"They're ready for you," the baby dragon says.

I gulp... hard.  I trot through the doorway on heavy hooves, entering the throne room with my head hung low.

"I know there's no excuse for what I did.  But I want you all to know that I'm ready for whatever punishment you think is fair."

Nopony speaks. It takes me a moment to realize something is very wrong. I look up, and realize that Twilight, Celestia and Luna are standing right before me. "There she is, Your Highness," Twilight Sparkle says, waving a hoof and looking upset. "Eight Fifteen.  Right on the dot. Just like the previous six days. I... I've scanned her, I've run formulas, but —I just... can't figure out what's causing this to happen to her."

"Hmmmm..."  Celestia takes a deep breath.  "How very fascinating."

I am too busy slowly spiraling into a heart attack to pay much attention. "Oh my gosh..."  I whimper.  I kneel in an instant, legs rattling.  "OmigoshOmigosh..."  They brought the other Princesses here.  This is bad.  

This is very bad.

"At ease, my little pony," Celestia's voice says, coming closer. I feel a gold-plated hoof lifting me gently.  "Let me take a good look at you... Starlight Glimmer, was it?"

"Yes, m-my liege..."

"Be at ease," she says with a motherly smile.  "Everything is going to be alright."

Right as she says this, I hear Luna's elegant voice echoing in the background:  "And you say she remembers nothing of the previous twenty-four hours?"

"Not one bit," Twilight says.  "She's a normal, calm, responsive pony for eighteen hours—"

"And then she vanishes."

"Precisely."

My teary eyes jerk towards them—only for Celestia to turn me towards her again. "Shhhhh....  "Be still."  I feel my body coated in a golden glow.A small eternity passes. The glow fades. "Do you know what's wrong, Prin- Celestia?" I hear Twilight say worriedly.

"Indeed I do," Celestia says solemnly. "Even if I do not know the inner workings of such magic, I know the side effects of abusing temporal magic when I sense them."

"Oh no..."  Twilight says.  "The scroll.  Do... d-do you mean to say that it's placed a permanent effect on her?"

"You must have suspected as much yourself, my student," Celestia says sadly.

"Pl-please, your Highnesses," I murmur.  With a gulp, I trot anxiously forward.  "What's wrong with me?"

"There is no other way to say it, I fear," Celestia says. "My little pony, you are, for lack of a better way to describe it, trapped in a time loop. You go forward normally for eighteen hours and then... disappear. Then, six hours after that, you return here. As if you were reset to exactly as you were before..." She lowers her head. "And I do not know how to undo it. And I sincerely doubt that anypony can."

"What??"

"You damaged time itself," Luna says flatly. "The fabric of time is hardy stuff, thankfully. But when it... sutured itself together, you became snared within the stitches. You are fated to repeat this loop-- forever."

"What??" I feel dizzy. "But---why-- why don't I remember??"

"Because you start each loop over 'reset,' Twilight said. Her eyes were pitying. "The rest of the universe goes on. But for you, everything you did the day before, it's as if it never happened."

"Why--" I start to hyperventilate. "No. This can't be real. I can't live like that! I'd rather die!!"

"And were you to die," Princess Luna says somberly, "You would still reappear here, one day hence, thy memories gone as if they never were. And every day from now until the end of time. Never aging, never changing. Learning anew each day what has befallen you."

The horror of what has happened to me-- of what I've done to myself-- sinks in. I sink to the floor, sobbing.

It is then that Spike speaks up. "Maybe if she kept a journal?" he suggests. "Or a scrapbook. Write down all her memories of the day, put in photos and stuff---so Future Her can read it the next morning?"

"A clever idea, Spikey Wikey," Rarity says, consoling. "But in a few days it would be so full of her memories that it would take her all day just to read it." Spike frowns and scratches his chin, stumped.

"Memory..." Twilight says suddenly. "Memory. Of course!" She steps forward. "Princesses, we can't fix the time loop...but I think I have a workaround. To make things easier for her."

"A... work-around?" Luna says, one eyebrow arching up.

