A puff in her ear and a sharp prod between her wings jabbed Twilight awake. Leaping up, she threw off her blankets, spun in mid-air, and flared her horn, her mind racing—Tirek! Parasprites! Tatzelwurms! Silverfish!
But instead, the not-long-after-dawn light coming through her bedroom window showed her a hovering white envelope, its little paper wings rustling with each flap. Purple letters straggled across the front, and they spelled out her name.
Twilight blinked at it. It continued crunchily flapping. She reached out a hoof, but just before she could touch the thing, its wings vanished with a poof to drop the envelope right onto her frog.
After a few more blinks, she dismissed her internal checklist of what to do when awakened by a monster and/or a threat to her books. Activating senses she'd honed during her time in Ponyville, she sifted through the evidence—time; place; size and physical make-up of the envelope; quality and thickness of the ink—and came to one conclusion.
It was a party invitation, but not from Pinkie Pie. Pinkie always preferred delivering her invitations herself, after all.
Relaxing a bit, Twilight drifted back down to settle on her green flannel sheets, a light camphor smell still tickling her nose since she'd just unpacked her cold-weather trunk yesterday. With a sharpening of her hornglow, she sliced the top off the envelope, set it down, and looked at the cream-colored card she pulled from inside.
The words Come one, come all! were printed across the top of the card in that same scraggly writing.
And yes, it said on the line below that, I suppose that means you, too, Twilight Sparkle.
Which pretty much confirmed the suspicion that had started nudging the back of her brain. What was Discord up to now?
Well, if you'll just keep reading, the next line on the card said, it's entirely possible that you might find out.
Fighting off the usual dealing-with-Discord urge to grind her teeth, she shifted her gaze to the fourth line: Now, where was I?
Oh, yes, said the fifth line. The party.
After that finally came a whole paragraph. With the leaves having been run and the Nightmare Night candy now busily rotting hundreds of thousands of molars and festering away in pillow cases and paper sacks sequestered within closets and under beds across the length and breadth of our beloved realm of Equestria, it's time once again for that greatest of all Autumnal Celebrations—
And here the writing ran out of room at the bottom of the card.
Automatically, Twilight flipped it over. The other side was blank. She turned it back to the first side. That side was now blank, too.
A twitch pulled the corner of her left eye, but movement from the envelope lying on her sheets caught her attention. The edge of another card was now poking from the top even though Twilight was certain it had only had the one card inside when she'd opened it.
For a moment, she struggled with the question of whether it was worth her time to look. Yes, Discord had made enormous strides since he'd first burst forth from his stone prison. But he had an annoying tendency to backslide, a sort of "three steps forward and two steps back" ebb and flow to his personality that had Colgate shaking her head every time Twilight went in for her dental check-up. Her Discord-induced tooth grinding hadn't caused any serious damage yet, but Twilight knew she had to be careful.
Still, for all his whininess and petulance, Discord was a friend. Even if he did seem bound and determined to knock the 'r' out of that word half the time...
With a curl of magic, she took the second card from the envelope and saw at the top in big, flashing, blocky letters, The Annual Change from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time!
In the center of the card, smaller, non-flashing letters said, The entire population of Ponyville is invited out for a Saturday of fun and frolic, food and festivities, frivolity and, oh, I don't know, fescue, maybe? Brought to you free of charge by that Master of Mirth, Discord! The merriment will increase till two AM Sunday when we will all waggle our collective tongues in Celestia and Luna's general direction, declare that we're the ones who decide what time it is, and turn our clocks back one hour to enter the boringly but appropriately named state known as Equestrian Standard Time!
Underneath that, the letters the same size but flashing again, were the words, Children! Stay up past your bedtimes! Adults! Eat and drink more than you really ought to! Everypony! Arise in defiance of chronometric oppression!
And at the bottom sprawled one more line of purple ink: The party starts now!
Jaunty calliope music began outside, Twilight's ears twisting and the hair prickling along the base of her mane. A flex of her wings carried her to the double doors of her balcony, and she threw them open to see—
Balloons, streamers, banners, flags: the whole town lay covered in a blanket of colors that reached up to the crisp blue of an early morning in mid-fall. A breeze puffed past her with aromas of cinnamon and pumpkin, hot chocolate and spiced apples, warm blueberries and preserved peaches, pancakes and butter and maple syrup. Twilight's stomach tried to rumble and tighten at the same time.
