It's Also About Time

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Final Chapter

Chapter 1

It's Also About Time

Twilight Sparkle struggled to get her breathing under control. This wasn’t the time or place to panic.

Behind her was the library door she just came through, left wide open. Thick black clouds almost turned the day into night, crackling with thunder and lightning. At the heart of Ponyville’s central plaza there was a vortex of swirling magical energy, white as fire, and in its midst stood a lion. He smiled, in the way a predator does as it slowly approaches its utterly trapped quarry, knowing that victory was already at hand, and with it the spoils. He could’ve hardly added anything to the effect by licking his lips, and yet, as though to taunt her, he did.

Twilight’s knees shook. Everything inside her screamed at her to run, run as fast as she could. And what was worse, not only were her instincts entirely correct, as this particular lion was twice her size and could thoroughly mutilate her without even trying - they didn’t even sense half of the danger she was in. It was the thinking part of her brain that reminded her that lions were among the creatures in the world capable of their own brand of magic, confirming that what she saw in front of her eyes was very, very real.

“Twilight Sparkle! A pleasure to finally meet you,” the lion thundered gruffly as he slowly stepped closer.

It’s not too late to teleport, Twilight thought. I already distracted him for, like, ten seconds. That’s more than enough time to evacuate the town, isn’t it? No? Rainbow Dash is helping! Still no? Right. “The pleasure is probably all yours,” she replied, meekly.

Strangely enough, even though lightning streaked through the sky in its utter turmoil, she had no trouble at all hearing either the lion’s or her own voice. Once again her memory supplied her with unpleasant information, reminding her that high magical pressure has a tendency to dull certain frequencies of sound.

In the light exuded by the magical vortex, all of the lion’s features were easy to see, and that included the teeth, pointed and interlocked in that damned rictus of a smile. “Celestia’s faithful student. A true prodigy, possessed both by raw talent and an unstoppable drive to hone it by the search for knowledge and the refinement of application. Some might say you are the most powerful unicorn, no, magic user alive on this planet.”

Twilight had read too many Daring Do books to enjoy being praised like that. In the triumph of victory, villains liked to cast themselves in even more glorious light by touting the virtues of the do-gooder they were just about to defeat. In the books, a moment like this was usually followed by Daring Do’s unlikely comeback, utilizing any sort of oversight on the part of the villain or just plain good fortune to scrape just by and win the day. Twilight wasn’t Daring Do, though, and this was not a book. At least not one she was writing.

“As for myself, I was named Merrok, or He-Who-Reads, in the tongue of my tribe. I am a lion sorcerer of some renown, but you have never heard of me. And I have come to deliver a sad truth about the use of magic, treasured Twilight Sparkle.” A bolt of lightning suddenly struck the vortex, and was apparently sucked in, causing it to flare up, briefly concealing Merrok’s features. The short absence did nothing to make them any less intimidating when they were once again visible.

“Potency, talent, training, knowledge - in the end they all pale in comparison to the greatest power thinkable. That … of preparation.”

Twilight’s eyes darted to all corners of her view. It was hard to see anything for the blinding light around the lion sorcerer and the darkening sky above, but surely there’d been enough time by now. They had to come back, if only so she could try and tell them to run away with the others. They’d have to listen to her this time, wouldn’t they? They probably wouldn’t, Twilight suspected, and that thought brought to her heart chilling fear for the safety of her friends - and also a strange feeling of warmth, knowing she could count on their support in the greatest of dangers.

“I’ve studied you very precisely, coveted Twilight Sparkle. You are quite worthy of study in many respects - but most particularly from the perspective of lion sorcery. You are what we call an amplifier. Magic used around you has a tendency to increase in potency by mere proximity to you. The effect is hardly noticeable with unicorn magic except in the rarest of circumstances, but as you might already be able to tell - lion magic benefits from it rather spectacularly.”

Twilight was shaken from the train of thought that had been racing in her mind. As he was talking about it, she’d started to feel it around her. This Merrok character hadn’t set such a dramatic scene to lie to her - that much became painfully clear.

Yet she also felt different about herself. Somewhat more awake. More on edge. Less frightened. Could it be …

“Ah, I see you’re catching on,” Merrok chuckled - and then his gaze turned to steel, his toothy smile completely gone - except for a glint in his eyes. “The amplification works both ways. By now, no magician on the face of the world might stop me - with the exception of yourself. Being more naturally talented, you possess greater potency. Which brings us back to the true power.”

In the corner of her eye, Twilight saw a rainbow-hued splotch turning larger - and she saw Merrok move his head downwards. There might have been something jovial, a streak of the scholar inside Merrok, before - now she saw a lion on the prowl through and through. A lion engulfed in a vortex of magic, stirring ever faster towards a climax. There was no distracting anymore. The moment for Twilight herself to act had come …

And gone.

Before Twilight knew it, it was no longer Merrok surrounded by the white fire that evidently made up the manifestation of lion sorcery, it was herself. She was trapped. And it was shifting, ever shifting, to achieve its purpose.

Preparation. The true power was preparation. The damned lion had said it right to her face. This was a spell specifically prepared just for her, and it had connected, faster than she could possibly react. She’d only been able to think about distracting him, and never thought that he’d been distracting her all along. Thoughts furiously rushed through her mind in these split seconds.

It reminded her of something. Herself, in a black jumpsuit, appearing out of nowhere in front of her. Time magic. Chronomancy. Never mind the name, that was it. A prepared chronomantic spell.

Chronomancy required a target location in the time stream - it couldn’t simply make her disappear. It could be pinpointed to a specific moment in time, however - and Merrok knew when that moment was. He’d be waiting. After all was over. With her taken out of the picture, his amplified magic could achieve whatever ends he wished - and he simply would have to wait for her to reappear, replenish it, and resume his business. He could keep it up forever, giving her no chance to fight back. Preparation, the true power.

Anger filled her. There was no time to even think it, let alone think it through. “My RUMP!” Twilight yelled, and let magic burst through her horn.

Suddenly, everything was peaceful.

Twilight looked at the central plaza of Ponyville. Above was a blue sky, beset with the occasional wispy white cloud. There was no lightning, no thunder, no rumbling, no magical pressure, no dreadful lion sorcerer out to exploit her for limitless magical power.

Or was there? Twilight immediately started to look around. It certainly didn’t look like it. Had Merrok already achieved his goal by just displacing her in time, and no more plans for her? Very doubtful, he might have just as well cast a spell to kill her. He needed her again - but he wasn’t there now to take advantage of her. The likeliest explanation was that her desperate plan had actually worked. A plan she only now started to grasp.

She let herself fall back on her hindquarters, then lay on the ground, shuddering, her hooves covering her head.

What had she done?

The only thing, she quickly reminded herself. Merrok had specifically crafted this spell, just for her. She’d had no way of countering or evading it, but she sure as Magic Kindergarten was able to disrupt it. Some burst of magic of her own would throw some element of it out of whack, maybe cause it to fizzle, maybe cause it to do something else entirely - perhaps even something unsafe, perhaps even deadly. There was no way to calculate the possible consequences. And that was why it had been so necessary - precisely because of the incalculable consequences, it would in all likelihood ruin Merrok’s schemes.

In that respect, it had been the only plan. The right plan, definitely. And it had also put her life on the line. Without a moment’s hesitation, against everything taught to her about magic safety and the disruption of spells, she’d taken the equivalent of a coin toss to decide if she lived or died.

“What have I done,” she whispered.

Ponyville was empty. This was her thought the next time she actually focused on her surroundings rather than the dreadful events that had come around so suddenly. Weirdly empty. And quiet.

Naked panic took ahold of her. Disrupted chronomancy - how long had she been gone? Just how wrong could things go in just how little time, that Ponyville was now utterly bereft of life?

“Can I help you?” somepony said behind her, worried.

Twilight’s mind was still working at adrenaline speed. A pony or other being capable of speech and emotion. Inquiring another pony about their wellbeing, without revealing worrisome facts about the world, as would have been the case if instead of “Can I help you?” what was said had been “Another survivor at last! I thought I was the only one!” or “Braaains.”

Of course, mind working fast or not, if she really wanted to get to the bottom of all her raging fears, or the most immediate among them, she had to turn around. So Twilight took a deep breath, and she did.

Another pony, in fact, another mare, just her height, with a pearl-white coat and a curled mane colored in parts mulberry, in parts rose. A horn on the forehead. Eyes green, and clearly worried, and now that they met with hers, widening with shock. An expression Twilight soon shared.

“Sweetie Belle,” she whispered.

And there it was. The anchor that struck the ground, brought her mind down from swirling through the skies and finally gave her some degree of rest.

Twilight cried.

“There, there,” the white mare cooed as Twilight sobbed into her chest, stroking her head gently. “When you’ve calmed down a bit, could you tell me your name? I mean, just to make sure … ?”

Twilight sniffed and rose to her own hindquarters again, looking through misty eyes at the other pony she’d found. “Twilight Sparkle.”

“And I’m Sweetie Belle. You’re right.” Sweetie Belle smiled reassuringly. “You probably have a lot of questions. Maybe you’d like to go inside?”

“In … side?” Twilight looked past Sweetie Belle to see the entrance to the library, quite open. “Of course.”

Inside they went, and Twilight found herself uneasy as she looked around. The books were … still there. It felt familiar, but wrong, somehow. As if there was a coin waiting to drop. The books were the books she knew, and they were still wrong. Helplessly, she looked at Sweetie Belle again.

Who was the same size as her. Who had a cutie mark now. Who was an adult.

“How long?” she forced out, enrapt with shock.

Sweetie Belle herself looked shaken. She herself clearly hadn’t expected having to explain what she had to explain now. If she was prepared for it in theory, all of that had escaped her in the actual moment. “Ten years,” she finally said. But there was nothing to add that would change the number, and what it meant.

Twilight went numb. “Ten years.” She looked around. Ten years, and barely any books in the library had even been touched. There was no way it would have looked like that after ten years if she had been living in it.

And there, finally, were the facts of what had happened to her, and the spell. She’d changed the spell’s target location through her disruption, and instead of what Merrok had planned - a day, a week later, whatever had served him - it had been ten years. Transported through time, ten years into the future. In the time in-between, Sweetie Belle had grown into an adult mare, and evidently Ponyville still stood, and the library still stood. That was a good start - she surprised herself by thinking as matter-of-factly as that - but she had to know more.

“What … about the others?” she asked, scarcely audible.

Sweetie Belle stared at her for a second. It was almost as if Twilight Sparkle was made of glass; she looked as if one wrong word could shatter her completely. She had to know, but she was scared, so scared, of the answer. And Sweetie Belle realized, suddenly, that Twilight needed something more than anything else. Or rather, somepony. A friend.

“Wait right here,” she said, and made sure to smile as brightly as she could muster. Don’t be afraid, she found herself praying in her head, and it was weird thinking this way about a pony she last remembered to be rather taller and older and wiser than her. The smile was reciprocated, weakly, and Sweetie Belle wasted no more time.

Left utterly alone, Twilight could barely sort her thoughts. Sweetie Belle had done well to smile as she did, because it kept Twilight’s fear just subdued enough for her to simply sit and stare at the door rather than breaking down, until she’d come back. It was a dreadful wait all the same.

And then it ended, and somepony other than Sweetie Belle entered. Somepony familiar - wearing a very familiar hat.

For the second time that day, Twilight cried.

“It’s so good to see you again, Twi,” Applejack said, gently, patting Twilight on the back as she covered her mane in tears, hugging her tightly. Applejack herself couldn’t resist spilling one or two, which she hadn’t planned on, but that was okay. “Everythin’s fine.”

“It is?” Twilight asked, releasing Applejack from her tearful embrace and staring her in the eyes.

Applejack smiled in return. She looked older, it struck Twilight - not all that much, since ten years weren’t enough to make Applejack an old pony - but she looked calmer and more reassuring than Twilight ever remembered her being capable of. Wiser. More experienced. Almost motherly. There were very few times Twilight had ever felt that grateful for anything.

“It is now.”

Twilight let out a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t enough quite yet. “The others,” she said, somewhat hoarse.

Applejack took a deep breath. “To tell ya the truth, Twilight, I was kinda asked by Celestia, in case ya ever showed up an’ such, to get ya straight to the palace and not tell ya a word of anythin’.”

