Time and Time Again

by Kawa

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Adventure, Princess Celestia, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 12406

A first person account on the study of time travel magic.

Pyrrhic Victory is a time traveller. But how does he do it? Where did he learn to move freely from a future Canterlot to the present Ponyville? It looks like Star Swirl's time travel spell, but really? It's not the same.

Rated T for naughty implications and words.

Published 2012-12-02 14:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-01-11 21:28:46 UTC

Disassembly

Time and Time Again
A Science Pony Story by Kawa

Chapter 1 - Disassembly

“Well now,” the young, cream-white colt said to himself as he adjusted his spectacles. “Father got me access to this wing of the castle; it would be a terrible thing to squander it.”

Pyrrhic Victory cracked his neck as he entered the Starswirl Wing, intent on finding an interesting spell and making it better in any way he could. He was a young unicorn with red hair, a telltale shine in said hair betraying his proud heritage. He was an enterprising scientist with a vision, and his father, proud member of the Lunar Guards and reason for his oddly inappropriate name, had pulled many strings to get him into this virtual sanctum of magical history.

It was quite some time since the Elements of Harmony had their last noteworthy adventure, and two of their grandchildren planned to make - or break - history.

It didn’t take Vic, as he preferred to be called, long to find a scroll case that caught his fancy - though actually most of them did - and knowing he could not bring it or any other scroll with him, he opted to commit the entire thing to memory. He read the scroll several times over as his dad stood and watched, resplendent in his armor.

Vic wasn’t allowed to take any scroll with him, and he had forgotten to bring a pen and paper of his own to copy the information, so he had cleared his mind of all irrelevance and focused on the contents of the scroll he had chosen. It was a trick he had learned some years prior, and though it was difficult and prone to failure, it had served him well. It wasn’t even a magical trick, but rather a purely mental exercise. It was also one of the few such tricks Vic knew.

What seemed like hours later, with arcane knowledge swirling in his mind, Vic finally put the scroll back in its casing and placed it where he had found it. Even with a massive strain on his concentration, it wouldn’t do to leave a mess. What would his grandmother even think? Still, Vic had never gotten home so fast before. Even if he knew how to teleport, he wouldn’t have dared to do so, afraid it would break his already strenuous concentration and mess up his memorization of the writings he had learned.

“Jennie dear, I need at least five sheets of paper and a fresh pen, STAT”, Vic announced as he ran into his house and skidded a few centimeters on the rug. His live-in marefriend Jennie took one look at Vic’s glazed-over eyes, nodded in understanding, brushed some of her hair from her face, and provided the requested items with well-practiced timing, just when Vic sat down at his desk.

Now, the thing to know about Jennie was not that she was like a somewhat calmer copy of her grandmother, but that she possessed a very rare artifact. Having not inherited her grandmother’s strange abilities (or at least not the interesting ones), she made do very well with her enchanted saddlebags. They could hold an undetermined volume of objects, and whenever she reached in to retrieve something, it was always right there on top of the heap. This was, of course, because her saddlebags were actually an implementation of Hayward’s Handy Haversack, and considering she was given the saddlebags by Queen Celestia herself (in a completely unrelated story concerning depression), Jennie was rightfully proud to carry such a treasure.

In practice, she mostly used it to provide her special somepony with the tools he required. But only from the one side; the bag on the other side was much more whimsical in content. The day she accidentally wore her saddlebags the wrong way around was a good day indeed.

Shortly after Jennie finished reminiscing about her treasure, Vic audibly blinked his eyes and called Jennie over.

“So whatcha copy?” Jennie asked as she wiped some sweat from her coltfriend’s brow.

“This, dear Jennie, is the time-travelling spell that Star Swirl the Bearded came up with way back when”, Vic obligingly replied. “You might remember Grandmother Sparkle telling the story of how she used it to tell herself one week past that she did not need to worry?”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. This is the same spell, then?”

“The very same. And I intend to study it and make it better”, Vic proudly declared.

“What’s wrong with it now?”

“If I remember Grandmother Sparkle’s story and copied the scroll correctly, it is not only somewhat limited in range, but also only allows you to travel to a given destination only once”, Vic explained with a frown. “I am uncertain how to interpret the latter, but I feel the former encourages improvement.”

Jennie nodded in vague understanding. She was no scientist, but she was nonetheless well practiced in understanding Vic’s sometimes-odd statements.

“Okay then. What’ll you do first?” Jennie asked. She knew it was a rhetorical question – Vic had optimized a spell or two before, but maybe he’d surprise her.

“I plan to reduce the spell to its component steps, find out which steps contribute the least, and basically go from there.”

Jennie sighed at the answer. It was indeed the same thing Vic had done before and Jennie felt almost let down. Still, she produced some more paper for her favorite unicorn to work with.

One week later, Vic ran into Jennie’s bedroom, nearly tearing the door from its hinges.

“I have it!” he exclaimed as he jumped onto Jennie’s bed, holding a single sheet of paper in his horn’s kinetic grip.

“Celestia’s rump, Vic! I could’ve been-”

“Frankly my dear, I find myself distinctly incapable of caring about what sort of carnal mischief you might be up to behind closed doors”, Vic interrupted with a half-crazy grin on his face that would make a certain mare he fondly referred to as “grandmother” (even though she totally wasn’t) run for cover, and a words-per-second ratio that would make a certain other one proud.

But then again, he tended to refer to all of the Elements of Harmony as “grandmother”.

“…it was locked”, Jennie remarked with a grin of her own, looking past her partner to one fiercely broken bedroom door lock.

“I know.”

Author's Note

Here we go, a Science Pony story that does not have a week of planning and structuring behind it, leaving me free to wing it either which way! I’d say it feels liberating, but perhaps it’d be more so if I hadn’t procrastinated like a boss after the part where Vic gets back home and sits down.

On the other hand, said delay did give me ample opportunity to browse my D&D 3rd Edition books for information on the thing I had in mind for Jen’s bags.

You might notice I wrote “Queen Celestia” in the part about said bags. You can find more about that on my Tumblr blog, askthesciencepony. Specifically this part. Reading said blog will reveal exactly what Vic ends up doing with his optimized time travelling spell, but don’t worry, I’ve got plenty material to work with for this story.

So yeah. Critiques and comments are welcome.

Trials

Jennie produced a strange device from her bags that she was given by her coltfriend and set it down in the middle of a small field just outside Canterlot, near the forest. She was told it was a recall beacon, but something about it was off in a way. Jennie had seen recall beacons in use before. Normally, a unicorn would produce a specific sort of magic field attuned to another unicorn that could be used to easily teleport from wherever to near the field’s location. It was a very interesting trick to Vic’s mind, and after learning how to teleport from a very good teacher, he had improved on the recall beacon spell and managed to enchant a gemstone to serve as one without requiring a second unicorn to maintain the field.

He later found out that cubic zirconium didn’t cut it on the targeting department and spent half the day walking back home, swearing to Celestia that he’d never skimp on gemstones again. Hilarity rightfully ensued when his grandmother heard the story. On the other hoof, royalties were nice, as long as Vic’s patent held up.

“What’s so special about this beacon, hon?” Jennie asked as she anchored the beacon to the ground. “It looks more… complicated than usual.”

“Well, dear, that’s because this beacon should allow me to snap back across time. Assuming I did the math right.”

“Ah yeah, space and time being the same thing and all that?” Jennie guessed. Vic smiled and nodded.

