Changing Skies

Skyset set hoof forward and began to walk into the town. “Just find this… Princess Whomever and all will be right. Sounds almost too simple.” the mare said, shaking her head. As she began to step hoof on the roads however, she noticed something odd. The very thing she’d been taught her whole life were evil… were everywhere. Earth ponies and unicorns were on every street, and almost around every corner. She wanted nothing more than to turn and run. But they didn’t seem to have noticed her yet. If she ran, she’d raise suspicion. Furthermore, she wondered in her mind. Did the earth ponies and unicorns work together to take the pegasus magic away? But that ghost told her that they could fly, and she could see several others in the sky. Just what kind of place was this?!?

She kept to herself, usually attempting to avoid anywhere that had a lot of earth ponies and unicorns. “To the castle, to the castle, to the castle, nothing weird here! Nope!” she muttered to herself.

As she walked a mint colored unicorn caught sight of her. “Hey there!” she said with a wave.

“Um… h-hi!” Skyset said, though she pressed her wings closer to her side and picked up her pace a bit. “Freakin’ unicorns tryna’ get in my head. THAT must be why all the others are here. I’ll bet the unicorns are controlling them.” she muttered.

As the mare trotted off, the unicorn stood there. “...what a strange pony. Ah well! Off to find Bonnie’s favorite flowers.”

Finally she reached the castle. She let out a sigh, as if holding a breath she didn’t know she was holding. When she reached the doors, there didn’t appear to be any guards, like one would expect. “Do I just… knock?” she questioned, and then knocked on the door. “I don’t know. This… everything is so…. Odd!”

After a moment the door slid open, revealing a small purple and green dragon standing on the other side. “Casa de Twilight, what can we do for you today?” the dragon asked in a playful tone.

The mare yelped, not expecting what she saw on the other side of the door. She quickly caught herself, taking deep breaths. Okay… uh… the ghost wasn’t so bad… maybe this isn’t either! She thought to herself.

“Uhh… I was… told to… find a… Twilight?” she said weakly, trying not to panic.

“Then you’ve come to the right place!” the dragon said, stepping aside. “I’m Spike, by the way. She’s currently having lunch… I can throw you together a sandwich too, if you want.”

“Ah… no… that’s uh… alright.” She said. So far so good… hopefully… she thought again.

“You sure? We’ve got fresh cucumber.” Spike suggested as he made his way for the stairs.

“Ahh… yep! Sure!” She said in what she hoped was a positive tone.

The dragon continued up the stairs. “Suit yourself.” he said nonchalantly. “This way please!” he called. He sometimes liked to pretend he was some big important castle staff. Okay maybe he technically was castle staff, but pretending it was some job made the mundane feel a little more special.

The mare followed wordlessly, trying not to freak herself out. Everything would be fine. The… ghost… reassured her.

As the dragon lead her, they eventually stopped at a door where he knocked.

“Come in..!” a voice called from within.

That was all the dragon needed as he pushed the door open. “Presenting, Princess Twilight.” he said, gesturing to the purple pony behind the desk.

Twilight looked up in confusion. “We have a guest? Oh! Hello there!”

Skyset wanted to freak out immediately. The horn was prominent on the other mare’s head. But at the same time, she also… had wings? How did that work? Was she or wasn’t she a unicorn? Just what was this mare?

Twilight’s ears folded back. “Is… something wrong? I know I need to dust in here…” she trailed off, wondering if the state of her study was off putting. She had a tendency to let things get a little behind when it came to tidiness in this particular room.

“Y-you have a horn. And wings!” Skyset said. “H-how does that work?!?”

Twilight blinked. “Uh… huh? What do you mean? Like… how did I get them… or?”

“Are you a unicorn? Or a pegasus?” she asked. “Because I can’t tell.”