Twilight nodded slowly, understanding, but miserable.

Applejack looked at her, and narrowed her eyes as she made a decision. “But like hay am I gonna do that to you,” she said, grinning defiantly. “Pinkie ‘n Rarity are in Canterlot. Rainbow Dash’s up in Cloudsdale. Fluttershy ‘n me are still hangin’ on ‘round these parts. Not sure where Spike is at right now but he seemed alright last time I saw ‘im. We all made it out, is what I’m sayin’. And now I gotta shut it. Princess’ orders an’ all that.”

Twilight giggled. For the first time since she’d found herself where she was now, she stopped feeling frightened altogether, even if just for a moment. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Now, guess we should leave fer the train station or somethin’?”

Twilight shook her head. “If I can’t ask you questions about what happened, I wouldn’t survive the train ride. I’ll take a shortcut. You’ll come along, right?”

“Oh, right, teleportin’! Mighty handy thing! Almost forgot ya could do that,” Applejack said, the slightest shadow crossing over her eyes for a brief moment. They’d all sworn never to forget. But some things get murky over time, no matter how hard you tried.

In place of a reply came the popping sound of Twilight’s spell resolving …

… and the two reappeared in front of the palace entrance, bringing sudden excitement into what had been a quite ordinary day for the two members of the Royal Guard out front.

One of them didn’t stop looking wide-eyed at Twilight even after the initial shock had passed and they’d struggled back onto their hooves. Evidently he had recognized her. “Excuse me, ma’am, you wouldn’t happen to …”

Twilight nodded, adding a courteous bow. “Twilight Sparkle, kind sirs. She isn’t expecting me at this precise hour, but I believe the Princess would wish to see me right away.”

What Twilight didn’t know nor would ever find out (since the Royal Guard treats such things with quite military discretion) was that “If you find Twilight Sparkle, bring her straight to me” was a ten-year-old outstanding order of the highest priority, assigned by Celestia to every single branch of Equestrian governmental power. It had almost become a natural part of the initiation procedure for recruits accepted into full service, in fact, to receive and be briefed on that order right after completing their oath. “Finding Twilight Sparkle” had, over time, become a sort of byword for tasks that seemed futile, but by duty could not be abandoned. She had become more of a legend than an actual pony. Meeting her in person, now, was akin to meeting Canter Claus.

In the light of that, the royal guards at the entrance of the Palace on this particular day handled their duty admirably. “I sh-sh-shall escort you to the th-throne room,” the one who had recognized Twilight right away (he’d actually memorized her picture in that first briefing of his, being rather taken by the spirit of the thing) managed to declare.

“Well then,” Applejack said, “Ya’ll go on ahead. I’ll catch up with ya later.”

Twilight turned abruptly to look at her, suddenly struck with a pang of fear. But Applejack smiled and winked at her in a way that brought it to a swift end. She was still the same old Applejack - you could tell when she was telling the honest truth. And so Twilight was able to let go and leave her behind to enter the palace gate, escorted by the increasingly nervous guard.

Knock, knock.

Celestia looked up from important government documents that she’d put off reading for what felt like millennia, and silently rejoiced at the distraction. Nevertheless, there were protocols; during the one hour allocated every day for her paperwork, there were few things she was allowed to be disturbed for. It was the only way she got anything done. She briefly wondered what this particular interruption might be about, but then figured it was better to simply find out without delay. “Come in!”

When the door opened, she almost wished she’d left herself more time, because she couldn’t help but jump in surprise, losing the magical grip on her feather and spilling tiny drops of ink all over the latest weather report, when she saw her. Not very regal. But then, a moment later, she didn’t care.

As Twilight Sparkle slowly stepped into the room, Celestia rushed around the desk towards her, and when there was no distance left between them, they hugged fiercely in a way Twilight could barely remember they ever had. Maybe they hadn’t, and if they had, Twilight had been much younger then. It didn’t matter; it felt like the natural thing to do.

It wasn’t a long hug, all things considered, but by the time it was over, the door to Celestia’s study was closed and the two alone. The guard might have gotten the timetable wrong in the excitement (the throne room had been empty, quite embarrassing), but in this particular moment, he fulfilled his duty to the Princess with perfection.

“I cannot tell you how relieved I am to see you,” Celestia said in a calm and even voice, full of emotion regardless.

“I’m sorry you had to wait for so long,” Twilight said, “but I couldn’t modify the spell, just disrupt it. There was no other-”

“I know, Twilight. Many of Equestria’s best scientists have devoted much of their time to deciphering the events of ten years ago, and they’ve succeeded quite cleanly. It’s best we take things one after another, together, wouldn’t you agree?”

Twilight took a deep breath, and nodded, expression turned from touched and slightly teary-eyed to serious and attentive in a heartbeat.

“Merrok cast a spell - you disappeared. Your friends launched an attack - I believe Fluttershy struck him a particularly fierce blow-”

Twilight couldn’t help but flash a bright smile of pride.

“-and he finally found himself forced to keep them away from him using a barrier spell. He kept the spell up even as the Guard arrived, led by your brother, to take him into custody. Your brother deduced rather quickly based on Rainbow Dash’s - her being the closest to you at the time - account that Merrok had not actually killed you but somehow displaced you, and made the connection that Merrok was merely holding out under the barrier until you returned.” Celestia’s expression darkened as she paused. “He struggled to break the barrier - but he failed, time and time again, until the barrier broke on its own a couple of days later and Merrok was left unconscious, utterly depleted of energy. We never managed to revive him. We sent his body back to his homeland - learning of his name as a result - but to this day we do not know what exactly he was planning. Yet it was clear that what he’d been waiting for had not occured as he had wished. But you remained gone. Until today.” Celestia looked at Twilight, inquisitively.

She nodded. “I reappeared in Ponyville, maybe half an hour ago.”

“There was considerable magic residue left behind that could be analyzed. There had been no experts on lion sorcery in all of Equestrian history before, it being rather rare even in the distant realm of the lions, but of course, you had disappeared in an effort to save Ponyville itself. Much of the scientific community saw it as their duty to find out what happened to you and potentially even save you, and Luna and myself added our own efforts to theirs. In the end, we managed to reconstruct the spell. It bore striking similarities to the rare chronomantic spells we have stored in our libraries. There was plenty of unicorn magic energy among the residue as well, however, so we came to the conclusion you must have disrupted the spell at the very last moment with a magic burst of some kind. That is accurate, isn’t it?”

Twilight nodded. “I noticed similarities to a time travel spell I’d recently studied and realized it had a fixed target. I found no other way in time.”

Celestia gazed at her in a mixture of amazement and pride.

Twilight fidgeted, mildly blushing. “Erm, Princess? What is it … ?”

“It took us about a year of studying the residue and lion magic in general to even think it could have been time magic. I never suspected you knew after what surely couldn’t have been more than a second, just from studying time spells.”

Twilight looked down, scratching the floor with a hoof in embarrassment. “I kind of … did more than just study them. I used one. One of those that allow you to send messages in person to your former self.” She ducked, awaiting her due - at this point, long overdue - punishment.

Celestia blinked. “That wouldn’t happen to have been around that one day I met you in the Starswirl-the-Bearded wing in that strange getup?”

Twilight slowly opened one eye to look up at her. “... Yes,” she admitted, hesitantly.

“I always wondered why you never kept the hairstyle.” She smiled fondly at the memory.

“You’re not angry?”

Celestia shook her head. “I could never be angry at you for being curious. Though if you’d asked for my advice, you can definitely imagine it would have been that time magic can have very, very drastic consequences if mishandled and is best left alone. But in this case, the knowledge gained from having used the spell had a hand in saving you, so to some extent you proved me wrong, and I don’t take offense to that.” Celestia smiled, and warmed Twilight’s heart to the core, because that smile said everything about just how proud this particular teacher was of her student.

Sadly, that was over quickly, as a shadow fell on Celestia’s face. “I know you must be eager to rejoin your friends, so I will press on quickly.”

Twilight sighed and nodded. “Of course.”

“We could tell that you had disrupted the spell, but all signs also showed the spell actually took effect, and displaced you in time. What we could not tell was just how far. What we did eventually manage to do was trace back the time stream, and when we found the moment you disappeared, we actually detected that in that place the time stream itself was, for lack of a more descriptive term, bent.”

Twilight just stared, as Celestia was clearly expecting some sort of reaction to her dramatic finish. “What does that mean? How can you bend the time stream? Even its existence is merely theoretical,” she took on a thoughtful expression. “Or, was, ten years ago.”

“Precisely. Using divination magic we can now backtrace all points that were once the present - the past, for all intents and purposes - though we found it impossible to focus our perception. Imagine looking at our world from all directions at once, seeing everything at the same time; it would be too vast and too chaotic to tell anything specific apart. But we could tell that at that particular moment, and no other, the stream was shifted in a definite pattern. That moment was the very moment Merrok’s spell had taken effect. By taking something that very definitely existed and ripping it out, the time stream suddenly flowed in a different manner than before - since your no longer being, well, there changed what would happen from that point forward.”

Twilight adopted a thoughtful expression. “Alright. That sounds plausible. Though if the time stream is that hard to read, what makes you so sure you got all this right?”

“We tested it,” Celestia replied, matter-of-factly.

Twilight’s eyes grew wide. “Didn’t you just tell me time magic is best left alone?”

Celestia gave her an affectionate smile, and Twilight could see a glimpse of pain in her serene eyes. “For all we had found out, it was still a mystery when you’d re-enter the time stream, and we doubted we would ever solve it. For all we knew, it would take a hundred or a thousand years. We had to find out as much as we possibly could, just to maybe find a way to get you back sooner.” She smiled, and winked at Twilight. “That would be the other reason I didn’t scold you before. Some things are important enough that I will disregard my own advice.”

Twilight smiled, blushing, and nodded for Celestia to continue.

“We held the experiment in a controlled environment, using a simple non-living object - a weight - and placing it on a pressure plate, which while being pressed would obstruct the flow of water into a bucket. We cast Merrok’s spell, reconstructed to the best of our abilities, to displace the weight ten minutes into the future.” She paused, breathing in deeply. “It disappeared. Water started to flow. Ten minutes later, the weight was back, and the water stopped.”

“The spell worked,” Twilight said, nodding as she reconstructed the experiment in her head. She smiled inwardly. She could almost see how the scientists attending the experiment must have been relieved, having finally confirmed that Twilight would, in fact, eventually come back, even if they didn’t know the exact point.

Celestia just nodded, smiling, though there was less joy in it than Twilight would have expected.

“You employed the divination magic again, and found another bend in the time stream, which allowed you to confirm all parts of your theory.”

Again Celestia nodded, and smiled. “You’re still just as astute as I remember.”

Twilight blushed. She coughed and tried to recover her focus. “That’s actually pretty scary though. Every time the spell is cast, it causes a bend like that. That’s probably an excellent reason not to ever cast it again.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Celestia murmured and let out a sigh. “I’m not finished yet. Please pay especially close attention now, because this part is why I insisted you came to me as soon as possible, preferably without talking to anyone.”

The air in Celestia’s study suddenly became quite a bit harder to breathe. Twilight gulped, but sat, and listened.

“Shortly after our efforts to reconstruct Merrok’s original spell had begun, one of our especially dedicated scientists had devised a variation on it - more specifically, a theoretical counterspell.”

Astonishment overcame Twilight. Most counterspells worked by creating fields of anti-magic, or stronger magic, that would negate or overwhelm the crucial spell patterns of the target spell, thereby preventing them from taking effect. Twilight’s own last-ditch magic burst had been what experts would term a partial practical counterspell, since it had not prevented the spell effect entirely, but altered it, and done so by altering the spell’s pattern. Spells that could not only disrupt a spell’s intended effect, but actually undo the entire spell, however, required a vastly different approach; they had to retrace the changes to reality made by the original spell and reverse them with exact precision. Such spells were called theoretical counterspells, because every spell in existence had to have one - in theory. They were fiendishly hard to craft even with a write up of the original spell at hand. It seemed almost impossible that one was made for a spell that was undocumented in its original version and was based on lion magic.

Celestia coughed. Twilight broke out of her stupor. “Now that we had determined we had successfully reconstructed Merrok’s spell, it was time to test that theoretical counterspell. So we did.”