While Star Swirl’s original spell was pretty straightforward and user-friendly, assuming the user was powerful enough to cast it in the first place, Vic’s version was much more complicated. It came with the relaxed limitations, he argued – the further away from your current location you wanted to go, be it in time or space, the more difficult the math became. Originally, the spell took care of such matters, which was part of why it required a powerful caster. Vic, though no slouch himself, was decidedly not that powerful. But he was certainly good with numbers, and had plenty paper and ink to waste on it.

And if this worked out, he’d have plenty of time to waste as well.

Vic double-checked the numbers, especially the plusses and minuses, those tricky little bastards, and activated the recall beacon.

“So am I right to assume this extra bit on the side is to account for the time?” Jennie remarked as she looked at an odd, triangular formation that was indeed on the side of the beacon.

“You are way too sharp, dear”, Vic joked.

“Right. Where ya goin’? Or is that ‘when’?”

“If I did my math right, accounted for planetary movement and frames of reference and all that jazz, I should appear ten minutes in the past, on the other side of the forest”, Vic replied, pointing a hoof at the far side of the forest, away from Canterlot. “If I were to appear at the other end, we would risk meeting each other on the way here!”

“What do you suppose would happen if we did?”

“I am not certain, but also, I am in no hurry to find out. Unlike other things. Now… watches, please.”

Jennie produced two watches from her bag, one white, the other black. Both were set to eight past three in the evening, one running just half a second behind the other. Vic took the black one and stuffed it in his jacket, then took one last look at the recall beacon.

“Good. The timer has been running along smoothly. Well dear, wish me luck! If all goes well, I should appear where slash when planned, then try to activate the recall, which should at that moment from my frame of reference not be activated yet.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Jennie asked with a careful frown.

“Then I will have irrevocably lost slightly less than an hour of my life and walk back here with my head held low. But at least the actual travel would work!”

Suddenly, he held Jennie in a tight hug.

“I would just need to catch up on lost time when we get back home”, Vic whispered in Jennie’s ear.

“Vicky, no! Science now, sociobiology later.”

Vic shrugged and stood next to the beacon. “On three?”

Jennie nodded in confirmation and held up her watch. When the second hand reached the top, she started counting.

At one, Vic flared up his horn and ran through the mental motions he had memorized to prepare the spell.

At two, the glow increased in power, causing purple light to play across the faces of both ponies. Variables were substituted where needed and a typical whine sounded, slowly building in pitch and volume.

At three, there was a deep popping noise and Vic was hidden in a white flash for what seemed like several seconds. At first it looked like nothing had happened, but after blinking away the colorful spots in her vision, Jennie noticed something was different about the unicorn standing before her.

Not only had Vic changed position, standing a little closer to the beacon, but he had removed his jacket and had it draped over his withers, and his glasses were perched on his horn. Vic grinned and removed the black watch from his jacket pocket, then held it next to Jennie’s white watch.

The black watch was off by thirty-six seconds exactly. That was just enough time for Vic to come up with the idea of taking off his jacket, do so, and trigger the recall.

“I guess it worked”, Vic stated matter-of-factly as he put his jacket back on and quickly ran a phantom comb through his mane. “Shall we celebrate our success now, or try a larger distance first?”

This was, of course, a very stupid question to ask a Pie, and Vic was quick to realize this mistake. The two ponies just smiled at each other, had a quick celebratory nuzzle, and started packing.

“Do you think I could come with some time?” Jennie asked.

“I really do not see why not, dear. I have, after all, taken you along in a space-only teleportation”, Vic answered. “How much more difficult than this could it really be? More importantly, where shall we go to celebrate?”

From atop one of the towers of Canterlot Castle, a certain very light pink deity gazed in the general direction of the forest.

Queen Celestia frowned at the implications of what she had seen.

Guidelines

Another week after the first set of trial runs, Vic had managed to produce the values that were supposed to take him several years into the past. He had a plan, you see, to get first-hoof accounts of specific important events, and to compare them against those described in the books of recent history. He had copied several important events to a smallish notebook with a pleasing blue color that seemed appropriate at the time, estimated how far back exactly he had to go to witness the first major event… all was in place for Operation: Revisionist History.

The first thing Vic did when he arrived a respectable distance from Ponyville was collapse.

“Ten minutes is nothing”, Vic wheezed. “Several years, though? I can only hope it gets easier with practice…”

Jennie, not having expended a single thaum¹, was much more chipper. “So is this Ponyville when all the cool stuff happened? Or is that happens? Will have been happening?”

She slid over to Vic’s prone form with all the grace of a drunken ballerina. “Do you think we’ll meet Granny, Vicky? I wonder if she’s any different!”

Vic groaned as he waited for his magical powers to build up again. “You just might, hon. I would rather you do not let her see you, though. Help me up?”

Jennie bit into the collar of Vic’s jacket and obliged. “I suppose I ought to lay down some ground rules for you to follow. Actually, for both of us.”

“What’s that?” Jennie asked as she followed her favorite unicorn to the outskirts of Ponyville.

“I just thought they would be the smarter things to do, but basically? Do not get involved in anything you see. If you do get involved, you might change things and I for one would rather not recall into some sort of dystopia where Her Royal Highness is some sort of malevolent dictator or something.”

“Would that bad future involve bananas?”

“… Yeah, sure. Why not? You know how I feel about bananas.”

Jennie giggled at the mental image of her queen wearing some stupid green military dress coat and cap, brandishing a banana in a vaguely threatening manner. And sunglasses.

“Second, if you really, really want to get involved with what seems like a minor event, do your best to have as little impact as possible. Play to lose, for example. But do not be too obvious.”

“Yeah, I can do that, I think… what’s next?”

“When a major event is about to happen, basically… stay out of sight. Let events unfold as if you were not there in the first place. That is, after all, why we are here, is it not?”

Jennie nodded. By then, the two had reached their destination, and at Vic’s silent suggestion, took place in a secluded corner.

Do you think we’ll meet Granny?

The words echoed through Vic’s mind, slightly distracting him from soaking up the atmosphere of the quiet-but-soon-to-be-less-so town. In the distance, he spotted Sugar Cube Corner, and immediately noticed several subtle differences. From a closer vantage point, Vic considered, they would probably be somewhat less subtle. He was, in fact, paying so much attention to the higher parts of the building that he failed to notice the front door opening. Jennie’s words sounded in Vic’s mind once more. He closed his eyes for a moment to shake off the vague feeling of dread.

When he opened his eyes again, he immediately regretted everything he had done so far.

“HI! My name is Pinkie Pie and I know everypony in Ponyville but I don’t know you yet so that must mean you’re new here and wow I really like your mane and hey that lady next to you standing there like GASP kinda reminds me of myself but how silly is that? I mean I’ve seen a lot of silly stuff but I’ve never seen another pony with a color scheme so close to mine so what’s the story behind that?”

When Vic had processed what Pinkie Pie had said, his first instinct was to pull her into the nearest alley.

“Miss Pie?” Vic asked in a low whisper.

“Yeeeeeeees?”

“Can you promise us something? And not say a word until I give the okay?”

Pinkie Pie nodded. “Mmhm?”

“Listen very carefully, for I will say this only once. My marefriend and I are visitors from the near future…”

Jennie gasped again. After that whole spiel about not revealing yourself, Vic had done just that!?

“I know you would’ve figured out as much if you set your mind to it for just ten seconds, because you are Pinkie Pie and you are and will be notorious for that sort of thing. In fact, I might as well come clear and admit that the single reason the lady looks like you is because she is your direct descendant.”
It was Pinkie’s turn to gasp, though she made a visible effort to do so in an appropriately silent manner.

