Time Enough For Love

by horizon


10. The Fight

Clover was no stranger to stupid ideas, but even he had to hesitate when the pair of guards escorted him to the top of Everfree Palace's basement stairs. He mentally ran through his logic again. He was probably safe. Probably.

He was gambling a lot on her self-control. Still, he had to make the effort.

When the three of them entered the candlelit basement, Luna was sitting at a table surrounded by open books, cross-referencing information onto a chart she was assembling on an oversized piece of papyrus.

A guard cleared his throat. Luna scratched out another row of figures. "Ah, the guards return," she said without looking up. "Are you so determined to interrupt my work that now you drag down somepony with a crown from their throne, to be affronted to my face about my absence at the banquet?"

Clover braced himself and went for broke. "Well," he said lightly, "if the Queen is upset at us both, then that's another thing we've got in common."

Luna's quill froze. Then began trembling in her horngrip.

Clover considered bolting. He figured standing very, very still was slightly safer.

"Have you come to your senses," Luna finally said — her back still to him, her voice carefully controlled — "and accepted my terms?"

"With respect, Luna," Clover said, "no."

The quill shifted to one side, flicked its tip down into an inkwell, and then began writing again. "Then we've nothing to talk about."

Clover took a breath to steady himself. "I disagree. It's an unacceptable solution, but so is your death."

Abruptly, Luna wheeled on her stool, wings spreading wide as she stood. "Unacceptable?!" she said icily. The tightly controlled frown on her muzzle curled upward into a bland and insincere smile. "Oh, well then! When whatever fell beast that is to be my doom puts its claws to my neck, I shall inform it that the idiot mortal wooing my sister finds the situation unacceptable, and all manner of things shall be well."

Clover took an involuntary step back — which suddenly made him realize that the guards alongside him had vanished.

He swallowed and held his ground as Luna strolled up to loom over him. He had to put his faith in the same logic that had saved him back at Pansy's house — that they both knew Celestia wouldn't forgive Luna if anything happened to him at her hooves.

"You don't have to accept that fate either," he said quietly. "You're more clever than that."

Her muzzle twitched in annoyance. "Do not insult me via comparison. You are clever. I solve problems." Abruptly, Luna whirled back to the desk. "Equestria has more than enough of those to resolve without adding your occasional annoyance to the mixture. For example, I am close to calculating the source of the incubus incursions into ponies' dreams, which have grown vastly more common in the past six months. And if I am not allowed to finish that work within the fortnight, the consequence is another half-dozen ponies vanished, three score laid low by magical illness, and weakness and headaches for half a city." She glanced back over her shoulder. "What have you accomplished for Equestria lately, little hero, other than distracting my sister from its defense?"

Clover's ears lowered. Whether she had expected it to or not, Luna's jab had struck home.

"That's another thing I'm trying to do better at," he said. "Would you like my help?"

"Ha!" Luna said sharply, turning back around. "No."

Clover, finally, began to feel his fear yield to frustration. "Why not, if it's that important? You're pressed for time, and surely I could take some of the drudgework of research off your hooves."

"Because the last time I offered you a problem to solve, you used it to doom both myself and my sister." Luna began writing again. "No, mortal. I shall learn my lesson from this, which is that those of you who manage to pierce our realm can but blunder destructively about. And I shall endure, and solve Equestria's problems until my own fate is no longer escapable, and ignore your existence — rather than cling to foalish hope that your death predates mine, and my sister returns permanently to my side."

Her horn flared an ugly black-blue. With a quiet pop and a blur of shadow, the two guards reappeared by Clover's side, blinking and stumbling for balance.

"Guards," Luna said, "this malingering rampallion displeases me. Remove him from my presence."

And for the second time that year, Clover found himself thrown out of Everfree Palace.


It had been a beautiful plan. Make peace with his old friends' deaths; make peace with Luna; return to Celestia with her and tell her everything; divert the prophecy and enjoy a life of perfect moments. The failure of step two was a problem. But not, Clover decided, an insurmountable one.

