Time Heist for the Mare Who Has Everything
A deathly chill swept through Twilight's withers. It hadn't come from the snowy weather outside, as the windows to her quarters were sounded shut and a fire roared just a few feet away. Instead, it came from the letter delivered by dragonfire and now unfurled on her desk. Staring up at her from the parchment was a simple, stylized sun. Twilight groaned, her head making swift contact with the desk. "Why did I have to invite them?"
After a few more moments of grumbling, Twilight sat up straight and put the letter aside. Pulling a fresh piece of parchment and wetting her quill with ink, she set to the task ahead of her. Ideas for gifts poured forth in a mad pace to get anything that came to mind out. Jewelry, books, magical items and all manner of self-made knick knacks filled the page. All the while, Twilight's mumbled uncertainties competed with the crackling fire to break the silence.
"No, jewelry is way too personal, and she probably doesn't wear much now. She has plenty of books, right? She's probably read all the classics, though she left that personal library behind. Maybe one of the magical items from the vault? Wait, is that stealing from the country? I mean, I am the Princess now, so… I could try and make something, but what if it's bad, or it doesn't work, or she has one of whatever I make?"
Twilight's wings and hooves fidgeted as she bit her lip. Staring down at the parchment, she attempted to dredge forth even the faintest bit of mental detritus. It was about fifty-seven taps of her quill into the desk later that a sudden flash of magic filled the room, heralding forth a series of small green and red fireworks. The sound of their explosions were ear-splittingly loud, even as they made relatively small patterns of sparkles.
Twilight's quill left a long ink mark across the desk before she turned around. She already knew who it was, but she felt like humoring him before saying his name. "Discord," she muttered. As she tried to clear the smoke by flapping her wings, she let out a series of curt coughs.
As the flash of miniature fireworks faded and the smoke began to settle, Discord's entrance was complete. Wearing a festive green and red sweater and hat, both bearing a multitude of Hearth's Warming wreaths and ornaments, he took a deep bow. "Happy Hearth's Warming, Your Highness. Or do you just prefer 'Princess' now?"
Twilight grabbed a cloth from the corner of her desk with magic, and dabbed it in a bowl of water before trying to rub away the ink mark. "Just Twilight is fine, Discord. I've said that enough times this year."
Discord waved a claw dismissively before blowing a raspberry. "Honestly, Just Twilight, you can't let the station go to your head just a teensy bit? Where is the fun in that?" He slinked his way over to the desk, his attire jingling with every step, despite the lack of any actual bells in sight.
Twilight was quick to move the two pieces of parchment out of sight, swept up under a pile of books. She finished getting out the ink stain and set the cloth down. "The fun is in taking my duties seriously, which you're obviously not accustomed to. Now, is there anything I can help you with?"
Discord grinned, taking a seat on the edge of the desk. "Oh, me, Lord of Chaos, need something? No, no, not at all. I came to help. See, I got my Hearth’s Warming Helper assignment, and I know the last time you got in such a pani—"
Twilight held up a hoof, her wings flaring out. "No. Help. First of all, Rainbow Dash told me about the 'help' she got from you last time, and I'm not at all interested in another disaster of that caliber. Second, you promised not to peek at what everypony was assigned."
Discord pursed his lips a few times, and then harrumphed, crossing his arms. “Moi? Cheat? Just Twilight, you know as much as anypony except for Fluttershy that I’ve changed my ways.” With a flash of magic, Discord’s gaudy holiday outfit was replaced by a heavy clock and a stylish tweed hat. He held a pipe in his paw, which blew different colored bubbled as he put it to his mouth. He still jingled as he moved. “I simply deduced who you were assigned, and figured you would need as much help as you can get.”
Twilight wasn’t eager to take either bit of bait. Instead, she sat back and smiled. “Oh, and how did you manage that? Peeking over my shoulder?”
