9. The Letter
Clover finally faced his fears long enough to ask "What's wrong?" a few weeks later.
They were lying in bed together, his back to her chest — which was basically all they'd done together since his return. Celestia had spent their first few days back together just holding him, and stroking his mane, and flying down the mountain to bring him food. But her trips had become longer, and her stays shorter, and she'd begun saying less and less when the two of them snuggled together, passively letting Clover drift in and out of restless sleep.
Celestia didn't answer him for a while.
"You know that thing where we share the good parts together?" she finally said. Then one of her forelegs shifted, and she made a little circular motion with her hoof that resembled the flipping of Clover's necklace, and she said nothing more.
Clover's heart squeezed. His eyes blurred. And he tried not to make any sound as tears worked loose and dripped down his cheeks onto the mattress.
The next morning, after Celestia had wordlessly strode out the door and leapt off the cliff in some direction she didn't share, Clover rummaged through the fort for what supplies he could find and packed some saddlebags. Then he walked down the mountain.
The flip she'd asked for wouldn't help — what she needed was a Clover who wasn't a wreck, and no amount of fiddling with jewelry would change that. He had no hope that the normal passage of time would, either. But she'd endured so many years without him in order to give him a better Celestia … what right did he have to be selfish, now that the shoe was on the other hoof?
Queen Sterling, unlike her late mother, at least gave him an audience. That wasn't the only thing that had changed. The palace had been thoroughly remodeled since the last time he'd visited. The wing where his room had once stood had been converted into bureaucratic offices. And the only things that Clover recognized in her throne room were Platinum's old throne and the slight bulge in the back wall where, a generation ago, one alicorn had repaired another's hole.
Sterling herself seemed to live up to her name. The queen was darker in pelt than Platinum, and her mane glimmered with metallic sparkles of several different hues. Her surrounding coterie of nobles also followed the same fashion — although they weren't really "surrounding". Where Platinum had allowed them to swarm the steps beneath the throne, Sterling corralled them into a gallery along the outer edges of the room, and gave them sharp glances every time their chatter rose above a whisper.
"Clover the Clever," she said without waiting for her guards to announce her guest. "Has his lover a request for Us?"
He couldn't quite keep his ears from flattening. "Nay, Highness," Clover said in the Earth dialect, trying to ignore the sudden whispers from the gallery. "My purposes today are mine own."
Sterling frowned, then shifted forward in her throne, propping chin to forehoof. "Clearly so," she said neutrally. "Or he would know that for the past two decades, to speak another tribe's dialect in royal address has been recognized as a rude presumption against his equals."
The murmurs from the gallery increased further in intensity, and for once, Sterling made no move to stop them. Clover felt his cheeks start to burn.
"My deepest apologies, Your Highness, to the Throne and the Court," he said, shifting back to Unicorn and crouching to one knee. "I have not set hoof in here for those decades, and longer besides."
Sterling waved a hoof. "His situation is … unique. He may be excused his ignorance this once. What does he desire of Equestria?"
Clover remained kneeling, inwardly wincing. "He offers his humble services to the Throne," he said, falling back on mimicking her speech to hedge against further insult, "as Magister emeritus and magical researcher."
He didn't dare to hope — even when Sterling shifted on the throne again, an intrigued spark in her eyes. Regardless of the Court's changes, there was no way that begging for a job would go over well after walking in and insulting the room.
Judging by the renewed whispers from the gallery, the nobles didn't seem to think so, either. But the queen flicked a hoof toward the gallery, which immediately brought them to dead silence. Sterling considered for quite some time.
"He has the discourteous habit of addressing the Throne in third person," she finally said, and Clover winced again as his faint stirrings of hope were immediately quashed. "He also seems unaware of the magnitude of the advancements in magical theory since his previous tenure, and of modern Equestria's lack of hostile foreign powers, which render useless his storied expertise in combat thaumaturgy. Regardless, We recognize the deeds which earned him his epithet; his record of service to Our mother; and his favor with one of Equestria's most honored heroines. It is an offer not without merit. So We wish him great success in his ventures, and We vow to call upon him in the event of a windigo invasion."
That last bit was a barb so pointed that not even Clover's cluelessness with current court protocol was a barrier to comprehension. But when the gallery began snickering, Sterling flicked a hoof at them again, bringing the room back to an uneasily respectful silence.
