“But it has nothing to do with hula hoops,” Meg said to her past self. So far, the encounter had gone exactly as she had remembered it. Next she expected the pegasus to depart hyperspace without uttering another word, believing she had been offered all the help she was going to receive.

The suspense is killing me. That sarcastic thought had imposed itself on her. The fake suspense ended seconds later, for without so much as a goodbye her past self went back through the portal. To the infinite void she shared, “I still don’t know how to say goodbye to one’s self.”

Fortunately, it was knowledge rarely needed.

Meg touched the portal with a finger and it went dim, flat; her past self was about to test whether it was still open and would find it had been closed. Now to focus on the next time loop, the one where she’d let herself be kidnapped. Little had she volunteered about that mission, details of which her past self would eventually choke on.

I was so naïve back then, she thought to herself, remembering how in not even half a year… those few weeks had done much to remedy that.

The time travel spells were easier to cast as a pony. Only the fact that she had remembered her future self being human caused her to resume that form here. Her past self, she also remembered, had recently acquired a pendant that allowed her to switch between human and equine, leveraging Discord’s magic. Long ago she had learned the isomorphic mapping spell, allowing her to transform into any species all on her own. She used it now, and her equine spine once more bore saddlebags full of gear.

Summoning the raw magic of this place, where the fundamental forces of nature remained undifferentiated, she resumed her journey into the past. Just a few years to go.

---

Twilight engaged in the ritual of brewing tea, adding the precise quantity of leaves to the kettle. President Serrell stood at the panoramic windows, hands clasped behind his back, looking out at the sky above distant Ponyville. The sun hovered above the horizon, its daily journey complete. Any second now day would change over to night, and shortly after that the meeting would start.

The sun dipped below the horizon. Seconds later the moon rose. “Even seeing it with my own eyes, I find myself doubting.”

Twilight concluded the heating spell. “I know what you mean. A planet orbiting a sun? Absurd.”

“And it looks exactly the same—except during sunrise and sunset.” He turned around. “An astounding coincidence.”

“One of all too many.”

Serrell approached the mahogany table, a grim smile on his face. “A topic for another day.”

The door opened, and Princess Luna entered her sister’s private tea room.

Twilight was caught off-guard. “Luna?” And here she was making tea.

The Princess of the Night nodded to the foreign head of state. “I persuaded my sister that I would be better suited for this meeting. I hope you do not mind.”

Serrell shrugged. “You are co-rulers of Equestria; and should word of this meeting get out, I doubt it’d matter to those trying to remove me from office as to which of you I spoke with.”

And maybe she’s right. Luna did seem more in tune with how politics was played by humans. Twilight looked down at the tea set. “Tea is all I have, I’m afraid.”

“It shall suffice.”

Luna took a seat at the table, opposite from the chair procured for the President, who himself sat down. “That was one of the Articles of Impeachment,” she said. “Colluding with us to further our nefarious aims, to paraphrase. I noticed a distinct lack of detail on what these alleged aims might be.”

Serrell exhaled. “No one can agree on what they might be, but that’s okay because they must be nefarious. Then there’s the other Article of Impeachment: my being complicit in the locking up of American citizens without due process in a foreign prison, i.e. Tartarus.”

Which Twilight found preposterous. “I was the one who detained them and locked them up. Your agents gave them every chance to avoid that, but they refused to cooperate.”

“Well, to be fair, I did agree to the Tartarus gambit, but then there’s no one who knows that who’d leak that fact, not that that’s stopping Eric Tanner from implying I was involved anyway. Regardless, they’ll claim in the upcoming Senate trial next week that I failed to protect our citizens from you. Whether it’s from malice or incompetence doesn’t really matter.”

“Would we be called as witnesses?” Luna asked.

“Probably, but obviously they can’t force you. However, should you refuse, you shouldn’t set foot in the USA.” He looked down into his teacup. “Not that there’s a jail that could hold you.”

Twilight sighed. “True, but that wouldn’t help our cause.”

“It would not.” Serrell looked up. “What is your cause, exactly?”

“Friendship, of course!”

Serrell shook his head. “I know you’re sincere, but don’t be surprised if that isn’t received as well as you think it ought to be.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “I’m not clueless.”

“What about Meg?” Luna asked.

“It’s certain she’ll be called as a witness. She can refuse so long as she stays here, just as she refused the House, but… you know the drill.”

