Twilight's steps echoed in the cavern, pebbles crumbling beneath every twitch of her hoof. She hummed as she walked. The cave system beneath Canterlot had been, at one point, something unfamiliar—something to fear—but she'd been here enough times that the sense of solitude and the sheer size and emptiness of the tunnels had little effect upon her. If anything, she welcomed that feeling. It was a place to get away from it all. Down here, there was nopony who wanted to destroy Canterlot: nopony who knew Twilight Sparkle, who could expect her to act in a certain way, or look at her with that dumb, ignorant look in their eyes that—

Well. Except for one pony.

The ball of light she'd summoned bobbed up and down beside her as she walked. In most tunnels, she didn't really need the light—the ambient glow of the crystals was enough to see by—but it was comforting to see her own magic beside her.

As she always did, she came to an intersection about twenty minutes down into the caves. There was a nice little "room" here, complete with a crystalline mound in the very center of the floor. She paused midstep, instead stopping just beside the mound with a quirk in her mouth.

Usually—that is to say, always—she took the right fork. About fifteen minutes and a few mineshafts later, she would come out right next to Cadance's prison. Sometimes she freed her, and sometimes she didn't. She'd long since lost count of the sheer number of times she'd visited these tunnels, and by now, she had pretty much explored every nook and cranny of that right-side tunnel system.

Her eyes drifted over to the side.

Then again...that left the left fork completely unexplored. A small shiver ran down her spine, accompanied by a flash of a grin. The left tunnel was dark, its mouth much larger than its right-side sibling.

She could take the right fork again, wander around the area a bit—maybe even rescue Cadance, if she felt like it. She could look around the chasm, like she almost always did, and try to see if there were one or two mineshafts that she'd missed.

Or she could take the left fork.

With a spring in her step and a sense of glee at the first new decision she'd made in the tunnels for weeks, if not months, Twilight set off down the left-side path.

The way down was dark, with shadows reaching around every stalagmite in her path. She weaved around them, the little purple light bobbing happily above her shoulder the whole way. A chuckle came from her throat. It looked like she would need her magic to see, now.

She wasn't worried about getting lost; she could remember the way out easily enough, and if she didn't, she'd find herself back in her Canterlot bed in seven days anyway. So she trotted on, letting her mind wander with each meter deeper she went.

The decision to come into the caves today had been rather off the cuff. She'd spent the past two weeks investigating the Lower District of Canterlot, looking for anything out of place. Anything strange. Anything near...

…the warehouse.

Involuntarily, a shiver ran up her spine, and she had to swallow, hard, to stop her throat from choking up. She could still picture the great eye that had stared at her from beyond that abyss, still see the bright green numerals that filling her vision as the walls of the building faded away into nothingness.

She'd gone back, about a loop or two later, once she'd been able to muster up the nerve. The experience had been so similar, yet so completely different, to what she'd experienced before that she hadn't been quite sure of what to do. It certainly wasn't a Dimensional Scream—she knew (or hoped she knew) what those felt like. She hadn't used any more time-spells during that loop, so that couldn't be it.

No; it had just been a normal, average warehouse that had just decided to...disappear.

She passed another fork, this time taking the right-side path. Soon, she found herself going down at a much steeper incline than she'd expected, and took care not to slip down the gravel-covered slope. She could have teleported down, of course, but she felt like roughing it today.

Roughing it. Heh.

She'd interviewed a few of the ponies living or working in the area, even aggressively "persuading" the info she wanted out of several bums sitting around on the streets. Everypony she asked agreed that it was a completely normal, if abandoned warehouse, though one that—as one old mare put it—"gives you chills as you walked on by." When Twilight had asked her to elaborate, the mare had just shaken her head and pursed her lips tight.

After a few days of fruitless "interviews," she'd taken the investigation into her own hooves. Equipped with only a clipboard, a pencil, and a magnifying glass, she'd strolled right into the building—albeit after glancing around to make sure no shadowy, indiscernable, rude figures were hiding in the corners.

Pausing for a moment to take a drink of water from the canteen she'd brought along with her, Twilight took the opportunity to admire a large sapphire stalactite hanging down from the ceiling. It must have been over six feet long, hovering above the dusty floor like an enormous guillotine. She took another swig of the water before moving on—spelunking was thirsty work.

The warehouse had looked normal enough—right up to the point when she had taken five steps across the concrete floor and somehow ended up across the room. Or at least, she'd swear it had been five steps. When she had stepped outside, the sun was nearly to the horizon, setting after a long day of investigating. She'd only just had lunch, though, having brought a bagged daffodil sandwich along while she took notes on her observations.

The next day, she had brought along a watch and a measuring tape.

Sure enough, depending on where you stood, the width of the warehouse—a value which ought to be constant, judging by how the building was constructed—varied by as much as twenty feet in places! Going from one corner to the entrance, it'd taken her nearly half an hour to cross what looked like a mere thirty foot walk. She'd breathed a sigh of relief when she finally made it through.

And when she had stepped outside again, taking care to ensure that the watch hadn't been tampered with at any point during her investigation, the sun had barely budged from its position in the sky, despite the watch telling her that at least six hours had passed inside of the warehouse.

She came to a wide crack in the ground, splitting the tunnel right down the middle. Fortunately, it was easy enough to jump over—she didn't even need to teleport. Shaking her mane to get any dust out, she brushed off her coat and went on her way. Her ears twitched. Somewhere, further down in the cavern, she could hear the dripping of water. She took a deep breath. The air felt musty; humid in her mouth and nostrils. She continued on.

In any case, there had been no doubt about it: there was something wrong with the space-time within that warehouse. She'd gone back and done some more tests, expanding her field of observation to the block outside of the building while taking precise measurements of each point inside. It'd taken her another full week to gather all of the data and another week to make sense of it.

But she'd come to an inescapable conclusion: there was a disruption field in that building—a wrinkle in space-time—that spread out to cover most of the warehouse and (she suspected) part of the surrounding area. Further experimentation had also confirmed the source—the point of origin. The point from which the entire field emerged.

The small corner of the building where she had seen that flashing green light. Where reality had broken down around her. Where a gigantic, monstrous eye had glared at her and sent her mind into a frothing, terrified mess.

She coughed lightly over her shoulder and took another step through the tunnel. Small pebbles crumbled beneath her hoof, tumbling down a ledge and down a sheer drop. She peered over the edge, wondering if she needed to teleport down—it looked to be about a twenty foot drop from here to the bottom. A quick glance around showed her another way, though—the tunnel had gotten wider the deeper she went, and approximately ten feet to her left was a small, almost imperceptible path that led down the side of the cliff face.

As she reached the bottom, the humidity grew stronger, her mane feeling almost sticky on either side of her head. A water droplet fell from the ceiling to land on her coat; it felt cool, leaving a small, wet smudge down her side. And then another fell. And another, each gathering on the tips of the stalactites that grew above her head. She looked up, frowning slightly, but they seemed stable enough.

She rounded a corner and flinched back reflexively as a rush of cool air hit her in the face. The impossible breeze—for how could wind exist in a cavern this deep?—felt refreshing on her coat, and she took a few cautious steps forward, wondering what lay at the end of the tunnel. The wind had to be coming from somewhere, and she dearly hoped that it wasn't from the nostrils of some giant, hibernating dragon or something.

By now, her hoofsteps were muffled beneath a growing roar that filled the tunnel. Yet this wasn't the roar of a beast, or even of a Scream—it was too subtle, too calm (as strange as the word sounded in that context) for that. It was a dull, crashing sound that only grew in her ears as she took her final steps out of the tunnel, emerging into a much larger room.

Her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped.

High above her head, water poured from a tall clifftop whose full height faded into the distance. The water fell down one of the biggest waterfalls she'd ever seen, the sheer width of the thing managing to surpass that of the Palace Garden. Streams of water cascaded down the whitewashed stone, marble and lime glittering beneath the shifting torrents and foam.

