//------------------------------// // Going Home. // Story: Tears of a Foal // by Rocinante //------------------------------// - - - ch 27 - - - As the last group of nobles filed out of the courtroom, Celestia checked the clock on the wall: court had run over today. Then again, what should she suspect. She had been pushing so many things off, they were going to start piling up eventually. “I’m sorry to keep you all here so long,” she said, apologizing to her staff. “Have a good evening. We’re done for today.” Stepping down from her throne, Celestia left the courtroom for her office. With a sigh she dropped some papers on her desk, then jammed others into their proper filing drawers. She paused for a moment to stare out the window. Not to think, but rather to let her mind go blank. Snapping from her stupor, Celestia turned back to her desk, and took off her regalia. There was something about having them on in the hospital that just felt wrong to her. Placing them neatly on the desk, she then stepped back out into the hallway. A salute to her guards, and she was out the first window she could reach. Green had his own family, she couldn’t let him neglect it for hers. In just a few moments, she was inside the hospital, and nearing Clover’s room. The guards outside it gave her a look that knotted her stomach. It told her he had gotten worse. Hope had been a cruel thing to her. After he had started eating, a bit of strength had come back to him, but all that was gained had been stripped in the days since. “How’s he doing?” she asked Green as soon as the door closed behind her. Clover’s sickly body twitched in restless sleep beneath his sheets. She watched the doctor take his readings and cast his spells over Clover and the devices attached to him. Green stepped away from the bed to face her. “He really just sleeps. Asks for juice when he wakes up.” “He’s a fighter,” the doctor said, finishing up whatever he was doing. “His system is at its end though. I don’t know how much longer he can keep it up.” Celestia nodded, acknowledging the prognosis. “Thank you both so much. Green, I’m sure you want to get home. I’ll send you a message if anything happens.” Green gave her a bow, then quietly left the room. A moment later, and the doctor followed him out, leaving her alone with Clover. She wanted to rest a hoof on Clover, to pet his mane till he woke up, but sleep was his best medicine right now. “I’m not too late, am I?” Discord asked besider her. It was Discord’s voice, but the tone was off. He sounded far more tired than she had ever heard. Turning to face him, she started to speak, but paused. He had obviously just been in a fight. “Are you alright?” “Nothing that won’t heal.” Reaching into somewhere, Discord pulled out a pear that shined like gold. Magic rippled off it in waves: a strange version of the want-it need-it spell. Celestia had to steel herself against the effect, while Discord idely polished it against his fur. “I wasn’t leaving without getting Fluttershy a souvenir,” he said, putting the golden pear back into the nowhere he had pulled it from. “What did you learn about Clover?” she asked as soon as her mind was free of the pear’s magic. “Anything that can help him?” Discord nodded. “Yes, and yes, but you’re not going to like it.” “How is that?” Celestia asked. Holding up his talon for silence, Discord then pointed to the sleeping foal. “I think we should include him in on the conversation now, seems rude not to.” “No,” Celestia pulled Discord’s face towards hers with her magic. “First tell me, will whatever you found save his life?” “If he chooses.” Celestia released Discord from her grip, a smile relaxing onto her face. “Then I will wake him.” Letting the adjustable bed prop Clover up, Celestia cleaned the sweat from his face with a towel. The motion and touch brought Clover slowly to consciousness. His eyes first fixed on her with a smile, then on Discord with confusion. Discord grumbled something in that strange language of Clover’s, but Clover only tilted his head in further confusion. She could see him trying to think. A moment later, and Clover stammered out a response. “You’re forgetting your birth language,” Discord said. “This world is claiming you entirely.” “That is what I wanted.” Clover said in groggy Equestrian. “Perhaps, but I do not think you meant to be in death’s grip so soon.” Clover sighed. Looking to the bed stand, he eyed the glass of juice sitting out of reach. Celestia didn’t wait for him to ask, taking the glass in her magic, she let him drink all he would. After drinking his fill, Clover closed his eyes in thought, before again speaking the language only Discord could understand. “Not true,” Discord answered with a smile. Reaching behind his back, he pulled forth a macabre clump of bone and fur. “I found it, and brought it back.” Clover curled his face in disgust, while Celestia leaned closer to