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// III. How Pure, How Dear Their Dwelling Place 
// Story: City in a Bottle 
// by Cynewulf 
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I wonder if you'll even be surprised when I arrive, Twilight.


It's funny. I feel as if so few things really surprise you anymore. Ancient horrors? You've read up on it already. Ghastly things from beyond the pale? You probably just published something about them anonymously in one of Equestria's journals again. Vampires could rise out of the mists of legend and you would have some sort of counter already in place.


But matters of the heart? You try, dear. You try, and I've always admired that. You try so very hard.


That's not to say you're awful at it. On the contrary, you're often full of wisdom. But it's something that's never come very easily for you.


The tower is on an island, cut off from the rest of the city by a chasm that I dare not spend too much time looking down. I have an unshakeable feeling that to spend too much time gazing into its mystery is to be lost. There are three bridges, but I only need the one that connects to the cracked and overgrown highway.


The bridges and tower, unlike the city, are not ruined and run-down. Nature has not reclaimed these last bastions of artifice quite yet, and something tells me that they cannot be reclaimed by something so paltry as grass and moss. This tower, six miles high it seems, is a testament to the everlasting things. Like the sun and moon it cannot be plucked from its place with ease, and no mere pony could hope to move it alone. I doubt a seasoned battlemage could hope to bring your tower down. 


And I have no doubt that you like it that way.


You've always been about stability. In your own idiosyncratic way you have always been a devotee to Order and Right. All things, you insist before your books, have a place in the fabric of reality. All things have their paths to tread. That doesn't mean that their paths are straight lines plotted out by the stars--you were far too smart for that. You knew, even before you branched out, that ponies were wiley creatures. Predictable to a fault, and yet eventually they will surprise you. When they do? That surprise is worth the wait.


But I wonder, as I begin the long walk across this pristine bridge towards your lofty estate, I wonder. I wonder if you knew of my coming. Perhaps you even hoped it would happen.


It would not be the first time, after all!


Thrice I have gone looking for you, and thrice have I found you. 


Not that you asked me to find you. You never have. Your absence was request enough. When we lose a thing of great price, do we not search it out? Would we not turn every stone until at last our treasure was safe in our grasp? That is how I see it. A Lady does not merely wait for the world to come around. She occasionally has to coax it towards her.


So I coaxed you.


And you were worth finding, in the times before. I quite think you are worth finding now. After all, we have a date to keep in a few days. 













The doors are taller than the ones in Canterlot's palace.


At first I am baffled as to how they operate, until I find a small box by the door with a hoof-sized button. Blinking, I press it in and the doors open on their own. I admit--and if you were to laugh at me, Sparkle, I would throttle you--I admit I was a bit startled and may have perhaps made an undignified and unladylike sound of alarm. 


Inside, when I had composed myself, I found an empty lobby. It was, again, pristine and untouched by the decay of the strange and quiet city. Yet it still held the peace I had come to expect from this self-exile of yours.


I wandered the lobby for a moment. I was in no real rush, after all. Where else would you go? Where else would you be but at the point which commanded the best view? For you have always been one to observe. Did you not court me in such a way? Stolen glances, smitten observation? 


I remember it fondly. You were rather obvious, you know. The insistence on what passed for subtly in your mind only proved to make your admiration of me more apparent. It was endearing, but I was hesitant. Yes, I was hesitant. For I had been unlucky in love once before, and at first was loathe to try again.

Yet... you never prodded or pushed. It seemed as if you were content merely to be in proximity, merely to enjoy the aesthetic experience of love. Who could blame you? Well, I could. When week after week had passed, a month of this, I finally asked you on a date. Poor thing! You weren't even sure what I meant at first, but I could see how delighted you were and that was perhaps when I first realized that I might return some of your ardor. There was something in your smile which entranced me. It was guileless. You had not been planning this. It had come to you unbidden and unlooked for, and with your characteristic glee you seized the chance.


The, ah, "happy dance" was a bit much. Darling, you really need to work on that.

It was just a trip to the spa and dinner, yet the whole while you could not help but chatter on and on. You were so happy. It was perhaps the happiest I had seen you in ages. Honest, open happiness that you did not bother to hide. If you were even capable of hiding it!


Every time I go searching for you, I remember our first dinner alone and your radiant smile. I think about it as I find the elevator, and I meditate upon it in the depths of my heart all the way up.