“What happened?” Twilight asked, breathlessly. There were all sorts of implications there. Undoing the spell would arguably have to undo all changes made to the time stream. But surely that was utterly impossible. It was hard enough to believe that a spell would exist that could break time itself - how could there be a spell that would unbreak it?

“The bucket was empty.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Because now the weight was never gone in the first place, and there could never have been a water flow.”

“Exactly. But there’s more. Here is the experiment protocol. It was kept by my research assistant.”

Twilight looked at a small, tidy notebook that Celestia had pulled out of the bottom drawer of her desk. Her horn glowed as she turned and studied the pages. The experiment setup was described in exhaustive detail, as well as its components and objective; and finally, a close account of the exact events as the experiment was undertaken.

Everything matched Celestia’s retelling, of course … right on through the spellcasting. It was woven without a hitch, by these accounts, and Twilight could tell the similarities to what she’d felt when she’d been close enough to observe the spell being cast. The way the white fire swirled around her - just about the same happened to that weight. Yes, they’d definitely got the spell right. Celestia had said as much.

Her eyes stumbled. “Particles vanish as expected in the resolving of the spell. Test object remains present,” it said there, in somewhat shaky handwriting, which when compared to the neatness of the rest was evidence of great exasperation on part of the writer. The book went on to protocol not only the examination of all components for possible, unexpected faults - anything to salvage the experiment in some way, even though it was clear from the also documented reactions of the scientists on scene that none could find any explanation for why the spell had failed, even though by all appearances it had resolved just as planned.

Finally, she looked up, to stare at Celestia in confusion - though the beginning of the truth started to piece itself together as she looked into that grave expression of hers. It hadn’t come as much of a surprise to her that the unicorn tasked with casting both the reconstructed time displacement spell of Merrok’s and its theoretical counterspell, according to the book, had been Celestia herself - but the book had been strangely silent on her reactions to the experiment’s failure, hadn’t it?

Twilight’s expression slowly cleared up, and her eyes grew wider as her thoughts raced, and she found herself saying it as she understood, in an excited whisper. “Undoing a spell that manipulates time makes it so the spell was never cast in the first place. The theoretical counterspell worked - it placed the object back where it belonged, undid the bending of the time stream - and as a result, nothing untoward ended up happening at all - it just seemed like the spell didn’t work.”

Celestia simply nodded.

“I don’t understand. You just told me everything that originally happened as if you’d been there. How did you still know it?”

“I didn’t and still don’t, actually, Twilight. All memories about the spell successfully resolving were gone - because it never happened. There is also no longer, or that is to say, there never was a second bend in the time stream. Everything I told you before - it wasn’t recollection. It’s, in fact, little more than fiction.”

Twilight blinked, and ruffled through her mane with her hooves in exasperation. “But... How?!” was all she managed to articulate.

Celestia went behind her desk and opened her bottom drawer again, then placed a small letterweight taken out of it on the desk, right in front of Twilight to see. A flash of Celestia’s horn later, Twilight could see something painted on it, clear as day; a tiny golden C. “I found this mark on the weight. As you’ve noticed just now, it’s obscured; ponies other than me cannot normally see it. I know this because the magic of the mark is my own.”

Twilight thought for a moment, trying to decipher the relevance of the event. Her eyes widened when she succeeded. “But you don’t remember ever making it.”

“Exactly.”

“And it appeared the moment the spell was supposed to take effect?”

Celestia nodded, smiling as she watched the wheels turn in her student’s mind. It felt a bit like watching a Wonderbolts Derby.

“The object of Merrok’s time displacement spell is removed from reality at one point in time and put back in at another, into the future. The theoretical counterspell will do the same, in reverse, to put the object back where it belongs in the time stream, into the past. That’s all it’ll do, though, because it’s just the counterspell to the original spell. Everything that happened to the object will stick, because every time the time stream is changed, it’s not in the time stream.” Twilight nodded in understanding. “You must’ve made the mark before you cast the counterspell.”

“Whether I, or my alternative self, made the mark on a hunch or because I or she realized what would happen, I cannot say. Either way, there is an important question to ask. What if the object of the time displacement spell is not a non-living object?”

“The counterspell will undo the displacement - but it would bring that pony back in the state it was at the time of the counterspell, not the original spell.” Twilight had seemed fairly sure while she was saying it - it was perfectly logical, after all - but she still eyed Celestia expectantly.

And there it was. The moment she grasped all the reasons. The reason Celestia had wanted her to come instantly. The reason it had been so important to tell her all of this as quickly as possible. The reason there was no mention in the official experiment protocol of Celestia telling anypony about the mark - she’d always kept that to herself. The reason Celestia now looked at her with those sorrowful eyes. And of course, she also grasped the implications, and the implications of those implications.

There was a decision to be made.

A decision of tremendous impact. One that, at a rather emotionally loaded first glance, didn’t seem hard to make at all. “Well, we can’t possibly do that! I mean, it’s been ten years. What right do I have … I’m not even going to ask rhetorical questions, what am I doing? I don’t have the right. You didn’t tell me this because you’re seriously considering …” Twilight, who’d been pacing through the room ranting, caught Celestia’s eyes for a moment, and stopped. The Princess still looked sorrowful, and she still didn’t say anything, but her emotions were on full display. There was so much compassion - she knew exactly what was going through Twilight’s mind at the moment, and on some level, Twilight was both calmed and even more unnerved when she realized Celestia was waiting for her to grasp everything on her own pace. She was seriously considering it. And what’s more, she was waiting for Twilight to do so, too.

Well. It was time to spell it out. Maybe pointing at the elephant in the room would help snap Celestia back to sanity. Or herself. “Princess Celestia, even supposing it’s true that we could cast the counterspell to place me back and restore the original time stream, it would mean that everything that happened in the last ten years was undone. Everything that happened - for everyone. All of Equestria. The entire world. The universe. All of existence.” She paused to take a deep breath. “I don’t have the right!”

Celestia calmly shook her head. “I don’t agree, Twilight. What about the timeline as it should have been? Doesn’t it have a right to exist as well? If anything, a greater right? And what about you? You were forcibly displaced from your own time, Twilight. Don’t you have a right to experience your life as it should have been?”

“I’m not that important!” Twilight insisted. “As far as you’ve told me, the entire situation was defused before anyone was harmed. There is no guarantee that it would turn out that way if I went back.”

Celestia pointed at the mark. “Remember, the mark stayed as the letterweight was displaced back in its original spot in the time stream. It follows that any mark left on you would also remain. You’d remember everything I told you, and everything else you can find out in this time line about Merrok, his spell and magic, to defeat him. It would simply be a matter of preparation.”

A chill went through Twilight’s spine all the way to the back of her head. Suddenly, she was back on the central plaza in Ponyville on that fateful day. She saw the crackling sky, and she felt the fear. Fear not just for herself, but everyone. She had been the centerpiece of Merrok’s plan. His preparation. Going back meant not just having to face him again; it meant giving him a second chance to succeed; to do whatever it was he had been planning to do with his amplified power.

Twilight blinked. She hadn’t heard Celestia talk about it, now that she thought about it. Perhaps that was because she’d been too busy pushing the memories out of her mind. Had she even told her about this? “Princess, have you by any chance found out just why Merrok was interested in me?”

Celestia shook her head, a bit puzzled at the apparently sudden change of topic. “Like I said, we never managed to wake him.”

It wasn’t easy for Twilight, agitated as she was, to delve back into her mind and tell Celestia the details of the confrontation, even though those memories were still fresh, but tell she did. Celestia was fascinated, having many of her ten-year-old questions answered. Though while Twilight knew what specific interest she held for Merrok as an amplifier for lion magic, she couldn’t relate anything about Merrok’s ultimate goals. There were so many uses for power, and then there were power-hungry souls who wanted to obtain as much as they could just for the sake of it.

“But whatever it is he wants, I’m part of it. If I go back, there’s a chance he might get it after all,” Twilight said firmly, “and if I don’t, there isn’t. It’s as simple as that.”

Celestia just looked at her for a few very long seconds, clearly thinking hard and carefully. Finally, she spoke. “Very well. It is, after all, your decision. If you change your mind, find me.”

“My decision?” Twilight repeated, stunned. Somehow, she had been holding onto the conviction that Celestia would decide for her after all.

“You were displaced out of your own time through no fault of your own. We have the means to undo that, and it’s your right to. It’s entirely up to you.”

Twilight shook her head. “But if I fail, the world will be a worse place for it, and I would be responsible.” She stood tall, and looked Celestia straight in the eye. “I can’t do it.”

Celestia looked back. There was a brief pause until she answered, calmly but firmly, not smiling, but with no trace of anger in her voice. “It will be the world as it was supposed to be, either way. Is there a risk that things could turn out for the worse if you decide to go back? Yes, of course. But they could turn out for the better, too, and it’s entirely up to you to decide what’s more likely, and more important. You’re allowed to be selfish. Think about it for as long as you have to, Twilight. Thinking is what separates courage from recklessness, and carefulness from cowardice.”

Twilight felt the sting in those words, even though Celestia made sure to show her deep affection in her expression while saying them. Her eyes turned towards the floor; it was impossible to untangle the knots in her heart in short order. On some level, she was angry at Celestia for dismissing what she had been adamant was her final decision on the matter - and she felt guilty, because she slowly realized her mentor had hit the nail on the head. Whenever she tried to weigh the options - whether or not she could in fact stop Merrok once she got back - she hit a wall. She didn’t want to go back. She was too scared. He was still a lion, with his fangs, standing much too close for anyone’s comfort, especially hers, threatening to eat her alive - and she’d still prefer to be eaten rather than allow him to use her like he planned.

And on the other hand, it didn’t seem like she had much reason to take any risk. Displaced out of her time or not - the future seemed decent enough. Her friends were all still there, and there was so much new to see and learn about - ten years worth of scientific progress and Daring Do books to catch up on. It would be a bit weird at first, sure, but all changes felt that way. She’d get used to it, wouldn’t she?

Celestia, joint ruler of all Equestria, couldn’t resist a chuckle as she watched her student lose herself in thought completely, right in the middle of her study. Twilight heard it and looked up, blushing and smiling nervously. “The matter is concluded for now, my dear student,” she declared in an affectionate tone. Then she suddenly broke eye contact and looked past Twilight’s shoulder, faking bemusement. “And I believe I heard a bit of commotion outside. Would you be kind enough to check that out for me?”

Puzzled, Twilight turned around. There was nothing whatsoever unusual about the door to the study, and no sound to be heard. But of course, she herself hadn’t been paying attention. If Celestia had said it, though … Either way, first she should obey proper etiquette in her departing. She turned back around and performed a deep bow. “Thank you, your Majesty.”

She felt a shoed hoof under her chin gently lift her back up, to find Celestia looking at her, shaking her head, with a kind smile on her face - and moist eyes. “Thank you, Twilight Sparkle.”

Chapter 2

When she closed the door behind her and looked down the hallway, she saw them, engaged in very casual, hushed chatter a perfectly sensible distance from the study away, giving off a very distinct impression that they’d spent their time doing what they were doing for quite some time now, and that definitely none of them had done anything untoward for the environment they were in, particularly not eavesdrop. Twilight couldn’t help picking up on that, but before she had a chance to become suspicious she was spotted.

Pinkie Pie was first; she hugged her long-lost friend in almost a strangling fashion and then lifted her up in the air with an exuberance that turned the lift into a toss. Twilight briefly feared for her life as she saw the ground rushing on, but her other friends had quickly formed a circle and prepared their hooves to catch them in their midst. The ensuing rough-and-tumble group hug was accompanied by many tears, much laughter and several instances of Twilight trying desperately to breathe and failing. Pain had never been easier to endure.

Eventually Twilight was released for the sake of her own health. She still had tears in her eyes and tried to wink them away to catch a good glimpse around. They really were there. Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack. She’d needed them so much.

Applejack crossed her legs and held her head high. “Told ya I’d catch up! Managed to round all of these guys up, too, thought ya wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh Applejack, of course not! How did you all make it here so fast?” Twilight asked, still tears in her eyes and looking around ever so slightly in disbelief.

“Well, I had a courier sent for these two here, since they live in Canterlot anyway. Figured they’d have the shortest route. Still managed to be dead last, though.” Applejack eyed Rarity accusingly.

An eyebrow was raised in response. “Why are you looking at me, dear?”

