Killing Time

“Rarity! I’m home!” Twilight called, trotting inside Carousel Boutique. She’d had to unlock the door herself, unusual in the late afternoon, even on a Sunday. Rarity generally didn’t lock up until she went to bed for the night.

Twilight dropped her bags by the door and stretched her long neck, cracking several vertebrae in turn, and sighed with relief. It was good to be home.

She glanced into the kitchen and the sitting room. Both empty. No lamps lit. Silence. Hmm.

She must be upstairs—or had she gone out, not expecting Twilight back until later? They had made good time, and that would explain the locked boutique.

“Rarity, you up there?” She trotted upstairs, her hoofsteps echoing hollowly.

The second floor was as silent as the first.

She looked in Rarity’s workroom, and the guest bedroom. Both empty. No lamps lit.

The darkened hallway stretched a long way in front of her.

She reached the door to the bedroom and slowly pushed it open.

No lamps lit. Shades drawn.

“Rarity?”

Silence.

What little light spilled in from behind her, from the window facing the setting sun at the end of the hall, illuminated a shape in the bed.

Small. Motionless.

Twilight’s heart stopped.

I should never have left here.

A crack rent the still air deep within the Everfree Forest, sending startled birds crying into the sky, and Twilight Sparkle stood in what had been an empty clearing but a moment ago.

She surveyed her surroundings, recognizing them despite not setting foot here for over six months—or six hundred years—and wondered again if this would actually work. And, again, if the whole idea wasn’t insane and shouldn’t be abandoned anyway.

She’d only visited Rarity twice in the past so far. She could end it now. Minimize the damage.

If she didn’t find what she was looking for, perhaps that’s exactly what happened.

But she reached out with her senses and there, some ten feet below the surface, to the leeward side of a boulder jutting out of the ground at an oblique angle she’d once laid her cloak upon, she felt it, and her heart quickened.

It was the work of mere minutes to raise the box to the surface. She looked at it in wonder. Was this really happening?

After a quick sweep to remove the loose soil clinging to the box, she opened it and peered inside.

A journal, nestled in a padded purple velvet interior.

Twilight set the box down and lifted out the journal and opened it to the first page, telling herself to not get her hopes up, that there would probably only be a few dates and times listed there.

The lined page was completely filled in. She blinked.

So was the next page, and the next. She flipped through the entire journal, her heart racing.

Every page was filled with dates and times, and little notes, and even the occasional doodle. Eighty years’ worth of dates and times.

Eighty years’ worth of visits to her first and only love, centuries after she’d left her alone to die.

She hugged the journal to her chest and sobbed.

Twilight arrived with a pop in the boutique and was almost immediately bowled over by a very affectionate Rarity.

“Uhhh… hi?” she managed from her supine position on the floor.

“Twilight, darling, dearest, sweetheart, I’m so glad you came!” said Rarity from atop her.

“Of course I came—you wrote this date and time in the journal. I always come. I had wondered why this entry had so many smiley faces…”

She looked from Rarity, blinking languidly down at her with a smitten smile on her face, to her kitchen counter, where a nearly empty wine glass stood next to a nearly empty wine bottle.

“You’re drunk,” she said.

Rarity instantly looked affronted. “I am not!”

Twilight smirked. “Yes, you are.”

Rarity fumed briefly before collapsing against her and mumbling into her chest, “Okay I might be a little drunk.” She rolled off the alicorn and laid a hoof across her forehead. “But it’s not my fault! You must believe me, Twilight, you must. You must!”

Twilight rolled over as well, pushing herself up into a sitting position. “Why is it not your fault?”

Rarity blinked at her, confusion settling across her features. “What was I saying?”

“About how it’s not your fault you’re drunk.”

“Yes indeed!” Rarity cried. “It is in fact your fault if you must know!” She prodded Twilight’s chest.

“My fault?” Twilight laughed. “I just got here and you were already drunk!”

“Not you you, now you! Current you. My you!” Rarity sniffled.

Panic swept through Twilight. “What do you mean? What did I do?” She racked her brain. She didn’t remember anything unusual about this date.

Rarity sniffled again. “You… you… you went to spend the evening with Rainbow Dash instead of me. To read your books about that, that adventurer mare.”

Twilight blinked. “You… you’re drunk because I wanted to read?”