Clover told the okapi he was going back to Celestia again. He helped Hope find a replacement salespony, and promised them he'd make time to visit them once in a while. Then, after the goodbyes, he stewed in his cheap, rat-infested room for one last night, planning his next step.

He and Celestia still needed to talk, didn't they? Sooner or later wouldn't he have to rip the metaphorical bandage off? Maybe, even without Luna's help, Celestia would be able to help him find some clever way around the problem. Or she'd be able to talk some sense into her sister. Or … or maybe he was overthinking this. If Luna was doing things like sequestering herself off in a basement to research some crazy monster infecting ponies' dreams, maybe they were spending enough time apart that she wasn't necessarily going to die to fulfill the prophecy?

That still left Celestia alone and broken-hearted, of course. Not a solution.

The next morning, Clover took the now-familiar trip up Canter Peak, and let his churning stomach settle at the doorway, and took a deep breath before knocking. He still hadn't settled out the details — but he was better. He'd fixed himself. Now it was time to fix them.

Celestia — only slightly hung over, judging by the scattered clouds and the slight swelling of her eyelids — yanked the door open, eyes taking a moment to focus in on him.

Clover smiled — with genuine happiness, but far more enthusiasm than he was really feeling. "Hello, Celestia."

Celestia's face lit up. "Frumpy!" she said, and lit her horn to drag his body in to hers, and threw her forelegs around him, muzzle clamping passionately to his.

For a moment, it was as if the years had melted away. As if they could be there for each other forever, and nothing bad could touch them.

It was wonderful — but thoroughly disorienting. The last two times he'd seen her, he'd been an absolute mess. Wouldn't that have been her expectation? Shouldn't she have been more hesitant with him, more worried about his recovery? Shouldn't she have asked him what had happened over the last two years?

Then it hit him. For Celestia, there hadn't been two years of soul-searching. For what most ponies would have called an entire lifetime, she'd occasionally had a lover suddenly appear and lavish her with attention, and then vanish again once the shine started wearing off. And she didn't believe in bad memories. Time filed the rough edges off of their previous encounters, and all she knew of him was the good parts. Anything less than that was an aberration to be reset away — which, from her perspective, was exactly what he'd done.

And which, for her, was exactly how it worked. If she wasn't at her best, she'd shrug and live a year without him and enjoy him all the more when he returned. What did a year mean to an immortal? Maybe it hadn't even occurred to her that his own ability to similarly expend his grief elsewhere wasn't infinite.

But … the setup worked. In its own strange way, it worked. If he expected flipping to always mean she'd be eager for his company, and if she expected flipping to always mean he'd be eager for her company, then there was no reason for either of them to approach a reunion with anything less than anticipation and joy. And that joy would keep things perfect — until it didn't, and they shrugged and moved on to their next perfect moment. What good would it do to spoil that with fear or hesitation?

So Clover smiled, and did his best to empty his mind and sink into her kiss, and let himself lose himself in her touch. They shared a few perfect days, with nothing more important on their minds than each other. And when Clover's intrusive thoughts finally broke through and the guilt started seeping in, he kissed her and excused himself for a 'mini-flip' and spent a month walking around Equestria.

He re-read Cookie's letter, and thought about Luna, and the prophecy, and all the friends who believed in him. Then he thought back through all the wonderful times he and Celestia had had. And finally, as the weeks passed, the bad things just … started to seem a little less important.

Was a stupid prophecy really worth ruining everything over?

No, he decided. And a fresh little yearning for Celestia slowly blossomed in his chest.

"Hey, Frumpy," she said when he returned, her face lighting up anew. And this time, he didn't have to fake his enthusiasm.


Celestia, for her part, was as constant as she was ageless — eagerly and passionately greeting him on each of his returns. At least at first. But then there was the year she was a bundle of rage at a silly dispute with Queen Orichalcum over a change in her title … and what was that, but a momentary inconvenience and another flip of the amulet? The next year, her kiss was as passionate as ever, and the moment melted away.

But then there was the year Clover flipped when they were both down in Everfree Palace, and on his return, Celestia wasn't there to greet him. He walked up the mountain, knocked on the door of the fort, and a pegasus stallion answered.