“Well, what was it that took ya so long, then? Sure it wasn’t yer makeup needing prissyin’ up or somesuch?” Twilight’s joy was a bit dulled, but she let out a breath of relief when she saw the poorly-suppressed smiles on Applejack’s and Rarity’s faces. They’d come a long, long way since that sleepover.

“As a matter of fact, I had my boutique locked up and a notice for my canceled appointments posted on the door in a matter of minutes. It was Pinkie Pie’s fault. She insisted on trying to get that party cannon of hers past security! Took us ages to talk her out of it!”

“Yup! Sorry! We still made it in time though! And guess what!” she yelled, producing a bright pink instrument of artillery warfare with balloons painted on the barrel from seemingly out of nowhere. “We can totally get this party started at a moment’s notice!”

Rarity just stared at the contraption like she’d seen a ghost. “But! You left that at security!”

“I never leave home without my spare party cannon!”

“But ... Where did you ... How … Whaaa?!”

“Movin’ right along,” Applejack rose her voice and looked in Rainbow Dash’s general direction, who simply rose an eyebrow. “Rainbow Dash got my message through the magical telegraph at the Cloudsdale Wonderbolt Academy, and …”

Rainbow Dash coughed in an interrupting manner. “How did I make it here so fast? That’s a pretty dumb question to ask me of all ponies, don’t you think?”

“Right. Sorry ‘bout that. As for Fluttershy, ‘parently Sweetie Belle told ‘er ya came back and went to Canterlot with me, and she flew right on over. Actually was th’ first one to get ‘ere.”

Fluttershy just smiled at that, blushing a little. “I’m glad it’s okay that I came without being asked to. If it’s okay. I mean, if it isn’t okay, then I’m sorry,” she frowned briefly, but smiled again, “but not very much.”

“As for mahself,” Applejack said, “while I got done rounding ‘em up, I also secured ourselves a conference room to use down that hallway, where we should probably go now so we don’t keep on causin’ a ruckus out ‘ere.”

Of course, the staff kept all places within palace grounds in perfect condition and readiness. The comfiest cushions and benches were arranged in a circle, not a wrinkle out of place, with an array of exquisite bottles of soda, juice, and the finest sparkling water next to every seat. Two magnificent oil paintings decorated the rear wall, and between them stood a bust of Straight Mantle, one of the first presidents of the Equestrian Royal Council, responsible for creating most of its rules of protocol still in effect to that day. It was all so pristine that Twilight actually hesitated when she came in. Rationally, she knew that every room in the castle was there to be used. But they were just six friends wanting to catch up on each other. Was it really appropriate for them to…

There was a bang, and several whistles and at least one quacking noise, and streamers, confetti and bonbons in a multitude of colors were slung all over the place. As if by providence of some kind, there was one pink-white striped cone-shaped party hat mixed in the payload, and it managed to end up just slightly crooked on Straight Mantle’s monocled marble visage.

“Pinkie Pie!” Rarity exclaimed, annoyed, “We can’t have a party just yet! There’s still so much to talk about!”

“I know, I’m sorry! Couldn’t resist!” Pinkie replied, giggling. She didn’t sound very sorry.

Twilight just stared at the mayhem, then chuckled. So much for that. Might as well use the room now that they’d ruined it.

While they all placed their haunches on a party-favor-laden bench, Twilight couldn’t help but study her friends as best as she could. Like Applejack, none of them looked all that different. Neither Rarity nor Pinkie Pie, in fact, looked a single hair older than she remembered. Fluttershy was a bit leaner, but still kind and serene as she’d always been. While she was athletic as always, Rainbow Dash’s facial features seemed to have hardened a bit; though that went away when she smiled or laughed, as she had done when Pinkie had exasperated Rarity with the reveal of her spare party cannon.

It didn’t look or feel like ten years had passed between when she’d seen them last and now. Not in the least. But that was just Twilight’s perspective - a natural one to default to since, for her, there had been no ten years. “You’ve got to tell me everything!” she blurted out after everyone had settled. “Celestia told me all about Merrok, what happened to you? What have you been up to? What are you doing now? I want to know everything!”

The language of expressions as her friends shared looks with each other was quite vivid and easy to read. ‘So, which one of y’all gonna go first?’ said Applejack’s. ‘Oh my goodness! Not me!’ said Fluttershy’s. ‘As a lady, I would not dream of hogging the spotlight like that,’ said Rarity’s. ‘Your faces are all so funny! Look at mine, look at mine!’, said Pinkie’s, and Rainbow Dash just rolled her eyes and finally spoke up.

“Well, first we gave that Merrok a vicious beating like you wouldn’t believe. Not sure if Celestia told you all the details, so I want it on the record I hit him square in the jaw twice and gave him at least one really good kick to the stomach. One time he tried to run, so I took a dive at him from the air and slammed him to the ground with a full bodycheck.” She threw out her chest with pride. “One does not simply run from Rainbow Danger Dash.”

“That one time he had ya pinned down pretty good though,” Applejack said with an innocent look. “Like he might just slice yer head off.”

Rainbow Dash just grinned. “Oh yeah, I remember.”

“Looked pretty scared there, didn’t ya?”

“Of course I looked scared. Had to keep him complacent while you ran up for your kick, right?”

Applejack snickered. “That was dang good actin’ then.”

“It was also a dang good kick.”

“Mighty kind o’ ya.”

“And right when he was trying to get back up from that, I think that was when Pinkie arrived with the bowling balls disguised as pies.”

Pinkie didn’t comment, but giggled at the memory.

Applejack nodded. “Dodged ‘em all after the first one, but it kept him on his paws.”

“What about his spells?” Twilight asked.

“Never cast one,” Applejack said.

“I think he tried,” Rainbow Dash added, “but I think he never managed to concentrate enough. I think having Rarity’s teeth clamped on his tail the entire time didn’t help.”

Twilight’s eyes widened and she stared at her unicorn friend, who inspected her hooves for imperfections at this very moment as if the conversation didn’t concern her. When she caught Twilight’s glance, she sighed. “Well, yes. It was the first thing I could think of, and he tried so hard to get rid of me I figured that if he was in so much pain, there really was no reason to release him from it.”

“Why would the first thing you think of be to bite his tail?” asked Pinkie Pie with a completely serious expression, startling the entire room (except for a slightly embarassed Rarity), though things were set right again, after a fashion, when she slowly rose a pipe to her snout and thoughtfully blew into it, producing tiny bubbles.

Rarity shot Pinkie an unamused raised eyebrow. “I might not have kept my composure to utmost perfection in the heat of the moment. There are limits, even for a lady. You will notice that even when a lady is forced into somewhat violent action, she restricts it to the strictly necessary, and she does not gloat about it.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

“Strictly necessary, huh?” Applejack repeated with a smirk.

“Oh, of course! Every. Single. Tiny. Morsel. Of agony.” Her eyes went murderous for a split-second. As a shiver went down the spine of everypony present, Rarity allowed herself a refined cough. “I do not think we need to dwell on my modest contribution to the villain’s just punishment. You did most of the work, after all. And then there was Fluttershy.”

The pegasus, who had looked increasingly uncomfortable during the retelling of that day’s events, yelped and hid under her mane and hooves. Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie just nodded sagely.

“Can’t really describe it better than that,” added Rainbow. “I actually almost felt sorry for him. Right after that, he put up the barrier.”

“Yeah. Shining Armor almost went mad tryin’ to break it down, but …”

Twilight waved her hooves to stop a pained-looking Applejack from having to retell that particular part. “I know all about that from Celestia. Just tell me, what have you all been doing since then, other than waiting for me to come back?” She looked at Pinkie Pie and Rarity. “If I understood right, you both live in Canterlot?”

“Better than that! We’re neighbors!” exclaimed Pinkie, clearly ecstatic, bouncing over then hugging the white unicorn tightly to emphasize their wonderful connection.

“Yes, that we are,” Rarity mumbled, clearly not ecstatic. Once she’d dislodged herself from Pinkie’s grasp, she took it upon herself to elaborate. “As my reputation grew, I decided to move my boutique to Canterlot, to be easier to find and so I could participate in Canterlot high society in a more regular fashion. Pinkie threw me a party for the opening, and in some manner I cannot divine it henceforth became the standard all other Canterlotian parties would be judged by. Suddenly she was showered in requests to organize Pinkie-style parties all over the place.”

Pinkie giggled. “They took some warming up, but Canterlot ponies are absolutely amazing partiers!”

“Of course, then I heard that Pinkie was throwing the parties for free and paying for party favors out of her own pocket, so I had to intervene.” Rarity still didn’t show an inch of mirth. “Now she has a thriving business right next to my boutique. She sells all manners of party supplies, books with party tips and instructions she writes herself and which apparently have been translated into eight languages, including griffon, and of course she’s available as an organizer for hire, for a stately sum. She makes more money than I do.”

“Don’t be silly, Rarity! You always get half of everything!” Pinkie exclaimed happily.

“I know, and you’re a lunatic!” Rarity snapped at her, her patience finally having worn thin. “I keep telling you, I only wanted to start you off with some capital! You were supposed to buy back my shares once the profits started flowing! What happened to the letter I sent you last week?!”

“What letter?”

“I was offering them at a tenth of their current worth! Just what do I have to do to get you to make a sensible business decision on this one thing? I know you have the acumen! I heard you managed to get your publisher to outright double your salary and profit share for your new book. He was in bed for days after the negotiations!”

Pinkie giggled. “Oh, I remember! That was a good after-negotiation party.”

“Just tell me, how far down do I have to go? Would you take them as a gift?”

“Nope!”

“But why?!”

“Because I love sharing! I want to be business partners with you forever!”

“Celestia lend me strength,” Rarity whispered. “Pinkie, that’s sweet of you, but I don’t know what to even do with all that money anymore! The director of the orphanage association wrote me that they couldn’t accept my latest check because every single orphan is just one rung removed from living in luxury by now. The university wrote me that the pony pox are completely eradicated. Every single rickety bridge I could find in the land is completely renovated and painted bright pink! Ugh! I’ve actually had to hire ponies to research charities! To spend your money!”

Pinkie just beamed.

“And you’re completely okay with this!”

Pinkie nodded, still beaming.

“Which means I have to start squandering it all like a madpony to make you finally take your shares back!” Rarity exclaimed in sudden elation.

“You would do that?” asked Pinkie innocently.

Rarity’s mood dropped again in an instant. “Oh, shut up.”

Twilight finally couldn’t resist cracking up any longer. Applejack and Rainbow Dash smirked openly, and Fluttershy couldn’t resist a dainty giggle either. Hearing her friends laugh also managed to break down Rarity’s front, and she blushed and smiled herself. When the laughter had died down a bit, she cleared her throat in a ladylike fashion. “Be that as it may, I have been enjoying quite some success of my own. I have designed outfits for just about every member of high society of note and my shows number among the biggest fashion events of the year. I am insanely busy, but I’m lucky to have apprenticed several exceptionally talented students of fashion who take a lot of work off my hooves, and I like to think they learn a lot from me in return.”

“I’m absolutely certain they do, Rarity!” Twilight said with earnest admiration. “I’m so happy for you!”

“I’m quite happy myself, my dear, especially now that you’re back,” Rarity said, smiling brightly. Then her eyes went watery, and there was a slight tug in her features - and all of a sudden, the years were there, plain to see. A ten-year-old pain and the heavy heart they built. Then Rarity wiped her eyes with a swift motion of a hoof, and it was gone again - she went back to being the Rarity she’d always known, who hadn’t aged a day. Or at least she would have, if Twilight hadn’t paid attention.

But that was fine. Twilight knew that none of her friends could have made it through ten years without changing in some way. What she needed to know, needed to find out, was how well they made it. If they had found happiness. And Rarity and Pinkie Pie were unimaginably happy, living close to one another and doing what they loved for a living, letting others share in their joy. There was no such thing as a perfect life, but they had something close to it, and Twilight was relieved to know it.

“What about you, Rainbow Dash?” she asked. “Applejack said you were at the Wonderbolt Academy. You did make the Wonderbolts then, I take it?”

“With flying colors, Twilight. What do you think?” Rainbow laughed. “I’m record winner in several of the big Wonderbolt Derbies, I hold the all-time speed world record of, if I remember the dude from the Academic Society correctly, ‘every living thing that has ever flown we know of’, and most of the moves taught in the highest level flying classes are moves I invented.” She stuck out her chest. “You are actually looking at the current Captain of the 1st Wonderbolts and this year’s instructor of the Wonderbolt cadets.”