"He may depart," she said, and looked away.
Clover bowed stiffly — far more lost than when he'd arrived — and began respectfully backing away. One of the guards lunged in to grab him, roughly rotating him to face the door and giving him a pointed eye-roll.
When he finished the all-too-long walk out of the throne room, the iron door slammed behind him with an almost-familiar boom.
Clover used the few coins in the bottom of his bags to buy a meal and a place to sleep for the night. The next morning, he began wandering the streets of the capital, not sure what else to do.
Around the time his stomach began rumbling, he passed by a scribe-house with a job posting in the window — and paused for a moment, considering. Strictly speaking, he didn't need a job to survive — even if he was reduced to the edge of starvation, he could always head out into the forest and graze. But he was acutely feeling the lack of a place to call his own — and both that and food would be far simpler to secure with a source of income.
The scribe-house, unfortunately, only wanted a papermaker, which didn't match his skills. Nor, from the look the chancellor gave him, did Everfree Academy have any positions he could fill. The bureaucratic offices, even if they hadn't operated by royal charter, had a two-month hiring process. Even the couriers — one of the few remaining professions where his level of literacy was a bonus — had no openings.
As the day drifted on, Clover — his hunger growing and his pride stinging — began simply walking into buildings with hiring notices posted outside. He was preparing himself for his tenth rejection of the day when he shouldered his way into what looked like some sort of jewelry shop. "Hello, you're looking for a salespony?" he called out, and a black-muzzled, large-eared face popped up from behind the counter.
Clover blinked. A young okapi doe — with something oddly familiar about her face.
Her eyes narrowed for a moment at the obvious shock on his muzzle, then her expression receded into a masked neutrality. "Thank you for your interest," she said calmly, "but you might not be the best fit."
"No!" Clover protested, feeling his cheeks burn. "That's not …" He trailed off as the ridiculousness of it hit him; Fimi would be long dead even if she hadn't lived half a world away. He swallowed. "I'm sorry. I just thought for a moment … you look like an okapi I once met."
"Mm-hmm," she said, clearly humoring him.
"In Lambyang," he muttered, increasingly embarrassed. "A lifetime ago."
The doe froze, one ear twitching.
Clover froze too, suddenly uncertain, then looked down at the display cases. Really looked. They held finely filigreed pieces, delicate gold and silver wires that seemed almost organic in the way they arced and swirled around tiny, gleaming gemstones. When he glanced back up, the doe was scrutinizing him with the same intensity, eyes wide.
"Fimi?" he said.
"You're — you're Clover," she stammered. "Grandmother's stories were true." She abruptly stood up, backing toward the workroom. "Don't go anywhere. I have something of yours."
The strip of frayed, clumped yak wool was barely recognizable as a scarf any more. It was essentially disintegrated around the spots that dragonfire had once burned away, and barely clung together in the middle where it had been folded throughout a lifetime of use.
"You wouldn't believe the number of times we heard her talk about it," Golden Hope said after closing the shop and inviting him into the back for a meal of hastily assembled greens. "The Imperatrix and her lover visited Lambyang, and the great Clover —" she hastily corrected herself — "you paid a small fortune for one of Grandmother's rings. Then, as you left, you gave her a gift of unimaginable value. A gift so great it would have been an insult to refuse, and also an insult to sell it. So she made a vow to repay your generosity by bringing her skills to pony lands, and to hold on to your scarf for you until she could meet you in person again and show you how you'd changed her life. She tried, a few times. Never quite got the chance."
Clover's ears drooped. Yet another being he'd failed by vanishing through the years. "I'm sorry," he murmured, setting down his fork.
"What?" Hope's face contorted in confusion. "Why?"
"I —" images of Pansy crowded Clover's mind — "I should have been there."
"Again, why? You met her for … what, five minutes? And in those five minutes you saved her from a life of misery, and then you saved her life. What have you got to feel guilty about?"
"I don't know. I …" Clover trailed off, then let out a heavy breath.
Hope considered for a few moments. "Well, if you want to talk, Mother says I'm a pretty good listener."
"Thank you for the offer." Clover picked his fork back up and tried to change the subject. "What do you mean, saved her life?"