Scattered throughout the falls, though, were dozens of crystal outcroppings, each perched precariously on the cliffside as if stretching out into the empty space beyond. Each was a different color—red, purple, green—and some reached into more complex, deeper tones—turquoise, silver, and maroon. Mist tinged with the color of its respective crystal rose from each peak, and all around the outcroppings, the clear, cool water became tinged with each's hue. Streams of scarlet and bright, cheery yellow cascaded down the falls alongside currents of deep green and blue, weaving together to form a brilliant, multifaceted rainbow.

At the bottom, several hundred tons of water pounded into the ground below with such thunderous force that the ground seemed to shake beneath her hooves. The pounding currents threw up clouds of mist and fog that blew through the room, lifted by the shockwave formed by the violent impact below.

The lake at the bottom of the waterfall—for there was a lake, its surface crystal-clear and sparkling in the light—shifted from giant waves at the epicenter of the falls to calm, gentle ripples near the shores. Twilight took a small sniff and stepped forward, the bottoms of her hooves grinding against the soft, rounded shards of crystal that made up the beach. The air smelled sweet and clean, and a warm breeze weaved its way through her mane as she tilted her head back.

The top of the cavern was much larger than any she'd seen yet, reaching up so far into the distance that she could only make out the very tips of the stalactites that reached down from the darkness above. Even the light of the crystal outcroppings could only stretch so far, and the ceiling vanished into an eerie, shadowed darkness far above her head.

She stood there in quiet, wondrous awe for several minutes, her head tilted back toward the tops of the falls until her neck started to hurt. Finally, she lowered her chin and massaged the back of her head gently, mentally shaking her head at the incredible sight before her.

I've never seen anything like it before.

She'd seen incredible things in her short lifetime. The Elements of Harmony. The Temple of the Sun. And now, the fabric of spacetime itself.

Yet, for sheer, simple beauty, almost none of them matched up to the majesty of the Rainbow Falls.

Still at a loss for words, she gently knelt down on the beach and stared at the water as it cascaded down the side, crashing with a boom of thunder.

If she hadn't looped, she would've never taken the initiative to find this place. Heck; if Cadance hadn't been trapped down here, specifically, she wouldn't have even known that these caves existed! She slowly shook her head, still marveling at the sight. Time—and life—were funny that way.

She sat there, quiet and alone, for a while more. It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours. It didn't matter. This wasn't a place to worry about timing or duties or spacetime paradoxes—this was a place far removed from the rest of the world; a place buried under nearly a half-mile of solid rock. So instead of worrying about impossible warehouses, glaring eyes, and Dimensional Screams, she merely closed her eyes and listened. The rush of the falls almost sounded like that of Time going by, rushing past her with all the force of a hurricane.

After a time, her mouth quirked into a small, dull smile, and her tail flicked absentmindedly behind her. It's a shame I don't have anypony I could show this to. It's a pity they wouldn't remember.

Her smile faltered, for a fraction of a second, flickering into a frown.

When she left the caves some hours later, the sun had already fallen below the horizon, the bright day turning into star-lit night.

It was purely on a whim—or perhaps a hunch—that Twilight found herself outside of the Canterlot Academy at the beginning of the next loop. She'd made a mistake, really, in trying to solve the problem before she really understood—no self-respecting scientist would try to perform an experiment before brushing up on all the relevant background, and she needed to approach this problem as a scientist. She couldn't just throw magic at the wall to see what stuck; she needed a clear, technical, and methodical route of understanding the situation before she could even hope to solve her problem.

She bit her lip. With Dimensional Screams and extradimensional warehouses, she was beginning to hope that she wasn't on a time limit.

The secretary at the Academy's main building let her though with a friendly nod, and Twilight gave a little wave back. She took a deep breath as she stepped through the lobby and into the Main Corridor, looking around at the expanse of Bitterleaf Hall.

Named for a centuries-old Headmaster, the Hall smelled of ink; of new parchment and old books. Classroom doors lined its walls, stretching down for at least the length of a hoofball field before tapering off at the end. She took another breath, smiling as the familiar scent seeped into her lungs and spread through her body. The Library was one thing, but this... It'd been too long since she'd stepped into a proper institution of learning. A sad little smile crossed her face. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed this place.

Her ear twitched at the sound of crashing wood, and she turned her head to see a crowd of students milling out of a newly opened classroom door. A few more opened beside it, ponies flooding out into the expanse of the Hall. Soon every classroom had let out, the room filled with the excited babble and commotion of students travelling to their next class.

She smirked as one of them passed her: a bright blue, spiky-maned pegasus talking with his friend. A bookbag was slung over his neck, with a pen tucked behind his ear. A chuckle escaped her throat, and she felt a familiar feeling of nostalgia in her chest. I've been there before.

"Twilight Sparkle? Is that you?"

She turned on one hoof to face the source of the voice. She grinned, having recognized it as well. "Professor Brightmane! Just the stallion I came to see."

"Oh?" The stallion chuckled as he trotted toward her, his white moustache bobbing up and down. "It's indeed an honor to be visited by the illustrious student of Princess Celestia herself."

Twilight playfully punched his shoulder. "Professor, you know it's not like that."

He shrugged, his shaggy eyebrows creeping up into his forehead. "What can I say? It's been years since we last talked—you never visit, you never write, you never send fruit baskets—"

She stuck out her tongue. "I'd forgotten how insufferable you were, sir."

"Ah-ah." He held out a hoof and clucked his tongue. "Incorrigible, not insufferable. Precise language please, dear."

She shook her head, laughing under her breath. "It's good to see you, sir."

"And you as well." Brightmane cocked an eyebrow, tilting his head. "I presume you wanted to discuss something with me? The great Twilight Sparkle surely wouldn't make a housecall just for politeness' sake."

Twilight rolled her eyes, though a somewhat guilty grin spread across her face. "I actually do. There's a subject that I've recently become pretty interested in, and I was wondering if I could pick your brain on it."

"But of course." Brightmane's eyes flickered up toward the great clock that hung from the ceiling. "Look at that! Eleven-thirty. I don't believe I have any classes right now—shall we proceed to my office to get a bit more of a quiet atmosphere?" He winked.

Twilight took one more look around at the loud mass of students around them before chuckling and shaking her head. "Sounds like a plan, Professor. Lead the way."

Brightmane's office was a cozy little room tucked away in a corner of the corridor farthest from the Hall's entrance. At Twilight's quizzical look, the professor gave a shrug. "They offered a larger one, but I turned them down. It's nicer this way. Tea?"

"Yes, please."

Twilight plopped herself down in front of Brightmane's desk as he busied himself with a kettle in the corner of the room. She took the opportunity to glance around, scanning the shelves for anything that might've changed in the past five years or so. A small smile grew on her face as she recognized the stacks of textbooks waiting on the shelves, as well as the cluster of plaques hanging on the walls.

"Head of Physics?" she read aloud, trying to sound as if she was hearing it for the first time. "I guess they finally decided to put you somewhere where you couldn't terrorize new students."

"Hmph! Terrorize!" Brightmane shot her a scowl as the teakettle began to whistle, but couldn't help the small little grin that broke out beneath his bushy moustache. "I write the curriculum for the little buggers, now. They don't know what's hit them!"

"I'll bet." Twilight snorted.

"So." Brightmane slid into the chair behind his desk, steepling his hooves and levitating two saucers onto the surface. She took hers gratefully. "How can I help you, my dear? A post-doctoral thesis? A dissertation?"

"A bit of both, actually." She leaned forward, cradling the tea in her hooves. The cup was hot, and she could've levitated it with magic, but she liked the warmth. "I've been looking into writing a paper on a more esoteric branch of physics, and wanted to pick your brain on it."

"Oh?" One bushy eyebrow arched high above the professor's face. "And what might that be?"

"Time."

The other eyebrow shot up as well. "Ohoho! Dimensional physics, eh?"

She nodded.

"Chronomancy?"

She nodded again.

