//------------------------------// // For We Know in Part, and We Prophesy in Part // Story: We Will All Be Changed // by Cynewulf //------------------------------// Twilight looked simply lovely. She always did, but she certainly did now. Something about the way her face lit up when she jumped into an explanation did wonders for the soul. I knew so little about what she talked about, and yet I followed. She had a natural knack for teaching, bringing you along on the ride of passion with her, letting you have just enough time to see and know before whisking you off into some new adventure. She talks with her hands, but she keeps one on the table for me, palm up so that I can snake my arm across the glossy table and touch it, enjoying the warmth. Twilight thinks of herself as artless, but it is not so. Her art is in the precise details, in the unspoken planning. A lesser architect signposted, called attention to every small act of love, but Twilight needed no applause. Every sign was small and intimate. It was a secret shared just for me, left behind to discover like a lover’s note slid between the cracks of a garden wall. She has a strange sort of boyish charm. I had just been telling Fluttershy about it the other day. Fluttershy, her hair like a forest, her eyes emeralds, her soft hands curled around the old mug she kept in my kitchen when she moved out. She has a boyish sort of charm, the kind of thing I expect from some Trottingham school boy out of an old book. Tweed jackets and earnest discussions of Beowulf. She is more into the hard sciences, but the air remained. And Fluttershy had nodded and she had smiled and she had said, Rarity, why does it bother you? The other thing? And I hadn’t had an answer, had I? Her story winds down. The lab is getting more demanding. Her fellow assistants are pulling through but its hard and she’s exhausted. She wants to sleep, she says, but then she gives me a lazy smile that says she does not want to sleep just yet. (Lord, make me chaste, but not yet--I read too, Twilight, I read just as much! Just different things!) It’s been a week since I’ve seen her and we both know its been too long and we left on a sour note and suffered for it, but we don’t say any of that that because saying it revives that moment and its feelings so instead we just smile at each other, almost timidly, prodding at the edges of possibility. The evening is still young, and so are we. The world is still open. I have the weekend off, she says, and I feel a happy flutter in my chest.  Do you? I ask, grinning. My dear, that is quite a lot of time to have you all to myself. A pause. Did you have any plans? I ask, feigning curiosity where I feel a squirming worry. To be denied-- My weekend has your name written all over it, she says with that cheeky face I love. She blinks and then laughs and says it is actually literally written all over it. In gel pen, the ones I bought her, pink and purple and my name on her calendar. It’s silly, a bit childish. I can’t help but giggle with her about it. Show me when you get home, I say. She asks if I’m not coming back with her, and I tell her, oh no, she’s coming back with me. And she snorts, and I squeeze her hand. When the check comes, I give the waiter a look and he smirks as he plops the check down in front of me. Twilight tries to object, but I’m well practiced in cutting this off, and I’ve already maneuvered the card and check back into the fellow’s hand. She gives me a look and I indulge in a bit of playfulness, sticking my tongue out at her. It was my turn, I insisted, despite knowing that it was definitely not. But I still feel the sting of my own misconduct from our last date. She seems to have forgiven, but I am not sure I’ve quite forgiven myself. What was I thinking? What prompted my irritation? The week apart has made it hard to even imagine being peeved with her. We leave hand in hand. Of course I move in closer than is strictly necessary--I’d say it is, in fact, strictly necessary--despite the warmth of the encroaching summer night. She squeezes my hand, and even though I know it’s foolish, I can’t help but imagine myself turning to her and suggesting we drive off to god knows where, go find a place to lay out and look at the sky, do some other fool thing.  The drive back to my apartment is uneventful, but nice. We’re quiet much of the way. Her music is playing, something intricate in a language I don’t know. It isn’t quite what I’d listen to on my own, but she was always finding strange new things and it was nice to explore vicariously through her. When we arrived home, I hesitated in my own door way for just a moment. I could hear Twilight taking off her shoes behind me. Some of my quiet, strange cheer evaporated.  