Twilight nods. "The problem isn't the time loop. Not... well not really. If she were having to repeat, I don't know, Groundhog Day over and over again that would be a mess. But she's still going forward through time. The problem isn't the time travel, it's carrying her MEMORY forward. And I think I have a fix for that." She looks at me. "If you'll let me try?"

Desperate to cling to any straw, I nod.

"Okay, hold still Starlight." Her horn lights up with what I recognize as a memory transferring spell. "I'll get your own memories from you next time, but mine should fill the gap for now..." her horn flashes white--

*****

It is time.

I gulp... hard.  A sullen sigh escapes my lips, and I trot through the doorway on heavy hooves, entering the throne room with my head hung low. A bright table looms in the center of the place.  I don't bother looking up.  I can't.

"I know there's no excuse for what I did," I speak in as soft a voice as I can manage.  "But I want you all to know--"

I get no further as something plunks down on my head. A coronet?--- what---

And then the jewel lights up and the memories flood in. "Better?" Twilight says.

"Better," I sigh with relief. Being brought up to speed instantly is very nice. How do you describe instantly going from knowing you're guilty and awaiting punishment, to knowing you're forgiven for your transgressions? It's like waking up in a panic thinking you're late for your final exams-- only to realize an instant later that it's Saturday, you already took the finals a week ago, aced them, and this is the first day of Summer vacation. I should find a way to bottle this sensation and sell it. Eu de Relief. I wonder if the Flim Flam brothers would like to collaborate.

"Speaking personally," Twilight says, "the Memory Crown is a vast improvement over me using the memory charm on you every day. Lots fewer headaches for both of us." She thumped her noggin and chuckled. "Ready to start the day?"

I smile and nod. Another day of my... I suppose you'd call it parole.... working with the Princess of Friendship. After all, no matter how far I can travel in eighteen hours-- and we've tested it-- I end up right back here. It makes it rather hard to keep me in a Canterlot dungeon, obviously, so I might as well be serving my sentence here.

I'm usually either helping Spike sort the library... again, honestly Twilight?.... or collaborating with her on her magic research. Kind of unavoidable really; until we figure out a way to break me out of this time loop thing, no matter how far I go I'm going to keep reappearing right at this doorway every twenty-four hours. The fact that Twilight can't figure out the conundrum only makes her more obsessive about it. Some days I'm tempted to reinvent the spell and use it just twice more: once give myself a kick in the plot, and once to give a kick in the plot to Starswirl. Crazy old 'leave-it-lying-around-half-done' coot....  "Will the girls be coming over today?"

"Sometime this afternoon. Pinkie had a rush order and Applejack has to buck the South fields, but they wanted to go on a picnic later, so I figure we can take a break then..."

******

"I know there's no excuse for what I did," I speak in as soft a voice as I can manage.  "But I want you all to know--"

A crown with glowing jewels lands on my head. Before I can even adjust a frantic Twilight is in my face. "Starlight I've been called to Canterlot for a very important diplomatic meeting and I can't for the LIFE of me find my Zebrican-Equestrian dictionary anywhere--"

"Shelf seventeen, third from the top, fourth in," I blurt.

"Oh thank heaven." She bolts off. Spike waddles by, nearly tripping over the scroll he's reading.

"You wouldn't happen to know where volume 5 of the Encyclopedia Equestria got to, would ya?" he mutters.

"Aisle eighteen, row seven, third in," I respond without thinking. "You left it there last night."

"....And the newest volume of 'Practical Potions for Practically Everything?" he says, his voice odd.

"Aisle three, bottom row, last on the shelf," and I rattle off the dewhoof decimal number. Wait. What?

"Aaaand what page is the formula for Poison Joke antidote?" he quizzes.

"Page 421..." I say. I blink at him. He blinks at me.

And that's how I learn that using the crown gives me eiditic memory.