“Is a pardon still off the table?”

“It won’t keep her from being subpoenaed, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But it would allow her to return home,” Twilight said. Well, to a new home. Her last apartment was now rented to others.

Serrell allowed himself a long sip of tea. “It would get the FBI off her case, yes, but she would still be in danger from… less savory elements of society. I’m not sure what can be done about that. Maybe if Senator Routledge had been removed from office, but…”

Twilight practically snarled. “But he wasn’t.”

It never got as far as impeachment, not even close. For all the evidence Twilight and Meg had gathered, none of it tied the senator to the actions of the so-called “The Section.” Worse, Routledge had argued that evidence was obviously fake, computer generated—or far worse, magically created. That the means by which those videos had been recorded could not be revealed, because Serrell had classified the existence of magical time travel, did not help matters at all. Of those directly involved with the kidnapping, the very few who had initially been willing to talk as part of plea deals suddenly went silent, once it became clear the evidence against them was unusable. Their cases had never gone to trial either.

Sometimes Twilight wondered if the president had his priorities straight.

“And for me to issue that pardon, under these circumstances, would look incredibly bad.”

Twilight slammed a hoof. “Then Meg can testify only as a prisoner. That’s unacceptable.”

“Twilight, please. Calm down.” Luna closed her eyes in thought. “Would Meg testifying remotely, from Equestria, be possible?”

Serrell sighed. “Technically, I suppose so, given what you can do with cell phones and stuff, but I doubt the Senate will go for it.”

“Then she could testify in person as a pony,” Luna said. “They would be unable to hold her.”

Twilight gaped; Luna seemed serious. “Yes… that’s true, I mean, that’s how those—our means of crossing over works, but wouldn’t showing up as a pegasus just create more problems?”

“Would it? It’s common knowledge now, is it not?”

For the first time in quite some time, a smile appeared on Serrell’s mouth. “It would certainly shake the box. They wouldn’t expect that.”

“That is all well and good.” Luna looked Serrell in the eyes. “But we are ignoring the manticore in the room. How would Meg’s testimony help you? Should she not spare herself the ordeal?”

“Same for me,” Twilight said. “Especially since most of what we could say has been classified by you.”

He sighed. “It’s more that your non-appearance hurts, rather than what you might say would help. You two are fact witnesses. They’ll claim I’m preventing you from testifying, because your testimony would be damaging.”

Luna nodded. “That would be their logical course of action.”

Twilight looked back and forth between the two, and sighed. “I’ll think about it. As for Meg, that’s her decision.”

---

Meg typed away at her workstation, working on the simulation software that modeled magic fields. At this point she was doing it more for Twilight than for her job at the Department of Energy. Not that she’d had much opportunity to spend her human salary. It was her job as Royal Advisor that now covered her no-longer-token Equestrian expenses.

A Royal Guard walked through the converted cavern. The two guards were her only company this late at night, there to ensure no unauthorized persons came through the portal. Human counterparts were on the other side. Their job seemed primarily to take her into custody should she return to her own world, and the guards’ job was primarily to make sure their human counterparts stayed on their side of the portal.

Surprisingly few had tried to enter Equestria uninvited—if only because Discord had been persuaded to shift the portal over to the vault that had been used for magic experiments. Though never acknowledged, word of the portal’s existence had of course gotten out. After the first few gatecrashers armed with live streaming had managed to enter the facility and found only an ordinary wall for their efforts, the problem had pretty much taken care of itself. Not that they stopped believing in the portal, oh no. It obviously got moved, and they would find it.

Well, they weren’t wrong. So far, no one with access to the vault—a select few—had talked. On this side of the portal, a new room had been dug out and the portal moved into that. It was one of many security upgrades. A proper, public portal was being talked about—behind closed doors, of course—but so far it was only talk.

“We need to talk, Meg.”

Meg jerked her head to the side. “About what?” Twilight must have just teleported in.

“The upcoming impeachment trial.”

She knew where this was going. She turned back to her workstation. “Not doing it.”

“Just hear me out, okay?”

Meg sighed. “Just get to the point.”

“Do it as a pony. Then they can’t hold you.”

That caught her off-guard, for that option had never occurred to her. Even so: “But what would that accomplish? What could I possibly say—what I’m allowed to say—that would make a difference?”

Never mind what showing up as a pony might do to her.