“I’m an alicorn.” Twilight replied. “I have a unicorn horn, pegasus wings, and the natural magic of an earth pony.” she explained. “... you’re… not familiar with alicorns? Surely you know of Princess Celestia…”

Skyset tilted her head. “Princess who?” She’d remembered the ghost talking about that very same name, but in her mind, not a definitive on who that actually was.

Twilight stared in disbelief. How could anypony not know who Princess Celestia was? “You… don’t know?”

“I only know of two princesses, and neither one of em have the name Celestia.” Skyset said.

Twilight could only continue to stare in confusion. “I’m… forgive me I’m trying to understand how that’s possible. Princess Celestia has ruled over Equestria for millennia…”

“And just where is this Equestria?” Skyset asked. There was no way it was the Equestria she knew. She may have had this conversation with the ghost earlier. She couldn’t really remember. She wanted to hear this purple pony say it.

Twilight’s horn sparked to life and a globe floated to her desk from the top of a nearby bookshelf. She set it down on her desk and rotated it so the Equestrian continent faced the pegasus. “Equestria is here, south of the Crystal Empire, and north of the Bone Dry Desert.”

Skyset glanced at the map. The continent looked right, but the names were all wrong! But then she took a moment, and realized just how the map got here. She backpedaled immediately.

“Are… you alright?” Twilight asked worriedly. “You seem a bit frightened…”

“I uh… need to go!” Skyset said urgently, then turned. She wanted out of here and she didn’t care how she made it happen.

“The restroom is down the hall to your left!” Twilight called after her.

Skyset wasn’t looking for the bathroom, however. This… alicorn was probably the source of everything in this crazy town! Unicorns and earth ponies? As if. This was all the purple pony’s doing, and she wanted no part of it. She bolted for the door and quickly exited. “Now just to get through this town again!” she gritted her teeth as she muttered to herself. Back to the forest. That’s where she’d go. It was probably safer than here.

She bobbed and weaved her way through, not caring who saw. It didn’t take long for the forest to come into view. With her goal in sight, she felt some relief, until she smacked into something.

She barely stopped herself from falling, and she saw that she had knocked yet another unicorn down! “EEP!” she yelped, and bolted past the unicorn, hoping she could get away before she recovered.

“Oh goodness! Starlight, are you alright?” A yellow pegasus asked, approaching the downed unicorn.

Starlight took Fluttershy’s hoof and pulled herself up. “I’m fine… I’m more worried about the pony who knocked me down… did you see her? She looked like she was scared for her life…”

“I um… no I’m sorry, I stopped to chat with the squirrels…” Fluttershy admitted. “What should we do?”

“...I think we should follow her, maybe we can help.” Starlight declared before galloping off in the direction the pony who’d bumped into her had.

“I… um…” Fluttershy stood there, unsure of how to convey that she didn’t really feel like chasing somepony on a Saturday afternoon. She sighed and took wing, entering a leisurely glide once she’d gained a comfortable amount of height. Scared animals were something Fluttershy was good at dealing with… maybe she could help calm a scared pony too.

Skyset kept running, even as she went into the forest. Once she figured she was away from it all, she laid on the ground and curled herself up, crying. I just wanna go back home. I’ll never complain about work again… she thought.

In the shadows, something creaked like an old tree in a heavy storm… only there was no storm. A pair of glowing eyes peered out from the bushes. Step by step, the massive wooden creature moved into the clearing, spying what looked like food.

“Get back!” Starlight shouted.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…” Fluttershy whimpered. “Starlight it isn’t going to stop!”

“MOVE!” Starlight shouted as loud as she could, hoping the mare on the ground would hear her. She charged up her horn and vanished in blue-ish green flash, appearing between the mare and the wooden creature. “Don’t you take another step closer, dog breath!”

Skyset hadn’t heard a thing. The next thing she knew, someone was calling someone else dog breath, and there was a popping sound close by. Immediately startled, another loud yelp escaped the mare’s lips, and she could only think to run yet again.

“D-don’t run that direction!” Fluttershy shouted. “It’ll give chase!”

