The Traveler plummets through the fabric of time, to a destination in the past. This is not his first journey, nor is it likely to be his last. He has seen many strange sights and been to many strange times, but nothing has ever destroyed his love of his Home; he has never found anyplace better to hang his hat.

The one thing that most do not realize about time travel is that it doesn't guarantee that the time traveler ends up on the same time line that he started on. To the degree that, if he is particularly unlucky, he ends up in a time line, a universe, really, where the laws of the nature unfolded differently from the Primal Singularity, which isn't always a Bang. In some very few time lines that have been visited and warned by these nomad time travelers, scientists have devised ways of tethering the time machine to the point it leaves from, preventing sideways drift across time lines.

The Traveler does not pilot a tethered time machine. He has been adrift for a very long time. How long, he couldn't say. He wiped the date from the computer years ago. Decades ago. Perhaps even centuries. Having travelled into a set of time lines without increasing entropy with his first unfortunate jump, his body does not decay, his longing for home does not fade, and his time machine does not wear out.

It would be a lie to say he has never despaired, but even despair eventually becomes hollow in the face of the loneliness he suffers. A Universe without entropy, he discovered, never produces life. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is a blessing to all living things and makes them possible. Life is an inherently entropic process, building a pocket of great order and using it as a catalyst for increasing disorder all around it. This is, in part, why he was sent to the past.

The Traveler hails from a world that, when he left it, was groaning under the stresses of near-maximum entropy. Seeing stocks of convenient resources running down, and facing severe rationing before new energy technologies could be implemented, the Traveler and his team of physicists went to the government with a proposal. Time travel without affecting the observed present, they said, was possible. Their plan was to send an agent to the distant past to set a nanomachine in motion that would begin replicating itself and stockpiling energy resources in unexplored locations, out of sight from civilization. On his return, they would go to where the nanomachines had hidden their treasures and claim them.

The Traveler, however, never returned. Now on his way into the unknown past of an unknown universe, the Traveler stares into the intricate blankness of the space between spaces, the time between times. This trip, though, is unlike his previous journeys. That is, except for his first.

A sensation, a churning of the gut, a pressure on the mind, the body. A change in the texture of the blankness from what it always will be to what it always was.

Outside the machine, entropy was increasing.

---

Ponyville, Equestria 3:42 AM February 15, 2 Anno Regis Filiae

In an unobserved alley, a wind began to stir. Sweeping up nearby debris, the wind picked up strength. As it did so, bolts of energy began popping and fizzing out and away from a spot slightly above a trash can. Most of the bolts dissipated harmlessly, but a few did not. Where they touched, it seemed like the ravages of time were undone. Stone took the appearance of being freshly set, wood looked freshly hewn, and paint became wet again. One of the bolts grazed the trash can's lid, and years of tarnish disappeared from its path. This would turn out to matter very little in the long run, however, as a large box appeared in a flash of light atop the can.

The weight of the box proved to be too much for the old can, and it crumpled as if had been made of aluminum foil. As soon as the box made contact with the ground all traces of the light show vanished.

The box was large, almost ten feet long on each side and nearly as tall. Its surface was a smooth metallic finish that seemed to refract all light that hit it into all colors of the spectrum. Curiously, though, the surface seemed to reflect light an almost imperceptible fraction of a second before it actually encountered the box, but as time passed this discrepancy faded to into imperceptibility.

Inside, the Traveler listened to the Time Machine's computer feed him a status report as his body adjusted to the new universe. He and the Machine had arrived safely in the new timespace, the only changes to physical laws being the subtle tweaks in a few minor constants. This was, however, enough to mean this universe had net accumulation of entropy. This universe would eventually proceed to total disorder, unlike the ones he had been traveling through.

The Traveler skimmed the report again and sighed. One way or another, barring an unfortunate slip back into the hell of perfect order, his trip was near an end. He would either find his home or die of old age before he reached it.

No matter, he thought to himself, I must continue as I always have. He went to gather his survey tools from the storage locker. As he did so, he took stock of the shape he took in this universe. His essence had been translated into many forms over his centuries of wandering. Every universe had its own rules for what intelligent life would have to be for it to function, and the way the Machine traveled always faithfully converted his body and thought processes to work in the new environment.

The form he had currently assumed was one unknown to him, but some of the elements the computer told him were similar to life in his home time. The fur was certainly a common thing, he distantly remembered having some before he left. Or maybe he was misremembering a form from one of the Limbo worlds? He couldn't remember any more, and didn't want to know more from the computer about similarities. The best thing, he had decided ages ago, would be to stumble upon Home and be pleasantly surprised. Until that day, he would let the computer keep watch on his form.

It was time to determine what his body was capable of in this universe. The computer after running a brief analysis proposed that there were three main modes of travel available to him. He could use his four limbs in any of several gaits, of which the computer suggested "walk" was the most energy efficient. He could use his wings for flying or hovering, which the computer recommended against for safety purposes. The gravity on this particular planet was strong enough to injure his new form from most flying altitudes. The third mode of travel suggested, and it was listed as hypothetical, was using a biological wormhole generating array he seemed to have on his forehead. He decided against using that one almost instantly. It was bad enough that riding the Machine separated him from his own world, he didn't want to try anything that might separate him from the Machine now.

After finishing collecting his sensor pack, which had been conveniently reconfigured to rest on top of him between his two flying limbs comfortably. He also noted that this version seemed to be entirely controlled by vibrations in the air as compared to the direct neural link he had had with it in the last universe. He hadn't tried talking since... Four hundred, sixty eight worlds ago, the Machine supplied. He might need some practice.

The Traveler turned to the door of the Machine and steeled himself for disappointment. He knew he likely wouldn't find any signs of his world in this one, but it was worth the time to look. Any clue that another time traveler had disturbed this universe would be valuable information.

In the predawn light, Equestria's newest Alicorn stepped out of his otherworldly craft, and bumped straight into Pinkie Pie's Welcome Wagon. Back inside the Time Machine, a crucial bit of information sat waiting in the computer's memory banks, unreported.

“Universal entropic accumulation is positive,” the report stated in the part the Traveler had perused. Further on, though it continued, “Localized entropic accumulation of Traveler's body is negative.”

Next Chapter: First Transit Estimated time remaining: 8 Minutes