“The mere fact that you do not will hurt Serrell’s case and help Routledge’s. Luna agrees.”

“Will you testify?”

“I’m not ruling it out.”

Meg plunged her face into her hands. “I am so sick of this.”

“Maybe flip a quantum coin?”

“I’m sick of that too. I am not going to run my life by coin flips.”

Twilight answered with silence.

“Fine. I’ll flip a coin.” Meg navigated to the website she had visited all too often. “Should I flip a coin to determine whether to appear before the Senate to testify?” She started the stream of quantum mechanically generated random hexadecimal digits, then immediately stopped it and looked at the first digit. “No. Go figure. I guess I have to decide on my own. The multiversal quantum supercomputer has spoken.”

“Then think it over. That’s all I ask.”

Twilight teleported away.

Meg groaned. “What’s to think about.”

---

There was one last item for Twilight to cross off her checklist. Sunset Shimmer and Moondancer had something to show her. They had been rather mysterious about it, just said to meet them in the mirror realm.

The mirror stood before her. Twilight walked through the mirror, and nearly fell flat on her face—and not because she had become a biped. Canterlot High was gone! In its place was a control room right out of some human sci-fi movie, full of hi-tech consoles and computer displays. “What in Celestia’s name happened?!”

Both of them were seated at a console. Sunset Shimmer spun around in her chair to face her. “We finally figured out the true nature of this place.”

“Why it looks the way it does,” Moondancer added.

Twilight looked behind her. There was a wide, floor-to-ceiling pillar. No statue. “And that would be…?”

“This realm is pure magic,” Sunset said. “No other fundamental forces of physics are present here.”

Twilight shook her head. “No, no, no, no. Magic is the one thing that cannot be used here. That’s what caused that leak!”

“Only because this place was magically simulating a non-magical realm. You could say, in a manner of speaking, that its programming couldn’t handle intense harmonic magic, like from the Elements.” Sunset shrugged. “We broke the simulation.”

Twilight looked around the control room—controlling what?—as the implications sank in. She wished she had a horn here, so that she could directly probe the magical underpinnings. “How did you move the portal from the statue to here?”

Moondancer stood up and walked towards her. “We didn’t move the portal; we changed the simulation.”

“What?”

“When a pony enters this realm—unoccupied—the realm conforms to her expectations. Canterlot High had always been here because we didn’t know any better; we expected it, therefore it was here.”

Something wasn’t right. Twilight fixed her gaze on Sunset. “But why would you be thinking of human equivalents to Ponyville residents when you came here the very first time?”

“I wasn’t.” She exchanged glances with Moondancer. “We, uh, have a theory about that.”

Twilight facepalmed. “I’m not going to like it, am I?”

Moondancer cleared her throat. “One resident of Ponyville was conspicuously absent.”

“Two, actually,” Sunset said.

Twilight groaned. “Myself and Spike.” She looked up. “But at that time, both of us were living in Canterlot, so that doesn’t actually explain anything.”

“Oh.” Moondancer grimaced. “Right.”

Sunset waved it off. “That doesn’t really invalidate the theory. Look, I don’t have any proof—don’t really have any evidence—but what if you went back in time and came here before I did, establishing Canterlot High and its students and faculty, and left only after I arrived. You and Spike wouldn’t have equivalents because you were already here. Well, maybe Spike went back in time with you?”

This was giving her a headache. “Sure, why not, what’s one more time loop?” A thought came to her: “Wait a minute. You mean we don’t have to become humans in this place?” Maybe she could one day come here as an alicorn and probe the magical underpinnings of this realm.

“Strictly speaking, no,” Sunset said. “That was just another part of the simulation. We don’t have material bodies here at all; we can set it to have any form we want. Didn’t you notice that Discord always remained his chaotic self?”

Twilight nodded.

“I don’t know how, but he knew how to override the form this realm tried to impose on him.”

“Override the simulation from within,” Twilight said. Discord could not be separated from his magic. That’s what Tirek had said, and this place was supposedly nothing but magic. “Remember he got rid of all the occupants?”

Sunset looked up in thought. “Yeah, he did that, didn’t he?”

Twilight remembered something, back from when she’d first learned about the magic leak to the human realm. “Discord also created that mirror. Claimed that this place was nothing but a reflection of our own realm… that it doesn’t exist unless somepony goes through to observe it.”

“He might have been jerking you around,” Sunset said. “Tends to do that, you know.”

