It is strange, to an immortal being, that a single year should feel so long.
Perhaps my long perspective robs events of their novelty, and in its absence, time passes unmarked, each year little different than any other. That is not to say that I never encounter any remarkable events, of course. My first encounter with Twilight Sparkle, the restoration of my sister, Discord’s return and subsequent defeat—I don’t wish to suggest that any of these events were unimportant in any way. However, in every case, I find myself either wound up in the joy of the event, and it becomes a whirlwind of activity; or else the event was such a crisis that it came and went almost before anypony had time to think of it.
Your arrival, however, presented a different manner of event. You were at once a puzzle and a creature in need of aid. Never before had Equestria seen a creature such as you, and, if my suspicions about your arrival are correct, never will again.
Celestia let the quill drop to the side and glared at the parchment before her. So formal, as if she were addressing the Court, not a dear friend. And she brought up her own immortality. Could she be so careless?
A slight narrowing of her eyes, a spark from her horn, and the scroll was consumed, crumbling away into ashes and a tiny curl of smoke, just like the last four. A nurse had objected to her the first time she’d done it, but one look from Celestia sent the little mare scurrying from the room begging her forgiveness.
Celestia groaned and rubbed her foreleg across her eyes. How thoughtless she had been. The poor thing had only been trying to do her job and protect her charges. Frankly, having the nerves to reprimand her, of all ponies, for breaking hospital policies deserved a commendation, not a tantrum. She’d have to write an apology letter to her later.
Something I’ve been doing a lot, lately, she thought as she eyed the pile of soot-covered and crumpled paper. She yawned as she took the quill up again, drawing a new scroll from her pile, but rather than writing, she just sat and stared dumbly at the blank paper. What could she say to him? Where could she even begin?
Luna would tell her to begin by getting some rest. She’d been saying that for the past two weeks. It had even escalated into an argument, soon enough—the first one they’d had since her return. She’d thrown herself back into her efforts afterward to keep her mind off of it, but then he told her exactly the same thing. She turned away from the scroll, looking through the crystalline pane separating them, to study the frail figure on the bed once more.
“Celestia,” he said after a short time, “If you keep giving me those mournful looks, I’m having the nurse throw you out.”
“Do you really think they’d do it?” she asked, the ghost of a smile on her face.
“If they don’t, I’ll take a nap and tell your sister to help.”
“The rest would do you well,” she said, turning back to her scroll.
“And you. You haven’t slept since they started trying to insulate me from magic.” He lapsed into silence as Celestia wrote, but was once again the first to break it. “That’s a lot you’re writing, there. I’ll probably be too tired to read it all.”
"You wouldn’t try to manage, even for me?" she asked, without looking up.
"You could just come in here and talk with me the way we did before."
"You know I can't do that, Marcus." She rose and approached the window, resting her head against it. Her horn felt cold and numb against the magic-draining crystal. “With the amount of magical power I possess, my mere presence in the room with you would only serve to shorten your life even further. I’ve done you enough harm already.”
“Only while trying to help me. I can’t blame you for that.” He lay there a moment, taking shallow breaths. Celestia was just about to respond to him when he continued. “Besides, are you so sure I’d prefer a month and loneliness over three weeks and your company?”
Celestia sighed and closed her eyes. “Has time truly grown so short, already?”
“I have no idea.” He shrugged as best as he could manage. “I was guessing. For all I know, tonight is my last night, and you could at least grant me the final request.”
She let out a soft, hollow laugh at that. “You’re trying to guilt me into joining you in there, now?”
“Yes. I’m tired of having you moping around, I’m sure the other ponies are tired of late sunrises and cold mornings—” He paused for a few breaths. “—and honestly, this is the most boring place ever. At least human hospitals had television.”
Celestia shook her head as she pulled back from the crystal pane. “Very well, I suppose you have a point.”
