Golden Flash nudged open the door as inoffensively as he could, peaking his head in. "Your Majesty, somepony wishes to see you."
Celestia sighed. "I told you Golden, I'm not seeing anypony today."
"Um, it's the Doctor."
Celestia, perched on her throne with a black veil upon her head, raised her eyebrows and her spirits. "The Doctor, as in Doctor Whooves?"
"Yes."
"...Okay. Send him in."
"As you wish Princess."
Golden Flash disappeared, and a few moments later the heavy pair of doors squeaked open, and in trotted a brown scruffy-maned earth stallion with an hourglass cutie mark: the Doctor. "Hello Princess."
"..."
He hung his head. "I'm so terribly sorry. I know how it is to lose a companion, and well, you see..."
"At ease Doctor. The habitual condolences aren't needed. You and I both know the cost of nigh-immortality."
He shivered. "Yes, we do."
She continued. "Yet I may observe, it is quite bold for a time traveler to disturb my mourning. Death doesn't mean so much when you can simply waltz around it I imagine."
Doctor Whooves sighed. "I wish Celestia, I wish. But in truth it only makes me all the more aware. I can dance and duck as much as I wish, but ultimately, I cannot change or prevent it. It happens. Life happens, and death happens. These are the two constants of this universe."
Celestia paused, as if unsure how to word that which she sought to speak. She rose from her throne and walked heavily down to the Doctor. "Come, let us stroll to the gardens and have some tea." As they exited the throne room, she addressed Golden Flash and another guard. "Sirs, could you prepare the gazebo for tea time please?" She turned to her friend: "Any particular flavor you desire Doctor?"
"Nahhhh, I've spent enough time with the Brits, I can handle anything. Well most anything. Not pears."
"The usual," she confirmed to the guards, and they dashed off towards the kitchen, leaving her and the Doctor to themselves.
He quickly stated, "Oh Celestia, you sure do love your tea don't you?"
She laughed, a genuine hearty laugh that felt good. "Time Turner, err, I mean Doctor, tea is the only thing that keeps me sane anymore."
"Oh really, sanity eh? I gave up that practice long ago."
She smiled, and with her telekinesis opened the door to the outside. It was around three o'clock, and in concordance with the week of mourning, the skies above were a lifeless grey. Celestia pondered how to ask the big question on her mind. She could have been angry, but she was much too tired for that, so she settled for weariness.
"Doctor, did you know?"
"Hmmmm?" he replied.
"Did you know?"
"Know what?"
"Don't play dumb. We've had this conversation before."
"..."
"Doctor, answer me NOW. Did you know Rarity Belle would die like this?"
"I... uh-uh, I ... ... no. I mean not really. I knew she would be the first to die, but so soon? Like this? I-I'm as shocked and saddened as you are. Sigh... Thirty two. So young."
Celestia just nodded.
They walked on quietly, until they reached their destination: a simple, gnarled, unpainted gazebo. It was perhaps starting to fall apart, but that was unsurprising: It had seen hundreds of years and more than a few attempted sieges and invasions. There on a table beneath its thatched roof was a plain tea set. Celestia motioned for the Doctor to take a seat on one of the two cushions that had been provided by the wait staff.
Celestia's tea was scalding hot, but she didn't seem to mind, if anything relishing the intense heat as it soothed her throat sore from crying. When you are the sun goddess, I suppose heat is a relative thing. The Doctor, on the other hoof, sipped a far cooler specimen, though steam still wisped off the surface.
As is befitting of such times, they drank their tea in silence.
Sometimes, companionship is all one wants, and so the Doctor merely sat there providing company for the diarch. When she was ready to continue conversation, she would, and soon enough, she did.
"So Doctor, what brought you here?"
Reminded of his purpose in coming, he spoke quickly. "Ah! Well, you see... I would like to show you something."
"Oh?"
"Yes, I think it may help give you a sense of perspective."
"I'm over eleven thousand years old Whooves; you don't need to talk down to me. My perspective is fine."
"I know, I know, it's just well... well let me show you what I mean. Are you up for a trip in the old TARDIS? I swear to you there will be no hijinks, no adventures, no time paradoxes involved. just a simple thirty minute trip to a time and place in space that will provide some perspective. Are you game?"
Celestia pondered the offer, then shrugged her shoulders. "I don't see what the harm is. Sure, fly me to the moon, Doctor. Or wherever it is we're going."
"Great!" The Doctor grinned a toothy grin. "Let's get to it then. I parked the TARDIS in the basement. I uh, hope you don't mind. Oh, and my wife Ms. Lee is coming too. Is that cool?"
"You're the time lord, not me sir. Though, if you are bringing Fleur, it's only fair that I bring Discord."