Windows were sliding up all over town as she looked down across the rooftops. Ponies peered out, some of them holding cards that looked a lot like the one she'd just finished reading. Their blank expressions changed to smiles almost immediately; heads pulled back in, front doors went swinging, and foals tumbled laughing into the street to begin galloping toward what appeared to be a large rainbow awning covering the town square.
Their parents emerged shortly after, some of them wearing fancier hats than Twilight thought they'd likely be wearing on a regular Saturday, and without another thought, Twilight leaped from her balcony, spread her wings, and joined the crowds heading downtown.
"Aw, yeah!" a familiar raspy voice called, and Rainbow swooped up beside her. "Partying all day and night with Discord!" She did a quick barrel roll. "This is gonna be epic!"
And as much as Twilight didn't want to be a grouch... "Did you actually read what he wrote on the invitation, Rainbow?"
Rainbow snorted. "I saw the words 'party' and 'till two AM.'" She tapped her chest. "That's all some of us need to know."
They reached the square before Twilight could object, and the sight that met her eyes under the awning pretty much froze her in her tracks. Multiple Discords, all of them wearing poofy chef's hats and white aprons, were zipping here and there among tables and counters, steam trays and fry stations. Flipping flapjacks, pouring beverages, setting plates and cups before hungry ponies, the Discords all seemed to be grinning and chatting with the townsfolk streaming in from all sides and settling themselves before the finest breakfast Twilight had seen in quite some time.
A rainbow flashed from Twilight's side directly toward the cider station, but a softer familiar voice stopped her from calling out or following. "Oh, my!" Fluttershy was smiling at the scene before them. "Discord said he had something special planned for today, but I had no idea it was going to be so extravagant!"
Twilight looked back and forth between Fluttershy and the expanding tent, tables springing up like mushrooms as more ponies arrived. "But what—? And why—? And—" She shook her head. "It doesn't make any sense..."
Fluttershy gave one of her little giggles. "That's his specialty."
"But—" Twilight struggled to find the words. "All that talk in the invitation about arising against oppression almost sounded like—I mean, I know he wouldn't, but—" She took a breath, turned to Fluttershy, and whispered, "You don't think he's trying to overthrow Celestia and Luna again, do you?"
That got Fluttershy blinking. "Oh, no," she said. "He wouldn't do that today. He loves the beginning and end of Daylight Saving Time. He says it's the only good thing Celestia did while he was 'away.'" She made little air quotes with her hooves when she said that last word.
A delicate and familiar "Hmmph!" beside her led Twilight to turn, Rarity standing there in a slouch-brimmed fedora that seemed to glow with every color of the autumn leaves. "These time changes are such a frightful nuisance, I can well believe that Discord would approve!"
"Hey, now," came yet another familiar voice, Applejack walking up wearing just her regular hat, Twilight was glad to see. "If you was getting to work early ev'ry morning like some of us, you'd see how powerful dark it is this time of year. Matter of fact, I wish they'd go back to making the change the weekend before Nightmare Night, but I reckon the princesses got their reasons."
"Hmmph," Rarity said again, but it didn't seem as heartfelt to Twilight as her first one. "Perhaps it's all right for those of you who deal with nature." She shivered slightly. "But I for my part am very nearly useless the first week or so after a time change."
"Wow!" Pinkie popped up next to Applejack, a large cinnamon roll balanced on the end of her nose. "First Discord feeds me breakfast, then Rarity feeds me straight lines!" She flipped the cinnamon roll into the air, reared back on her hind legs, caught the pastry in her teeth, and chomped it down. "How could the day get any better?"
With a whoosh, Rainbow appeared, three mugs of cider crooked in each of her front fetlocks. "One better day," she said passing a mug to Pinkie and a mug to Applejack, "coming right up!"
The three clanked their mugs together and drank. "Well, now." Applejack smacked her lips. "That's a right decent cider."
"Of course it is!" It was a familiar baritone this time, a table springing into place between Twilight and her friends. One of the Discords popped up as well; he snapped his lion claws, and plates of pancakes sprouted around the table, though Twilight couldn't help noticing that two plates settled into the empty space between her and Rarity while she had no plate in front of her at all. "Oh, now, really!" Discord said, frowning at the two empty places. "If I'd known your party wasn't complete, I wouldn't have seated you!"