******

"I know there's no excuse for what I did," I speak in as soft a voice as I can manage.  "But I want you all to know--"

I stop, bewildered. Soldiers are running every which way, shouting orders. Pegasi are flying in and out of open windows. Twilight--- a somewhat taller Twilight--- seems to be conducting affairs. There is a sound of explosions outside. Then the crown teleports itself to my head, and I get the rundown: we're at war. It seems Chrysalis has decided her usual level of subtlety was too much and has switched to open invasion. I swear, she is the WORST example of a Changeling I could possibly imagine. It's like the idea of stealth and subterfuge are wasted on her.

I'd be more contemptuous if her open warfare hadn't gotten her half the territory of Equestria. "No! The Changelings have gotten to Ponyville??"

Rainbow Dash lands in front of me. "Chrysalis herself, no less," she sneered. "Old roach face plans on making Friendship Castle her new Capitol. We're evacuating now..." That obviously sticks in the pegasus' craw.

Massive purple claws pick me up. Spike sets me on his back. "Try not to throw up on me this time, okay?" he says as he spreads his wings. "I-- I don't know what good it'll do," he said as he goes aloft. "You'll be right back here in 24 hours-- I promise, we'll rescue you as often as it takes, no way we'll leave a friend in Chrysalis' clutches--- what, what's so funny?"

I've started cackling like a Serial Studios villain as an idea blooms in my head. "Don't worry, Spike, I have a plan...don't tell Twilight..."

****

"I know there's no excuse for what I did," I speak in as soft a voice as I can manage.  "But I want you all to know--"

I stop, bewildered. Instead of the Mane Six, a gaunt, half-insectoid Changeling mare sits at the Table. She is cackling over the Map, watching her forces march to and fro. "Do they think they can hide from ME, with THIS tool in my power? I---" she looks up. " Who the blazes are you??"

Then the crown teleports to my head and I get the rundown. Chrysalis, invasion, Castle of Friendship, Table of Gratuitous Strategic Vulnerability in her clutches, okay, got it. Time to execute Plan A, also known as Plan What the Hell Are You Thinking Starlight Glimmer.

In my next breath I magically shut the doors and windows and melt them shut, sealing her minions outside. I give her my best smirk and paw the ground with one hoof. Right now Spike and the Mane Six are leading a massive counterattack on the outskirts of Ponyville City, drawing off Chrysalis' forces, and with them a considerable portion of her magical power. I've got maybe a hooffull of minutes before the remaining changeling hordes batter the doors down, so I'd better take her down fast.

Then again, I should manage. Temporally Challenged or not, I'm Starlight Glimmer. I'm a unicorn mage on par with Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer or even Starswirl the Bearded, I've trapped the Changeling Queen in her own throne room all alone with me.... and thanks to the Crown, I have 4,052 different spells to make a Changeling scream "Mommy" right at my horntip.

Game on.

***

The Mane Six stand at the doorway to the battered throne room, aghast at the damage. They're even more aghast when they see Chrysalis lying on the floor in a fetal position sucking her hoof and making mewling noises. "What...?" is all Twilight gets out.

I limp over, nursing my various burns, cuts, bruises, and possibly a cracked rib, pick my battered crown up off the floor and plop it on my head with a painful smirk. "Plan A sort of turned into plan B. Caught her by surprise, managed to about hold my own with her, but.... I couldn't drop her fast enough. She had me dead to rights.

"But somewhere in the middle of the fight," I said, coughing briefly, "She got it in her head that my crown was the source of all my power. The first chance she had she took it from me, put it on, and---" I gesture at the Queen of Drool. "Guess nopony ever told her it's a bad idea to try and cram other ponies' memories into your own head."

"Looks like it wasn't too good for all the minions psychically linked to her, either," Rainbow Dash says, stepping over one of the semi-conscious guards piled at the door. She gives him a kick in the head as she does.

"Is she still a threat?" Rarity asks nervously.

Twilight looks up from examining the brain-stunned queen. "No, and never will be again," she says. "Her mind is just... gone. She's been reduced to the intellect of a newborn infant. Larva. Whatever."

There was a long pause as the mane six soaked in the sight of Equestria's worst enemy mewling like an infant. "I'M not babysitting," Pinkie Pie finally says.

