While time travel spells required an insane amount of concentration for any lucky enough to master them, they came naturally to Nyx who had been born to them. Letting most of its navigation be performed by instinct and subconscious monitoring, it allowed her a moment while in transit to process the shock of having seen the future version of herself.

‘It seems my fate is sealed,’ she thought glumly. ‘It was as if I were gazing upon a version of myself from an alternate universe. ‘I wonder if I change for the better?’

With that thought, she closed her eyes. A year flew past, then two, then three. ‘I must be more paranoid than I thought to have let my fear run me so far into my future,’ she thought wryly, using conscious effort to pull back gently on the spell. When the passage of time slowed enough it wouldn’t make her sick to gaze upon, she slowly opened her eyes…

...to an empty cliff face overlooking the Great Ocean.

‘Did I move in space?’ the TimeWitch asked aloud of no one in particular. ‘I know I can do that, but it is rather dangerous and I have to make a conscious effort to avoid - ‘ She took a step forward, hitting the toe of her hoof upon stone. She bent down, clearing away moss and vines, revealing gleaming white and black marble underneath.

Her dark eyes widened in horror.

“No...no...NO!” her heart hammered in panic as she cleared more moss, exposing more of the Temple of the Moon’s foundation.

Her home.

It was leveled. Nothing had survived.

Not a wall. Not a statute.

Not a dragonfly.

The Marazon sat there for hours quietly crying, which had come after several minutes of heart-wrenching screams and sobbing.

This was all her fault.

She was weak, a coward. Hiding in the sanctuary of the temple, hoping King Sombra would have respected the sanctity of its neutrality in wartime. The legends were true then, all her fears about him, the tales of his evil that had been heard as far as the Saddle Arabian Empire. He was a monster and she had been an IDIOT for believing such a monster could hold to any rules of engagement or codes of chivalry, morality or compassion as the Marazon tribes did and now the price was to be paid to all the west coast tribes - the loss of their beloved temple!

She watched Celestia’s setting sun, still in a state of shock and anger - anger now overflowing, quashing her fear. He would pay for this transgression as the Furies of their ancient legends who meted out justice upon all those who wronged an innocent pony unjustly killed. The relatives of such victims would call them down upon the murderer, even if they did not know who the killer was, for the Furies could not be hidden from and they saw all…

“This is where everything changes for us!”

Nyx looked around, confused, as the echoes of her own voice came from both inside her own head and from all around her. The air warped around the TimeWitch with the vibration of a disturbance in time. She looked up in the direction of Luna’s rising moon over the ocean.

A cloaked mare phased into existence before her. She wore silver-plated greaves upon black hooves and had a unicorn’s horn, but that was all the detail Nyx could see underneath the robes.

“Ah great, us again with another lecture - “ the mourning mare began sarcastically, but the words died in her throat as her future self drew back the hood to reveal her face.

Her horn was the curved sickle-shape of King Sombra’s, but shaded dark grey at the base to silver at its tip, as was its present coloring.

The two stared at each other for a moment. Finally, the younger Nyx cocked her head. “My, have we changed,” she said, the sarcasm gone from her voice. “Is this truly us now?”

“Yes,” her future self nodded. “Much has happened in the centuries I have been you,” she began.

“‘Centuries’?” her younger self echoed. “We should not live that long!”

The elder version of her pony self nodded again. “No, we do not. But fate decreed we not die before our mission was completed.”

The younger version shook her head, trying to comprehend the cryptic answer. “Is this how I sound to everypony? Confusing as Tartarus?”

A sad smile peeked through the mare’s worn features. “I suppose it was,” she replied. “It has been so long, I scarcely recall.”

“I saw you but a few moments ago,” she walked around the new Nyx, keeping a careful distance. “We looked so much happier then. I guess a thousand years will do that to a mare.”

Her other self nodded. “And I know having myself in this form visit you is not as - encouraging of our future as I was when I - we - were First Consort - “

“‘Consort’?!?” she yelped.

“Yes, consort, but we have been rather - busy since our last visit of you. I remember having you come to me and I may not get the chance again before - “ she lowered her head. “Well, before...let’s just say the future will be very busy for us.”

The Nyx of the present ceased her circle and sat down in the rubble of their beloved moon temple. “Okay, spirit of my miserable future, what peculiar wisdom can thee impart to me?”

“All is not lost, Nyx. The temple will be rebuilt, but not in the year you came from, yet you must help them restore it.” She went to the side of the cliff facing the land.

Present Nyx came to the cliff’s edge and looked down. There, in the darkening plains, were hundreds of tiny, flickering lights coming their way. Each small clump of lights illuminated a cluster of mares and the banners of many of the western Marazon tribes could be seen held aloft by their earth pony bearers. “Our sisters!” she breathed, amazed. “But why me?”

“They have no records of its design or contents, Nyx. You are the only one left who knows.”

The Marazon’s ears drooped, then her head. “It is true then. King Sombra killed us all.” She turned, but her future self was gone.

“No!” she trotted back towards the ocean side of the cliff. “You can’t leave yet. I must know! Did King Sombra kill us all?!?”

There was no answer. She was gone.

“This is a mad quest,” one flag-bearing mare said to the archer next to her. “There is no one here and we have no plans. Why are we here?”

“Because Queen Andromache said so,” the archer replied. “As did our council.”

“But why if none - “ a light caught her attention at the top of the hill. A silver light like Luna’s moon, only smaller, earth-bound and much brighter.

The two Marazons heard the call to stop that echoed out from the Queen’s runners. It took a moment for the advancing mares to stop, so many of them there were. They saw the Queen, her horn glowing in acknowledgement of the silvery beacon.

The light at the top of the cliff winked out of existence and reappeared before the Queen. A cloaked mare approached her, the unicorn’s horn still glowing, pouring silver light over the assembly.

“Is it you?” the Queen asked. “The one the old TimeWitch spoke of?”

The figure stopped before her. “Is it?” she repeated the question.

Nyx drew back her hood. A surprised murmur ran through the ranks surrounding the Queen as they saw the mare was a younger version of her who had come to the nation with the hope and promise of rebuilding the Temple of the Moon. A mare of black eyes, a snake-eating cutie mark and promises to re-establish their nation.

The time-displaced unicorn looked them over, the thousand mares, their firefly companions, banners of nations undefeated and tears of relief came to her eyes. She nodded, bowed before Queen Andromache and answered, “Yes.”