The ceiling of Rarity’s bedchamber was a clean, immaculate, almost unnaturally perfect white. When the light was on, the surface almost hurt to look at. It was totally unblemished, so non-noteworthy as to be in itself, noteworthy.
The unicorn’s bed was completely that; a bed for a unicorn. A normal sized unicorn to be exact, something Celestia was most certainly not. This posed a problem.
Celestia’s legs spilled ungracefully over the sides of the mattress. It was hardly a position befitting of a princess, and it was hardly comfortable.
But no matter how many times the monarch tried to distract herself by staring at Rarity’s oddly perfect ceiling, or by focusing on the dull ache in her awkwardly placed legs, it did nothing to alleviate the subject on her mind.
The seamstress beside her was in her early twenties. Still a young, fit mare. Celestia on the other hoof, while still having all the perks of youth, was counting millennia. It stood to reason that the alicorn wasn’t going to be departing this mortal coil anytime soon.
However, Celestia's slumbering fillyfriend was guaranteed no such longevity. In fact, given another decade and the age difference might seem reversed. Another decade for time to change Rarity, while it left Celestia firmly alone. That was the thought that refused to depart her mind. It snuck up on her when she was most vulnerable, or most happy. It kept her up at night, and it was keeping her up now.
For Celestia, age was just a number. Every birthday brought cake, a little get-together and the promise of another year of the same. The only thing of her’s that time ravaged was her calendar. Each passing moment brought more scribbles and scrawls and turned pages before it was discarded for another. The cycle continued, renewal, rebirth and, of course, death.
The thought made her uncomfortable. Something withering and dying as time soldiered on. It made Celestia more uncomfortable to think that everything alive right now, save for her and Luna, would experience that. Age bringing the odd ache and pain, forgotten memories and deterioration. What made her even more uncomfortable was the fact that for all her years, she couldn’t wrap her mind around such a fundamental premise. She couldn’t even consider how that would feel for somepony.
What made Celestia the most uncomfortable, though, was that Rarity would inevitably go through that.
Celestia didn't want that. She didn’t want her lover to be a calendar. Something finite that lessened slightly with every new month. However what she wanted was irrelevant, time and age would preserve her while slowly beating her fillyfriend down at the exact same time. For all for her power, she could do nothing to stop Rarity's descent. The best she could offer the unicorn was a comforting presence through it all, from fashion shows to picnics.
And it would all lead to a single death-bed, right for a regular-sized unicorn. Each new birthday of Rarity's would not just bring promises of another uniform year as they did for the princess. It was a countdown, leading to an end. Celestia was still uncomfortable. There would be no prolonging it and no joining her. Not even the one who lifted the sun could manage that.
Sun... sunrise. It was nearing dawn.
The alicorn sighed; she at least now had something new to focus on. She carefully rose from the bed. Rarity’s hooves fell their resting place on the princess's side. They reacted to the change with feeble air-groping, eager to be reunited with Celestia's coat. The alicorn smiled at the sight. She watched the unicorn until she relaxed once more, before making her way over to the room’s eastern facing window.
Her horn lit up with a golden flare and the gigantic orb began inch over the horizon. Contrary to what many of her subjects thought, lifting the star was less strained muscles and thundering veins, and more of a gentle nudging. It was not a procedure that taxed the alicorn, at least not anymore. To Celestia, the mandatory two minutes of standing around were more of an effort than lifting the sun. What did that say about her?
Celestia’s eyes inevitably wandered; they came to rest on Rarity’s calendar. It was personalised. The princess didn't know where she had gotten it. This month's image was a photograph of Sweetie Belle, the foal was grinning widely and presenting a crayon-drawing of Rarity. It was almost cartoonish in its stereotypical cuteness, but Celestia smiled all the same.
That filly had her whole life in front of her, and in less than a tenth of the alicorn's age, said life would have been over by decades.
There was a date that stuck out on the page. It had been marked by an elegant drawing of Rarity's cutie mark. The unicorn was going to be 24 in a few weeks time. Celestia knew that without the calendar's aid of course, but still. When the seamstress reached that age, it would mark approximately four months they had been together. Four months time.
Glorious, romantic, precious, finite time.
She stared at the sun for a while. The clock by Rarity's bedside was ticking, not loud enough to be distracting, but certainly enough to be noticeable. Images were racing through her head. Before her mind's eye, Rarity aged. Every tick of that clock, and another year went by. Another grey was added to her mind, another ache and pain. More wrinkles, less energy, more time gone, less time left.
So captivated, and horrified, was Celestia, that she didn’t even register the sounds of the duvet shifting behind her. Nor did she register Rarity’s dainty hoofsteps trotting a beeline to the alicorn. She didn’t register anything, not until she felt her fillyfriend’s soft hooves begin to run through her mane. The images in her head slowed, and focused. Rarity stood in front of her as an old mare, and behind her as a young pony.
Her hooves felt wonderful, so soft and skilled. In front of the window, those hooves were shaking and weathered. Celestia couldn't believe one day those hooves would one day look like that. No longer elegant, but quivering and weak. Totally ravaged by time.
“Looks like it’s going to be another gorgeous day,” Rarity said. Her morning voice was slightly husky. It was a sound Celestia loved, and it snapped her out of her daydream.
“I’d like for us to enjoy it, it’s not often I’ve got a day off.” the monarch replied, and further leaned into Rarity’s touch. The seamstress giggled and carried on playing with her lover’s mane. The action relaxed Celestia. Rarity could sense this easily, and doubled her efforts. The odd light tug, the constant brushing all following the map laid out by the princess's occasional sighs.
“Sleep well?” Rarity asked,
No, thought Celestia.
“Yes,” lied Celestia.
“Good, I know that bed isn't the comfiest for you, but I do love it when you stay the night," Rarity rambled with a light blush. Celestia smiled, and then looked over at the calendar. It had been the fourth yesterday. It wasn't the fourth anymore, that day was gone.
"Me too... I should really do it more often," Celestia agreed. Her words suggested contentment, but her tone suggested otherwise.
"Oh I'd love that, but first things first darling. Do you fancy a cup of tea?” Rarity asked happily.
Celestia turned to meet those beautiful sapphire eyes. After all the time she had lived, there was very little that shocked her. Those eyes though, they still caused her breath to hitch. To the alicorn, age was just a number, she could stare at that sun and count years in her head for the rest of time, but Rarity didn’t have that luxury.
There would be time. Time to think about the problems of a romance like this, time to fret and curse and lament the unfairness and complexities of her position, but this wasn’t it. Because Celestia and Rarity's time together wasn’t infinite. It was precious. It aged.
Celestia did what she always did in the end. She smiled, and she pushed aside her worries. She didn't forget them, she stored them for a later time. A more appropriate time that wasn’t so dear to her. A less finite time.
So she looked into her fillyfriend’s eyes with a wistful smile, and replied.
“Sure, we’ve got time for that.”
Author's Note
A big thanks to Flint Sparks for his help. Go check out his stuff, it's exactly like mine!
Only the plots, characters, locations, writing style, spelling, pacing, characterisation and update frequencies are different.
