Daring Do’s stepped gingerly across the uneven floor of her most recent discovery, one she had managed to keep entirely under wraps. There was no bounty hunter or eclectic collector hot on her tail, nor was she chasing some power-hungry pony that had managed to get a step ahead. No, she’d bet she was the only Equestrian, the only pony, for a thousand miles.

The temple was narrow and claustrophobic, some of the smaller passageways requiring her to crawl on her belly and squeeze through narrow doors. This was because the temple had once been dedicated to and occupied by serpents, hooded cobras that had wielded magic through the patterns on their hoods, not unlike unicorns with their horns.

They had been the magically inclined species in the local trifecta, joined by winged serpents in the sky and crocodiles in the water. None knew what had happened to them, as their civilization had risen and fallen long before the three tribes of ponies had departed in pursuit of new lands.

Yet Daring Do felt the magic in the place still, and had been forced to disarm and dodge a few traps that had still functioned in the time-worn and forest-reclaimed corridors. Still, after her hours of clambering, climbing, and sliding, she reached the heart of the temple and the prize she sought.

For while a lantern had been her only guide since entering the temple, its interior well shielded from the sun outside, she saw light ahead of her. The thrill of discovery always set fire to Daring Do’s veins, and her hooves couldn’t help but move just a bit faster as she stepped into a singularly large, cavernous space.

There she saw it, the precious relic she had hoped to reclaim: a single carved sculpture set upon a stone plinth at the center of the space. It was an hourglass, formed of gold, glass, and sand, within which gleamed with power. Even from a distance, she could see every grain danced with magical energy, shifting in hue and radiance in ways that painted the room with swirling rainbows of color.

Immediately, her intuition told her it was too easy. Yes, she had just been grateful that she was not racing someone else to the prize, but she also knew she couldn’t just walk up and take what she sought. She inspected the floor and scanned the ceiling as she walked forward, but she noticed no traps. There were no trip wires, no pressure plates, no scant runes of magic that would come to life upon sensing her presence.

However, her ears heard something, the grit of something against the stone floors. She froze in place, ears swiveling and eyes darting.

“Who daressssss intrude upon this place?”

The voice echoed across the chamber, masking its true source in the cacophony. Daring Do did not answer immediately, still looking to see if the speaker might reveal themselves. Yet when she still could not see what she felt was surely a looming threat, she had no choice but reply. “An adventurer seeking to protect and preserve an ancient relic.”

“One who seeks to take the great hourglass? Then you are but a thief!”

Daring Do heard the clatter of a stone, and it was barely enough warning. She took flight and glanced down just in time to see a great serpent, body the size of a cart and longer than a few buckball fields, had just struck at where she had been standing. A great green snake with yellow markings across its body, including swirling, cloud-like patterns across its cobra hood.

Yet though she felt she had escaped, Daring Do soon saw the patterns on the cobra’s hood glow. Then she felt the familiar grip of magic, a field of levitation seizing one of her hind legs and starting to drag her back towards the floor.

The great serpent was coiling its body again already, mouth opening as a threatening hiss escaped its maw. Daring Do flapped her wings and flailed, shaking her leg to try and free herself from the magic. But the grip was vicelike, not unlike the coils of a snake.

Another low hiss was the only prelude to the serpent’s second strike, and Daring Do had to quickly duck to one side, lean into the pull of the magic, to avoid being the serpent’s next meal. She felt the wind from the strike surge by her. She smelt the decay and poison on the breath. Even if the cobra did not goggle her in one pit, a single nick of its fangs would surely be just as fatal.

In that moment, Daring Do was eye to eye with the beast, its face lingering right where she had been in the air for a moment. Survival instinct kicked in, and Daring Do did the only thing she could think of.

She quickly twisted her body and bucked out her free hind leg to strike the serpent’s eye.

It hissed in pain, flailing about as Daring Do quickly zipped away, the magic gripping her leg vanishing. Though she had just indulged in fighting, it was now time to take flight. Thankfully, the hourglass was easy to spot, a single glowing point of illumination in the space. She zipped towards it, racing with all the speed her wings could muster.