“Yes! And I was so distraught I came back here, quite alone, and opened a bottle of my favorite merlot so that I might sip it romantically as I think about all the ways I love you so very much despite choosing an evening of books and Rainbow over an evening with your wonderful marefriend and unfortunately there are so many ways in which I love you so very much that I just, er,” Rarity hiccuped, “kept sipping and here we are.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Rarity’s eyes ever so slightly began to cross.

“I see, yes.” Twilight thought for a moment. “And, er, after you started drinking, you went and got the journal and—ah, yes, there it is.” She spotted it sitting on the kitchen table. “I suppose the writing was rather unsteady as well…”

She turned back to Rarity and was startled to discover her very close. Much closer than Twilight expected. Their snouts were nearly touching.

She could practically taste the merlot.

“Twilight…” Rarity licked her lips.

Panic coursed through her again. “R-Rarity?”

Rarity let her half lidded eyes fall shut and leaned in. Twilight spun to the side, narrowly dodging the kiss, and managed to grab Rarity before she could topple face-first onto the floor.

“Rarity! What are you doing?”

Rarity squirmed around in her forelegs and reached up for her. “I am trying to make out with my marefriend, what does it look like I’m doing?”

Twilight held her at bay, which was more difficult than she expected—Rarity really wanted to kiss her. “But I’m not your marefriend! The other me is. The me of this time period.”

Rarity pouted. “But she’s you. Or you’re her. Just later on. So kiss me.” She stretched herself up toward Twilight. “Kiss me, you fool!”

Twilight planted a hoof on Rarity’s mouth. “Rarity! No. We’re not going to do anything. That’s… that’s too much. Too weird. You need to save that for past me. You and I—me me, the me visiting you from the future—are just friends, right? Purely platonic! No kissing or anything else.”

Rarity whined from behind her hoof.

“Do you really want to wake up in the morning having made out with a Twilight hundreds of years old? Do you really want to face your marefriend—your actual marefriend, the Twilight that’s currently reading books with Rainbow Dash—tomorrow, knowing that you spent the night before making out with another her?”

Rarity paused, and Twilight could tell she was pouting, and finally she shook her head.

“That would be creepy and gross, wouldn’t it.”

Slowly, Rarity nodded, and Twilight took her hoof away.

“Purely platonic,” she said. “You are right, of course. I just… got a little overexcited.”

“That’s okay,” Twilight said.

“I think… I think I need to go to bed,” Rarity said, with all the gravity of a statesmare making a keynote address at a national summit.

“I think you need to drink a glass of water first, but otherwise that’s an excellent idea. Come on, let’s get you squared away.”

The next morning found Twilight sitting at Rarity’s kitchen table, across from the bedraggled mess that was Rarity. She had felt compelled to come back to check on her, despite the lack of matching journal entry.

Possibly there had been no journal entry because Rarity was in no condition to hold a quill.

“So it’s agreed then.” Rarity’s voice was like boulders being ground into gravel. “We shall never speak of this again. In any timeline.”

Twilight nodded.

Twilight sat at her desk in her chambers, Rarity’s journal open before her.

It was like a catalog, she mused, idly flipping through the pages. What sort of Rarity was she in the mood for? A happy Rarity, someone she could forget her present-day troubles with, or even lean on if she herself was feeling down? A sad Rarity, someone she could comfort? A brief Rarity, someone she could drop in on for a half-hour pick-me-up? A long Rarity, someone she could while away a day or weekend with?

Many of the Raritys contained therein were no longer on offer. All the times she’d already visited had a single line neatly drawn through them, except for one memorable time on page thirty-four.

Twilight didn’t care for the fact that there were now more entries crossed out than there were still available. Some pages had just a few crossed out, but some pages were completely struck through. It had only been, what, a millennium or two? She needed to ration the visits more carefully, stretch her time out between them longer, as long as she could stand.

She didn’t know what she’d do when she was down to the last few.

She could, she supposed, go off-menu. There were a few dates and times that didn’t appear in the journal, dates and times burned into her memory, that she wouldn’t mind revisiting. Sure, Rarity hadn’t written them down, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was unwelcome. Perhaps Rarity assumed that she would come along regardless. On the other hoof, Rarity didn’t even have to know she was there. Wheatgerm could visit and hang back.