Skyset stopped at the warning, skidding and seeing the yellow pegasus. She felt almost relieved, a fellow pegasus. Hopefully she wasn’t brainwashed like the others seemed to be.

Fluttershy landed gently on her hooves and moved over to the other pegasus. “Are you hurt?”

“N-no!” she said. “What’s going on?!?” she questioned.

Starlight looked over her shoulder. “I’ll tell you what’s going on, you ran into the woods and almost became lunch for this thing… bad timber wolf! Go home!”

The large wooden canine went to swipe at Starlight with a paw only to hit a glowing dome of blue-ish green energy. The dome dissipated at a few beams of the same color were fired in a volley from the unicorn’s horn. “Go… home! Ponies aren’t food!”

The creature yelped as one of Starlight’s three shots struck it’s paw. It narrowed its glowing eyes at her and started to circle.

“I think it’s planning to fight you!” Fluttershy warned. “It seems really agitated!”

Starlight’s horn flared and the creature lit up in her aura before being blasted back several pony lengths. “Get lost! Go on! Get!”

The creature rolled from the shove and started approaching again.

“It’s a stubborn one…” Starlight hissed. She fired a much stronger beam, blasting a leg off the Timber Wolf. “I’ll do it again! Back off!”

The creature gave a light whimper, gazing at it’s missing leg. It hobbled over to the leg, took it in its teeth and vanished into the trees.

After they had caught their breath, Skyset spoke. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a creature like that!”

“It’s called a Timber Wolf… they’re pretty common in wooded areas.” Fluttershy said, a tone of relief creeping into her voice. “I think you scared it off, Starlight…”

Starlight turned and walked towards the others. “What were you thinking running off into the woods like that? Who in Ponyville just runs into the Everfree? You could’ve gotten seriously hurt.” she said, staring at the other pegasus.

Skyset stared, not wanting to interact with the unicorn. “I… uh… no reason?”

“Starlight’s right, that was incredibly dangerous… you don’t even have any first aid supplies on you…” Fluttershy said worriedly. “Or a compass… what if you’d gotten lost and hurt? You wouldn’t even be able to fly up and reorient yourself from above…”

“Huh…?” Skyset seemed very puzzled. “What’s so bad about the forest? Sure there’s a couple wild animals here and there, but it can’t be that bad, can it?”

“The Everfree Forest is one of the more dangerous places in Equestria.” Starlight explained. “It’s filled with plenty of creatures that wouldn’t mind snacking on a pony or two… not to mention the dangerous magical plants. It’s not somewhere inexperienced explorers should be wandering alone.”

“Uh… huh…” Skyset seemed perplexed. Was this unicorn trying to trick her? She seemed genuinely concerned, but that couldn’t be right.

“...I think she gets the idea, Starlight…” Fluttershy noted. She looked to the mare and smiled. “My name is Fluttershy.” she greeted. Normally she’d have a harder time talking to somepony new… but it was funny how mortal danger had a habit of yanking her out of her shell, even if only for a while.

“Uh… Skyset.” the orange pegasus replied, holding out a hoof.

Fluttershy gently took and shook the hoof before letting it go. “Starlight, do you think you can go to the market and pick up some lettuce for me? I’m going to need some for dinner tonight.”

“Uh… alright. I can do that. You want me to just meet you back here or..?” Starlight asked.

“At my cottage, please, feel free to let yourself in.” Fluttershy said with a smile.

“WHAT!!!!” Skyset exclaimed, staring at the pegasus in disbelief.

The two ponies turned to look at her.

Fluttershy flicked her ears a few times. “O-oh... is something the matter?”

Skyset turned so that she was not facing the unicorn, and put a wing up. “She’s a unicorn.” Skyset said in a hushed whisper to Fluttershy. “Aren’t you worried she’ll… yknow…” she made a gesture to her head for emphasis.

“...I’m… afraid I don’t understand?” Fluttershy asked unsurely.