Hope giggled. "Oh, that's the other story we heard a million times. She got caught in a sudden storm in the Llamalayas, and she would have frozen to death if she hadn't had the scarf. That's why we kept it after her death, honestly." She gestured at the sorry pile of near-fabric. "She could have walked to the market and bought a new one from a Crystal Empire importer for, what, twenty bits? But Grandmother refused to ever consider the idea. She'd wear this scarf every day we weren't melting from the heat. This was … is … her."
Clover nodded, at a loss for words.
Hope crunched a quick mouthful of salad, thinking, then swallowed. "So what do you know about jewelry?"
"Hmm?" Clover blinked a few times, then sighed again. "Nothing, to be honest."
"Okay," she said. "Do you want the job?"
The pay was thin — as gorgeous as the jewelry was, it was too expensive for many ponies and had fallen out of fashion for many others — but the work kept Clover occupied. During the down times, he would talk to Hope and her parents Aketi and Kungu, hearing stories of Fimi's life and theirs. Slowly, he started giving in to their questions and sharing stories of his own wilder adventures.
The inevitable topic came up. He was taking a little break from Celestia, he delicately explained. That was a thing they sometimes did, with the difference in their lifespans. It kept things fresh between them.
When Hope heard that, she offered him a room in the back of the shop. Clover refused. The okapi were doing enough for him; he needed to feel like he was in charge of something in his own life, even if the only lodging he could afford was a ramshackle, rat-infested boarding-house on the bad side of the city.
That seemed like a more fitting place to sleep, anyhow. It matched how he felt when he turned out the lights — when there was nothing to hold back the thoughts of Pansy and Luna, and the guilt flooded in like the moonlit tide.
Three weeks in — when he finally had a little bit to spare after paying for the week's rent and meals — Clover walked down the street from the boarding-house to a tavern. He sat down at the bar and ordered a drink.
When it arrived, he looked at the glass. He thought of Hope and Aketi and Kungu, and how disappointed in him they would be if he got drunk and missed work.
He clung to that thought. He stared at the glass for a long time. The foam evaporated off the beer.
I don't want to be the sort of the pony who lets everyone down, he finally decided.
Clover stood up, leaving the glass untouched, and went back to his room to resume wrestling with his demons.
The next morning started out hard, and then got worse when one of the customers looked a bit like Pansy. She wasn't even the same tribe, or coat color, or mark. But it was enough of a resemblance that he abruptly excused himself, went into the back of the store, and balled up in a closet.
Hope found him a minute or two after he broke down sobbing. She crouched next to him and held him until his breathing evened out — cautious and hesitant, as if he were made of the hairlike filaments of unenchanted jewelry wire.
The story of Pansy's unrequited love started coming out — first in a trickle, then a flood. Aketi closed the store, and soon the earthy scent of frying beans wafted in from the workroom. Clover found himself repeating it all over madesu, and somehow, it wasn't so bad the second time around, even when the room lapsed into uncomfortable silence at the end of his tale.
Kungu was the first to break it, clearing his throat as he crooked a hoof around Clover's withers.
"We all make mistakes, Clover," he said. "I myself was … not a good calf, in my youth. There were some bad colts who terrorized our neighborhood, and I fell in with some gryphons who kept them away. Mother's store was robbed one day while I was with the flock, and I thought I knew who was responsible. By the time the Guard stopped the fight and arrested us all, one of my wingmates was dead, and I had beaten two of the colts to within an inch of their lives.
"Mother took out a large loan to pay the maregild the court fined me, and a second when the Guard discovered I had taken to thievery to survive. She would have lost everything had I not agreed to an arranged marriage with Aketi; it was her father's purchase of the store, and her hard work improving upon Mother's patterns, which brought us through the hard times." Kungu squeezed his wife's leg.
"We had our share of fights," Aketi said, squeezing back. "But those taught us to appreciate the good times."
"I was not blameless in those," Kungu said. "Frankly, I still do not think that the fool who I was deserved such a blessing as her. But I slowly began to understand what being a good buck required, and she came to love me, and I her, and now we have Hope, and I would not trade this family for a thousand lifetimes as a rich prince." He smiled wistfully, then locked eyes intently with Clover. "Listen, Clover. There is no number of years of being the good father which could have ever made up for me being the bad son. But despite all the pain I caused Mother, before she passed, she said she was proud of me.
