The room was filled with the scent of herbs, spices, and a whole lot of tomato sauce. Red banners with white pizza-shaped emblems dotted the walls… it was Ponyville’s very own Royal Pie Pizzeria, home of the royal pie. Also breadsticks and pasta.

The earth pony mare behind the counter deftly tossed spinning dough into the air and caught it before spreading a generous layer of sauce atop it. “Coming right up...!”

“She’s got some skill, I’ll give her that much.” said Skyset, staring on in awe.

“Tends to happen when you make pizza for ten years.” the earth pony mare chuckled as she laid on the toppings surprisingly evenly for the speed she moved. She slid the pan into the oven. “Should be done in about ten minutes, can I interest you in a drink with that?”

“I’ll take a root beer.” Starlight said happily.

“I uh… water please.” Fluttershy said sheepishly.

Not knowing what was available in this time, Skyset made a simple choice. “Eh… water for me too.”

“So… what kind of music do they have where you come from?” Starlight asked curiously as she took a seat at a nearby booth.

“Huh?” Skyset blinked, not expecting the question. “I mean… normal… kinds? You name it, it probably exists.”

“Huh… I’m kind of a metal mare myself.” Starlight said with a smile.

“I like classical.” Fluttershy said before glancing back to the oven. “There won’t be onions will there? Too many onions upset my tummy…”

“I didn’t order any, actually. I know they don’t sit too well with you.” Starlight noted.

“You remembered? Thank you, Starlight.” Fluttershy said gratefully.

“As long as they don’t have those… weird… fish things on it I’m good.” Skyset said.

“Anchovies? They’re alright.” Starlight said with a shrug.

“I don’t like my food looking at me…” Fluttershy said with a shudder.

“You can say that again.” Skyset chuckled. “Food isn’t supposed to stare. Now I’m thinking though. If pizza is this far back, I wonder how old other foods are.”

“Some food historians believe pizza predates even Equestria, though there’s some debate as to whether or not the earliest of pizzas can be considered pizza by modern standards.” Starlight commented.

“I wouldn’t know.” Skyset shrugged. “But I’m starting to wonder if that’s the case with a lot of foods.”

“I’d say it is.” Starlight said confidently. “So… are unicorns really like that where you come from? I mean like… super mean?”

“They stole our magic!” Skyset deadpanned. “How much more mean can you get than that?”

“It’s just… I’m not entirely convinced…” Starlight said uncertainly. “I mean sure, there’s ponies who’ve abused their power before… I’m one of them, but… all unicorns?”

“Well I haven’t seen any other unicorns trying to help us get it back. We either go at them and demand we get it back, and potentially start fighting, or we just keep living our lives. We’re not fighters.” Skyset said. “But we do want to fly.”

“I have noticed your magic is… weaker than it should be for an adult pegasus.” Starlight noted. “Your magic kind of resembles a foal’s almost.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!?” Skyset demanded. “I don’t havemagic!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, everypony has magic. It’s integral to our biology. You’d be dead without it.” Starlight said dismissively.

“Then why can’t we fly?” Skyset deadpanned.

“If I had to guess, you can’t fly because your magic is so weak.” Starlight suggested. “Pegasi need their magic to aid in flight, but yours is immature. Like you’ve… never flown a day in your life…”

“Never flown? Oh goodness…” Fluttershy said, her ears folding back. Fluttershy tended to keep her hooves on the ground, but even she would be heartbroken without her wings…

“It’s not just me!” Skyset protested. “ALL pegasi where I’m from can’t fly! Only the queen and princesses can!”

“That just makes it all the more suspicious, if you ask me.” Starlight pointed out. “Awfully selective that only ponies in high places get special privileges.”

“They wouldn’t!” Skyset protested.

“You know your home better than I do… but I still think there’s a pretty huge piece of the picture missing.” Starlight said unsurely. “If anything, taking away pegasus magic is detrimental to everypony. If the weather can’t be managed, ponies will have a much harder time producing the food they need.”

“I mean, the weather just is what it is.” Skyset said. “It could rain, it could be sunny… doesn’t really matter. It just happens when it happens.”