"Fancy stuff, that is." He whistled slowly, slowly leaning back in his desk chair. His hooves dangled off the side, and for the umpteenth time, Twilight wondered how, exactly, such a position could possibly be comfortable. Brightmane's mouth quirked to the side. "I mean, it's not like you don't already know the basics, not to mention a good chunk of the advanced stuff as well." He frowned as she took a sip, her eyes looking straight ahead. "What, ah, did you think I could help you with?"

"Well," Twilight began, "I know almost everything about relativistic physics, not to mention basic quantum effects." She paused. "But—mostly relating to the former, I suppose—I was wondering if you had any papers or the like relating to knowledge about time as a specific dimension.

"As a medium, that is," she added, seeing Brightmane's slightly confused expression. "We know a lot about how it's affected by other things, but not much of anything about what it is." Her cheeks flushed a light pink, and she rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "I know whatever you have might not be much, but—"

"Might not be much?" The professor exhaled slowly, a crooked smile on his face. "Twilight, nopony's studied that side of chronomancy or temporal physics for centuries! More, even!"

She blinked, slightly taken aback. The saucer and teacup made a small clinking sound as she set them back on the table. "What? How is that even possible?"

"Twilight, space is one thing. Time is, quite simply, a whole new fish to fry." Brightmane adjusted his glasses, his hooves resting in his lap. "Even your teleportation spells take quite a bit of skill and power to execute due to the sheer imalleability of space. But time—" He shook his head. "Time is nearly impossible to touch clinically. I've heard that there may be a spell that can be used to travel back in time— only once, of course, classical unicorn mages being the stingy casters that they were—but in a laboratory setting? Unless Celestia is hiding some sort of secret alicorn spell, I'm afraid that's just not possible."

He sighed and levitated his cup to his lips, taking a small sip of tea. "Only one unicorn in history has ever had the power to manipulate spacetime in such a fashion, and that was even his special talent!"

A shiver went down Twilight's spine. "Who?" She had a feeling that she already knew the answer.

"Starswirl the Bearded." The professor looked right into Twilight's eyes. "The purported inventor of the time travel spell, and the advisor of the original Unicorn Kingdom."

"There's quite a lot about him in the histories," Brightmane went on, "as I'm sure you're familiar with the more...colorful accounts of his life. That stallion did quite a few things, and is at least as well-known, historically speaking, as Redmane the Conqueror. But academically speaking..." He shrugged. "The record's blank."

A sense of irritation began to grow in Twilight's stomach, soon blossoming into a full-out scowl. Dang it. The thought was almost ridiculous: how dare Starswirl be dead, especially if he was her only ticket out of here. She seemed not to have hidden her expression well enough, though, as Brightmane let out a sharp bark of laughter and put his hooves up on his desk.

"Now, now—the story doesn't end there." The professor winked. "I may not be able to tell you much about Starswirl, but I may know somepony who can."

"Who?" Twilight's head whirled.

A smile flickered on Brightmane's face. "Oh, I think you already know her, too. After all, who better to ask than somepony who was there when he was alive?"

Twilight's eyes widened. "Princess Celestia!"

Brightmane winked. "Bingo."

He peered down at his teacup and frowned. "Ah, bugger. Looks like I've gone and run out of tea. More, perhaps?"

Twilight shook her head and got to her hooves. "No—thank you." She smiled. "Really, though."

"It's no trouble at all." The professor chuckled—and then paused, putting a hoof on his chin. "Do promise me not to go messing around with temporal research, though, at least not without a peer advisor present. I know that you're a responsible mare, but the subject's been left alone this long for good reason."

She nodded. "Of course, sir."

He grinned. "In any case, I'm glad I was of some kind of help. Is there anything else I can assist you with..?"

Twilight shook her head, still beaming. "I think that's all, professor. Thanks again."

"Best of luck!" Brightmane called after her, waving a hoof as she galloped out of the room. "Do remember to write! I can't deal with all these freshmen alone!"

It wasn't until a full week (and loop) later that Twilight finally decided to ask Celestia about Starswirl. She had all of the time in the world, but she still couldn't bear to waste it by asking meaningless, ill-advised questions. So she'd taken the extra time (necessary time, she thought) to prepare a full list of questions that she'd ask. If she wanted to try and apply some of the ancient unicorn’s theories to her own situation, she’d need information. If there was one thing she’d learned in her time at the Academy, too, it was that primary sources were always the way to go.

It was on the second day of the next loop, then, that she showed up outside of Celestia's chambers, parchment and quill levitating beside her and one hoof poised to rap against the door. She glanced out of a nearby window, the moon just beginning to rise above the Canterlot skyline. She knew by heart the schedules of nearly everypony in the castle at this point, and so she knew for a fact that Celestia would both be in her chambers and receptive to conversation at this precise time.

She knocked.

"Come in."

A smile on her face, she opened the doors with a light push from her hoof and trotted in, her paper and prepared questions and notes floating in alongside her. "Good evening, Princess," she said.

The Princess's chambers were just as she'd left them upon leaving for Ponyville. Being Celestia's protégé had its perks, such as being given personal lessons in magic and history in her own room. She'd admittedly come in here several other times throughout the course of the time loops, but each time she was surprised by the sheer sense of comfort she felt while here.

The bed was large, but not extravagant; in many ways, it was similar to the one in her guest room, though scaled up to match Celestia's much taller figure. A carpet, decorated with tessellations of the Sun, Moon, and stars stretched from wall to wall, its colors comforting in the dim light. Candles flickered from every surface, from the old, hoof-carved oaken dresser to the small bedside night-table that groaned beneath the weight of a half-dozen books. In the corner, light splayed into the room from behind a half-open, clean-white door. As a filly, Twilight had found it hilarious to discover that the Princess had her own personal bathroom. It was simply too much for the filly to imagine the all-powerful Ruler of the Sun sitting on a chamber pot and browsing the newspaper while doing her business.

Celestia had cracked a smile at that, but not before admonishing her for not washing her hooves before supper.

Twin doors opened up onto a balcony that Twilight knew, from experience, was the highest point in the entire city (save for the Canterlot Academy's Astronomical Observation Tower). She remember countless nights, from foalhood through adulthood, spent standing on that balcony with her mentor's watchful eye beside her, squinting through a hoof-assembled telescope and out into a meteor shower or passing comet. For a moment, the ghostly image of a small, purple filly and her proudly purchased telescope flickered upon the edge of the balcony before disappearing. She smiled.

"Twilight!" Celestia herself lay on a patterned rug by the fireplace, her long legs curled up beneath her as a scroll hovered beside her. A teacup and kettle sat on the floor, and as Twilight stepped into the room, the Princess took a small sip from the former. "How good of you to visit! Tell me—how are you finding the Wedding preparations so far?"

Twilight giggled, shaking her head. No matter which loop it was, it seemed, Celestia was always ready to ask about the Wedding, or Twilight's own accommodations. "They're going wonderfully," she said smoothly. "Rarity and Pinkie especially are loving their work."

"That's very good to hear." Celestia returned the smile, her ethereal mane rippling behind her head. "In that case, I presume that this visit isn't to do with administrative or personal complications?"

Twilight snorted. "Thankfully, no." She smirked. "I've gotten through my work thus far without having to worry about any...mental escapades." The irony of the statement wasn't lost on her, though Celestia seemed to take it at face value.

"Wonderful."

"I actually wanted to ask you something academic." Twilight took a step closer, her expression softening into something more beseeching. "I know I need to help my brother and Cadances' wedding turn out great, but I've decided on a new research project for once I get home, and I was hoping I could...well." She chuckled, brushing the carpet with her hoof. "I was hoping that I could take advantage of your knowledge and expertise—after all, if I'm in Canterlot, anyway..." She let the words hang in there.

"Of course, Twilight." Celestia beamed, and gestured to a smaller rug at her side. Twilight assumed that it was intended for Luna whenever she visited her sister's quarters; it was a dark blue, with purple bands encircling its surface. "Please, take a seat and ask away. I'd be happy to help."

