on. There's, like, a forcefield around the train. I tried to fly up to get a good look around, and bam! ran right into a wall. It goes all around us too."
Twilight cast a rueful glance toward the engine. There probably wasn't much point in having them stop the train, then.
She did want to take a look for herself. She spread her wings and teleported straight up and into the air above the train.
There was indeed a barrier she could sense. It was not a simple shield. She couldn't quite tell what it was. Having to fly and keep pace with the train didn't help matters. She fired a beam from her horn at it. The spell splashed against it with no discernible effect.
She landed on top of the train, unable to keep up flying at its pace. She trotted in circles, looking all around. She was hemmed in all around. Her friends were trapped, and her with them.
There was nothing she could do. Brute force was not going to get them out of this. Anything else, she needed time, and she wasn’t sure how much they had.
It wasn’t easy, but Twilight resigned herself to the idea that she would just have to wait until they reached their destination to figure things out. There was simply nothing she could do. That did not stop her spending every second of the ride poking at the barrier.
The train did indeed leave them at Sandy Shores again. They all held their breath as it pulled away. Twilight was ready to pick everypony up who couldn't fly. But the mysterious barrier stayed in place, not moving with the train anymore.
The wall was still there when she felt out with her magic. But at least it wasn't moving and dragging them across the ground. And that meant Twilight could study it.
If they could get the ponies at the resort to leave them alone, that was. Twilight was annoyed. It was like they didn't remember how she had specifically requested that they not treat her like a princess the first time they came. It had only been a week ago! They didn't remember anything at all.
Now there was a thought. Something was obviously going on. Clearly it had affected these ponies—and Starlight too! Yes, that speech she had given in the morning had been just the same as a week ago, she was sure.
So just what was happening? Out of her deep thought Twilight saw her friends looking at her, waiting for the answer. The Starlight element ruled out Changeling replacement, but that wasn't likely anyway. Had everypony's memories been tampered with? But why, and how?
Or—of course. If Starlight was involved then time travel was always a possibility. She really hoped it wasn’t that.
Twilight thought as she asked the others to spread out and investigate.
While they did that, she refocused her thoughts. The most immediate question was the barrier. She probed it again, now that everything was still. It wasn't doing much. As far as she could tell, it wasn't actively doing anything; it wasn't generating any effect on the space inside.
It was just a wall, a big bubble around them. But it wasn't any of the spells you would normally use for such a thing. Whatever this new spell was, it was very good. Twilight could not sense anything outside of it. It was like there was nothing there. Certainly something Starlight was capable of. Fortunately for Starlight, Twilight didn’t have any concrete information. But when she got it, she was going to have words with that mare.
A whole lot of hard-won nothing that was. It was evening when she rejoined the girls.
"Any luck?" as they sat down to dinner.
A round of "no"s was the answer.
"Whoever's messing with us was thorough," Applejack said. "We couldn't find nothing to prove we were here before."
Rarity nodded. "Even the newspapers are all a week old."
Everypony else added their own observations, but Twilight kept thinking about that one.
The next morning Twilight went to the reception desk and asked the pony: "Excuse me, how often do the newspapers get delivered? All the ones I've been able to find are a bit old."
The mare smiled and said, "I'm sorry about that. But being out of the way like this means we only get the paper delivered once a week. These ones that arrived with you yesterday are the freshest we have." She took one from a stack on the desk and passed it to Twilight.
She looked at the date. One week and one day ago.
The receptionist eyed Twilight's wings. "If you want, your Highness, we can send somepony to get today's. There are a few pegasi around..."
"No, no, no. Please, don't go to any trouble like that for me." Twilight smiled a bit insincerely. "I'm just here to relax, not to be a princess. I was just wondering."
Paper in horn, she walked away. So that was that.
She gathered her friends. “I think I’ve figured it out. We’re in a time loop. Starlight did… something, and we’re going to keep doing this vacation over and over if we don’t find a way out.
“I don’t think Starlight meant to do this, but she’s just about the only one capable of it. Either way, we have to do something. I’m… just not sure what, exactly. Without my library, it’s going to be hard to figure out how to break the loop.”
“You got this, Twi,” Rainbow Dash said. “And we’ll do whatever we can to help.”
Rarity nodded. “Whatever it takes.”
Twilight sighed. “Thanks girls, but I’m not sure how much there is for you to do. This is complex magic. I’m not sure how much I’m going to be able to do with the books I have with me.” Because of course nothing on time magic had made it into her luggage. “The best plan I have right now is to grab as much as I can from the library on the next loop.” It was a maddening thought. She was Twilight Sparkle, she was a princess. She did not wait for books.
