For Your Birthday-Chapter 2

How to Make a Time Machine and Past Friends



     A cheer went up among all the Pinkie Pies and her other friends as they exited the Hall of Brainy Stuff and began the long dangerous journey back to the Land of Parties.

     "Don't mind me. I was just here all alone. By myself. In the dark--hoping not get eaten by wolves," Rocky said as he saw them exit the Hall of Brainy Stuff.

     "What kind of wolves would eat rocks?" Mr. Turnip asked.

     After the long and dangerous five-minute journey, the dream party resumed full force, but Pinkie Pie would not let anything get in the way of her goal; even a good game of pin the tail on the pony.

     Pinkie Pie spent her remaining dream time examining the diagram, making note of where she could find all the parts. When she woke up, she was immediately at her paper and crayons and recreated the diagram she had seen in her dream. She put her saddle bags on and put in her Celestia doll and anything else she could think of that might be useful when traveling back in time and then rushed down to breakfast.

     "Pinkamina," her mother said, noticing her daughter's even higher level of energy than normal as Pinkie Pie seemingly inhaled her meal. "Are you feeling well?"

     "Yes, Mommy. I feel super duper! I had a great idea for a present to make for Princess Celestia's birthday!" she said, her body nearly trembling with excitement.

     "Oh... that's nice, dear. Um, do try not to hurt anyone or blow anything up."

     "Don't worry, Roxy," Granny Pie said. "I'm sure Pinkie will behave herself."
     
    "Try to be home by lunch, dear. And make sure to keep your party supplies in a safe place," Roxy Pie said, still trying to come to terms with her daughter's new ways since getting her cutie mark.

     "Okie dokie lokie!" Pinkie Pie said cheerfully before bolting from the table so fast that she was little more than a pink blur.

     Pinkie Pie headed to the old shed behind the barn where her father stored stuff that "he'd get around ta fixin' one o' these days."

     She turned on the light and laid out the diagram on the dusty old workbench. "Okay, first step to building a time machine—a waffle iron!"

     Slaving away minute after minute, Pinkie Pie worked tirelessly on her machine, following the crayon drawing to the very last detail. She lifted up her welder's mask and removed the lead lined gloves from her hooves and wiped her brow. It had taken almost fifteen minutes, but her invention was at long last completed.

     To the casual observer it might appear to be a clock, radio, weather vane, cheese grater, and curlers attached to a waffle iron, but to her it was a time machine.

     She removed her protective gear and took a deep breath. "Okay, here goes!"

     The time machine sparked alarmingly at first and then made a safe, stable humming sound. Pinkie Pie reached out and began turning the clock's dial backwards--she could see through the shed's window that the sun was moving, now setting instead of rising. She turned the dial further and soon it was night again. She turned it the opposite way and it was daylight.

     "Sweet!" she exclaimed with glee, moving the dial back and forth quickly to see the sun rise and set. She moved it faster, going, "Wooo, wooo, wooo!" as the sun and moon sped by.

     "Oh, the princess. That's right. Gotta help the princess!" she said, digging the Celestia doll out of her pack and putting it on the time machine in front of her to help her stay focused. Pinkie Pie began manually turning the clock back farther and farther, but her hooves quickly got tired.

     "This is taking foreeeevvvveeeerrrr," she whined. "Oh! I have an idea."

     She picked up a crayon and wrote on the clock face "About a thousand years ago" and then moved the clock hand to that and the sun and moon blurred in lightning motion as her mane and tail whooshed straight back with the force of the movement.

     Seconds later she was no longer in the old shed, but in a forest. She looked around nervously. "Hmm, I don't think I'm in Ponyville anymore. GASP! The castle! That's right, Granny Pie said they was at a castle in the in Everfree Forest."

     Pinkie Pie picked up her crayon again and wrote on the machine "To the princess in the castle in the Everfree Forest" and then she moved the hand to that indicator. Again the machine quickly whipped her around and she found herself in the courtyard of a castle of such beauty that it almost defied description. The garden around her was filled with all manner of exotic plants and animals.

     A happy voice behind Pinkie Pie helped bring her out of the daze the trip left her in. She turned and saw a small blue alicorn looking at her curiously.

     "Are you from the village?" the alicorn asked. " I so rarely get to meet the ponies outside the castle. I don't think I've seen you before."

     "I'm Pinkie Pie! I'm from Ponyville and I'm from the future!"

     "I am Princess Luna. What's the future like?" the princess asked.

     "Its very... futurey."

     "Oooh," the princess said in wonder.

     Pinkie Pie began explaining the wonders of the future when suddenly Luna reached out and touched her shoulder. "Tag! You're 'It'!" she squealed and galloped off.