Her hooves were almost upon it. She touched and felt the smooth glass top. She could see her reflection in the glass, but that was then she also felt magic gripping her again. This time, the serpent's power had coiled around her entire lower half. She already felt it starting to pull her back, drawing her away.

Instincts once again kicked in, her forehooves reaching and scrambling to grip the hourglass. Yet she could not grip it properly, and all she managed to do was a gentle pull. The hourglass itself was on an axle. While the base remained firmly rooted on the pedestal, the actual glass and sand was pulled along with Daring Do’s hooves, and as she was yanked away by the great serpent, she managed to tip the hourglass over the edge.

The hourglass spun a half circle. The full end was brought to the top, and the sand began to flow.

Daring Do blinked, sure she was about to be eaten, but instead she found herself suddenly staring at the back of her own head, back at the entrance to the chamber. She looked down at her body, touched her face with her hooves. Was her life flashing before her eyes? No, surely if that was the case, it would go further back? She’d remember more than just the last few moments of her storied career.

Looking forward, back at the other Daring Do, she watched as the copy of herself was entering the room, scanning the floor and the ceiling. It was all things she had just done, and then her own body tensed as she heard once more the grit of stone on the floor.

But along with all that, Daring Do noticed something that had not been the case when she first entered the space. The shimmering, glowing sand of the hourglass was pouring, counting down rather quickly. It was surely not even a real hourglass, more like a few-minute glass. It was perhaps generous to call it an egg timer, despite its ostentatious appearance.

“Who daressssss intrude upon this place?”

The great serpent's words echoed across the space once more, and the Daring Do at the door tensed as her counterpart, who had walked halfway across the space, flinched and froze in place. It was all playing out exactly as it had before, and yet Daring Do did not remember seeing a copy of herself standing at the door to the room the whole time, spectating the spectacle of her fight with the serpent.

Yet here she was, as a spectator, watching as her counterpart replied to the serpent, the serpent quipped, and then came the first strike. Everything that had just occurred played out as it had before, down to each minute detail. Her counterpart took to the air, her hind leg was grabbed by magic, and the serpent struck a second time. Her counterpart dodged, and then came the kick to the eye.

Yet suddenly the script changed. The serpent twisted his head just a little, and Daring Do saw her counterpart’s hoof instead bounce off a jawbone. It still made the great serpent flinch, but not as much as the first time. Her counterpart was unable to escape, now left squirming and fighting against the still sturdy grip of the cobra’s magic.

“Not thissss time,” the great serpent hissed, jaw dripping with drool and venom as it prepared for its meal.

Daring Do’s heart skipped a beat as she saw her counterpart, no… the original, maybe, was on the verge of death. The snake knew something had happened. It was aware of the situation, as was she. It had used that information to its advantage. So this wasn’t some strange memory. This was magic. Maybe something to do with time, or maybe just an illusion.

It didn’t really matter. Daring Do’s sense of heroism and self-preservation were both in perfect agreement. She had to save herself, be it an original or a clone. Any existential paradoxes could be dealt with when there weren’t any lives on the line.

So Daring Do flew forward, racing for the hourglass as her counterpart drew ever closer to the maw of the great serpent. She got good height and then plummeted like an eagle, stretching out her forelegs for a classic pegasi dive maneuver. She struck the back of the great serpent's hood, forcing the cobra to hiss in pain and quickly spin its head around.

Its eyes locked on her, and she felt she saw a flash of fear in those orbs. “No, I was too slow!”

Daring Do also met her own gaze, seeing the very confused expression from her other self, who was now fluttering free of the serpent’s magic. “Who the—”

“No time! Go turn the hourglass!” Daring Do shouted at her past, her original, her other self.

“I won’t let you!” The serpent roared, hood glowing with its magic. Daring Do felt the magic trying to grasp her, and she could see the yellowish glow trying to grip her counterpart as well. Unfortunately for the serpent, both of them were too fast. Daring Do shot upward with all the speed she could muster, reaching and jumping off the ceiling before going in for another pegasus dive. At the same moment, her counterpart raced and looped, darting through the air before racing towards the hourglass.

The hourglass’s sand had just finished pouring out, and in that moment the other Daring Do successfully turned it over.