“I am certain you could guess my lineage with a second glance, but the important thing is that you must not, under any circumstance, reveal our presence or identities to anypony else. We are here for historical research, which would be next to impossible if we were to make our presence known. Do you follow so far?”

Pinkie rapidly nodded.

“Excellent. Now, I am familiar with how serious you take your promises, so I am going to ask that you Pinkie Promise™ not to reveal us, or even acknowledge us as time travelers. If you must interact with us, just… pretend we were always here, okay?”

“Was that the okay?” Pinkie whispered back.

“… Yes, I suppose that was the okay,” Vic sighed and released his marefriend’s ancestor so she could go through the motions. To her credit, Pinkie Pie managed to keep to a whisper all throughout.

“Wait. If I’m supposed to pretend you were already here, does that mean you don’t want a welcome to Past Ponyville party?” Pinkie asked halfway through turning back out of the alley.

“Sharp.”

When Pinkie had left on her merry pronking way, Jennie turned to Vic.

“What were you thinking, telling Granny all that stuff?!”

“Like I said, she is Pinkie Pie. She would have figured it out eventually, and you know how she is with secrets and Pinkie Promises™.”

“Oh okay. So where do we go now?”

“I think a small, inconspicuous campsite near the Everfree would do for now”, Vic considered. “Ponies do not like to come near, after all. Just have to make sure we do not pick a spot close to where the events occur. First one should be some time… tomorrow.”

“Hey, Vicky?”

“Yes, Jennie dear?”

“How do you do that thing with the trademark?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about”, Vic answered with a smarmy grin.

Author's Note

The thaum is a unit of magical energy roughly equivalent to the power required for a being of Celestia’s level to lift a single ordinary billiard ball from the ground to precisely ten hands, or 1.016 meters high, assuming no effort at all on Celestia’s part. For Pyrrhic Victory, this task is 7.1 times as difficult, and for Twilight Sparkle, when not in a Superpower Meltdown, 5.2 times. How difficult it is for Twilight Sparkle when she is having a meltdown is too dangerous to attempt to measure. Pegasi and earth ponies exude less-than-one levels of magic energy, although their output may spike significantly when in flight or working the land, respectively.

Adapted from Measuring the Magic by Pyrrhic Victory, Canterlot University Press.

Friendship

Personal report, June 21st [REDACTED] local time.

Filed under: Operation Revisionist History.

After successfully travelling back in time roughly a hundred years and arriving safely and structurally sound near the outskirts of Ponyville, I have waited for what I have come to refer to as Event One, better known as “that one Summer Sun Celebration wherein Princess Luna returned from her exile and got the Nightmare purged clean out”, which was to occur the day after.

A slight hitch regarding Pinkamena Diane Pie aside, things went smoothly. I think that hitch was directly caused by Jennie taunting destiny, which really is not that odd when you consider the Pie Family.

In any case, Jennie and I attended the SSC, hiding in the crowd near the edges, and I have found several slight differences in what is written and what was actually said. These include but are not limited to the following:

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen your [precious little] sun-loving faces!”

“Does my crown no longer count [now that I’ve been imprisoned for] a thousand years?”

And “From this [moment] forth, the night [will] last forever!”

I have attached a full transcript of the event with annotations.

We trailed the Element Bearers-to-Be into the Everfree Forest, from a safe distance, and pretty much confirmed the common idea that the Nightmare seemed to set up challenges specifically tailored towards a given Element. Unfortunately, Queen Luna refuses to confirm or discuss this theory to this day. I cannot find myself to disagree, all things considered. What the deal even is with our royal highnesses and being all coy and secretive about their past, I will never understand.
At the critical moment, I measured the amount of magical energy in the area. During the purge, this measurement reached up to more than 2000 T. It must be sheer practice on the Sisters’ part, but not even raising and lowering the Sun and Moon takes that much energy! I very nearly revealed our presence in my surprise, but thankfully there was enough noise to drown out our exclamations.

What scares me more than seeing the Nightmare up close, though, is that shortly after her return, as everypony left the old castle ruins, Princess Celestia looked right at us and surreptitiously winked. I wonder what that means exactly, and most of the answers I have come up with… frighten me, to be entirely honest. Does she know who I am? Was it Jennie’s resemblance (at that distance) to Pinkie that tipped her off?

The party later that day was a blast, though. Really helped me get my mind off of how ominous that mare can be. Funny too – at one point it almost looked as if Princess Luna was going to eat the lei she had received.

Now all we need to do is decide if what happened the next day is worth sticking around for. Personally, I feel there is not. Grandmother Twilight told me once that it would not be until a week or so later that she received her invitation to the Grand Galloping Gala, and to stick around in the past for a whole week at minimum just to see everypony fight over that damned ticket… It would probably be best for now to return to Canterlot, process and publish our findings, maybe see if I can have a private audience with Queen Celestia. She probably would remember if she really had spotted us.

Yours truly,

Pyrrhic Victory.

Author's Note

Vic calls all six members of the main cast “grandmother” as a term of endearment, with the exception of Rarity. She’s “grandmother” for a totally different reason. When he calls Celestia or Luna princesses, he refers to them in the past (present for this chapter), and queens in the future (his subjective present). This helps tell them apart, I’d think. Put it in an author’s note to make it absolutely clear. For those who have not looked it up on Tumblr back in chapter one, I just might explain it in-story in a later chapter.

Also, sorry about the length – only 579 words according to MS Word, and that’s not including this note. I couldn’t figure out how to write about Vic and Jen watching the first episode without making it basically some sort of MST3k sort of thing. So I thought I’d write it as a diary entry of sorts, since letters are a common trope in FIM fiction (I WONDER WHY) and then I basically had another problem. And that’s why this chapter is only half as long. So is the one-word title short for “Friendship is Magic” or “Friendship Report”? All things considered, who even cares?

I think I’ll have the next chapter be more about the time travelling itself, or maybe that confrontation with Queen Sexy. I’m open for suggestions, really.

What is her deal, anyway?

Celestia

“Meet me at the ruins of Everfree Castle at night.”

The letter was short and to the point, with a telling image of a stylized sun as the only identifying mark. It had appeared all of a sudden in one of Jennie’s enchanted saddlebags – Vic’s side – as they were preparing to leave, and it scared the oats out of the cream unicorn reading it.

Still, an order from the Princess was not to be ignored. If the order was so easy to execute, it was even less so.

Nervously, Vic and Jennie strode into the former throne room, remnants of the battle between the Elements of Harmony and the Nightmare still scattered near the far end. Sitting casually on the throne was indeed Princess Celestia. But when Vic came close enough, he noticed that Celestia’s smile was not one of a nigh-immortal mare who just got her sister back after a thousand years, or one of a teacher proud of her most faithful and precious student who excellently did everything as planned in a sneaky gambit the likes of which Equestria hadn’t seen in that very same thousand years. If there was one word that perfectly applied to the solar diarch, it was “shrewd”. Perhaps even with some color qualifiers on the side.

It was the smile of a melancholic nigh-immortal teacher, whose most faithful student and for all intents and purposes surrogate daughter was nearing the end of her tragically typically short life. And to Pyrrhic Victory, who was a stallion of detailed observation, that was as crystal clear as it was utterly confusing, especially since the mare in front of him was very clearly wearing her old royal regalia. It was a combination that made the two time travelers reel, though Jennie less so. She didn’t bother with details that subtle, but even she knew something was off about Celestia.

