"Are you ready?"
She looked down at herself one last time. Her cornflower coat, once perfectly combed, was a mess of translucent goop. Her mane fared no better, plastered down between her ears and over her withers so the periwinkle on top almost hid the blue stripe down the left side. Iron and pleather covered her hooves, wheel-soled boots that the Doctor refused to belittle with the name "roller skates". She couldn't help but giggle at the sight. Here they were, at the beginning of a new era of scientific discovery, and she looked absolutely ridiculous.
She planted her hooves and straightened her back, her eyes shining with anticipation behind a darkened visor of Equestria's sturdiest plastics. "Ready!"
"That's my girl!" the Doctor said with a wide smile. A blush spread over Minuette's cheeks, one she'd thought she'd conquered years ago. "Alright. Take your place at the far wall, please."
She skated back to the end of the runway and turned to face the machine, a hulking black mass of rods and wires and plates all coming together at a pair of points like a spider's mandibles. Between the jaws, as the Doctor called them, was a delicate bluish-steel spire that crackled with energy. She stared at that spire and her muzzle parted in wonder. Even after so many tests, seeing this beast of a machine come to life still made her heart leap into her throat.
"Just think," he said, the words flowing as fast as his racing heart could push them out. "Just think! This time three days from now, all the world will know your name. All the world will have the chance to vacation among the foundations of the great pyramids of Geldza, or speak to Chancellor Puddinghead herself or even the fabled Starving Artist of Whinnci! Can you imagine?"
"You just want to get your name in the papers," she said again, not bothering to mask the smile that accompanied the words.
He laughed with her, a jolly, jovial sound. His voice was always so warm, so inviting. "I'll get your name in the papers," he replied, as always. He framed the words with his hooves as if holding up a banner. "Miss Minuette of Ponyville! Co-designer of the first time machine to grace the realm of nonfiction; first mare to see the future; eligible bachelorette!"
She giggled, a high-pitched squeak she hadn't made since her days of crawling under the bleachers in secondary school. That last part was new. "What about you?" she shot back. "You're the one who not only came up with the basic theory, but produced every piece of this machine and the bits to create it. You're pretty eligible yourself!"
Her laughter rang in his ears, and he chuckled nervously. "Let's... Maybe we should keep our minds' eyes on the prize," he said, but the warmth never left his voice.
Three days, she thought to herself. When I get back, you and I are going to talk. But all she said was, "Ready when you are, Doctor."
"Alright," he said, a little breathlessly. She could practically see his pulse pounding in his chest, through the veins of his strong neck. "Alright, Minuette, take your pl– That is, on my count! Three..." His hoof moved to the activation switch, a great unmistakable monster of orange with warning signs all around it.
Time seemed to slow down for Minuette as she let go of those thoughts. The Doctor was right: This was it. For years they'd been working together, learning together, failing together, growing together. They'd become almost inseparable, he depending on her creativity and inspiration, she depending on his level head and constant, indefatigable confidence as they forged through sciences both real and unreal. Together they'd built the future.
"Two..."
But, she reminded herself as she lit her horn with a pale gold aura, they couldn't perform this last experiment together. One had to brave the first attempt, and one had to stay behind. If it all went right, someone had to be there when she returned. If it all went wrong, someone had to carry on. Someone had to bring this project to its desired end. The Princesses wouldn't support it; the town couldn't fund it; the two of them were alone. One had to stay behind.
Suddenly she noticed her thoughts were racing, avoiding the one thing she hadn't prepared for.
"One..."
I should tell him how I feel.
"Go, Minnie! Go!"
She raced forward, two hooves in front of the others, picking up speed slowly but soon skating as fast as she could hope to skate without losing her balance. The golden light of her horn surrounded her as she charged toward that crackling spire, which was no longer crackling so much as humming, vibrating with the energy it spat forth, filling the air above the entire runway with a milky blue light in the space of two seconds. She charged into that light, and it filled her. She breathed that blue air, and it filled her. It filled her from hooves to horn and it tore her to pieces.