There she saw it, the precious relic she had hoped to reclaim: a single carved sculpture set upon a stone plinth at the center of the space. It was an hourglass, formed of gold, glass, and sand, within which gleamed with power. Even from a distance, she could see every grain danced with magical energy, shifting in hue and radiance in ways that painted the room with swirling rainbows of color.

Daring Do’s intuition was just about to speak up, to tell her how what she was about to face was too easy, but then she suddenly felt a tug on her tail. She flinched and spun around, only to suddenly be met by herself… a lot of herself.

“Okay, easy, we know this is a lot,” the other Daring Do at the front of the crowd of copies said. “But just… hold up a moment. We’re stuck in a bit of a pickle here.”

“Who that… who are all of?”

“We think we’re time echoes. Just call me Thirty.”

“Thirty?” Daring Do felt her brain starting to fry, but then she heard a dramatic hiss behind her. From out of the darkest corner of the space, a great snake, the size of a cart and as long as several buckball fields, suddenly raced into view.

“I won’t let you take the hourglass!” It roared, the many swirling patterns on its body already starting to glow as it picked up rocks and began to hurl them. Yet at the same moment, several of the Daring Do’s copies took to the air, buzzing like a swarm of bees towards the great serpent.

“Yeah, we’re stuck in a bit of a jam,” Two said as she stayed back at the entrance of the chamber Daring Do. “You see where you’re hoof is?”

Daring Do looked down, seeing that she had one hoof across the threshold of the room while the rest of her body was outside. “Yeah?”

“That hourglass you’re after messes with time. It winds time back in this room by a few minutes each time you turn it over. However, each time it does, it doesn’t know what to do with you, or the rest of us. So you end up getting copied.”

“So all of you are…?”

“We’re just made of magic, we think. Ten remembered that whole thing with the Mirror Pool in Ponyville that Rainbow Dash told us about. Just reflections in a mirror across time. But basically, we need to figure out how to deal with the serpent throwing a hissy fit there.”

Daring Do looked out at the many copies of her, flying in tight formations across the room and dive bombing the serpent as it used magic to throw stones. “Seems like you’re all managing well enough?”

“Yeah, trouble is we can’t figure out how to end this fight. If we don’t turn the hourglass over right when it runs out of sand, all us copies disappear and the whole thing starts over. We lost copies two through twelve that way. That and the snake is too big, too good at magic, and the hourglass is too heavy for just one of us to move.”

“And I can’t just fly away?”

Thirty shook her head. “Fourteen tried that. The snake is remembering what happens too, even though it's not getting copied. So if it sees any of us trying to escape, it starts bringing the whole temple down.”

“And we’re too far away from the exit to escape.”

“It’s a big risk you haven’t, so far, been willing to take.”

Daring Do glanced up at the hourglass, now probably a third spent. “So I have to come up with a plan in a few minutes to solve this, and if I can’t, then I have to figure out a way to explain this to myself again so she can make a plan to try and stop all this.”

“That or you have to have a plan that lets One, presently you, not have to know about the plan.”

Daring Do rubbed her forehead. She hated time travel in literature, and now she was caught in something that was or was mimicking time travel. And she basically had to solve the paradox.



The serpent raced out of his burrow, eye twitching from stress. How many times? How many times had it been? But this mare, this thieving pegasus, wasn’t giving up. He grabbed every rock in the room he could, having all but memorized their positions, and quickly slithered up to and around the hourglass, protecting it with his very body.

“You will not steal with hourglass!”

He felt he had been doing well enough. A few times, he had thought he had stopped the pegasus from turning the hourglass at the right time, cutting back her numbers. She had never had more than a few dozen copies running around. He just had to break the cycle once more and then catch the original. He just had… to…

It was like a swarm of bees pouring from a hive. Hundreds upon hundreds of Daring Do’s poured from the entrance and took flight. A cloud of flapping wings and pit helmets.

No… no no no. She hadn’t had this many in the last iteration. “Impossible,” he hissed out at the swarm, unable to keep the rage and confusion bottled up inside his own mind.

However, the swarm didn’t seem to care about his protest. Every pegasus banked and dove towards him, the sheer sight of it causing the serpent to freeze up in fear. Hundreds, if not thousands, of hooves bucking all across his body, striking with all the force they could muster.

It was too much, his mind now as battered as his body was becoming. “Stop! Stop! I yield!”