“Pyrrhic Victory”, the princess spoke in her usual calm tones.

Vic reeled some more. “Your highness?” he tried as he telekinetically pulled Jennie down with him in a bow.

“I have the strangest feelings right now, and I believe you’re the pony to blame.”

“How do you… huh… how do you figure?”

Celestia stepped down from the throne and slowly walked over to the little ponies standing before her. “From the moment I returned from my temporary imprisonment, I’ve felt as if I knew of things yet to come. Ponies I’ve never seen, the world looking different in all sorts of ways… and the distinctively fresh memory of having one magnificent breakfast.”

Vic turned his head in mild surprise and thought.

“Also that of seeing a certain stylish cream-and-red unicorn and a pink bundle of repressed ADHD taking a nice walk into the forest and nearly tearing space-time what you would, I imagine, refer to as a ‘structurally superfluous new plot hole’.”

Vic reeled for the third time that night. He totally would use such a term if he were feeling particularly wordy at the time.

“But luckily for you, my little pony, I’ve a reasonable idea why all that is, and I can only hope it goes away when you do.”

Something clicked in Vic’s mind. It was dulled by the surprise at first, but quickly snapped back to its usual degree of sharpness. The saddlebags! They were enchanted by Queen Celestia herself way back in the future (but not too far) and the letter had appeared inside without Jennie noticing. Within moments, Vic was hanging over Jennie’s back, his horn lit up like nopony’s business and vigorously scanning the bags.

“You did more than just place a container enchantment on these bags, did you?”

Celestia nodded. “That’s correct. It can also send and receive written messages, though there are a few simple criteria for you to keep in mind. Wouldn’t want to accidentally send your research notes over, wouldn’t you?” she elaborated with a wink at the end.

“I am going to guess,” Vic slowly started, “that the reasonable idea you mentioned earlier… is that the presence of an object carrying your magical hoof print caused the Princess Celestia of the present to connect to the Queen Celestia of the future.”

Celestia nodded. “That’s exactly what I had in mind, albeit more science-y.”

“And your hope is that by the object not being in this moment in time, the memories of Future Queen Celestia will leave again, leaving just the regular Present Princess Celestia. Am I correct?”

“That’s all I can really do, isn’t it? It was easy enough to repress the memories, though. I hardly even needed to pretend I wasn’t also my own future self.”

“Must be something that comes with being more than two thousand years old,” Jennie said half-jokingly. “Ain’t that right, Tia?”

“You and Pinkie must be the only ponies other than Luna and Twilight who could get away with calling me that. And Twilight doesn’t dare.”

“Did you mean calling you Tia or calling you old?”

Celestia glanced at Vic with a conspiring smile and leaned a little closer to Jennie’s face.

“…Yes”, she whispered.

Vic couldn’t help himself upon hearing such a textbook example of the Mathematicians’ Answer. He broke into a derpy grin and played a riff on an air guitar, which looked pretty damn daft considering his utter lack of digits.

A moment later, he realized he was not only being very (relatively) chummy with a living goddess who could literally flash-fry him on a whim, it wasn’t even really his living goddess and yet at the same time she was! The mind boggles.

Vic was out cold in two seconds.

“Jennifer Allison Pie”, the solar deity called out. “Would you be so kind as to carry your partner back to your little camp? When you get back to the future tomorrow, you might want to consider sending word if you want to speak again. If all goes well, I’ll forget all I know right now of the future, but I’m sure future me will have no trouble remembering what happened here.”

Jennie broke into a grin as Celestia placed the unconscious lump of unicorn on Jennie’s back. “Ten-four, Supreme Space Commander Ma’am!” she exclaimed, punching herself in the side of her head in a salute with too much of a flourish.

“Ah! Your Heinie?”

“Yes, my little pony?”

“I guess you’ve got no choice about enchanting those saddlebags now”, Jennie remarked with another toothy grin. If he weren’t playing ragdoll at the time, Vic would’ve been proud at Jennie’s judo grip on ontological paradoxes. That was pure black belt material.

Cheers

Two figures trotted along the road of the Canterlot outskirts as a third slowly flew along just overhead, making their merry way to their favorite hangout, The Shade. The two who weren’t flying were both interesting sights, for one was an albino and the other a changeling. The latter had a suppressing device stuck to its horn, and a sturdy leash around its neck that led up to the foreleg of the pegasus above him.

“So, what do suppose the Vicster has to share with us common pony folk this time?” asked the pegasus, who went by the name Tailchaser. He was rather unassuming, if not for the drone leashed to him like a dog, and was in fact perfectly unremarkable in every relevant way, and several unremarkable ways on the side. The only other remarkable aspect was that his muted red and brown colors shone particularly bright in the midday sun, because Tailchaser had a thing about compensating for his blandness and had spent an hour grooming.

“To be entirely honest”, drawled the albino Earth pony in his usual semi-bored tone, “I have no idea. I can only hope it’ll be something exciting.”

“Oh come on, Powder! When has Vicky ever let us down in that regard, eh?”

“Just a month ago, actually. I don’t see how accidentally rendering me blind for a week is supposed to be exciting. I couldn’t do my job.”

The changeling made an odd, laugh-like noise as it remembered how Powder kept walking into things. Soon enough, the odd trio reached their destination and entered the establishment. The pony behind the bar was quick to react.

“Hey! We don’t serve their kind here!” the barkeep exclaimed.

“Actually”, a calm and careful voice from a mostly-empty table in the far corner replied, “you do. Sixteen has special dispensation to walk around freely, as long as it has an escort. But this is the first time you have seen him since you got this job, is it not?”

The barkeeper grunted softly at Pyrrhic Victory’s explanation and beckoned the group to come in.

“Yes, yes. Come on in, friends. Jennie and I have kept your seats warm, and I can only assume the drinks are cold.”

“But”, Tailchaser responded as he took his seat, “is the story you’ll no doubt want to share with us hot?”

“Yeah. How many laws of nature did you break this time?” Powder joked.

Sixteen said nothing. Its speaking voice tended to make ponies uncomfortable. Or rather, more so than its mere presence did, even roughly a hundred years after its kind had tried to invade Canterlot. The simple fact that it did indeed have a document tucked under its armor, signed by Empress Cadence herself said it all.

“Well, friends… that depends entirely on whether you consider time travel to be a breach of natural law. Or perhaps, if you prefer, causing a pony’s past and present selves to merge?”

“Cue the ‘big what’ in three”, Jennie joked. “Two…”

“A griffin says what?” came the unexpectedly understated response from Powder, while Tailchaser was struck dumb.

Jennie, of course, continued to count down as she hadn’t finished yet. When she did, Sixteen spoke its first word since it had set cheesy hoof outside. “What!?” it exclaimed in a barely-contained hiss. It wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, which was no small contributor to the obvious fact it wasn’t part of a hive, but even it understood the basic implications behind what Vic had suggested.

Vic smiled as he traced a hoof around the rim of his glass.

“It is true. I did in fact cause a pony’s past and present selves to merge”, Vic confirmed. “Well, okay, it turned out that dear Jennie’s saddlebags were the key to the whole mess”, he added as Jennie poked him in the side of the head as a reminder.

Tailchaser leaned back in his seat and folded his wingtips together in front of his face in a passing imitation of a classic anime character he knew not. “Please, do elaborate”, he said.