“Oh, so that’s what you were doin’. I got this return telegraph about how you were currently in class and they’d contact you but not promise anythin’, and then a second remindin’ me to remind ya to send another telegram with the order to stop.” Applejack scratched her head looking at the note in her hoof. “Don’t say to stop what.”

Rainbow Dash furrowed her brows and looked at her hoofwatch. “Meh. They can do laps for another half hour at least.”

“Anyway, what she ain’t told ya yet is that she’s received the Equestrian Medal of Courage twice for savin’ up to several thousand lives by dissolving massive storms comin’ in from the Everfree, almost all on her lonesome,” Applejack said, glancing affectionately at Rainbow, who grew uncomfortable.

“Had nothing to do with courage. Anypony would’ve done it,” she mumbled.

“Ya still were the one who did it.”

“Only because I had the wingpower for the maneuver. I had to order all my wingponies back several times before they listened, because they all had the courage, too, just not the wingpower. I shouldn’t have gotten a medal for it when they didn’t. They should have made a wingpower medal if they wanted to give me something that much.”

Applejack blinked and now looked more concerned. “Still a sore spot? I thought they all got medals, too, after you protested.”

“After I protested,” Rainbow grumbled, then sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s the principle of the thing. They fixed it okay. I just don’t like to mention it.”

“I’m mighty sorry then for mentionin’. I thought Twilight would wanna know, is all,” Applejack said, apologetic.

Twilight had grown increasingly uncomfortable during Applejack’s and Rainbow’s exchange, after she’d realized that Applejack had touched on something that Rainbow didn’t like to talk about. She’d listened intently, to find out just what was going on between two friends of hers, but she’d felt bad about it, too - because it felt like she was intruding - eavesdropping, essentially - on something that didn’t concern her. And now Applejack had all but said so outright - that she’d mentioned something personal about Rainbow Dash that Twilight wasn’t supposed to hear. It stung, deep - to feel excluded.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes went wide all of a sudden. She turned to look at Twilight. Maybe she realized what was going on or maybe she didn’t, but the words couldn’t have rushed out of her mouth faster if she’d tried. “Nonono, that’s okay! Twilight can know! Twilight should know everything!” she blurted out, gesticulating wildly.

Twilight felt relief wash over her, and the sting was gone. Left behind was only a bit of unease. She’d hear and come to know a lot about those ten years, but never everything.

Was that truly the important thing, though? It was clear Rainbow Dash still thought of her as a friend, and still wanted to share everything with her. The same was true for all the others - Twilight was sure of that. If it was hard for her to adapt to them having lived ten years without her, how hard did it have to be for them to adapt to her being back after those ten years?

“Well, um. I think you got the gist of it, Twilight. Everything else, I’d have to show you. Some of the tricks I can do will blow your mind.”

“What does it feel like, being a Wonderbolt?”

“It feels great. It’s a whole lot of work, but I love every second of it,” Rainbow said, proudly sticking out her chest.

“What about you, Applejack?” Twilight asked. “You’re still on the farm, aren’t you? I couldn’t imagine you anywhere else.”

“Me neither!” Applejack laughed, “Fully plannin’ on growin’ old there! It’s a bit bigger now than you might remember. Had a couple good years, and some smart business moves, and some good fortune. Didn’t hafta re-raise the barn in years, which helped. Got some employees workin’ full-time to help me and my brother out, ‘specially since Applebloom left to do her own thing. Shoot, Twilight, I can’t possibly do it justice. Ya gotta come out with me so I can show ya ev’rythin’.”

“Definitely. Fluttershy, what about you?” Twilight asked, realizing that Fluttershy hadn’t said a word of anything since they’d entered the conference room.

“Oh, it’s all fine!” Fluttershy said, beaming.

“You’re still in Ponyville, right? Still at the cottage and taking care of animals?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Uh-huh!”

While Twilight wondered about the next question to ask, Rainbow Dash smacked her forehead with a hoof and suddenly took to the air, swooping down next to her shy pegasus friend. “She’s also Professor honoris causa Fluttershy, Equestria’s foremost expert on animal psychology and healthcare!” she exclaimed proudly.

Twilight’s eyes became saucers. Fluttershy blushed and looked at the floor. Rainbow Dash snickered. “Come on, we both know you’d never gotten around to telling her on your own!”

“You should visit one of her lectures at the Royal University some time,” Rarity said, happily. “You have never seen a larger room full of people this quiet. Several hundred students of animal care from all over the land, straining to understand Fluttershy speak! If you let a pin drop in there, you’d burst eardrums!”

“... I’ve gotten better,” Fluttershy mumbled. A little smile snuck its way onto her face. “They’re such wonderful students. One of them made a sign saying ‘Louder’ that he held up when it got too bad. I was really grateful. He must have gotten in trouble over it, because in the next lecture he had a black eye and it said ‘Louder, please!’ instead. Twilight, what’s wrong?”

What was wrong indeed? Twilight tried to get the tears to stop gathering. “I’m just so proud! A professor!” She fiddled with her hooves. “Do you get to meet other professors?”

Fluttershy nodded. “There are dinners, sometimes. I get invitations. I usually go with Rarity, if I can find someone for the animals. They’re all really nice and very polite, even though I never went to university myself.”

“Have you met … Shimmervale the Magnificent?”

Fluttershy nodded, and was a bit taken aback at Twilight’s sudden squealing. Rarity nudged her excitable unicorn friend sharply in the side to snap her back to reality. “Sorry.”

“I think that’s really all about me now, though. I’m really happy that I get to help so many animals, every day, by teaching what I know. And I’m really, really happy that you’re back. I’ve missed you so, so much.”

And now the tears were everywhere, because Fluttershy hadn’t really been speaking for just herself anymore. All of them had started looking at Twilight, and with their eyes they all agreed. They’d waited ten years for her to come back, and now that she was, they were whole again.

Twilight tried to clear her sight and calm down enough to talk. Eventually, she succeeded. “What about Cadance and Shining Armor? Are they doing well?”

Rarity giggled. “Oh, they are! Cadance is still ruling the Crystal Ponies, though Shining has temporarily resigned from his commission as Captain of the Royal Guard to take care of the foals.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Twilight exclaimed. She blinked, and blinked again. “Wait, foals? Their foals?”

Rarity nodded, smiling her brightest smile.

“Shiny’s a dad?!” A pause. “I’m an AUNT?!”

Her friends smiled as Twilight went crazy with glee, bouncing around the room. That was a well-executed surprise indeed.

“If you want, Twilight, I’ll take the entire rest of the day off and accompany you on the train to the Crystal Empire personally!” Rarity announced.

“I’m comin’ along, if’n ya don’t mind,” Applejack added. “Been wanting to visit the place again for ages.”

“Ooh! Me me me!”

Twilight laughed. “Oh, girls! I’d love to! I can’t wait to meet them!”

Think about it for as long as you have to, Twilight.

Her mood darkened. She slowly trotted back to her seat and lowered herself down.

She looked around into worried faces. Everypony could tell something was wrong. And if Twilight was honest with herself, she hadn’t tried to hide it. Celestia might not have told her friends anything about what happened, or at least not the full story, but she also hadn’t ordered Twilight to keep it a secret from them. They were her friends - she trusted all of them completely. They could know, and they should know. Maybe they could help her find out what she had to do.

And she had to talk about this with them now. Once she actually visited her nieces and nephews, once she had faces to connect them with, that would settle the entire thing. There just would be no way she could bring herself to use the counterspell then. She had to make her decision before she got too attached to the timeline she was currently experiencing.

“If seeing just one little foal is enough to keep you from casting the counterspell, maybe that’s a hint that you shouldn’t be considering it in the first place,” a tiny nagging voice in her head said. She shook her head. Yes, there was a chance that everyone born between now and ten years ago would not have been born in the original time stream. But there was an equal chance, at least, that someone had not been born who would have. Like Celestia had said, both of those time streams had an equal right to exist. That was what made the decision so hard in the first place.

She shook her head. Her friends had been waiting long enough for her to say something.

She took a deep breath, and paused. She breathed out again. “Rainbow Dash, you should probably send that telegram now. We’ll be talking about this for a while.”

Chapter 3

“And that’s how it is. If Celestia casts the counterspell, the original timestream will be restored. I will be back where I left, right in front of Merrok, with all the knowledge I have obtained while I’ve been in this future. No matter what happens then, it will create a different timeline, and the one you live in will no longer exist.”

Everypony present had followed Twilight’s recounting of her meeting with Celestia without uttering a sound. It was clear that while Celestia had told them about Twilight’s displacement in time, reassuring them she would eventually come back, she indeed had told them nothing that concerned the counterspell.

Two ponies were the first to speak, at basically the same time.

“You have to do it!” declared Rainbow Dash.

“You can’t do it!” yelled Fluttershy.

Everypony looked at Fluttershy first, startled because she also had happened to be the louder of the two, and while the sudden attention gave her a bit of a fright at first, she quickly regained her determination. “We finally have you back! We can’t give that terrible lion another chance to win! We don’t know just what kind of magic he still has in store! He might just use the same spell again!”

“He will be caught off guard! Twilight will be prepared! And we’ll catch up to the two in time and give him the same beating we did before! We pretty much defeated him with just the five of us, with Twilight there he’s withered grass!”

“Don’t forget that Twilight herself is a source of magical power while in his presence,” Rarity interjected. “It might not be so easy to give him any sort of beating if she’s still there.”

“Well, he did tell Twilight th’ amplification effect works both ways an’ such,” Applejack said, eyebrows furrowed in thought. “I guess it’d all depend on what she’s got in store. I’d wager there’s a good number of anti-power-crazed-lion spells just waitin’ to be invented.”

“Thank you, Applejack!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed triumphantly.

“‘Course, no matter what, there’s still a risk.”

Rainbow groaned and stomped a hoof. “I know that! And I know that sometimes risks are worth taking!”

“But not this one!” Fluttershy spoke up. Twilight, who was watching the fight a mixture of surprise, dread and sadness, was amazed at just how loudly she did so. She’d seen her like this precisely once, when she had been arguing on Discord’s behalf during his redemption. “Merrok’s plans were foiled! No one died! And Twilight is back! We should be grateful everything turned out alright!”

Suddenly, now that there was a slight pause in the argument, the room was filled with the much quieter sound of tears. The heat died down, and everypony’s heads turned to where it was coming from.

Pinkie Pie lay flat on her cushion, head buried in her forelegs, and sobbed.

“I’m so sorry for yelling,” whispered Fluttershy, heartbroken. Rainbow Dash hurried over to her and gave her a gentle smack upside the head, then wrapped her forelegs around her while they both looked anxiously at Pinkie.

“Pinkie, darling? Whatever is the matter?” Rarity asked worriedly, herself on the verge of tears.

“I just,” Pinkie sniffed loudly, “I just thought about our next party.”

Twilight was the tiniest bit relieved that the glances the others exchanged with each other and her showed they were just as confused by that explanation as she was. She was also relieved that they were also exchanging glances with her in the first place.

“Why would thinking of your next party make you sad?” Fluttershy asked.

Twilight was overcome with a pang of guilt. “Is it … because if I cast the counterspell, I wouldn’t be able to be there?”

Pinkie stopped sobbing, rose her head and looked at Twilight with a raised eyebrow, still tearful. “No, silly, if you cast the counterspell, our timeline would no longer exist, so I couldn’t hold a party in the first place. Didn’t you listen?”

Twilight blinked. “You’re right, sorry. Anyway, I promise there will be a party, no matter what, so you don’t have to be sad!”

Pinkie blew her nose into a handkerchief with a PP monogram. “I know, silly. Celestia won’t be able to cast her counterspell thing over night and you will be staying a while even if you decide to do it, for research and things. More than enough time to have a party with you. It’s just …” her eyes got watery again, “I had to think about all the parties … you missed!” she cried out and burst into tears anew.

Glances were exchanged again. This time, they didn’t exchange confusion, but compassion. Rarity caressed Pinkie with a hoof to try and calm her down. Fluttershy pressed her head against Rainbow’s coat to seek comfort, and Applejack just tilted her hat downwards to hide her eyes.

