A Moment in Time

by Jade Ring

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, Sex, Doctor Whooves, Princess Luna, Drama
Length: 5727

In the midst of a terrible war, Princess Luna finds momentary solace in the embrace of the scientist Time Turner, alias Doctor Whooves.

The war with Discord has been going on for years, shows no signs of ending anytime soon, and has cost the land of Equestria dearly.

Following a terrible battle, Princess Luna is confined to the castle with a broken wing. Bored, she wanders into the research lab and comes face to face with Time Turner, a pacifist scientist who greatly disagrees with Luna's wartime policies. The two frenemies have verbally sparred before, but tonight Luna needs something else from the good doctor.

Tonight, she needs comforting words, a shoulder to cry on, and perhaps just a little bit more...

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This is the SFW version of the original story 'Right Place, Right Time.'

Special thanks to Grand_Moff_Pony for pre-reading the original work.

Cover art borrowed from regolithx.

Published 2020-05-28 07:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-05-28 07:40:01 UTC

A Moment in Time

It was nights like tonight that made Princess Luna wish that she could just sleep like everypony else.

She wandered the halls of the palace aimlessly, cursing with every breath the doctor who had encased her wounded wing in bandages and strictly instructed her to remain grounded for at least a fortnight. Without the ability to soar and immerse herself in her sea of stars, the hours seemed to drag on like years. She felt bound to the earth and useless.

Useless in a war that seemed to have no end in sight.

Luna looked out the nearest window at the darkened trees of the Everfree Forest. She relished the peace, the quiet aura of the night, the cricket-song and the gentle breeze. The barrier around the castle preserved that peace from the war that waged just beyond. Here, at least, she wasn’t forced to bear witness to a world gone mad, a world in the throes of chaos…

A world held by the mad god called Discord.

How long had the battles been going on? Six months? A year? Five years? Discord’s ability to rewrite reality at his slightest whim made it nearly impossible sometimes to even know. At times, Luna felt as though they’d been at war with Discord forever, since the day of their birth. Every time she and her sister’s forces landed what was supposed to be a winning blow, Discord would simply snap his fingers and rewind to the start of the battle and try again. Or he’d double his forces. Or he’d combine his forces into a single, enormous golem of ponies driven shrieking mad by prolonged exposure to chaos magic.

And so the war would go on, and Luna was beginning to believe that it might very well go on forever.

Her wandering hooves drew her down the stairs towards the kitchens, intent on chasing away her worries about the war with something deep fried and bad for her. Her quest for calories was interrupted when she spotted something out of the ordinary; a light coming from the research laboratory. That in itself wasn’t extraordinary. The researchers were no strangers to burning the midnight oil. But most of the scientists had accompanied Celestia on her sojourn to the Crystal Empire to confer with King Sombra, their ally in the distant north. The thought of her sister’s venture to the Empire made Luna scoff in the castle’s silence. Sombra, a student of the darker side of magic, would undoubtedly have some new scheme that Celestia would humor for a moment, but ultimately turn down ‘in the interest of retaining the clarity of our collective conscience.’

Then she would thank the king for his continued support in the war, return to the castle, and allow Sombra a few more months to cook up another idea that she would ultimately reject.

Just another example of the only ‘skills’ Celestia brought to the proverbial table these days…

Luna put aside the thoughts of her sister, silently crept towards the open door, and peeked inside. She smirked when she saw a familiar chestnut stallion writing intricate math-magical equations on an enormous blackboard. As silently as a mouse, not an easy feat for a slightly above-average sized alicorn, she slid into the room and approached the hard at work scientist. She drew in her breath, already calculating just how far he would jump when she…

“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed, Princess?” His upper-crust accent betrayed not even the slightest hint of surprise. He spat the chalk in his mouth into a nearby dish and looked back at her with a smirk of his own.

Luna’s breath left her with a long sigh and she pouted at her frequent debate partner… and one of her dearest friends. “Couldn’t thou at least pretend to be surprised? We are so awfully bored, and a well delivered fright wouldst do wonders for our mood.”