****

It's a lovely day. Five elderly mares,  one immortal alicorn, and a time-looped unicorn (myself) are sharing tea and cakes while the Princess pores over the documentation of my little alchemy project. "This," Twilight is stunned. "This is incredible. An elixir of perpetual youth! This...."

"Awesome. I'm in," Dash says, predictably. Her memory charm glitters in the sunlight. She had been one of the first of the six to adopt the

device after Twilight introduced it to the world as a way for the elderly to retain their clarity of mind in old age. Senility was a thing of the

past, now that memories could be safely preserved. Rainbow Dash, as body proud as she was, hated the idea of slowly crumbling to old age with a passion. I could count on her support easily.

"But Dash, what about the consequences?" Fluttershy fretted. "It could cause all sorts of problems..." Fluttershy is of course the opposite. It's her nature to fret about every possibility, regardless of whether it's likely or not. If I told her the elixir had a one in fifty thousand chance of causing it to rain elephants, she'd be the first to insist everyone bought elephant-proof umbrellas.

Rarity, of course, is obviously torn. I feel kind of cheap for that; the idea of smoothing away her wrinkles and grey hairs would be irresistible to the vain unicorn. I can see it in her eyes... though she can't bring herself to say it out loud.

Applejack is likewise torn. So traditionalist. But with her aging bones starting to hurt from the work on the farm, she's too practical minded to be resistant to the idea.

Pinkie Pie... is Pinkie Pie. A magically enhanced IQ is insufficient for understanding her, much less guessing at her motivations.

But Twilight shakes her head. "I have to agree," she says. "The disruption it could cause to society---" she shakes her head again. "I can't agree to this. I'm sorry." Once again, she falls to her own obsessive compulsive traits and to the precautionary principle.

It's about what I expected. I prepared accordingly. I'm afraid I'm still that stubborn pony who could not take no for an answer.

I take a sip of my tea and set the cup down. "Then I have a confession to make," I said.  I swallowed.

They all freeze. Rarity is the first to guess it. "No...." Rarity says. "You went ahead and made the elixir?"

"Made it?" I laugh. "My dear Rarity, I spiked everyone's tea with it. My own included, of course." They all glance down at their cups in shock. "Yes, even you, Twilight. Alicorns MIGHT be immortal or they MIGHT just be really long lived, I didn't feel like taking the chance. Spike too;  his barrel of apple cider this morning had a little extra oomph in it." I pause. "In addition, Flim and Flam have been selling it across Equestria for me for about a week now. And I've sent the recipe to several laboratories and hospitals. I wasn't about to start this discussion without the cat being thoroughly out of the bag."

"Really, I'm surprised none of you noticed the effects it's having right now." It was true; wrinkles were fading, eyes were clearing, streaks of grey were disappearing from manes and tails. The gasps of astonishment were gratifying.

Twilight stands up, enraged. "Starlight Glimmer! Of all the foolish--- reckless---"

"Selfish?" I reply. "Because that's what it is, Twilight. SELFISH. I'll admit it, and happily! You said it yourself, years ago: I'm trapped in this time loop until the end of time itself. And there's no escape for me. I've "died" dozens of times, only to come right back here. Do you know what that means I have to look forward to? I will still be here millennia after all of you, even YOU, Twilight, are dust and ash. I will be here after our world is a lifeless ball of rock; I will get to sit here and watch the stars snuff out one by one. ALONE. In a lifeless void, for all eternity.

I stand up. I am not feeling particularly... stable at the moment. "Well, I am not going to spend all of eternity as the only living thing in the universe, just because YOU don't like the idea of how eternal youth might rock the boat momentarily in one tiny corner of it! I don't care if it's selfish, I'm not going to... sit by your graves... alone...forever..." I start hucking and choking.

"I know... you're... furious with me... and you will be... for a long time..."

"I think EXASPERATED is the word," Twilight says. "Starlight, you-- ARRRrgh! What am I supposed to say to somepony who gave ponies eternal youth against their will?"

"Don't worry," a sarcastic voice says from a window. "You'll think of something." Spike's scaly head pokes in through a window. "Hey y'all. Yeah, I overheard. You guys keep forgetting I'm out here, don't you. I thought my cider tasted funny this morning..." he gives me a look that speaks volumes, then looks at the others. "Look, I'm afraid I'm on her side, here."