Discord took a few moments to blow bubbles from his pipe. His eyes were focused, lips curled and he stroked his beard with a claw. “Not at all… I just assumed you would crack,” he said plainly before the detective outfit was replaced by the Hearth’s Warming sweater and cap. “Still, I know it’s a difficult one. Otherwise you wouldn’t have needed to write out ideas and hidden them from me.”
“I could have easily been writing an important and private letter,” Twilight retorted. “I don’t appreciate the attempt at eavesdropping, Discord, so please leave me to my business?”
“Fine, fine.” Discord turned away from the desk, his head drooping low, and then falling off of his body and into his arms. He sniffled. “I just... thought we could work together. After all, you have so many duties to handle as Princess, so you can’t go out shopping for a personal gift for hours on end. Besides, I hoped that you could help with mine as well…” He turned around, his eyes and mouth plastered on a spherical moon, complete with wispy clouds about it.
Twilight flinched, her wings twitching. “Discord, if you peeked…”
He laughed, spinning his lunar head on a finger before popping it back into place, where it returned to normal. “Like I said: deduction. Now, I know getting a gift for your former teacher must be a daunting pros—”
Twilight stamped a forehoof on the desk, rattling the items atop it. “Discord,” she muttered through gritted teeth, before taking a slow breath and relaxing. “Discord, I can manage this fine. I do not need your brand of ‘help’.”
Discord crossed his arms. “Well, if you want to get some nostalgic Twilighting out of the way before asking for help, I’m not one to argue.” He backed away with a bow and then held up his claw. “Just call my name and I’ll be there to offer the best double gift idea you could imagine,” he said, and he vanished with a snap, leaving behind a shower of green and red sparkles.
The spots took a few moments to fade from Twilight’s vision before she turned back to her desk. Pulling out the list, she looked it over. “I can handle this on my own… It’s just getting a gift to encapsulate all of the years I spent under her tutelage and say ‘thank you’ for all the lessons she taught me… No pressure at all.”
Twilight hit the desk once more with her face and groaned.
It was a day later, having finished most of her royal duties for the week, that Twilight left the castle in the morning. Walking the streets of Canterlot alone, bundled up in a scarf and with her list in her saddlebags, she made her way from shop to shop. She had abstract ideas covered, but knew that a trip through many of the city’s stores would probably help to solidify those theoreticals into the actual. Along the way, she greeted the ponies and creatures that approached to talk to her, but always made it clear that she had business to attend to.
Two hours later, she ducked into the first store, a small antique shop in the upper levels of the city. Every manner of miscellaneous, aged and assorted item literred the shelves, and Twilight scanned them in the hopes that something would jump out at her. She pulled down globes and models and books, looking at them closely, but nothing seemed to match her understanding of Celestia’s taste.
“Oh, Twilight! Fancy meeting you here,” came Discord’s familiar voice from below her.
Twilight jumped in place and backed up, nearly hitting the shelf behind her. She looked down, and saw a statue of Discord, made out of several multicolored and miscut gems. The face, however, looked entirely too realistic. She said nothing, putting the item she had grabbed back on the shelf and then walking down the aisle. Discord was soon fully behind her, following her closely.
“Ah, you wanted to try looking for something Celestia’s age? Seems a bit rude, don’t you think? Even an old pony can appreciate new things.” Twilight could hear some kind of beeping coming from behind her, but kept her attention forward. “Okay, look, I know I said I would wait until you called my name, but I had just the perfect idea and I wanted to run it by you.”
Twilight had to stop as Discord materialized in front of her, blocking her path. In his hands were two snowglobes. As he moved them closer and shook them, Twilight could see miniature versions of Celestia and Luna inside, one in each, shrouded in fake snow and glitter. Twilight opened her mouth, but was cut off by Discord.
“I was able to get them on clearance. Quite a steal, huh? I guess it’s because they need to move all of that old stock. I figured you could give Tia the Luna one and I give Luna the other!” He grinned, shaking the globes a little more. Twilight saw the figurine of Luna dislodged from the bottom, floating about in the mixture.