"Whoa!" Spike's voice called then, and he came flying in, Starlight galloping along behind him. "You mean that invitation was for real?"
"Indeed!" Discord gave Twilight a half-lidded look. "For most of you, at least," he said so softly, she was sure no one but her could hear it. "But—" He flicked his eagle talons, and with a ring like a toaster going off, a plate just as full as the others dropped onto the table in front of her. "Because leaving you out would spoil it for them, you get a pass. Just like—"
A flash outside the tent, and Twilight, completely unsure where to look or what to think, blinked at Celestia and Luna touching down in the sunlight beside city hall, Celestia looking as fresh as the dew, Luna looking a little droopy-eyed.
"Ladies!" The Discord beside her vanished, and one stepped from the air beside the two princesses. "So good of you to stop by! Can I get you a plate?"
Celestia was smiling, something Twilight rarely saw her doing in Discord's presence. "We can't stay, I'm afraid," she announced, her voice carrying. "But I did want to thank you, Discord, and say what a wonderful thing this is you're doing."
"Yes." Luna was smiling as well. "Though if you're inviting us, we may come back after moonrise for a bit of supper and—" She cocked her head at him. "I assume you've included a carnival?"
Discord bowed with a flourish, and things reared up past the low Ponyville skyline: the tops of a Ferris wheel, several roller coasters, and something that Twilight thought was a water flume. "Just outside of town," Discord said, straightening up.
He then turned to face the area beneath the spread of the awning. "Everything's free, of course, and if you find any sort of amusement missing, just let one of your hosts know." All the Discords gave simultaneous waves, and the Discord next to the princesses waggled his eyebrows—though Twilight wasn't quite sure how she could pick out that detail since her table was most of the way across the town square from him. "May I suggest the slower rides immediately after breakfast, however?"
Laughter snickered across the tent. "Lunch and dinner," Discord went on, "will be available throughout the midway all day, and we'll open the tent here again at suppertime for those who might like something a bit more formal. We'll have three different displays of fireworks—one at eight PM, one at ten, and one at midnight. The parades will be this evening at seven, nine, eleven, and one AM tomorrow morning, and then of course the main event: the clock changing at two AM." He made a show of wiping his forehead. "So much order! I don't know how I can stand it!"
A larger laugh rolled through the crowd, and Twilight looked quickly around the table. "Will you all excuse me a minute?"
The only one who didn't seem to have a mouth full of pancake was Spike. He pointed a claw at her plate. "Just don't be surprised if that's empty when you get back."
Her stomach growled. She gave the top of her short stack a lick, stuck her syrupy tongue out at Spike, then cast a teleport spell that zapped her over to where Celestia and Luna were bending their knees and spreading their wings, about to take off for the return trip to Canterlot.
"It's all right, Twilight," Celestia said with a smile before Twilight could even open her mouth.
"Truly." Luna's expression, already more than a little sourer than Celestia's, went even further sideways. "Although it might be best were you to accompany us away from here. Today is—"
"About friendship." Even though Celestia had turned to Luna and hadn't raised her voice, her words still felt as sharp as a currycomb against Twilight's hide. "Didn't we agree, Sister?"
Luna squinted at Celestia, but then her eyes opened very wide before closing completely. "We did." She bowed her head slightly toward Twilight. "Forgive me, Twilight. I stand in need of sleep, or I would not have spoken so."
Her mind churning, Twilight abandoned all her questions except one. "But this isn't Discord pulling some trick?"
A softness came into Celestia's face, and Twilight could see that she was looking at the assortment of Discords moving around inside the tent. "There is, I would say, less of a trick about these goings-on than anything he's done in many a long century," she said quietly after a moment.
Most of the clench in Twilight's stomach loosened. "Then we'll see you two around suppertime?" she asked.
"You will," Celestia said.
"Without a doubt!" Luna gave one of her big laughs. "I solemnly assure you that we'd not miss this for the world!"
"Thank you." Twilight nodded, turned, and started back to the table where her friends sat.
The rest of the morning spun by, Twilight maybe having more fun than she'd ever had outside a library. Because it wasn't all roller coasters and slingshots—though she whooped and hollered alongside Rainbow Dash on a few of those, too. The midway held a vast assortment of games including "balance the bottle" and "pop the balloon," a karaoke pavilion, and smaller attractions like ghost trains, bumper carts, and a Tilt-a-Whirl that she and Starlight rode at least ten times, laughing uproariously as they shouted their calculations for the exact amounts of centripetal force they were experiencing.