examine the thing. “What is it,” she asked. “There is powerful magic trapped in that.” “You are correct.” Discord said. “It can grant wishes, but imagine if poison joke granted wishes.” Celestia reeled back in disgust from the what she now recognised as the severed hand of some animal. “I have heard of such things.” “This one belongs to Clover. He has used two of the three it has to grant.” Hope brightened Celestia’s face. “So he can simply wish himself well.” Discord shook his head. “That would be a very dangerous wish. This thing and I are made of something the same, I know how it can twist words and find consequences.” “Then how can this save him?” “I can go back,” Clover answered. Laying a paw on Celestia, Discord tried to sooth her confusion. “You see, Clover is a bit older than he looks.” Celestia nodded. “Yes, we knew that, even before he admitted it.” “Never told how old.” Clover said. That look of shame was again washing over him. “It doesn't matter, anymore than my age does,” Celestia said, resting the tip of her wing on him. “Actually, it matters exactly as much as your age.” Discord sat the think on the bed by Clover. “He is quite immortal back home.” “What?” Celestia looked to Clover, then Discord. Stepping to the other side of the bed, Discord sat on the wall. “Probably more so than you. It was his first wish.” “What was his second?” Clover coughed a dry laugh. “To go where I could die.” The thought horrified her “But why?” “His homeland is not as kind as ours. I imagine he was very lonely.” Clover confirmed Discord’s words with a nod. Celestia looked at the severed paw on the bed, and thought for a moment before speaking. “Can he use the last wish, to unwish the second?” “Yes,” Discord answered. “Unwishing, is hard to twist.” Clover clutched the wing near him, trying to pull himself under it. “No.” Extending her wing, Celestia let him take it as a blanket. “Please Clover. I would rather lose you, and know you’re alive, than bury you.” “Lonely there. Better dead.” Pulling back her wing, tears burned her eyes as she forced herself to put the mummified paw in his hoof. Her magic turned his chin till he was looking her in the eyes. “For me, Clover. Please, for me.” Clover only answered with a look of abject terror in his eyes. “Celestia,” Discord said, snapping her attention to the door. Opening it, he motioned for her to follow him into the hall. “I think we should leave Clover alone with his thoughts for a moment.” A sigh escaped her, but he was right. Clover was dying, but not this hour. Nodding her head, she pulled back from Clover. “I cannot force you, but please think about it. I’ll be back in a moment.” Leaving Clover in the bed, pondering the wishing paw, Celestia stepped into the hall with Discord, but there was no floor on the other side of the door. Tumbling head over tail, Celestia fell a dozen meters before flaring her wings to stop her plummet. Gathering her senses, she looked up to see the door floating far above her. Below her, Discord sat by a campfire in the snow. “Where are we?” she asked, looking around in the dark night. Discord laughed. Huddling closer to the fire, he held out his arms to gather more of the fire’s warmth. “You don’t recognize it?” Landing next to Discord, she too stepped closer to its warmth: the cold here was not a natural cold. Being so close to Discord, she couldn’t help but study his wounds. The light of the flickering fire made them look worse than they had in the hospital. “Are you sure you are alright?” she asked.   “I’ll be fine,” he said, but otherwise ignored her. With the snap of his talons, a parka appeared over him, hiding the wounds from her sight. Celestia shrugged at his indifference. Turning her back to the fire, she let her eyes adjust to the night. In time, she could see they were perched atop a high, rolling hill. One side cast in utter blackness, the other lit by the silver light of the rising moon, but everywhere there was ice. There was a shape to the hill that stirred old memories. Recognition of the place jolted her. Bolting from her place, Celestia galloped towards the moon-lit side to peer down the gentle slope. At the foot of the hill, a frozen river glimmered in the night. The bend of that stream was etched into her mind as deeply as her mother’s smile. “Bryn Gwyrdd,” Celestia whispered to herself. Trotting back towards Discord and his fire, Celestia began desperately brushing away ice and snow. Looking for something, yet afraid of harming what was hidden beneath the snow. She ignored Discord’s curious eye, until her hooves uncovered her goal. Finally, an out of place stone was revealed from beneath the snow. Closing her eyes, she found that pool of magic deep within her, the one she shared with the sun. Pulling it forth, she let a single tongue of sunfire dance on the tip of her horn. Snow melted as if banished from creation as a little bit of summer claimed the space around her. Mud hardened, and grass sprouted at the command of ancient magic. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear creatures hiss and flee. The carved stone looked exactly as it had two millennium ago; the forever winter having preserved it. Closing her eyes, Celestia rested a hoof on the grave marker. “Not that I am unthankful, but why did you bring me here?” “To remind you.” Discord unfolded a white chair, then took a seat next to her. “I have never forgotten my father.” “But you have forgotten the loneliness.” Memories echoed in Celestia’s mind of that day. She could still hear Luna crying. “It wasn’t that bad. I still had Mother and Luna.” “And when your mother passed?” Another sad memory, but not as bitter. Their mother had died rich in years, on Equestrian soil. “Luna and I had each other.” “And when you lost Luna?” Oddly, Celestia was glad the conversation had turned to this wound; it was one she had searched well, there was no new pain to be found here. “I was very lonely, but I knew she would return.” Discord leaned close, a venomous grin on his face. “You spent the next thousand years preparing for her return.” Celestia blinked, and he was standing beside her, his breath on her ear. “What if you had put her into the ground, instead of the moon?” “I...” Celestia’s voice hitched. The idea knotted her stomach. “I don’t know.” Standing to his full height, Discord paced behind her. “Give the sun back to the unicorns? Let old age take you to her?” A tear fell onto her father’s grave stone. “Perhaps.” “Perhaps?” There was accusation in his voice. Celestia sighed. There was no point in lying to herself. “Probably.” “Can you really ask more of Clover, than you expect of yourself?” he asked, stepping back in front of her. “Yes.” She looked up to meet Discord’s eyes. “I want him to be stronger than me.” “And if he fails?” “I will love him all the same.” The serious expression melted from Discord, letting his trickster smile shine through. “Good. I do hate playing the straight man.” Reaching far higher that his arms could reach, Discord pulled the doorway to the ground. “It’s bad enough when I have to do it for Sparkle Butt,” he said, shucking off the parka, and stepping towards the door. “Before we go back.” Celestia held out a wing to block the floating doorway. “Where did he come from? What was he?” Discord looked down at the fresh cut on his chest. “Does it matter?” he asked, tracing the wound with his paw. “No, but—” A flash of light interrupted Celestia's words. When her vision cleared,  the tip of Discord’s tail disappeared into the room. With a sigh, Celestia resigned herself to not knowing. Discord would keep his secret till he wanted to share it. Stepping through the door, she was again greeted by the sounds and smells of Clover’s room. Discord and Clover were having a conversation she couldn’t understand, but it ended with a weak chuckle from Clover as soon as she was fully in the room. “I’m going to miss your laugh,” she said, drawing their attention. Discord retreated back to his seat on the wall as she approached the bed. He had the look of one expecting a show, but she ignored him. Setting by the bed, she rested her forehead against Clover’s for a moment.   “This is your choice to make, but please consider it a second chance,” she said, sitting back up. He stared into her eyes a moment before nodding. Turning away from her, he studied the magical thing for a moment. Holding it up with one hoof, he touched the one extended finger with the other. “I wanted to live forever, but then everyone got old and died. Couldn’t do it again. Stayed alone, traveled. Helped who I could.” “Immortality is a heavy burden, but you are strong,” Celestia said, putting on her strongest front. “I learned to take every day as a gift, you can too.” “Maybe,” Clover agreed. His hoof moved to the second curled up finger; the one that had brought him to Equestria. “I wish—” Celestia braced herself. She would cry after he was gone. Clover’s hoof left that finger, for the curled finger on the end. “—for this wish again.” The one straight finger curled, and the paw crumbled to ash. Celestia and Discord shared a confused look as a presence they hadn’t been aware of left the room in a panic. “What was that?” Celestia asked. “What just happened?” Discord grinned in that way only he could. “That was Death. He wished for Death to be afraid of him.” “So he’s...” Celestia couldn’t finish the thought. “Unable to die,” Discord laughed. “He won't even age past his prime. That is unless he can find another place with a Death that doesn't know him.” Lunging towards Clover, Celestia scooped him into her forelegs. Discord watched the scene with a smile. Sometimes doing good was rewarding. “Can’t... breathe.” Clover mumbled from within the alicorn’s embrace. Celestia didn’t let up on her hold in the least. “It won't kill you.”