She couldn't cry out, as much as she wanted to. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. Her muscles were gone. Her bones were gone. Every tiny piece of matter that had made her Minuette had lost its bonds and fallen to pieces. Her body was confused, every remnant of every nerve sending distress signals toward a brain that wasn't there. She burned so hot she knew she would dissolve into ash any second. She'd dissolved into the ether, the space behind the spire, and now it was up to her shield and the Doctor's calculations to carry her to the other side.
"I..."
His voice in her ear, if she'd had one. "Doctor," she whimpered, her voice echoing oddly, there and not there. She clung to his voice and her shield. She trembled violently. Every part of her trembled. "Doctor?"
"Be safe, Minnie."
She shrieked into the ether. Time and Equestria fell away.
,',
She landed hard on her skates and collapsed. She skidded across the tile on her chest until her helmet hit the floor and she rolled in a twisted heap. The helmet clanged and her coat squelched as she hit the far wall.
"Minuette!" a voice cried.
Her throat forced up a long, soft wail, all the sound it had left to offer. She writhed on the floor as her mind fought to soothe her still-jangling nerves.
"Minuette? Is that you?"
She tried to open her eyes. She tried to speak, to close her mouth. She squealed on the tile and fought the grip of those icy hooves.
"Shhh," it said tenderly. "It's okay, Minuette. Hold her. It's okay. You're safe."
Something touched her foreleg and she mewled in protest. The world turned black and devoured her.
,',
The golden-orange light of sunset stroked her eyes, a delicate touch like a mother's gentle hoof. Minuette slowly welcomed it in, parting her eyelids to see the familiar white tile of the break room ceiling. Her nose was filled with a familiar scent, paper and stale air and the faint aroma of soap. "Hello?" she murmured, her hooves reaching up to scrub at her face.
"Hello," somepony said weakly from beside her. "Welcome to the future... Minuette."
The joy of triumph flooded through her and washed right back out again like the waning tide. She groaned and stretched her back and hindlegs. "How long was I out?"
"Two days."
She twisted just enough to see a shape resting on a bed of pillows on the cot beside hers. It was a gray shape with an off-white mane and dim golden eyes. "Who are you?" she asked curiously. "Are you a time traveler too?"
The other pony choked out a laugh. "No," she said with a smile. "I'm just... the mare in charge," she replied, her words punctuated by rattling breaths.
"You're sick?" Minuette murmured.
"I'm old," she nodded, shifting her wings. "But I wanted... to carry out... the Doctor's dream."
Her heart plummeted to her stomach. "The Doctor's not...?"
She shook her head. "I'm afraid he passed... last year."
Minuette rolled onto her back and gazed at the ceiling in silence. The other mare was content to let her. She rubbed her horn and forehead and was pleased to feel clean, smooth fur, not the protective goop she'd slopped all over herself before her adventure had started. Someone had bathed her in the two days she'd missed. "Thank you," she whispered.
The other mare coughed. "Muffins," she said with a curt nod. "My name... is Muffins."
The faintest hint of a memory tingled in the back of her mind and burst to the forefront. "Muffins– Derpy!"
"Muffins," she agreed, ignoring the younger mare's laughter. "Most ponies stopped... using the nickname... when I took charge... of this facility. It didn't really... fit, you know?"
Minuette fought down her giggles and covered them with a hoof. "I-I'm sorry, it's just... I didn't expect to see you here!"
"I didn't either," she admitted. Derpy rolled onto her back, revealing the large black eyepatch that covered her right eye, and lifted all four hooves as high as she could. "But here I am!" It wasn't very high.
"How?" she asked.
Muffins shrugged. "Someone had to."
"But with you here, like... like this, who tends to the machinery? You have help, don't you?"
"There's Timey," she said with a feeble wave of a hoof, "but he has a job... at the Mayor's office. He can't spend... all his time... waiting for you."
She mulled the words over. Something about them... Something in her tone. "Have we met before, De– Muffins?"
The pegasus hesitated. "Yes...?" she said uneasily. "Before you went... on this journey."
"No," she pressed, "after I left. Did I come back?"
Muffins nodded.
"And?"
"And you... wrote up your reports..." She shook her head. "And that was that, but... Timey will... be home soon. He went... to fetch the press."
Though she was eager to push on, she dropped the topic. After all, she was a guest in this time period. She could be polite. "Press?" Minuette sighed. "I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet."
