Story:
Once upon a time there was a stallion named Endymion, or in our tongue, Sky Diver. Now this stallion was said to be handsome, but distant, preferring the company of the stars and moon over other ponies. He was the first to track the stars in their courses, making him the first astronomer.
One night, as was his wont, Sky Diver sat with parchment and quill, mapping the stars. As he sat beneath the full moon, he caught the eye of the moon goddess, Selene, or in our tongue Bright Flame. She saw that, like herself, he was distant and beautiful, and she was smitten with him. She spent many a night watching him from afar, whenever he sat beneath the moon, until one day, unable to bear her distant vigil any longer, she came down in the form of a pony shepardess. The two ponies fell in love, and in time were married and had two foals of their own, both fillies.
But Bright Flame was a goddess, and therefore immortal. In the passing of time, she saw her love begin to age. Seeing this, she realized that if nothing were done, she would long outlive him. Unable to bear this thought, she took him to a cave far from everywhere and cast him into a deep sleep, in which he would not age. Every so often, she would return to the cave, and eleven months later would bear another daughter (for the goddess could only bear daughters), each of whom would become a star, keeping their mother company in the sky. And it is said this continues to this day, so that when on those rare occasions a new star appears, it is a reminder of the lovers of old.
Analysis:
This story has some roots in ancient myths, but some of it came to me in a dream, and more is an elaboration from these. The “Sleep of Sky Diver” is an ancient idiom used most recently in time (roughly around the founding of Equestria) for death. In what records survive, in even older times, the name was an older Endymion, from some ancient tongue similar to that used for mottos and on crests, with essentially the same meaning. The profession of astronomer is a common guess as to the name’s significance, though someone fond of making rapid dives is another possibility. In this context, the “sleep of Endymion” refers not to death but to a magically-induced sleep in which one neither changes nor ages.
Selene is another ancient name, that she was a moon goddess and extrapolation from its meaning and context. The storyline of her and Endymion, at least in broad strokes, was something I dreamt about after hearing a lecture on the common language from which the names originate. I developed it a bit from there.
The Mare in the Moon was never a goddess, though some treat Luna and Celestia as if they were. Their aging is much slower than normal ponies, but they readily admit disease or accident could kill them (or assassination, though they are understandably less open about that possibility). They also claim that they DO age, albeit slowly. Furthermore, neither has had children in at least the last thousand years, if ever.
So having established that the above story is pure fiction, it is nonetheless interesting to consider some of the implications it raises regarding a couple from species with disparate lifespans. It is unknown if this will be an issue for Ms. Cadenza and Mr. Armor or if the sisters are unique. They may not even know themselves, as Ms. Cadenza became an alicorn relatively recently. She has, it must be noted, aged more or less normally by all accounts, but Celestia and Luna have indicated that they themselves only ages slightly more slowly than other ponies until reaching adulthood, so that may not be a good indicator.
First, as Luna and Discord seemed to be in at least semi-stasis during their imprisonment, one wonders if a normal pony would have similarly remained ageless in such a state. This is not certain, but if so, it would provide a way for the ‘ageless sleep’ seen in this story to come about. Of course, if such a sleep were truly deep and permanent, then the couple would still be parted. Although, if one of them had dream-walking abilities, it might not be a true parting. Another part of the story hints to another solution. You may note that the couple continued to have children, suggesting that Sky Diver was awakened at least briefly during those times. We will return to this in a moment, but first I wish to make an aside regarding new stars.
There are a number of myths about the emergence of new stars, many having to do with heroes or rulers taking a place in the sky. Generally speaking, new stars that emerge (or rather, become visible to the naked eye) are not permanent. Obviously, new stars must emerge at SOME point, but astrophysics tells us that the times between these events are extremely long due to the fact that we can only see a tiny fraction of even our own galaxy (or ‘stellar neighborhood’) with the naked eye. Instead, what we call a ‘nova’ or ‘new star’ is really a distant star which is not normally visible exploding. These stars may remain in the sky for months, but eventually fade. By looking at records of ancient astronomers and training our telescopes in the correct direction, we can sometimes see where there is still a faint remnant of the star left, but this is an issue too complex to delve into here. Suffice to say that stars, being incredibly large, take quite a long time in our terms to explode, even though with respect to the star’s lifespan it is the blink of an eye. These things were all in my mind when I wrote or dreamed up the last parts of this story.
Now to return to the previous issue, if the longer-lived partner was not truly immortal but merely slower aging and if a stasis spell is available then there is a solution of sorts. The shorter-lived partner would be in stasis for some portion of the time, and awake for another. For a simple example, if the longer-lived partner had a lifespan ten times that of the shorter-lived, then the shorter-lived one would spend 9 years asleep, then one years awake, then nine years asleep, and etc. This could also be worked in terms of months or even weeks depending on the details of the spell and the preferences of the individuals. The point is that the ratio works out. This could be rather hard on the longer-lived partner, particularly if their lifespans are very disparate, but on say a by-day pattern (such as 9 days asleep and 1 awake) it would not be so terribly different from couples who work opposite hours and may only see one another awake for longer than an hour or so on the weekends. Another similar example might be couples where one of them travels a lot, and so is gone much of the time. Or, digging back into the past, couples where one is deployed in the military and the other remains behind, and thus they are largely separated for months at a time. Of course, there are letters in those cases, but no analogy is perfect. The point is it would be workable if this issue comes up for Cadenza and Armor, or if they desired a regular pony partner the two sisters.