After a few moments spent blinking, Twilight rubbed the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof. “Discord, I don’t think either of them would like a knick knack you got from a clearance rack.”
Discord chuckled. “Oh, I'm sure they'll love it. It's the thought that counts, right?” He held out the Luna snowglobe, just as the figurine inside hit the bottom; its horn cracked off.
Twilight pushed it away with a hoof. “Discord, could you maybe take this seriousl— No, no, who do I think I’m talking to? I can’t get Celestia some mass-produced… thing. It needs to be tailored to suit her.” Twilight made her way past Discord, picking up a blank journal from the shelf. “You should probably consider the same for Luna.”
Discord tossed the snow globes over his shoulder. There was no sound of them hitting anything. “Stayed up all night stressing over it? Celestia is an understanding mare, Twilight. She’ll like anything you get her.” In an instant, Discord's claw was in the air next to Twilight, grabbing a hold of the list that floated there. “Hmm, I suppose some of these are good. A nice necklace or a signed copy of your favorite book. Oh, though I think there’s a few forbidden artifacts in the vault that she’d love to keep an eye on for you.”
Twilight snatched the list back with her magic, her lips pursed. “They’re just broad strokes. I wasn’t going to take something dangerous…” Without looking at the list, she burned the ink that wrote “magical artifacts” out of the parchment with a simple spell.
“Oh, wait, wait,” Discord began, waving a talon back and forth, “don’t mark that off just yet. Now, the snow globes may have not landed as well as I hoped, but I did have a back-up idea.”
Twilight put the journal back after giving the pages a quick scan. The styling was far too… cute to imagine Celestia using. “I’m really not interested.”
“I think you will. See, I’ve been thinking of something ever since that—” Discord coughed, muttering the rest of the sentence under his breath as quickly as he could manage “—little, teensy-weensy trouble I caused with Cozy and Tirek and Chrysalis. I realized that there was some extremely unexpected… collateral damage in the process.”
Twilight looked over, seeing Discord blushing and shuffling a hoof back and forth on the ground. She put the list back in her saddlebags. “And?”
“Well, you know how the three of them blew up the castle, took a while to repair and all of that?” Twilight nodded. “See, there was a lot lost there. Not just from the ponies in Canterlot who had their property damaged in the process. Luna and Celestia’s quarters, and most of the things in it, were destroyed. Now, wouldn’t it be a wonderful surprise for the two if they opened up their gifts on Hearth’s Warming Eve and saw something they thought lost forever?”
Twilight’s lips bent into a frown. “Discord, I can’t exactly ask the pony that I’m secretly getting a gift for about some item she desperately wants that’s been destroyed. Even if I could, I couldn’t recreate it accurately from thin air, or guarantee I can find something identical to it, and that’s not even considering that it’s one-of-a-kind.”
Discord groaned, massaging his temples. “Honestly, you ponies always go for the boring logical line of thinking. Except for Pinkie Pie, bless her soul. Regardless, I’m not talking about replacing or recreating something the two of them have lost. I’m suggesting that we simply… go back and rescue the items.”
It took a moment longer for it all to click in Twilight’s head. “Time travel?” She got a wide smile and a nod in reply. “First, that’s incredibly dangerous to do for Hearth’s Warming gifts. Second, the one time travel spell Starswirl the Bearded ever made is gone after… certain events. Third, I must restate, that is an incredibly dangerous idea. Time travel is not to be messed with.”
Discord chuckled, waving his paw back and forth. “You think only Starswirl the Bearded could manage the feat of traveling back in time? Chaos magic is more impressive than any magic that old coot could cook up. Besides, we can be extra careful. Also, I’m not really giving you a choice.”
Twilight suddenly noticed an extra weight on her withers. Looking back, she saw a strange contraption tied to her back, just above her saddlebags. A myriad of buttons, lights, wires and switches littered it, and turning back to Discord, she saw a similar device on his wrist. “Discord, wai—” she started to shout, just before Discord slapped the device with his paw. The two vanished in a flash of light, leaving a small burning circle on the floor of the shop.