“Actually, would you mind not elaborating just yet?” interrupted Powder. “I’d like to go over to the bar and get us all some drinks. The usual, I’d assume? Cos if that guy’s new, I doubt he’d know what that is.”

“He does not”, Vic confirmed.

It took Powder only a minute to get the drinks, balancing them all on a tray resting on his back. When he reached the table, Vic took the tray from him and levitated it onto the center. Sixteen tried to grab one of the saltine crackers that Powder had brought, only to find its telekinesis was blocked so it cast a pleading look into the rest of the group until one of its companions moved the crackers close enough to just grab them. It usually got all the crackers to itself, but hadn’t quite realized that initially keeping them out of its reach was actually a playful tease.

Sixteen didn’t give a buck, because it loved saltine crackers.

“Alright, Vicmachine. What did you do?” asked Tailchaser again.

Leaving out the encounter with Pinkie Pie and all the technical background information that his drinking buddies were unlikely to understand, Vic proceeded to tell them how he had reverse-engineered Star Swirl’s time travel spell, optimized it, and went back in time roughly a hundred years, only to find that the presence of Jennie’s enchanted saddlebags had caused then-Princess Celestia to become one with their beloved Queen.

“That’s some serious mind fuck, amigo”, Powder responded. “A queen-princess?”

“Princess-queen, actually. She was a princess before she became queen.”

“But”, Sixteen whispered with a heavy accent, “isn’t she technically above such terms? More like… god-empress?”

“Yes, but usually only the religious zealots call her that”, Jennie half-confirmed.

“Though, when you think about it, the point is moot anyway, is it not?” Vic remarked with a grin. The others looked at him expectantly.

“Think about it. Imagine it is… at least fifty or so years ago. Name a queen.”

“Chrysalis?” Sixteen suggested without hesitation.

“What’s-her-face… the griffin? The one who was in charge back then was female, I think”, Powder hesitantly added. “You did say fifty, right?”

“Do the dragons have a queen?” Tailchaser considered.

“Very good. Now, what did they have in common?” Vic asked.

“They weren’t very nice”, Powder replied with confidence. Sixteen and Tailchaser slowly nodded in agreement.

“Queens throughout history have, in fact, not ranked very high in the niceness top ten”, Vic confirmed. “The very term had quickly acquired negative connotations throughout the three tribes of pony, even before Celestia and Luna made their presence known. So when they took power and instituted the diarchy, they were careful to avoid the title of ‘queen’ and adopted the next best thing instead. It was not until a few decades ago that the word finally outgrew its connotations, and things were set in motion to refer to our beloved rulers as the queens they are, without all those nasty implications that used to come with the title.”

“All hail kah-ween Celestia!” Sixteen exclaimed, noticeably slurring its words.

“Alright, short black an’ shiny. I think you’ve had enough crackers”, Tailchaser said as he pulled said treat away from the drone. “Maybe you should have a drink instead.”

“Maybe I should have your mom instead.”

“Anyway”, Tailchaser quickly interrupted. “what happened next, Victrola?”

Vic grinned again. “I will tell you what happened. I mentioned how, during my little aneurysm, her royal highness invited us to visit her again in the present, did I not?”

The others nodded.

“Very well, then…”

Historian

It all started shortly after we decided to send that letter and, I guess, basically invited ourselves in. We got a reply within minutes and were on our way to the castle in… another ten or so? My father was there at the gate to personally let us in, and he told us that the queen would be waiting in her chambers. That was a bit of a surprise to me, as the last few times we had met (chronologically speaking) were in Day Court. A rookie that Father had brought along showed us the way.

Before I could knock on the door, the queen’s golden glow already appeared and opened it. Why did she have to be so damned ominous? Was she just doing it for her own personal enjoyment?

Now, you have to understand that I had never been to Queen Celestia’s personal chambers before. I felt honored as much as frightened, and for just a moment there as I was halfway across the threshold, I almost regretted sending that letter.

“Good afternoon, my little ponies”, Queen Celestia said. No, shut up. What else would she say, smartass?

So, yeah… we took a bow right there, and walked further inside the room. It was a very pretty room. It was tasteful and comfortable, but at the same time kind of Spartan. At first glance there was just a large hearth and some sitting pillows, including a real big one. You can guess, of course, who was sitting on that one.

Heh. Cadence, he says. Did I mention you are an unrepentant smartass yet, Powder?

So at the queen’s invitation, we took our own seats opposite of her, and sort of just sat there waiting for her to break the ice, as it were.

“Victory, can you guess how long I’ve been here?” she asked. No I did not break my speech patterns. I always quote ponies like that. You know that, Chase! Oh okay. “Can you guess how long I have been here?” There, happy?

So I took a moment to gaze intently at the lady – I will hit you if you persist – and try to guess the closest answer. I knew her age was counted with at least four digits, but I had no clear indication what the thousands digit would be. At least one, of course. But there was honestly next to nothing to give any physical clues. No matter how old Celestia is, she is still a model beauty. Not a wrinkle on her, though I can imagine what she would look like in a stressful situation. Say, when Discord had escaped, perhaps? Anyway, I had nothing to go on except for the Mare in the Moon. Aside from a very subtle difference in expression and some new regalia, she looked exactly the same yesterday as she did a hundred years or so ago. I should know, since I was there earlier this week. Remember it like it was the day before yesterday.

So, I confessed I had no clue. “I am not at all certain, your highness. I know it must be at least a thousand, maybe fifteen or sixteen hundred, but there is nothing I can see about you to give me any further clue.”

“At least you didn’t overshoot your estimate. And please, while we’re here, just call me Celestia.”

“…I could not”, I stammered. “Dear Jennie is one thing, she is almost certainly insane, but I could not possibly act so familiar towards you.”

“Even though I asked you nicely?”

“I suppose I… could try. But it will likely feel unnatural to me. At least, at first.”

“Anyway, I suppose you’d like to know why I invited you here”, Celestia said. It was not a question, but a statement of fact. So I just nodded as Jennie made herself useless staring at the hearth fire. Do not take that the wrong way, dear. Fire is a very interesting phenomenon and I cannot disagree with your choice to watch.

Yes, I did just drop Celestia’s title in my storytelling. As narrator, I get to do these things.

“I’ve been on this world for so long”, Celestia started to explain, “and have experienced so much, that I’m starting to distrust my ability to retain the oldest events.”

I nodded in understanding. Thousands of years of experience add up, after all.

“I still remember all the important things. All the lovers I’ve had, their names, their smells…”

No, that’s all she said about lovers. I am not holding back any words she said. Stop that.

“I know of your intent regarding history books and first-hoof confirmation. I know that you do so through an optimized version of Star Swirl’s time travel spell and your recall beacons. Now, I must admit I’m very impressed that you managed to do so and that, aside from my merging with my own past self which incidentally was as temporary as we all hoped, you managed to prevent or contain any paradoxes, and didn’t attempt to intervene in events, nor try to somehow improve the future by actively changing the past.”

“Your highness?” I asked with a questioning raised eyebrow.

“Most ponies in such a position would do such a thing. Even my dear Twilight would, and actually did, in a way. Fortunately, it ended up as a closed loop.”

“An information-based ontological paradox, if I remember the reports correctly.”