Clover staggered back, shocked. Then, past the doorway, he watched the rumpled covers on Celestia's bed — their bed — shift, and a disheveled white head poked out.

"Burry?" Celestia mumbled, bleary eyes focusing toward the pegasus. "Who's there?"

Something squeezed in Clover's chest, hot and hard and hollow. It took him two tries to light his horn, fumbling for the necklace against his chest, feeling metal tickle fur as the triangle flipped. The world hiccuped, and he was again facing a closed door.

Clover fell to his knees, eyes blurring with tears. He let out a choked sob.

A moment later, he heard muffled voices inside the fort. Two voices.

Clover yanked the triangle around its axis a second time. Then again, without waiting for the world to stabilize. He poured his grief and rage and fear and disbelief into his horn, as if he could rip it apart and this cruel lie with it. Grab, flip, and the world shifted and glitched. Grab, flip, glitch.

Then, with an incoherent scream, he grabbed and wrenched — not pushing against the pressure of inertia, but unleashing an explosive torrent of magic into the metal. It jerked, spasming off his chest. Then whatever tension was coiled up inside of it seemed to break loose with a wail of sour color, and the triangle whirled crazily around its axis as the years scintillated by.





The year that the necklace slowed to a stop was the year of their third big argument.

"You should have told me!" he shouted.

"You didn't let me!" she yelled back, a fire smoldering in her eyes that he hadn't seen for hundreds of visits.

"What was there going to be to say? 'Oh, sorry, Clover, but even though you unmoored yourself from time for me I found some other stud to rut'?"

"I promised you," she growled, leaning in so that her bared teeth were inches from his eyes, "the best of me. But I don't live life at your speed, and we never agreed you'd be the only one to get the best of me."

"Great comeback, Imperatrix," he snarled. "How long did it take you to come up with it?"

"Eighty-three years, Frumpy, which I had because you weren't here!" she shouted, and the mountain trembled.

Clover squeezed his eyes shut, feeling tears spill down his cheeks.

"You know what hurts the most," he said quietly, "is that you can't stand me for more than a few weeks at a time, but that pegasus? Oh, no, he gets a normal lifetime."

"That pegasus' name was Thunderburst," Celestia said coldly, "and for your information, he drove me crazy too, and he left for good fourteen months later. But I learned so much patience from you — waiting for your return every year — that I thought I could make some on-again, off-again thing work with him. And he was one of those once-in-a-generation ponies that had a chance of keeping up with me … what was I supposed to do? Turn him away for a lover who doesn't exist 50 weeks of the year?"

"Considering what I've given up for you, maybe!"

Celestia whirled and stalked away. "Do you even know how much effort I went to in order to make things work out? I told him about you, Clover! He flipped out too — and then I begged and pleaded and reasoned and finally told him it was a dealbreaker if he wasn't okay with me spending time with you once in a while." Clover opened his eyes again, and Celestia was staring at him with wet eyes from across the room. "Thank the stars, he gave in. But I was willing to ruin my own happiness for the short time we get — throw away the entire rest of my year — and then the instant you see him, you throw a snit and vanish for good before I even lay eyes on you."

Clover stared at Celestia. She glared back, standing tall and proud. He laughed bitterly.

"Unbelievable," he said. "I'm getting nostalgic for the good old days when you threw me through a bookcase over something a hundred times as trivial."

"For the first time in four hundred and twenty-two years," she muttered, "I wish I could break my oath and do it again."

"I guess four hundred years and twenty-two years really does change a mare," he snapped back. "I never thought you'd back down from a challenge."

Celestia's muzzle twisted into a snarl whose rage could have petrified a cockatrice, and she tensed for a spring before Clover could even think to react. Then her body lurched forward and swayed drunkenly back, looking for all the world like some living rocking-horse, wings flailing out awkwardly for balance. Her legs began to tremble — hooves perfectly still — and despite her obvious fury, she made no further move toward him.

Clover froze, confused but suddenly very aware of the line he'd crossed. They stared at each other for a moment before it clicked. Her oath.