The scientist, Time Turner by name, rolled his eyes and made his way over to a nearby research table that was positively swimming in various mechanical bits and bobs. “Pretending to be frightened is a game for foals, not for the grown ruler of our kingdom.” He flipped on a pair of magnifying goggles with practiced ease and scanned the table’s surface for one particular piece.

Luna approached the table, looking over the pieces of metal with non-comprehension. “What ist thou…?”

“Princess, if you’re going to shatter my solitude while I work, could you at least do me the favor of dropping that ridiculous dialect?” He looked at her, the unamused expression in his eyes grossly magnified by the lenses he wore. “It’s just us. Nopony from the peasantry.”

Luna sighed. “You really are no fun tonight, Turner.” She slipped into the casual way of speaking as easily as would have donned a favorite coat. “Most of the other ponies love when Celestia and I speak in the Olde Way.”

“As I remind you more often than I should, I am not ‘most other ponies.’ Ah.” He found the cog he was searching for and picked it up carefully with his mouth. He hurried over to yet another table, this one slightly more organized, and slowly placed the cog into a bronze device roughly the size of an apple. He flipped up the goggles, straightened his tie, grabbed a nearby screwdriver, and set about securing the cog in place.

There were a number of ponies in Equestria who would have plainly fainted at the callous disregard Time Turner showed the Princess of the Moon. In truth, the two were as close to ‘best friends’ as ponies from two different social classes could be. Once Turner had been promoted to the head of the kingdom’s Science Division, he’d begun attending war council meetings and had butted heads with Luna almost immediately. What began as a spirited debate on the ethics of using mechanically prosthetic limbs in place of the attempted re-growth of said lost body parts (a process that only worked properly twenty-seven percent of the time) had begun a shouting match that likely would have resulted in Turner’s immediate demotion or, more likely, imprisonment.

Instead, cooler heads had prevailed and the two had settled their differences in private over a glass of wine. They had since found common ground in the cross-points of science and sorcery, and any time Luna returned from the field she knew she would find Turner with a good bottle in one hoof and a list of debate topics in the other.

Luna respected Turner. He was intelligent, but not boorish. Introverted, yet charming. He was more than capable at standing his ground, but accepted defeat gracefully and held no resentment. He was, Luna considered, what Starswirl had been to Celestia; a friend and confidante, a mortal to keep her grounded.

All that… and he was handsome, too.

Luna banished those thoughts to the back of her mind as she always did. Wartime was no time for romance. So she and Turner had playfully flirted a few times when the bottle ran empty far faster than it should have. So she’d caught him ‘admiring the moon’ on more than one occasion. She wouldn’t risk what they had. Couldn’t risk it. She needed Turner as he was; a friend. Anything more would just make things… complicated.

And complications between one of the rulers of Equestria and the head of the Science Division could be disastrous to the war effort.

She crossed the room and peered around his shoulder, her magic flashing momentarily to fix a crease in his starched white collar. It occurred to her that in all their debates, she’d never once asked why he bothered wearing that collar and tie all the time… “Working on anything exciting?”

“That would depend on what you consider exciting. And thanks for that.” He gave the piece one more turn for good measure before flipping down the goggles once more and inspecting his handiwork. “Would ending the war be exciting enough for you?”

Luna gaped at him. “I don’t believe it. You’re actually making a weapon?” Before he could respond, she looked down at the table to inspect the piece for herself. “I was beginning to doubt that our desperate situation would ever pierce that naïve pacifist nature of yours…”

He rounded on her, reaching up and tearing the goggles from his face. He glared at her with dark circled eyes. “Do you really think that I of all ponies would so easily give up his convictions? No, Princess; it’s not a weapon. I swore to never create something that would bring harm to another creature, and I’m not stopping now.”

Luna paused, confused. “But you said it could end the war…?”

“Gah! I don’t know why I put up with this from you and that pig-headed general of yours. Can’t either of you see the road you’re heading down?” He threw the goggles across the room and shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re as mad as the one we find ourselves pitted against.”

