Gloam and I walked along the wet sand.

At four years old, she’d never been to an ocean before.

Something about this one didn’t look familiar to me.

Instead of running into the waves she held my hand as the seas came to us, ran around our ankles, and retreated again.

An older man walked with us; such was the logic of the dream that I never questioned any of this.

At last he spoke.

“Funny thing, woman.” He squinted. “I know you as my get. But I have a meiosis-specific transcription error in my X chromosome. I’m healthy enough but completely unable to have any daughters.”

“I was born male, sir. Magic happened.”

“Ha ha ha, dam’ right magic happened, I can see that.”

The three of us walked innocently skyclad in sunlight that wasn’t quite right.

“What should I call you?”

I decided the alien sun must be nearly setting: the temperature was warm and pleasant. If this was dawn, for it to be this warm, the light shining on us would have to be much more intense.

“I was born Tangent. My brother gave me the moniker Tanna when I changed.”

“Okay, Tanna, why’d you want to be a girl?” he asked.

“It wasn’t my idea, but I guess I got used to it. My marefriend—” he looked sharply at my use of the unfamiliar word “—wanted to swap, just for fun. But when I got turned back into a human I stayed female and it turned out she knocked me up. I wonder if she’s still a stallion? Also the princess who rules Twilight’s country called Twilight and me newlyweds after we swore by her name. So, I guess we’re married.”

“Ha! She’ll get more than she bargained for! What year is it for you? Do I have any other offspring in your time?”

“It’s twenty six fifteen on my current timeline,” I answered, “I have an older brother by you, centuries older. Eric secretly watched over me when I was a child. My mother would have killed me for being male.”

“Is she happy now?”

“I’d rather die than face her again to find out.”

“You will face her in your time,” he stated simply. “Do I have any grandchildren?”

The golden orb shinning across the waves was definitely closer to the horizon.

“Here’s my daughter Gloam. Eric had a son, who also changed teams like I did. She’s either dead or trapped in coldsleep on an damaged starship, a Flying Dutchman between the stars.”

“So they built those damn colony ships, did they? Bread and circuses, to distract the masses! When are you gonna rescue your niece?”

“I’d like to, but I don’t have the ability.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, child. You’ll earn your wings.”

I didn’t know what to make of that cryptic remark. I already had wings; they would never be enough to help me save Diva.

Our path across the sand had angled away from the gentle surf. There was a wrack of hollow, organic, tubes, tossed like driftwood at the highwater mark, none large enough to provide seats. Instead my father and I sat on wave polished boulders to watch Gloam splash in a tidepool.

“Tell me about your life, we may never meet again. What do you do, what do you dream?”

“Eh, well I’m a research librarian, I look up references in old magic books for oligarchy scholars.”

“Oligarchy?”

“You might know them as the guardians of freedom, which is a lie.”

“I know those lying bastards. Who’s running their show now?”

“An old fucker called Kratar.”

My father turned his head and spat.

“That piece of shit shouldn’t be alive in your time. We sabotaged his longevity regimen long before we decided to just outright murder the bunch of them.”

“That would explain why he’s trying to obtain magical immortality.”

“Fat lot of good it’ll do him when his own son stabs him in the back.”

“Fat lot of good it’ll do him with some of the formulae wrong.”

“Clever girl. Don’t let yourself get caught on that one. They aim to become gods and will not take thwarting kindly.”

“I know something of their reputations. The errors I put into the research are genuine quotes of old mistakes. Anyone can double check my research and they’ll find the same information.”

“Hmm. It is better to seek some pattern that already exists and adjust your actions to it, eh.”

“Is that a quote?”

“Probably. It was written on the wall in the john at Grinnell’s. What else do you do?”

“When I’m not working, I have Gloam!”

She was building a rough sand castle, shaping the damp sand with her hands.

“Raising up a castle fit for a queen,” he laughed.

“But as for dreams, I just want to go home to Equestria and be with Twilight forever after.”

“Don’t let go of that dream.”

For a while we sat and watched Gloam as she played. Despite the rough construction, her castle bore a more than passing resemblance to Canterlot castle. If only I could hope to see a queen crowned there some day.

“Eric says that you vanished?”

“History isn’t everything it used to be. When I wake in the morning, it will be for my execution.”

“What was your crime?”

“I came within one bullet of stopping the coup d’etat. Half our team was shot down on approach, but we went in anyway. Almost cleared out the entire junta. My gun jammed and democracy fell. I had the poor taste to be taken alive, unlike my brothers in arms.”

“You’re the third gunman! Official history calls you a terrorist. But the people call you a martyr. No wonder Eric never told me your name.”

“I don’t plan to die tomorrow. I’ll go elsewhere. Maybe I'll end up staying here.”

“Where is ‘here’?”

He shrugged the question aside as unanswerable.

“You’ll figure it out.”

“Why not come back to my time? Take up the fight?”

“Ha! Don’t you go getting involved in active insurrection, girl, not while you’ve a little one. I imagine they’ve probably strengthened their position in a couple hundred years. Too bad the commander and Edi didn’t make it. I’d take on the whole world bare handed with those two at my side.”

A faint awareness of my physical body told me that I would wake soon.

“Dawn comes, father. I’m glad I got to meet you.”

And here sunset was upon us. The last arc of the unnamed star lingered above distant waves like the tip of a great, brilliant hoof.

“I don’t think our paths cross again, but I have a gift for you, child, a priceless gift.”

My father scooped up a handful of sand, let it run through his fingers until a single particle was left, bright against the skin of his palm. He swiped it onto his fingertip and held the golden mote up to the last light.

“’To see the world in a grain of sand’,” he quoted.

“Blake,” I said as wisely I could, “preindustrial age poet and mystic.”

“Early industrial,” he corrected me, “Blake coined the phrase ‘satanic mills’ to describe what he saw happening in his time, what technology was doing. He was a prophet, he saw where the Industrial Revolution would take us. Take it.” He held out one dark finger, the prize barely visible on the tip. “I would do more for you if I could. But this, this will be enough, and you will do the rest.”

I woke with a lone speck of yellow grit pinched between my finger and thumb. Gloam and I collected it in a tiny vial against the day when I would know what to do with such a treasure.

When the time was right I held a single grain of sand in my hand and unlocked the door to a new world.

Author's Note

Heyas, if anypony is there i request feedback on the pacing so far. Having a bit of the ol' existential dread right now and questioning the ever living buck outta m'self. T.I.A.