Twilight took a seat, shuffling her hooves beneath her to get into a more comfortable position. "So," she said, looking up into her mentor's large, curious eyes. "I actually wanted to ask you about a certain pony—one who you must have known personally."

"Oh?" Celestia quirked an eyebrow. "A historical figure, then?"

Twilight nodded. "Starswirl the Bearded."

A long sigh came from Celestia's mouth, and she closed her eyes. "Ah, yes. Starswirl. Of course I remember him."

Twilight opened her mouth to continue, but something about the look on Celestia's face made her pause. She watched as her mentor's eyes flickered up to the ceiling before coming back down to rest on her own face.

"I'm surprised, actually." Celestia cracked a small smile. "I don't recall telling you that I knew him personally. Most ponies aren't clear on that particular era of history."

Twilight tilted her head. "Really? Once you know the dates and major sociopolitical events, it becomes clear that—"

Celestia raised an eyebrow.

"Right." Twilight coughed. "Sorry."

"So what did you wish to know, exactly?" The look of patience and grace on Celestia's face was as pronounced as always, but there was a feeling of misplaced tension in the air, as though she wasn't quite sure of where this would go. Twilight almost immediately identified that as somewhat odd—if Celestia was already on guard, then there had to be something about Starswirl himself that she hadn't anticipated.

Interesting.

"Well," she began, "I wanted to know more about his work—what he did, and why. Ever since I found that one spell of his in the Archives, I've been fascinated by what we have left of his studies." She shook her head, for once being completely sincere in her words. "You've done an amazing job of preserving historical records, but some things just,"—she searched for the right word—"slip away."

"That much is true." Celestia pursed her lips and knelt down until her legs were touching the carpet. Twilight recognized the signs of a lecture and sat down alongside her. "To be honest, I know little of Starswirl's early life beside that which he told me himself. This period of time was...a turbulent one, insofar as Equestria was concerned."

"Because Equestria hadn't yet been established?"

“Quite.” Celestia took a deep breath, her ethereal mane settling around her shoulders. "Starswirl the Bearded was...quite the fascinating character. He had become the advisor for the Unicorn Kingdom twenty years prior, staying on to train his successor to the position—Clover the Clever—before leaving on a quest for arcane knowledge." Her mouth twisted into a subtle grin. "It was on one of his journeys, several years later, that I would meet him for the first time.

"This was scarce months after the sovereignty of the three pony tribes had fully been dissolved, resulting the in the creation of the diarchy between my sister and I." Celestia's eyes flickered across a tapestry that stood above the door; upon it, two alicorns chased one another around the edges of a circle, one black and the other pure white. "Tensions were still high, however, and so I sought an advisor who would help me ease the struggles between and among the tribes. On one of my walks about the walls of young Canterlot, I met a stallion who sat on the side of the road, muttering to himself.

"I thought it odd, at the time, that he made no response to my approach—at the time, I was something of a celebrity." She laughed under her breath. "I would soon learn that a lack of reverence for the diarchy was one of the least of Starswirl's foibles. He was gruff, he was irritable, he was antisocial to an extreme degree." A glimmer of amusement passed across her face. "His name had something of a reputation, but it was tainted with rumor and hearsay—ponies accused him of being a fraud, a con artist, and I heard at least one unicorn accuse him of being a mare in disguise."

Twilight snorted.

"At the time, I was inexperienced in the ways of government—I was older, much older than any of the ponies beneath me, but even I struggled to mold Equestria into a stronger whole—thus my need for an advisor. When I looked into Starswirl's eyes that day, I saw neither guilt nor criminal duplicity—instead, I saw a spark of wisdom and deep, pure knowledge that still rings true for me today.

"Asking him to be my advisor was one of the best choices that I ever made. Starswirl was as craft as much as he was brilliant; a pioneer in the laboratory and a cunning politician in the early parliament." She shook her head. "It was almost a shame that he never fully used his political abilities to the fullest; he could have been a great leader of the three tribes even before Luna and I entered the picture, but he would much prefer working in his sanctum to any sort of public speaking or civil service. He took the position as a...favor, of sorts, to me." She smiled.

"The Amniomorphic Spell was but the least of his discoveries," she went on, seeing the spark of glee in Twilight's eyes. "He was fascinated with the nature of magic, and the ways in which it interacted with the world around it. His travels were meant to take him away from what he viewed as the corrupting influence of mortal ponies, instead exposing him to the purer, natural forms of magic that are so common in the world around us. He wanted to know how, and above all, he wanted to know why."

"Professor Brightmane mentioned something about Starswirl having a special talent in manipulating spacetime when I asked," Twilight said carefully. Her eyes flickered up toward Celestia's face, searching for a reaction. "Did that have something to do with his academic interests?"

"It did indeed. Starswirl's theories laid the basis for magical physics; he wanted to know, fundamentally, how the universe worked." Celestia coughed, her expression momentarily unreadable. "He would later pursue a special project that he swore would unravel the secrets of spacetime, as well as the arcane force of magic. Unfortunately," she went on, seeing the look of confusion on Twilight's face, "he died before he could complete this final tome."

Those were the words that Twilight had least wanted to hear. She took in a sharp intake of breath.

Celestia shook her head, her eyes closed. "For many of his later years, Starswirl appeared to much of the court to be lost in his own thoughts—tumbling through a universe of laws and theories that only he could see. For all my efforts, he kept his head in the clouds—refusing to eat, socialize, or even leave his study. At one point, he may well have starved himself to death had it not been for the presence of one very special unicorn."

"Who was that?" As she saw the sparkle in Celestia's eyes, Twilight had a nagging feeling that she already knew the answer.

"Why, Clover the Clever, of course." Twilight nodded. That made sense. "The younger mage had spent all of his life following in his mentor's footsteps, learning his ways and spreading his ideas to the populace at large. Now, at the twilight of Starswirl's life, Clover saw his opportunity to give back: to ease his teacher's mind as old age overtook him.

"Starswirl was as brilliant as ever, make no mistake. But in those final years, when Clover sought every moment to wait on him, hoof by hoof, he withdrew from himself. Clover drew him out of his shell, helping him to relearn how to take care of himself: how to take care of others. Now, the apprentice taught the master a more valuable lesson than he could have ever imagined: how to reconnect with other ponies, and how to remake bonds that he'd never truly known were there."

The ghost of a smile crossed Celestia's face, and she opened her eyes to once again look down on Twilight. "I like to think that, in those final years, Starswirl even surpassed his own, previous ability to form bonds with others, stumbling upon a world greater than any he'd ever believed in before. It was the basis of his final spell, after all—one of a pair that he never completed."

"Never—" Twilight blinked. "What do you mean, 'never completed'? Starswirl invented over three hundred spells!"

"But not all of them were finished," Celestia said gently. She leaned forward, brushing against Twilight's neck as she curled her head around her student's. "Twilight, all things in this world must come to and end, after all."

"I know, but..." Twilight shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "What were the spells?"

"One, I believe you are already familiar with." The corner of Celestia's mouth twitched, and it was a moment before Twilight realized that she was holding in a chuckle. "You did find it in his collection, after all."

"The time travel spell!"

"Exactly." The twinkles returned to Celestia's eyes as she drew her head back. "Very good."

"And the other?" Twilight frowned up at her, feeling as though this were something that she should know; something that was important.

Celestia merely raised an eyebrow in reply. "That," she said, savoring the words, "will have to wait for another day."

Inside, Twilight's mind screamed at her to note this down; to remember it, and to uncover what exactly Celestia felt it was necessary to conceal, but something in her mentor's eyes made her pause, shoving the urge down. She could wait. For once, she could wait.

"Regardless, I want to impress upon you something that I believe to be the most important part of Starswirl's tale." Twilight could feel the weight of Celestia's eyes upon her, and she shifted her weight on her hooves. "Can you guess what it is?"