"Okay. How is he taking this anyway? I never imagined he would be that close to Rarity. She was never exactly fond of messes."
Celestia responded, "Well, she did always welcome his fresh creative imput. As for him, well, he's sulking. You know how he gets. Come, let us retrieve him and make this journey you are so eager for me to accompany you on."
They rose from their seats and departed from the gazebo. From the shadows sprang servants to whisk away the tea set.
The two trotted out of the courtyard and back into a castle hallway. They soon found themselves outside of discords room. Well, room isn't the most accurate description. "Pocket dimension" would do the place more justice. From inside, the Doctor and Celestia could hear sounds of... know what, I'm not even going to try to describe the noises. They were weird. Celestia knocked, and they heard Discord shout, "Go away Celly. I know it's you." Celestia rolled her eyes. "Come on out Discord. The Doctor wants to take us on a short trip."
There was the sound of pigs farting, followed by a noise not unlike that of towels playing mariachi music at a Bat Mitzvah, and then Discord opened the door. He looked as though he had a hangover, but brightened up when he saw the Doctor. "Doctor Whooves! My time travelling amigo, très bien!" He snaked out of the room which was busy exploding into dancing cantaloupes behind him, and gave the stallion a big hug. "Sure, I'm up for an adventure with Professor Whodunit anytime."
"Great!" the Doctor shouted. "Let's get going then! Fleur is waiting in the TARDIS." Like that, they were off.
Ten minutes of small talk later, the trio had arrived in the castle basement. They were about step into the police box, when the Doctor spoke up.
"Say, should we invite Twilight? She is sort of one of us now."
Celestia shook her head. "I’m not so sure about bringing Twilight. I don’t believe she is in the best place emotionally right now. Trust me, she’ll have plenty of adventures to go on, but for now the four of us will be plenty cozy."
"And besides," Discord added as they got comfortable within some hammocks he had outfitted the TARDIS with, "she doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to handling time travel." They all laughed at that, reminded of some shared memory unknown to most. Discord produced seat belts for the crew, and the Doctor started up his trusty machine. It was adventure time.
Author's Note
Cut because I didn't know where to put it:
"Tia, please, take off that veil. It's so depressing."
"Discord, you have your ways of grieving, I have mine."
When the viewing window in front of them first opened, there was a collective gasp. A dead, barren, and melting rocky planet lay before them. Beyond it, a swollen red star hovered, threatening to swallow the entire planet whole.
The ears of the non-time travels in the TARDIS splayed back in awe. All of them had seen worlds from space on multiple occasions, but the sight of a planet up close yet not upon its surface was still --and would always be-- an amazing spectacle.
They watched in reverie as the universe swam around them. Every so often, mighty tendrils of flame lashed out, threatening to singe the TARDIS. The star seemed to boil, to sweat in agony, and the planet appeared desperate to just melt away. It was a wonderful yet somewhat macabre sight. It was magnificent. It was beautiful. It was glorious.
Fleur Dis Lee was the first to speak. "My husband has taken me on many wonderful adventures. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s not to be afraid of the extraordinary. You guys are all exceptional, but you are still ponies… and, er, a draconamagiggy."
“‘Draconawhatchamacallit’ is the proper term,” Discord corrected her.
"But this," she continued, "this terrifies me. We live in a world of peace and harmony." Glancing at Discord, she added, "(for the most part.)" "This though reminds us where we really stand. What is the magic of friendship to this uncaring and violent cataclysm?"
Discord shrugged. "Well, I think it's simply grand. I for one like cataclysms." He was fogging up the window with his breath and drawing stick figures. How he was doing this when his mouth was ten feet from the glass on account of his still lying in the hammock he had conjured up earlier, is anypony's guess.
Celestia just lay still, gazing in rapt fascination. But her visage was troubled; she looked as if deep in thought.
"Is something wrong Princess?" Fleur asked with concern.
"Yeah," Discord added. "Why the long face?" Everypony groaned at the worn out joke.
Celestia collected her thoughts. "I... I know that star --I think. It's... it's definitely familiar, like a long lost friend, whose name floats upon the wind, just out of grasp."
"Yeah yeah yeah, enough with the poetics. Whoovsy, where and when are we?" Discord asked.
The doctor grinned. "What do you think we are witnessing Celestia?"
"Doctor, I'm not in the mood for guessing games. Luna has always been better at them than I anyway. What are we looking at?"
"Fine, fine," he said nonchalantly. "This is the sun swallowing the earth, two billion years in the future."
They were all much too shocked and overwhelmed to at first question why he had brought them there. Fleur, the most mortal of the bunch, was too finite to truly grasp the scope of what she beheld, and so simply laid there in awe. Celestia looked at once anguished and confused, trying to make sense of a future so foreign to her present. And Discord?