“Oh… not around here. We have weather teams manage the weather here.” Fluttershy noted. “Tomorrow they’re supposed to make it rain.”

“That’s… great news.” Skyset deadpanned, not really fond of getting soaked while out and about. Was it true, though? It wasn’t really something she remembered ever being talked about in her school days.

“Your pizza’s ready!” the earth pony at the counter declared, setting the freshly baked pizza into a box.

Starlight’s horn came to life as the pizza floated over to their table. “Thank you!”

“Any time!” the earth pony said as she went about cleaning up her work space. “I’ve got to get six more done for delivery by time my delivery pony gets back…”

“Yeesh. Don’t work your tail off.” Skyset grimaced.

“Don’t worry! I’ll just stick it back on with our stringy mozzarella!” the earth pony joked.

Skyset actually chuckled at this. “That’s advertisement if I ever heard it. Good job.”

Starlight gleefully stared at the fresh made pizza, steam still rolling off of it. “I love this place!” she practically sang as she snagged a slice.

“That good, huh…?” Skyset said. She stared for a moment. It was made by an earth pony. Those other creatures she was told she should avoid. But now she was beginning to question… why?

“Ever since I discovered this place, I look for them in every town I visit.” Starlight said digging into a slice. “I wonder if Sire’s Hollow ever got one…”

“Soooo…. They’re franchised?” Skyset asked. “Here you had me thinking this was a local spot.”

“Family owned!” The earth pony mare butted in.

“Well there’s that mystery solved.” Skyset said, finally shaking off her fears and grabbing some. “Sure smells good.”

Fluttershy cautiously reached for a slice with her hoof, and then decided to wait, feeling it was too hot. “So… you have a queen?”

Skyset nodded through a mouthful. “We have Queen Haven.” she said. “And she has two daughters. She does a good job, I think. A little on the pompous side, but it is what it is.”

“We have Princess Celestia and Princess Luna…” Starlight noted. “There’s also Princess Twilight, but she currently doesn’t handle a lot of higher up things in our government. It’s usually the two sisters calling the shots.”

“No queen?” Skyset asked.

“No queen.” Starlight answered.

“Huh.” Skyset said, taking another bite. She focused on the delicious slice of pizza. “Pretty good stuff here.” she said around her mouthful.

“We should probably save Twilight a few slices.” Fluttershy pointed out.

“At that rate we should probably order a second pizza, Spike’s going to want some… and you know how hungry he gets.” Starlight noted. “Also he’s not a fan of pineapple…”

“I’ll make you another if you like.” the earth pony mare behind the counter noted.

“Yes please, hold the pineapple on that one.” Starlight replied.

Skyset had no words at this point. She’d just… adapted. She was a little uncomfortable, but she was talking to these ponies like it was nothing. Was it really that easy? Was the unicorn doing something? It didn’t look like it. But, even if she were, was it a bad thing?

“So you’re telling me the Dorothian settlement needs more food?” Twilight asked, looking to the tan colored earth pony with a brown and white mane in front of her.

“Yes, Princess, at their current rate, they’ll experience a shortage in about two weeks…” the earth pony mare said.

“Thank you for bringing that to my attention, Cookie… but shouldn’t you be reporting this in Canterlot? I’m going to have to send notice to Princess Celestia…” Twilight said unsurely.

“Princess Celestia made it clear she wanted me to have you more involved, since it’s related to your work with other peoples. She said it would be a good experience for you.” Cookie explained.

“Did she now… I see…” Twilight said, her ears folding back. That was a pretty big responsibility to dump on her through somepony else… she’d have to see what she could do about catching herself up on their situation. “How are you and Jarissa doing?”

“We’re doing pretty well, all things considered.” Cookie said with a smile. “Now that things have calmed down some… I need to get back to Canterlot on the next train, so I’ll be seeing you, Princess.”

“You can just call me Twilight, you know!” Twilight called after the earth pony. Once she was alone she let her face hit her desk. “Ugh… this has been an exhausting day…”

“Letter for you, Twilight!” Spike called, holding a scroll out to the alicorn.