Twilight just stared straight at Pinkie, miserable. She felt like she had to try and break the silence somehow. Try to find the words to mend it. “It’s not that bad, Pinkie. I’ll give you my word I will never miss a party of yours again.”

“You don’t understand,” Pinkie said, muffled, as her head was still buried in her forelegs. She rose and sniffed. “I just realized that because you weren’t there,” voice cracking, she fought with herself to regain composure enough to finish, “because you weren’t there, none of my parties were, were, were complete! I just had to think about you all the time, and I knew you’d be back someday, so I was always waiting for you! I always thought ‘This party is amazing!’ then I’d go ‘I wish Twilight were here’, or I’d go ‘What a wonderful day!’ and then I’d go ‘I wish Twilight were here’ and, and …” she lost it again.

“Now that I’m here, you realized just how much you’ve been missing me,” Twilight said gently, struggling not to let her voice break.

Pinkie nodded. Her sobbing died down again, and much faster than anyone had anticipated she had her forelegs wrapped tightly around a somewhat, but not very surprised Twilight, who stroked her back tenderly while they hugged.

“I don’t really care what you decide to do,” Pinkie said after a while, now finally smiling again, though as she was still hugging Twilight no one could see it, “I just want to be your friend always and forever.”

“You will be, Pinkie,” Twilight answered. “No matter the time or place or reality, we will be friends.”

“Yer gettin’ Fluttershy’s mane wet, Dash,” Applejack piped up, mischievously.

“Oh, shut it. The air is really dry here.”

Of course, they were all crying, and now less out of sadness than out of relief that Pinkie was better. Even with the tears in her eyes, she smiled brighter as she went back to her seat than Twilight could even remember her doing. She wondered if she’d smiled this brightly in those ten years she missed, and as she now glanced at her other friends, who followed Pinkie with their eyes with affectionate and fascinated expressions, she had to conclude that no, they hadn’t seen her smile like that in a very long time.

It took a while until everypony present realized that they’d been discussing something rather important before Pinkie had caught their attention.

“Where … were we?” Rarity asked.

“I think Fluttershy was the last to say something,” Twilight said, wracking her head. “Something about the risk not being worth taking.”

Fluttershy hid under her mane. “I’m sorry I yelled at everyone.”

“Don’t apologize, Fluttershy. No one’s going to think badly of you for arguing your point,” Rainbow chided her. “It wasn’t your fault Pinkie cried, either. Not everything under the sun is your fault.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry!”

“Oh, for pete’s sake! Will you argue with me already?!”

“I think I can argue Fluttershy’s side for a little while, Rainbow,” Rarity offered. “After all, now that Twilight is back, it’s not just Pinkie, all of us got back what we’ve been missing. Why take the risk?”

“‘Why take the risk’?” Rainbow Dash’s face hardened. She took off from next to Fluttershy and flew to the center of the room, looking at every one of her friends in turn. “Merrok took her away from us! Have you never wished you could’ve stopped him? Have you never wished you could turn back time and get another go at him?” She punched one hoof with the other. “I know I did! And now it turns out we can!”

“So, y’ want revenge?” asked Applejack.

“Maybe!”

“I know I want it, too, but you can’t let something like that guide your actions,” Rarity said.

“I’m not letting anything guide me! I don’t just want revenge!” Rainbow Dash let out a frustrated groan and frantically ruffled her mane, then looked back at Rarity, aggravated. “Are we going to keep pretending like everything’s okay? Like all’s fine and dandy now that Twilight is back?”

Rainbow saying this had roughly the effect of a punch to the snout on Twilight. She anxiously looked at the others, to check how they were affected. Applejack had a pained expression, as if she was feeling guilty. Pinkie Pie was strangely calm; the eyes she had aimed at Rainbow Dash were full of compassion. Fluttershy was just miserable.

Rarity was beginning to grow furious. “We waited for so long to even have her back! What more could you ask for?”

Rainbow Dash put herself down on the ground with a massive stomp, right in front of Rarity. “To have her not gone in the first place! I wanted her to be there when I got into the Wonderbolts! I wanted her to be there at my first show!”

She took off again, restless. She wasn’t looking at Rarity anymore, or anypony in particular, while the words kept rushing out. “When I won my first derby, she wasn’t there! When I broke the speed record, I couldn’t tell her! When I got my stupid medals, I asked Celestia why Twilight hadn’t got one for standing up to Merrok, and she told me it was because she wasn’t dead!” She cried, and didn’t care that anyone saw. “I wanted her to get the medal so I could think she sacrificed herself! So I could forget! She was gone for so long, I almost gave up on her! I’m the one who should be sorry!” With that, the pain was too much, and she curled up, trying to hide herself under her wings, falling and not caring she did. She wanted it to hurt when she hit the ground.

In an instant, Fluttershy was up in the air, holding her and gently guiding her downwards. She cried openly, but she smiled with kindness as the comforted her friend, who was still hiding. “You don’t need to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I gave up on her, Fluttershy!” Rainbow sobbed.

“No, you didn’t. We can all see that,” Rarity chimed up, gently, walking up and caressing her with a hoof of her own.

“We were all doubtin’ we’d ever see her again, sometimes,” Applejack added. “Givin’ up is when you start believin’ the doubts for good. Ya never did. I’d always wondered why you didn’t like talkin’ bout the medals. Seems to me they reminded ya of when ya thought Twilight was dead, and you didn’t want that, because you never started believin’ it and ya weren’t plannin’ on ever believin’ it, were ya now?”

Rainbow sniffled. Her wings started to relax. “No.”

Twilight, who had just followed Rainbow’s outbreak in a sort of daze, smiled, and slowly walked up to her. “When you thought, for just a second, that I was dead, you wanted to honor my memory and grieve. That’s what a friend would do, and nothing less. There’s nothing to forgive you for, but if it helps, I can just say it. Rainbow Dash, I forgive you. You didn’t fail me. I couldn’t ask for a better and truer friend.”

Split-seconds later Twilight had the fastest pegasus of all Equestria clamped around her shoulders, sobbing into her mane.

Of course, it was harder and harder not to lose herself in thought, when there was so much to take in. She had been so ecstatic to hear about how well everypony had been doing in her absence. She’d even started to feel a bit superfluous. After all, if they were doing so well without her, who was to say they’d do quite so well if she was there? Maybe she was even holding them back? After all, Pinkie, Rarity and Rainbow had left Ponyville in the pursuit of their dreams; what if they’d stayed, just for her?

But telling them about the counterspell had brought about a change in their behavior that she couldn’t quite believe. It was clear that she had been missed, but she had not even barely understood just how much.

The sadness she could read in the faces of her friends, as they stood around her with Rainbow still hugging her tightly, Twilight realized, was one she had never seen before. And she slowly started to understand why. This was the kind of sadness that needed time to grow. This was the sadness that ten years of her absence, ten years of waiting for her return had built.

Are we going to keep pretending like everything’s okay? Rainbow’s words were still echoing in her mind. Of course, they’d been ancitipating her coming back. And when she did, they wanted her to feel welcome. They wanted it to be the best return from the mists of time that anypony had ever experienced. They’d wanted everything to be like in the old days. After all, why dwell on the past that can’t be changed? And they had succeeded! It had been almost impossible to tell the difference! None of them had looked like they were now ten years older than she was.

Then she’d told them about the counterspell. Now they did.

‘No wonder Celestia never told them’, Twilight thought. ‘The spell required an object, she couldn’t have cast it without me. They’d still have had to wait for me, and also think about whether they’d even want me to go back and try again. Constantly look at their own lives and wonder if whatever they were doing was going to be undone anyway. It would have driven them mad.’

‘Focus, Twilight. This is here, this is now. You have to figure out what to do. Your friends need you to. Talk to them.’

“Rarity?”

“Yes?” came the answer, slightly nonplussed.

“How was it for you, me not being there?”

“Oh,” she said, slightly at a loss for words. “Well, yes. We should probably get that all out. I mean, Rainbow is right, of course, those were hard times for all of us. I guess we … didn’t want to burden you with them. This counterspell business threw us all for a bit of a loop, and oh dear, I think the last time I was stalling this desperately must have been a couple of years back, when a model had tripped over her scarf and her necklace burst and my jeweler was frantically crafting a replacement …” Rarity finally noticed the annoyed looks she was getting and let out a nervous laugh. She took a deep breath, and this time, looked Twilight straight in the eye. “Twilight, every so often, I’d get an image of you wearing a new design, and only after I finished drawing it to the last detail, I’d remember you were gone. I have a veritable doorstop full of them. I’ve been planning to move my boutique to Canterlot long before you were gone, ever since we did that fashion show with the Gala gowns, and I wanted the six of us to start it all off with another fashion show of ours. I actually had these wild dreams of making them a regular fixture. Had it all planned out, including the incentives I’d have to offer Applejack and Rainbow Dash to even consider it,” she chuckled, and sighed. “I did move, but Fancy Pants had to pester me for weeks before I did a fashion show a year later. I hired professional models, and have done so ever since. There was no way I could be on the stage, or any of the others, without you there as well.” She stood there, thinking, tears in her eyes, now silent, contemplating. “Say, you don’t think we could …”

“Of course we can!” Pinkie exclaimed. “It’s going to be the best fashion show ever!”

“I wanna hear ‘bout those incentives first,” said Applejack. “What were ya thinkin’ of for me?”

“Bribery.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes. “I’m not sayin’ that would not work.”

“It sure as hay won’t work on me!” Rainbow yelled out. “No way a Captain of the Wonderbolts would put on a frilly dress and parade around in front of the hobnobs! I’ve got a reputation to uphold and what in blazes are you pointing at?” Rainbow Dash followed Rarity’s outstretched hoof to find Fluttershy, sitting next to her. Looking at her. Disappointed that she’d refuse to participate in a fashion show Rarity had wanted to hold for so long. She sighed. “You win.”

“Of course, it all depends on Twilight’s decision,” Rarity pointed out, smiling. She looked at her long-lost friend again, eyes shining, smile unbroken. “I can’t say I haven’t missed you, dear, but I also can’t say it’s been a life not worth living. There will always be regrets, after all. But what am I saying?” She walked up and embraced Twilight, tightly. “I’d give anything I accomplished, anything I own, to have lived those ten years with you. Maybe I’d have made a living scavenging gems or somesuch, scrounging through the dirt to earn my meals. It would have been worth it.”

“Thank you, Rarity,” Twilight said, eyes closed, smiling.

“Well, I’d probably have bummed food off Applejack, too, the old sap.”

“Ah heard that!” came a yell across the room, not quite managing to sound angry.

Twilight and Rarity giggled and released each other, and Twilight’s eyes fell on somepony else. “Fluttershy, what about you?”

The question came as a shock, even though Fluttershy had to have expected it. What surprised Twilight, and made her feel uneasy, were the pained looks the others were giving her timid friend. Obviously, there was something there.

For a short while, Fluttershy had her head bowed, trying to hide it under her mane. Then she narrowed her eyes and rose up again. She looked straight ahead at Twilight. “I lied to you. I wasn’t fine.”

Twilight nodded slowly.

“For months afterwards, I was devastated. I locked myself in the cottage and cried. I blamed myself for being too late to help you, even though I had flown as fast as I possibly could when I heard the news,” she stopped, visibly ashamed, but managed to continue to speak, “Angel had to take care of me. All the other animals helped him. Then I heard from Celestia that there had been a time spell, and that you were displaced in time, and that you would come back eventually. That helped, a little. Then Angel got sick and it made me realize that I was still needed, and that I couldn’t just put everything on hold and do nothing until you could come back and heal me.”

There were no sounds. Twilight could see the others were listening just as intently. Of course they had known that Fluttershy had been suffering and probably tried to get through to her while it happened. This was probably the first time they heard the full story out of Fluttershy’s own mouth.

“I’ve started to wonder if it would help. If you coming back would really, truly, help me, after all this time.” Fluttershy’s eyes started to water, and her posture lost some of its determination. “It did. Oh Celestia, it did.”

And she ran up, and cried into Twilight’s mane, just like the others. None of her friends failed to realize, though, that of all the confessions uttered that day, hers had been the hardest.

“Applejack?”

“Yeah.” Applejack pushed her hat up. “I‘m up next. I know.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be, Twilight. It’s all of us who should be apologizin’. Like Rainbow said, we pretended. Havin’ you back can’t fix the pain of havin’ missed you.”

