“And so it ends.”
Princess Celestia looked at the pony who had been her companion for the past thousand years. He was a brown Earth pony, with a black mane streaked with a bit of gray. He had a pair of green goggles around his neck, and his cutie mark was one of a pocket watch.
She had met him a just after she had banished her sister to the moon. She had been crying her eyes out, when a dazed figure had dropped out of the sky. He was bipedal then, wearing a white lab coat, brown vest, and black pants. And had he a story to tell, one of time machines and falling; one of going mad, getting bored, and going sane (in that order); one of new friends he had yet to meet, and of events yet to happen.
It had been easy to figure out what he was. He, too, was an immortal, born mortal like she was, but gaining his powers through an experiment gone wrong.
So she had taken him under her wing, transforming him to a pony to keep the populace from panicking. Just as quickly, they had discovered that he had the ability to control time, and later on she found out that he was a literally part of time, even more so than that Gallifreyan. Under her tutelage, he had quickly mastered that ability and was controlling it with ease. She lectured him on the hardships of being an immortal, of the rules they had to follow. And he gave her companionship, the company of someone who was in the same boat as her, of one impervious to the passage of time.
But all things must come to an end, and this was one such instance. The duo had come back to the place the visitor had first appeared, to say goodbye.
They stood facing each other, nervously shifting on their hooves, neither meeting the other’s eyes. Finally, Celestia spoke. “I don’t suppose that I will see you again?”
The earth pony disappeared in a flash of light and reformed into the form that he had when he first had landed in Equestria. He smiled sadly and said, “To tell the truth, I don’t know.”
Celestia’s form disappeared in a flash of white light also, and she changed into a human woman. Her skin was pearly white, and she was dressed in a simple white gown, with gold embroidery on the shoulders. Her hair was the same tri-color that her mane was, and she also kept her wings and horn.
The man raised an eyebrow. “Are you wanting to go with me?” he asked.
Celestia laughed. “No,” she said. “It’s just that we have spent most of our time together with you in your pony form. I just wanted to say goodbye to you in the form of your species.”
The man raised an eyebrow in amusement. “While I appreciate the gesture, you didn’t have to do that.”
“But, what if I wanted to?” the pony-turned-human said with a coy grin.
The human responded with a grin of his own. “Fair enough.” However, his face fell. “They say that immortality is a gift,” he said. “But really, it is a curse to those like us.” He took Celestia’s hands in his own. “I cannot take you with me. Your own people need you.”
“And you cannot stay,” Celestia finished. She bowed her head. “Why we cannot be together? Is it too much to ask?”
The man smiled. “Well, we have all eternity to figure it out,” he said.
He shook his head. “The future is like a story,” he said, referring to her original question. “I can see all the different paths it can take, but I can’t tell what road I will end up on.”
“But isn’t that what makes stories so interesting?” asked Celestia. “You never know how they will turn out?”
The man smiled and nodded. “That is true,” he said. “But, knowing what will happen, and not knowing if you change it, it would be better? That is the crux of the issue.”
“Your paradox,” she said. “Our paradox.”
“Paradox,” the man said. “I like that name.” He looked into her eyes. “Goodbye, Celestia,” he said.
“Goodbye, Paradox,” she replied. “I love you.”
“And I, you.” With that, he drew her in close, and the couple shared a long kiss. Finally, they broke it off, and looked at her. Slowly, Paradox drew away, and walked into a portal that he opened. Celestia watched where the portal had been for a long time, before going back to her pony form, and heading back to Canterlot.