Over a lunch of shredded carrot tacos and fried tomatillos, Fluttershy gave her enthusiastic approval to the petting zoo, Rarity raved about the do-it-yourself facilities at the craft fair, Pinkie said she'd sampled a churro from every cart on the grounds and didn't have a single complaint, and Applejack invited Rainbow to come on over to the rodeo stadium to try her hoof at a few of the events there.
But for all that she trusted Celestia literally with her life, Twilight couldn't stop narrowing her eyes at the various Discords she'd seen selling balloons and giving directions to ponies around the fair that morning. A certain part of her brain just kept murmuring things like, How can you trust him? And The plunder vines? Tirek? The way he sent you off on that wild goose chase so he could disrupt the school? And Princess Celestia didn't actually say that this wasn't one of Discord's tricks. She just said that it was less of a trick than his usual trickery.
So maybe the trick was on her? His invitation had been a little snippy, and his behavior at breakfast sure made it seem like he had something against her being here.
Finishing up her rice and beans, she decided that it wouldn't hurt to keep her eyes peeled. And if Discord really did have something planned for her, it might be best if she didn't get any other ponies caught up in it. So—
"No thanks, girls," she said to their invitations to join them. "I think I'll just wander around for a while and look at stuff." She crumpled her napkins and lofted them into a nearby trash bin. "I'll see you around, though!"
The rest of the day, Twilight kept her guard up, but crossing paths with Spike and the CMCs, with students from the school, with folks from town and the surrounding countryside, she saw them smiling or laughing or chomping away happily on cotton candy. Ponies kept talking about how great it was that they could go home, take a nap, then come back for more fun. The musical acts on the various stages were all spectacular, and when Twilight happened upon Octavia's late afternoon performance of Bastion Box's Suites for Unaccompanied Cello in a little grassy amphitheater at the far end of the midway, it simply took her breath away.
Could that be the trick? That there wasn't any trick? Was Discord purposefully behaving himself just to make her crazy?
Yeah, no. Even the little voice in her head thought that a little unlikely...
As evening began, Twilight hurried to the big tent in the town square and had to give a little skip of joy when she saw not only Celestia and Luna but Cadance and a sleeping Flurry Heart seated at a table by a big rotisserie where Discord was slowly turning a gigantic potato over an open fire.
"Oh, yes," Cadance said after they'd hugged and done their chant and settled into their places. "We got our invitation weeks ago—Shiny's out with Spike on the midway right now—but Discord made us promise we wouldn't tell you."
"Surprise!" Discord squeezed his snout with a honk like a bulb horn.
Twilight swallowed, and even though the words felt like she was coughing up sand, she said, "Discord, I owe you an apology."
"Several, as a matter of fact." He grinned, spreading melted butter over the outside of the giant potato with a paint brush. "But just so I can check off the right boxes..." The paint brush became an oversized quill pen, and a scroll of paper unrolled from his claws down to the floor. "What exactly is it you're apologizing for?"
"I just—" She blew out a breath. "I wasn't sure what to make of all your talk about rising up against Celestia and Luna."
"Indeed?" Luna aimed a very toothy smile at him.
Discord raised his claws, the rotisserie continuing to turn. "I never said anything like that. I said we need to rise up against the tyranny of time...or rather, the tyranny of timekeeping." Reaching into a pocket of his cooking apron, he spent several seconds rummaging around before pulling out a big, old-fashioned alarm clock with round metal bells on top. "These two ladies here do an admirable job juggling the sun and the moon, but the regularity of it all doesn't impress some of us." He turned the clock to face her, and Twilight saw that its hands were spinning wildly in the wrong direction. "It's the variability that makes us giggle."
As hard as she tried, Twilight couldn't keep from rolling her eyes. "Of course."
"Well?" Discord tapped the clock; its three hands stopped, and he reached down to put little yellow gloves on the ends. "Why does the time of sunrise change from day to day, hmmm? Why does the moon cycle from full to new to full again?"
"Ummm..." Looking at Celestia and Luna, Twilight wasn't sure if it was her place to answer. But at Celestia's nod, she turned back to Discord. "Without the sun moving north and south from solstice to solstice, we wouldn't have seasons. And without the phases of the moon, there'd be no tides."