"I know, Minuette... but we don't... have time to wait," she explained. "We only have... one more day."
She blinked. "What? Why?"
"You went back... after three days," she explained. "The report said... you slept for two... and stayed for one... before you left. A detailed scan... showed only minimal... signs of aging... minimal unforeseen stress... either physical or magical..."
"I don't care about all that," Minuette argued. "I'm tired, I'm scared, and I'm here to learn. Tell me about the future."
Maybe being polite was a stretch of the imagination.
"But Minuette... If we don't do this... as it was done... the paradox..."
"What's a paradox, really?" she scoffed. "I don't care what the philosophers think. If time travel changes things in such a way that it would never have occurred, the universe will make sense of it like any other magic." She tossed her mane over her shoulder and turned away. "Anyone who says otherwise has too much imagination or none at all."
"But..."
"But nothing. I'm the time traveler; I should know."
"You've been one... for two days... you slept through," Muffins argued. "You don't know a... a thing."
"I know you're not telling me something."
A door slammed in the hall, and the familiar voice of a stallion rang out. "Mom?"
Minuette's heart skipped a beat.
"Mom, are you awake?" he called.
She surged up from the pillows. "Is that..." Familiar... Tantalizing. It was his. It was him. But if he's dead...
"What I didn't... want to say," Muffins murmured, her eye on the ceiling. "His son."
"His son? Do you mean..."
"Timey... Time Turner," she nodded.
"M-my son?"
Muffins flinched.
"You're awake!"
The past filled the doorway.
He was tall, with a strong neck and a coat the color of fired clay. His dark mane was brushed back, not quite like his father had worn it. Bright golden eyes stared at her, wide and full of excitement.
Minuette licked her lips. "You look just like your father..."
Except...
"How's she doing, Mom?" the young Doctor asked excitedly.
Muffins cleared her throat. "She's... healthy."
"Well, that's wonderful news!" Time Turner spread his wings and glided to Minuette's bedside. He beamed at her and offered her a hoof. "Welcome to the future, Minuette."
Minuette collapsed backward against the pillows.
Oh, how she longed to be home.
,',
Time Turner had left them alone at his mother's urging and taken the press outside. He took with him the only light this future held, even if it was just the barest flash of memories of a face and a laugh. Muffins stared at her, not blinking, not speaking. Minuette whimpered into the pillow she held to her muzzle, drowning in her pain. "B-but... But you said..."
"I said his son," Derpy cut in. "I never said... your son."
"But he and I... We..."
"No," she wheezed. "He and I."
Minuette leaped from the bed and rounded on the old pegasus, her teeth bared. "You stole him from me!" she hissed.
"You gave him... to me," she argued, a touch of fire in her voice. "You left... He loved you."
"I know!" Minuette roared in her anguish. "I know he does! Why did he throw it all away?" She turned and kicked her cot, tossing it sideways to the floor. "I was there! I was only gone three days! How could he do this to me?"
"How could you?" Derpy said softly.
Minuette turned, her eyes wide and pupils small. "Don't you dare."
"You left him," she continued. "You came back... you greeted him... as a colleague... and you left. You were married... before he and I... had even met."
The earth dropped from beneath Minuette's hooves. "Liar," she breathed.
That golden eye stared back with all the sincerity of the bright summer sun.
"Liar!" she wailed, falling to the floor and burying her head in her hooves. "I would never leave him!"
The eye softened. "You never told him why," Derpy said. "I don't think he ever... knew you truly cared. Until the day he died... he thought it was all... a game to you."
"He's not dead," she sobbed, tears dripping from her eyes and nose. "My Doctor is waiting for me."
"My Doctor is dead." Derpy lifted a hoof an inch, two inches. "My Doctor loved me."
"He is not your Doctor."
"He was his... his own Doctor," she agreed.
Minuette shook her head. "I... No, I..."
Epiphany. "Paradox," she breathed.
Muffins closed her eye.
"Paradox!" Minuette crowed, surging to her hooves. "I left for the future, so in that timeline – this timeline – he was alone. I never came back until right now, right?" She didn't wait for an answer. "So he had to move on. But then I came back now – then – and I was hurt, so I left, and I moved on, and then he had to... A self-perpetuating cycle of time and fate," she breathed. "I started this. I have to..." She sniffed back the tears. "I have to fix this!"