Ah. I see your questioning faces. Allow me to interrupt the story, then. You see, gentlecolts plus drone, an ontological paradox is when something travels back through time, then takes the long way back to where it came from, only to end up going back again. Imagine for the moment if I were to travel back in time to a period or perhaps just place where my bits are no good. I would at some point in the adventure require money, of course. So what if I was to find a pawn shop or something and sell my glasses? I can get by without them, really, as long as nopony asks me to read a faraway sign. The glasses, left behind in that pawn shop, would pass from new owner to new owner, changing the lenses when they break, and replacing the frame when it fails of old age, until finally they might end up with my mother, who then gives them to me that one fateful birthday. Years later, I travel back in time and sell them in a certain pawn shop.

Now, which of you fine fellows can tell me where these glasses came from? No? Okay. If I were to actually do go back one day and sell them, we would get a paradox of ontology and the glasses would effectively have no beginning.

In theory, a piece of information makes a safer subject for an ontological paradox than a physical object. In the events Celestia referred to, Twilight Sparkle caused an ontological paradox where the subject was a warning, “do not worry about next Tuesday.” The trick is that she would not let herself finish delivering the warning, causing a lot of worry and unneeded trouble, which led her to go back and tell herself not to worry.

And that is why I avoid crossing my own time stream. That is why the merged Celestia pretended to be plain old Princess Celestia. Now, let us finish the story.

“Those paradoxes and other risks”, Celestia explained, “are why the original spell has such limitations. Star Swirl could’ve done better, but he knew what could happen if his spell fell into the wrong hooves. I trust Twilight, and you’ve proven yourself trustworthy enough.”

“Thank you, your highness.”

“In fact, in light of that mistrust I mentioned earlier, and your skill at time travel and documentation, I would like to make you an offer.”

Can I have a drumroll, please?

“I offer you the official position of Court Historian. It’s really mostly just a title, and the obligation to fill me and my sister in on matters historical in as correct a way as possible. Should you not know the answer to a particular question, I’m sure you could get it in what would seem like… what was it? Two seconds?”

“I honestly do not know what to say.”

“You wouldn’t need to move to the castle, if you’d rather stay in the city”, Celestia continued. “We have a private communication channel, after all, and you can teleport when you need to.”

“Very well, P—Celestia. There is just one condition.”

“And what would that be, my historian?”

“Do not ask me about Discord.”

Sixteen

The circle of friends and guinea pigs left the bar hours later. As they all trotted out the door, Vic magically took hold of the leash wrapped around Tailchaser’s cannon.

“I will take care of Sixteen for now. You have been saddled with it for two weeks already”, he said. It was mostly for show, to make the few remaining passers-by feel rightly at ease.

“See ya ‘round, guys” Jennie said as she gave Tailchaser and Powder each a friendly hug. Then, she turned around to walk with her coltfriend and drinking buddy.

As the trio made their way home, a not insignificant amount of unicorns they passed reacted to their presence with disgust, fear, anger, or a vague combination of the three.

“Vicky”, Jennie softly asked, “why do they all look like we’re dangerous criminals? This happens all the time!”

Vic released a short throaty hum and looked at his companions. The changeling walking between them seemed ill at ease.

“Though the disgust could maybe be due to you being an earth pony in a unicorn city, which would be a very sorry state of affairs on their part, I am afraid it is clear who the brunt of it all is directed towards”, he explained in half a whisper. Sixteen shivered, popping and resettling its wings with a soft but rapid buzz.

“Why don’t you just disguise yourself?” Jennie asked. Sixteen walked a little closer to Jennie so it could be heard.

“Cos they’d still be afraid of me. Not of whoever I become. It changes nothing.”

“No offense little buddy, but that was remarkably deep”, Vic remarked.

“If I’m to be accepted, I want ponies to accept the real me”, Sixteen elaborated at an increasingly audible volume. “Not just… I dunno, Cinnamon Breeze or whatever, but me, Sixteen!”

“That’s… not even your real name, pally”, Jennie remarked.

By then, Sixteen had all but forgotten the effect its typical voice had on ponies and was almost shouting. “It’s my number, that’s good enough. 16-7-52-FUCKING ONE! And even then, what have I ever done to these ponies to deserve being looked at as if I killed somepony?”

As Sixteen sat down on the street and pouted, Vic gave it a thoughtful look.

“You do not know?”

Sixteen harrumphed in reply.

“How about I show you exactly why?” Vic asked as he took a recall beacon from Jennie’s bag and set it up in an alley. “Stay with Jennie and you will wake up tomorrow morning to face the same hardships as always.”

He took off his glasses and exchanged them for a pair of shades. “Or you come with me, and I will show you exactly how deep this rabbit hole goes.”

For his effort at cheesiness, Vic had a rubber chicken thrown at his face.

“Ow.”

Sixteen sat and pondered the offer. It knew what the beacon meant – what Vic had meant… It stood up and walked into the alley. Vic nodded at his marefriend. He would’ve told her to go on ahead without them, but recall didn’t work that way.

When Sixteen opened it eyes again, it was standing in the same alley, but only in the spatial sense. Before it could step out into the street, Vic pulled it back.

“You might want to take back what you said earlier and get a disguise going, friend”, he explained in a whisper. “This is just before the wedding of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Guard Captain Shining Armor. You might have heard of it.”

Sixteen stood and pondered. “The invasion?”

“If you look the right way you could maybe see the swarm coming. The queen is already here, disguised as the princess.”
“But the only disguises I’ve ever used were the forms of other ponies”, Sixteen argued. “What if somepony recognizes me?”

“Then we are rightly boned. You will want something reasonably unique.”

Vic sat down opposite of Sixteen and put a hoof to his chin in thought.

“We are all… bros here, are we not? Powder, Chase, you, and me… What if you pretended to be my little brother? Or perhaps sister? What are you anyway?”

“I’m a changeling. It doesn’t matter much for the common drone, so even I never gave much thought to it.”

“I see. How about you just go with what feels natural to you, then?”

Sixteen nodded and walked deeper into the alley as Vic stood and positioned himself to block the view. In a thus less visible green flaming flash, Sixteen had taken the form of a youngish unicorn mare who could indeed pass as Vic’s little sister.

Hell broke loose just hours after. As an instinctive actress, Sixteen had little difficulty playing the part of a distressed filly, hiding behind Vic whenever one of her brethren crashed into the pavement nearby. For his part, Vic navigated through all the chaos towards various vantage points, narrating the events as the two went.

About an hour later, they spotted a bright pink light emanated from one of the larger rooms in the castle. When the expanding shell of weaponized love appeared, Vic knew he had only seconds to trigger the recall beacon. He held tightly onto Sixteen as the shell came closer.

Three seconds later, the two were thrown out of the alley they started from and tumbled into the streets of Canterlot – their Canterlot.

Jennie was confused when she first saw the unknown filly tightly holding onto what was by all means her coltfriend. The confusion was quickly dispelled when the filly stood up and changed back to her natural form.

“How’d it go, guys?” she asked.

“It was terrible. Suddenly I understand why your queen wouldn’t go by that title all this time.”

As Jennie and Sixteen discussed the invasion and how it affected the reputation of changelings as a whole, and Vic brushed off his jacket, he caught sight of a little foal watching them. She had seen Sixteen change and turned tail, running blindly towards the edge of the platform. Canterlot being built on the side of a mountain, it consisted of several interconnected levels and large balconies. The bar was on one of the lower levels, but even there were a few balconies. One of them was, in fact, quite close. The balconies had railings, of course, but whoever had designed this particular one had underestimated the maneuverability of a frightened filly.

Before anypony knew what happened, she had gone over the literal edge.

Vic and Sixteen needed but a glance and a nod. It was hero time, and the changeling had to prove herself. She took a running start towards the edge where the filly had fallen off, galloping like a bug possessed, and jumped down after her.

