“We’re out of coffee.”
Starlight Glimmer, who had just arrived in the kitchen, froze in mid-yawn. She must have misheard. “What did you say?”
“We’re out of coffee,” Trixie repeated in a tone that was far too casual for the dire news she’d just imparted.
“Out—?!” Starlight choked. “We can’t be out, we just bought some last week!”
Trixie levitated the bag of coffee grounds under Starlight’s nose, then turned it upside-down. A few small particles drifted sadly to the kitchen floor, like the dying gasp of a cloud being bucked into oblivion during Winter Wrap-Up.
Starlight stared in disbelief at the scene before her. That empty bag, cloaked in Trixie’s light-pink magic, represented the death of all her plans and hopes for the day. She could already feel the beginnings of a headache building behind her horn, and her eyelids seemed to have lead weights stuck to them. She collapsed to her knees and reached out weakly with her forelegs to take hold of the bag. Trixie’s aura winked out as Starlight cradled it gently to her chest.
“How?” Starlight whispered. “How could this happen?”
“Trixie warned you that those late-night study sessions would catch up with you,” the blue unicorn replied, apparently unconcerned that Starlight’s life was falling apart around her. “You’ve been drinking that stuff by the bucket.” While she spoke, Trixie used her magic to fetch a teacup and begin brewing her own morning beverage of choice.
“I need it!” Starlight protested. “I’m the headmare of an experimental friendship school that’s on the rocks in more ways than one right now.”
“Uh, Trixie knows? She’s the guidance counselor there, in case you forgot.”
“I know that you know,” Starlight gritted out, “but… coffee!”
“Well, unless you’ve got a spell to make some more, you’ll just have to have tea today.”
“Blech. No thanks. You can keep your leaf soup.”
Trixie shrugged. “Suit yourself, sleepyhead.” She poured some hot water into her cup, added a teabag, and trotted off.
Starlight clutched the empty bag of coffee grounds—the only thing in the castle that still loved her. How could Trixie be so callous during such a difficult time? She knew full well that tea was too weak for Starlight’s caffeine-hardened constitution, and she knew equally well that no spell could create coffee beans out of nothing.
In a last act of desperation, Starlight reached out with her magic and tore the kitchen apart. Every door flew open, every drawer emptied itself. She even emptied the freezer, in case Trixie had bought some coffee ice cream without telling her.
Nothing. There wasn’t a molecule of caffeine in the entire kitchen, except for Trixie’s disgusting tea. She was doomed to a miserable day of headaches and exhaustion.
Wait!
Starlight gasped as inspiration struck. She couldn’t produce the beans from thin air, but there was a spell that she could use to get coffee.
With shaking hooves, she gently laid the empty coffee bag to rest in the trash can. Then her horn flared to life as she folded time and space around herself.
Nopony, not even Trixie, knew that Starlight had managed to recreate the time-travel spell she’d used all those years ago to try to stop the Sonic Rainboom. Even better, now she could do it without the help of the Map.
Reverse-engineering the spell had only been an exercise for Starlight, a test to see if she could do it. She’d certainly never intended to use it again—but this was an emergency.
Besides, now that she understood the risks, she knew to keep her interference to a minimum. One minor change to Equestria’s past was all she needed. One small event would happen here instead of there a thousand years ago, and then no one in Ponyville would ever run out of coffee again.
A whirling vortex opened above Starlight’s head, and she threw herself into it.
“Run that by me one more time, my little darling,” Princess Rarity said as she massaged beneath her horn. That long, graceful horn was beautifully framed by her flowing mane, which sparkled as if studded with gemstones. Her wings twitched in agitation as she took in Starlight Glimmer’s story.
Starlight coughed. “Well, like I said, I used a spell to travel a thousand years into the past. I arrived just after Equestria was founded.”
“And while there, you stole the kingdom’s first coffee beans—which the earth ponies had intended to present as a gift to Celestia and Luna—”
“To plant them near what would become Ponyville, so that Equestria’s largest coffee farm would be right next to my home in my own time,” Starlight finished for her.
“Which led to…” Rarity gestured to one of the many large windows of her palace in Platinum City, which stood where Ponyville should have been. Beyond the walls of that city, Equestria simultaneously burned in the fires of civil war and shivered under the wrath of the windigos.
“Um. Yes?” Starlight replied with a sheepish smile. It quickly withered under Rarity’s glare. “Look, how was I supposed to know that taking one bag of coffee beans would lead to a thousand years of war between the earth ponies and the unicorns?”
“Well, setting aside the delicate political situation in early Equestria, I must ask—and I hope you’ll pardon my Prench, my little darling—WHAT IN TARTARUS WERE YOU THINKING?!”
“That I was out of coffee and needed more?” Starlight replied. “I thought that part was pretty clear.”
Princess Rarity scoffed. “And you couldn’t have simply gone to the market to buy it? Gone out for breakfast that day? Gone back a week, instead of a thousand years, and warned yourself to save some for later?!” Her voice became more strained and shrill with each suggestion. “How could you possibly have thought that rewriting history was the best way to get a cup of coffee?”
Starlight’s gaze slowly drifted from Rarity’s face to the ruined world outside, and then back again.
“Well, in my defense, I hadn’t had my coffee yet.”
