Twilight had found the city as a filly, and kept it hidden out of whim more than reason.
She had chanced upon it one day in the dusty shelves of an old bookseller. It had been a tiny thing, just a gem set in enamel with an intricate set of spires like a city within. She had been entranced with the thing immediately, and tried to buy it. The old bookseller, one Ivory Horn, had blinked at the meagre bits she had to offer and given it to her as a present for, he said, his favorite customer.
It had lived in her room for years, and when she had moved into the lonely tower in the palace it had sat on her desk. Always, the City had been a toy of sorts, or a talisman of her own peace. Many a night had found a stressed Twilight Sparkle taking it up to examine it with a shadow of her old childish wonder, looking it over and wondering where it had come from.
It had been her secret and hers alone. A meaningless secret, she had assumed, but a delight precisely because of its lack of meaning. A safe sort of secret, the kind that could never rear up and bite when things went sour.
Safety had, in a way, always been the watchword of Twilight Sparkle. Safety meant order, meant control, meant knowing where everything was. Others looked at her organization and saw chaos, but Twilight knew where everything should be--she could tie every single thing to its place. That was how you grasped the world. That was the way you kept it all making sense.
The only problem was that having ponies around complicated things.
Twilight Sparkle had had dreams as a filly, about ponies. All the ponies on Earth, moving and moving and moving. Like bugs crawling under a rock when you turned it over, always writhing with warm, concupiscent life. They were all so wonderful, so fascinating, so bigger than she was. They took up space in the sun. But there were so many of them. There were too many. If they would only stop moving, she could study them and understand them. If only they would stop moving! But they wouldn't stop moving.
And they never would.
She coped as best she could. Sometimes, sometimes she could enjoy their moving. They were such graceful, beautiful creatures. Ponies could be doing ridiculous things and still she would find them worthy of her attention and her curiosity. But there was always too much noise.
So when she'd discovered the secret of her little gem... it had been such a boon. The possibility of it was entrancing, but more than that it was the promise of escape. A world without ponies. A world without noise and movement. Not a place to live, but a place to retreat to in good order. She had never needed it, not really. The idea of it had been enough to sustain her.
I'll go there, she would say to herself as deadlines closed in. As ponies disappointed her. As the crowds asking for more more more pressed. I'll take a break, she would promise as the letters from her seneschal and petitions from across the province filled her desk. It'll be quiet, she thought wistfully as they had bustled her from appointment to appointment.
But she hadn't needed it, in the end. The possibilty of escape is powerful. That a thing might end, that the frustration and the sorrow might subside was enough to endure. Anything could be endured if you were sure it would end, one way or another.
That she had chosen at last to use her little gem was as much a surprise for her as it must have been for anyone else who had noticed. She was absolutely certain ponies had noticed already. The thought of them noticing she was gone made her insides churn. She didn't want that. Why couldn't they care about her when she was there? About her, not about her absence or about what she could do? About... About...
That was an old wound. She sighed and wilted on the railing.
Rarity would be here any moment.
Any moment now.
What was she going to say?