Discord nodded, tapped the clock, and its second hand began a regular forward tick-tick-tick. "The flow of time as reflected in the cycles of nature. The lovely conundrum of predictable change, of orderly disorder, if you will." Putting the clock back into his pocket, he waggled his eyebrows. "And nothing shows that more clearly than all of you changing your clocks twice a year. That you choose to acknowledge the primacy of chaos in this fashion makes me all warm and squishy inside." He gave a delicate burp. "Unless that's just my organs liquefying again."
Other ponies had begun wandering into the tent, and Discord bowed. "Excuse me for a moment. All this orderliness takes a bit of concentration." He closed his eyes, and copies of him began peeling off like wind-blown leaves, hurrying over to welcome the new arrivals.
Twilight leaned toward Celestia and Luna. "So he's just decided to celebrate the end of Daylight Saving Time as National Chaos Day?"
Celestia shrugged. "Any excuse for a holiday."
Luna snorted. "As long as there's cake, my sister will be satisfied." She picked up her fork in her hornglow and shot a glare at the Discord still turning the potato. "While some of us have been looking forward to a succulent potato cutlet since the moment we sat down."
Discord's eyes cracked open, his mouth going sideways. A flash of light brought a large knife to his lion paw, though, and he began cutting slices from the potato.
Shining Armor joined them then, Spike flapping excitedly around him, and they chatted and ate while full dark settled over Ponyville, the lights from the midway growing brighter and brighter. The first parade began not long afterwards, the floats, dancers, and marching bands all made up entirely of Discords. Then Twilight went for a spin on the log ride with Shiny and Spike, kept an eye on Flurry, burbling happily with some other babies in a ball pit while Shiny and Cadance slipped away to visit the Tunnel of Love, and watched the first fireworks show with all her friends atop the grassy hill behind the castle.
It was, in short, a perfectly lovely evening at the fair...which made the little voice in Twilight's head even more certain that Discord had something ready somewhere. Five dozen rubber duckies to dump on top of her or a giant nozzle to spray her with molten cheese or special dirt that would cling to the bottoms of her hooves and make them frictionless. It's Discord! that nasty, suspicious whisper hissed. There has to be a punchline, and more likely than not, it's got your name on it!
By then, Spike was yawning and Flurry fast asleep, so Cadance and Shiny wished everypony goodnight and took the two of them inside. Celestia and Luna bowed out, too, Celestia saying that, even with the extra hour of sleep, dawn still rolled around fairly early while Luna, expressing her doubts that her nightly duties would allow her to stop by later, heaved a sigh that seemed to come up from her fetlocks before she vanished in a cloud of black and silver.
And while no ducks or cheese or slippery dirt materialized, things did get steadily more surreal after that. But it was the good sort of surreal, Twilight decided, the sort that can only come from crashing around a packed carnival midway late at night with your very best friends in the whole wide world. The fireworks shows grew sparklier and the parades more raucous, the Discords convincing ponies to join in the marching and dancing and playing instead of just sitting around watching.
Then the midnight fireworks show was spurting its last flowery tendril across the star-filled sky, Discord's voice booming, "It's nearly one AM, everypony! Time for our final parade!" And looking around, Twilight realized with a start that there wasn't an audience anymore. Everypony who'd managed to stay awake was lining up to be a part of the parade—or rather, part of the massive, three-dimensional conga line with laughing pegasi arching over the rows and ranks of dancing unicorns and earth ponies.
The town clock chimed one, the band of Discords struck up a lively tune, and the air around Twilight seemed to shudder. Everything everywhere gave some sort of twitch—
And another Twilight Sparkle materialized beside her. Not just another Twilight, she saw immediately: another Dash popped into the sky where Rainbow was hovering, two Applejacks now staring at each other to Twilight's right. In fact, a quick glance around showed her doubles of everypony across the whole open swath of the parade ground.
Twilight's doppelganger held up a hoof, said, "Don't panic," and leaped into the air. "It's all right!" she shouted, and Twilight could feel the magic her other self was using to amplify her voice. "We're all you from an hour in the future! Discord adjusted his clock at two AM, and it sent us all back in time to one AM! It's okay, though, since, in an hour, your Discord will do the same to his clock! That will take you all back in time to become us, and everything will continue on from there!"
