The Other Side

by MagnoliaThourns


Ch.7 - Crashing Upwards

Freshly showered and dried, I open the door to see Rainbow Dash waiting with a wing over Fluttershy, who’s nestled into her neck. They notice me.

“Come on, Pinkie’s baking something sweet and Rarity’s making tea in the common room,” Rainbow says.

“Okay.”

While I walk with them, Fluttershy matches my stride and says, “Twilight, I hope we didn’t come off as too forceful, but we really are worried about you.”

“No, it’s alright Fluttershy. I needed to tell you all sometime.” I think that’s true.

We come into the room, and chairs have been pulled out onto the floor in a close circle. On the coffee table Rarity has stood up a teapot with a small candle under it to keep it warm. She levitates me a cup and I take it into my own magic.

They sit in a circle, and look at me expectantly. I gulp some tea and wince as it burns my mouth. But it doesn’t matter. “I’m sorry I’ve made you all worry so much,” I start, genuinely sad that I’ve let myself make them so upset. “For a while now something has been happening and it’s kind of scared me. I felt like it was too deep inside a part of me to tell you girls about. And I apologize for that.”

“We accept your apology.” Fluttershy says. I smile at her.

“What is it? Do you have butt cancer or an evil twin sister or what!” Pinkie shouts.

“I’ve been sleepwalking.”

“Is that all?”

“No, Pinkie, there’s more. Starlight, I’m sorry that I told you I had a rash and sleepwalking was a side effect of the treatment. And that I was starting a garden, and all of the other excuses I gave. I’m not gardening, and I don’t have any rashes.”

“I never did actually see that garden. Is that why you didn’t want to come to our sleepovers, because you knew you would sleepwalk?”

“Partly. It started out only happening a few times a week, but then it happened more and more and more until now it’s every day. I go to sleep, and I wake up having walked into the Everfree.”

“The Everfree?” Spike asks, “You can’t sleep walk in there, you could die!” Fluttershy nods rapidly, and I shake my head.


The conversation wears on, dissipating through time like drips of ink into the ocean. I tell them all about how I end up at the river every night, about the missing part of me that’s on the other side. My mouth spills out all my attempts to get across, the river’s immunity to any of my spells. And it gives out how I’m training with you, and how you’re teaching me Zebrican magic, but I leave out our cuddling and your kiss and our new relationship. I’m not quite ready to have that out there yet; it only half feels like it really happened now that I’m not standing next to you.

I answer a few of their questions and finish the story up to finally walking on water for the first time. A moment passes by in quiet. “I don’t know, do you girls think I’m crazy?”

“What? No, of course not.” Applejack says, “How many times have we all gotten strung along on some crazy magical thing? This time I guess it just happened only to you.”

“She’s right Twilight. When do you think you’ll be able to walk across?” Starlight asks.

“I don’t know. I hope soon. Zecora said now that I’ve done it once, I should be able to make faster progress.”

“It’s astounding, Twilight. May we come to see you off?” Rarity asks.

“Oh, uh.” I can’t believe I didn’t think about this. They all look at me so full of expectation and worry. I gulp the last of my tea, and put the cup down on the coffee table. I still feel weird, like I’m letting them into my very soul. But as I think back over the years we’ve spent together, over every little thing that we’ve done for each other, I realize that’s what friends are for. I should have done this sooner. At the very least, I can try to make up for being so absent for nearly a month. “I’d love to have you all there, if you’re willing to come into the Everfree with me. I don’t think it’ll be much to look at, but it’ll be nice to have you girls waiting for me when I come back. I’m sorry again that I lied to all of you about it.”

“Of course we’ll come to the Everfree with you,” Rainbow says, “and whatever happens we’ll be ready. If you need to fight off giant creatures that stole your whatever, we can take them.” She threw some punches at the air, and smiled back at me.

“Thank you all, really. I know I missed a lot of life for a while, and we’re all here now, so, what’s been going on? How are you all doing?”