“No!” Twilight nearly screamed.

“It’s… just from your mom.” Spike winced.

“Oh! Sorry… I… thought for a second there I was going to have some other big important thing to worry about today.” Twilight said awkwardly as she took the scroll and read it. She smiled as she read about her mother’s trip to Las Pegasus and all the fun she’d had with her father. “Heh, one of these days I really need to take the girls to one of those comedy shows, I bet they’d love it.”

Twilight set the letter down and decided it was about time she worried about food. She made her way out of her study where she’d spent the better part of the day and down the stairs when she spotted Starlight Glimmer, Fluttershy and… “You’re that pegasus from earlier… long bathroom trip…”

“Huh? She was here earlier?” Starlight asked, looking to Skyset.

“Bathroom trip?” Skyset asked, confused. “I… nevermind. Yes.” Skyset said with a sigh.

“You seemed quite alarmed earlier… are you… okay?” Twilight asked worriedly, looking to the orange pegasus.

“I was right. She’s from the future.” Starlight said proudly.

“...what?” Twilight asked, looking to the mare. “...and I… didn’t sense anything?”

“I’m sure you would’ve if you could’ve, Twilight.” Fluttershy offered.

“I still don’t know if I buy into all that, but I would like to just go home…” Skyset said. “I don’t even know where Zephyr Heights is…”

“Well… if this is a time thing… I might be able to use a spell to find your point of origin.” Twilight suggested. “But I’ll need to read up on it first…”

“Starswirl’s temporal reverse-routing spell?” Starlight asked with a grin.

“That’s the one!” Twilight said with a squee.

“All this talk of spells is really making me nervous…” Skyset said awkwardly.

“Oh it’s totally harmless.” Starlight said reassuringly. “I used it once to find out how old a set of gems was that I was thinking about using for an art piece… turns out they were about a hundred years old and had never gone through time any other way than one second per second.”

“Harmless…” Skyset repeated, as if trying to convince herself. “I dunno…”

“Well, if we’re going to get you back, we kind of need to know when to get you back to…” Starlight pointed out. “It wouldn’t be good if we sent you to the wrong year… or even the wrong day…”

“But I already told you the year…” she said unsurely. “I’m from 3021. Can’t you use that?”

“It does help somewhat, but this could allow us to be down to the second…” Twilight pointed out. “Does magic really scare you that much?”

“As long as it doesn’t touch me, it’s fine, I guess.” Skyset lied. She didn’t want to see it at all. She was still quite wary of what any horned pony would do.

“It would… kind of have to touch you.” Twilight said with a wince. She turned and lifted a wing, pointing a hoof to her flank. “You can trust me, magic is my special talent.”

“...also mine.” Starlight added idly.

“I-I dunno. I don’t wanna end up braindead or something.” Skyset said warily.

“Literally less than a one percent chance of happening.” Starlight said nonchalantly. “I think that’s like… point ‘o one two percent?”

“Starlight…” Twilight said, with a deadpan. “Not helping.”

“Well I mean, what am I supposed to do, lie? There’s a non-zero percent chance of a meteor hitting Ponyville too.” Starlight pointed out.

“Oh yes, let me trust the creatures that stole our magic in the first place. Sounds genius.” Skyset snapped.

“...wait what?” Twilight questioned in disbelief.

“Apparently unicorns and earth ponies do something bad to pegasi in the future, according to her. Something just doesn’t add up to me about that…” Starlight pointed out.

“It’s the only explanation I have! Why do they have magic and we don’t?” Skyset exasperatedly said.

Twilight stared at the mare. Her magic was being suppressed… or clearly had been. Some complex spellwork was littered all over her. “No earth pony could’ve done this to you… I doubt any ordinary pony at all could have… I can’t break the spell you’re under.”

Starlight blinked. “I hadn’t… is she? I didn’t even notice that… that’s… weird… and awfully deliberate…”

“What do you mean?” Skyset questioned. “I’m already under a spell?!?” she exclaimed.