A flash pulled Twilight's attention away, and she blinked at several sudden glowing diagrams spinning off to her right: temporal calculation matrices, she realized. In the light of them, one Starlight was rapidly explaining something to the other Starlight. The other Starlight's eyes widened, then she turned to Twilight and called, "The math seems to hold up!"
"It's all right!" the airborne Twilight was saying again. "We'll ask folks to go check at home, but as near as we can tell, this little temporal hiccup only affected those of us who were still awake in the area around Discord!" She gave a clench-jawed glare at the giant group of Discords—a glare that Twilight recognized very well from the twinge in her own teeth—and suddenly there were only two of him standing there, little halos sprouting around their horns.
"But like I said," the other Twilight went on, "it's all right! We've already done this once, and in an hour, you'll all go back and do it again!" A slightly strained smile jerked across her snout, and a little flaring firework shot from her horn. "So let's party with ourselves till then!"
A halfhearted cheer wobbled up from the parade ground, and Twilight saw the two Dashes circling overhead. One whispered something, the other shouted, "Awesome!" and they both sped off into the night. To her right, the two Fluttershys were peering at each other from behind their bangs; ahead of her, the two Raritys were examining the hems of their respective coats; and to her left, the Starlights seemed to be arguing over a section of one matrix concerned with tau particle decay.
Then the crowd parted past the Raritys, and both Pinkie Pies were standing there on their hind legs, kilts around their middles and big wooden broadswords in their front hoofs. "There can be only one!" they both shouted before tumbling over backwards laughing.
"It's, uhh..." a way-too-familiar voice said above her, and the other Twilight landed, her face blushing a deep purple. "It's a little strange. I know."
Twilight could only nod.
"Okay." The other tucked her wings to her flanks. "We need to double check that Spike and Flurry and Shiny and Cadance don't have doppelgangers in bed with them so you can honestly make that speech I just made when you go back."
Her throat going dry, Twilight activated her teleportation spell and landed in the hallway outside Spike's room just as the other Twilight did. Peeking in, she saw him snoring alone. Closing the door, she shook her head and cast a scrying spell that told her the right number of ponies were sleeping in the rooms around her. "But why—?" she started, then she shook her head again. "It's Discord. 'Why' is always the wrong question."
The other Twilight nodded and held up a front hoof. "And can we solemnly swear no more time travel?"
Twilight brought her hoof up and bumped it against the other's. "Ever," she agreed.
They popped back to the parade ground just as a quartet of Mr. and Mrs. Cakes walked by. They confirmed that neither Pound nor Pumpkin, fast asleep at home, had been affected, but that Maud and Mud Briar, sitting up and babysitting, had been playing bridge with their duplicates when the Cakes had looked in on them.
Flapping over to ask Discord if he had anything to say for himself only resulted in the two draconequi pointing at each other. "It's his fault!" they both said in perfect unison, and this was of course followed by, "My fault? You're the one to blame!" They each then split into several more Discords, and the squabbling rapidly became completely incoherent.
That the sigh she heaved when she turned away so exactly matched the one from the other Twilight made her mane stand on end. But she smoothed it down, swallowed, and asked her doppelganger, "You want an ice cream cone? 'Cause I could really use an ice cream cone."
Identical ponies in pairs or larger groups mixed and mingled, laughing and galloping and getting into line for the various roller coasters as she crossed the midway with her double, but Twilight couldn't think of a single thing to say to herself except, "It's been a long day."
"Twenty-five hours," the other her muttered, and Twilight had to giggle.
They met the two Applejacks at the concession stand finishing up some caramel apples. "I was thinking we oughtta trade hats," one of them said. "Y'know, for a memento of this whole weird thing."
The idea shocked Twilight into silence, but the other Twilight smacked her forehead with a hoof and said, "We talked about this."
"We did." The second Applejack pointed at the first. "She ain't been through it yet."
Shaking off her silence, Twilight launched into as thorough an explanation of causal loops as she could manage while trying not to dwell on how many of these exact temporal paradoxes were undoubtedly being created all around her. She'd barely gotten through the first quarter of her dissertation, though, when a butter brickle ice cream cone inserted itself into her mouth.
"In short?" the other Twilight said, the glow of her horn, Twilight could now see, holding the ice cream cone in place. "Temporal paradoxes are bad."
"See?" The second Applejack smacked the first in the shoulder. "Told ya."