Twilight nodded. “So...”

“I know what it’s like to lose somepony who’s like family to you. Doesn’t hit you any less when it happens again. But, well, ya learn how to hurt less. ‘Course, I also knew you weren’t gone for good. In a way, it made it harder, ‘cause I never let go. But here’s what I think,” her expression went serious as she fixed her eyes at Twilight’s, “It ain’t for us to say whether ya should go back or not, and I think ya know that, too. I think ya were hopin’ that any one of us had suffered so much that there’d be no choice; you’d have to go back and fix it, and you wouldn’t have to think about it no more.”

Twilight went cold. She hadn’t looked at it in those terms. But Applejack was right. A part of her wanted a reason to do it, any reason, and had hoped to find it from her friends.

That was really it. She was looking for an excuse. If it might save someone, she wouldn’t care about abandoning an entire timeline, she’d just do it.

Hearing about her friends suffering for missing her - it had started to convince her that it was worth doing. Worth the risk. But then, there was Applejack, still suffering from losing her parents, and nopony could bring them back, could they? Everyone suffers. You couldn’t compare it, tally it up, and say “this is worth this much risk to undo”. Undoing usually wasn’t on the table. You had to deal. Everyone had to deal. A temporarily gone Twilight Sparkle? Nothing in the grand scheme of things.

The grand scheme of things. Twilight cursed inwardly. She hated the grand scheme of things. Thinking about it hadn’t helped her one bit. She wondered who’d invented it.

You’re allowed to be selfish. Celestia had said so. Twilight had been a bit puzzled that she’d said it like that, but now she started to understand. If she stopped thinking about how it would affect everyone, and only about how it would affect her, maybe she would know what to do.

But that was impossible. How it would affect everyone was what she needed to know to find out what she wanted. If it would help everyone, she wanted to do it. If it wouldn’t, she didn’t.

… By the stars. She’d hoped her friends had suffered, just for the sake of an easy way out. That was how lost she was.

As she struggled to find a way, any way, to find the words that would tell them how sorry she was, there were steps in the hallway. Loud, thundering steps.

Applejack turned towards the door. “Finally!” she said, joyful. “He made it!”

The door opened and almost crashed to bits against the wall. A purple dragon creature with green fins and scales stood there, saw Twilight, and rushed straight at her, arms outstretched to catch her in its claws.

She was beside herself with joy, forgetting everything else. “Spike!” And the dragon closed his arms around her, lifted her up, and cried, hugging her tightly.

“I’ve missed you so much!”, he roared. It sounded like a roar to Twilight, at least, because she wasn’t used to his deeper voice. Still, she wasn’t scared. No matter the size, she couldn’t be scared of Spike. Her little dragon brother. Okay, her big dragon brother now.

I’ve missed you so much. Spike’s words echoed in her head. Twilight shook it annoyedly. She wasn’t going to ruin a tearful reunion by dwelling on one of her stray thoughts! Of course he had missed her. She was something like a big sister to him. It was natural that he would …

Oh no. No.

It was like a dam was broken. Twilight didn’t just break out in tears, she cried, cried with everything she had. It didn’t take long even for Spike to stop and look at her with worried eyes. All her friends, who had been following the heartwarming moment with smiles and barely subdued tearing up, now started to worry, too. She cried noisily, and messily. Pinkie reached for her handkerchief, thought better of it and pulled a blanket off a table in the corner, patting it with a hoof to get most of the errant confetti and streamers off. Spike kept cradling his sister in his arms, wondering if he should put her down for a moment, but Fluttershy put a hoof on his shoulder and shook her head, smiling to reassure him. Twilight had to calm down on her own, and Spike’s arms were already the best place to do it.

After a while, Twilight finally managed to try and say something. It didn’t quite work out, through her sobbing and the snot and the fits.

“It’s okay. Try again,” Fluttershy said.

“‘M BO BORRY!”, Twilight yelled and sniffled. Rarity took the blanket from Pinkie with her magic and held it to her nose, and she blew into it, hard. “I’m so sorry!”, she repeated, somewhat calmer and less snotted up. “I was your big sister! I was supposed to be there for you! To teach you everything! To help you grow big! I’m so sorry!” she yelled, and sobbed into his scales. They weren’t soft like the coats and manes of her friends, - in fact, she suspected she might be bleeding from the cuts rubbing against them caused - but they were warm, and she wouldn’t have traded them for anything.

Spike cried, too. He was not a fully-grown dragon, but he was grown enough to barely fit through pony-made doors, and if his temperament had been different, with his razor-sharp teeth and fearsome visage he could have scared even the bravest pony around silly. But he was Spike, and he cried.

The door closed, silently. No one in the room stopped to ask themselves later how it was possible that a pony could cry this loudly in the palace and no one would take notice, and it was good they didn’t, because they’d have been wrong. When ponies cried in the palace, in fact, the masters of the place themselves, despite their multitude of celestial duties, would never fail to take notice. They also generally possessed the wisdom not to intrude into intimate affairs, though in this particular case the older had to gently remind the younger of that.

“But you were there for me, Twilight,” Spike said, calmly as he could. “You did teach me. You did help me grow big, into the handsome dragon I am.”

Twilight stopped crying for a second to chuckle.

“Yeah, very funny.”

“No, you are handsome. I didn’t mean to laugh, I’m sorry.” She sniffled, and blew into the blanket again. Rarity idly wondered how to explain the mess to the staff later that day.

“You were gone, yeah. It was hard, really hard. But everything you taught me stayed with me. When I wondered what to do, I remembered what you’d say. And all your friends took really good care of me. I had five big sisters instead. They didn’t replace you, but they helped.”

“Thank you,” Twilight choked out, tears welling up again. She wasn’t talking to Spike this time, and everyone knew it.

“I read a lot. I studied history, I studied magic, I studied biology, science, geography, everything. Then I decided I would travel, and study the world. Do my very own dragon migration, you know? I was with the griffons when Luna reached me. Took some time to fly back here. Oh yeah, I can fly now, too. Anyway. You don’t have to worry, Twilight. I really, really missed you. I’ll never miss anything again as much as I’ve missed you, and coming from a guy who never knew his parents, well, you know.” He tried to get his tears to dry, and failed. “But you don’t have to worry. I made it okay. I’m still the luckiest dragon in the world, for the time I had with you, and to have you back now.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Twilight managed to whisper.

Tears started to stream down Spike’s face, with no hope of stopping them for a long time. Twilight didn’t exactly see them - couldn’t see much through her tear-sore eyes - but she felt them splash on her face, hot in the way she remembered dragon tears to be. “Oh geez. Why did you have to go and say that? I was doing so well. Holding you in my arms and everything, a big, handsome, strong and manly dragon who has seen the world. Why did you have to go and say that? Now I’m just a crybaby.”

“Oh, give it a rest!” Rainbow yelled out. She flew up next to Spike’s head and grinned at him. Her face was wet with tears of her own. “Would you call me a crybaby? No, Spike, I am the Captain of the Wonderbolts. My tears are tears of strength. As are yours! I am proud to cry with you!” She sniffed, gloriously.

“Ya blew yer nose into Fluttershy’s mane just now!” Applejack piped up, accusingly. “‘s that snot of strength, too?”

“It’s okay, I blew mine in her tail when she wasn’t looking,” Fluttershy whispered.

“You are all disgusting!” Rarity yelled, indignant, as Twilight was blowing her nose into the blanket again. She heard a whimper. “Oh no, not you!” she hurried to say, “I mean, you’re using the blanket!”

And Twilight laughed, and laughed long and hard. Everyone else stopped and watched her, and when she still didn’t stop, they started joining in. Even Rarity, who only now realized she’d been played. It was the most joyful laugh they’d ever had, and that included Pinkie Pie, who possessed a fair degree of expertise on the matter.

It was quiet.

Twilight Sparkle hadn’t had quiet for a while. The last few hours were a bit of a blur. A happy, wet, musical mess of a blur. Oh, yes, there had been a Pinkie party. There had been dancing. Something to drink.

She stared at the ceiling. Ah, right, it was her bed. Her bed in the library. That was where they’d had the party. Just now. Not the bed, the library downstairs, where there was room.

Huh. Apparently she was displaced ten years into the future or something. Her mind told her that. She couldn’t tell just from looking around the room, and the drink had fogged up some of the details. Ah, no, of course, she remembered. It was still true. Her friends had just managed to make her forget it for a little bit.

This was probably a good time to go to sleep. After all, she hadn’t slept in over ten years. Well, after a fashion. This morning, everything had looked like a normal day. Then the lion sorcerer. Then the time shift. Then the tears. Gosh, she needed to sleep.

She shook her head. That she couldn’t do. If she fell asleep in this future, she would become a part of it for good. Waking up in this bed, after a good night’s sleep, would make her feel like she belonged there. And it would feel more and more like that with every time she woke up in it. That was fine, if she had decided it was what she wanted. But she had to make that decision now. Not later, when it no longer wasn’t one. Now.

She’d hoped talking to her friends would clear things up. Like Applejack had said, she probably had wanted, hoped or expected that they’d lived through something she couldn’t allow to let stand - but they hadn’t. In the end, all of them had agreed that it was up to Twilight to decide, they understood how hard the decision was and didn’t blame Twilight for struggling with it, and they’d support her whichever choice she made. Even Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. In the end, none of them had given her any guidance that Celestia hadn’t already tried to give her.

It’s entirely up to you. You’re allowed to be selfish. Twilight snorted angrily. Selfish was what she didn’t want to be. She wanted to do what was best for everyone. Why was it so hard to figure out what that was?

She stared out into the window, into the night. It was a beautiful, calming night.

Maybe she hadn’t thought it through enough. She tried to think herself back. Tried to imagine the scene after she’d disappeared. For some reason, the images started rushing into her head far more quickly and more vividly than she had expected, but she didn’t dwell on that particular oddity.

If her friends were to be believed, they’d have given Merrok quite the beating. Twilight tried to imagine how furious they must have been. Rarity, with her teeth clamped around Merrok’s tail. Pinkie Pie, belting him with bowling ball pies. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, giving him all they’d got. Fluttershy, consumed with rage. All because he’d taken Twilight away from them.

She saw farther ahead. Shining Armor, banging against the barrier, crying out her name. Their devastated faces when it came down, and there was only Merrok, and she was nowhere to be seen. Fluttershy, who wouldn’t come out of her cottage. Applejack, losing herself in farm work. Pinkie, wondering if she could ever party again. Rarity, sowing quietly in a rocking chair as it rained outside, fighting back tears. Rainbow Dash, racing, racing, to forget Twilight in the roar of the wind. She saw Spike, back in the palace, in Celestia’s bedroom, crying himself to sleep. Her heart ached, having to see it all.

And then, she saw herself again. She saw herself meeting Applejack again, who was beside herself with joy, but barely contained it because she had to send her long-lost friend to Celestia first. She saw all of them, anxiously piling up behind the door, even though they couldn’t understand a word, barely holding in their excitement. She saw the laughter, the crying, she saw Spike who had grown big and strong and smart, and she saw the party, and it made her tear up with happiness. She’d made them whole again. By coming back, she’d made them whole again. She was all they’d been missing. They were fine now.

There was nothing she really needed to fix.

And that should have been the end of it. After all, if there was nothing she needed to fix, it couldn’t be a risk worth taking, now could it? But to her surprise, Twilight found her heart still ached.

You’re allowed to be selfish.

If it was about what was best for her friends, she had her answer. They were happy, now. Twilight had been stolen from them, but they had her back, and the joy of their reunion made up for ten years of loss. It shouldn’t have been that easy, but it was. But what if Twilight truly let herself think selfish thoughts?

After all, they had accomplished so much … without her.

Twilight shuddered. She hated herself for thinking like that. But if Celestia was convinced it would get her anywhere …

Rarity had opened her boutique in Canterlot and become a magnificent designer - without her. Pinkie Pie had turned into Equestria’s number one party animal - without her. Rainbow Dash had made Captain of the Wonderbolts - without her. Fluttershy had become a professor - without her.

And suddenly, Twilight was angry.

At herself, of course, because she had thought like that - because she kept thinking like that. But then she realized there was a scapegoat. Actually, no. Not a scapegoat. That was someone who was innocent and used to distract from the real culprit. Merrok wasn’t innocent.