"He always said... you can't change the future... any more than you... can change the past."
"Watch me," she hissed, and she spun toward the door.
"Wait!" Muffins cried weakly. "Timey!"
Something hit the floor hard behind Minuette, but she didn't turn to look. She had work to do.
Minuette raced from their old break room and down the hall to the lab. The machine was still there, cordoned off and dusty but looking as good as new. She darted to the control panel, gave the casing a swift kick to knock free some of the dust, and prepared the machine for her journey.
Something crackled and the air was filled with the echoes of Muffins's wheezing protests and choking coughs. "Minuette... stop!" she cried weakly over the intercom. "You still have... one more day!"
She never took her eyes from her hooves as she twisted the dials. "I'm not going back to three days later," she said determinedly. "I'm not going back to write a report. I don't care about the future if the future doesn't hold my Doctor." Her hoof hovered over the great orange switch as she checked and double-checked her figures. "I'm going back to love him as he deserves to be loved."
"Minuette... please!" She ignored the voice. "I can't... turn off... the machine... when you..."
Her hoof snapped the lever into position. She darted forward as it roared to life, filling the runway with blue mist. "Where I'm going," she called as she sprinted into the jaws of the machine, "I'll never have been here to turn it on!"
"Minuette! The shield!"
She hit the spire at a dead gallop.
,',
She burned.
She burned, she fell apart.
Everything was agony. Determination. Agony. Blue.
The blackness-blueness spread forever. Eternity. Infinite. There was no end. Time has no end.
There was no end and there was no Minuette.
This pony was the mist.
"I love him," she whimpered. "The future isn't worth losing him!"
Everything fading, all so clear.
"Don't let him go," infinity cried. "You only have one life to live, to love. Don't waste it!"
The thought bounced around the mist, the warmth of love, the icy dagger that cut her heart so.
"Don't waste it..."
"Don't waste it?" she replied suddenly.
The mist grabbed Minuette and didn't let go. "Don't waste it!"
"Don't waste it..."
"Don't waste it? she replied suddenly.
Minuette grabbed Minuette and didn't let go. "Don't waste it!"
"Don't waste it?"
So many failures.
How many times had she been through this?
How many Minuettes did it take to fix all she had broken?
,',
"Are you ready?"
Minuette looked down at herself one last time. Her coat, once perfectly combed, was a mess of translucent goop. Her mane fared no better, plastered down between her ears and over her withers. Iron and pleather covered her hooves: roller skates, even if called by another name. She couldn't help but giggle at the sight. Here they were again, at the cusp of history, and she looked absolutely ridiculous.
She planted her hooves and straightened her back, her eyes shining with anticipation behind a darkened visor. "Ready!"
"That's my girl!" the Doctor said with a wide smile. A blush spread over Minuette's cheeks. "Alright. Take your place at the far wall, please."
She skated back to the wall and turned to face the machine. Between the jaws, as the Doctor called them, a delicate blue-steel spire crackled with energy.
"Just think," he said excitedly. "Just think! This time three days from now, all the world will know your name. All the world will have the chance to vacation among the foundations of the great pyramids of Geldza, or speak to Chancellor Puddinghead herself or even the fabled Starving Artist of Whinnci! Can you imagine?"
"You just want to get your name in the papers," she said again with a smile.
He laughed with her, a jolly, jovial sound. His voice, as always, was so warm, so inviting. "I'll get your name in the papers," he replied. He framed the words with his hooves as if holding up a banner. "Miss Minuette of Ponyville! Co-designer of the first time machine to grace the realm of nonfiction; first mare to see the future; eligible bachelorette!"
She giggled. "What about you?" she shot back, excitement in her voice. "You're the one who not only came up with the basic theory, but produced every piece of this machine and the bits to create it. You're pretty eligible yourself!"
Her laughter rang in his ears, and he chuckled nervously. "Let's... Maybe we should keep our minds' eyes on the prize."
Three days, she promised. When I get back... "Ready when you are, Doctor."
"Alright," he said breathlessly. "Alright, Minuette, take your pl– That is, on my count! Three..." His hoof moved to the activation switch, the great unmistakable monster of orange with warning signs all around it.
