I watch as the last of my subjects leave my court, their children happily chippering about how pretty I was or how they want to be a princess when they grow up. At times like this I can see why my sister cares so much about protecting their dreams; the happiness and enthusiasm, though naive, is contagious.

And I needed that. After a thousand years of practice, of dealing with ponies that come to me only when they have no recourse, I can smell their parents’ despair. Not just figuratively; the acrid tang of fear atop the subtle smell of their sweat makes my stomach churn, despite the mare’s jasmine perfume.

At least those two understood that I’m not all powerful; it’s bad enough having to tell my little ponies that I can’t help —

“I bet the princess will have grampa up again lickety-split!”

My three decades of borish etiquette classes pay off again as I turn my despairing head drop into a graceful nod, forcing into my face a smile most of my subjects can’t discern from a sincere one. The filly that spoke, the one with the blue coat and the huge pink ribbon on her mane, smiles back, almost crushing my mask of confidence.

As the doors close behind the retreating ponies, that last family and most of my guards alike, I’m almost startled by a voice.

“Anything I can do, your highness? Should I summon Princess Luna?”

I said that most of my subjects can’t tell my smiles apart; a few can. My former captain of the guard, my aide, some of my closer advisors. And a few of my personal guards, sworn to protect both me and the image of a perfect ruler Equestria needs. “That won’t be necessary, Spear Song. I just need some time for myself. You may retire.”

“As you wish.” He turns and leaves, not even trying to hide the concern in his face, at least until he reaches the door; there he pauses for a single moment and, ears perked, face now perfectly composed and neutral, closes the door behind.

I stay in my throne, fighting the call of my fluffy bed, the desire to fall into its silken embrace. Or the cushioned allure of my study. What I must think about, though personal, also relates to my role as the Princess, so it should — nay, must — be done here.

My contemplation on how this latest drama, one I lived countless times ever since my subjects started looking at me as a god, is interrupted by a soft clip clop coming from outside. Its clocklike cadence puts in my mind the image of a red tailcoat, an antique-looking golden clock, and endless lists and schedules. With a sigh I stand, wondering if I should start scheduling time for contemplation while my mind races through all the meetings I had planned for today; I was supposed to meet with the mayor of Hoffington after dinner…

The cadence stops with the sound of pottery breaking.

“Kibitz?”

The seconds lengthen, and before they turn into minutes I pounce at the door, royal etiquette be damned. As soon as the door opens an unexpected sound, as out of place in the palace as Twilight’s theremin at her latest slumber party, reaches my ears: snoring. In every conceivable pitch, from everywhere at once. The hall is covered in sleeping ponies; I can see my scheduling advisor, a maid bringing my evening tea, and at least a dozen guards snoring where they stood.

A strong, sweet lavender fragrance assaults my nostrils, its calming properties lost in the moment, serving only to make me skittery as a phoenix in a hailstorm. Looking everywhere for unseen assailants, I start channeling a spell to wake the castle — and stop; if I were the assailant, I would attack as soon as my target was distracted with a spell.

“A pity about the tea. Though in any case we wouldn’t have time to enjoy it.”

In the split second before my combat reflexes kick off I spy the interloper; a gray stallion, with long, uncropped white mane and tail. I notice the horn at the moment my magic envelops and lifts the stranger; an unicorn, then.

“Who are you, and what have you done with my ponies?”

The unicorn, despite floating high above the floor in my magical aura, gives me an unconcerned glance, one eyebrow cocked. “Don’t you recognize your old mentor, my little princess?”

My mind reacts fast enough to drown my feelings. “How he called me is in the story books. And you forgot the beard.”

The stranger takes one hoof to his chin and says, “Oh, shoot.” With a brief flash of green his coat lightens; on his face is the same beard that earned my tutor his nickname, and on his back and head the ludicrous star-studded cape and hat that, nevertheless, seemed to have grown from his body, so natural they fit him.

He smiles again. “Satisfied now, Princess?”

