In Canterlot, Starswirl the Bearded's room was a large round room of about fifty square metres, in it’s centre was a huge hourglass mounted on an enchanted device that reversed the bulbs when the sand had completely drained, the mechanism on a massive pedestal. From there stretched corridors of shelves, filled with books and other scrolls containing spells and other treatises on magic.

Dusty Nova was chasing the oracle from aisle to aisle.

"Bitter Truth! Listen to me! I have a question to ask you." The vampony called out.

Bitter, who was looking at the books on the shelf at the time, laid his lemon yellow eyes on the vampony. "You're the one who's not listening to me, Lady Nova, it's probably my fault. I was too subtle, so let me rephrase it." He took care to delay it to make it languish. "Not today." he said simply before fleeing to another aisle.

Dusty Nova tensed up out of irritation, she used her magic to dislodge one of the chewed wooden pencils from her mane, which was pulled into a bun, to chew it again, and ran after the unicorn to find it three aisles away. "Don't laugh at me, that's exactly what you just said," she barked after removing the pencil from her mouth.

"I have my reasons, Lady Nova. No, this is not an attempt to prevent the trick from being blown up, and no, threatening to stab that wooden pencil in my throat won't do you any good," Bitter said with a smile. "What is this mania for mares to threaten the throats of stallions." he commented, scraping the bandage on his throat that covered an itching, healing wound.

She moved backwards. "I didn't mean to threaten your throat with this pencil," said the disconcerted mare, before she began to chew the pencil more rapidly, she glanced around, thinking quickly.

"Yes, it's normal to think I'm just a telepath, but no, I'm not."

Stressed beyond her limits, the vampony with the grey coat gave in to anger, she clenched her teeth and broke the pencil with her magic before throwing herself at Bitter Truth. With her telekinesis, she knocked him down and leaned the improvised weapon against his throat. "Stop...... This." Her anger gave way to disbelief. She realised that as he said, she was threatening his throat. However, she could not help but think that this was the result of a subliminal suggestion. "Don't do that again." she ordered.

"Because it drives you crazy? Imagine what it feels like to see plausible futures and to know what anypony will say before they even think about it. Why do you think I avoid everypony?" He sighed, "I only have peace of mind when I isolate myself."

In her haste, she forgot to formulate her sentence correctly. "If so, what are you doing here?" she asked.

"I'm here to meet Sunset Shimmer, and you're going to open the door when you leave from here. There you go, you've just used your right to ask me a question."

"Hey! That wasn't the question I wanted to ask you."

"You knew I'd only answer one question, you were too curious."

Dusty Nova released her telekinetic grip on Bitter Truth, and began to chew her pencil for a moment, her distracted gaze looking around before a thought came to her mind.

The unicorn that hadn't moved giggled. "I plead guilty. To make it up to you, I agree to answer the one you have in mind at our next meeting. But it will not be unconditional."

She was upset for being manipulated in this way. However, she resisted the urge to kill him. If what he had just said was true, and it was difficult to think that this would not be the case, she would need him, even if she would have to comply with his conditions. "I'm going to leave this place, otherwise I won't answer for your safety. So, until the next time we meet, then." She headed for the exit, biting into the pencil as hard as she could. Behind her, Bitter Truth would get up, and once in front of the gates that acted as a door, she found herself with a unicorn she had never seen before.

Sunset Shimmer observed the one standing in front of her, the glasses that completely protected her eyes from the slightest ray of sunlight gave her a small idea of what she was dealing with. "Hello. We have never met before. I'm Sunset Shimmer. May I enter the room?"

She took the pencil out of her mouth and made an appropriate bow. "I am Dusty Nova, royal magician of Canterlot. Hello to you Sunset Shimmer. I've heard of you, and indeed you have the accreditation to enter this room. What's more, you're expected. Whatever the reason for your coming, good luck with this Bitter Truth, he's going to play with your nerves. That being said, don't hurt him too much."

After some polite exchanges, Sunset entered the room, and from the centre, searched

In which alley was hiding the stallion. She finally found him, guided by a sigh.

"Hello to you too, Lady Shimmer. Yes, it is me, as Lady Nova said earlier. Yes, I was waiting for you. Before you have the idea of asking another question in the near future, be aware that this meeting is not accidental. And that if you have any questions, I will only answer one of them. In clear or cryptic ways, it is up to me alone. You have no idea what it's like to see the future and be exploited for selfish purposes."

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Entering the alley, Sunset observed the stallion in detail. In front of her stood a stallion whose age it was difficult for her to determine, his nonchalant attitude left the idea that he was out of touch with reality. The slate-grey coat was summarily maintained, just like the white mane. Sunset could not help but wonder, in view of the hairstyle, if it was not the result he obtained by pulling small strands of his mane but by cutting them short with scissors. The body seemed surprisingly robust for a unicorn, which was nevertheless the most frail of the three races, at the same time the heavy circles under his eyes gave him a tired look, as if he was about to give his last breath. She came closer, and noticed a piercing at the base of each of the ears, a small topaz carved into a star, and when she crossed her eyes, she had the feeling that he had seen the beginning and end of this world. She kept in mind the warning about the question. "Strange, I feel like I've seen you somewhere before."