Time seemed to slow down for Minuette.
"Two..."
Her brow twisted as she lit her horn with a pale gold aura. Her thoughts were racing, avoiding the one thing she hadn't prepared for.
"One..."
I should tell him how I feel.
"Go, Minnie! Go!"
She raced forward, two hooves in front of the others, picking up speed slowly but soon skating as fast as she could hope to skate without losing her balance. The golden light of her horn surrounded her as she charged toward that crackling spire, which was no longer crackling so much as humming, vibrating with the energy it spat forth, filling the air above the entire runway with a milky blue light in the space of two seconds. She charged into that light, and–
Don't waste it!
She leaned back on her hooves, her boots' brakes squealing. Hooves burning, she slid to a halt in the mist. "Don't waste it?" she whispered.
The mist filled her. It soaked into the goop and through it, into every fiber of her coat. Her eyes drank it in; her heart stole it from the air and shared it throughout her core. She felt strange... drunk, clumsy, uncertain.
Uncertain but for one thing.
Don't waste it...
She turned her back to those fearsome jaws, to the spire that awaited her, and skated back to the wall.
"What happened, Minuette?" he cried, leaping the control panel and approaching at a canter. "Did something go wrong? Are your boots on properly?"
She blinked. "I couldn't..."
He placed a hoof on her shoulder. "Minuette," he said firmly. "You are strong – strong enough to keep fighting for this in the face of adversity. You are brave – brave enough to go on at every dead end, try something new when it feels like a lost cause. You are the best and brightest pony I could ever have asked to meet. Now, here we are... The meeting became a journey, and we are at its destination. Minnie... We've done it!"
The light in his eyes was infectious. "We've done it," she whispered.
"Think back to the start of it all," he said, guiding her down Memory Lane with a hoof. "Remember the day we got our cutie mark?"
Mark, not marks plural. The pair were both adorned on either flank with an hourglass, both exactly the same in size and structure and even color. Two ponies granted the same cutie mark at the same time? It was as if destiny had meant them to be together. "Together at the Canterlot library," she said fondly, "studying Starswirl the Bearded and other mages of the pre-classical era."
"When we made a promise." He grabbed a sticky forehoof and held it between his own. "We promised that we'd change the world. We'd conquer time and space itself, and everypony in Equestria would be able to conquer it with us."
She nodded eagerly. "Everypony could fix their mistakes..."
"Right their wrongs..."
Her other hoof slapped against his. "Make Equestria a better place."
"And today is that day!" he crowed, so full of energy she could almost imagine him bouncing on his hooftips like a colt. "Today is the day we fix those mistakes and right those wrongs. Today is the first day of Equestria's brighter future!"
Minuette squealed and would have pulled him close if not for the protective coat of slime all over her body. "Let's do this," she exclaimed. "I'm ready!"
"That's the spirit, Minuette!" His hooves hit the tile and he nuzzled the helmet she wore. "Go on, off to the runway. Let's show the future what we're made of!"
She rolled to the runway with the carefree spirit of a filly at the park, and turned to face the machine. There was no time to second-guess herself... No time for nerves.
No time to hesitate.
"Doctor!"
He stopped in place, somehow seeming to give her all of his attention while his eyes and hooves roved over the control panel. He was a fascinating stallion. "Are you still having second thoughts, Minuette?"
She looked down at her skates – yes, skates, no matter what he says – and took a deep breath. She parted her lips, but no sound came out.
"What's wrong, Minnie?"
She shivered happily. "I-if anything goes wrong, just..."
"Nothing is going to go wrong, Minuette," he cut in. "We've calculated every possible pattern, every possible permutation. After years of study and hard work, we're finally going to succeed. You are going to see the future!"
"I– I know, but..." The joy of a dream realized surged through her. Was it the dream, though?
"No buts."
Her cheeks burned with emotion she could barely hold at bay. "But Doctor, I just want you to know that I–"
"No buts!" he repeated firmly. He lowered his gaze to the control panel and fiddled with this knob or that, making tiny adjustments here and there. "I don't want to hear another word out of you unless it's 'ready' or 'abort', okay, Minuette?"