"That is love. Even though no amount of good can erase the pain of your failures, love forgives."
Clover wrote a long-overdue letter to Cookie that night.
The next morning, he sent it out via courier before work. He was quiet all morning at the jewelry store, lost in thought, and finally approached Aketi at her workbench as she was taking a break for lunch.
"Could you make me a custom piece?" he asked. "I can pay for it out of my wages."
"Of course," the old doe immediately said. "And do not dare think of paying. But for an accessory worthy of an alicorn, it will take quite some time to gather materials and perfect a design which complements her beauty."
Clover's face flushed. "No, that's … I mean, this might sound silly, but I have a much simpler design in mind. And it's not for her."
Aketi turned around, silently raising her eyebrows.
"What I was thinking," Clover explained to Hope while they were sweeping up that evening, "is that it's too late to apologize to Pansy now. But I can honor the sacrifice she made, and make her a promise that I'll learn from it."
"I don't see how jewelry for a dead mare does that," Hope mumbled around her broom.
"Not just any jewelry." Clover lifted his necklace from his chest. "We might have had a life together if it hadn't been for this. If I leave a copy at her grave, it'll remind me to think of her every time I skip a year."
Hope worked in silence for some time. "I hope the idea brings you peace," she finally said.
"You say that like you think it's silly," Clover said, a bit defensive.
She spit out the broom. "It is."
"Your mother didn't seem to think so. She thought it was sweet."
"Father and Mother got stuck in an arranged marriage when they were my age. That gave them both heads full of impossible romantic fantasies they enjoy playing out vicariously." Hope rolled her eyes and began cleaning the jewelry cases. "You must understand, Clover. Father and Mother never had a single spark of romance. They simply learned to live with each other in a way that turned into love. And yet they care more for each other and for myself than any couple I've ever met."
"Okay. What has that got to do with Pansy?"
"Love is work." Hope turned to squarely face Clover. "Love is not the foolish grand gestures, it's what you do every day you're together."
That set off a twinge in Clover's heart having nothing to do with Pansy — a little ache of longing that stuck with him the rest of the night.
And while spending his night missing Celestia wasn't pleasant, it was a welcome change of pace from the other thoughts chasing themselves in circles inside his head.
A few days later, Clover was awoken by a knock on his door. It was a courier — an old grey pegasus with one eye that didn't move with the other, staring forward with an unsettling consistency.
"You Clover?" the courier said, his voice gravelly.
Clover rubbed sleepy eyes with a hoof. "That's me."
The courier leaned to one side, his good eye shifting to stare at Clover's Mark. He glanced around the old, ratty boarding-house. He half-looked back to Clover's face and raised the brow over the still eye. "That Clover?"
"Long story," Clover said. "What's this about?"
"Huh, guess it's no surprise you're on this side of town after that stunt with the Queen. You sent a letter out to a Mister Smart Cookie?"
Clover's heartbeat quickened. "Yes. Did he respond?"
"Long story." The courier fished a letter from his bags, speaking around it in a somewhat muffled tone. "Yes, four months ago."
"… What?"
"Yeah, he paid for delivery on this right before he died."
Clover made a strangled little noise in the back of his throat.
"Funny thing, though," the courier said, dropping the letter into Clover's trembling horngrip. "He was awful insistent we not even try to find you till next month. Paid a ton extra for it. Said this was too important to risk coming back undeliverable." He shrugged. "Sorry I didn't track you down after hearing about your stunt in Court. Delivery instructions are delivery instructions, right? But when you sent him a letter of your own, I figured, there's no way he'd want us to keep waiting."
The courier glanced over at Clover — then paused at his expression, and cleared his throat.
"I, ah, won't keep you from your reading," he said. "Sorry about your friend. You have a good day."
Old friend, the letter began, and Clover closed his eyes for a moment as guilt stabbed him through the heart.
I write this knowing I won't ever see you again. We only get so much time till the stars call us Ever Upward, and mine won't last till your return —
Clover had to set the letter down as tears blurred his vision. Cookie was talking about him as if he'd flipped his amulet. But he had been sailing back across the ocean on the date the letter was written.
He should have visited Cookie right away on his return, Clover thought. No — he should have stayed in Equestria and gotten over himself. He had failed all his closest friends, one after the other. Cursed. Useless.