Luna’s rage flared. “I should have you imprisoned for even saying such a thing! You can’t see the front lines from here. You can’t imagine the insanity… the suffering that we’re trying to put to an end!”

“And ponies can’t suffer if they’re dead, can they?”

Luna froze. “…what?”

“That’s the endgame, Princess. That’s the road you and General Firefly are heading down. Everytime Discord subverts the results of battles, the two of you start demanding stronger weaponry. You want bigger bombs, more devastating spells…” He sniffed derisively. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that when Firefly brought up the idea of revisiting King Sombra’s plan to use dark magic in order to reanimate our fallen soldiers, yours was the only voice that wasn’t raised in protest.”

Luna’s eyes narrowed. “I only want to end this war. It’s gone on for far too long. There is as solution that will end it quickly and decisively. We just have to find it.” She moved away from the table and crossed to the blackboard, studying the equations and trying to sort out exactly what it was Turner was working on. “It’s ponies like you and my sister who continue to hold Firefly and I back from doing what must be done.”

“Quickly? Decisively?” Turner laughed before turning and resuming his inspection of his new device. “Anything worth being done right takes time, Princess. If you rush things, it’s likely that innocents will suffer unnecessarily…”

“Innocents are suffering, Turner.” Luna gave up trying to figure out the maddening symbols and turned her back on them. “Time is a luxury we do not have.”

“If my calculations are correct, Princess, then you will be eating those words in just a few minutes…”

Luna snorted in irritation. “Would it kill you to speak plainly for once? Not everything needs to be wrapped in some shroud of mystery!”

“If you can’t be patient, then I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside.” He spared her a short look before resuming his inspection. “Perhaps it’s better that you don’t see this until I’m absolutely positive it works…”

Luna bit back her retort before shaking her head in resignation. “Very well. I can only hope that the finished product makes more sense than your terrible mouth writing does.” To punctuate her point, she reached back with her magic and spun the blackboard. It flipped end over end rapidly, and Luna allowed herself a small chuckle as she made to leave. She saw the board’s turning slow in the corner of her eye, and then watched as it stopped completely… revealing a whole new equation that had been hidden on the other side. She stopped in her tracks and peered at the new layout. “What’s this? Another project?”

The stallion slowly turned and reached up to remove his goggles. “…Yes. But not one you were meant to see.”

“What is it?”

“Well, it’s…” He seemed reluctant to talk about it. A shamed look crossed his face. “I suppose you could say that it’s your quick, decisive end to the war.”

Luna approached the board and reviewed the equations, finding them easier to follow as they concerned a type of magic she was quite familiar with. “You’ve combined the magic we use to move the sun and moon with Starswirl’s treatise on advanced teleportation techniques.”

“Yes. I call it the Solar Bomb.” Turner sounded disgusted with himself. “It came to me in a dream. Well, more of a nightmare really. I should have erased it days ago, but I kept it up in the hopes that I could find some benefit from it. No luck so far…” He looked at his own writing like it was smeared excrement on the wall of a lavatory. “Theoretically, if every magic user at our disposal used this spell at once, you could attack Discord with the power of the very sun itself. Due to the magnitude of the attack, even he wouldn’t be able to defend himself in time. He’d be obliterated in an instant.”

Luna turned from the board and gaped at him. “This is… this is…”

“Monstrous? Disgusting?” He sighed and turned to resume his work on the table. “A violation of all the things that make us better than the one we face?”

“Brilliant!”

Turner’s head drooped. “That’s exactly what I was afraid you’d say.”

“Why didn’t you come to us with this at once? I have to get a message to my sister. And to Firefly. She’ll need to start pulling every unicorn we have from the front lines.”

“Princess…”

But Luna was babbling too excitedly to hear him. Her wings were practically fluttering, yet she ignored the twinges of pain that came from her wounded appendage. She moved away from the board and started pacing the room as she planned. “It will take some weeks to train everypony, so we’ll need to distract Discord. We’ll send the Seventh Division to the east. There will be casualties, but that’s unavoidable. After all, they’ll be the last of the war…”

“Your Majesty…”

“And to think you’ve just been sitting on this! Well, no matter. You’ll receive every medal we have.” She laughed wildly. “We might even invent some new ones just for you…”

“Princess!”

