If marriage meant that one went with their spouse through good times and bad then this was definitely one of those bad times. In fact, the bad times amounted to so much time that Gleaming Shield wondered with annoyance if she had been slighted by fate at the wedding. King Nymphamos has apparently been a bad omen. If the changeling had been good enough to fool me, Gleaming Shield thought, then perhaps I would have been better off with him. A good lie might actually be better than a bad truth.
The white unicorn mare frowned at her own humor. Better off with the changeling? If that was supposed to be laughable then it was a blessing that she didn't have a cutie mark in comedy. Thinking of such things, though...had she ever seen a cutie mark for comedy? She felt like she might have but wasn't sure...
"Gleaming Shield!" rose the voice of the pink alicorn stallion in front of her. She had slipped in thought and Tempo had to raise his voice to snap her out of it. That was odd, since she was quite certain of her own attention span. Why had she been so thoughtful lately?
"Hm?" she weakly responded.
"Tell me what you think," he spoke more calmly.
She didn't have to think long since she had already come to the obvious conclusion. "Time alteration spells. The queen probably tampered with time here. I imagine this place is perfect for that kind of thing. The worst that could happen would be molecular breakdown of the immediate environment. Who cares about a rock floating in space? I can only assume that she accepted whatever risk might come to herself - there's no escaping personal danger when you want to fool around with magic."
Tempo just nodded minutely as he listened. Her theory voiced, he responded in turn, "Probably too arrogant to think harm could come to her anyways...but she succeeded to some degree. That's obvious."
"So does this mean what I think it does?" Gleaming asked worriedly. Her eyebrows deepened as she took in the implications.
The stallion wasted no time in confirming. "Yes. The movement of time on this rock is different. I don't know if that means that time has stopped elsewhere or if time is simply on a different scale."
"One minute here is a second in Equestria?" Gleaming Shield suggested logically.
"Could be...but it would probably be a lot slower than that if I took a wild guess. Maybe the queen was fiddling with time magic so that she could control the world through it. But that's just speculation and it doesn't help us." He subconsciously gave a short whinny of frustration.
"If she succeeded and this place really is a hypothetical 'bubble of infinity' then why didn't she use that kind of magic with the crystal empire...?" Gleaming Shield trailed her question even as the answer came to her.
Both the stallion and mare exclaimed together, "The Crystal Empire!"
Gleaming's face contorted, "She probably had future plans for her time magic...but ran out of time to use it..."
"How ironic," Tempo gave a single pip of laughter to mark the moment. "But we can't waste any more time on this. We have work to do!"
His wife's eyes narrowed as she sensed a tone of reduced seriousness from him. It was a skill that he had started to notice and it was both amusing and annoying. Maybe there was some truth to spouses being able to read each other's thoughts and moods. He certainly didn't think that he had made any indication of the "work" he had planned.
"You know something?" Gleaming finally asked.
"I know lots of things..." Tempo started a cold sweat.
"I think there is something else about this rock that's messing with our heads," she stated flatly.
Was that an indirect jab? "I'll admit I have had some wandering thoughts..." he relented cautiously. One had to be careful about wording one's words when Gleaming Shield got into one of her no-nonsense confrontational hissy fits.
"Same here. I can't focus quite right and there's something nagging at the back of my mind," she said with a tone of suspicion.
"Like how beautiful you are," he tried one of his award-winning grins.
The mare just narrowed her eyes and frowned in lack of amusement. "I'm being serious right now."
"How do you do it?"
"Do what?" she asked quickly - suspecting some lame question. The stallion needed to get with the times. They were in a very bad spot at the moment!
"Keep thinking about some way out...you never seem to take a break," his voice finally started to indicate a sober attitude.
Gleaming Shield did not consider that a question for deep thought. As a Royal Guard, she always knew where her hooves were at. "By not sticking my head in the clouds like you alicorns," she kidded. "Honestly, it's because I love you. I don't have a crush on you. I'm not infatuated or lusting after you. I love you and that means I have a head on my shoulders and the ability to use it. I know where my priorities are and the first one is getting us safely off of this trap world."
Her words kind of hurt and felt warm at the same time. Only Gleaming Shield could be sweet to him with such harshness. Not lusting? Well sure but that was only about two degrees away from a burn. He was going to have to improve his exercise routines and blow her away with a reformed physique.
"Stop," the mare interjected his mental planning.
"But how-"
"I know that look, Tempo. You know what I find attractive right now? Focus!" she poked him in the side with a hoof. The sober attitude of his was fleeting, after all.
Goodness sakes! She really can read my mind, the alicorn thought. Marriage must be magic or something...
"Alright," he relented. "I think you're right. But not in the way that you think you are. This place is having an effect on us but it's not because of some spell concocted by Oscura. It's the same problem we had at the palace."
Gleaming Shield jolted if only by a little at his words. She thought she had things figured out only to find that her husband already had the situation down pat behind his goofball composure. "Well, of course, I still want time for the two of us not to be bothered by unending crises-"
"And this is that time, Gleaming," Tempo declared absolutely.
"Huh?" the mare voiced with confusion.
The pink pony held all the confidence of the blazing sun (even though the celestial object was trying to hide out of sight). "Our magic is sufficient to keep us safe here and provide all that we need. The time distortion will ensure we are not shirking anything important back in the Empire."