It took Twilight a few moments to sift through her thoughts. It was the spells, she nearly said: all things must end, and some are never completed. But somehow, seeing the spark that had lit up Celestia's face, she knew in her heart that it wasn't correct. What could it be, though? Was it the balance that Starswirl had achieved earlier in life—the mix between magic and politics that had let him do so much? Was it the spark in his eyes that had gifted Celestia with the most important advisor that Equestria had ever had? No. None of those could be correct. The ideas swirled in her mind, coalescing at the tip of her tongue as she opened her mouth to speak.

"It was the friends he made at the end of his life." She felt a victorious surge in her gut as Celestia's smile broadened. "It was the lessons he learned, even on his deathbed, that friendship can be more important than spells; more important than research." The words felt alien on her lips; cold, as if she were saying them for the first time. Yet she knew that they were correct, and so she drew the words into her mind, shaping them into what Celestia needed to hear. "It was the discovery he made, with friends sitting around his bed, that friendship can be the most important magic of all."

"Very good, Twilight." Celestia's smile held a flame that, even after all this time, made Twilight feel warm and filled with pride. "That is exactly what I meant."

“And that magic led to the creation of his final spell, right?” Twilight blurted. The words came on their own, unbidden. As she looked up, though, she thought she saw something odd in the flicker of Celestia’s eyes. But no—it couldn’t be disappointment. Could it?

“I suppose.” The Princess’s words were careful; measured.

Twilight sat still for a moment, thoughts running through her head. She’d come for a physics lesson, and had gotten far more than she’d bargained for. Still, there was no denying that this was useful information, and that flame of pride at Celestia’s words flared once again in her chest. I still need to get what I came for.

“And he made no other, similar spells?” Her voice was halting, hesitant. Twilight offered a small grin up at her mentor, who had arched one, elegant eyebrow slightly into her forehead. “Nothing else to do with time?”

Celestia pursed her lips. “No. He found the subject matter fascinating, and was even able to use the raw power of his special talent to mold time in the ways that he desired, but he left behind no other concrete spells.”

Something tugged at the edge of Twilight's mind. Without even realizing it, her lips moved, forming words even as they were shaped in her head…

"But Starswirl couldn't have done it alone. He needed somepony to teach him what he'd lost; to teach him the last lesson he'd ever learn. And that was far more important than a spell in an old book.”

…And the moment was lost.

Looking into Celestia’s eyes, Twilight could tell that this conversation had ended. She smiled thinly, nodding, and doing her best to let her gratitude reach her eyes. “Thank you, Princess,” she said, honestly. She did her best to keep the disappointment out of her voice. Perhaps I’ll have better luck in some other loop.

“Of course, Twilight.” Celestia inclined her head in return. Though her Princess’s smile spread from ear to ear, there was something in her expression that made Twilight feel as though she’d failed a test of some kind. For the life of her, though, she couldn’t imagine why. It’s probably nothing.

“Do feel free to visit again whenever you’re free,” the Princess went on. She caught her student’s eye. “I know how hectic it can get during an event of this magnitude, and your company is always appreciated.”

Pleasantries. More of the same platitudes she’d heard dozens of times before. Still, coming from the Princess herself, it still meant something. In any case, it looked like she was back to Plan B: more research.

“Thank you, Celestia,” Twilight said, drawing herself up. She flashed a smile. “I’ll remember that.”

“And I’m telling you, it’s just too much! The power capacitor would never be able to handle it!”

Twilight snorted, a quill levitating beside her. “And as I told you, Professor, I’ve already accommodated for that! See?”

Professor Brightmane whinnied loudly, tossing his silvery mane out of his eyes. “Lunacy,” he murmured, gazing over Twilight’s shoulder through his half-moon spectacles. “No, no, no,” he said, hoof darting rapidly across the paper. “You’ve not accounted for the mineral instability of lapis lazuli. It would break down before you managed to even complete the final weave, for heaven’s sake!”

Twilight took a deep breath. She resisted the urge to glare the old stallion down; this was a civil, academic discussion, and she wasn’t about to make it personal. Whatever it took, though, she had to make this work. “But don’t you see? Here, here, and—“ the words came spilling out of her mouth, the quill clumsily jabbing at words on the page—“here.” She’d forgotten to dab it clean, though, so a speckle of black ink was left shimmering over the page with each violent stab the feather cut through the air.

Brightmane’s eyebrows climbed further up into his forehead. “Oho? You’ve added pyrite, then. Interesting…very interesting. For a smaller-scale spell, I can certainly see the application in resolving any instabilities in the magical matrix, but…”

“But what?” Twilight bit her lip.

“But the energies channeled through any spell of this magnitude—if the numbers you’ve given me are correct—would be astronomical! Bigger, even: gargantuan!”

Twilight watched the Professor’s ivory-tipped pen scrawling untidily across the paper as he talked, each word shooting out of his mouth like rapid-fire. The ink laid out numbers: calculations, notations; measuring variables that she hadn’t even noticed were there.

“I am sorry, my dear, but there is no possible way for a spell of this size to be completed! The simple act of completing the first weave would be immense—larger than anything I’ve ever seen! Let alone actually releasing the spell!”

Twilight opened her mouth. “Bigger than—“

The Professor’s eyes were dead serious as he stared back into her own. “Bigger than the calculated amount of energy, in gigajoules, that it takes the Princesses to raise the Sun and Moon each day and night.”

She closed her mouth.

Brightmane sighed, suddenly looking very, very tired. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, his pen slowing to a stop. By now, the parchment had been covered from tip to curl in his spidery, untidy scrawl. “But there was a reason that, in the ancient times, the entire unicorn race was needed to accomplish such a feat.”

His eyes flashed toward her, and she flinched on reflex. Still, his gaze was not unkind, and after a moment of thought, he spoke again. “What, pray tell, do you need such a spell for, anyway? You’ve provided me with the relevant runes—as well as one of the most intricate magical matrices I’ve ever seen—but the only signifying feature amongst this entire mess seems to be the connection of a pony’s magical font to the cascade of a temporal leyline!” His nostrils flared. “Tell me, dear Twilight Sparkle: were you planning to create one of the gaudiest, most foalish spells in the realm of thaumaturgy since Mauvetail the Malificient six hundred years ago?”

She winced. That got to her. Still, she had to defend herself somehow, though it was looking less and less as though she’d be getting what she’d wanted. “No, sir,” she protested, though somewhat more weakly than before. “It was…just an idle calculation.” Her eyes swept across the table, momentarily hovering over the parchment whose every fevered scribble felt like a strike against her temple. “A thought experiment.”

“An experiment.” Brightmane’s voice was flat: wooden. She bit her lip.

“Yes, sir,” she repeated.

The Professor closed his eyes. He shook his head and, with a small shove of his hoof, pushed the stack of parchment holding her work back across the desk. “I’m sorry that I could not be of greater assistance, my dear,” he said, again, not unkindly. “Why, I wasn’t even aware that you’d taken an interest in Chronomancy. I would advise you, however, to cease your work on this spell. It will no more than a distraction to you—a meaningless hindrance, if I may.”

“Yes, Professor,” she murmured, her voice little more than a whisper. “I’m sorry for bothering you.”

He waved a hoof dismissively. “Oh, think nothing of it, Miss Sparkle. It’s always a pleasure to receive a visit from one of my former prize students.” His white, slightly yellowing teeth flashed toward her in a smile, and she offered her own tempered grin in return. “Please—come back any time. And do bring more problems such as this one. I do enjoy a good brainteaser.”

She nodded, the parchments floating up and into her saddlebags. “Of course, sir. I’d be happy to.” He didn’t seem to notice that her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Lovely. A good day to you, Twilight. My best to your brother.”

“Argh!”

Clunk. Another book thrown against the wall.

“Darn it!”

Clunk. The pile was reaching an impressive height by this point.

Twilight Sparkle sat alone in the light of a lone, flickering candle, her bloodshot eyes focused on the mound of parchment before her. Shadows, splayed across her face, danced in the dim light. Not a sound echoed in the dim recesses of the darkened library, the central room of the Canterlot Archives having long since been abandoned for sleep or other nocturnal activities.