The first Applejack rolled her eyes. "Fine." Shaking her head, she started toward the parade ground. "'Bout ten minutes till two, I reckon, Twilights. Wouldn't wanna make any Tim-Poor-Al whosistses by being late, now, would we?"
The second Applejack shrugged. "I sure do get cranky when I miss my sleep." And she trotted off after the first.
Taking the ice cream cone in her own magic, Twilight looked at her other self. "Well, you're the older and wiser me. Any advice?"
"It's funny." Future Twilight gave her own butter brickle a lick. "When I asked my Future Twilight that question, she reminded me that we're the same pony." Her gaze sharpened. "And that I know every suspicious thought you've had today about Discord because I had all of them, too."
The butter brickle suddenly seemed too cold on Twilight's tongue. "You mean...this is it? This is the big prank he's been planning all day? Sending us all back in time so we could spend two hours talking, riding carnival rides, and eating butter brickle ice cream with ourselves?"
Laughter and music washed over her, the party having taken on new life with the addition of everypony's other selves. And blowing out a breath, Twilight forced herself to admit it. "Because considering all the other temporal paradoxes I've been caught up in, this isn't bad."
"Tell me about it," the other Twilight muttered.
Twilight had to giggle. "But I mean it. This isn't bad. It's weird and unexpected and a little bit silly when you stop to think about it, but—" She swallowed, the too-cold feeling slithering down her throat into her belly. "But Discord isn't a bad guy anymore. And I need to stop thinking that he is."
Her doppelganger was nodding. "I reached that same conclusion an hour ago. And the analogy that came to me was—"
"It's like today!" Twilight stopped, the ice cream cone nearly slipping from her magical grip. "We're falling back an hour, and I keep falling back into old ways of thinking about Discord!"
Expecting him to leap out of nowhere and slap a pointed party hat over her horn, Twilight looked around. "He doesn't pop up," the other Twilight said. "And I still don't know if this whole thing was him trying to make me come to that conclusion or if it was all just a big, nutty accident. In fact, the only thing I do know is—" She reached out a hoof and touched Twilight's chest. "Tag. You're 'it'."
With a grin she actually felt, Twilight sucked down the rest of the cone and sprang into the air. "All right, everypony!" she called, using the same amplification spell she'd felt her double use earlier. "If we could all make our way back to the parade ground, please? We've got an appointment to meet ourselves in about eight minutes!"
Something moved in the air below, the other Twilight joining her, and together, they flew to where the rest of the ponies were gathering. "One more hour," her doppelganger said. "Then you can get some sleep."
Twilight had to smile at her. "At least I know I make it, right?"
"Careful." The other Twilight shook a hoof, but she was smiling, too. "They may still have to change the name of the town to Paradoxville."
The word conjured up an image in Twilight's sleepy brain, but the other Twilight spoke before she could say anything: "And yes, I know you just thought of what a 'parrot ox' would look like and decided they would be hippogriffs with parrot parts in the front and ox parts in the back." The other her rubbed her eyes. "It's been a long day."
"Twenty-five hours," Twilight replied, then she was swooping away to hover over the crowd. "All right! When we get there, try to reassure yourselves! I'll make the speech, we'll do this hour again from the other side, then this party will be officially over!"
A pair of groans came from the stage where the two Discords stood in baggy red and blue striped shorts, boxing gloves on their hands and feet. "But we were finally going to settle the question of who's the World Heavyweird Champion!" they both said in unison.
She didn't even try to stop her teeth from grinding. "Get that clock out, mister! And be ready to change it when the time comes!"
Each Discord rolled one eye, and Twilight took the next several minutes to check that everypony was back and in good spirits. The two Rainbow Dashes looked a bit more mussed than usual behind their big grins, but Twilight refused to let herself think anything other than that they'd been racing.
Then Discord was shouting, "Let's count it down, folks!" Twilight zipped over to stand beside herself, and everypony began chanting, "Five! Four! Three! Two! One!"
The other Twilight gave her a wink; the tinniest, tiniest little pair of bells went off on the top of Discord's old alarm clock; he cranked the hour hand back from pointing at the '2' to pointing at the '1'; and the whole world stretched around Twilight like a fun house mirror tipping over.
It all snapped back into place almost immediately, though, and the other Twilight was now staring with her mouth and eyes wide.
Holding up a hoof, Twilight said, "Don't panic," and leaped into the air.