Sometimes she felt as though she was just killing time in between visits to Rarity. She knew that was unhealthy. She’d have to keep working on it.

Twilight sighed and shut the journal, returning it to the secret compartment in her desk. Not today. She wanted to see Rarity, of course, but she didn’t need to see her this moment.

She could wait a little longer.

They trotted together along the riverbank, looking for an ideal place to lay out their picnic blanket.

Twilight had come back far this visit. It had only been a few months, local time, since she had first come back from the future. She’d wanted another taste of that youthful innocence, of feeling like anything was possible.

She knew the old saying, that a pony couldn’t go home again. But, in her case?

She essentially could. On a limited basis, anyway.

“Aha!” Rarity said. “I think this is a rather perfect spot, don’t you?”

Twilight took a brief look around and nodded, smiling. It was a typically Ponyvillian landscape—soft grass, burbling water, cozy trees, with the buildings of the town proper off in the distance. A few other ponies had had the same idea and were curled up in the shade of a tree or wading in the shallows, enjoying the beautiful day.

Rarity unfolded their red-and-white checked blanket with her magic, draping it gracefully across the ground, and Twilight began unpacking their lunch with her hooves, since Wheatgerm did not appear to have a horn.

They settled in, munching on fruit and cheese and sandwiches. Rarity caught Twilight up on the comings and goings in Ponyville; Twilight caught Rarity up on future palace drama.

“And then—” Twilight paused as a shadow fell over her. She saw Rarity’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Twilight!” Rarity said, looking over her. Twilight craned her neck around only to find—herself.

“Hello, Rarity,” Twilight said cheerfully. “I don’t mean to interrupt you and your friend. I was just passing by and spotted you and thought I’d say hi.”

“Why yes, of course!” Rarity said, only the barest hint of anxiety in her voice. Twilight suspected that no one else would have identified it as such—no one else had decades of experience picking up on even the slightest nuance in her tone and body language.

No matter the circumstances, Rarity’s need for good manners reigned, and she gestured at Twilight with a hoof. “Twilight, this is my friend, ah, Wheatgerm. Wheatie, this is my other friend, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight turned and nodded to Twilight. “It’s good to meet you, Wheatgerm.”

“You as well.” Twilight managed to restrain a smirk. Her disguise was so effective at being unmemorable that it had even worked on her. She didn’t remember herself from her visit to the library! She was so distracted by satisfaction over her own spellwork that she barely registered continuing on autopilot: “Would you care to join us?”

Twilight—both of them—blinked in surprise. Why in Equestria had she said that?

“Oh!” Twilight said. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Nonsense,” Twilight said, silently panicking. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Rarity giving her a completely bewildered look, and she didn’t blame her one bit.

“I… yes?” Rarity said. “Do join us?”

“Oh, well,” Twilight glanced over her shoulder toward the town, “I do need to get back soon—who knows what Spike will get up to if I’m away for too long—but I suppose a brief chat couldn’t hurt, if it’s really all right.”

“Of course,” Rarity said, glancing at Twilight, and they made room for Twilight on the blanket. “So, what are you up to today, dear?”

“Nothing too exciting,” Twilight said. “I’ve been conducting a chromaticity study of the local flora.”

“And why would that not be exciting, hmm? Do tell us all about it!”

Twilight looked uncertainly between Rarity and Twilight. “You really want to know?”

“But of course!” Rarity said. Twilight nodded and gestured for Twilight to go on.

“Well,” Twilight said, “I noticed that there are certain species of magnoliophyta here that I’m not familiar with, possibly native to this region, not extant in the Canter Mountains, and in particular I thought some of their colors were unusual. So I started performing weekly surveys of a square mile of land centered on…”

Twilight remembered this little project. It had given her a way to pass the time as she’d assimilated into Ponyville more closely, and anyway she liked looking at flowers.

She also remembered, if she strained a little, this conversation. Talking with Rarity at a picnic in the park, and only now did she vaguely recall another faceless, nameless pony present, fuzzy and ill-defined in her memory. Fascinating.

She definitely recalled the sudden twinge of hope she’d felt deep within her chest when she started explaining one of her silly hobbies and was not only not teased for a niche interest, but encouraged to share, to go into detail.

Welcomed.

