I am, above all things, an artist. If you can but hold one thing in your mind at a time, hold that one for now. Clothes, drawings, paints, clay--we are so absorbed in the medium of art that we begin to confuse creation with creator, or more heinously Creation with creation. Do not give me one of your smaller titles. I will bear the only one that matters.
I came to this place, beautiful yet ghastly place, for the sole purpose of finding you, Twilight.
I ask myself with almost every step what brought you here. What drove you to such a place as this? More than that, who built it? Did you conjure it up from dreams, or was it here before? The city feels ancient and ageless. In the oddest way, this city feels like Celestia does in those moments I've witnessed when it is just the two of you and she seems happy but so, so old. You know the ones. Playing chess in the garden, whilst I sit to the side with a book. I've slid my eyes over the top of the page and caught glances here and there.
But... the city.
You’ve seen it. Why should I describe it? Why should I do anything? But I will, because it is better to catalogue than to wallow.
It is made of concrete and steel, this city. It is made of concrete, steel, and water if you count that. It is full of tall towers that I am shocked do not disperse the clouds themselves. The streets are black and green, asphalt overgrown with vines and moss, sprouting with flowers. The grass comes up between the cracks in the sidewalk in the dry districts. The tattered remains of garish advertisements tatter from their frames, and whatever magic kept the great signs lit is long gone.
It was perhaps a city I would have loved dearly in another life. I am sure of that. A city bustling with life, an urban sprawl which supported Society with that coveted capital S, which I have so long chased after as the moon chases the sun. The strange creatures that lived here, the humans from that other world, are not so strange as to be above the simple pull of culture, after all. Where culture grows, so does the great pecking order of being. And so there, too, are those not so unlike myself who will race for their share of sunlight above the canopy.
The flooded districts are a different story. The streets slope downwards dizzingly into the murky water, and the tall towers are broken into islands covered in soil rich with clover. Archipelagoes between swathes of city proper, little dots of green against the muted map, and then beneath them lights. Yes, lights. Have you noticed the lights, Twilight? I didn’t, not at first.
I wonder what they are. Sometimes, I swear they move. Sometimes, I swear they are curious about me as I am curious about them.
When you came here, I waited for your return. At first, I was not overly concerned. I love you despite many things, and they are rather small things. You forget often where and what and who and why, the basics of life. Often I have found you ravaging your frefridgerator at unseemly hours, shamefacedly admitting in the cold light that you had simply forgotten to eat that day. Your lists can be yards long, and yet in the midst of your endless activity you forget to be a pony.
I step closer to the water’s edge in the flooded district nearest to the central tower and dip my hoof in. It’s not warm, but not cold. It feels nice.
Do you swim here, Twilight? Do you like it here?
What do you do?
When we were younger, your worries were silly. So were mine. I have worried for so long and so often about the passage of time and its marks on me, only to age far better than I have a right to by any account. You worried about such silly things. Your looks, but not as I worried--do you remember? I remember, though you never said so. I saw your anxious looks in the mirror every function you attended. You were as plain as you could get away with, and yet you fretted. You worried about your quiet. You worried about your noise. You worried about forgetting, and sometimes quietly you worried about your memory being far, far too good. You worried, in a word, about Us.
So did I, if perhaps more quietly.
I’m not unhappy that I did. It is better to worry and to be happily proven wrong than… well, the rest.
I take a deep breath and draw back from the water. A long gaze up at the central tower only makes me want to sigh again. Honestly, Twilight. A tower? It’s even vaguely white. You’re such a brilliant mare, but you have no sense of subtlety. Not that I’m surprised. I learned that sometime around the first time we danced together, you and your loveable heavy step.
If you haven’t installed some sort of lift, dear, I will be rather put out.
Though, strangely, I’m sure you have one and haven’t used it.
There’s something about you, Twilight. Something that slips out, off my tongue, into the wind and wherever else. There’s just something about you. You’re the mare who buries herself in efficiency but then can’t see the value of others until she’s literally ordered to make friends. You’re the mare who builds grand towers but then walks most of the way up them because if you’re going to have stairs, then you should use them.
The trek to the tower is long, but I have nowhere else to be. I want to see you again. I want to see you in a place that you chose to be in. When you didn’t return, I came looking for you. I don’t want anything. I just want to see you.