Hanging with a scientist with a penchant for physics had its perks. Sixteen was well acquainted with gravity from Vic’s studies of pegasus flight, and laid her limbs straight along her body to increase aerodynamics, as opposed to the wildly flailing filly. With a few quick bursts from her wings, Sixteen caught up with her target, matched speed, and grabbed the filly. Carefully, she spent the last few precious seconds pumping her wings in the opposite direction, knowing full well from Vic’s monologues that it wasn’t the fall that killed you. Tapping a single back hoof to the cobblestone below, Sixteen triumphantly blasted off, back to the balcony she had jumped from, holding a pleasantly thrilled little filly in her forearms.

She was 16-7-52-1, and she had shown that not all changelings were monsters.

Spies

Agent Nocturne stood at a reasonable distance from the door to his queen’s chambers. He would’ve liked to come closer, but the Night Guards menacing in front wouldn’t let him, for they were very well aware that despite being sharply dressed in a crisp dark blue suit, the green pegasus stallion was not to be trusted inside the personal chambers of Queen Luna the Night.

Or maybe it was because a sharp-dressed stallion was never to be trusted. The Night Guard had not a single feather to give.

It was, therefore, to the surprise of both stationed guards that the lunar diarch would open the door just wide enough to pop her head through, and then proceed to do exactly that.

“My guards”, Luna spoke with a regal voice that belied just under a hundred years of practice with regards to the ever-changing nature of spoken language and customs. “Kindly send for Mister Chaos. I would have words with him.”

The guards could barely believe their ears but, ever professional, they kept their immediate reactions tightly restrained until the door had closed again.

“I wonder if I understood her highness correctly”, the one on the left whispered to the other. “What do you suppose she meant by ‘having words’?”

“Ours is not to wonder such things. I’ll go get the guy. We wouldn’t want to keep the lady waiting.”

With that, the guard on the right nodded and trotted off. He had located his target in moments, as he had known all along that he would be very close already.

“Red. The queen requests your presence”, the guard called out. “She… would have words with you”, he added with a distinctly foreboding undertone that wasn’t there when his employer had said it before.

The target growled softly to himself as he stepped out of the shadows. “For Faust’s sake, Westwind, you know not to call me that while I’m on duty”, Agent Nocturne complained.

The guard, for his part, sighed. “You don’t have a code name, Red. At least, nothing official. But what does it even matter what you want to be called? The queen is waiting! Come along.”

Queen Luna looked absolutely gorgeous to Reddened Chaos’ eyes. This was the mare he had spent years climbing the ranks in her majesty’s secret service for. His heart beat in his throat as he entered that holiest of holies, to gaze upon the wondrous visage of his queen and mistress.

“Agent Chaos”, the lunar diarch called out. “It may please you to learn that we have a mission for you to fulfill.”

Though his lady’s voice was as silken sweet to his unworthy ears as always, Agent Nocturne silently cursed the day that his queen had learned to speak modern English. Still, she was his queen, so he lowered himself accordingly. Even if she too refused to call him Nocturne.

“What would this mission be, my liege?” the pegasus asked with a trained smoothness in his voice.

“Our sister has taken a new court historian. This pony, when asked of a certain event, somehow has details even we would have forgotten”, Luna explained. She paused to produce a small envelope which she floated over to Nocturne. “We wish to know how this so-called historian does it, but when we asked our sister about it she just smiled and said it was a ‘professional secret’.”

Given the time of day, Luna slowly walked over to her bed as she spoke. “He does not seem to use a library, and has the answer within the hour. Find out how this pony does what it is he does, and you will be rewarded most handsomely”, the lady of the night said as she sat on the edge of the bed.

Agent Nocturne nearly forgot to acknowledge his mission, lost in thought at his queen’s last words. A handsome reward and she was invitingly sitting on the bed when she said it. How could he possibly misunderstand such a thing?

“Yes my lady”, the overly hormonal stallion finally managed to croak. He turned on the spot and briskly walked back out of his mistress’ chambers, unaware of the slight exasperation on Luna’s face, nor the faint grins that Westwind and Nightingale sported as the hapless secret agent passed them by.

When he had gone out of sight, Nocturne opened the envelope. It contained a photograph of Pyrrhic Victory, his address in Canterlot, and a few scraps of biographical information. All it told Nocturne was that the target was an omnidisciplinary scientist with a particular focus on physics, which Nocturne felt didn’t very well mesh with his role as court historian, was the grandchild of one of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, was all but married to another Element’s grandchild, and that he was the caretaker of one of the few changelings who had free passage through Equestria.

It wasn’t much, but it’d do, or his name wasn’t Nocturne; Agent Nocturne.

Finding a handy balcony in the castle, the pegasus jumped off, spread his wings, and silently soared down to the mid-lower levels of the city.

The next morning, at Vic’s house, one almost completely unremarkable brown pegasus landed at the doorstep, clutching a small satchel and a magazine in his teeth. He knocked twice on the door and waited. Jennie was there to open up and let him in.

“Hi, Chase! What’s up?” the exuberant earth pony asked.

“I brought those special gems the Vicster asked for, and the latest edition of Animal Vegetable Mineral. I think they’ve a special on zebras this month”, Tailchaser replied as he put his cargo down. “Here’s the odd thing though. Is little Sixie still here?”

“Yeah”, Jennie confirmed. “I think she’s still sleeping. I’m actually the first pony to get up today! What’s wrong?”

“Hmm, yeah… y’see, Jen”, Tailchaser said in a careful half-whisper, “while I was on my way here, I couldn’t help but feel I was being watched.”

“Oh, I know that feeling real well, Chase. In fact, I feel watched right now, but I’m trying to ignore them.”

“No, this is different. There’s somepony out there, hiding... And it’s obviously not Sixteen. Could you tell Vic-20 that I won’t be around for a while?”

“Sure. But what’re you gonna do? And what’s a Vic-20?”

“No idea, something that I came up with just now. Doesn’t matter.”

Tailchaser leaned in a little closer to Jennie.

“I’m going to hide outside too, see if I can catch this other guy”, he whispered.

“Good luck”, Jennie said as she hugged the big lug.

When Agent Nocturne returned to Canterlot Castle to deliver his report, he was completely unaware that he was being trailed. When he approached the door to his queen’s chambers, his shadow bolted away to take an alternate route.

“My queen”, Nocturne greeted in another bow.

“Tell us, Agent Chaos, what have you discovered of this so-called historian?” the imposing Dark Queen asked. Behind her, on the balcony, a pegasus softly landed and carefully took position to listen in.

“Not much about his methods, your highness. I’ve seen what it looks like, but I am no unicorn and can’t tell what it is. The target... he stands next to a device – I think it’s one of those teleportation recall beacons that some unicorns use – and then there’s basically just a flash and not much changes. At least not from what I can see at a safe distance.”

“Just a flash and he suddenly knows things?” Luna asked with a raised eyebrow.

Agent Nocturne nodded. “That’s all I could see. I hope to get a little closer so maybe I can, I dunno, take some pictures of his notes, perhaps?”

“That would seem the most logical thing to do, my agent. We appreciate the effort you put forth for us. While you continue your mission, we shall try asking our sister more pointed questions.”

Luna turned to the balcony to prepare for the raising of her moon. Before she could make the turn, the other pegasus had flipped off of the balcony and was soaring down and away, unseen by the queen and her agent.