Celestia finally managed to regain her balance, breathing in sharp snorts through her nose. With obvious effort, she squeezed her eyes closed. The tremble in her legs spread to her wingtips as she deliberately stretched and retucked them. She took a long breath and held it, and her fury slowly receded.

"You're right, you know," she finally said, her eyes still closed. Her tone was uneven, but there was more control than rage in it. "I can change. For example, I just figured out that you're baiting me — without needing a day of beating up dragons to calm myself down. And I can be a better pony than that." She deliberately lifted one hoof — and, as Clover's heart stopped and his vision zeroed in on the motion, she picked her hooves up one by one, slowly rotating in place to turn her back on him.

"I wish you'd figured that part out earlier," Clover said — and bit back any further reply, not feeling quite brave enough to press his luck with the oath again.

Silence again descended — feeling colder this time. Or maybe that was just the mountain air? Clover huffed, trying to focus, and his breath came out in a glistening cloud.

That set an inner alarm to screaming.

Clover knew exactly where that sudden icing over came from. But — part of him was shocked to realize — he didn't particularly feel like doing anything about it. After all, it wasn't like the mighty Imperatrix would be in any danger from a pack of windigos, and the realization that she was responsible for the disharmony which drew them in would teach her an invaluable friendship lesson about taking friends for granted.

The voice of reason protested that logic, too. Windigos, it reminded him, latched onto sources of discord and magnified them until they overwhelmed rational thought. By definition, both of them were now overreacting — and was he, of all ponies, really about to stand back and let windigos do their thing? But then Clover thought of that pegasus again, and the voice got easier and easier to ignore.

"You know the worst part?" Celestia said, breaking him out of his thoughts. "Part of me says that you're not good enough for me. That you never were, and you never will be. And it's right, with the way you're acting." Her voice grew faint. "But despite how colossal of an idiot you're being, I can't convince myself to walk away from you."

Clover felt his jaw tremble and his heart squeeze. As impossible as Celestia was being, she was right — that was the worst part. It would have been so much easier if he could have listened to the silky voice telling him it was over, and made the decision to walk away. But he loved her, stars, he loved her. No matter what she did to rip his beating heart from his chest.

Clover gritted his teeth — feeling some frost shake loose from his lips at the motion — and nearly gave in and apologized. He needed her, after all. Maybe even as much as she needed him.

Really? the cruel, cold voice whispered — and he hesitated for a moment. He wasn't the only one who had done something wrong. And Clover had given up everything for her. If she loved him too, wasn't it time for her to make a sacrifice?

Celestia sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, and hope flared in Clover's chest for a moment —

"I think it's time for you to flip your necklace," she said evenly.

— snuffing out just as quickly. Fine. Let her deal with her windigos — or whatever super-windigos that the disharmony of an alicorn summoned from the storms. He'd be back in a year when she saw reason.

So he lit his horn, rotating the triangle —





— and landed in blackness.

A migraine danced on his skull, sending melodious fuzzy spots dancing through his vision. Everything was wrong. Nothing seemed wrong — at least, none of his senses were giving him anything concrete to work with — but every instinct he had was screaming out different warnings, at top volume, all at once.

Clover lit his horn. Or tried to.

Absolutely nothing happened.

Panic set in as he realized he couldn't even feel magic around him any more.

Realizing he was getting light-headed, Clover forced himself to control his breathing. Focus. Focus! There's got to be something you can do. He took a step, stumbled, and caught himself against something soft at his shoulder.

A broad circle of that wall lit up at his touch, as if illuminated by a spotlight. He blinked and looked closer at the plush blue fabric, his eyes readjusting to the idea of sight. He was leaning against a throw rug.

The moment Clover realized that, there was the ding of a distant bell. Gravity instantly rotated underneath the rug, sending him unceremoniously faceplanting to the floor.

The darkness above him opened up one yellow, red-pupiled eye, and grew a mismatched collection of fangs. Something that looked like a lion paw faded into view at the edge of the spotlight, flexing claws out of its fingers and pointing one right at him.

"Theeeeeeeeere's my little meddler," a high, masculine voice sang as a grotesque brown face advanced into the light.

Clover screamed and bolted.