“I’d wager you’ve been under that spell your entire life.” Twilight suggested. “It’s blocking… basically every pegasus specific node in your body…”

“Who in Equestria would design a spell specifically to disable a pegasus like that?” Starlight demanded. “...no wait there’s more… feel around her hooves and her forehead.”

“Blockers for earth pony and unicorn specific nodes too… it’s a one size fits all…” Twilight said in a concerned tone. Was this part of some horrible plot in the future? “This would work even on something like me…”

“Say what now?” Skyset questioned. “Why would it have blockers for the other races? I’m just a pegasus!”

“Because the spell was intended for everypony.” Starlight commented. “This would disable a unicorn or an earth pony too…”

“Or an alicorn…” Twilight said, pacing around Skyset with increasing curiosity. “I don’t think that’s what bothers me the most…”

“What is what bothers you the most?” Starlight asked.

“...it looks like my magic.” Twilight said sourly. “But… why? And how?”

“Y-your…. Magic?” Skyset questioned. “But… I’ve never met you until today.”

“...I hate to say it Twilight, but you’re right… that is your magical signature.” Starlight said with a frown. “...You became worse than me?”

“What? No! No, no, no!” Twilight cringed. She stepped back from Skyset her in a panic. “I-I’m… if I did s-something like this I must’ve had a good reason… I-I must’ve… I… why would I do something like this? This… this is awful.”

Fluttershy cleared her throat. “Twilight… I don’t think you would if it weren’t for a good cause…”

“D-don’t you get it Fluttershy? If I did this… that means I ruined Equestria! What if all the ponies think each other stole their magic and it’s myfault!?” Twilight demanded. “W-what have I done?”

“You mean what will you do.” Starlight pointed out. “You haven’t done it yet… and you don’t know the circumstances.”

“I’m so confused!” Skyset exclaimed. “How could you have done it? And is it just affecting pegasi or am I understanding it’s affecting more than that???”

“I don’t see why it would only affect pegasi… it’s designed to affect everypony…” Twilight whimpered. The longer she analyzed that spell the more it hurt. She had to turn away when she started seeing patterns her own mind would come up with. “Okay… Okay, don’t panic… don’t panic… I may break Equestria o-one day, but I’m sure I had a good reason! I’m sure I...”

“Twilight!” Starlight snapped. “Calm down… freaking out isn’t going to do any good… maybe we should help Skyset figure this out… there doesseem to be some kind of mechanism to break the spell…”

“Should we!?” Twilight questioned with a crazed expression. “What if we make things even worse? What if it’s for a reason? What if something terrible would happen that I can’t even conceive of… o-or what if I go all evil or something…”

“Twilight… I don’t think you’d do that…” Fluttershy pointed out.

“Skyset, I need to know anything and everything you might know about me!” Twilight pleaded.

“Uhhhh. You hyperventilate easily?” Skyset questioned.

“I mean besides that!” Twilight shrilled.

“I just met you! I don’t know anything!” Skyset exclaimed.

“There aren’t any legends or anything?” Starlight asked.

“I mean, maybe???” Skyset questioned. “But like, I’m not really the studious type. It might have been mentioned, I don’t know!”

“Oh. Great. I’ve been forgotten.” Twilight said with an eye twitch.

“Well, on the upside, if you did do something terrible, at least nopony remembers it.” Starlight pointed out.

Twilight slowly turned to Starlight.

“What? A lot of ponies remember what I did. Count it a blessing.” Starlight said.

“You’re reaaaaaally not helping.” Twilight said as she continued to pace. “I shouldn’t know about this. I shouldn’t know about this. I shouldn’t know about this…”

“You can forget about it or panic later, we’ve got to figure out how to get Skyset home first.” Starlight pointed out. “This is future Twilight’s problem.”

Twilight resisted the urge to shout. She’d heard that one before. And Spike ended up with a stomach ache! She apparently ended up with civil war. She took a few slow deep breaths.

“My luck, the spell will work and I’d end up in Bridlewood or something.” Skyset said with a sigh.

“Where’s that?” Starlight asked curiously.