“Not so fast.” He does look like he jumped out of a storybook, but there is still something nagging me. “That was changeling magic. And Star Swirl is famous enough to have books and museums about him. I’m not going to fall for this trick.”

“Of course it was changeling magic, where do you think I copied it from? And do those books and museums tell how my frightened little princess cried when she saw me, gray bearded and drained of magic, after I foolishly tried to move sun and moon alone?”

“I didn’t…” Looking up I see him wink, the right corner of his mouth shooting up in the same old irritating smile myself and Luna received whenever Star Swirl wanted to leave an ‘I told you so’ unsaid. And, suddenly, what was just below my thoughts earlier jumps to the front. “But… I saw you die.”

“Nonsense. As if a nightmare out of Tartarus could kill me.”

I carefully set him down, and acknowledge his identity by allowing my tears to flow; besides my fellow princesses, he is the only living pony that knows me capable of crying. As I embrace him like a long lost grandfather, I whisper, “It was you that said you might not survive, you jerk.”

“Good thing Cerberus disagreed. You still play fetch with him, I hope.” Not waiting for an answer, Star Swirl pokes his head into the room I came from and, walking as if he owned the place, goes up the dais and starts poking my throne. “So this is your throne room. Did you add secret passages to this fancy new castle? Under the cushion, like last time? We have to leave before Luna’s spell wear off.”

“No, it’s behind…” I feel as if my mind went from skidding to a full gallop without waiting for me to get a grip. “Wait, what is happening? Luna’s spell? And why did you wait centuries to tell me you didn’t die?”

“We don’t have…” As he looks back, I stop pretending and let my impatience surface in my flaring nostrils and my swooshing tail, the same visage that long ago stopped dragons and hydras in their tracks. His eyes go wide for a moment, and then he guffaws. “Sorry I can’t forget how you and your sister looked as fillies when you were denied your dessert. Now, secret passage? I promise to tell all the important bits on the way.”

“Behind the night tapestry. It was always Luna that loved them the most,” I say, memories of a millennium worth of nights alone surfacing. As I shift the tapestry and unlock the door with my magic I turn back to him. “You should have been here. If you knew about the future, you certainly knew about Luna’s rebellion and my thousand years alone. You could…”

“I was afraid.” His voice comes weak, unsure, so unlike the mage that came to be synonymous with the true power of magic that I stop dumbfounded, my gaze fixed on his twitching left ear. “I couldn’t bear the thought of knowing how I would die, of counting the hours until I would meet my demise. I’m not the first time traveler, and I won’t be the last; I know how it ends. There are times when having an ageless friend who can piece it all together has its disadvantages.”

I sense a subtle change in the air; now that I know what to look for I recognize Luna’s sleep spell being lifted. I nudge Star Swirl into the passage and close it before the waking ponies have a chance to find us and start guiding him down the passage. For the second time in a day I feel butterflies trying to get out of my stomach as I ask, “Why show yourself now? What changed?”

“I learned when and how I will meet my end. Blazing Sparkles, I spend centuries avoiding anything that would show me how I die and forget one of my pupils is a soothsayer and a dreamwalker!”

My hooves stop, my mind too distracted to keep walking as I look at his face. “Luna told you? Did she know —”

“She gave me a choice, and I accepted.” He nods down the path, and I go back to showing the way. “She dreamed it yesterday. Then she found my new pupil, and through her told me she would reveal my death at the last possible moment for me to say goodbye, but only if I agreed; turns out now is the last possible moment.”

“Your pupil? Why didn’t my sister go directly to you?”

“She couldn’t. I got very adept at hiding my presence from you both.” He shrugs, making the bells in his hat jingle. “But you can’t hide a dreamwalker from another dreamwalker.”