Her eyes flickered toward a nearby clock on the wall, its oaken hands ticking dully in the vacuum of sound that stretched between the shelves. Three-thirty AM. For a moment, she was tempted to laugh, to chuckle, to snort at being awake at such a late hour, but quashed the thought almost instantly. She was an academic—a scientist. She’d dealt with all-nighters before. Those bloodshot eyes flickered back down to the parchment before her, and she sighed.

It’d all seemed so simple at first. Use the transcript of Starswirl’s spell as a basis to replicate her own situation around another object, and then use that information to reverse-engineer the situation and apply the fix to herself. By altering the equations and imposing an infinite limit, she’d been so sure that it would create the necessary spell. Merely change the parameters, and it’d be perfect. So simple—

—but even before she’d gone to Professor Brightmane for validation, she’d known it to be a lost cause.

She sighed, picking up the topmost piece of paper with telekinesis and tossing it aside. There had to be a way. She just wasn’t looking at it the right way.

An artery in her brain twitched, and her eyes widened with inspiration. Maybe if she changed a few variables around—reconstructed the matrix—used different symbols in the execution—she’d have something to work with.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

At the very least, after taking careful note of the orders of magnitude that Professor Brightmane had referenced, she had a better idea of what forces, exactly, she was dealing with. A shiver ran down her spine. A much better idea.

Still, there was work to be done, and so her quill sped down the page. It moved so quickly that the tip seemed to grind away with each stroke, a fine collection of feather-dust and dried ink flakes collecting at the bottom of the page, where it had to be carefully blown away so as not to smudge up the rest of her work. On and on she worked, referencing Manewell’s Equations, Hoofstein’s Theorem of Gravity, the Quantum Mechanics and Classical Physics of Bridlen Gryfwing—

—until her eyes darted back up to the clock on the wall and widened: five forty-two AM? How in the world…?

She glanced back down at her paper and gasped. The stack was noticeably shorter, and a pile of crumpled parchment lay on the soft carpet beside her. Her eye twitched, ever so slightly, as she scanned down the page, but she winced with each line she read, already knowing the inevitable conclusion. No—emerald’s crystal lattice was far too narrow to accommodate such a flow of magical energies. The Touchstones necessitated for such a ritual would melt under the heat. Her horn would crack, or even worse, be vaporized under the strain of channeling even one percent of such arcane power—

Beside her, The Universe in a Chestnut closed with a thud. She blinked her bleary eyes, the world resolving around her as her thoughts moved as sluggishly as ponies beneath a hot summer sun. That can’t be it, she thought, squinting through the nearest window as the first rays of purple-gold sunlight began to peek out over the horizon. I must be missing something, she repeated to herself.

She shook her head. “I need something to clear my head,” she muttered, almost solely for the sake of hearing her own voice. “Something that isn’t books.” The words tasted like sawdust on her tongue, but she said them anyway: happily, even. “Something…else.”

But there was nothing there.

Tick.

Tock.

Tick.

Tock.

Her head whipped around to face the clock on the wall. It sat there, its white face innocently counting down the seconds. It was taunting her, she realized; with nopony else in the library, and the nocturnal silence still descended upon the castle, each twitch of its second hand echoed like thunder in her ears.

Her nostrils flared, and she glared at the innocuous time piece. “You did this to me,” she said. She hadn’t noticed how hoarse her voice had gotten. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to another pony—had it been last night? The day before?

“And I’ll bet you’re just lapping this all up,” she rasped. Her eyes stung, and she blinked a few times to rid them of the sun’s morning glare. “Looking down at me from whichever forsaken place you’re sitting and just laughing at poor little Twilight, trapped in a hamster wheel.”

The clock said nothing—it merely ticked away.

“Well, I’m not going to do this anymore!” Her voice was less of a whisper now, and more like a grating shout. The rushing air felt like sandpaper on her throat, and she swallowed to moisten it. “I’m not going to give up! I’m going to escape! I can’t just sit here, running like an obedient little pet for the rest of eternity! I can’t give up! I can’t…I can’t…”

Her voice caught in her throat, and she pushed it back with a muffled sob. “I can’t…”

Words rang through her head. ”But Starswirl couldn't have done it alone. He needed somepony with him to teach him what he'd lost; to teach him the last lesson he'd ever learn. And that was far more important than a spell in an old book.”

She swallowed, and then said, in a very small voice,

“I can’t do it alone.”

Images flashed across her mind: walking along the hallways of the Castle, pushing Applejack aside as, for what felt like the fiftieth time, the mare asked for her help in the kitchen. Of ignoring Rainbow Dash, visiting the library and pushing herself into her books rather than repeat what felt like a conversation that would repeat itself into eternity. Of making the choice, consciously, of taking a left path instead of the right one, happier with leaving Cadance to shrivel and even die so that she could take a day trip to relieve the monotony.

Of disregarding the Professor’s advice. Of pushing Celestia aside, and ignoring her warmth and kindness as meaningless pleasantries.

Twilight’s mouth suddenly felt very, very dry.

…somepony to teach him what he'd lost…

What he’d lost…

The ticking of the little clock on the wall stopped. Her eyes rotated to the side as a pair of hoof-carved doors snapped open. A small, wooden bird popped out of the opening, perched on a little plank of wood. It chirped six times, popping through the doors with each sound.

Cuckoo.

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Cuckoo

Six times.

Six ponies.

Twilight felt moisture brimming at the edges of her eyes, and she squeezed them shut.

"It's been me," she whispered. "All along, I've been Starswirl, searching for the final spell in his life, looking so hard that I've lost the reasons for why I needed to escape in the first place."

I can’t do it alone.

Her nostrils twitched. A soft scent was wafting through the empty library, its sweet fragrance mixing with the periwinkle light that danced across the ceiling. A half-smile formed on Twilight’s face, though tempered by the chaotic thoughts that swam through her mind..

Cinnamon.

Rarity was walking through the hallways, admiring the way that the sunlight streamed in through the stained-glass windows, when the smell of cinnamon first reached her nose.

Her nostrils flared, delicately, at the smell: tasting the fragnance as it blended with the floral perfume she'd decided on this morning. As if to remind her, her stomach grumbled—not loudly, but respectfully, as a lady's digestive system ought. She flushed a light pink. It would appear that she'd forgotten her petit déjeuner. It simply wouldn't do to start the day without its most important meal.

So, with the fragrance still held in her mind, she followed it through the halls. She traced it past the Eastern Wing's main corridor, trotting past a distinguished collection of armor, and finally reaching the double-doors of a kithchen she vaguely recalled the Princess showing them several days before. With a light sniff and a smile on her face, Rarity pushed the doors open with a light shove of telekinesis, trotted in—

—and immediately saw Twilight Sparkle, baking up a storm.

She struggled to keep her jaw from dropping as she watched her friend remove a tray of muffins from an oven before setting them down on a nearby counter. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that Twilight hadn't used magic, as she might have otherwise expected—she'd used her mouth alone, though not without the aid of a towel wrapped around the tray's edge.

"Oh, my," she murmured, still not entirely sure how to react to the sight.

"Oh, my is right. She's been like this ever since I got up here."

Rarity blinked as a third pony strolled into her peripheral vision. "Why, good morning, Applejack. I hope that it isn't terribly rude of me to inquire, but do you have any idea what might have prompted," she waved her hoof in Twilight's general direction, "this?"

Applejack gave a short bark of laughter. "Nope. Can't say I do. Looks mighty delicious, though. You know where she learned to cook like that?"

"No." Rarity fluttered her eyelashes, struggling to keep her protesting stomach in check as the scent of pear strudel reached her nostrils. "I haven't the slightest idea."

She paused, biting her lip as she tried to come up with the correct words to say. "I must say," she began, noting the slight note of trepidation in her own voice. "I don't recall Twilight Sparkle being quite so...proficient in the kitchen."