The shopkeep barely managed to keep it contained, thanks mostly to two snow globes falling from nowhere onto the patch of burning carpet. As they shattered, a few inches of snow burst out, smothering the flames.
“—t a sec… ond,” Twilight shouted, and then mumbled as her environment changed. She was no longer in the antique shop. In fact, she couldn’t tell where she was. It was dark, and the floor felt cold. Twilight focused on her horn, and a small point of light appeared at the tip. The purple light bathed her surroundings, and she found herself facing a rack of brooms and mops. To her left were shelves filled with cleaning supplies, and to the right was a wooden door.
Slowly, Twilight opened the door and peeked through. Outside were the familiar carpets and walls of the palace, bathed in dim lamplight. On the opposite wall of the hallway, she could see a window, and through it the cloudy night sky. Confident in where she was, Twilight closed the door.
“Discord?" She called out, fully expecting one of the brooms to start speaking, or for the draconequus to simply pop into existence behind her, even with her tail pressed up against the wall. Instead, there was only silence. Looking back on her withers, she noticed the strange device was gone, but her saddlebags were still with her.
“Alright, Twilight,” she whispered to herself, “Discord may or may not have pulled you through time to… some when. It may also just be an elaborate prank. Still, best to err on the side of caution and causality. Just… sit put and don’t touch anything. Maybe it has a time limit or—” Twilight stopped as she heard something buzz, and felt a vibration in her saddlebags. Opening it and reaching inside with her magic, she pushed a bag of bits and some scrolls aside before finding the source.
She lifted a small device out of her saddlebags. It had a clean black exterior, as well as dials and buttons like the strange contraption Discord had put onto her back. One of the buttons was blinking, and Twilight pressed it down. A hiss of static filled the janitor’s closet, but soon cleared to make way for Discord’s voice.
“—estly, does this thing wo—Ah, there we go. You finally picked up.”
Twilight held the device in front of her, spinning it around. There wasn’t any sign of Discord’s facial features anywhere. There wasn’t even a speaker on it for his voice to come from. “Yes,” she finally said with a sigh, “I’m here, Discord. Is there a reason you aren’t?”
“Oh, that? Just avoiding messing with the fabric of the universe is all. Can’t go and risk my past self popping over to find out why there’s a second Lord of Chaos around. That will honestly get far more messy than you want. Laws of space, time, dimensions, etcetera breaking down around us. Very nasty. No, instead I have to lay low between some moments and planes. Don’t worry, I can still see everything. Think of me like… Mission Control.”
Twilight took a slow, steady series of breaths. “Right. So, I can assume you’re not going to take me back to the present until I find something to bring along?"
“Exactly,” Discord stated calmly.
Twilight picked up a bottle of window cleaner from the shelves. “Oh, lovely, task accomplished. Please take me back before we cause some catastrophe!” Her volume remained restrained, but in any other situation she would have shouted as loudly as her lungs could manage. Her tone carried the message well enough.
Discord sighed. “Honestly, I think royalty has sapped whatever adventurous spirit you managed to have. Celestia and Luna will be overjoyed if you just find the right thing to bring back. In fact, I found the perfect thing. Two things that definitely do not exist in the time we came from.”
Twilight tossed the bottle behind her and moved towards the door. Once more, she edged it open just enough to look out. The hallway was barren, and she couldn’t hear anything but the gentle breeze against a closed window. “And you found this out how?” she asked, stepping out of the closet.
“Just feeling out for magical auras that are absent in the present. I’ll teach you when we get back, as an extra special Hearth’s Warming gift. Just head up to Celestia’s chambers; they’re both there. Head right and then up the first staircase you see.”
