AN: I never thought that I would ever write anything in this universe, and yet here we are. After watching the Season 5 finale, I was intrigued by this particular alternate timeline and wanted more of it. I was both surprised and disappointed when I couldn't find any fan fics that ran with the idea, so I decided to write one myself. This is the prologue; it was important to me that there be a logical reason that Starlight and Twilight would end up back in the specific timeline at the war with the Crystal Empire. If you, like me, want to see more of that future, please let me know in your review.
"If something you can't control happens that changes things, work through it together. That's what friendship is!" Twilight pressed her front hooves together to illustrate the point. "And it's not just my friendships that are important to Equestria. Everyponies' are. When yours ended, it led us here, but just imagine all the others that are out there waiting for you if you just give them a chance!"
Looking like a lost lamb, Starlight Glimmer stood on the cloud before her, fighting back tears. The Princess of Friendship felt hope blossom in her heart. After all of the devastation she had seen in too many futures past, after all of the ways they had hurt one another, Twilight had finally managed to reach the wayward pony.
"How do I know they won't all end the same way?" Starlight asked.
With a gentle beat of her wings, Twilight alighted in front of the magician.
"I guess it's up to you to make sure they don't."
Twilight offered Starlight her hoof, her face a silent plea for the other pony to take it. Starlight struggled visibly with herself, glancing sideways as Rainbow Dash shot past them in pursuit of the bully Hoops. At last, slowly, tentatively, as though it might burn her, she took Twilight's hoof and released her magical grip on the scroll that had allowed them to tear apart time itself. The two ponies smiled at each other. It was over. Everything was going to be alright.
Like a feather in the air, the scroll began to fall as if in slow motion. Spike leaned down from Twilight's back and reached out to grab it. In that moment a strong gust of wind swept over them; it was a common enough phenomenon at this altitude, one that happened thousands of times a day in Cloudsdale without great consequence. It was so mild that even the young airborne fillies and colts barely took note of it.
But today, the universe itself would take note, and shudder.
"No!" Spike yelped.
The scroll had been practically held together by a thread as it was, and the gust was enough to tear it completely in two. Twilight's head whipped around. Her eyes went wide as she saw what had happened. With no time to think, she fired a stasis spell at the already disintegrating parchment, desperate to preserve the priceless artifact. In her panic her aim was off; the magic shot past the sundered scroll and towards two tiny ponies racing through the air.
Rainbow Dash was barely a second away from breaking the sound barrier and achieving the Sonic Rainboom when Twilight's spell struck her, immobilizing her in place.
"Hey?! What gives!"
Twilight looked on in horror and disbelief and a horrible sense of deja vu. This was exactly like the first time they'd traveled back, except this time it was her own magic that had interfered. The scroll made a sizzling noise as green energy ate away at its edges until it rapidly crumbled to dust. Numb, unable to process fully what had just happened, Twilight turned back to Starlight. Twilight saw her own shock mirrored in those violet eyes. Shock quickly turned to fear.
"Twilight—I didn't—It was an accident!" Starlight pleaded. "You have to believe me!"
Strange. There was a buzzing in Twilight's head now, growing louder by the moment, like a swarm of angry bees. Every sound and sensation felt like it was coming from somewhere far away, like she was watching a play from the back row, straining to spot the details and to understand the dialogue. A voice inside her wanted to be fair and tell Starlight that she understood and didn't blame her at all. Another voice wanted to wring the miserable mare's neck and scream at her, to demand if she had any idea what her petty revenge had wrought.
A third, increasingly louder voice cut through the buzzing, and it was furious with Twilight herself. After all, it wasn't Starlight Glimmer's magic that had just sabotaged Rainbow Dash. This time it had been by Twilight's own horn that destiny was altered, and for what? An antique piece of paper? Nothing could match the value of her friendships, Twilight knew that, she had learned that lesson in countless painstaking ways. She should have been content when Starlight had accepted her hoof.
She had been greedy, Twilight realized, and now it was all gone. The scroll. Her friendships. The very world and timeline she had known. It was all memories and scattered dust in the Cloudsdale atmosphere. There would be no more chances, no more changes. The die had been cast.
Starlight still had Twilight's hoof in her own, and she was holding on tighter than ever now. It looked like the mare was saying something, and crying all over again, her body actually trembling. It looked like she was desperate for a reaction from Twilight, any reaction, but the Princess was wholly numb and none of the words reached her. Agitated movements on her back told her that Spike was having a small meltdown of his own. Twilight didn't know what to do. She didn't know what she could do.
Sparing her the dilemma, an invisible force yanked them all back into the air at once. Twilight belatedly realized that the portal had opened again. Time was up. Starlight lunged forward to envelop her in a hug, and Twilight clung to the sobbing pony by reflex, if nothing else. She wondered what awaited them on the other side. Would it be endless desolation like the last time? Another world ruled by some other villain of past or future? Would her friends be there, transformed again into total strangers?
The tears finally began to trickle down Twilight's face as the familiar stretching sensation of time travel took them. The dragon Spike and the ponies Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer were together swallowed whole by the jaws of fate, the only three who would ever remember history as it should have been.