Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Special thanks to my proofreaders/editors: chasethebrony and Rainbowsoldier94

ABOUT TO CRASH REPRISE [part II]

The flash of light finally vanished leaving Twilight confused about what was happening around her. She rubbed her eyes; she was in the middle of Ponyville, the moon was raised high in the beautiful dark violet sky, but... floating? She was startled but quickly remembered what was happening. The spell had worked she was now experiencing a reflection of the past.

"I need to know when I had exited. I hope I didn't pass the right point..." Twilight kept self-arguing when she heard the sound of a door creaking open. She turned and saw Pinkie leaving Sugarcube Corner.

"Dear Celestia.. so this is when..." Twilight’s thoughts faded. She stared directly at her friend but could not recognize her at all; the once happiest pony in all of Equestria now seemed like the saddest one she had ever seen. The lavender mare felt

like crying but she held back her tears and kept watching.

Pinkie closed the door slowly and began trotting probably in the direction of the Everfree Forest.

"I can't believe she headed to the Everfree. The princess said they searched there... Better not lose track of her."

Twilight couldn't believe that the pony in front of her was Pinkie. She had never seen her so crestfallen. Her trotting seemed heavy as if she was carrying a loaded burden, and in fact, she was.

The lavender mare tried to keep her focus or else something could go wrong if she lost her concentration. The connection with the past is extremely weak, and to top it off, she didn’t know how much time left she had to discover  Pinkie’s possible whereabouts in the future.

In every way that she thought, she just found problems and was almost starting to regret her choice of traveling to the past. She shook her head slightly to remove any negative thoughts, 'No, I have to do this... For her and for us all.'

As Twilight continued to process her thoughts, Pinkie headed to the Everfree forest at a slow and unhappy pacing.

Pinkie reached the borders of the Everfree, stopped and looked directly to the night sky, probably seeking for any solution to her problems but seemingly in vain.

"I'm sorry everypony... I just hope you all get better, without me upsetting your days..."

"Pinkie!" Twilight couldn't contain herself and shouted her friend's name. But the pink pony didn't hear her. 'She can't hear me, I can't do nothing but watch her here... I must control myself.' Twilight tried to sort her feelings but turned out to be a difficult task.

Now Pinkie was in the woods and Twilight followed her closely. A house emerged from the trees. 'Wait, that's Zecora's house!' Twilight thought, surprised.

Pinkie slowly entered in the zebra's house and closed the door behind her without even looking back; Twilight passed

through the door and saw Pinkie in the living room, the voice of Zecora was coming through from somewhere she couldn't identify.

The zebra appeared from one of the doors of her house, but something was strange. The scenery around her began to lose its color little by little. By this moment, Zecora and Pinkie’s voices became almost inaudible to the point where Twilight couldn’t make out any of the words

"Oh no, the spell is losing its power..." The world continued blurring more and more.

"Damn, I can't go back now... I need to know at least where she headed..."

Everything went black once more...

"NO!" Twilight shouted as she shot up from the cushion she was lying on.

She was panting hard; everything seemed strange, her senses were at their highest and she felt as if she had just woken up from a nightmare.

"Oh no..."

The unicorn looked around and noticed all her friends staring at her with worry on their faces. Princess Celestia and Luna were getting up slowly, surely tired from the complicated spell that they just had performed.

The lavender mare felt her head getting heavy, she lay on the cushion again and as soon as she rested her head on it, she fell asleep.

Twilight had slept until the next morning. That spell surely worn out the poor thing to her bones.

As soon as she had woken up, we all met at the gardens of the castle where we had breakfast. We were all sitting on a big table that was set outside.

We ate our meal in a bothering silence. I was feeling so curious to know about Pinkie. It turned out to be very difficult to contain myself.

But I needed to respect my friend before anything, and patiently, we awaited.

At last, she finished her meal, looked to both princesses that nodded back to her, got up and spoke, "I'm not sure where Pinkie is... Everything was too fast, I expected to stay there more but it wasn't possible..."

Me and the others gasped by what she said.

"BUT, I have a clue. she went to Zecora's house, probably looking for advice so all we have to do is go there and ask her about it."

Well, what other hope could I have at that moment? At least we had somewhere to go, at least we had a clue.

In that same day we went to the Everfree forest on the royal carriage to save us some time. We arrived at Zecora's house by the afternoon. The forest was very calm, just the sound of birds and the soft wind blowing through the trees.

Twilight knocked on the wooden door. It didn't take long for it to be answered. Zecora appeared and noticed all of us there, although she didn't seemed surprised to see even the princesses at her door; the zebra was just giving us a neutral expression.

Twilight as always began speaking first, "Hello Zecora." trying not to look too anxious.

"Well hello there Twilight, I guess you had come to ask for your pink friend by noticing your fright."

"Well I'll go directly to the point then, where's Pinkie?"

"Your friend came to ask for advice because her heart was cold as ice. Please come on in and drink some tea because a lot of things may be explained to thee."

We all entered at Zecora's cottage, even though it was quite small to fit the seven of use we managed to suit ourselves around a circular table where some tea-cups were being placed by our zebra friend.

After some time she came with the tea and served all of us. It was a simple green tea but its fragrance was different. It may have been something that she added to it but it was surely making me feel a little more relaxed.

Twilight didn't waste any time and began speaking again, "Well Zecora you are aware of Pinkie's disappearance, the princesses and I performed a spell where I managed to be for some time in the past and you met with Pinkie but then I couldn't see what happened next as the spell was of extreme risk and hard to maintain." She then thought for a while and proceeded, "I thought I should have come to talk to you first without going through such risks but, well, there was so much going on these past days so..."

"Fear not Twilight, I know that you are passing through a hard time. All I have to ask from you is your trust that soon your friend will return."

"What do you mean Zecora? Do you know or don't know where Pinkie is?" Twilight began to sound impatient at this time and so were we

"I wish I knew my friend, but I'm afraid that I don't know when your worries will have an end. Your friend wanted to find something to set her mind right, and I only knew of one pony... or better one zebra, that could help in her fight."

I noticed Twilight ears perked up as she asked, "Who?"