“What!?” Luna turned and her eyes widened in shock as she watched Time Turner finish erasing the equation from the board. “What are you doing? Write it out again.”

“No.”

Luna drew herself to her full height. “As your Princess, I am commanding you to put down the equation once more.”

“And as a pony with a conscience, I refuse.” Time Turner sat on his haunches. “You’ll have to force it out of me.”

Luna bared her teeth. “Do not tempt me.”

“I would rather die than ever see those symbols anywhere else than in my own mind ever again.”

Luna wilted slightly at his stony conviction. “For goodness sake Turner, why?! We could end this in a matter of weeks!”

“Because it won’t work!” Turner yelled suddenly. He glared at her with fury at her attitude and disgust in himself. “Because every single magic user would have to be totally focused at all times! It’s a complete logistical impossibility. If even one pony had a single stray thought, the spell would break and the sun would collide not just with Discord, but with Equestria as a whole!” He threw his hooves in the air. “You’d kill us all!”

“Then we’ll put safeguards in place. Unicorns dedicated to keeping some kind of shield in place over the blast area.”

“Impossible.”

“Why?!” Luna cried in desperation.

“Because there’s no way of knowing how large the blast area will be! Best case scenario, a pinpoint strike directly on Discord would still result in the potential deaths of millions of ponies. Is ending the war worth that?”

“YES!” Luna’s eyes flashed white and her voice boomed through the chamber. The walls shook and dust was shaken loose from the corners of the ceiling. “You have no idea what it’s like out there! You don’t see the faces of the widows and the orphans when I have to tell them their loved ones aren’t coming home! You don’t have to hear the wailing of the parents who will never hold their sons or daughters ever again!” Her wings flared to their full extent, the bandage around her wound tearing apart in the process. “You don’t know what it’s like to make the choice to send hundreds, sometimes thousands, of soldiers to their deaths, to console yourself that at least those deaths weren’t in vain, and then have that small comfort torn to shreds as a patchwork demon simply snaps his fingers and… and…!” She cried out and smashed a hoof into the stone floor, sending a cobweb of cracks radiating out. “You’re just like my sister! She’s so focused on diplomacy that she can’t see the blood on the battlefield. She’s so focused on the future that she can’t even focus on the now. She entrusts matters of war to me, then stands in my way when I try to do what must be done in order to win! So what if future generations look back on us with horror!? At least there will be future generations!” Lightning flashed and her mane flared, an angry galaxy rolling without aim in the black abyss of the universe. “With this weapon, I can do what she never could! For once, the moon will eclipse the sun, and Equestria will know that it was not Celestia, but Luna who saved them from this never-ending, all-consuming madness! And I did it by doing what had to be done!” Her horn lit with magic and she aimed it at the earth pony. “The equation. Now.”

Time Turner stared at her, seemingly unaffected by her display of power. “No.”

Luna faltered. She was shaking now, literally vibrating with rage and power. “But why?!”

“Because there’s always another path. Because the road to victory doesn’t have to be paved with the bones of the innocent.” He closed his eyes and lowered his head, resigned to whatever fate befell him. “Because a pony that I respect very much once told me that no matter what happens, we must never lose ourselves to the chaos.” He reached up and straightened his tie. “It was the Moon Princess who told me that.”

“I AM…”

“You are not. You’re a broken mare. You’ve lost yourself to the chaos. You aren’t the Princess of the Moon.” He looked at her, the anger in his eyes replaced by sorrow. “You’re a nightmare.”

Luna’s magic swelled. The air began to smell of ozone. The stallion closed his eyes and braced for the pain to come.

Time seemed to stand still for a moment.

Luna’s magic faded, the white in her eyes ebbing away to reveal their usual deep purple. She stood on wobbly legs and stared at Time Turner. For the first time, the true horror of what she’d been considering washed over her. She brought her hoof to her face and stared at the crack in her shoe left from the impact with the ground. “I’m… I…”

Time Turner opened his eyes and looked up at her.