Even in the dimly lit hallway, Twilight was able to make her way. Cautiously, she crept through the halls of the palace, following Discord’s directions as she kept an ear out for any guards. As she ascended the first stairway, she heard the sound of hooves coming from down the hallway. Spotting an open window opposite the doorway, she dashed out as fast as her wings could carry her. There, pressed up against the stonework, she waited for the guards to pass.
However, just as they approached, she heard one speak up, “Hold up, why’s this window open?”
“You can’t let just one thing go uninspected tonight, Cage. We’re gonna miss our check-in at this rate. Just close the window and let’s go.”
“Fine.” The stallion pulled the window shut.
Twilight waited another minute, and then fluttered away from the palace wall. Luckily, the cloud cover had not broken, so she was still concealed. However, she had to find another way back in. “How far back did we even go?” she asked quietly while flying upwards, her eyes scanning for another open window.
“Oh, a week before those three showed up in Canterlot… or maybe a month. It’s sometime before then, give or take a few clocks. Open window two floors up, to your right. Should put you close to Celestia's chambers.”
Twilight spotted it and flew over, keeping close to the side of the palace. Once there, she hovered under the windowsill, listening once more for the sound of hoofsteps. When there were none, she floated up and landed inside before closing the window behind her quietly. It was only a minute of walking longer before she was outside a heavy set pair of ornate doors, decorated with Celestia's cutie mark.
“Alright, what am I looking for?” she asked quietly, reaching out with her magic to test the handle. Finding it unlocked, she turned it gently and then inched the door open. Holding her breath, Twilight got the door ajar enough to squeeze through. However, just before she could, she heard a deep, nasally roar come from inside. She jumped, but calmed down as the roar gave way to a series of sniffs, and then a calmer, quiet snore.
“Just on the writing desk. They’re very close to each other,” Discord said quietly. Twilight decided to store the device he was speaking through back in her saddlebags, just in case.
As quietly as she could, Twilight snuck into the room, leaving the door ajar behind her. It was darker than the hallway, but lit by a sliver of light coming from a glass doorway that led out onto a balcony. In a large bed close to the balcony, Celestia seemed soundly asleep.
Twilight scanned the darkness until she saw the faint outline of a fireplace, and then a desk next to it. With gentle hoofsteps, she inched towards the desk, freezing in place with every irregular shuffle and noise that came from Celestia’s bed.
It took what felt like an eternity, though it was just a minute, for Twilight to reach the desk. Summoning as little magic as she could muster in her horn, she shined a faint glimmer of light on the desk. There were half-finished scrolls, an assortment of unused quills, inkwells and, on the far left of the desk, precariously close to the edge, two crystal balls. They were each only the size of a baseball, and rested atop fine filigree stands. One stand was decorated with a sun and clouds, while the other showed a crescent moon and stars.
Gently, Twilight picked them up and placed both in her right saddlebag, which was mostly empty. Then, she began her slow trek back towards the doorway. Celestia continued to shuffle and snore in her bed, but Twilight still took every hoofstep as carefully as she could. Almost there. Then Discord can take me home and I can apologize to the Princesses as many times as possible, in as many ways as possible. Hopefully they can… wait, did she stop snoring?
Twilight was about five hoofsteps from the doorway when the room went quiet. Slowly, she turned her head towards Celestia’s bed. Her silhouette wasstill, and Twilight held her breath. All she needed to do was wait for an opportunity to—
Static cut through the silence. “Did you get it yet?!” Discord shouted. Twilight acted quickly and bolted for the doorway, passing through it just as she heard the sheets flung back.
“Who’s there?!” came Celestia’s booming voice from behind her, but Twilight didn’t risk slowing down. As she heard Celestia shout for guards, she galloped down the hallway, fishing for Discord’s device back out of her saddlebags.
As soon as it was in front of her, she held it close, and tried her best to stay calm. She failed. “Yes, I did! Until you ruined my sneaking! I have them, okay, just take me back to the present before the guards find me and I ruin causality or they accuse me of being a changeling or worse!”