Memory hit me suddenly. Fluttershy, sitting on my couch, her brow knitted in concern and thought. You should talk to her about it. You should explain how you feel. Yes, I said in tandem with her past self, but how do you explain something that’s more feeling than thought? How do you say, something is wrong and I need to know what it is?  I think you just say that. Like, um. Those words, Fluttershy responded, shifting in the past before me. Twilight asks if I’m alright, and I assure her quickly that I am. Everything is quite alright, I just had a bit of deja vu. She accepts this--I hope she accepts this--and I briskly move ahead of her, worried my feelings will betray me. I’d commented on her clothes. That’s how it’d started. And a spat about clothes wouldn’t have been so bad, it shouldn’t have been, but it wasn’t about the clothes. It wasn’t about the wrong sizes and ill-advised color choices. It was about how I felt like she was a puzzle and I had lost the box with the full picture. I liked the butch aesthetic. She could certainly pull it off! She could pull it off, as much as I was confident she could pull off any look she wanted. I wanted to support her no matter what she chose to do with her appearance. If she would just let me help her! I’d been exasperated, yes, but the look in her eyes. I’d tried to backpedal, say that she was beautiful—which she was—and I was sorry if I had implied otherwise. I tried to be more clear that I just wanted to help. And the look went on and on. It was just raw hurt. And I didn’t understand why.  I shook my head and spoke up from the den. I was thinking we might could watch something, I said loud enough for Twilight to hear. There’s popcorn and I have box wine.  Box wine? She asks, already in my kitchen, amusement obvious in her voice. Isn’t that a bit lowbrow for your tastes? I roll my eyes. Darling, part of growing up is realizing that sometimes dignity is slightly less important than thrift. For your information, wine is wine even when it comes in a garish little box. It tastes just as good. She laughs, and I can’t help but listen. Even with my distress, I still loved it. Settling in for the evening, the distress died down, but the memory of my conversation with Fluttershy played over and over. Wine helps, and movies help, but memories have a way of slipping in between the noise. She was so hurt. She was so hurt and I didn’t understand why, and I dug the hole even deeper— “What set her off? I mean, what was the first thing that seemed to hurt?” I mentioned that her shirt seemed a bit big, and that I could help her if she wanted to go shopping one weekend, and then she seemed to be uncomfortable, so I assumed she felt slighted! So I said she was beautiful, and… “And it hurt.” Yes! But whyever should it?  “I… I have an idea, but I’m worried that if I tell you that you’ll latch on to it. You and Twilight can, uh, fixate.” I’m not blind to my foibles, dear, I say flatly. Twilight yawned beside me. I snuggled in close, shifting the blanket around us as I laid my head on her chest. She was comfortable as always. I did this sometimes just to hear her heart beating like a steady little timpani.  I blinked, surprised and pleased at that, when I felt her hand run through my hair. She was usually so cautious, self-concious about ruining my hard work, that I hadn’t the heart to tell her that I missed the way my mother would play with my hair. I all but purr. “So, I’ve talked to Twilight some, cause she’s not been doing great. You know, lack of sleep and diet…” I’m aware. I’ve been worried myself, but trying not to pressure her. You know how she can be when she feels like she has a duty to see a thing through. I’d never abandon her to it entirely, but I’ve learned to help without being a stumbling block. “She mentioned that. She was really grateful. But, um. I don’t know where to start.” Start at the beginning, dear. “That’s just it. Where’s the beginning?” I love you, she says, and I look up and before she can move her hand I kiss her palm. I love her too, I say, and catch her eyes. Twilight, I say on impulse, and my heart hammers in my chest. I’ve wanted to apologize all night, I say. For last week. And she looks away and seems nervous. Its okay, she says at last, but I know its not—not yet. Let me make it up to you? I suggest softly. She looks down at me, intrigued. Asks me what I have in mind. “Has she told you about mirrors? That’s where she started with me…” I tell her that its a surprise, and raise up to kiss her soft lips, and I don’t stop until she’s gasping for breath. She says yes, she’ll go with me wherever and do whatever, and I tell her with a bit of smugness that oh, I knew she’d be up for the adventure, I have ways of making it worth her while, and it is a terribly silly thing to say but she laughs and that is enough for me.