She stared at him, her colleague, her friend, her dream... Was it an illusion? A trick of the light?
Was Doctor Hooves blushing?
She blushed back. Her thighs quivered. "Ready," she said tenderly, and she turned to face the machine with a smile upon her muzzle.
"Al– Alright, Minuette," he said softly. "Fifty years into the future. Here we go..."
Fifty years... "No, Doctor."
His hooves trembled upon the machine and he did not meet her eyes. "For the final time, what is it, Minuette?"
"Drop it from seventy-six point four-oh-three-seven to thirty-six point four-oh-three-seven."
He blinked and raised his gaze. "B-but... But Minuette, what...?"
She only smiled. "Please?"
"But this machine isn't perfectly calibrated," he tried to argue. "It can't be! It's not clear-cut math. It's not simple subtraction. Even zero doesn't necessarily mean zero!"
Minuette shook her head. "Doctor..."
"Minuette, adjusting one part of the coordinates isn't necessarily going to–"
"Three," she called.
"Minuette!" he cried, but Doctor Hooves sprang to action, twisting the dial carefully but as quickly as he dared.
She turned toward the machine and pawed at the floor. "Two."
His hoof darted to and hovering over the activation switch. "One," he called back.
She swung her front right and hind left hooves forward and kicked off viciously with the others, darting toward the machine with the speed and grace of a professional as it roared to life. "Come on," she growled to its menacing jaws. "Take me."
The roar became a cacophony, as if the Everfree itself was howling, as if the very earth beneath Equestria was in agony. She felt it too, its pain, all through her body, every muscle, every cell. It tore her apart, leaving nothing but desperate dreams and the will to love.
Don't waste it...
"Good luck, Minnie," the world whispered.
Don't waste it...
"Wait for me," she whispered back.
Time and Equestria fell away.
,',
Don't waste it...
She fell to her hooves and kept skating as the world reformed around her. She emerged from the mist with a determined snarl, eager to show the world what she was made of.
Don't waste it...
She wouldn't waste this chance.
She curved her path gently as she slowed, speeding along the wall until–
Minuette squawked as she hit a wooden cabinet and toppled to her side.
"Minnie?!"
Him.
She jumped to her hooves, fought to balance on wheels. "Doctor!" she cried.
There he was, twenty years older and not a day less handsome, and he was racing toward her. He slapped against her goopy chest with a wet squelch, laughing madly. "Minuette!" His hooves held her close and his muzzle left tracks on the side of her neck. "You're early!"
"I couldn't let you wait another thirty years, could I?" she said slyly.
He pulled away and dragged her back to the control panel, dusty but functional as ever. Beneath it lay a large metal bowl of water and a large bath sponge. "Four," the Doctor corrected her, his voice muffled by the sponge as he scrubbed the goop from her cheeks and forehead. "Four years, two months, two weeks and a day."
Her jaw dropped. "B-But I cut..."
He dropped the sponge into his hoof and rinsed it before letting it roam down her neck and shoulders, over her forelegs to the floor. "I told you cutting one number wouldn't give you the results you wanted," he admonished her. His voice wasn't as strong, but it was as warm as ever. "You should have let me calculate the appropriate coordinates."
She shivered as the sponge moved swiftly down her barrel."I'm sorry, Doctor!" she said with a nervous laugh. "I couldn't stand the thought of coming home just to find that you'd... you'd died or something. I couldn't wait fifty years!"
The sponge paused at her cutie mark, a tall and proud hourglass... A mark just like the one he wore. He stared into her eyes, mixed emotions flitting across his muzzle. "You asked me to wait for you," he said softly. The sponge scrubbed slowly across the face of her hourglass.
She took a deep, shuddering breath and pressed her forehead to his neck. "You heard me?"
"I... I waited," he nodded. "I waited because..."
Her breath caught in her throat. She turned her eyes upward to meet his, and his eyes burned so brightly in the dim light of the laboratory.
The sight was too much for her. She pulled him close to her chest and finally, after so many years, so many lifetimes, spoke the words she'd been dying to speak. "I love you, Doctor."
"Oh, Minnie..." He rubbed his cheek against hers, his breath long and hot in her ear. "I missed you so much. I didn't know what I was missing until you were gone. I needed you, Minnie."
