The Timepony’s Journal

Rain pitter-pattered against the window sill as it poured buckets outside. The old base would hold, the temporary walls may be made of paper but the exterior was as sturdy as ever. It had to be for all the older Secret Monster Intelligence League of Equestria, or SMILE for short, operations. This building used to be an institute for gifted unicorns before Celestia’s school. Twilight felt a bit of nostalgia for the brick and mortar building even though she’d barely spent any time here. She looked out at the rain as she waited. How long had it been since her last visit, ten years, fifteen? It finally felt like SMILE was in her past, Ponyville was her yesterday now. She quickly turned her head as somepony opened the door and closed their umbrella.

“Twily!” Shining Armor called out.

“You really just came all this way out for me?”

“Pfft, nah. It’s only halfway across Equestria.” Twilight said with a smile.

“C’mon, bring it in.”

Twilight pulled her brother in tightly for a hug. While she was here on Doctor business this still felt nice. Her brother had met nearly every Doctor, seen all of his different faces. Her brother probably knew more about him than anypony else. She could talk with him, he was the only other pony she knew she could.

“So, you mentioned Doctor business? Which one is it this time, old stallion or lunatic colt?”

“Heh, it’s a little bit more than that actually.”

Twilight pulled over a seat for him to sit down in. She filled him in on how the Doctor was and how desperately he needed her. How Radiance, her only source of answers, came out of the blue and vanished just as quickly. The path to solving this mystery was nothing but a greater trail of death and destruction. The image of that foreign planet coated in ash and disease still haunted her mind.

“Wow…I understand how you feel. That’s truly a lot to handle, but you’ve done so much already.”

“Yeah. That’s what Radience said before she last left. I can still handle this…probably.”

“No, not alone at least. This sounds big, bigger than normal I mean.”

“Bigger than full scale alien invasions?”

“Bigger than black holes teleporting us to other dimensions.”

“Speaking of which, I was hoping that you can help me look into that. I mean, eldritch beasts from beyond time and space aren’t common, but there’s got to be something.”

“Oh you’d be surprised. I took on the devil, remember? Back at that old camp called Devil’s End.”

“I thought you said that it took the form of the devil, not the actual thing.”

“A cult summoned it with rituals and sacrifices. I saw the goat horns and thought ‘close enough for me.’”

The two of them laughed together. Shining grunted as he heaved a dusty old box onto the nearest table. Twilight coughed as dust flew everywhere.

“Is it really safe to store top secret files out in the open? I mean, anypony can just walk right in and steal them.”

“The entire place is deemed a historical site. Tourists come and go while only we can actually get inside the ‘exhibits’. The cabinets probably have more monetary value than the actual files. By the way, how’s it feel not needing me to pull some strings for a pass?”

“Not as weird as this place being a museum of- what was it again?”

“Equestrian Innovations in Robotics. Technically not wrong given the amount of robots always showing up on our doorstep. Befriend any mechanical monsters lately?”

“Oh come on, that was one time and you know it! Actually, the Doctor left a tin dog on my doorstep ten years ago. Finally opened the box after all these years.”

“Finally stopped sulking about him, huh?”

Twilight rolled her eyes as they started digging through the old paperwork. She looked over the old documents on time experiments, many long before either of them had been born. Even though SMILE was established after the whole radio incident in 66, there were logs on events that had to be a thousand years old. There was a large temporal rift just dividing a large chunk of western Equus apparently, hidden in plain sight.

“How about this one? Starswirl’s old studies on temporal anomalies.” Shining said as he gave her a massive old book.

She flipped through it rapidly, giving it a quick skim over before something caught her eye. Apparently before his disappearance Starswirl was researching time dilation magic. She’d experienced his spell before but it only had a range of about a few weeks and for a few minutes. His notes clearly conveyed some more, something grander in the works. Before the research reached its final stages it just stopped. Rather, somepony stopped it. She expected the mentions of the Doctor, differing descriptions and all, but who was this other mare Hope?

Backtracking she looked deeper into the other related tests. Each and every single idea had some kind of interference. Sometimes it was the Doctor and sometimes it was Hope. However, while the Doctor merely persuaded Starswirl out of pursuing his studies, Hope just came and went taking everything with her. Hardly a word spoken between the two of them but he didn’t try again after her visits. Dozens of scrolls and spells just vanished into the night. It all traced back to one single experiment, one single idea, clairvoyance. Starswirl wanted to defend Equestria from every possible threat, and what was a better defence than seeing it before the idea crossed your enemy’s minds.

“Hey, come look at this.” Twilight said as she slid the book towards her brother.

“Huh, you said that the creature you saw was made of some kind of black mist?”

“Sort of, it was hard to look at. It was more like a starry night but all the stars were dim.”