     Pinkie Pie didn't travel a thousand years through time just to be "It"! She sprang in action, chasing after the princess. "Hey, no fair, I wasn't ready!" Pinkie Pie giggled as they chased each other around the courtyard, passing "It" back and forth.
    
     They played tag and hide and seek and just romped around the grounds for fun until both were too exhausted to play any more.

     Luna finally noticed the strange machine of Pinkie's and wandered over to it. "What's that?"

     "That's my time machine! I just built it."

     "Is this part of it?" Luna asked, pointing to the Celestia toy.

     "No, silly. That's my Celestia dolly."

     "Ooh, she looks so pretty with those colors in her mane."

     There was suddenly a loud rumbling noise.
    
     Princess Luna looked around nervously. "What was that, an earthquake?"

     "Nope, just my tummy. I'm hungry. Do you want a cupcake, princess?" Pinkie Pie asked, pulling two cupcakes from her saddle bags.

     "What's a... cupcake?"

     "It's like a cake, except it's in a cup. See?" Pinkie Pie held one up to Luna as she ate hers in one bite.

     Luna took the offered cupcake and examined the alien confection, gauging its weight and consistency. She held it up and sniffed it, then hesitantly took a nibble and her eyes went wide and she gazed at it in astonishment.

     "Om nom nom!" Luna devoured her cupcake. "It's wonderful!"

     The princess began asking all kinds of questions about cupcakes and other foods of the future and soon their chatter became silly childhood nonsense.

     "Knock, knock," Pinkie Pie said with a smile.

     "What?" Luna asked.

     "Its a joke. You ask who's there."

     "Who's there?"

     "Boo."

     "Boo, who?"

     "Why are you crying?" Pinkie Pie replied and fell on the ground laughing.
    
    It took the princess a few moments to get it, but then she started laughing just as hard.

     The princess wiped the tears from her eyes, still giggling. "I never laughed that much before. Are all ponies as funny as you in the future?"

     "No. Granny Pie says I have a special gift for making people happy."

     "Yes. You made me really happy. It gets real lonely at the castle. So I don't get to make friends."

     "I'll be your friend!" Pinkie Pie said excitedly.

     "Really?" Luna said with equal excitement. "Where is this Ponyville you're from?"

     "It's in the future. I don't know if it was here so long ago."

     "You're from the future," Luna said, her voice trailing off. "So you can't stay here."

     "No, guess I can't. Mom, Dad, my sisters and Granny Pie would be really sad if I never came home. When I'm born in the future maybe you could visit me in Ponyville!"

     "We'll still be friends?" Luna asked hesitantly.

     "Yep! Friends forever! It'll just have to be about a thousand years until we can meet up again and then we could have more cupcakes and games and jokes and we'll have all kinds of great stories to tell... oh, except you won't—" Pinkie Pie covered her mouth with her hooves.

     "What? I won't what?" Luna asked, clearly worried by Pinkie Pie's words.

     "I-I don't think I should say," Pinkie Pie said, nearly panicking at having said too much to her new friend.

     "Please, tell me!"

     "No, I shouldn't."

     Luna turned away in a huff, pouting. "I thought you were my friend!"

     "I am your friend! Okay, okay. In the future you get jealous of Celestia and turn evil and try to destroy the world and die."

     Luna's mouth fell open and tears started running down her cheeks. She turned and bolted. "Celestia!"

     Shortly a blinding light appeared before her and a alicorn appeared, towering over her. Her pink mane flowed in the wind and while her face showed suspicion, there was a note of familiar kindness in the voice.
     
     "How did you manage to avoid the royal guard, little one?" the large alicorn asked. "You know that the castle is forbidden, except by invitation."

     Pinkie Pie's eyes went wide.  "Ooooh, princess Celestia.  You're so... pink!" she said, then remembered her manners and bowed. "The castle, yes!  I am sorry about that, princess. I used my time machine to get here. I hope you don't mind."
     
     "Time machine?" Celestia blinked, appearing confused.

     Pinkie Pie smiled proudly and pointed a hoof at her odd contraption. "I made it myself, with the help of my Big Brain!  It let me come here from... the future!" she said, putting extra emphasis the word, prolonging the last syllable and waving her hooves around.

     Celestia took a look at the object and then smiled down at Pinkie Pie. "That's nice, dear. I'm glad to see you have a good imagination. But you shouldn't go around telling old mare's tales. Now, if you'll apologize to Princess Luna for scaring her, then I'll have someone escort you home."

     Pinkie Pie shook her head. "You don't understand, Princess. I came here to help you! Something bad's going to happen to Luna in the future and I came back to help her!" she said and held up the coin Granny Pie had given her.

     Celestia's horn glowed as she levitated the coin. "Strange, that's not a--wait it is an Equestrian coin. 'In Memory of Luna. Let her--oh my." She read the rest of the coin in silence and let it drop.