“Then…”

“Don’t,” he says, af if he could pierce my thoughts. “I already made my peace. And in any case it has already happened from your point of view. Time gets wibbly wobbly like this when we travel too much. It’s no use worrying.” He jumps forward and stops in my path, his eyes probing the depths of my soul. “Or trying to prevent it. Don’t even think about sending your former pupil after me, going with that basic time travel spell she learned would only get her killed too. Promise me you won’t interfere.”

“I… promise I won’t risk anypony to save you.” He scowls at me, and I reluctantly add, “Not even myself. I can’t promise anything further.”

He keeps scowling at me, but I can see the little creases below his eyes that betray his amusement. At last he laughs. “I should have expected. Wilful as ever, my little princess. That shall have to be enough, then. Now let us go meet my pupil, I didn’t come to this time and place just to talk to you.”

I’m ready to retort, but then his twitching left ear brings to my mind images of when Star Swirl told us to not worry as he went to deal with an Ursa; whatever his original reason for being here, meeting me was now more important. So I choose to not waste what little time we still have together with useless words.

After all, he is Star Swirl, he who could write books in his sleep. With a day to prepare, if he wanted he could give me a tome about his previously undisclosed travels, complete with little tests about the most important parts. I almost regret promising to not send Twilight after him, they would love meeting each other.

And in any case, curious as she is, I’m sure Luna already pestered him and his pupil about the details and is dying to tell me everything.

The next few minutes go in silence while he follows me to the end of the tunnel, and then as I follow him through the darkened Canterlot streets to this mysterious pupil. When I’m almost breaking the silence to ask how further we stop in front of a comics store; not the one Discord nowadays hangs at, thankfully.

Star Swirl’s horn flashes briefly as I scan the store looking for any light, sound, movement. Not finding anything, I whisper, “What am I looking at?”

“A comic store, naturally.” I raise an eyebrow and stamp a hoof, making him cringe. “With an unnatural predator inside, a psychic vampire worse than the changelings. One of the creatures ponykind is better off not knowing. I just gave my pupil the signal to engage, while I —”

A green blast, looking as dangerous as any of my own, goes through the walls, stopping only at a magical shield that pulses silvery in tune with Star Swirl’s horn. A bead of sweat running down his muzzle, he finishes, “contain the collateral damage.”

I barely hear it, though. Before his voice stops I’m already pounding at the barrier. “She is in danger! Let me in!”

“No.”

Disbelieving, I turn to him. “But she is your pupil!”

“And she is ready, like your former pupil was when you sent her to negotiate with a dragon or to deal with a returning tyrant. And in any case she wanted to do this alone as soon as she knew you would be watching, something about finally proving herself to you.” A pegasus flying high above — one of the Wonderbolts cadets, by the uniform, dispatched to find what the disturbance was — briefly distract him, almost making Star Swirl miss the next green blast; wincing, he turns to the store and raises his voice, “Though I agree she is doing a lousy job of it. The beast should already be contained, we will soon have the guard here.”

“I can’t help it, it’s one of the big ones. He goes through my ropes as if they were made of smoke.” My ears perk at the sound, the voice faintly familiar…

“Ha! And you call yourself Great and Powerful!” Star Swirl winks at me, just like when he would say to luna… “Let me get Celestia in there to help you.”

“Not. A. Chance.” A blue unicorn jumps through the store’s front window, her hat and cape a near match for Star Swirl’s own starry ones except for the lack of bells. I instantly recognize Trixie, though she is taller than I remember. Her horn flares, engulfing the front of the store in thick smoke.

As she is scanning her surroundings another shape, large like a minotaur, can be seen moving inside the smoke, its arms sweeping around in a futile attempt to find its missing opponent. After a few moments it stops and walks towards the front window, a cry of warning rising in my throat, only to be cut short by Trixie’s triumphant expression as she lights her horn.

A yelp comes from above, and I watch in a mixture of frustration and amazement as the golden-streaked blue contrail of the Wonderbolt is snatched from the air, descending like an angry serpent towards the… imagine a hornless purple minotaur with a duck beak; it’s the closest you can describe it without a drawing. The contrail wraps around the beast tighter than a zebra’s stripes.