"I need you, Doctor," she whimpered, her cheeks and chest burning until her coat turned lavender. "I love you."
"I-I'm an old stallion now, Minnie, you can't–"
"Doctor?"
Cool water dripped down her thigh and splashed upon the linoleum tile. "Yes, Minuette?"
"My Doctor..."
He bit his lip and shuddered against her. "Minnie...?"
She pushed her chest against his, leaned her flank into the sponge in his hoof. "I never asked you to stop."
He gasped in her ear, and the sponge slowly began to trace circles in her coat as it slid down her flank.
,',
The golden-orange light of sunset graced her eyes, a delicate touch like a lover's kiss. Minuette slowly welcomed it in, parting her eyelids to see the dark expanse of her Doctor's mane. Her nose was filled with his scent, strength and sweat and the wondrous, heady aroma of horseflesh. "Good morning," she murmured, gracing his ear with a soft breath and a tender kiss.
She pulled herself closer, pressing her chest to his withers. Her horn pulled the blanket up over the pair of them. The two of them were getting cold, and she wasn't ready for this moment to end anyway. She purred softly and rested her head on the side of his neck, basking in the rise and fall of his breath, the delicate beat of his heart–
Nothing.
She shifted against him. "Doctor?"
Nothing.
Minuette wrapped her hoof around his barrel, pressing against the soft spot under his rib cage. There was no beat to hear, neither rise nor fall to feel.
"Doctor?"
He was old.
She lit her horn. Her white-gold touch caressed his form, ruffling the fur on his side, smoothing his flank, his cheek...
Even when she did her best, the future held nothing for her. The future was nothing without her Doctor.
Is this what the Princesses warned us about? Every time she tried to fix what she saw to be broken, she broke something else. Every time she tried to bring the future to life, she lost the present that made her life so wonderful. If meddling with the future was this hard, meddling with the past was downright dangerous.
The past...
She twisted his head to look upon his face one last time. He stared up at her, unmoving.
She didn't notice the tear that dripped onto her chest. She had no reason to cry. Her stallion wasn't gone. He was just... lost.
Lost in the past.
She smiled and the white-gold twisted, inverted, folded in on itself and became something else.
She drank in the infinite. It poured into her horn like wine, making her shiver as her every muscle twitched in recognition, as the memories came flooding in. There would be no burning this time, no dissolving into the ether. The ether would dissolve into Minuette. The ether was Minuette.
Minuette remembered the lives she'd lost in the infinite blueness-blackness, drank them up... and channeled the ether.
Don't waste it...
She thought of home. She thought of the lab, the break room, the little fridge stocked full of iced coffee and carrot sticks and celery stalks. She thought of her Doctor: the warmth of his laughter; the tender hoof around her shoulder as she cried, hopeless; the fire in his wrinkled eyes that burned brightly, burning to speak, yearning to say the words he'd been too young to know and too old to give.
Don't waste it...
The world around Minuette flickered. The infinite felt like home.
Home...
Don't waste it...
The world around Minuette flickered, and she closed her eyes.
Time and Equestria fell away.
Don't waste it...
"I'm coming home."
,',
"Are you ready?"
She looked down at herself one more time. Her coat was a mess of translucent goop and her mane no better; heavy roller skates covered her hooves. She was home, and she was ready.
Minuette reached up and removed her helmet. "No," she said. She tossed it to the floor.
"Wh– What?"
Her horn glowed bright white-gold and the laces of her boots snaked free of each other; she stepped free of them and danced across the floor toward the Doctor. "I said no," she said confidently. "I'm sorry, Doctor. We're not ready." She swiped a rag from beneath the control panel and began to clean her coat of the slime that had meant to protect her.
His jaw worked soundlessly for a moment. "But..."
As she worked she turned to face the machine, a hulking black mass of rods and wires and plates all coming together at a pair of points like spiders' mandibles. Between the jaws, as the Doctor called them, was a delicate bluish-steel spire that crackled with energy. She stared at that spire, and her muzzle turned up in a faint, sad smile. Even after so many lifetimes, it hurt to see her dreams come to an end. It hurt worse to know that it wasn't her dream that ended today. The spire flared, and her horn flared in kind.