Discord was crying. Not tears of mirth either. He seemed to be genuinely distraught. He cried for all four of them. “I may be a monster,” he said slowly, “But I am not so heartless as to wish this future upon anypony. What… Why did you bring us here? What am I to make of this? There must be millions of innocent ponies roasting alive!"
The doctor chuckled sadly. "No Discord. Earth has been abandoned for scores of millions of years. The last ponies took much of the remaining flora and fauna too. You're looking at a long dead planet."
"Oh," the draconequus muttered, drying his crocodile tears (literally tears of a crocodile, he was a chimera after all.).
"We're... dead now too, aren't we?" Fleur tentatively asked.
"Well, yes, even I am probably dead by now. I can only regenerate so many times before something goes wonky I suppose. But yes, we are... all... dead..."
Silence.
"This sun I see before me," Celestia finally spoke up, "it seems impossible it is our own. I know many other solar systems do not follow the laws that our own does, but I thought the sun was different. How could a heavenly body I created act under its own volition? And why do I not see the moon?"
Doctor Whooves chuckled. "Things change Celestia. You of any pony should know that. And the moon was lost hundreds of millions of years before this, the satellite whisked away as a spaceship for ponies escaping their home which had become a pressure cooker. I must give you credit Celestia. Your children are a hardy lot."
Celestia smiled. "I'd like to think so."
Again, nothing was said, as the four pondered the display before them.
"Soooo," the doctor prodded. "Why do you think I brought you here?"
"I'm really not sure," Celestia grumbled. "Hopefully a good reason?"
"Doctor," Fleur addressed her husband, "There was a point to this, right? I love adventures, but why such a grim one, now of all times?"
"Why might I be showing you this," the doctor queried. "Here's a hint: Is the end of the world really the end of the world?"
The mares were confused. But then Discord started laughing. A light bulb appeared over his head, and he threw it into his mouth and chewed upon it. He rose from the hammock and strode back and forth in front of the other three, with a scholarly air about him. He began to lecture, a spark in his eyes.
“Don’t you see? It’s beautiful. This, oh I do say, this is glorious! Don’t you see Tia? This isn't the end. Only the end of the beginning! It’s a big juicy, chaotic drawing of the curtain, but it isn't the end of the play. Oh ho no!”
Fleur and Celestia looked at Discord quizzically. The doctor smiled. “You got it old sport. Go on, ya furbag.”
Discord continued. “We are witnessing the end of act one. Intermission if you will. But there are a hundred thousand scenes yet to play out, aren’t there Doctor? A million more galaxies to explore. A billion more worlds to colonize. A trillions more lives to live. Don’t you guys see it? It’s beautiful. It…it brings tears to my eyes.” He renewed his crying, but this time they were tears of joy. “Without… without destruction… you can’t have chaos. Life and death work together, to build this crazy universe of ours. It’s… quite sobering."
“Quite,” Celestia, heretofore quiet, responded. “Though I can’t help but be concerned by this most unnatural behavior of the sun, I now understand why you brought me --us-- here. You wish to convey to us the grander scope of things. I suppose you have done this. Thank you Doctor.”
The doctor sighed. “Trust me, I’m not particularly fond of witnessing this, in this universe or in or in any others. But yes Celestia, I brought you here for perspective. Just as Rarity’s death marks the start of a new era for Equestria, so too does the death of the earth mark a turning point in pony history. Your home planet may soon be destroyed, but right now, there are ponies living their lives in both chaos,” –he looked towards Discord– “and harmony,” he turned now to Celestia, “scattered across vast realms of space. Some of whom, I might mention, are the very distant descendants of a mare among us."
Celestia and Fleur looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Then they turned back to the sight in front of them, tendrils of plasma from the sun beginning to nibble at the earth. They sat there quietly for some time.
Discord yawned and stretched. "Well, if we're going to be all somber and stuff, at least let's have some snacks. He snapped his talon, and food, drinks, and recliners (replacing the hammocks) appeared. “Huh, glad to see my magic still works.”
Together, four friends sat in near-silent appreciation, munching on popcorn, as the sun swallowed the earth.
Dear Twilight Sparkle:
Today I learned… well actually today isn't exactly accurate now. A long while in the future, shall we say, I learned an important lesson about life. I learned that even when something very sad happens, it is not the end of the world, even if it may literally seem like it is. There will always be a tomorrow, and beyond whatever tragedy has befallen you, a glorious day awaits. I know this past week has been extremely hard for all of us, but I promise you that life will still go on for a long, long time, and you should not let this event stop you from living beautifully.
Your faithful mentor, Princess Celestia