The pegasus chuckled to himself. As well-trained this Nocturne guy was, a remarkable bright green pegasus in a two-piece suit would never blend away in the late dusk as well as a totally ordinary dull brown one who almost never wore clothes and had learned all he needed from a couple of spy novels.

It was, therefore, almost a given that when Agent Nocturne was on his way to Canterlot Castle the next day to deliver a new report, he was intercepted in one of the hallways.

“I have you now… my dear Agent Nocturne”, whispered Stormcloud J. Tailchaser as he held the hapless agent in a half-hearted headlock.

“I have no idea what you mean, dear sister”, Celestia said at the breakfast table. “I didn’t send any ponies after your employees.”

“Still, my plan is thwarted”, Luna said with a hint of annoyance.

“What was this… employee supposed to do anyway?”

“He was to bring the information you continuously withhold from us, sister. About your historian.”

“Mister Victory? Oh, that’s just time travel.”

For a moment, Luna dared not continue drinking her tea as her sister’s words sank in.

“That’s it?” Luna asked. “He has all the details because time travel? Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?!”

Celestia remained silent for at least ten seconds, smiling to herself all the time.

“Because it’s fun.”

Author's Note

Original title: "Luna". But then the focus shifted.

Luna

There was a knock on the door of Vic’s house, late in the evening. As Vic approached the door, whoever stood on the opposite side knocked again, and Vic noticed that the sound came from a little higher than usual. Expecting the best, he opened the door to reveal Queen Luna. She stood there looking regal, with a single member of her Night Guard beside her, and Reddened Chaos skulking around at a respectable distance.

“Your highness”, Vic said with a bow. “What brings you to my home this fine evening?”

“We would have words with you, historian”, the Dark Queen replied simply.

“Well, who am I to reject you, madam? Please, come in and you can have your words. Perhaps you and your guard would like a drink as we speak?”

“That would be very cordial of you. It pleases us to see this”, Luna complimented as she trotted into Vic’s home and followed him to the living room. “Cordiality, these days, seems in ever-shorter supply.”

“Times change, your highness”, Vic said in agreement as he floated some of his better sitting pillows into the room and put them down near the fireplace. The best one on one side, a slightly less good but still high-quality one next to the first, close by but not too close, and the worst of the three, but still nice, at the other side. “Perhaps it is just not ‘cordiality’ as you or I would recognize it. Would you tea or maybe something else, madam?”

“Moonbeam, please, if you have it”, the queen replied, and took her seat on the best pillow of the three.

Vic nodded and turned to the guard. “And you, sir?”

“…The same, please”, the guard replied in a low rumble.

Vic lit up his horn as he sat down on the singular pillow on his side of the fireplace. The sounds of running water and a stove igniting could be heard from the kitchen.

“Incidentally, before we start, I would like to quickly introduce my friends and social parasites”, Vic interjected, pointing towards Tailchaser and Powder, who were sitting at a side table in a distant corner of the room, playing Old Maid. “These are Tailchaser, the pegasus, and Powder.”

Being in the middle of his turn, Tailchaser was lost in thought as he considered which card to pick and didn’t react. Powder turned his head at the mention of his nickname and gave a respectable, slow nod towards the lunar diarch.

“Now then, let us have those words. Your majesty?”

“Very well. My dear sister has given you an occupation as her court historian, correct?” Luna asked. Vic nodded and floated a small wooden box full of tea bags into the room, not breaking eye contact with his guest. “We… I had asked her several times how it could be that you would be asked about some past event and know everything there is to know about it within an hour.”

Vic couldn’t hold back a proud smile as he opened the box with his magic, still looking Luna in the eyes, and extracted two packets of moonbeam blend.

“I had sent one of my secret agents to find out what exactly it was that you did. He had failed his mission – apparently some other agent had intercepted him before he could deliver his report, and by the time he did return, I had already been told the key element to your methods by my dear sister.”

“I will be right back”, Tailchaser suddenly said, lowering his voice as to not disturb the others, and stood up. “Toilet break.”

He gently made his way to the hallway, but instead of going to the little colts room, he silently flew up the stairs into the storeroom, where Sixteen had built her cocoon. Tailchaser carefully tapped the hardened muck, drawing out the occupant.

“Good evening, Sixteen”, he said as the changeling wiped some green fluids from her eyes. “Do you remember that time I foiled this one spy?”

“How could I forget? Good times, when you caught the guy”, Sixteen joked, stifling a yawn. “What about him?”

“He’s here again, skulking around outside.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I do feel bad, in a way, for what I’ve done to him.”

Sixteen nodded. The changeling could tell at a glance and a sniff how Chase felt about Red.

“I would appreciate it if you could… give him a good time for me”, Chase hesitated. “He seems to have a hopeless crush on the queen, so maybe if you…?”

Sixteen nodded again, more vigorously. She knew exactly what to do. They flew back down in single file and as Chase went off to the toilet, Sixteen changed her form, growing larger and more blue.

Just as the water reached boiling point, Vic reached out and removed the kettle from the stove and turned it off. Two cups appeared in front of his guests, and the kettle floated in from the kitchen as the box of tea bags was returned.

“What I would like to know is how exactly this time travel works,” Luna continued. “Tis clearly not the method of Starswirl the Bearded, I know as much.”

Vic nodded in agreement as he prepared the moonbeam tea. “You would be correct, madam. It is, in fact, based on Starswirl’s method, but highly optimized and expanded. In fact, I could perhaps show you in practice. By the time we get back, your tea should be properly steeped and at a temperature you would find more agreeable.”

“Perhaps a hooves-on experience would be the best way to learn of your method, Mister Victory. Very well then”, Luna announced as she stood up, her guard following suit shortly after.

“If you would accompany me to my workshop, then…”

“Now, what historical event would you like to witness, your highness?” Vic offered. “The closer to now, the easier it is for me to plan out the journey, I should tell you.”

Queen Luna thought about the offer for a moment, then turned to a photograph of her moon. “Are you familiar with the time after my return from exile?” she asked.

“Naturally. In fact I was there at the Summer Sun Celebration when you returned”, Vic answered as he started jotting down some initial numbers on a piece of loose-leaf. They were rough starting points for a hundred years or so back, and Vic had memorized them to make travel to that period easier to plan out.

“Then, could you possibly take me to the first Nightmare Night that followed?”

Vic considered the request as he subtracted a few months’ worth of stellar rotation. “No offense, but I am not entirely sure if that is a good idea, your highness.”

“And why is this?”

“Things are weird enough when my dear Jennie comes along with the saddlebags your sister had enchanted”, Vic explained. “It turns out that its presence causes the Celestia of that time to temporarily gain the memories and experiences of the one now.”

Luna blanched. “What.”

“I shudder to imagine what could happen if two of the same pony were to meet. In all my journeys through the decades, and even back when I did my first trial runs, I had gone through great pains to never meet myself, and for good reason.”

“And that reason is fear?” Luna asked. It was almost not a question at all. Vic nodded solemnly. “We can understand, Pyrrhic Victory. If it is really that unsettling, we will abstain from this risk for the time being.”

“Thank you, your highness. At least I can rule out mental merging just by being there twice – my first trial run went back only ten minutes, and I was there for thirty-six seconds, but I have no memory of remembering two points in time simultaneously.”

Just as Luna was about to thank Vic, a scream reverberated through the building.

“I’LL KILL YOU, BUG!”

“Ah. It seems Mister Chaos has made a new friend”, Luna remarked with a regal smile.