"Spike?" Twilight says, confused.

"C'mon, Twilight. Dragons live for thousands of years. Did any of you ever ask yourselves what I was gonna have to go through, watching you all die while I went on living? I know what she's thinking, what she's feeling. And if you were honest for a second, miss Immortal Alicorn Princess, so do you." Twilight looks uncomfortable at that. "Shoot, If I had found some immortality potion, I'd have spiked your morning coffee with it just like that." He snapped his massive claws for emphasis. "Cause I figure no matter how mad you got, at least you'd be there to BE mad... and you'd eventually live long enough to forgive me for it."

"But taking the choice out of other ponies' hooves..." Rarity objected weakly.

"You do that all the time," Spike said bluntly. "When a pony is doing something dangerous, or stupid, or suicidal. I think refusing to accept a cure for DEATH is pretty much the definition of suicidal." The others sat around and chewed on that.

"Well, what's done is done," Applejack say firmly. "I'm thinkin' we best catch up with the Flim Flam brothers--"

"It's a little late to stop them, Applejack." I start to say.

"--An' make sure they're not gettin' clever and mixin' your potion up with any fillers or additives, if you know what I mean," she finishes, giving me the eye. "You could give those two fools the original golden goose and they'd go broke trying to make omelets." I snicker in spite of the tension.

"Can you forgive me?" I start to say. In answer, wings and hooves enfold me. I cry a few tears of relief. My friends are still my friends. More importantly, my friends will live.

Twilight sighs. "Faust only knows what Celestia and Luna are going to have to say about you unleashing immortality on the unsuspecting populace," she says drily.

--- Not much, as it turns out. Celestia is more miffed that I had left her out of the loop than anything; She'd rather wanted to be the one to spring eternal youth on the pony race. Luna's only verdict is to slug back a dose and remark that she liked the hint of lemon.

****

The crown appears and settles on my brow.

There are now a few dozen tiny memory gems at my brow, bright as stars. Progress, like time, marches on; for not the first time I thank heaven that Twilight continually improves the memory gems. Were I to use the simple century stones of the first crown to store my memories today, I would be bedecked in memory-storing jewels from my nose to my hooves till I couldn't move.

I look around the chamber. The crystal palace is long gone--- or rather, what it has becomes bears no resemblance to the castle of all those millennia ago, any more than the shining spires of Canterlot bore a resemblance to the crude lean-to the first stoneworkers set up on the worksite where it would arise.  From the outside it appears as an enormous bauble, almost like an old-fashioned hearthwarming tree star.  The Palace of Memory hangs suspended in air thousands of feet up. It is accessible by a single stone bridge, a thread-thin spire of rock jutting out at an angle from the flank of a vast, impossibly tall mountain. What was once a rather gaudy little castle in a tree is now a vast crystalline cathedral, filled with thousands of vast rooms and bestowed with every possible creature comfort.... all of it built around the kernel of this singular room and my own little time-looped "catwalk." All with the singular goal of keeping me, and my tiny little corner of the universe, protected from the ravages of time.

My friends have taken good care of me.

The map chamber is now a globe of viewing windows that look out on our ancient world; a world now as lifeless and barren as the surface of its moon. The Map too has evolved; it now projects a glowing three-dimensional model of the galaxy above itself, pinpricked with colored lights representing the countless inhabited worlds out there.

Vast stretches of time have had their toll on the world of Equestria: the terrain resembles nothing from our youth. Countless millennia ago the fires of our world's small sun banked, dimmed, and faded away, leaving its sole illumination the magical light of Luna's moon. I stood here over the aeons and watched the oceans freeze, the last wisps of the atmosphere sublimate away....It's a stark and pristine sort of beauty now under that pale light; even now it elicits shudders from the Moon Princess when she visits. She says it reminds her too much of her own brief prison, and how close she came to plunging our world into this cold and lifeless state. Still, she visits as often as she can, with the many worlds she must travel and supervise. Celestia on the other hand rarely visits; seeing her first star hanging in the sky, cold and dim and long abandoned, puts her in a sulky mood. Her consort Discord at least can restore her to a cheerful mood...