“Forgive me, I… I lost myself…” Tears welled in her eyes as they met the stallion’s. “I never would have… never could have… I… I’m…” She collapsed to the floor, burying her face in her hooves. “I’m a monster!”

He rushed to her and embraced her, his forelegs encircling her throat and pulling her weeping face to his chest. “No, you aren’t a monster. A monster would have killed me without a second thought. Or tortured me until I gave up the equation. You just lost yourself for a moment. It’s alright…”

“It’s not!” Luna wailed. “It’s not alright! None of this is alright! Everyday more and more ponies look at us less like we’re ponies and more like we’re gods! They beg us to end their suffering, promise us fealty and worship for eternity if only we’ll end this war!” She hugged him back, nearly crushing him with her strength. “I never asked for any of this. I never asked to be a princess, or a general, or even an alicorn. I just want to be a pony. I just want… I just need…”

“Shhh.” Turner nuzzled her ethereal mane. “It’s… it’s going to be alright.”

Luna sniffled into his chest. For the first time in ages, she felt comfortable. She felt a companionship she’d been missing for ages. She felt safe here in this stallion’s arms. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“This is… this is the first time somepony has held me in a very long time.”

“Same.” He whispered, unconsciously taking a whiff of the flowing stars beneath his muzzle. “I’d forgotten how nice it was to just be so close to somepony.”

Luna pulled her face away from Turner’s chest and stared at him. “It isn’t safe to get close to anypony these days.”

“You’re right, of course.” Turner found himself being drawn into the pools of darkness that were his princess’ eyes. “But… it’s a risk we have to take sometimes. You never know when you’re never going to see somepony again.”

She winced as she folded her wings back. “They could get hurt.”

“Or worse.”

“That’s why…” She nuzzled his neck and breathed in the scent of his fur, the faint traces of oil and chalk-dust. “That’s why when the opportunity presents itself, we should remind one another…”

“…that we’re still alive.” He finished for her, rubbing his own face along her slender neck. His head swam with the smell of her, how she seemed to carry the very scent of the night in her fur. His rational mind broke through and he cleared his throat. “Princess, wait…”

Luna’s teeth found the end of his tie. She pulled it loose and let it, and the collar, fall to the floor. “I nearly lost myself, Turner.” She kissed his now bare throat and smiled when he shivered. “I need this. I need you to show me that I’m not a monster. That I’m not a god.” She kissed another spot. “I need you to show me that I’m more than a title, more than a crown.” She planted one last kiss before pulling back and staring at him with wanting eyes. “I need you to remind me how it feels to just be a pony, even if it’s just for tonight. Please.”

Time Turner gulped. “Princess… we can’t…”

“Why?”

“Because…” He swallowed hard. “Because we’re friends. I… I don’t want to ruin that.”

“Don’t you want me?”

“Of course I do. I’ve wanted you since that first debate. You’re beautiful and intelligent, you’re brave and kind… you’re the most wonderful pony I’ve ever known. But… but it could never work between us. In another time, another place… who knows? But not here. Not now. Here I have to console myself with only being your friend.”

“Then be my friend now.” Her muzzle darted forth and kissed his cheek. “Drive everything but you from my mind.” She kissed his other cheek, her tongue poking out for the slightest lick, the smallest taste. “Show me that there’s hope, that there’s something, anything, besides this war for me.” Her lips brushed his, not quite a kiss but a tantalizing tease of one. “Take me away from all this death and remind me how it feels to be alive.”

His last reserves crumbled as he licked his lips, trying to recapture the taste of her breath. “Princess…”

“Please, Turner.” She tilted her face towards his, her lips slightly parted, her eyes lidded and misty with need. “Please just say my name…”

“Oh, Luna.” He kissed her at last, and her lips responded in kind.

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“There’s no one to blame but myself.” Turner examined the device as he returned it to the table from where it had fallen in the course of their... activities. “I should have ensured it was moved before…”

“No, it was my fault.” Luna’s magic finished securing the straps of her chest plate and she looked at the stallion with genuine sorrow. “I was careless, and I…”

“No. No apologies.” He held up a hoof and smiled. “Only a hairline fracture in the display. It still looks completely functional.” He trotted over to another station and returned with a length of cloth. He set about securing it to the device, making it into a sort of necklace.