     Pinkie Pie picked up the coin and read it again and cleared her throat.  "I'm sorry princess," Pinkie Said, "but now that you know something bad's going to happen we can fix it so you don't have to be sad in the future!"

     Luna was in tears now. "Celly, I don't want to die!"

     Celestia comforted her sister with her wing. "Don't worry, Luna. I won't let anything happen to you. Go back to the castle now. I need time to talk with this filly."

     "But Celly, I want to hear, too."

     "I know you do." Celestia hugged her. "Do as I say for now, please. I'll tell you about it later."

     Once Luna left, now under the care of two of the royal pony guard, Celestia led Pinkie to a private shaded part of the garden. They sat on silk cushions while Celestia produced tea and cookies on the elaborate stone table between them.

     "Now dear--Pinkie Pie--tell me what you know. How does Luna...how will Luna die?"

     Pinkie Pie looked nervously at the princess, not sure how exactly to phrase her response.  She knew she'd have to do this as gently and subtly as possible. "You kill her... after she tries to destroy the world," she replied to the startled princess.  She then recounted the brief story that Granny Pie had shared with her.

     During the strange tale, Celestia let her tea get as chilled as her heart. "Nightmare Moon. So, what Seer Fatestorm told me is true. I did not want to believe it."

     Celestia bowed her head as tears started to fall. "She told me that Luna would be overtaken and turned to evil. Now you have shown me the proof, little one. There is nothing to be done, then. The prophecy is already written in the future."

     Pinkie Pie did a spit take. "No! We have to be able to do something! Just... do something and make her not become Nightmare Moon... or something."

     The princess sighed, forcing a smile, "If only it were that easy, child. I have great abilities but time is something I cannot change. What is written is what is written."

     Pinkie Pie shook her head. Big Brain had said they could change things but the Princess said nothing could change. The princess could raise the sun and the moon, but Big Brain was, well, Big Brain. She couldn't believe either one could be wrong. She felt very confused. "Please, Princess, you've got to think of something!"

     Celestia closed her eyes and appeared to be thinking hard indeed. Her eyes flashed open. "Wait. There is something. You."
    
     "Me?" Pinkie Pie looked back, confused. "What can I do?"
     
     "It is what you have done already, dear. Your presence here means that time really is not the immutable thing I thought it was."
     
     "Im-mut..."
     
     "What I mean is, time can be changed."
     
     "Oh, okay. Then we can change what happens!"

     "I admit temporal mechanics is not something I have dealt with, so perhaps something can be done. Time is like this cookie…" the princess said and levitated a cookie and then turned it sideways to make it appear as a disc. "Imagine that this is our planet and the way time affects our world is like…"

     Pinkie Pie's eyes were on the hovering cookie. Celestia used her magic to make the cookie turn into a planet and around it other planets formed as she began giving Pinkie Pie a lesson on the time/space continuum.  
      
     Pinkie Pie watched, engrossed as the cookie became a planet and her mind began to wander.  I wonder what a planet would taste like? Ew, but eating a planet would also mean eating every bug on the planet. Wow, these cookies are super duper good! I should get the recipe for Granny Pie. I wonder how Celestia makes her mane and tail ripple like that? There's no wind. I wonder if I could do that?  I wonder if that takes a special shampoo?
           
     Pinkie Pie began concentrating, trying to make her mane and tail wavy, but nothing happened. Hmm, I wonder if I could summon planets like the Princess does? Pinkie Pie attempted briefly to levitate a cookie with telekinesis, but failed. Does she have to comb her mane or does it comb itself? Her mane looks like cotton candy. I love cotton candy. I wonder what Mom's making for lunch? I hope it's not rock soup again. Oh, I wonder what candy soup would taste like...

     "And that's how Equestria was made," the princess said in conclusion.

     "Wow, thank you, Princess," Pinkie Pie said, snapping out of her daydream.

     "You are quite welcome dear. While my logical mind tells me that knowing the future cannot change it, my heart tells me I must try. I knew that darkness was coming, and I will do all I can to save poor Luna. Thank you for this opportunity, my little pony. You have given me some comfort in the face of this specter to come. Return to the future, little one. Hopefully, things will change for the better. At worst, events will remain as they are."

     "Okay, princess. See you in the future and tell Luna I said bye!" Pinkie Pie said, excited by the thought of there being two princesses in the future and wanting to see how it all turned out.  

     As Pinkie returned to her machine, she looked up at the castle and saw a horn sticking up over the edge of a window sill and a few moments later a smiling Luna bounced up for a second, wildly waving her arms; she bounced several times and with each bounce Pinkie Pie smiled and waved back just as enthusiastically.

     When Pinky reached her time machine, she took out her crayon and wrote "The future" on the dial and activated it. Within moments, she disappeared in a flash of light.