“According to this, what you saw was a probability storm. You focus the eye on something and it shows you everything you want to see. They’re supposed to be incredibly small though, anything bigger than a dinner plate and things start to get…sticky.”

“No wonder whatever it was was locked away. How do we stop it?”

“It doesn’t exactly say. The spell hooks itself up to an object and drains the energy from it, some kind of strange force that keeps it existing. The spell just fizzles out once the energy is gone. The object is completely destroyed, so if it’s attached to a living being-”

“Then they die…or maybe the spell lasts until they die. What if there’s a constant supply of energy for an entire lifetime, maybe even several? If it’s powered for that long and trapped in a bubble, then what?”

“This is way beyond me, you were always my second expert on everything. Maybe a spell dampener, a shield. I don’t even think the entire forces of SMILE could create anything big enough though.”

Twilight groaned as she slumped down into her seat.

“Then what’s the point of all this? No matter what I do I just…I’m just not enough.”

“Hey, hey. You are the smartest pony that I’ve ever known.”

“Even more than the Doctor?”

“Don’t tell him I said this, but yes. You were so out of your depth when you first arrived at my work. The Doctor understands all of this, it’s a part of his world or lives. But you, you knew absolutely nothing. Yet you overcame, adapted and hit the ground running without a second thought. It takes somepony special to do all of that. Not to mention, you became an actual princess because of it! You got your wings for completing one of Starswirl’s spells, so what’s stopping you from doing it again?”

“Thank you. I keep being told that but I don’t believe it. I rarely seem to believe it now.”

“Hey, we’re gonna get through this. Just don’t go Twilynanas on me again, alright?”

“Pfft, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Not gonna bring up the salad incident again.”

Twilight’s eye twitched slightly alongside the war flashbacks of the salad. She simply laughed it off as she returned to the book.

“So, do you have anything on where some of these scrolls might be?”

“What’s left of them, yeah. Not much is left after all the thefts. I’ll take it, you'll take the front entrance to the library this time?”

“You just never let anything go, do you?”

“Nope. Gotta have some ammo somehow.”

“Like those old photos of band practice?”

“It was a phase that got me a wife and you a sister-in-law.”

Twilight smiled and stuck out her tongue. By now the rain had stopped and the sky was much less cloudy. Everything was packed neatly away as if it hadn’t been touched at all. Shining had to leave in order to catch his train back home, he wasn’t exactly meant to be here after all. This was just a quick pit stop on a diplomatic mission in the south. The place was quiet again, the place all to herself.

Looking over at the corner there was nothing but an empty space where the TARDIS once sat for years. She could tell exactly where it was as the dust never seemed to settle the same way. Even now she’d hoped that he wasn’t really in trouble and that magical blue Police Barn would materialise out of thin air. The Doctor’s TARDIS was back at her castle, the timepony was in deep trouble and she couldn’t just do nothing but hope. Her train ride was just as dull as the SMILE base, she’d seen the green hills roll by dozens of times.

The castle wasn’t much better either, the decorated halls still cold and empty. She’d head to the Canterlot library some other day, soon she’d be giving her first official lecture as a princess. Ever since she’d entered Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns she’d dreamed of being just as important as all the prestigious guest speakers at her school. She should feel proud even though it wasn’t something grand or special, just a discussion about cutie marks. Twilight didn’t feel excited about it, she didn’t feel depressed, just okay. The presentation was a week away but she always loved to destress through planning and organising.

The diary sat on the coffee table where she’d last left it. She could keep reading through it, that wasn’t as emotionally or mentally taxing, but was she really still helping? Twilight sat down as she picked up the book and helped it in her hooves. Maybe she was depressed, not just about the Doctor but also about being a princess. All she’d officially done since was smile and wave from a castle balcony. There was a reason for her to become a princess but no purpose for what came next. She was so used to rolling with the punches every time her life changed. From being a student to a traveller to Ponyville resident and then a princess, life just seemed slow now.

She was an Element of Harmony, the Element of Magic, but what did that mean to her? The thrill of adventure wasn’t the same anymore, her studies didn’t spark the same excitement that it once had. Is this the Twilight Sparkle that she wanted to be? No, she refused to wallow in self pity. She knew that she wasn’t completely useless all on her own.

While a small part of her didn’t believe in herself, the rest of her mind did. Her blank expression slowly faded into a smile as she nearly laughed from the absurdity of it all. There was no need to cry but tears welled up in her eyes anyway. She shouldn’t have to face this alone, not completely. Spike was probably somewhere deeper into the castle but not too far away. She tucked the book underneath her wing and wiped the tears from her eyes. Her friends were never too far away from her and for the first time in months, she finally felt glad that she needed their help.