Neither was she, but she had been ripped out of her time, placed ten years into the future. Sure, she’d had to disrupt the spell herself, but that was in self-defense. After all, if everything had went according to plan, he’d have had her at her mercy.

And here she was. She’d missed seeing Merrok get his just beating at the hands of her friends. She had missed how he had slowly drained himself of magic as he realized his plans were foiled. And then - she had missed Rainbow Dash becoming a Wonderbolt, then becoming a squad leader, breaking the world speed record and finally her promotion to Captain. She had missed Rarity coming to Canterlot, she had missed Pinkie’s grand party that started her career, she had missed seeing the looks on Rarity’s face as she struggled to find some place to put the money, she had missed all of the fashion shows, she had even missed her own chance to be the star of one, together with all her friends, before the grandest audience Canterlot had to offer. She had missed Applejack looking over her flourishing farm with pride; she had missed Fluttershy’s lecture and the day she’d been awarded her honorary degree. She had missed accompanying her on the professoral dinners and meeting all of the idols of her study time, and she had missed seeing her face flushed with pride when she handed her own students their diplomas. She had missed Spike growing up into a big, kind, smart, handsome, all around wonderful dragon.

And there was so much more. She had missed Applebloom and her friends finding their purpose and earning their cutie marks. She had missed the last seven volumes of Daring Do arriving in her mail, fresh off the presses. She had missed the birth of her nieces and nephews. There was no way to ever find out just how many things, big and small, she had missed. There was so much.

Merrok had taken Twilight away from her friends. That was bad enough. But it wasn’t Twilight’s friends who had been robbed the worst. They had had one of their best friends stolen away from them, yes. But Twilight? She had been robbed of all of them, and more. She had been robbed of ten years of her life. Ten years that, she realized, she wanted back. More than she’d ever wanted anything.

She shook her head, violently. No, this wasn’t right. Anger wasn’t the right emotion to have when making a decision like this. She couldn’t allow herself to rush into anything. It was far too important. Far too much was at stake. Equestria was safe. Her friends finally had her back. She couldn’t allow herself to jeopardize a good thing.

“And I won’t!” she declared into the night, determined to the core, as the images in her head cleared up and the moon-lit sky appeared once more. She flashed her horn, and she was gone.

Final Chapter

The lion sorcerer smiled in silent triumph. Now that the spell had connected, there was no way out. He’d analyzed it to perfection. Twenty-four hours from now, Twilight Sparkle would reappear, and he’d repeat the procedure, each time catching just enough of the amplified magic rush to do whatever he pleased.

He felt a buildup of magic. It wouldn’t matter. The spell’s pattern had solidified too much. Besides, Twilight Sparkle would not be stupid enough to try and disrupt a spell she didn’t understand, and there was no way she’d decipher a spell this complicated that fast.

He squinted. Huh. He might have overestimated her intelligence in some way. That was definitely a magic surge. Still, she couldn’t possibly …

There was a flash, and a sickening crunch. Merrok felt around. No, the spell was still there. Was the pattern still intact? It looked like it was. He didn’t have time to fully inspect it, though. The spell was resolving. It would take effect. Of course it would. It wasn’t possible to stop once it had connected. He’d made sure of it.

The pattern vanished into time, just as intended. Excellent. Now to deal with …

Suddenly he was on his back. There was a screaming pain in his right front paw. He tried to move, and couldn’t. He growled in defiance and tried to focus a spell, but the pain just intensified. That was, of course, when his mind made the obvious connections. His right paw was, after all, where he focused his magic and turned it into spells, much like a unicorn might use her horn.

But … that was impossible. He knew for a fact the spell had worked. Not just that it should have worked - he had actually felt it. But now he could not just feel the multitudes of unfamiliar magic holding his body in a grip, he also realized the storm clouds above the plaza and the lightning streaking through them were separated from him by a dense blue-tinted fog, itself of magical origin. Just like that, he had been cut off from another major source of his power.

Power, he realized, he couldn’t have drawn in anyway, because he couldn’t feel his tail at all. There wasn’t even pain. That had to be coincidence, though. No lion sorceror before him had figured out that the tail could serve as a second catalyst. No one else but him could possibly know. Not even her.

He didn’t need any explicit confirmation of the shambles all his plans had become, but as though to taunt him, she decided to appear over him in his field of vision anyway. Looking in from the side, as she was standing next to him, but craning her head so her eyes met his. The fury in them sent a shiver up his aching spine. He tried to get up, to move, but the attempt was only rewarded with more pain.

“You humongous flipping jerk,” the unicorn growled, tears in her eyes, “going around causing hurt and grief and pain and thinking you know everything!”

Merrok growled, focused his magic one last time, and lunged.

He made it perhaps three inches off the ground before the pain flared up again. He gave a yelp as his head smashed back into the solid dirt. The pain in his right paw almost made him lose his mind. Twilight Sparkle hadn’t even budged.

She didn’t yell or even speak particularly loudly, but the barely suppressed rage in her words commanded Merrok’s attention in a way he would never have thought any living creature, especially one half his size, could - he was filled with dread. “Don’t think I’m not paying attention. I’m watching you struggle, very closely. And you’re actually lucky these binds and seals are working. I researched four distinct approaches to eliminate a lion sorcerer as a threat, and the one I’m using right now is the non-lethal one of the four. It hurts, and I hate that it hurts, because I hate hurting anyone. Even you. But I can’t allow you to do as you please, because that would cause far more hurt to far more people. You’ve already caused more than you could even imagine.”

Confusion was mixed into Merrok’s building fear and resignation. What was she even talking about? But the pain quickly extinguished any clear line of thought. “The spell should have worked. I don’t ... understand.”

“You don’t understand a thing about anything!” Twilight snapped, tried to calm herself, and shook her head. “I wish this seal was permanent. I didn’t hold back on it, and with the amplification at work it’s enough to keep you from doing magic again for a long, long time. Maybe you will learn. But I don’t have much room in my head for hoping right now. Right now, all I can try and drill into your stupid lion head is this,” she climbed on Merrok’s body, sending jolts of pain through his joints every time she disturbed the sealed paw, until she stood on his chest, and lowered her head until their stares were locked, eye to eye, just inches apart. She didn’t blink. She still had tears in her eyes that would not stop flowing, but her expression was all rage, and no fear. “I’m watching out for you. You’re my responsibility now. I’m prepared. If I ever catch wind that you’ve caused pain and grief to anyone, again, I will find you, and I will stop you, whatever it takes.”

She kept staring at Merrok, ice hot, for a short, excruciating while. Then she started talking again, somewhat quieter. “And one more thing. Maybe you will dedicate your talents to good. I’ve seen it happen where I thought it couldn’t, so how should I know? Regardless of the purpose, do not ever, ever, mess with time magic again. No one should. It’s never worth it.” And puzzlingly enough, rage turned to sorrow, tears welled up, and Twilight Sparkle jumped off Merrok’s body, causing a last jolt of agony to ravage him, and disappeared into the slowly dwindling storm, as if she had no thought in the world left to spare for him, leaving the lion sorcerer to ponder just what it was that had defeated him in the end.

Twilight tried desperately to get the tears to stop. She had to find the others, and she kind of needed to be able to see to have any hope of finding anything in the magic-blocking fog she had created. Darn it!

“Twilight!” came a yell. “Stop!”

Twilight stopped. She recognized the voice. Thank the stars, she did. “Rainbow Dash!” she let out a joyful scream as she saw the form the voice belonged to emerge from the mists. “You’re okay!”

“Well, yeah! I just got here! Why would I not be okay?” Rainbow Dash said, but was suddenly pinned back-first to the ground by the force of onrushing unicorn.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Twilight exclaimed through the sniffling as she dug her face in Rainbow’s chest, causing a wince as she poked her friend with her horn in her exuberance.

“Are you?” Rainbow asked apprehensively, rubbing her bruise.

Twilight suddenly rose up. “That depends! Where are the others?” Her hooves stomped the ground, unruly, as she turned her head into every imaginable direction. Even on a sugar overdose, Pinkie Pie could not have been more twitchy.

Rainbow Dash finally spotted the suffering pile of sealed lion sorcerer. “Woah, is that him?”

“Yup,” Twilight replied as she kept stretching her head. Maybe she should have reconsidered the fog. With the seals on his paw and the tail, it had been exceedingly unlikely Merrok could have drawn on the magic in the clouds anyway, and now it only made finding her friends harder.

Rainbow Dash poked Merrok in the side, triggering a roar of pain. “Woah!” She flittered back over to Twilight’s side. “Did you do that to him?”

“Yup. Applejack and Rarity should be here by now, right? Where are they?!”

There were voices some way off in the distance behind them. “Leave your paws off my Twilight, you ruffian!” There was a high-pitched battle cry, and then the sound of pony hooves skidding to a halt near where Merrok lay and suffered. “Huh.”

“Rarity!” Twilight yelled and turned around. “And Applejack, too! You’re alright!” Her horn flared up, and a split-second later she had her forelegs around them both, hugging them with vice-like strength. Rainbow Dash followed flying, smiling, but shrugging when she saw Applejack’s and Rarity’s puzzled looks.

“I take it ya gave ‘im what for then?” Applejack pressed out.

“No time for that! Where’s Pinkie?”

“Eat Combat Pie, you huge jerk!” came a war scream in the distance. There was a splat and loud cracking sound, and following its source Twilight and the others saw a bowling ball covered with cream and shattered frosting, lodged into a crater in the broken pavement, inches removed from the head of a terrified lion. “Darn it! Missed!”

“Pinkie, stop!” Applejack yelled. “He’s already done for!”

“Aw, really?” Pinkie answered, still at the end of the plaza, with a cart stacked with strangely ball-shaped pies tethered to her back. The fog had slightly thinned by now; evidently she had thrown the pie the moment she had gotten a good glimpse of lion without further thought. “Oh well. Good thing my pies are multi-purpose! Anyone up for banana cream?”

She barely had time to unfasten the harness before Twilight grabbed her and started twirling her around. “You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay!”

“W-woah, c-calm down!” Pinkie tried to say.

“Of course I’ll be at the party! I would never ever miss a Pinkie party!”

“I n-never s-said anything abo-bout a p-party! P-put me d-down, please!” Twilight put her down. Pinkie shook herself, trying to get her pupils to align again. “Geez, Twilight! You can’t just go around shaking ponies! You have to respect their personal space!” she paused, “Wait, did I just say that?”

There was a swooshing sound above them, and suddenly the ground shook. Everyone turned around to find Fluttershy standing right in the middle of the plaza, panting heavily. “I came as fast as I could! Is everything alright? Is everyone safe?!”

She had Twilight hugging her tight in split-seconds. “Yes! You’re safe, everyone’s safe! I did it!” Her expression unhinged, and big tear drops started streaming down her face. “I did it,” she pressed out, clamping around Fluttershy so hard it felt like the head would snap off. “I did it,” she whispered again, and kept crying even as her friends gathered around, deeply worried and puzzled. Celestia’s number one student had defeated countless dangerous enemies before, and never had she reacted like this.

“I guess fighting that lion dude must have been pretty intense,” Rainbow Dash said. “It looked like you were on fire! I guess that was some sort of magic. I was almost convinced I would get there too late. Must have been a close one.”

Twilight loosened her grip a little and turned around, giving Rainbow a blank stare. “You have no idea,” she finally said, smiling and trying to rub her eyes dry.

Finally able to breathe again, Fluttershy flashed her a sympathetic smile and hugged Twilight tight, this time of her own volition. “You must have had a terrible fright,” she said, gently.

“Well, she should tell us all about it. In her own time,” Rarity said, and she walked up to Twilight and hugged her, too. Pinkie Pie joined them in an instant - trying as hard as she could to put her forelegs around all three of them and succeeding in having her hindlegs leave the ground and most of her weight placed on Twilight’s shoulders, almost crushing her. Applejack snickered and joined in. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, and when no one said anything, quickly checked in several directions for witnesses, blushed and piled herself on anyway.

“Remember, Twilight. No matter what happens, we’ll always be there for you,” Rarity said.

Twilight blinked, and then smiled, finally calm. “And I will be there for you.”

Many thanks to Sagebrush, who helped me untangle some of my messes. Many thanks also to all who've commented and otherwise helped and encouraged me. And of course, thanks for reading!