She watched herself talk for a moment, nodding along whenever Twilight looked back at her, but eventually her gaze wandered over to Rarity, and she suppressed a surprised grin at what she found.

Rarity was watching Twilight with the most rapt attention. She seemed to have completely forgotten Twilight was there, something that—despite her powerful glamour—had never happened in all the times Twilight had visited her, until now or in the future. Fascinating.

She grinned and watched them talk, watched Twilight grow more comfortable with a new friend and watched Rarity begin to fall in love.

“Are you certain?” Rarity said, with just the slightest tremor in her voice. Twilight might have chalked it up to age if she didn’t know any better. After all, her late wife had turned one hundred years old this week.

“I am,” Twilight said. “It’s perfectly safe, I promise you that.”

“Darling, please, I didn’t mean—” Rarity waved that particular concern away. “No, I meant, are you certain? What about, what about the timeline and all of that?”

Twilight shook her head. “It’s fine. I continue to trust you not to divulge anything, and frankly, even if you did, no one would take you seriously.”

Rarity’s eyes widened. “Yes, I suppose that’s so. And you mean… now?”

“If you’re ready.”

“What do I need to do to be ready?”

Twilight laughed. “Nothing, I just don’t want to yank you away without you expecting it. Or if you didn’t feel up to it today, we could do it another time…”

“Stars, no! Yes, now, please. Let’s go.”

“Stars indeed,” Twilight mused as she lit her horn. “Come stand next to me.”

Rarity did so, and Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated and the light from her horn washed over them and with a pop they were somewhere else.

Twilight watched Rarity closely, and was gratified to see not a hint of a stumble or unsurety. Her stance was firm and her eyes were wide, taking in everything before them.

“Twilight…” she breathed in wonder.

Satisfied that Rarity was steady, Twilight too turned to take in the view.

They were on a bluff overlooking a beach that was almost recognizable, except it was like someone had taken a photograph and made a serious error with the developer chemicals.

“The ocean is purple,” Twilight explained, “because it has high dissolved potassium permanganate content. Kind of funny, you can take a dip to cure hoof rot—just don’t drink any. And, well, it’d stain your coat.”

She watched Rarity’s eyes, and narrated as her gaze moved around.

“The rocks seem like normal rocks, so far as we’ve seen. We’re not sure how the plants work yet. Honestly, they might not be what we think of as plants at all; the local star is an M-type dwarf and puts out considerably dimmer and redder light than our own, so they probably aren’t actually photosynthesizing as we know it. Ah, and that’s why the sky is yellow.”

Rarity looked up and stared for a moment. “There are… two moons…”

“Three, actually; the smallest satellite isn’t visible at the moment.”

They looked out at the alien landscape.

“This really is another world,” Rarity breathed. “How far from home are we?”

“Do you know what a light-year is?”

Rarity scoffed. “I have been married to Twilight Sparkle for decades. Of course I do. In fact, as I recall, I believe you once told me that our solar system is a few light-days across.”

“So you were listening…” Twilight laughed as she dodged Rarity’s swat. “Yes, okay. We’re currently about two dozen light-years from home.”

Rarity startled a little at that number. “Goodness me, isn’t that quite far?”

“The farthest we’ve been yet. It’s the eleventh habitable planet we’ve managed to visit so far… oh, look!”

She pointed to the far horizon and Rarity craned her neck to follow. “What? That star? Oh, why, it’s moving. What in Equestria—or, er, out of Equestria, I suppose?”

“That’s our research station. It’s just about complete. It will serve as the forward team’s base of operations for the next few decades, to study the planet and determine if it could support life long-term.”

Rarity watched it scoot across the sky. “Two dozen light-years, and…?”

“About five millennia. Give or take.”

Rarity nodded silently. Twilight moved closer, just enough for her wing to brush against Rarity’s barrel, and Rarity immediately leaned into her, pressing her body against Twilight’s, face still turned up to the sky.

“I just thought you might like to know that things work out okay. I know science fiction was never your thing, but still. Ponies don’t just survive; we thrive. We journey to the stars…”

Rarity’s eyes followed the station as it passed its zenith and soared on toward the next horizon. She said nothing, but a single tear rolled down her cheek, and joy and wonder shone from her.

“So, anyway. Happy birthday, Rarity.”

