“You!” Twilight said in an exaggerated princessly voice. “Stop right there!” She drew herself up to her full height, trying to make herself look as tall as possible, puffed out her barrel, and looked down her muzzle at Sumac, who was now frozen. “I know what you did.” As she spoke, her eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, I did it,” Sumac admitted as his thoughts about the snow outside retreated from his mind. He knew exactly what he had done, and he wasn’t too surprised that Twilight knew about it as well. She just wouldn’t be Twilight without these sorts of surprises, and looking back on it in hindsight, Sumac felt rather stupid.

“I had some very mild wards protecting the zap apple tincture. I am actually surprised that you did what you did. I expected you to do it, but I didn’t expect you to do it now. I scheduled this conversation about a year from now. So begins the game.”

“Game?” Sumac asked.

“Oh, you are bound to do it again, so each time I’m going to make the wards a little bit harder, so you will have to put in a little more effort. And who knows… you might get a little a surprise if you keep trying… but don’t expect me to make it easy for you.” Twilight’s mouth opened and she began to chuckle hard enough to cause her feathers to fluff out.

“I’m not in trouble?”

“Goodness no.” Twilight wiped the corners of her eyes with her foreleg, let heave a satisfied sigh, and relaxed her posture into something a bit more casual. “Anyhow, I was just on my way outside to look at the snow. Trixie is in your room. She’s had a very trying day, you should go and see if you can make her feel better.”

“Come on, Sumac, let’s go and check up on Trixie,” Twinkleshine said as she gave the colt a nudge to get him moving.

“See you, Twilight.” Sumac looked up at Twilight’s smiling face one last time, then moved ahead at Twinkleshine’s urging, eager to see his mother. The colt forgot his previous troubles outside, his deep thinking, and even though he would never, ever admit it, he was looking forwards to a bit of a hug with Trixie, or maybe, just maybe, a bit of a snuggle.

Trixie was just a little softer than usual. Oh, Sumac would never say that she was getting fat, but she had rounded out a little, was softer in a number of places, and wasn’t quite so bony. Lemon Hearts seemed to agree, because when he and Twinkleshine had come in, he had found both of them on the bed together, spooning and talking.

“Don’t go,” Lemon Hearts said as Twinkleshine approached the door. “Stay here… with us.”

“I don’t know…” Twinkleshine sounded hesitant.

“There’s another bed right over there if you don’t feel like joining us.” Lemon Hearts made a gesture with her hoof at the empty bed. “Besides, we need to talk. All of us.”

“We do?” Twinkleshine asked as she moved towards the empty bed.

“Tomorrow we’re going to a wedding.” Lemon Hearts watched as Twinkleshine bounced onto the empty bed and got settled. “Wormwood and Gloomy are finally getting hitched after a few delays. We’re invited and we can bring a friend, so Trixie and I thought that we should bring you. It’s a come as you are affair and is in no way formal.”

“Before you even ask, Sumac, Pebble will be there. Silver Lining gave her an invitation, she told me all about it earlier when I saw her and Lemon in the hall.” Trixie yawned, closed her eyes, and rested her head on Sumac, who she held in her forelegs. “This feels good, you know? I mean, being settled in like this. I know our home got ruined, but we have this room and we have each other and we have our friends.”

“Friends,” Boomer repeated as she uncoiled herself from Sumac’s horn. She yawned, stretched a bit, then scampered up Trixie’s face, climbing right up, and she did a little chin up on Trixie’s horn, stepping on Trixie’s nose on her way up. Her long tail, which had gotten longer, whipped around until it hit Trixie’s ear and then it began to wrap around that as if it had a mind of its own.

“I had a look at our new house,” Lemon Hearts said to everypony. “It just needs a little wiring and some plumbing and we’ll be able to move in. It’s right on the spot of the old one and this one is a little different. There is a larger upstairs, two bathrooms, a somewhat bigger kitchen, a dining area, and there is a cellar.”

Sumac thought that sounded nice, wondered if he would have the upstairs to himself, and was glad to hear about a second bathroom so he wouldn’t have to share. Or maybe he could move down into the cellar, spiders lived down in the cellar, and Boomer would have plenty to eat. Plus, he could conduct experiments in the cellar.

“The upstairs is just one big room and there are two bedrooms on the ground floor.” Lemon Hearts turned to look at Twinkleshine, her expression both soulful and hopeful. “I know you’re still trying to figure everything out, Twinkle, but Trixie and I both want you to be with us. Our invitation is open and so is our bedroom door. Sharing a bed is a quaint Trottingham tradition.”

“Are we a family now?” Sumac asked.

“I don’t know,” Trixie replied, sounding sleepy. “I think I’d like for us to be. Lemon Hearts and I are still trying to sort out what we have between us. It’s tricky when you don’t know much about yourself.”

Sumac realised that he was no longer in the shallow end of the swimming hole, but the deep end. This was the territory of adult conversation, the domain of grownups, and he wondered how much say he had on everything. Not that he needed or wanted much of a say, not as much as Pebble seemed to want, but it would be nice to be listened to.

As Trixie’s forelegs wrapped a little tighter around him, Sumac thought of his conversation with Octavia, and Octavia’s doubts about Trixie being gay. Octavia had her doubts, but had admitted she might be wrong. He also thought about what Octavia had said about not telling Trixie, and how important it was for her and Lemon Hearts to figure this out on their own.

There was love there, Sumac could both feel it and see it, the way they touched, the way they looked at one another, the occasional flirting that left him flustered when he witnessed it. He began to wonder if two ponies could be in love but not quite fit with one another. There was a word for it, Sumac was certain of it, but he couldn’t think of what the word he wanted was.

“What does it mean to be special someponies?” Sumac asked, thinking aloud, his mind wandering from subject to subject, and thinking of Pebble somewhere deep in the back of his mind.