"Minuette, please!" the Doctor begged, his hooves tugging at her shoulders only slip away. "Years of research – Years! – all leading to this single moment! We can't stop n–"
He stopped dead at the sight. A blue haze had begun to fill the room, centered around Minuette. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even, but her body was shaking, trembling. She shivered as if all the heat of the world had vanished, her teeth, her very bones rattling.
She blinked.
Doctor Hooves blinked away the spots before his eyes. She couldn't have... The machine wasn't built to... to cause her to blink out of existence. That's not how it worked. Was it? "M-Minuette?" he called, too loudly, too high-pitched. For the first time in a very, very long time, he was terrified.
She blinked.
"Minuette, what are you doing?"
She blinked.
The magic... A reaction. A reaction with the machine. He had to... He threw a hoof out, smashing it into her horn– the air in which her horn should have been. His hoof went right through her as if she were a ghost. "Minuette!" He tried to grasp her head between his hooves, hold her there, keep her from... from whatever was taking her away, but every touch of his hoof passed through her like through air. He skittered away to the great machine...
The machine was blinking. She and it were flickering like slides in a projector, real and unreal, there and not there, seen but ephemeral as any dream. The Doctor stood, one hoof raised, speechless. He collapsed onto his stomach. "Minuette," he whimpered. "Please..."
There was nothing he could do.
Minuette and the machine blinked, and this time they didn't come back.
Doctor Hooves lay there on the cold, unforgiving linoleum, not daring to breathe, not daring to move. Something had gone wrong, reasoned the logical part of his mind. Something had gone wrong and the machine took her too soon, and itself with her. He hadn't readied the controls; he hadn't set the coordinates; there was no telling where he'd sent her.
She was right. Equestria wasn't ready. He wasn't ready, and he never would be. Minuette wasn't ready. He'd sent her off to who-knows-what, who-knows-when. He'd doomed her.
He'd doomed Minuette, the light of his life.
His heart broke.
"Minuette..."
"Doctor," she said softly.
His jaw dropped at the touch of a hoof against his shoulder. He jumped to his hooves and spun in place to see... nothing. The lab, just as it had been prior. Shelves. Chairs. Files. Nopony. "Minuette! Where are you?"
The air pressed in around his neck, oddly warm and squeezing softly. "I'm here," her voice replied. His cheek warmed and rustled as something rubbed against it.
"I–" He raised a hoof and waved it in the air until he came into contact with something solid, somepony warm. "I can't see you."
She breathed heavily, a sigh across his ear. "Close your eyes."
Doctor Hooves squeezed his eyes shut and pulled her to his chest. "I'm sorry," he whimpered, his voice barely more than a breath.
"It wasn't you," she soothed him.
"I pressured you. I should have known the machine wasn't ready."
The warmth pulled away from his cheek and pressed against his forehead. "It was," she whispered.
His eyes popped open and he was lost in a deep sea of sparkling blue.
"Minuette!" He pulled her roughly against him, his hooves roving over her body. "You're alright!"
She cooed softly and pressed a bit closer. "We're alright."
"I– I can't believe–"
"It was a success," she continued softly. "The machine worked. That's why... I couldn't let it. I'm sorry, but this dream... It has to stay a dream."
"But..." He pulled away, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Why?"
"Because I wasn't ready," she admitted. "Because we aren't ready. The Princesses were right. Equestria isn't ready for widespread time magic, and I don't think we ever will be."
"So... All these years... Wasted?"
She pulled him back into her embrace and he collapsed against her, his cheek pressed tight to her chest. "Not wasted," she said certainly. "I'll talk to the Princesses. You'll get your name in the papers."
"And yours," he promised.
"But more importantly..." His eyes turned up to meet hers. The tears coursed down her cheeks, over the curves of her smile. Minuette cleared her throat. "I have a promise to keep."
"A promise?" He squeaked as she stole his voice in a kiss, her lips pressed tenderly to his own, her eyes closed and the warmth of the breath from her nose burning like the warmth in his cheeks.
Time disappeared as they stood there together, just the two of them. She knew they'd have to move eventually. She knew she had so many questions to answer, so many wonderful new experiences to share, but there would be time for all that later.
They had all the time in the world.
+
