Back In Time
By Ianpiersonjdavis
The sunny rays shone in Rainbow Dash’s face the sound of birds chirping had awakened her from her slumber. Was it morning already? She came to the library the night before to check out another one of Twilight’s Daring-Do books and instantly began reading it. It had been humid all day, and when the sun set, things didn’t cool off nearly as much as everypony hoped it would.
The cyan pegasus lifted her head from the makeshift pillow, when a page stuck to the side of her face. Slightly irritated, she brushed it off with a hoof before looking around the library, she struggled to remember if the library had a clock and wondered where it was, as the morning fog began to slowly dissipate from her mind, she started to remember that she stayed with Twilight for two reasons; one was because it was so hot out, that she was kind of hoping that her magically gifted friend knew some sort of ‘cooling off’ spell, but was left disappointed.
The other reason she couldn’t remember but, she knew it was important-and it scared her. Wait, scared her? Not many things scared Rainbow Dash, but this was a big one…this was exactly why she hated getting up early, she was many things-but, a morning pony was not one of them.
Say, where was Twilight anyway? Or Spike for that matter? They wouldn’t have just left the library open and an unlocked with no one to tend to it but a passed out pegasus, would they? Wouldn’t they have at least left a note?
“Twi…?” she called out uncertainly, heading up the stairs to Twilight’s room. There was no response. When she reached the top of the stairs, she was disappointed to not only discover that there was no Twilight present, but no bed, books, or telescope either-the room was completely barren, save for a few cobwebs and a broken window.
“Huh…?” she uttered, “What the hay is goin’ on here?” she wondered aloud, didn’t Twilight suddenly develop a sense of humor overnight and decide to pull a prank on her? If so, this was pretty elaborate-but then again, she had to admit that when it came to using magic-Twilight Sparkle was almost as-if not just as awesome as she was at flying. So if anypony could pull it off-she could.
But then where was Spike? Was he in on this, too?
Running back down the stairs, she noticed something that she’d missed earlier-probably due to the fact that she was more alert now and on her guard for the possibility of becoming a pranking victim-the library actually looked as if it had seen better days, if it weren’t for the sunlight, she might’s have been in complete darkness, the wood looked incredibly dark and hollow, the sleeves and spines of the books aligned were all tattered and covered in grime as if they’d endured a fire or some kind of nuclear fallout-the pages themselves were all sickly yellow and tattered.
That would be too much for Twilight-even for a prank-she’d have a heart-attack if she saw a book treated improperly, the ones that she kept in her library where all pristine even the really old ones seemed brand new, like they had just been bought from the bookstore a few hours prior to being stocked on the shelves.
“Spike!” she called out, starting to panic while looking for the basket the green and purple baby dragon typically slept in-but that, too was absent .
Stepping outside, she turned around to examine the tree, she didn’t know much about plant life but to her it looked almost…dead. The bark looked dried and sickly; the branches were completely naked-devoid of having leaves of any shape or color which didn’t make sense-it was the middle of summer! A note was tacked on the door of the library that she had failed to notice earlier, she squinted to make out faded black letters which read; CONDEMNED.
The winged athlete tried taking a step back, before falling flat on her flank as the shock seeped in. How could the library have been condemned? Twilight and Spike always took care of it-it was their job, it was their home. But, judging from the faded letters and the wear of the note as well as the condition of both the tree and the library inside, it appeared that it had been like this for at least a few years…
Flapping her wings, she lifted herself off the ground. “TWILIGHT!” she shouted, causing a few other ponies to flinch and one to almost drop his groceries. She frantically scanned the area, not only was she Equestria’s fastest flier, but she had eyes like a hawk. “TWILIGHT SPARKLE!” she shouted again. It was hard for her to keep the desperation out of her voice, as she’d already checked out over half of Ponyville at this point.
“Spike?” she tried uncertainly, it seemed unlikely that Twilight would skip town without her number one assistant-but at this point she was ready to try just about anything. What scared her even more was the fact that she didn’t recognize anypony, Rarity’s boutique was some sort of club owned by Photo Finish, Sweet Apple Acres was now owned by Flim and Flam, The Cake’s bakery seemed to have been turned into some kind of organic garden, where Fluttershy’s cottage once stood was now a large slaughterhouse and meat-packaging plant.
Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but start shaking a bit, all of her friends were gone and nowhere to be found and even worse-nopony seemed to know anything about them, let alone who they were. It was like living in some kind of horrific nightmare, a bizarre version of Ponyville where everything was wrong.
But, who would’ve had the power to do something like that? Almost instantly she clenched her teeth in seething rage, “Discord.” she hissed before somepony bumped into her. He was a stallion and he had a light brown coat with a dark brown mane and blue eyes with the image an hourglass on his flank.
“Oh, I am so sorry about that!” he quickly apologized, “Not as sorry as Discord’s gonna be…” Dash grumbled. “There’s just been so much going on today that I’ve been feeling a bit flustered…” he took a sideways glance at Rainbow Dash.