It took Clover several minutes to return to the paper. He wasn't quite sure why he did. Probably because he deserved whatever came next.
— your return. Part of me wants to hate that your necklace robbed us of one last meeting. But I can't. I know what a blessing it is to me and mine.
Clover blinked. He reread the line twice more. It refused to change.
The world's changed, Clover. Changed in ways I could never have hoped for. My son runs banquets for the queen of the unicorns. My daughter writes trade deals with races that used to enslave us. This is the world we built with friendship. And I couldn't be prouder for what the three of us did to make that happen. We were a living lesson that our tribes were stronger together. Because of that lesson, my foals grew up in a better world.
Thing is, I've studied enough history to know how fragile that is. Ponies now take friendship for granted — and that's how lessons get forgotten.
The world isn't going to stop being dangerous just because we did a good thing once. The ponies I love will need to remember what made them great to begin with. They'll need heroes. And I can rest my eyes easier since I know for sure there's one hero who'll still be there for them.
Clover looked up from the letter for a moment and shook his head numbly. "Oh, Cookie," he whispered. "You optimistic old foal."
I wish I could leave it at that, the letter continued. But you're not gonna believe me. You're too shook up right now.
Clover couldn't hold back a pained laugh. Smart Cookie had always lived up to his name — in his own humble, guileless way, he had more than matched wits with Clover. It was one of the things that had made Clover befriend an earth pony, way back at the beginning when that was unthinkable.
I don't know what happened at Pansy's home, the letter continued. I just know you took it hard, or you'd have come talked to me. And I think I know why.
So there's something I gotta say. It's breaking a promise, and you know how serious I take those. But I don't care. I'll only get this one last chance, and sometimes your principles stand in the way of doing what's right.
Clover sat up, his full attention on the shaky mouthwriting.
Back at the beginning I suspected you meant more to Pansy than just a friend. But even if I'd been sure, it wasn't my place to say. Then it took me another two years to realize just how deep that went. When I finally figured it out I told her she had to be honest with you. She said that would do nothing but hurt everypony. You and the Imperatrix were already deep in love. She said she was willing to wait till the Imperatrix broke you, cause you'd need somepony to help pick up the pieces. That never happened. But she never gave up.
About twenty years back, I begged her to move on. Said she'd already lost her childbearing years, she shouldn't waste the whole rest of her life too. That's when she made me swear never to tell you. Said that she'd come to accept you would spend the rest of her life loving the Imperatrix. And she'd made a decision. She wanted to die alone and broken-hearted to fulfill your prophecy, so nobody else who loved you ever had to.
The tears that had been lingering on the edge of Clover's vision finally worked loose from his eyes and fell to the page. "Oh, Pansy," he murmured, throat closing up.
I don't even know if that's how it works, the letter said. But nothing I did could talk her out of it. She was so determined to make that sacrifice that she didn't even tell any of us she was sick until she couldn't get out of bed. A lot of us didn't get to say goodbye either.
She was the best of us, Clover. She was the kindest pony that ever will live. She was a second mother to my family, and half of Everfree besides. But none of that meant more to her than you.
A sob escaped Clover's throat. He reached out to the paper in his horngrip, brushed it with a hooftip, and nodded wordlessly.
So whenever you doubt you can beat that prophecy, the letter finished, don't look at what you've lost. Look at the mare who believed in you so much she sacrificed everything for it. Look at the amazing mare you're doing this for. Look at the world that needs you both.
I wish I could've made it to the end of this adventure with you. But I know you and the Imperatrix are going to make the world even better than we all did together.
Your friend forever,
Cookie.
It was a clear, cool autumn day when Clover walked into the graveyard outside Everfree. Birds twittered in the red-and-gold canopies of the surrounding trees, and rabbits and squirrels scurried away at his approach. It was immediately obvious which grave was his friend's. Even more than a year past her death, it was cluttered with dozens of fresh bouquets, chrysanthemums and crocuses and her namesake pansies.
"Hey there," Clover said to the gravestone — and somehow, the silence he got in return felt comfortable and intimate, the same way it always had with her. And as much as it ached to finally see her resting place, he couldn't hold back a bittersweet smile.
"I wish you'd told me," he said. "I would have done things quite differently if I'd known." Clover stepped forward. "But I suppose that was the point of staying silent. You had to, to make the sacrifice you wanted to make."