Luna cocked her head as she approached. “You never did explain to me what it does.”

“Well, for lack of a better term, why don’t we call it what it is in the plainest sense.” He held the device aloft and for the first time Luna saw the dials and buttons beneath the small display. “It’s a time machine.”

Luna raised an eyebrow. “A time machine?”

“Question for you, Luna; what is Discord’s greatest strength?”

“His ability to rewrite reality. He can do almost literally anything. The laws of nature don’t apply to him.”

“Ah!” Turner pointed a hoof. “But one law does; time.”

Luna shook her head. “He bends time as easily as he does anything else. He’s rewound entire battles back to the first move.”

“But does he do anything else? Has he ever fast forwarded to the end of the battle instead?”

Luna thought back on her many conflicts against the demon. “…No. I’ve never seen that.”

“Strange, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps he already knows the outcome, but lets it play out for his own sick pleasure.” Luna offered.

“No, I don’t think so. Looking ahead at the end is something a rational enemy would do if he had the ability. It would make sense.”

“And Discord hates making sense…” Luna murmured.

“Precisely. Which is why I think Discord’s ability to manipulate time to limited. He can only reverse the flow, and only in short bursts. If that’s the case, then actual temporal manipulation is the only weapon in our arsenal that he doesn’t have himself.” He held the device aloft. “And that’s where this comes in.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“The way I see it, since Discord is limited to the reversal of time in small portions, then we have two options; stopping time or sending him forward in time.” He put the device down and crossed to a nearby book shelf. “My first thought was the Elements of Harmony.”

“In the Tree?” Luna looked down at the floor and imagined the crystal tree that lay in the caverns beneath the castle. “What about them?”

Turner pulled out a book and opened it to an illustration of the stone relics in their resting place. “All my research points to the fact that one or two phenomenal magic users…”

“…Like my sister and myself?”

“Exactly. The two of you could theoretically remove the Elements from the Tree of Harmony and use them to amplify your magical abilities a thousand-fold. He put the book down on the table beside the device and indicated his own scrawled mouth writing. “Thus fully powered, you could use this spell to seal Discord in a single moment in time. Essentially, he’d be frozen in place for all eternity.”

Luna looked up from the book sharply. “Could we destroy him?”

Turner shook his head. “No. I don’t think he can be destroyed. But he’d be imprisoned forever. Isn’t that good enough?”

Luna nodded slowly. “So long as this war ends…” She looked again at the illustration. “You seem hesitant about this plan.”

“Because the Elements are the oldest and most unstable magics in the universe. Removing them from the Tree could be disastrous. That’s why I think this should be the last resort.” He lifted the device once again. “That’s why I think this is our best hope.”

Luna closed the book and sat on her (slightly sore) haunches. “What’s your plan?”

“If this device works, then I can use it as a basis for another machine, one small enough to be attached to one of Firefly’s precious bombs. Do you see these dials?” He indicated them. “These control the destination. Turn it only slightly…” He demonstrated. “And you advance in time just as slightly. But turn it to the end…” He rolled the dial until it did a full three sixty and clicked with finality.

Luna began to understand. “Set the device to go off near Discord at that setting…”

“And you send Discord to the very end of time itself.” He looked at the device with pure love, like a father and their firstborn. “And once he’s there, in the void at the end of everything, then he can cause whatever chaos he likes. Because…”

“…Because he wouldn’t be able to reverse time that far!” Luna’s face broke out in wide smile. A thought occurred to her, and the smile faltered. “But what if he reconfigured the device somehow? Couldn’t he use that to come back?”

Turner nodded sadly. “I took that possibility into account. That’s why this device is the antithesis of Discord’s temporal manipulations. The one thing it can’t do is go back in time. Only forward.”

Luna looked at the machine. “Does it work?”