“Hello? Unicorn? Fried pony brain???” Skyset questioned in disbelief.

“What? Starlight would never mess with anypony’s head!“ Fluttershy gasped.

“Well, there was that one time…” Starlight said sheepishly. “Not that I’m proud of it…”

“You gave that up a long time ago.” Fluttershy said firmly.

Starlight sighed. “That doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty about it. What I did was wrong.”

Skyset just stared at the two. “Okay. Somepony explain to me what the hay is going on??? Since when did pegasi and unicorns get all chummy?”

At this, Starlight stared at Skyset. “...you wouldn’t happen to be from another time or something would you?”

“What?” Skyset blinked. “I’m from 3021. Just like everypony else. What other time could it possibly be???”

“I knew it!” Starlight declared. “I knew I sensed time magic this morning! Twilight was wrong!”

“You sensed time magic? Oh my…” Fluttershy winced. “I-it’s not going to be like that one time is it?”

“I don’t think so… Skyset seems more confused than malicious.” Starlight said, looking to the pegasus. “It’s uh… I don’t know how to tell you this, but it’s only 2016.”

“What???” Skyset said for what felt like the millionth time. “You’re lying.”

“She’s not…” Fluttershy said softly. “It’s May seventh, twenty sixteen.”

“Y-you ponies are just playing tricks on me! This isn’t funny!” Skyset exclaimed.

“I wouldn’t play a joke like that on somepony. That’s not my style.” Starlight said flatly. “...wait, you asked when unicorns and pegasi got… chummy? Does something happen?”

“Starlight, maybe we shouldn’t know too much…” Fluttershy cautioned. “Twilight once went back in time to warn herself about something and it turned into a real mess…”

“Like she wouldn’t know anyway!” Skyset said, glaring at Starlight. “After all, it was the unicorns that stole our magic!”

Starlight felt like she’d been stabbed in the heart. Stole their magic? For a brief moment the image of Twilight Sparkle’s pained expression flickered through her mind as her cutie mark was stolen. For a brief moment she remembered how satisfied she’d felt to unmark a Princess. She shuddered. Since that day Twilight had taken her in Starlight had only become more increasingly confused as to how she ever could’ve become so… misguided. She had once stolen magic from ponies.

“Starlight… are you okay?” Fluttershy asked, seeing Starlight’s eyes tear up.

“Y-yeah, I’m okay… just… remembering darker times…” Starlight said, wiping her eyes with the back of a hoof. She didn’t know if she could ever truly forgive herself.

Skyset was now conflicted. This unicorn seemed more hurt than anything else. She wasn’t wrong, was she? No. She couldn’t be wrong. This was just another manipulation game. She was sure of it.

“Do you… wanna talk about it? I’m here to listen…” Fluttershy encouraged.

“...I was just remembering what I did to you and your friends back in the village…” Starlight said with a ragged breath. “I did steal a part of you… Maybe I… I should go…” she said weakly. Was this mare once one of her villagers? She thought she’d remembered everypony… but could she really? There had been so many… No… this mare had come from the future… still… what if something Starlight had done had lead up to this? What if she were the descendant of one of those villagers? What if somepony else had copied her unmarking spell… or worse. “I hate myself for ever writing that stupid spell…” she muttered.

Convinced that she needed to leave this situation as soon as possible, Skyset cleared her throat. “Uh… thank you… ponies… for the save.” Skyset said. “But uh… I should get going. You guys take care, okay?”

“Wait!” Starlight cried. “If you’re from the future, you’re going to need a way back!”

Skyset stopped. Was the unicorn seriously offering to help? What if this... Starlight... had been the one to cause it? The orange pegasus turned. “Go on…?”

“Starlight Glimmer is one of the strongest mages in Equestria.” Fluttershy spoke up. “She once used time magic… maybe she can get you back to your own time.”

“I-I don’t know if I’m one of the strongest…” Starlight said awkwardly.