“It sounds like a lovely place…” Fluttershy suggested, imagining a forest full of beautiful white decor and flowers.

“It’s a BIIIIIG hub for unicorns, at least, that’s what we’ve been told.” Skyset said. “Never actually been there myself.”

“I think we might be getting a little off track… Skyset, do you have any idea how or what caused you to travel back in time?” Starlight questioned.

Twilight’s ears perked. “Yes! That would be a good starting point.”

She pulled out the bronze shard that she associated with… whatever had been happening. “I think it was this thing.” She said. “It was a bit caked in dirt, so I tried to rub the dirt away, and that’s when it happened.”

“May I… investigate?” Twilight asked hopefully.

“Why not? It hasn’t worked in taking me back so far.” Skyset said with a sigh. She’d idly tried rubbing it again while following Shadow Sentry, and was quite disappointed when nothing had happened. At the time however, she didn’t feel it was worth mentioning.

Twilight held out a hoof, not wanting to possibly interfere with whatever this object was using her magic, or to spook Skyset again like she was starting to guess she’d done earlier with the globe in her study.

“Looks like it has some kind of writing on it… maybe Old Ponish? I’m not well versed in Old Ponish…” Starlight commented, scrutinizing the shard.

“I wouldn’t know.” Skyset shrugged. “Like I said, not very studious. It was keeping me from putting my stake in the ground while setting up my tent.”

With the object in hoof, Twilight examined it closely. The enchantment was fascinating to say the least… far beyond even her own abilities. The writing she regrettably couldn’t make out all of due to a critical problem. “This isn’t the whole artifact.”

“What?” Starlight asked worriedly.

“It’s just a piece…” Twilight said as she continued to stare. The enchantment on the singular gem on it was clearly only one of many, meant to interconnect and communicate with several others. What those other missing pieces were and what they did, the purple alicorn could only guess.

“Is it telling you anything?” Skyset questioned.

“I think I’m going to have to study this for a while and cross reference old spellbooks where possible. I… don’t have enough information.” Twilight said with a frown. “This might take me a while…” she muttered. ‘Just what I didn’t need’ she didn’t add.

Skyset winced. “H-how long do you uh… estimate…?”

“I don’t know… it could be days… it could be weeks… or longer. It all depends on whether or not I can figure out what I need.” Twilight said as she started to pace. She had to commit her mind to this. She had to think about this and not what she potentially screwed up in a few centuries. “In the meantime, I’d be happy to offer you one of my guest rooms, Skyset. It’s the least I could do.”

“Maybe we could figure out how to get her flight working?” Starlight asked curiously.

“Out of the question.” Twilight said, looking to Starlight. “I don’t know why things turned out the way they did, but if there’s a chance there’s a reason behind it, the consequences for interfering could be severe… as much as it pains me to leave a pegasus flightless… even moreso knowing I might be responsible somehow…”

“I mean… I’ve never flown before, only ever glided. So I mean… it’s not really much difference to me.” Skyset said.

“If it’s all the same, I really need to get back to my animals, they’re probably getting hungry about now…” Fluttershy noted.

“Oh shoot, I never went and got that lettuce like you asked…” Starlight said suddenly, scratching the back of her head with a hoof.

“Oh, it’s okay. I’ll take care of it… I’ll see you girls later, okay?” Fluttershy said before making her way for the door. She looked back. “I really hope you get home okay, Skyset.”

“Me too…” Skyset said with a sigh.

Author's Note

A couple of things to note on this chapter is that this story was originally written before Make Your Mark chapter 1, meaning we had no idea whether Twilight was involved at all with the ponies of G5 being unable to use their magic, it was an idea we came up with because it made the most sense. Not a very important note, but a note that I found kind of ironic and really neat that it actually ended up lining up with canon so well.

And the second note is the mention of Dorothians. Dorothians are beings that came to the world because their homeworld was ravaged. Equestria ended up giving the remains of their populace aid, and a small plot of land to rebuild. I'm mentioning them here because it's another detail that's mentioned in a story that hasn't been made public yet, though I'm hoping that will change in the future.