“I don’t know.” Time Turner looked at a nearby clock. “I was going to test it just before you walked in.”

“On who? Yourself?!” Luna blanched. “Isn’t that incredibly dangerous!?”

“Of course it is.” Turner chuckled. “But risk is part of any great discovery.” He slipped the cloth around his now re-collared neck with a flourish and stuck out his chest, displaying his handiwork proudly. “I am glad I have a witness at least…”

“Wait. You aren’t still going to…?” Luna’s jaw dropped when he nodded. “But… but you and I… How can you…? After what we…” She stood and crossed to him, nuzzling his neck. “Isn’t there anypony else?”

“No one I trust.” Turner returned the nuzzle before pulling back and looking into her eyes. “I won’t be gone long. Ten minutes.”

“Even that feels too long.” She looked away and stared at the floor. “What if something goes wrong? What if I never see you again?” She looked back at him, tears in her eyes. “I feel like we just found one another.”

Turner reached up and wiped the tears from her eyes. “If this works, then the war will be over before you know it. Then you and I…” He kissed her softly. “Then we can really see how far this goes.”

She rubbed her face against his hoof. “Ten minutes?”

“Ten minutes.” A ghost of worry crossed his face. He looked down at the device on his chest. “Of course, the dial might have been slightly damaged in the fall. Ten minutes could accidentally become ten centuries.”

“Shouldn’t you check that? Before you go, I mean?”

“I’d have to disassemble the device entirely. It could take weeks. Weeks of battles and lost lives…” He swallowed hard and looked at her with renewed determination. “That’s time we simply don’t have.”

Luna opened her mouth to retort, but ultimately closed it and nodded. “I wish it wasn’t you taking this risk.”

“As do I.” He chuckled. “But life’s full of risks. Exploring a new land. Trying a new technology.” He pulled her hoof to his lips and kissed it. “Taking a chance with a beautiful mare.”

Their lips came together once more, a slow and ponderous kiss. A kiss as full of worry and wonder as it was with newfound passion and love.

They parted, and Turner took a step back. “Will you wait for me?”

“For ten minutes?” Luna’s magic took hold of his tie and straightened it out. “It will be a struggle, but I think I can manage.”

He nodded and adjusted the dial. “Ten minutes. There we are.” He took a deep breath and smiled. “Everything’s about to be different, isn’t it?”

“More than you know.” Luna returned the smile, her heart swollen and practically bursting from her chest. “Turner, I need to tell you in case something goes wrong. I think I’m in lo…”

“Don’t.” He held up a hoof. “Tell me when you see me again.” He blew her a kiss, pressed a button… and was gone in a flash of light.

Luna blinked. It had happened so fast. She’d been expecting a fancy light show, perhaps a storm of lightning and thunder. But no, that wasn’t her friend’s style.

Time Turner.

Her friend.

Her lover.

Grinning joyfully at the thought, Luna practically skipped to the nearest clock and sat down to watch the seconds countdown to her lover’s return.

As time stretched out, thoughts of doubt came to Luna’s mind. What if the dial was broken? What if Turner had just sent himself ten years into the future instead of ten minutes? Or ten centuries? Or ten millennia? How much longer would the war go on? How could she bear it now, now that she had tasted true happiness for the first time in forever in the earth pony’s arms?

And what of her moment of weakness? What if it happened again, only this time without Turner there to pull her back? What would become of her if she surrendered herself to the chaos again, but with no one there to remind her of who she truly was?

What would she do?

What would she become?

The thoughts, the fears, the doubts consumed her… but then she remembered Turner’s smile. She remembered his laugh. She remembered his breath in her ear as he made love to her. She remembered his kiss.

No… he would come back. Together, they would end the war. And when the war was over, then she and Turner could…

She looked away from the clock and spotted her crown. Her magic lifted it back onto her head and she smiled to herself. For the first time in a very long time, Princess Luna felt hope. Now she just needed him to get back here, to take his rightful place in her arms. Who cared about wasted time when there was so much time ahead to look forward to? She looked at the clock to see how much longer she had to wait.

Twelve minutes had already gone by.