“Come to think of it…you seem rather tense, is something bothering you?” he asked.
“Yeah! My friends are all gone! Nopony seems to remember them-let alone care! And everything in town is completely messed up!” she shouted, her voice cracking.
“Oh, dear…” he replied fretfully. “Oh dear, oh dear…I was afraid something like this might happen…”
“Something like what?” she asked, glaring at him.
“My name is Doctor Whooves and well, this whole mess might be my fault…” he replied, wincing.
Rainbow didn’t care how he did this or why, she immediately pounced on him with one hoof pressing down on his throat and the other raised menacingly. “Bring them back! RIGHT NOW!” she shouted, her vision becoming little more than a red haze. “I’m sorry…” he squeaked. “Tell it to your dentist!” she screamed, her lungs filled with rage. “I can bring them back! But, I need to go back in time!” he explained as fast as he could, before the violently loyal mare could rearrange his face.
“Back in time?” she repeated. “You must think I’m really stupid to believe something as a wild as that.”
“It’s the truth! I swear!” he insisted. “Time travel is my special talent. Why do you think there’s a picture of an hourglass on my flank?”
“Prove it.” She challenged.
“O-okay, last night you went to Twilight Sparkle’s library for a book.” He replied, frantically.
“Not good enough.”
“You wanted to check out the next Daring-Do volume because you’d just finished the last one and…” he trailed off.
“And?” she pressed.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t say anything more for risking the stability of the timeline!” he exclaimed.
“You’re risking the stability of your face right now.” She replied, annoyed. “All this proves is that you’re a stalker-last chance.”
“Alright, you were feeling anxious when you went to see Twilight last night…because….because you were about to confess your feelings for her.” He said this part in little more than a whisper.
For a few moments she just sat there on top of him in stunned silence. “How do you know about that?” she asked in a harsh whisper.
“Please…I really shouldn’t…I’ve already revealed far more that I should the timeline-“
“How do you KNOW about that!?” she repeated.
He sighed deeply before replying, “Because in the future-well, possible future-you and Twilight Sparkle begin a romantic relationship, however these things are not set in stone and revealing this to you may very well adversely affect not only that outcome, but your friendship as well.”
That’s right…she was going to Twilight’s to see if they could become more than friends, but she was afraid of how she would react and decided to break it to her slowly, using the Daring-Do book as a cover story-but, how could she have forgotten that?
Doctor Whooves sat up and brushed himself off, snapping Dash back to reality.
“How did this happen?” she asked coldly.
“Do you remember the Draconequus villain, Discord?” he asked.
“Rings a bell.” She replied, bitterly.
“In one of the possible futures where he defeated you and became ruler of Equestria, his power became so great that he began to indirectly influence the timeline, to the extent that I had to step in and put an end to his tyranny.” He explained.
“You?” she scoffed.
“If you’re referring to the dispute we had earlier-I make it my policy to never raise my hoof against a mare.” He narrowed his gaze. “No matter how rude they might be.”
“Uh-huh.” Dash replied, unconvinced.
“In any case,” he continued. “Before returning him to stone once more, it appears he had one last trick to play on me before his defeat was final. My time traveling capabilities seemed to have been heavily skewed, however I’m feeling much better now and all that we need to do is to return you back to the present.”
“Present?” she repeated. “I thought this was the present!”
“No,” he replied. “This is the dystopian future that would have come to pass had you never performed your Sonic Rainboom, your friends never learned of their special talents and never received their Cutie Marks, Princess Celestia never discovered Twilight’s magical capabilities and thus, never took her on to become her student, ergo she never came to Ponyville to start a friendship with you and so when Nightmare Moon broke free from her prison, nopony was there to utilize the Elements of Harmony and Celestia has remained imprisoned ever since as her corrupted sister rules Equestria with an iron hoof.”
“We can’t just leave without helping her!” Dash protested.
“Quite the contrary,” he replied. “We do not know where the Elements of Harmony are in this timeline and even if we did we would only be able to use one of them, which is only one-sixth of the power required to defeat Nightmare Moon the last time-if we travel back to the original timeline, none of this will have ever happened and everything will be back to normal-do you follow me?”
“Uh…I guess?”
The next thing she saw was a flash of bright blue light before blacking out.
The sunny rays shone in Rainbow Dash’s face the sound of birds chirping had awakened her from her slumber. Was it morning already? She came to the library the night before to check out another one of Twilight’s Daring-Do books and instantly began reading it. It had been humid all day, and when the sun set, things didn’t cool off nearly as much as everypony hoped it would.
The cyan pegasus lifted her head from the makeshift pillow, when a page stuck to the side of her face. Slightly irritated, she brushed it off with a hoof before looking around the library, she struggled to remember if the library had a clock and wondered where it was, as the morning fog began to slowly dissipate from her mind, she started to remember that she stayed with Twilight for two reasons; one was because it was so hot out, that she was kind of hoping that her magically gifted friend knew some sort of ‘cooling off’ spell, but was left disappointed.