She’d been saving this one.

Twilight wove in and out of the crowd, nodding politely to the rare pony who made eye contact with her. She found an unclaimed seat at one of the tables draped in white linen with a lavender bouquet centerpiece; across the dance floor, she caught sight of, amongst other ponies, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie seated at one of the tables draped in lavender linen with a white rose bouquet centerpiece.

Firefly lanterns glowed overhead, illuminating the ponies dancing, and in their center was Rarity and Twilight, twirling round and round in the finest gowns Rarity had ever crafted. They had eyes only for one another.

Our first dance, she thought wistfully.

As the five-piece orchestra’s song wound to a close, the dancers slowed, and everyone around them applauded heartily, Twilight included. Rarity and Twilight blushed, tearing their gazes away from one another and waving and bowing and laughing.

Twilight watched as each of them moved on to other dances, with family and friends, until she spotted her opening.

As the orchestra struck up their next tune, Twilight slipped through the crowd of happy ponies and leaned in next to Rarity. “May I have this dance?”

Rarity’s eyes lit up at the forgettable sound of her voice and turned to hug her. “Wheatie! You came!”

“Wouldn’t have missed it for all the tea in Kirin Grove,” she said as ponies around them coupled up and began swaying to the music. Rarity leaned into her, pressing their necks together.

“It was a lovely ceremony.”

“Did you slip into the back?”

“Somepony had left a seat open. Providence, perhaps.”

Twilight felt Rarity’s grin.

“How far ahead are you from?”

“Oh, let’s not spoil your wedding day with something as tiresome as numbers,” Twilight said. “Let’s just enjoy the moment.”

“Hmph,” Rarity said. “As you like.”

They swayed and spun in silence for the next few minutes, Twilight savoring every second. Inevitably, the song came to an end, and as the final bars drifted around them, Twilight sighed and pulled back.

Her dance partner gazed at her, and for a moment there was nothing else in the universe except the two of them, and Rarity leaned in, her lips beginning to pucker, and Twilight swiftly turned her head so that Rarity kissed her cheek before drawing back in confusion.

She cleared her throat. “I wish I could stay here forever, but I shouldn’t monopolize the bride. You have your guests, and your family. And your wife.”

Rarity looked flustered. “Of… of course. Well. Thank you for the dance.”

“No, thank you.” Twilight reached out and drew her into a tight hug, and Rarity squeezed her back. “I love you, Rarity.”

“And I you… Wheatie.”

They separated, and as Twilight smiled and turned away she caught sight of Pinkie Pie staring at her, frowning, from her table.

“Enjoy the honeymoon,” she said as she moved off into the crowd.

“Oh, I intend to,” Rarity purred from behind her, and she grinned.

A moment’s quick trot brought her to a sheltered, shadowed corner of the courtyard. She turned back to make sure no one was looking her way any longer, and took one long last look at the wedding reception, at the ponies celebrating, at the brides dancing together again.

And our last, she thought as she disappeared.

A pop echoed through the still air deep within the Everfree Forest, drawing the attention of surprised birds perched in the trees, and Twilight Sparkle stood in what had been an empty clearing but a moment ago.

She surveyed her surroundings, recognizing them despite not setting hoof here for countless millennia.

There was a slight depression in the ground to the leeward side of a boulder that was jutting up out of the ground at an oblique angle, as though something should have been there but had been removed.

She lit her horn and a moment later the depression had deepened to a circular hole some ten feet deep, soil piled high beside it.

There was an ancient box in her satchel. She took it out and opened it. There was an ancient journal inside the box. The box and the journal looked brand new.

For the last time, she opened the journal and paged through it. Every page was filled with a list of dates and times in bright blue ink, and every date and time had a neat line drawn through it in violet. Hundreds of dates and times, across nearly eighty years.

She remembered every one of them.

She put the journal back into the box. Giving in to a sudden urge, she bent and pressed her lips to the front cover, then shut and sealed the box and floated it down to the bottom of the hole.

A moment later the pile of soil was gone, and so was the hole. Instead of a slight depression, there was a slight mounding of the earth, which she tamped flat.

Twilight looked down at the freshly disturbed soil for a long time.

Every single date and time in the journal had been crossed off, every last one, but that was all right.

She lit her horn.

One last stop to make.