Clover lit his horn, undoing the strap of one saddlebag. "When I first planned to come here, I thought I was going to make a foolish, grand gesture to remind me every day of my failures." He laughed, a painful noise at the edge of a sob. "But I know now that it would break your heart for that to be the lesson I walked away from this with. And I think I've got a gesture more fitting."
He gently extracted Fimi's disintegrating scarf from his saddlebag, laying the folded fabric onto the grave with infinite care.
"I won't waste my second chance," he whispered.
Then he turned and walked out of the graveyard, not looking back.
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Nice. Calm before the storm indeed.
Dammit!!! I'm crying now!! This story is super emotional!!
The mistakes that were made will haunt Clover to some extent forever.
But what he learns from them will hopefully make the future even brighter.
Impressive that he managed to muck up court that badly, then again the differences between protocol from Victorian to Edwardian era would be comparable to what he dealt with.
I hadn’t even considered how much Equestria might’ve changed in the course of, what, 40 years?
So far, however, I remain convinced that Star Swirl was just some yutz who knew a couple tricks and didn’t know what he was doing. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong by the end here.
There’s something familiar about courier... family resemblance, perhaps?
It’s both satisfying and heart-rending to watch Clover get some perspective knocked into him.
One thing... the court insisting he speak unicorn 'among his equals' is a very bad sign. Of course he came up in Platinum's court so he didn't notice, but that's the kind of casual racism that led to the Windigos in the first place.
I think we saw the seeds of why Celestia is Princess and the unicorn nobility is only rich families with titles.
Oh.
Oh God.
It’s... a terrible day for rain...
Almost nobody gets power relationships in a feudal society right. The scene with Queen Sterling brought joy to my heart.
Likewise the okapi culture.
The final scene was very touching.
9752714 Yeah, if she tries that (censored) with Celestia or Luna, the throne is going to need a new set of warm buns, because the old ones won't be sitting down any time soon.
Good work, Smart Cookie. They didn't call him clever because he was smart; that's what he had you for.
Here's hoping Clover succeeds at his new goal.
And it was nice:
Seeing Clover's artifact in this morning's Equestria Girls' special.
Mike
9752885
wait what
9752949
They do some:
Time loop shenanigans with a thing called the Time Twirler. So they're obviously spinning it the other direction, but still...
Mike, Being Spoilerific
There's a certain kind of writer--sometimes very good writers, Joss Whedon is one for instance--who sees love as something that is always and only a tool to be used to hurt characters as much as possible.
I hope that is not the case here.
I think my roof is leaking. Water keeps dripping on my keyboard.
9753094
I am no stranger to tragic romance. However, I saw the "always and only a tool to be used to hurt characters as much as possible" and flinched and said "ew". That requires a level of cynicism I just don't possess.
This story has neither a Tragedy nor a Sad tag.
9752656 9752714 9752811 9752812
Just one clarification about the court scene:
The intention wasn't quite to illustrate casual racism — at least, not the casual racism you're thinking of.
The insult Clover is offering isn't to the unicorn nobles, it's to the Earth and Pegasus ponies that are now belatedly recognized as equals in the court. It used to be that the unicorns would speak in an Earth dialect to show humility. Over the course of a few decades they slowly figured out that this was the pony equivalent of blackface; now, if ponies want to show humility, they do it without stealing another tribe's accent.
While things are still backward in Sterling's court, at least they're not regressing.
(And yes, we do know from canon that things in Everfree are going to dramatically change. We'll find out why before the end of the story.)
9753316
Oh, I got the intent of the tribal dialect thing! I thought you made it pretty clear.
What I meant is the complex customs and etiquette that are markers of the "in-group". Essentially, Clover used the fish fork on his desert... shocking! And proved to the nobles that he wasn't their "sort".
So... classism, not racism?
9753316
I was mostly just amused by the idea that he managed to put his hoof in his mouth with literally every statement. Then I felt I felt like showing off by noting an historical comparison that most likely matches timeline wise.
Gut punch.
That's a good way of looking at it.
Oh, damn.
Damn
Sad as this is, it fixes the problems I had with the last chapter. Bravo.
Aw fuck, I'm crying.
Sir, I must protest, this is a crime. ;_;