Twilight heard alarm bells ringing from downstairs, and the sound of hoofsteps coming up a nearby spiral staircase. She looked for a door to any kind of small room, and found one a dozen steps down the hallway. Rushing inside, she shut the door quietly and then inched away from it.
Discord’s reply came several seconds later. “How was I supposed to know? You put my only way to see you in your bag. Honestly, Twilight, you need to think these things through more.” Twilight was about to respond, but Discord cut her off. “It will take me a moment to get us back. I just need to make sure everything is in disorder correctly.”
Twilight trotted over towards a window, hiding behind a heavy dresser for as much cover as she could get if the guards busted in. As she watched the door and kept her ears open, the cloud cover began to break, and moonlight illuminated the room. Twilight stayed focused on the doorway until Discord's voice cut through the quiet.
“Alright, hold tight. No, actually, that’s wrong, let go of that dresser. It’s interfering a little.”
Twilight took her hooves off of everything, even lifting off into the air. It was then that she looked out the window. “Oh no…” she muttered, as she saw the face of the moon, and the mare on it staring down at her. As hoofsteps came close to the doorway, she vanished.
The Hearth’s Warming Eve party was in full swing at Twilight’s castle in Ponyville. Given that she still had an “official” party to attend on Hearth’s Warming in Canterlot, she figured that letting Pinkie Pie help with running this personal one in Ponyville would be a welcome break. As it turned out, she was more than right. The decorations were already done, treats were prepared in ample supply, and she had time to relax and catch up with everypony there.
Eventually, it came time to swap gifts. After Twilight received an enchanted desk calendar from Rarity, she pulled out her gift, wrapped in golden paper and a white bow. “Well, I got this for you, Pri- Celestia,” she said, blushing as she passed it with her magic over to the former princess.
Celestia smiled. “Thank you, Twilight. I can’t wait to see what it is.” She shook it for a few moments, before voraciously tearing into the wrapping paper, sending flecks of it onto Luna next to her.
Twilight looked to Discord, sitting at Fluttershy’s side with his gift. “Oh,” he spoke up, disappearing and reappearing next to Luna, “it’s a dual gift, by the way. From both of us.” Luna took the gift, opening it much more delicately than her sister.
Twilight took slow, cautious breaths, doing her best not to fidget in place as the two opened their gifts. Then, the sound of ripped wrapping paper passed, and the two gasped.
“Sister,” Luna started, “I thought you said they were stolen.”
“They were, Luna,” Celestia replied, pulling the crystal ball, stand engraved with solar images, out of the box. Luna pulled hers out as well. “Twilight, Discord, how did you come across these?”
Twilight had worked hard, rehearsing it to herself several times. She was very hopeful that Discord wouldn’t be straightforwardly honest, for once. “We… found them, in a shop.”
The two sisters looked at one another, and then back to Twilight. “Where? After they were stolen, I searched every shop in Canterlot to see if the thief had attempted to fence them. The guards found nothing.”
Twilight looked to Discord for a moment. He remained silent, simply smiling at her. “Manehatten. Discord mentioned there was something missing in the palace when he returned. Some magical aura, and he found them in Manehatten.” Twilight smiled as genuinely as she could manage.
"We had to check a lot of shops. Chaos magic can be so imprecise at times," Discord added.
Celestia lifted the crystal ball up, her horn growing brighter. After a few moments, an image came into view; it was a colorful valley, trees and wildflowers and pastures untouched by ponies, and all of it bathed in the light of a midday sun. Luna did the same with hers, and the identical valley was shown in the middle of the night, faintly lit by moonlight.
“Thank you, Twilight. It’s wonderful to have them back.” Celestia said, wiping her eyes with a wing tip. She moved close to Twilight and the two hugged gently.
“And the same to you, Discord,” Luna said with a bow, before the draconequus grabbed her into a tight hug.
“Any time, Luna,” Discord said with a chuckle, before winking at Twilight.