She approached the door to his isolation chamber and hesitated. How to do this without… oh, of course. Like an Earth Pony. She bent down and gingerly took the doorknob between her teeth, turning her head in a manner she quickly decided was awkward and ridiculous to open it. As she resumed her usual posture upon entering the room, she couldn’t help but catch the grin on Marcus’ face.
“You’re smiling, in these circumstances? All because you got me to come inside?”
"That and you look ridiculous opening a door that way."
Celestia lifted an eyebrow. "Any earth pony or pegasus would have done the same. I don't see what makes me any different."
"An earth pony or pegasus would at least be at the right height for it. You bent over double."
"I should have introduced you to a Ponyville pony by the name of Macintosh Apple. Or Vice-Admiral White Wing."
"Is she the one that sent all your pegasi guards into hiding when she showed up in the throne room?"
She gave a genuine smile for the first time that day. "Yes, that was her. I keep reassuring them that she can't forcibly transfer anypony, no matter what she claims. When was that, though?" She thought for a moment, and then her face fell. "Oh, of course. Right before you fell ill. Marcus, I—"
"I wanted a conversation, Celestia. Not another string of apologies."
She sighed. "I know, Marcus, I know. It's just..." She looked up to him, waiting for another interruption, but he was lying back quietly, watching her. "You've become closer to me than anypony—anyone—else has in centuries, aside from my sister or Twilight Sparkle. I would do everything in my power to keep either of them safe, and I would extend you that protection as well.
"But despite our victory in the unification war, we lost so many. Despite my love for my sister, I couldn't save her from herself. Despite being Twilight's caretaker and mentor, I have to keep sending her into danger. I may have been Equestria's guardian for the past thousand years, but there has been precious little else I've been able to keep safe.
"To possibly lose another to something so mundane as disease..." She shook her head. "With all of the power I wield, I thought you, at least, I could protect."
He let out a weak chuckle. "Really? All that for me? I'm nobody, in the end. Just one of seven billion stupid apes. I don't see why you should care so much."
"Stop." Celestia gave him a sharp look. "You are not just one more meaningless life. No one is. Some ponies think I must keep others at hoof's length—that I avoid involvement with mortal ponies. They believe I couldn't stand immortality otherwise. That couldn't be further from the truth. Every life is wonderful, meaningful, and precious; and I treasure the memories of each and every one that I come to know personally. So I will not hear you speak of yourself in such a manner again."
It was some time before either of them broke the silence that followed.
"If you accept the consequences of immortality like that and are comfortable with the memories of those left behind," Marcus asked at last, "why are you so upset about me in particular?"
Celestia released a shuddering breath. "As I said. I thought I could save you. But for all of my power, my magic only made things worse." She moved from the end of his bed to sit beside him. "And you have had so little time here. It feels at once like we have done so much and so little."
"And you were there for all of it," he finished for her.
She nodded. "When I first saw the report about you being found in the Everfree Forest, I was confused and worried. You were compared to a minotaur and an ape, but the rest of your description reminded me of an ancient foe of Equestria. Having only just defeated one such ancient evil, I at first feared that we would be facing another so soon after. And then I met you."
"And your fears were allayed by my stunning good looks, so incredible they cross the species divide?"
She laughed at that. "If you'd like to believe that, I won't stop you. But no, you seemed so lost and confused. I'm amazed you came to the castle willingly, given that you couldn't understand the guardsponies, and they aren't exactly prone to being comforting."
"To be fair, I was in shock. Talking horses."
"So were we. A talking ape."
He grinned. "Do we need to go over that 'polite terms for one anothers' species' talk again?"
"It certainly wasn't what I expected the topic of our first long discussion to be. I had been hoping for comparisons of culture and art, the sciences, or perhaps what your people knew of magic."
"'I'm sorry all I had for you there were folklore and legerdemain. I came out on top, I think, finding out it was real."
"And killing you, we discovered," Celestia said. She lay a wing across him as she cast her eyes downward once more. "That must have soured the experience for you."