Starlight spoke, “Besides one of my friends is being summoned to a river in the Everfree? I think I’m doing okay.”


They trickle out around one, and I’m ready for a nap. Starlight wants to keep talking, and follows me as I walk to my room.

“I’m gonna take a nap, Starlight, before I go out to the market.”

“Oh, are you going to buy food? I can help, I can make a grocery list while you sleep.”

I turn to her at my door and smile. She looks at me expectantly. “That sounds great Starlight. In fact, Zecora will be there so you two can finally meet.”

“Oh yeah, that’ll be good.”

“Alright, I’ll see you then.” I step inside and close the door. My breath pushes out all at once and my wings sprawl to the floor. I’m climbing in bed when the door creeks open and Starlight pokes her head in.

“Hey Twilight, uh, is there anything I should know about talking to zebras?”

“Haha, no. She’s just like everyone else. Mostly, anyway. Just be yourself and be friendly. Oh, and Zecora speaks in rhymes but you don’t have to respond like that.”

“Oh. Okay, thank you.”

I wave her away and slip into bed. Set a timer on my desk for an hour and a half and close my eyes. If I fell asleep right away I would have time to complete a full REM cycle. And if the world stopped existing I wouldn’t be tired anymore. I’m still awake under the covers and the dark for at least a half hour, my head full with thoughts of you and the river. I wonder what my friends will see. I wonder if it’ll just be a normal volume of water for them. I wonder if things will ever feel comfortable again. Eventually I managed to push all of that aside and meditate as I slowly creep toward sleep.



As we near the market, I scan for you in the crowds. You’re a little ways off, standing by yourself, frowning, with all of your gold circles and bangles back on. I wave at you, and your face brightens, trotting up.

“Hello Twilight, and Starlight I see. Have you both come to shop with me?”

Now that I know what rhyming means to you, it makes me sad that you’re doing it again, even though I knew you would. But I try to look unphased and say, “Yep. I told Starlight and the others about the river, and Starlight wanted to come along to meet you.” We lock eyes. I can’t tell what you’re thinking.

“It’s nice to meet you, Zecora.” Starlight sticks out her hoof. “I... like your ear rings.”

You chuckle, shake her hoof, and we start walking down to look through the vendors and buy some food more palatable and varied than just backyard grass. Which for some reason I suddenly remember eating, back when I was in Canterlot and would shut myself in for days or weeks just to read. It feels at once a lifetime and only a few days ago.


We come to a display of tomatoes with a gap between it and the bell pepper stall next door where kites poke out from the horizon, tethered to the park in the distance by invisible strings. As we get in line for tomatoes Starlight runs over to the gap to kite gaze.

“Look at them today! Good old orange checkers is still flying even after what happened last week, wow. What a trooper.”

You turn to me and whisper, “You told them about the river?”

“Yes. I’ve been kind of out it for the past few weeks and I just realized I owed it to them to say what was going on.”

“I am glad you found your strength. Did you tell them I stopped rhyming? Or that we’re dating?” You look anxious and I want to pull you close and tell you that I will do anything for you.

“No, I didn’t. I figured we want to take your time with this, and I didn’t want to put you on the spot.”

“Thank you Twilight. I want to tell them myself.”

Words spill out of me without thinking, “You speak so confidently, Zecora. I love your voice. You never use any filler words like ‘um’ or ‘ah’ it all just flows so confidently. I guess part of that is from your magic practice.” I realize the point I can make, and gently rub you with the side of my head for just a brief second. “I think they’ll love to hear you speaking in prose.”

A low giggle mumbles out of you; you’re smiling again. “I hope so.”


As we leave the market, saddle bags weighed down with food and a few other things, you ask me if I want to train the rest of the day before nightfall. I look to Starlight.

“Oh go ahead. The sooner you get over that river the better. I’ll put our groceries up and see you when you get home.”

“Well, actually, I might just sleep wi—at Zecora’s. Since it’s closer to the river and all, you know, less distance to sleepwalk.”