The swarm did seem to relent, the many pegasi flying away from him to hover in the air. He coiled up more tightly plinth, but when he glanced at it, the hourglass was gone. “No! The hourglass! I… you can’t take it!”

“Why not?” A single voice once more came from the swarm. “It seems too dangerous to leave here.”

“Because it’s not yours!”

“No, good enough!”

“It’s… please, you can’t. It’s the only way I survive!”

The swarm seemed to breathe, the many pegasi turning their heads to glance at one another. Yet at the same time the serpent knew the hourglass was about to run out. Maybe if he baited the time out a little longer. Maybe if he…

But no, he saw it… he finally glimpsed the hourglass being carried by four of the pegasi just as it was being turned over once more.




“So you’re the guardian of the hourglass, left here by your ancestors, but when you got too big, you couldn’t leave. So you had to use the hourglass to feed yourself.”

Daring Do, number one, stood out from the rest of the swarm of copies of herself. After a few more iterations, the serpent wasn’t even trying to fight her anymore. They were carrying on a conversation, each time getting a little further. Each time, negotiating a bit better.

The serpent nodded his head. “I must use the hourglass to replenish my water and to duplicate food when it happens into this chamber. But the longer I survived, the larger I got.

Daring Do nodded and then smiled. “So then you agree you’ll let me leave and you’ll turn over the hourglass to be protected by Equetria if we help you escape… and maybe shrink you down a few sizes to reduce your appetite.”

“Yes, please… at this point, you could just take the hourglass with the numbers you’ve amassed. For all my strength, my size, my magic… You are just too numerous and stubborn to contend with.”

Daring Do leveled a firm glare at the serpent. “And you swear you won’t try and eat me the moment all the time copies vanish?”

“N-no… .we both know I’ve already tried that once”

“Twice.”

The serpent winced, but nodded. “Yes, sorry, twice. I know you’ve got the hourglass positioned so that you can turn it over and start this whole process again if I try.”

Daring Do kept glaring at the serpent for a few moments, but then she smiled and nodded her head. “Then we have a deal for real this time.”

At that very moment, all the copies of Daring Do began to fade, their bodies turning to shimmering dust before floating, as a uniform cloud, to a single point in the room. The hourglass reclaimed all its magic, drawing in every grain as the last of its sand tumbled from the top to the bottom. Once more, the room was just the hourglass, with its rainbow glow, Daring Do, and the serpent.

Daring Do took to her wings, moving up and going to pat the serpent on the forehead. “All right, just hold out a few more days, Mr…”

“Oroborous.”

“Oroborous. Yeah, that’s a good name for a guardian. Still, just hold out for a little longer and I’ll bring some ponies to help. I’ve got this friend, Rainbow Dash, who knows a few powerful ponies.”

The serpent nodded its head once, maybe even pushed its forehead into the gentle pat of Daring Doo’s hoof. “I will await your return.”

Daring Do gave a wink, turned, and began to fly away, breathing a sigh of relief for the ordeal to be over.

“But… just… .tell me how you did it?”

Daring Do stopped at the entrance to the chamber, turning back to look at the serpent. “Did what?”

“How did you formulate a plan to beat me? How did you manage to keep your memories between events and coordinate all the copies of yourself?”

Daring Do smiled as she dropped to the floor at the entrance. “Well, it was tough. I tried a lot of complicated things, but in the end, there just wasn’t enough time to use a complicated plan. So I kind of had to go with the laziest idea I could think of. The simplest, stupidest plan. ”

“Which was?”

Looking down at the threshold of the room, Daring Do reached down with a wing and picked up a small notebook. She gently opened the notebook, revealing very short, brief lines of text.

HOW TO BEAT THE BIG SNAKE
1) Turning the hourglass makes copies
2) Make as many copies as possible
3) ???
4) Beat the snake
5) Wait, snake nice? Can't survive without hourglass?
6) Talk to snake
7) Uses it for food/water
8) Help escape?
9) Negotiate
10) Betrayal!
11) Okay, we tried again.
12) Betrayal again!
13) Keep trying. Just wants to live
14) Offer help. Know you can do it!

“I just left myself a note.” Daring Do said with a big smile.