He shook his head. "I told you then, and it holds true now. I already thought I was living on borrowed time, remission or not. I was never expecting a second miraculous recovery. Are you going to keep coming back to that?"
"It's hard not to, given the circumstances. I don't think I can set aside the sheer frustration of it, either. We tried so many things. Unicorn magic, earth pony medicine... The worst of it was that zebra shaman and her alchemy. You started improving so much..."
"Only to learn that zebra alchemy uses magic to combine the ingredients, and it still carries some within the potion. I remember. And I'd still like to speak of things aside from my illness. How about when I first came here, and we were trying to understand one another."
She smiled slightly and nodded. "Learning one another's languages without the aid of any translation spells, after none of the ones I knew—nor any that Twilight uncovered in her research—worked on you." She paused, and then folded her ears back. "And were probably the first heavy application of magic around you, which probably started this whole problem."
"Celestia..."
She stood and began pacing the room. "I know, Marcus, and I am sorry. But I can't seem to avoid the topic. I never would have considered that perhaps magic is overused in our society before this."
"Before this, you'd never seen anything that would be hurt by it, inherently."
She stopped at the window, and remained silent, watching the sunset.
"Celestia, stop this. I'm not worth neglecting your duties, or depressing yourself."
She sighed. "You're right, in part. I shouldn't be neglecting my little ponies, no matter my own feelings. But you are worth more to me than you seem to think. I told you as much earlier."
"You're starting to make it sound like you've fallen for me. Ah, curse these dashing good looks."
"Nothing of the sort!" she said, though Marcus still chuckled at the tinge that appeared on her cheeks. "I am fond of you, yes. But I'm sorry, I'd still prefer a stallion."
"You should have heard the things they called me back home."
She relaxed and smiled again. "I'm sure they were impressive. But no, it's just... When you were found, I took you in as a guest of the castle. Twilight aided me with your language, but it was I who spent the majority of two months trying to bridge that divide. Once we could understand one another, I spent nearly all my spare time in your company, discussing each other's cultures. Music, art, performances, literature, science, and history... There were so many things we shared.
“And through it all, you were never intimidated by me. I daresay you were actually quite impudent. You took everything in stride, and judging from your reaction to your own potential demise, you still do. It was wonderful having someone by my side during day court who wasn’t interested in simply agreeing with whatever they thought I wanted.”
She returned and sat by his side once more, though she didn’t look him in the eyes. “That’s what it really is. You’ve been by my side this entire time, and it’s simply too soon for me to lose that. Anypony else, anything else, there might be something I could do. But now… I am powerless. It’s not a feeling I’m accustomed to.”
She raised her head to look him in the eyes, only to find them closed. “Marcus?” When he didn’t react, she leapt to her hooves. “Marcus!” Despite the draining effect of the crystal walls around her, and the knowledge that it could do nothing but risk further harm to him, Celestia lit her horn. She didn’t know what she could possibly do, but to any unicorn or alicorn, it was a simple instinct. The feeling of magic awaiting release gave one a sense of power and control, and could help the pony remain calm, if they didn’t release that power to do anything rash.
However, between the adrenaline and the light of her horn, Celestia could see Marcus’ chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. She released the breath she’d been holding in a gasp that was either a laugh or a sob, even she didn’t know which. She allowed the crystal walls to drain away the magic she had built up and laid her head on his bed, letting the tears that had appeared soak into the sheets.
“Of course you would fall asleep during one of my speeches. I should have known.”
She lay there for a moment, until she felt his hand brush through her mane.
“I’d always wondered what that felt like,” he muttered.
“You scared me for a moment, Marcus. I was afraid our time had already run out.”
“I think we have a little while, yet. Do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Don’t try to be my savior, Celestia. Just be my friend. I haven’t been in here long, but I’ve missed our talks all the same.”
She shifted to lay her head against the back of his hand. “I’m afraid I’ll miss them longer.”