“Oh, okay. I guess I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Definitely. Thank you, Starlight.”

“Yeah, of course. Goodbye, Zecora.”

“Goodbye for a while Starlight, I hope you have a pleasant night.”

“Thanks.”

We part ways with her. As we near the Everfree forest, nerves start quivering through my stomach. I don’t know what to say to you all of a sudden. And the quiet feels weird.

“Did I offend you?” I blurt out, walking over roots and avoiding rocks. “Are we okay?”

“What? Twilight, no. It is good you told your friends. I shouldn’t have let this get to my head. I am more nervous to stop rhyming around them than I thought.”

“Zecora, you have a lovely voice. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

“It has become such a part of my character, I fear they won’t know me anymore.”

“It might take a while to get used to, but we like you for you, not for your speech pattern. ...Are you nervous about telling them we’re dating too? I am.”

“Yes, that as well.”


We get to your hut and I help you put away groceries. We talk some more. I want to pour out my heart all over you but I don’t know how. So it just dribbles slowly from my mouth as we drink tea. And I want to soak up every part of you into me. But I can’t. I have to listen and piece it together and ask you questions and talk. And we talk so much that it’s already seven o’clock by the time we actually get to training.

It’s harder to focus than I thought. To keep my mind empty. You tell me I can’t think about the water as water, I have to think about it as a solid. I have to believe it is a solid. When I ask for the hundredth time how you do it, you tell me how you can keep your mind empty of thoughts of the water while thinking without words of other things. Your faith in it’s ability to be walked on so deep seated at that point that you don’t need to think about it, just like I don’t need to think about how the dirt will hold me up.

I just have to forget the water exists at all. I have to trick my body into forgetting that it is there. The ultimate mind over matter exercise.

I can hold out for a few seconds by the time we finish, and all of a sudden I feel confident that I can do this. That the river will not beat me.


We cuddle through the night again, but don’t kiss. It feels weird. After all of our communication, all of the letters we’ve written to each other and all of the touches with our hooves and our bodies and all of the hours we’ve talked, it feels like I’m still distant. There’s something still holding me back.

You can tell. I think it’s the missing piece. I’m not ready for you, that’s why I wasn’t going to ask you out until after this. You know I need to get this over with first. But I can still push my nose to your chest and breath in deep. You smell so good; so warm and real and clean.


I wake up at the river, standing next to you. I try to clear my mind. I don’t want to walk back. I want to walk forward, over the surface, into the calling clouds. I put one hoof on the water, and then another. I’m out by about a meter when I break and crash into the current. I swim back and spit out some water. For a river of magic and destiny, it tastes like dirt and rotting organics.

You match my stride as we start walking back. “You are getting close, Twilight. Perhaps the next night. Now that you’ve started faith walking, it will become easier very fast.”

I nod. The water has soaked cold through to my soul. “It’s like I’m reaching for something that’s just of grasp; I’m about to finish a book when someone tears out the last pages, it’s a spell that I just can’t make work for some reason! I’ve never been so vexed my entire life.”

You rub my withers for a moment, and we train for the rest of the day. I can’t think about you anymore. I can’t think about anything but the river; the muck in my mane and the taste in my mouth burn into me. I have to do this. I have to do this. I have to kill this thing before it kills me.


Seven o’clock rolls around but I don’t want to head back to the castle. I don’t want to do anything anymore but train. I pretend to leave, and then teleport back to the river’s edge to try walking out again. I know I can’t make it all the way, so I walk a few steps out and then start moving parallel to the shore, going upstream.

I make it about three meters. I need more. The fog starts up maybe twenty away, and it’s got to be a few more out than that, because it doesn’t look like the water gets any shallower from what I can see. I figure forty meters, but it could be kilometers for all I know.

I keep walking. Every time I fall in I get more frustrated; the forest on my right grumbles with life and I feel like I could bite the heads off any creatures that dare come out to attack me.