Rainbow Dash suddenly got the strangest sense of déjà vu remembering the weirdest dream she just had-time travel? How stupid was that?
“Hey, you’re up!” a familiar voice rang out.
Dash spun around to see the lavender unicorn herself, on the staircase behind her.
“TWILIGHT!” she exclaimed gleefully, jumping on her friend and giving her a crushing hug.
“I MISSED YOU SOO MUCH!”
“But…I didn’t go anywhere…” she protested, confused.
“You did!” Rainbow insisted, “…Well, that or it was a dream I had that was really stupid.”
“Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“Wow…” Twilight commented. “That really is quite a story…”
“But, at least it didn’t really happen…I mean time travel is impossible!” she exclaimed, leaning back with her hooves behind her head. “…Isn’t it?”
“Actually…” she began, remembering the time she came from the future in a futile attempt to warn herself not to worry about things so much in the future.
“Um, Twi.” Dash began, cutting her off before she could go off on another one her wild egghead tangents about math and science.
“Yes, Rainbow Dash?” she asked, giving her undivided attention as Dash couldn’t help but admire her, especially with the sunlight bouncing off her coat and mane from the window.
“All of this made me realize…” she felt her face heat up as she began to blush. “That I’m really lucky to have friends like you guys and…uh,”
Come on, Rainbow-you can do this!
“I realize…just how much I like you and-and care about you…” She still seemed to have Twilight’s attention and was secretly grateful for how patient her friend was being with her.
“I care about you too, Rainbow.” She replied, smiling.
“NO!” she shouted, causing the unicorn to recoil, “I’m sorry-I mean that I really care about you…” she felt her cheeks turn a deep scarlet and barely above a whisper added, “Like…love you even.”
They sat together in awkward silence, Dash once again feeling grateful that Spike was still asleep. Seeing Twilight sitting there like a statue and staring at her with those beautiful violet eyes as if they were gazing into the depths of her very soul.
The pegasus then buried her face in her hooves, she always hated this stupid mushy stuff partly because she was so bad at it, and she’d obviously left the part about her crush out of the story about her dream, and worried that she not only looked like a total dweeb in front of her crush, but possibly ruined their friendship as well-why didn’t that dumb Doctor warn her that something like this could happen?
“…I had no idea you felt that way about me…I mean what with you calling me an egghead all the time…”
“But you’re my egghead!” she insisted, before realizing what was coming out of her mouth.
This actually made Twilight blush a little bit.
“I-I guess I haven’t really thought about it until now but, I…really like you too, Rainbow.” She replied.
“You do?” she asked, “Y-you’re not just saying that so I’ll feel better?”
Twilight shook her head, “No, I’m being perfectly honest with you right now-you’re always reading here and you’re always ready to help out if I need anything, your loyal, athletic, and brave…” her cheeks were now the same shade as Rainbow Dash’s.
“…And you’re smart, good with magic, a great leader and…an egghead.” Dash stumbled not being very good with words, but instead of getting offended Twilight just giggled and the attempted sentiment.
Dash couldn’t help, but crack a smile as she enjoyed Twilight’s laugh, her voice and now that she knew she felt the same way, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted, and slowly, she began laughing too-after everything that had happened lately, it felt good to just laugh at something stupid for once and not have to worry about saving Ponyville from some disaster or worry about the fate of Equestria.
Still, she wondered if this was new territory for Twilight, after all-she’d never had any friends before moving to Ponyville, always being more interested in books than a social life it stood to reason that she probably never had a colt friend or mare friend before either-so maybe this was a shocking revelation about her own sexuality.
Who knew? It was hard to tell what Twilight was thinking because she always seemed to have her nose buried in some book or be working on some science experiment or other.
“Rainbow? Rainbow Dash?”
“Huh?”
“You looked like you kind of zoned out there for a while.”
“Oh, yeah-sorry.” She replied, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof. “I’m just so relieved to finally get all this off my chest…hey, don’t tell anypony else about this-but, I was secretly kind of scared that if you didn’t want to be my mare friend that you’d be freaked out and wouldn’t want to hang out anymore if I told you the truth…” she admitted.
“Well, I promise that I won’t tell anyone-but I’d rather have you tell me the truth than have things like this eat you up on the inside-even if this didn’t turn out the way you wanted; you’re still my friend and you always will be.”
The two slowly leaned forward into a passionate kiss that lasted for a few minutes before they pulled apart.
“That was-”
“HEY!” Rainbow Dash shouted, catching something in the corner of her eye, it was Doctor Whooves standing outside the library watching them. “Get outta here ya pervert! We’re trying to have an intimate moment here! Time-traveling jerk!” she huffed.
“Rainbow! Don’t scare him!”
But, it was too late he was already galloping off into the distance before Twilight flung the door to the library open, “Sir! Wait! I have a lot of questions about-“she started before in a flash of blue light he was gone. She sighed before returning indoors.
“Well, at least I’ve still got you.” She smiled at Rainbow Dash, before nuzzling into her neck.
“I told you he was a jerk.”
THE END