“The good news is, until then we can just try to enjoy ourselves as much as we can.”
That wasn’t to say there were no preparations Twilight could make. She just decided to test if she could make those preparations while getting a massage. She was going to need a lot of massages to stay sane.
The week passed. It was markedly less relaxing than the first one. But of all the places to be trapped by a mysterious threat, there were worse than a resort. Twilight found herself making a lot of her plans while lying on the beach.
Still, there was no alleviating the tension on the last day. Twilight had informed everypony about her theories, but it was too bizarre to truly expect what was supposedly going to happen.
Finally, evening came, and Twilight laid down to sleep.
Once again, Twilight woke up in her bed. Her bed. In Ponyville. That was part one of her theory confirmed. She got up, but did not go toward her office. Whether Starlight was waiting for here again wasn't what she needed to test next.
What she did was go to the library. She plucked a book from the nearest shelf and glanced at the title. Not on time. She took another. Another.
Too soon the library disappeared in a flash of light, and was replaced with the interior of a train car. The girls were all there too.
The books, however, were not. Twilight turned around in circles looking for them. She groped all around with her magic. Nothing, not a page except that stupid brochure. Twilight sank to her haunches, trembling and wide eyed. “I can’t take any books with me.”
“Phooey,” Pinkie said.
Twilight felt sick. The problem was nigh impossible. Sure she had time, but not much else. Without any knowledge, she would have to start from first principles. Who knew how long that would take? And presumably she wouldn’t even be able to keep notes across loops.
She couldn’t count on Starlight. There was no way of knowing what the conversion factor between the loop time and normal time was. Centuries might pass before Starlight was able to notice something was wrong.
But then there came a hoof on her shoulder. “You got this,” Rainbow said. The others joined her in encouragement.
Right. She couldn’t give up. She was going to get them out even if it did take forever. And she had learned from the last loop that she could do it at the spa. That helped.
Spike and Starlight stood, side by side looking at the big, glowing, blue bubble in the middle of Twilight's throne room.
Spike was panicking. To her credit, Starlight was panicking too. Even though she was the reason there was a need to panic. He was not thinking about that too much though, because, well, panicking.
"Alright, I think I've got it," said Starlight, looking up from the page of hastily written equations in front of her. "I think I've got it."
"That's what you said last time. And before that. And when you came up with this whole thing in the first place!"
The cocky grin that Starlight had put on faltered. "Hey, look, do you want me to try this or not?" She took a deep breath and turned toward the bubble of magic. "Let's do this," she said to herself.
Her horn lit up with the same cyan as the bubble. A thin beam shot out. The bubble reacted instantly, wobbling and moving. It began rippling at the point of contact, Slowly a spherical protuberance began to grow. The sphere grew brighter and brighter as the color started to fade from the rest of the bubble.
"It's working!" Spike shouted.
Shouting dragons are not good for concentration, though, and concentration was something Starlight needed a lot of. The beam flickered; the bubble started returning to it's original shape.
Starlight screwed her eyes shut. She maintained the spell, but it was no longer having the same effect. The entire mess in front of them was beginning to ripple ominously. Sweat and tears ran down Starlight's face as she poured more energy into the spell. She whimpered when even that was not enough, but kept trying.
Then, all at once, the bubble settled down. A purple light began to glow from inside. It rapidly grew in intensity until it consumed the bubble in a violet flash. Starlight stumbled forward as she was suddenly casting her spell into thin air.
She opened her eyes. The girls were all in front of her, with a very haggard, very angry Twilight in their middle.
Twilight stood up slowly, and slowly, gingerly walked over to Starlight. One of her wings automatically extended to embrace Spike as he ran up to hug her. "This was your plan?" Twilight said.
Starlight laughed nervously. "I just thought that, uh, since none of you have time to relax, I'd just, make some? Stretch out a few minutes?"
Twilight smiled sarcastically. "Well then, you'll be happy to know that the first week was actually very pleasant. The next three months that I had to spend reinventing time magic from scratch because I didn't have my library on the other hoof..."
"It may have lasted just a little bit longer than I expected."
Twilight wheeled around to Spike. "How long has it been out here?"
"An hour," he said, trying not to add an "I told you so."
"An hour," Twilight repeated. "An hour has gone by. So you're telling me that not only have I had to spend the last three months straight from my perspective figuring out how to break out of a time loop, but that huge pile of paperwork sitting in my office is just as big as it was last night?" It wasn't really a question. Even if it had been, Starlight knew better than to answer.
Twilight composed herself, with a small, tired smile. She hoofed Starlight a quill. "Well have fun then." She trotted off. "You better not have missed any deadlines by the time I wake up," she called behind her.