I can’t pry my eyes from the creature. “Is this…”

“A thing ponies shouldn’t meet.” Star Swirl looked from me to the creature. “They can return to a chrysalis state and survive a long time hidden, but this one should be the last one left in Equestria after —”

“Two hundred fifty three years ago a small unnamed village vanished. I found one of those creatures fleeing the scene and, leading the guard, captured it at great cost. It called himself an Evronian and spoke of the wrath of the stars before… withering like a weed.” I can still hear the sounds of battle, smell the fear of the guards, as if it was yesterday. I glance from one star-shrouded figure to another. “All this time, you were fighting them?”

The corner of his mouth rising, Star Swirl looks at Trixie and says, “I told you she could figure out.” He then looks at me his smile becomes more docile. “No, we just fought them twice, that time you remember from the past and today. But we did find more than just a name from the dozen or so we captured, and I am certain their threat is now ended.”

“Of course there are other threats out there, which is why he took the most great and powerful Trixie as a pupil.” Her confident glare turns into a puppy stare. “But I don’t want to finish my apprenticeship, not like this. Please, Princess can’t you convince him to let us help him? Let me help him face whatever he is so afraid of?”

I blink my eyes and see a bright pink ribbon in place of her hat; shaking my head fails to drive away the image, so I pull her close with my wing. “I can’t. I guess we will have to hope my sister’s vision is wrong.”

“Now, enough of those mushy words, we have work to do,” says Star Swirl, his ear twitching. “Trixie, take that thing away. I need to say a few parting words to my little princess.”

“Fine.” Already levitating the bound creature, Trixie turns around and stamps her hoof. “But if you don’t return I will tell the princesses all about the Manehattan incident.”

“Do that and my younger self will find out if that story about your first alicorn kiss is true.”

Trixie narrows her eyes. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Perhaps I already did,” answers Star Swirl with a guffaw.

As a ball of lightning starts to engulf Trixie and the creature, her voice can be heard from inside, “Ga! Sometimes I hate time travel.”

I raise an eyebrow at Star Swirl. “Manehattan incident?”

“Nothing bad, just…” His cheeks glow, like that one time he accused me of painting them with the sunset. “Extremely embarrassing.”

“One day either I will pry it from your pupil or Luna will get her dreaming of it, you know.”

“Not while there is a version of me traveling around, you wont. Which reminds me,” he says, looking deep into my eyes again. “If you ever meet my younger self, don’t tell him anything of what happened today.”

“Of course.” As his words sink, I find myself smiling again. “Then we will meet again!”

He turns his face into a neutral mask. “Said who?”

“If you made me promise not to tell you…”

“My little princess with the memory of an elephant, do you remember the twelfth anniversary of the opening of the Everfree Castle?”

“Certainly!” I almost allow my nostrils to flare. “You made me promise not to search for the cake hidden in the winter pantry, but there was no cake. ‘Twas a…” I notice the corner of his mouth lifting. “You would make me promise regardless of meeting you in the future or not.”

“It’s better this way, sorry. For us both. I can’t…”

Shushing, I touch my horn to his. “I know. You made me a princess, remember? I have dealt with broken hope more times than I can remember.”

We stay like this for a while, drawing stares from the guards that arrive to investigate the destroyed comic shop. For once, I don’t care if other ponies see me as less than perfect. When he at last breaks the contact, I whisper, “Until we meet again.”

“Maybe,” he answers, his face a mask of sadness, his twitching ear holding my attention until he vanishes in a ball of lightning.

A guard clears his throat close to me, and I recognize Spear Song, still looking after me after his shift should have ended, unguarded concern in his eyes. My mask of perfection comes easier than I expected. I fall back into giving orders, but my mind is elsewhere, with the bright eyed blue filly and her pink ribbon. It will be hard, but perhaps with Luna’s help I can show her that the world doesn’t end when a loved one goes away.

And who knows, this time perhaps the cake is not a lie.