The races of Equestria long ago evacuated, of course. They struck out for the stars, led by the Alicorns... With virtual immortality, universal ascendancy became an inevitability; every member of the pony race, even the thestrals and seaponies, eventually obtained alicornhood.The races and species of Equestria are now scattered across the galaxy. I am literally the last unicorn in the universe.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Mother of Memory?" A golden-maned alicorn filly steps up to me shyly. It is my current maid of honor; I'm barely half her size, yet the dear child treats me with shy reverence and respect as if I towered over her.

"No thank you, Comet Tail," I say. "Though I will have my usual breakfast in the blue garden room."

"Of course." She nods respectfully and leaves. The Palace of Memory does have staff, of course. Servants, housekeepers, guards, scholars and students-- especially students. The Palace is an archive of our race's history, from its ancient past on this very world to its blooming and

ever-growing legend throughout the galaxy. Copies of every tome ever written by pony hoof, wing or horn are stored here, preserved in tiny pin-prick sized memory stones, a glittering starscape of knowledge. It is part museum as well, with relics of fathomless ages in every nook and corner. Some of them to my annoyance my own personal possessions; it's rather exasperating to come across some eager young alicorn student perusing the contents of your coffee table or medicine cabinet as if he had discovered the lost tomb of King Rutentuten. I once spent five minutes explaining  to one perplexed thousand-year-old academic what a "toothbrush" was.

I have to include myself among those 'relics.' Mother of Memory, they call me. The last unicorn in existence, in all of our thousands of

worlds. It is amusing; they treat me with the same reverence I would have treated any alicorn princess all those aeons ago... and as I still

would treat them, were I to neglect putting on my memory crown one morning. From time to time I instruct my hoofservant to withhold my crown for a short while, for the edification of some of the students. It is very sobering for them to realize how far they have come.

All that most of them know of my past is little more than a fairy tale: In the dawn of creation, I committed a terrible crime against our people

and against Time Itself, and that my punishment was to be imprisoned on this tiny planet to watch the turning of the eternal ages till Time Itself came to an end. A rather poetic and dramatic rendering for such a petty, foolish and terrible sin, isn't it? But I think I can be forgiven for letting a little veneer of myth and mystery form to cover my sins.

Rarity and Spike will be visiting some time this week. They've been on a junket around the galaxy on their nth honeymoon, reliving some of the glory days and sparking old romance. Another awkward reminder of my sins; it seems that dragons never cease growing, and in his natural form Spike now towers taller than one of the primordial Ursa Majors. They have to make extensive use of size and form-altering spells for when they wish to be more intimate, so certain topics about the past can be rather... delicate. Still, they are wonderful company, and their stories from their travels are refreshing.

Spike, at the least, is better behaved than Fluttershy's irascible rabbit. She would go and give the little demon a dose of the immortality serum....

***

I step into the chamber. The crown settles on my head.

There is no actual chamber anymore, so much as a singular pocket embedded in the fabric of space itself, a chamber as vast as a gas giant. The planet is long gone, the sun and the moon long gone, the distant stars-- so many of them brightened by alicorn made worldrings at one time, or dimmed by dyson spheres, oh all those aeons ago!--- down to nothing but a few dim sparks clustered together in one corner of an endless sky. The crown on my head is no longer made of enchanted gems but of some transcendant stuff, somewhere between matter and energy and the cosmic fabric itself. It glitters on my brow; thousands of diamond-bright intangible threads stretching out from it in every direction to the walls and ceiling and floor around me. I now live in a literal Palace of Memory, the last flesh and blood eye in a universe slowly winking out.

My friends are there; the thousands I've made in my long pseudo-lifetime, and the six dearest to me, who saved me from myself so long ago. They long ago transcended from material existence; they are beings of thought and energy, like alicorns made of living iridescent flame. How primitive, how barbaric I must look to those all around me! "What brings you all here?" I say, confused.