The unicorn was shocked and just a tiny bit angry. "No! This place is dangerous!"
"More dangerous than the Empire? More dangerous than Equestria? In case you forgot, we've been facing life or death back there," the alicorn's humor turned a dark corner.
"This rock is not a vacation resort," Gleaming returned.
"That can be changed."
"You mean by turning torture devices into ferns? Don't think I can't see what you did over there," she waved a hoof accusingly to the seeable distance where his earlier work stood visible.
"Ah...yeah..." he smiled fakely at being caught.
"This isn't an argument, Tempo. Why would you even consider staying here?"
The stallion returned to a grave expression. "Because I finally see an opportunity for us not to get bothered. It's not like we're shirking duty, Gleaming. Equestria has probably seen all of one second in the who-knows-how-long-we've-been-here."
"That's another problem. Time feels too vague here. I can't recall measurements of time - like how long I've walked in those tunnels or even how long we've been standing here talking to each other like a couple of foals!"
The intensity of Gleaming Shield's complaint made the stallion lean backwards a bit. She was correct with her point but Tempo didn't feel like escape was exactly a cure for their long-term problems. Not anymore. "What's getting you so fired up?"
"I'm not getting fired up!" she bit back. "I'm getting frustrated with your lack of help. I want off this rock and I want that vacation that we've been denied for the umpteenth time. I don't want an adventure and I don't want seclusion. I want..."
Tempo saw something in her eyes change. The fire bled away and water took its place.
"...I just want...the good times..."
The vows they had traded...
"Can't we just..." Gleaming Shield started to cry. "...just have some good times..."
· · · · ·
Tempo knew what he had to do. He made a vow to the mare in front of him and he would let Equestria burn before he broke it. He was a prince and he had a responsibility. He was a husband and his wife was crying.
It wasn't easy all the same. He wanted some time off and the opportunity was in front of him. He saw no reason why Gleaming Shield couldn't just accept their predicament and make do with what they had. She was making a fuss because she wanted a seaside resort, right?
No.
Tempo looked away from her to take in the stars. They occupied all of what should be the Equestrian sky. But he only looked for a moment to take in their beauty and calm himself. Dusk Shine always calmed down when they stargazed together and it might have rubbed off, if only a little, onto the alicorn.
His voice was gentle when it finally came out to respond to Gleaming Shield. As gentle as it had been those many days before when they had been reunited at the wedding. "We can have those kind of times, dear," he laid a hoof on the mare's shoulder before bringing her into a hug.
He whispered in her ear, "So let's get out of here and start having them."
It was not the hug that he gave or the hug that she deepened, but rather his self-sacrifice that turned her tears from sadness to happiness. It was a reminder of why they ended up married. They had differences in opinion sometimes but one of them would always relent for the sake of the other. Gleaming Shield held Tempo firmly in her hooves knowing that he was stubborn, careless, ridiculous...and the stallion that cared about her the most.
There was always something deeper about mere words than their obvious meaning or content. They carried weight in terms of relationship and they could make or break a marriage the same way they could make or break friendships. Sentiment could be just as important as action. The white unicorn was relieved in the assurance that her husband would still compromise for her sake and would do so not only in the easy moments. And so Gleaming Shield held the embrace until Tempo ended it.
"I think that's all the love we'll need," he grinned.
Before Gleaming Shield could inquire his meaning, she both recalled and re-experienced the moment that ended the Changeling invasion. Tempo activated his special talent's trump card as the two of them lifted into the air and were absorbed in a sea of magical light. Finally, they would be going back to the Empire!
The light increased and almost seemed to compact before it blasted outwards and bathed the entire prison world with its warm hue. It flooded past the torture machines and over the cliffs and crags. It flooded into the tunnels and through the underground hall. It went out of sight and it was mere moments before the couple was lowered back down. Gleaming Shield touched the ground gingerly with her hooves.
"Wait..." she began.
Tempo was beaming with a smile greater than ever before.
"Why are we still here?!" the mare exclaimed in panic.
Tempo snickered. "Did you think we were going to teleport?"
"Obviously!" Gleaming cried.
"If we could just teleport back to Equestria then don't you think I would already have done that?"
The unicorn almost replied before realizing that she didn't have anything to say.
The pink prince spoke in her stead. "Well putting that aside, the magic seems to have given us a lead. I received some valuable information from that light wave that just happened. I suspect-"
"Is light wave the official term here?" Gleaming raised a brow.
"Yes, I'd explain it except that your tiny unicorn brain wouldn't understand..."
The mare punched him in the shoulder to which he uttered a perfectly verbal "ow."
"Anyways," he winced. "The wave showed me something. In my head, I mean."
"Must not be difficult, since your head is so empty," Gleaming sniped.
If they had just had an emotional turning point in their relationship, his wife was now showing absolutely no sign of it. She was back to her straight-up disposition. He had to smile at it. She was something of a rock - even if that was a term most considered more fitting to the husband. "Anyways," he tried to get back on track. "I admit I don't have much control over that spell. It seems to have given me only a vague idea of what to do next. It showed me that there is a room we have not been to in the tunnels."
Gleaming Shield gave a lopsided expression in return. "So tell me why we didn't just do this from the start or why our panacea spell couldn't just teleport us out? It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to me."
There was a great pause as the pink stallion considered her words.
"Hey, love isn't a get out of jail free card," he winked.