And proficient, she certainly was. Had she been asked a day prior, Rarity may have compared Twilight's talents in the kitchen to Sweetie Belle's or, if she'd felt a tad less insulting, her father's. There was a reason, she told herself, that her friend's career was in academia rather than the service industry. Yet now, watching her testing the interior of a golden meringue pie, she couldn't help but feel her mouth begin to water at the enticing—and, frankly, scandalizingly scrumptious—smells that filled the room.

Applejack chuckled. "T'ain't even that simple. Why, it seems she's been at this for a lot longer than we've been up." She nodded to the side. "Why don't you take a look?"

Rarity quickly obliged, and this time, was unable to silence the rebellious groan her stomach produced at the electrifying sight. Cakes, muffins, cupcakes, and danishes of every size, flavor, and denomination filled the counters to bursting, each with its own unique scent that made her snout sing and her soul soar. Abruptly, hoping that Applejack hadn't noticed, she slurped up a large glob of drool that had been hanging from the side of her mouth. She giggled lightly, dabbing at the side of her cheek as Applejack turned a questioning eye toward her. "Oh, nothing, darling."

"Well," Applejack said, one eyebrow raised but sounding more than vaguely impressed. "I've already had my fill of apple tart this morning, and my kitchen's on the other side of the Palace. My crew'll be waitin', so I'd best be off." Something in her voice held a tinge of amusement. "Though, if this keeps up, maybe I'd best ask Twi over there to help me out—goodness knows she might be better at this whole 'bakin' business than we've given her credit for."

"Yes," Rarity mumbled, still slightly awestruck at the sight. Twilight appeared not to have noticed them; she was too busy inspecting a timer set into the wall as a pan of cookies levitated beside her. She licked her lips. Almond: she could smell it from here. "Quite impressive indeed."

"I'll see you later, Rarity." Applejack stopped by the double doors and gave a little wave. "Try to make sure she don't get carried away—wouldn't want her bakin' nopony into a pie." She chuckled, and the simple, honest sound was refreshing to Rarity's ears.

"Of course, dearie." She tutted quietly. "Now, shoo! I shan't make you wait—I myself will be off in a few." She was here only to ask Twilight for the source of her sudden culinary genius. Her eyes wandered off to the counter again, and her stomach wasted no time in reminding her of its imminent displeasure. And perhaps sample one or two of those beautiful danishes as well...

When she turned around again, Applejack was gone. The only sign that she'd been there at all were the two double doors that served as the entrance to the kitchen swinging back and forth with a soft clunk.

Rarity turned back on her hooves, taking a certain measure of care to ensure that the sudden movement would not disturb her carefully sculpted mane. It was a talent that she prided herself on: the ability to take note of every piece of motion, no matter how fine, and to mold something as simple as rotating on one's hooves into an exercise in grace and elegance.

By now, Twilight had shoved the cookies back into their oven; the timer above it read 13:59 in bright, blaring blue text. The librarian seemed focused on a new pastry, now, her magic mixing the contents of a bowl as her hooves poured out a cup of flour. Her eyes hadn't once flickered from her task, and she appeared filled with the utmost concentration.

It was with some regret that Rarity opened her mouth—it did pain her so, to interrupt a pony so clearly in the middle of an artistic pièce d'inspiration—and cough, ever so slightly. It was dainty and precise, with the faintest ladylike lilt.

Twilight, expectedly, failed to notice her completely. She moved onto measuring the sugar.

Rarity coughed again, this time a bit louder. Still no response.

She tried once more. Nothing. Her brows furrowed, and the corners of her mouth tightened in concealed displeasure. Perhaps something more is in order.

Taking a deep breath, she held that air inside until she felt that her lungs were ready to burst. Then, applying the most artful burst of magic to her vocal chords that she could, she released that air—

—in the loudest, sloppiest, most disgusting cough that she could ever have imagined.

That got her attention. Twilight stopped mid-pour, blinking up at her with wide, owlish eyes as Rarity momentarily pondered suicide for the execution of such a horrible enunciation. Deciding to take the high road, however, she stood a little straighter, smoothed her mane, and sniffed, ever so slightly.

"Good morning, Twilight," she said.

Twilight blinked at Rarity a few more times, just to make sure that it wasn’t the sugar talking. “Oh,” she said, quietly. “Hello. I didn’t realize—I mean, I didn’t know that anypony was standing there.” She paused, a small blush appearing on her face. “How long have you been standing there?”

Rarity smiled back at her. It was a warm smile, one that filled her heart more than the heat of any oven could. “Long enough to be suitably impressed, darling.”

“Oh.” Twilight felt as though she should have something more to say. She felt almost ashamed that she didn’t, standing there under the weight of Rarity’s deep blue eyes. She fidgeted in place, her hoof tracing across the grain of the marble floor.

There came a low rumble. Twilight’s ears pricked up at the sound, but she let them lower again as Rarity’s chiming laugh rang out through the room. “Goodness, me,” she chuckled, bouncing a curl of her mane off of her hoof. “It would appear that my constitution isn’t quite as satisfied as I might have thought. Do you mind…?”

Twilight had to stifle a giggle at the blatantly hungry look in her friend’s eyes. She nodded, and Rarity wasted no time at all in laying waste to her first prey: a neatly-sliced egg-and-spinach quiche. She held her breath as Rarity took a bite, chewing daintily on a bite-sized piece (though by the look in her eyes, and the continued grumbling of her stomach, it was clear that she wanted more to be satisfied). Was it tasty? Would Rarity like it?

She got her answer soon enough. Rarity took in another breath, one so deep and sudden that Twilight feared that she was about to cough it all up. Instead, though, the other unicorn’s eyes flickered to hers, stars dancing in those bright-hued pupils.

“Twilight, my darling—mm!” Rarity cut herself off as she took another bite, chewing slowly and deliberately to get the full taste. “This is absolutely—mm—delicious!”

Twilight’s eyes widened. A smile touched her face. “You really think so?”

“Think so? Dear, I know so! This is scrumptious! Stupendous! Simply bon accompli!” Rarity’s words gushed forth like the cascade of a waterfall. “Darling, you must give me the recipe. I had no idea that you were so…so…”

“What?”

“…magnifique!” Rarity beamed at her and then, seeing the slight confusion in her eyes, lowered her voice and said, “Prench, my dear. It means, ‘magnificent’. A label your dish justly deserves.”

Twilight flushed. “Thanks, Rarity. I’m glad you liked it.”

This time, she didn’t even bother to reply. It was obvious that Rarity was too busy stuffing herself—though Twilight would never use such language, for fear of mollifying her friend into self-imposed solitary confinement—to reply. Twilight chuckled.

Behind her, something beeped. She half-turned, wondering what the sound was, and then froze in place. The timer that she’d set for the cookies was going off, its shrill, high-pitched cry echoing in her ears.

00:00

With each flash of its digits, she winced, the metallic chime sticking in her head. The cuckoo flashed across her eyes, each tick of the clock pounding across her skull. She tensed, involuntarily, but only for a moment. She quickly checked herself to make sure that it hadn’t been too obvious.

Evidently, though, it hadn’t been enough. When she next looked up, Rarity was looking at her with wide eyes, the final bite of quiche held halfway up to her mouth. It seemed she’d forgone a fork in favor of using straight telekinesis; at any other time, Twilight might have laughed at that. It was a sure sign of just how hungry Rarity had been (or how delicious she’d found her available nourishment). Instead, though, that light blue aura hung forgotten in the air, and Twilight felt the full weight of the gaze of the Element of Generosity staring down at her.

“Twilight, darling.” Rarity’s voice was constrained, hushed. “Is there something the matter?”

Twilight shook her head. “I—“

“Come now, dear.” Rarity now sounded stern, and almost admonishing. “I do have eyes, you know. Your eyes are completely bloodshot. I’ve not seen a pony in such a state since I pulled an all-nighter on Sapphire Shores’ last order.” She tutted loudly, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “And your mane?”

“What about my mane?” Twilight couldn’t help the reflexive current of disagreement that ran through her response.

Rarity sniffed. “Split ends, discolorations, stray curls…” She pursed her lips. “When was the last time you took care of yourself? My goodness—have you even slept?”