“Tell me about it.”

“But, in this case, it’s more or less consistent with what we found out. It was a reflection of our realm because somepony went through expecting it to be, and thus observed it to be.”

“What about isolating our two realms?” Twilight asked. “He said that too.”

“The better question is, what would break that isolation?” Sunset asked.

Moondancer answered, “Portals.”

“Portals,” Twilight repeated.

“Yes, portals.” Sunset waved her hand at the consoles. “This all controls the portals between the Equestrian and human realms—creates, moves, destroys. I simply went through the mirror expecting a portal control room, and here it is.”

Twilight walked over to a monitor. According to what she saw on it, one portal currently existed. There was also the longitude, latitude, altitude, width, height, and orientation of both ends.”

“I already checked out those coordinates,” Sunset said. “They accurately describe the portal we know about.”

“But what if it’s showing this because you expected it to show this?” Confirmation bias literally made real. They’d have to watch out for that.

Sunset had a ready answer. “We briefly created another portal, from another spot in the cavern to the opposite side of the vault. This is the real deal.”

Twilight couldn’t take her eyes off that monitor. “But where were all these controls hiding before? How did Discord create that portal if this wasn’t here?”

Moondancer shrugged. “We don’t know.”

“How did you know—or even suspect—the portals were controlled from this realm?”

“Suspect, really,” Sunset said. “The main clue was what Tirek had said, that the portals did not directly connect the two realms, that this realm was the intermediary. There’s also the fact that from within this realm Discord could open and close that other portal to hyperspace.” She pointed at the pillar Twilight had come through. “It’s on the other side, like before.”

This changed everything. Maybe it even solved the unsolvable! “Could this create a portal into Tartarus?” And provide a way to for Tirek to escape?

“Uh… I don’t think so? I mean, there’s no way to specify which realm. One endpoint is assumed to be in the human realm, the other in ours. What does latitude and longitude even mean in that place?”

“See if it’s possible.” Twilight met Sunset’s eyes. “It’s important.”

Those eyes widened. “Sure. Important.” She stole a glance at Moondancer. “I mean, if Tartarus is no longer escape-proof due to this… we ought to find out sooner than later, right?”

---

Meg couldn’t get her mind back into her work, as hard as she tried to do so. She might as well go home. Her Equestrian home. The only home she now had.

After locking her computer’s desktop, she stood up and put her saddlebags around her neck, then squeezed her pendant. A pegasus once more, she put on her mining helmet and switched on its lamp. As she trotted over to the locked exit, she said in a raised voice, “I’m leaving now.”

A guard came by and opened the door for her, after magically unlocking it. “Have a good night,” he said.

“May be too late for that,” she muttered.

The guard had the good sense not to reply to that. The door closed behind her and relocked.

Meg walked through the old mining tunnels. In the solitude, she thought it over yet again. It was true they could not hold her so long as she arrived via one of Discord’s plaid pills; she could return whenever she wanted and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Even if they knocked her out and kept her unconscious, the failsafe would kick in once the magic ran out. None of that could prevent them from killing her, she supposed, but, one, they wouldn’t do that and, two, it was literally impossible; she had met her future self—who was very much alive.

Well, if they had a magic generator… no, that was overthinking it, and none of that was the real problem anyway. She had never appeared in public as a pony. Didn’t matter that that secret was out; there was a big difference between hearing she was a pony and seeing it on television during an impeachment trial. Would she ever be able to go out in public again? As if I could anyway, she rationalized. Well, it was true, wasn’t it?

But what could she say under questioning? She had little doubt that most of it would involve classified information. But was that really a problem? So she’d just give non-answers, pretend to have a poor memory; she had seen that song and dance played out enough times. The point was she’d be there, thereby proving Serrell was cooperating or whatever.

Routledge. The man behind the curtain, the man who had her niece kidnapped—even if they couldn’t prove it, not even circumstantially. He’d be one of the inquisitors on the Senate Judiciary Committee. How could I deal with him?

By the time she had walked out under the night sky, she still didn’t know. After stowing her helmet in a saddlebag she took wing, Luna’s moon providing ample light to fly by. Gaining altitude, the thought crystalized: the senator must be made to pay. That would justify appearing before the Senate—the consequences to herself be damned. Yet that only begged the question: how to make him pay?