“You were able to stand up to Twilight.” Fluttershy deadpanned.

“...Okay… maybe I am pretty strong, b-but I’m sure there are others…” Starlight replied nervously. The last thing she wanted to do was dismiss anypony else’s talent. She’d learned to respect the talent of others a lot more since her village days.

“What’s in it for you?” Skyset questioned, not believing it to be true.

“...a chance to use that knowledge for something good?” Starlight asked hopefully.

“Whatever, I guess I don’t have anything to lose but my sanity.” Skyset said, then groaned. “What am I doing with my lifeeeee...”

“I just need to know… is… something wrong between unicorns and pegasi in your time..?” Starlight asked worriedly. Had she somehow broken things that never got fixed? Was one of those alternate timelines still out there? She couldn’t recall how many she’d seen…

“Unicorns and earth ponies stole our magic.” Skyset said bitterly. “None of us can fly. Only the royal family can. We don’t know how to get it back. Why am I telling you this?” she questioned herself as she explained.

“Stole your magic?” Starlight asked in a mix of horror and disbelief. She couldn’t think of how or why that would happen… “B-but why?” she questioned. Now that she thought about it this mare’s magic was incredibly weak.

“You tell me.” Skyset said sourly. “My guess is because they hate us.”

“...I repeat… but why?” Starlight questioned.

“Starlight, we might end up messing up the future if we know too much…” Fluttershy cautioned. “The butterfly effect, remember?”

Starlight glanced at Fluttershy, briefly to her cutie mark and rolled her eyes. “I won’t do anything different…”

“You don’t know that.” Fluttershy pointed out. “Just knowing could change what you’d do.”

“...w-well if that’s the future, maybe it should be different.” Starlight said flatly.

Skyset remained silent, listening. Did this unicorn really believe that?

“Maybe you’re right…” Fluttershy sighed.

“I just… don’t want to imagine a future in which ponies hate each other. Especially not after having you and Twilight in my life, Fluttershy…” Starlight said adamantly.

“I’m having a hard time believing my ears right now.” Skyset said blankly. “You’re supposed to be heartless. All unicorns are. Heartless, soulless, evil ponies!”

Starlight winced. “Maybe I was heartless at one point…”

“You were not.” Fluttershy scolded. “You were hurting…”

“That’s no excuse for what I did to those ponies.” Starlight snapped. “I never once considered their feelings genuinely. It was all about me. If that isn’t heartless I don’t know what is.”

“You need to forgive yourself, Starlight…” Fluttershy said gently. “You’re not that pony anymore…”

“...I’m working through it, okay?” Starlight groaned.

“Just…. Stop, okay!” Skyset huffed. “I don’t know why you don’t know anything about this, I don’t know if I buy the whole… 2016 thing… I just… I’ve been taught all my life that this is the way things are, and you alone…” she said, pointing at Starlight. “...are making me question everything I was ever taught. What the heck is going ON!??!?”

“Either something really screwed up happens between our time and yours… or somepony’s made you believe something that isn’t true.” Starlight replied. “...I should know, I was good at getting ponies to believe things I wanted them to.”

“Starlight…” Fluttershy sighed. “Maybe you should take a spa trip… it isn’t good to dwell on these things.”

“I guess I’m just having an off day…” Starlight said weakly. “This morning started out weird…”

“You don’t have to tell me that.” Skyset grumbled. “I just wanted a nice camping trip.”

“I’ve admittedly never been one for camping myself.” Starlight said before looking back towards the town. “Maybe you’re right… but personally I kind of feel like pizza. You don’t mind pineapple on pizza, right?” she asked looking to Skyset.

It was at that moment Skyset realized, she was starving. She hadn’t eaten anything in a long while. “Right now, I’d kill for anything. I don’t care if it’s served by an octopus.” Skyset said. “You just had to get me thinking about my stomach.”

“Alright then. Pizza first. Timey whimey stuff after.” Starlight said with a smile. Pizza made everything better, right?