“I’m fine!” Twilight protested. Before she knew it, though, Rarity had stepped right into her personal space, letting her quiche float gently down to the counter beside her.

She didn’t even struggle as Rarity stared into her eye, squinting at the red veins that ran across the whiter sclera. She felt Rarity’s cool, disapproving huff of air on her neck as her friend clicked her teeth, obviously displeased. Somewhere in the back of her head, she heard the timer go off again, and was unable to prevent the shudder that spread down her spine.

Rarity drew herself back. “Now,” she said, completely seriously. “Don’t you try to fool me, Twilight Sparkle, because I shan’t let this go. I care too much about you to do such a thing. I’m only going to ask this once, so I require your complete and honest answer.”

She looked right into Twilight’s eyes, that cool, blue gaze firm and unblinking. “Is there something wrong?” The second half of that question went unsaid, but Twilight heard it all the same. And if so, tell me.

Please.

Twilight shook her head, her mouth hanging slightly ajar. She wanted to brush it away, to deny, to protest, to say, “No: everything’s going to be just fine.” But there was something in that look, in that simple, honest gaze, that pulled at the bottom of her stomach and told her, no.

…somepony to teach him what he'd lost…

I can’t do this alone.

She swallowed, drawing up all of her will and resolve. She would do this.

“I…” she began. Her voice wavered; it was weak, and she felt a hard lump in her throat. Rarity’s gaze was kind, though, and told her in plain language, take as long as you need. It made sense. When it came to time, the Element of Generosity was generous enough for the both of them.

“I do have a problem,” Twilight finally admitted. The words came out easier now, though they still danced like mayflies on the tip of her tongue. “A big problem. Like, Elements-of-Harmony sized problem. Or even bigger than that.”

Rarity’s eyebrows had steadily drawn up into her forehead with each word; by now, they appeared to be floating somewhere above the tip of her horn. She hadn’t spoken a word, though, and by all intents and purposes seemed to still be listening intently. Twilight took a deep breath before continuing.

“You see…do you remember that time travel spell that I used a few months back? The one made by Starswirl?”

She almost laughed as Rarity’s head bobbed up and down, but quashed the thought underhoof. Starswirl. It always came right back to Starswirl, didn’t it? Not that the analogy is a bad one. If it helps her to understand, then by all means.

“I know that you’ve read The Best Night Ever.” She held up a hoof as Rarity blinked in surprise. “No, I haven’t been snooping through your night-table drawers. And no: I don’t need a crash course in contemporary romance literature. But in that book, there was something strange—something unique.” She took another breath to steady herself, pushing the aromatic scents out of her mind, however tempting they might be. “A time loop.”

Watching Rarity’s bewildered expression, Twilight sighed. She ran a hoof through her mane. This might take a while to explain.

So she did.

She told Rarity everything. From the first, confusion-filled loop to her first untimely death. She told her of the truth behind the Wedding, of the Invasion and Chrysalis’ grand schemes; she told her of her attempts to “fix” things, to end the loops through good works and a detailed battleplan. Once or twice, she caught Rarity nodding along with her logic; if it’d made as much sense at the time, then why not now? But the words spilled forth from her mouth, her lips moving to fast to stop now.

She told her of the cracks, of the warehouse, and of whatever else she’d managed to gleam of the true nature of her imprisonment. Rarity gasped at the mention of the great Eye and the dark, empty void, Twilight’s pupils shrinking to pinpricks at the mere memory of the thing. She told her, somewhat shamefully, of the times she’d given up, giving into insanity and the inevitable madness that came along with the great pressure of the loops. She went on, discussing the warehouse, the Professor, and her own theories on the entire situation. Rarity followed along, nodding and gasping at all the right parts. By the end of it, her mane appeared as frazzled as Twilight’s own, though the librarian herself was unsure if it was due to any real physical influence or merely a measurement of her mental state.

“…And that’s why I was baking all of this…stuff,” she finished off. A rosy blush tinged her cheeks with the sheepish admission. “I had no idea where to go next, and I just needed something to clear my head.

“So that’s my story,” she said. Her eyes were downcast; for some reason, she couldn’t bare to bring them up to meet Rarity’s own. “Whether you believe me or not, that’s all there is to it.”

She held her breath, fully prepared for Rarity to snort, to laugh, or to snicker in disbelief. She could handle that. She’d handled worse.

But what she wasn’t prepared for, though, was the sensation of two legs curling gently around her own. She looked up, blinking in confusion.

“Oh, you poor darling,” Rarity murmured, nuzzling Twilight’s neck. “You poor, poor dear.” Her touch was light, but her lips warm as they brushed across. Twilight knew that it was platonic—unintentional, really—but she couldn’t help the blood running to her face with the first true physical contact she’d had with another pony in what felt like months. She almost laughed. How bad have things gotten that something as simple as a hug gets me this frazzled?

A shiver went up Twilight’s spine as Rarity drew her closer, her hoof a warm but welcome weight on her back. “Rarity, I—“

“I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with this alone, Twilight.” Rarity’s voice was quiet, and the sound of her name on her friend’s tongue widened the lump sitting in her throat. “I’m sorry: so, so sorry.”

“There was nothing you could—“

“Hush.” Twilight looked up, blinking as Rarity laid a hoof over her mouth. She sniffed, not realizing that there had been tears in her eyes. Rarity smiled back: a pure, matronly smile that filled Twilight’s chest with warmth. There was moisture in the corners of her eyes as well, just barely dabbing past the edges of the makeup she’d laid down. “Hush,” she repeated. “What’s happened, darling, has happened. But I’m here for you now, and that’s what matters.”

Twilight hiccuped. “You…you believe me, then?”

Rarity tittered behind a hoof, and Twilight nearly burst out laughing, out of sheer confusion if nothing else. “Oh, my dear, of course I do! You know that you have my utmost trust—I would never ‘leave you in the lurch’, as it were.” She tilted her head, lifting one hoof to wipe the tears away from Twilight’s eyes.

“Now,” she said. Her voice was stern again, but not unkind. She shuffled back, giving Twilight some space even as she left her hoof resting on the other unicorn’s back. “What matters is that you trusted me enough to give me the whole story, and I can’t thank you enough for that. Now, I must pay you in return.”

Twilight sniffled. “Rarity, you don’t—“

“Goodness, Twilight.” Rarity gave her an imperious look. “You really must stop interrupting me like that.” The twinkle in her eyes let Twilight know that she was anything but serious, though. That, finally, spurred a laugh out of Twilight, though it was more of a hoarse chuckle than anything else.

“In any case,” Rarity went on, clearing her throat. “I fully intend to help you in your efforts to escape. And I certainly won’t take no for an answer,” she added, seeing Twilight open her mouth. “I am your friend, Twilight Sparkle, and it is my utmost duty and pride to help you out of this situation. You would do the same for me, would you not?”

Thoughts ran through Twilight’s head. Asking Rarity for advice on a warm summer’s day. Going to her, if only for the flicker of idea, and finding true inspiration in the midst of a tower filled with bright cloth and ribbon. Hearing her cascading voice as it rushed past her ears, her gracious lilt providing her with just the words that she needed.

She hiccuped again. “I…I suppose.”

Rarity beamed at her. “Excellent. Now I’ll just have to find a way to accompany you through these loops, correct?”

Twilight shook her head. “It can’t be that easy.” She looked up, though, as Rarity’s extended hoof drew her closer once again. Those deep blue eyes stared back into hers, filled with friendship and hope.

“My dear,” Rarity said, her voice soft. “We will find a way. Even if we must once again battle Nightmare Moon herself, we will find a way.” Twilight could see it in her face. Those words were absolutely, earnestly, one-hundred-percent true.

Twilight laughed. She had no words to say. For the first time in what felt like eons, she laughed: a deep belly laugh that rose up in her gut and spread until it filled her entire body, wracking her with bursts of mirth. Beside her, Rarity laughed as well, beginning with a low chuckle and blossoming into a full set of unladylike guffaws.

Together.