“Oh, love is like destiny. Fate guides you to the one you love and when you find them, things just fit together. Most of them, when you find a special somepony, you settle down with them, get married, and have a nice life.” Lemon Hearts nestled up a little closer to Trixie as she spoke and there was a curious gleam in her eye.

“I don’t think I agree.”

Lemon’s eyebrow arched. “Twinkle?”

“I’ve had quite a few special someponies… I was really in love with them,” Twinkleshine confessed in an embarrassed voice. “But it all went wrong. The love was there, but with me being gay and all… the physical aspect didn’t quite work out… at all. My heart kept getting broken, and I kept breaking the hearts of others. But I was so certain that they were the one.”

“Oh.” Lemon’s utterance was little more than a meek gasp.

“I suppose there is a certain romantic notion to linking love and fate together, both of them are aspects of harmony and we are creatures of harmony, but If that is the case, I’ve had fate and love do me wrong. All my failed relationships… all the hurt… and now, I can’t even figure out who or what I am anymore.”

Hearing what Twinkleshine had to say, Sumac thought it sounded pretty awful. He began to wonder about his relationship with Pebble, what it meant now, what it might mean in the long run, and if she was his special somepony, was she the one? It would be nice to know, so that way he could stop worrying and wondering, he could just allow life to happen and never have to give serious thought to it ever again. He could just let it all happen with no worry or fuss on his part.

“Figuring yourself out is hard,” Trixie whispered. “I was just starting to get myself sorted out, and now, I am Lady Lulamoon. I was just starting to get comfortable with who I am… who I was… but now, everything is different and everything feels so uncertain. Dandy and I are the last.” Trixie hesitated, shaking her head, and then continued, “And I can’t even begin to figure out the relationship between me and my mother. I’m still trying to figure Lemon out.”

“It doesn’t sound like life gets any easier,” Sumac began, “I mean, I’m five and everything seems too complex and listening to all of you talk, it sounds like life just gets harder—” Sumac’s words were cut off with an abrupt end as his magic sense made him shiver-shudder. It was an alarming sensation, it made his horn tingle and his teeth felt electric.

“Sumac?” Trixie asked.

“M-m-m-magic sense,” Sumac stammered.

Twinkleshine flew off of the bed, yanked the door open, and ran out into the hall, leaving Trixie, Lemon, Sumac, and Boomer in the room together. Sumac’s magic sense continued to go haywire and his whole body jerked from the now unpleasant sensations coursing through him. The colt grabbed Trixie’s leg, gritted his teeth, and hoped that the feeling would pass soon.

Sumac came into Twilight’s chambers just in time to see himself, but not himself. He froze as he stared at himself, knowing that he was seeing himself. He was taller, older, had a mustache, and there was a crazy amount of magic radiating off of himself. Little Sumac tried to swallow the lump in his throat when his older self smiled down at him.

“Hello tiny little me!” older Sumac said to himself as he waved.

Things only got crazier. There were two Starlight Glimmers in the room, one much older, an older version of Trixie stood beside her, and one very beat up looking Twilight Sparkle stood in their midst. The just fine Twilight Sparkle stood looking at herself, a little confused, a little perplexed, and she began to nod her head.

“This has happened to me before,” Twilight remarked, “this is not the first time I’ve met myself. So, now that Sumac is here, what is going on?”

“Time is limited,” the older, battered looking Twilight replied. “Starlight and I, we’re using Sumac’s sorcery to come here and talk to you.”

“And you’re from the future?” Twilight asked.

Older Twilight nodded. “One possible future, and one I hope that can be changed. The Ascendency gets ahold of the lantern… Sumac’s lantern. They use it to figure out what they are doing wrong when they make alicorns. Tarnished Teapot recovers the lantern at great risk to himself, cursing most of the upper ranks of the Ascendency with his poison joke magic. They were quite powerless against him during his surprise attack, they weren't prepared with an antidote for poison joke and the sheer ferocity of the Heliophant. Tarnish cut the drawstring with Flamingo and the lantern was destroyed.”

“You mustn’t allow this to happen!” future Starlight shouted, and the older Trixie nodded her head. “I used Sumac’s magic to fracture the timeline, our timeline, at least I think I did. It cost us the cutie mark map, and I hope it’s worth it.”

“What happened?” Twilight asked.

Older Twilight shuddered. “Grogar took down most of the Ascendency while they were still crippled from the poison joke curse, he killed them, stuffed them into the Rainbow of Darkness bag, and revived them as an army of undead draconequus spawns that he had no control over. We no longer have the lantern to hold back the armies of undead. I think we’ve lost. No matter what, you must not destroy the lantern! It’s risky keeping it, but we’ve seen the future without it… we’re out of time and we must be going.”

“No, wait,” Starlight said as she stared at herself, “is there nothing more you can tell us?”

Future Starlight began to look dim and motes of light danced around her body. “Keeping the lantern safe won’t be as hard as keeping Sumac safe. The Ascendency will come for him and they will keep coming. Prepare yourselves—”

With a crackle, future Starlight was gone, and so was everypony else. Sumac stood there, staring at where his older self had stood, wide-eyed and bewildered. Fear crept through him, cold chills ran up and down his spine, and with a slow turn of his head, he looked up at Twilight as it dawned upon him that he was in very real danger.

“It is as I suspected,” Twilight said as Sumac stared at her. “At least, I think it is. I think the lantern uses the power of the drawstring to control the undead and keep them away. There is so much to learn and so little time available. There are just so many demands upon my time… there just aren’t enough hours in the day.”

“What do we do?” Trixie asked.

“What we’ve been doing,” Twilight replied.

Author's Notes:

So begins the slow build up to the Ascendency.