"I know. We've met before. Well, I should say I saw you, because you were more busy with somepony else to pay attention to me. The unicorn you are thinking of was certainly much more famous than I was. A small clue, the room in which we are is named after him."

She looked at him for a moment, imagining him with a beard and a large cape and a dark blue hat, both covered with star motifs. "No way." And yet, with this clue, it was difficult for the mare not to see Bitter Truth other than a younger version of Starswirl the Bearded.

"Impossible? Would it be so difficult to accept the idea that my ability to see the future is only a consequence of his work on time and space? After all, he abused time travel so much, and his pretty mirror that led to other dimensions...." He observed Sunset. "....You know, the one you were planning to go through fifteen years ago, immediately following your banishment." He watched her carefully for a moment. "Considering the result, I'm glad I had Reynaud change places with him at the last minute."

She was dumbfounded. "So it's your fault that I was reduced to wandering the road to Japony!"

He smirked. "It was only your hooves that led to this. You could have stayed in Canterlot. You could have had a certain notoriety, as you should have started with the bad reputation of being the student who failed to learn from Princess Celestia's teaching. Your trip to Japony is only the result of the sum of your decisions. Let's face it, if you had passed through that mirror, you wouldn't be a quarter of the unicorn you are now." He sighed, "I take some responsibility for forcing your fate to take an unexpected direction. But once you left Canterlot Castle, you were solely responsible, Miss Shimmer."

Sunset bit his lip. "It wasn't my destiny you had to force, it was Princess Celestia's."

Bitter Truth had a reproving look in his eyes. "What do you think? I tried, over and over again, I tried to make her give up the destiny she had decided to embrace. But after she asked me her question, nothing could change her mind."

"You could have told Twilight or Princess Luna, or her adopted niece Princess Cadance."

"I am a master only of my own destiny. I am an oracle, I answer questions that can help to drastically change the course of a lifetime, if I am asked a relevant question. Asking somepony else to hide a mirror is one thing. Preventing a princess from doing what she thinks is right, is another. Do you think you have any chance of persuading her?"

"I have to try!" Sunset cried feverishly. "For a lot of reasons, I have to try."

Bitter Truth looked away, empathetic. "I fully understand how you feel." He looked up at a shelf, using his magic, he took out a scroll. "Follow me." he asked calmly.

Sunset didn't ask any questions, she just followed the stallion through Canterlot Castle. She let herself be led into the immense corridor that preceded the throne room.

This corridor had not changed since Sunset's last passage, still as huge, wide enough that fifteen adult ponies could stand side by side without squeezing, and so long that a queue of a hundred ponies could have held in a single line. The floor was composed of a chequerboard with white and blue tiles, in the middle was a red carpet. The room was very bright thanks to the many windows separated by a dozen stained glass windows, all allowing sunlight to pass through. The endless vault was supported by white columns, which were decorated with a bouquet of flowers.

It was about noon now, Princess Luna had already retired for a snack, and the guard had briefly retired to do the same. There was no one there but them.

The mare's cyan eyes looked at the stained glass windows there. She recognised Twilight and her friends who were hitting an alicorn as dark as the night. The next stained glass window was almost similar but the creature was indescribable, each part of his body came from different creatures. The third represented a couple, she easily recognised the mare, it was Princess Cadance, their love for each other that surrounded them, forming a circle around them, dropping strange creatures that Sunset had never seen before. On the next stained glass window, Spike raised his hands high in the sky, as if he had just thrown a blue heart larger than the dragon into the sky. Said artefact, Sunset assumed, seemed to radiate an immeasurable power. And the last one represented only Twilight taking flight, wearing a crown with a purple star, the element of magic.

"Yes, these are the events I predicted."

Sunset, who had been cut off, was now looking at the oracle with an irritated look. "It must not be easy to have a conversation with you."

He unrolled the scroll on the ground and began to read it. "We are not here to have a conversation," he underlined as he studied the scroll. "Indeed, easy if you know how to remove it," he murmured. He concentrated, his magic struck the scroll and the text of the spell was modified in the great widths.

Sunset was going to ask a question but changed her mind at the last minute. "You know what you're doing, I guess."

Bitter watched the mare for a moment. "This spell is limited, Starswirl has placed constraints on it. Normally, because of a specific one, you couldn't go back any further than last week. But with this modification, this constraint is removed. Ready?"

"Go ahead!"

Bitter Truth magically struck the scroll to activate its spell before moving it under Sunset, a bubble formed around it, multiple cogs formed on it, rolling counterclockwise, in an ever faster rhythm, until the bubble became opaque. The next moment, the bubble burst, and there was only the scroll left, Bitter Truth took it back and turned around to leave.

From the other end of the corridor, Reynaud approached, holding a tray with one leg carrying orange juice on it. When he reached the unicorn's height, he presented her with the drink.

He drank it all in one go, the freshness did him good at first, and biting into the ice cube gave him a slight icy headache that was not to his displeasure. "Thank you Reynaud." The oracle observed over his shoulder for a moment before returning to the butler. "Miss Shimmer will be back in a few seconds, can you give her a message from me?"

"Of course, Sir Bitter."