The next hour unfolded just the way it had before. At least, she assumed it did: she'd been tired enough the first time that she hadn't really memorized everything her other self had said. So she just said what seemed natural and hoped nothing too paradoxical happened.
Some things she did remember, though. She made sure to suggest that her younger self check on Spike and everypony in the castle, for instance. She stuffed the butter brickle ice cream cone into her double's muzzle a quarter of the way through her paradox lecture to the two Applejacks. She listened to herself have her epiphany concerning the way she'd been thinking about Discord and did the tag, you're it thing.
And when two AM came around the second time, she made sure to wink just before the other Discord's clock went off and half the ponies on the parade ground vanished like smoke from a doused campfire.
Everypony left behind stood frozen for the length of an indrawn breath, then they all seemed to partially deflate, a relieved sort of groan rising up. More than a few ponies fell laughing right over onto the ground.
"All right!" Discord called from the stage. "See everypony again next year!"
And as much as she wanted to whisk herself over there to express her feelings on the subject in no uncertain terms, she instead took another breath, blew it out, and turned to look at her friends converging on where she stood.
Even Pinkie was dragging her hooves, Applejack barely stifling a yawn when she asked, "Reckon we oughtta reconnoiter? Make sure nothing's here that ain't s'pposed to be or vicey versy?"
Twilight shook her head. "You girls turn in. I'll do a quick fly-over, then count on you to handle anything that comes up tomorrow if I oversleep." She had to grin. "The time change always messes me up for a couple days anyway."
Rarity made a sound that from any other pony Twilight would've called a snort, but it was Rainbow who muttered, "Lightweight..."
By the time Twilight convinced them to actually go home, every other pony had left. Taking wing, she glided over the dark and silent carnival rides and wondered why Discord hadn't already made them disappear. A quick glance around didn't show him anywhere, and her stomach tightened. Had the temporal shift really been an accident? Might he be upset about the way his party had ended?
Gaining some altitude, she cast her gaze further around the darkened town...and saw a flicker of silver sparks at the top of the hill behind the castle where they'd all watched the first fireworks show. She adjusted her pinions and drifted over to land there, Discord idly tossing and catching a little ball of glitter in his lion paw as he looked down over Ponyville. "Discord?" she asked, taking a step toward him. "Is everything all right?"
"Eh." He nodded toward the quiet houses. "It's just that, no matter how much shifting we do here and there, time will catch up with them all, won't it? Even Spike eventually."
Twilight blinked at him, but movement in her peripheral vision made her turn to see Celestia and Luna walking slowly up to join her and Discord on the hilltop, Cadance following with a sleeping Flurry Heart floating in her magic.
Discord was going on: "The world does a great deal more springing forward than it does falling back, but those of us who float above such things, we really need to show the rest of them how much they mean to us. Which is why I proposed this new holiday to fall just after Nightmare Night: to give us all an opportunity to metaphorically spit into the face of time."
His mouth wrinkled like an overwatered bush. "Celestia and Luna didn't much care for the name I offered, and we had quite the lively kerfuffle about it, in fact. But we finally hashed out a deal: if I would let you stay for the whole thing even though you don't really qualify and they wouldn't mention anything about it to you, we'd leave the question up to you. Of course, my original suggestion has the nicest, most succinct ring to it." His voice dropped to a near whisper, and he nodded to the town. "'The Night of the Living Dead.'"
With the other princesses standing downcast around her, Twilight looked from Discord to Ponyville and back again. "No," she said through the tightness of her throat. "Today was all about living, Discord, all about the wonderful, messy, grouchy, joy-filled business of being alive. Death's a part of that, sure, but only a little part." The thought that flickered through her tired mind made her smile. "How about 'Carnival of Souls' instead?"
Tapping his chin with a claw, Discord nodded. "You know? I'll drink to that!" Several golden lights flashed, and six ice cream cones floated in front of him. "A scoop of my favorite flavor for everyone!"
Her magic feeling like an overstretched rubber band, Twilight gingerly took the cone nearest to her and sniffed the dark green chunks peering from its light green surface. "Is...is this dill pickle?"
"What?" Discord glared at her. "It's sweet pickle! Do you take me for a barbarian?"
She couldn't help laughing. "Maybe a little bit of one." And without paying the least attention to the tiny remnants of the hissing whisper in her head, Twilight leaned forward and took a great big bite.