A few minutes later she had flown up and around the mountain and was approaching the palace, her not-so-temporary home. A guard, armor shining in the moonlight, was flying in her general direction—no, definitely heading towards her. That was unexpected; what was up? She slowed down to a hover as they met. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Meg?”

“That’s right.”

“Her Highness requests your presence.”

“Princess Celestia?” Now? Must be important.

The guard coughed. “The other one.”

“Oh.” Late at night. Right. “Where may I find her?”

“The throne room.” Message delivered, the guard departed.

In those rare situations when Luna had initiated contact, it had been in her dreams. Doesn’t make it less important. Meg resumed flying, and soon she was gliding in to a landing at the palace entrance. There wasn’t much activity. Ponies still preferred to conduct their business during daylight hours. Luna seemed to have made her peace with it, perhaps because it gave her the time to patrol the dreamscape for nightmares.

The throne room was a ghost town—no, not quite. An aristocrat was in discussions with the princess, and a few staffers hovered nearby. Upon hearing somepony enter, Luna looked up. “We’ll have to put this aside for a half-hour or so. Everypony please vacate the throne room.”

Meg took that as her cue to approach the throne. Quickly the others departed, and from that throne Luna closed the doors and gave them privacy. “I figured a change of pace would be appreciated,” Luna said. “To meet in person instead of in a dream.”

Meg shrugged. “I suppose? Anyway, would this have anything to do with a conversation I just had with Twilight? I’ve decided to do it, by the way.”

Luna looked surprised. “Do what?”

“Be a witness at the impeachment trial. Twilight mentioned you agreed that’d be a good idea.”

“I see. We did have a meeting with President Serrell earlier this evening—but that is not why I requested your presence. Have you given any thought as to how, in the past, you shall break Tirek out of Tartarus?”

It had been months since that particular nightmare, when Luna had conveyed royal… non-disapproval?… to that act. “Not really? I mean, I have no idea how we’re supposed to do that. I just assumed that when the time was right something would turn up. It would have to, right? It will—did happen.”

“I believe you should be more proactive. As was pointed out before, it would be best if it happened under our terms.”

And not under other terms that happened to be sufficient to close the time loop, Meg recalled from when Luna had disrupted her Tartarus nightmare. “Well… not sure where I’m supposed to look for the answer. Many had tried to figure out how he escaped, right? Without success?”

“I agree that revisiting well-explored terrain would be unproductive. However, you are human; I imagine that would bring a different perspective to the problem.”

“Maybe it does,” Meg replied, “but that ‘different perspective’ has yet to work any magic.”

“Keep your mind receptive to possible solutions, and be aware that a solution could come from any direction. That’s all I can ask.”

“I guess I can do that.” Meg took a breath. “Can we go back to the impeachment trial? I said I’ll do it, but there’s the detail of how I’ll do it. I doubt it’ll make Serrell happy.”

“Serrell’s happiness is not our responsibility.” Luna raised an eyebrow. “Would it make me or my sister unhappy?”

Meg had no idea. Only one way to find out. “I want to take Routledge down for what he did to my niece. The only way I can see to do that is by revealing how I collected the evidence against them, through methods classified by the White House.”

“I see.”

Meg couldn’t read Luna. Awkward seconds passed. “The way I figure it,” she continued, “it’s not his to classify anyway. It’s Equestrian magic. Sure, I get it: he believes if this got out it’ll only make things worse, and for all I know he’s right. But wouldn’t taking down Routledge and his goons more than make up for that? And it’s not like magical time travel isn’t already known. Twilight did it in one of the cartoons!” And she couldn’t change the past, an important point to get across.

“Have you considered the possibility that Serrell might be persuaded? You could be invited to the next meeting.”

She hadn’t, actually, but didn’t care to admit that. “And what if he can’t be? I’ll do it anyway; I don’t think it’s in his power to stop me.” The Senate did not need presidential permission, that’s for sure.

“Did you flip a quantum coin over it?”

Not you too, she inwardly groaned. “No, and I’m not going to.”

More unreadable seconds passed.

“I shall discuss this with Celestia and Twilight. Taking down the senator would make all of us happy, naturally; nonetheless, the potential for collateral damage must be assessed. I ask that you consider making your case to President Serrell.”

The doors to the throne room opened under Luna’s magic. The aristocrat and staffers re-entered.

Meg bowed, as was appropriate in a public setting. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

Next Chapter: 2. Mythconceptions Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 7 Minutes