He tried, at any rate. The floor dropped out from underneath him, sending him spinning back into the disorienting blackness. The spotlight swept through a broad arc before stopping directly in front of him, and Clover slammed with tremendous force into the newly illuminated circle of blue plaid rock. It was rubbery and yielding — at least enough that he didn't feel anything break — but it was more than enough to drive all the wind out of him.

As Clover gasped for breath, struggling to his hooves, the spotlight rapidly expanded, the circle of rock resolving into a discolored mountainside. The surrounding lands resembled nothing so much as a foal's parody of Equestria, a coloring-book filled in with all the wrong colors, with parts ripped out of place and pasted in where they didn't belong. Everfree Palace was floating in midair high above them, with the sun chasing the moon in bounding circles around the building, causing shadows to continuously lurch and veer.

With the sound of off-key trumpets, a gaudy silver throne on a tall green dais floated down to earth from the now orange-colored sky. The throne rotated toward Clover to reveal some sort of chimerical monstrosity sitting on it. The beast was clapping one leonine paw and one aquiline claw, chortling to itself.

Clover bolted again.

The thing snapped a claw. Clover felt the world lurch and rotate around him, and yet again, he slammed headfirst into the ground.

"A spirited escape attempt, Beardy," the monster said, leaning forward and steepling its fingers. "But I must admit I'm disappointed. After all the effort you've expended flinging yourself back and forth through time, now that we're finally face to face you're not even going to play a game with the magnificent Discord for the fate of your world?"

"What," Clover said feebly.

Discord uncoiled himself from the throne, stepping forward on tiny mismatched legs. Clover tried scrambling backward, only to feel a sharp pain in his hinds. He glanced backward to see rabbits with pitchforks prodding just above his hooves.

Discord's muzzle began to fall into a dangerous frown. "You're really performing below expectations, you know," it said. "Is the great Star Swirl the —" he squinted — "Presently Unbearded so helpless with his innate unicorn magic removed? Or did you not expect me to track you by the distinct feeling of your time spells?" His smile returned, gleeful and predatory. "Regardless, we're going to have fun, you and I."

A creeping feeling of horror enveloped Clover. "No! No. You've got it all wrong."

Discord giggled. "Well, let's hope you don't, or this will be a short game."

"I'm not —" Clover stopped. For all he knew, the belief that he was Star Swirl was the only thing keeping this deranged god from slaughtering him outright.

Fortunately, Discord seemed to ignore his outburst. "I'm feeling generous, so I'll let you choose how to entertain me. Dodge the Deathtrap? Gladiator combat? The Harmless Maze of Completely Innocent Fun?"

Clover thought faster than he'd ever thought in his life. Then he smoothed down his cloak and straightened up, projecting as much confidence as he could.

"Heads or tails," he said. "A simple flip with a simple wager. If you win, you choose. But if I win, I choose a game for us both to play."

A wild glint appeared in Discord's yellow eyes, and his smile spread wide. Clover knew that look. It was the grin of a con-man confident he could out-cheat his opponent.

Clover grinned back, trying not to let his nervousness show. "I assume a gentlebeing as powerful and generous as yourself won't mind if I select the coin?"

Discord snapped a claw, and his throne skittered toward him, catching him as he languidly fell backward and reclined. "I assure you, it makes no difference to me," he said, not even trying to hide his smugness.

"A moment, then. Let me find it." Clover turned to rummage in his saddlebags, fumbling with clumsy hooftips for the returning clasp. He leaned toward the bag it was in, his necklace swinging over it and coming to rest just inside its top edge. He held his breath as he pressed the clasp's catch against the side of the bag and angled the inner part of the necklace into it. The instant it caught, he dug further into the bag, angled his hooftip inside a loop he'd tied in the golden cord, and then jerked upright and yanked his leg back with all his might.

The magic of the clasp flared. Suddenly, the triangle tried to be somewhere else than the circle it was mounted in — making the necklace bounce crazily from his chest. The chain jerked taut then snapped back, spinning the triangle wildly.

Pain exploded in Clover's head as the years slammed into him, and consciousness faded.