"Oh my." Fluttershy, ever unchanging, a squirming bundle of rabbit-shaped energy in her forehooves. "Don't... don't you remember?"

For a moment I feel something I haven't in millennia: a chill of fear. "No, I don't!--- Is... is there something wrong with the Crown??"

Twilight laughs and drifts closer. "It's all right Starlight Glimmer. We knew your memory retrieval might get a little spotty here, near the end.

Everything's okay though..."

"End of what?"

"Why, the end of the universe, of course," she says matter-of-factly.

"Oooga booga," a pink alicorn cloud says.

"Pinkie---!" Rarity scolds.

"You remember our old Astronomy lessons, right?" Twilight prompts. A brief struggle fishes the memories up. "The Big Bang, remember? Well, say hello to the Big Crunch."

"Big Crunch," a vast, all encompassing voice. "I still say it sounds like a name for a Troll." I look up and outside the Palace in alarm. Curled up around my gas-giant sized thought-construct like a cat around a ball of yarn is a dragon vast beyond imagining. He is silhouetted in purple and filled with starlike globes of light. He waves a hand the size of a dozen planets at me and smiles. Twilight sticks her tongue out at him.

"Ignore Spike," she says. "He's going to be sheltering us, to protect us during the transition."

Of course. I look to the black sky, to where the few stars are clustered. Is it my imagination or are they moving closer together? "You're getting a little forgetful here because, well, time's going a little wonky here as the Universe collapses. But really, everything's okay."

"The universe is ending," I repeat dryly, "But everything's okay..." A few thousand nearby cosmic entities get a cheap laugh at Twilight's expense.

She sighs and rolls her illusionary eyes at me. "Well this is the transition point. It's not the end of the Universe, so much as... a jump-start for the next. Time, space, everything." She grinned like a filly on Hearthwarming. "A whole new universe. It's going to be amazing! But that's not the point I'm making, I mean--"

"Don't you remember what your little problem is?" A rainbow-colored alicorn being teases.

"Forever trapped until the end of time..." I murmur, understanding blooming. The stars outside move faster; the light grows brighter.

"And here we are, at the place where time is about to end," Twilight clops her spectral hooves together. "And in just a few seconds, er, relativistically speaking for you, we'll be able to pop you free!"

"Yes," says another voice. Celestia and Luna, it could be no others, one white and golden, one indigo, drift in. "Time-- what there is of it-- grows short indeed. We'd best prepare her then."

Outside, time and space swirl together towards one end of the sky, faster and faster. Wings of white and indigo flame enclose me...

The transcendence is... eruptive. Even as timespace unravels, I explode from my mortal form to my immortal one, and from that last material form to one of pure energy and consciousness, like a caterpillar becoming a cocoon and thence a butterfly in a singular rush. Time and Space press down on my Palace from outside, slipping past, pulling away-- I can feel/see/sense the loop of time around me, the pestiferous thing like a gryphon's rabbit snare around my leg, holding me captive all these aeons; at long last the snare bends and the knot loosens. Helping hooves pull the loop open, and I slip free. I laugh to think how desperately we all struggled against such a simple thing. My soul exults and my aetherial wings spread wide as I am finally free.

The memories, all the memories, fall together on me like starfall. I become truly one with my own past for the first time, my memories truly merged into me at last. And I share them, joyfully, with all those within the palace, as they share with me. As we rush towards the Singularity, barriers I had never been aware of begin to break down. The wall between Life and Afterlife gives way; countless billions we had thought lost forever flock to join us, transcendant beings of light and thought like ourselves, trillions of souls hurtling together towards the ultimate threshold---

The stars rush together ahead of us, into a single mass like a film of a firework running backwards, growing brighter and brighter--- Spike wraps himself around our tiny shelter and braces himself. The last thing heard in our old universe is a single word from Pinkie Pie

Wheeeeee--

There is an all-encompassing flash of white--

And we hurtle IN and THROUGH and OUT again, riding the wave as the cosmos explodes, celebrating its own rebirth.

We all gaze in wonder around us as a new Universe cools and forms around us...

New endings, new beginnings. Step right in and start again...