The Other Side

by MagnoliaThourns

Ch.1 - The Thin Place

Author's Note:

The perspective here is experimental, the "I" pronoun refers to Twilight Sparkle and the "you" pronoun refers to Zecora. You see this perspective in songs and written letters, but I haven't seen a story written out with it. I tried it out and liked the sense of intimacy it created for me, so I kept it. I hope it is not confusing to read; if it helps, imagine that this is all one giant letter addressed to Zecora from Twilight (then the pronouns would fall into place naturally). Thanks for starting the story!

We’ve been writing to each other for months now. It’s fun having someone to write letters too, especially since I don’t write to Celestia like I used to. And we’ve learned a lot about each other, finding common ground in my interest in learning anything and your prowess with potion making. You even mailed me supplies to mix my own ink—not any kind of magic ink, just iron-gall. Making black pigment from two relatively colorless sources was pretty fun, and I keep a jar of crushed oak galls fermenting on the balcony off my room now. I haven’t needed to buy ink since. It surprised me more than I’d like to admit at how much chemistry you know, but it makes sense that it goes hand and hand with potion making.

I like how you write all of your letters as poetry. How you’ve branched out from rhyming couplets into everything from sonnets to freeform verse. The haikus I’ve sent back to you made you laugh, I’m sure. I’m good at writing technical papers and essays, but poetry is so out of my depth I can really only appreciate it from the outside.

A few weeks ago, in one of our letters, you mentioned in passing that you felt lonely sometimes. I never addressed it directly because there were more pressing things in that letter—like the jaguar you’d found eviscerated at your doorstep—but I still think it over sometimes. It was such a small thing, and I don’t know how to bring it up casually.

I toss and turn some more, thoughts of you and what I’ll write in my next letter crowding into my mind. It’s been too long to bring back up how you feel, and I’m not sure what I would even say. So it’s just one of the things that kicks around my head at night while I’m trying to sleep, just another thing that we have in common, recently at least. With this mess that’s started up a few moths ago, I feel more alone than I know have a right to. I throw another pillow off my bed in frustration and slam my wings out of the covers. Nope.

Sleeping spells are easy to get addicted to so I don’t want to use them too often. I roll over on my back and put my hooves in the air. Besides, they’ve always creeped me out with how I can feel myself casting magic as I loose conciousness. The final bits of the spell have to knit themselves together correctly while you’re asleep or else who knows what could happen. The crystal ceiling of the crystal library is high above me. Too high. As much as I hate to admit it, I still miss my old Golden Oaks. And I miss not having separate rooms with Spike. But oh well.

Eventually, sleep comes to me like Luna spreading her sympathy.

In my dream I’m moving through an odd version of town. The rooftops reach to the sky unthatched and open; dragons, buffalo, you and other zebras, deer, donkeys all trot in the streets; and I’m missing a foreleg. Underneath it all I can feel it. Even in my dream, I can feel myself walking in the middle of the night. As the end of the street approaches, I know suddenly that I’m about to wake up. And I’ll be—

I open my eyes and sure enough, I’m standing with two hooves in the water of the river. Way out in the Everfree Forest. “Uuuuggh!” I yell in frustration, sure that nopony’s around to see or hear me. “I don’t care about this stupid river! Why am I here?”

For a few months this has been going on. I look back over the river. The other side remains a mystery, but I know that’s where I’m supposed to be. Everything past a few meters out is all obscured by fog a fog that eats every spell I throw at it. Nothing works. In frustration I even made a canoe last time I was here, but it did the same thing as flying. I rowed deeper and deeper into the mist in my hollowed-out log until I finally decided I had to turn around before exhaustion collapsed my muscles into jelly, and when I did the river bank I had started on waited only a few oar strokes away, a few wingbeats away.

I sink back into the mucky shore and stare at it in the half-light. It’s beautiful, I know, but I still hate it. Glittering all smugly with every crisp vibration of the water, casting rays of errant moonlight into the fog. And behind my purple butt hungers the dark muddy forest filled with gnarled trees grasping for the clouds, pinpricks of dim glints staring intently. A bird screeches in the distance, cutting through the rustling and my restlessness. I swish my tail anxiously and teleport home.

Settled into bed again, I stare at the wall in the dark, passing in and out of a shallow daze, never fully unaware of the bed pressing into my side and the pillow I cuddle. Eventually my alarm clock rings.

The day goes by in a happier blur. I’m burnt out at breakfast, but Spike is kind and makes eggs. Starlight goes off to meet Sunburst at the train station, while I get to stay behind. Which is nice, and calming, and I draft my next letter to you before picking up some books and running my hooves through their pages for hours in an attempt to finally finish them.

Pinkie Pie comes by later, she’s always fun to see. Rainbow Dash visits too, in need of the next book from A Series of Hapless Happenings. And all too soon, night falls into the atmosphere again.

“I wish I could stay up forever,” I mumble to Spike as he brushes his teeth and I sit with my neck peeking out of the bathwater.

“I bet you could,” he says, spitting, then looking over at me, “I’m sure you’ve got some kind of spell for that, right?”

He’s smiling too much for me, so I turn away and use my magic to pull a rope of water out of the tub and douse my mane. “Yeah, but those have side effects.”

“Well, you could always ask Pinkie how she does it.”

“And go through another Pinkie sense debacle? No thanks, Spike.”

He finishes brushing, and hops off the stool. “Well, it’s just a thought. Now, I gotta read the latest issue of Spiderpony before I finally beat Starlight at chess. Goodnight, Twilight.”

“Goodnight, Spike.”

He closes the door, and I’m all alone in the steamy bathroom. The purple crystal walls sweat lightly with condensation, throwing little pricks of golden light from the lantern into the air. The water is foamy and clouded from dirt and soap. I dunk my head under, fluff my wings in the suds for a moment, and try to imagine, holding my breath with my eyes closed, that I’m in the river. That the water is hot with my destiny, and the other side is coming up just ahead of me…

But I need air eventually, and when I come up to breathe deep breaths, it’s just the quiet bathroom again and the big bathtub is as still as usual. I finish washing as slowly as I can.

Starlight stops me in the hall as I’m walking back to my room.

“Hey, Twilight, sorry, Spike said it was okay but I just wanted to make sure. We can use that room, um, the one...” She points far down the hall, and I realize she’s trying to say the left wing common room.

“I know the one.”

“Oh, great! Anyway, we can use that for our sleepover, right?”

I shake my head but the fog inside stays. It had completely slipped away from me that Sunburst was staying here while he was in Ponyville. “Yeah, of course! Is Spike staying with you?”

“Yep, I invited him along. And, um, I was wondering too, if you wanted to come?”

Shoot. “Oh, uh, well,” I can tell she’s nervous. I want to be supportive, but I already feel in my tendons that I’m going to be sleepwalking again tonight, and I don’t want her to know that. I don’t want anyone to know it. “I’m pretty tired tonight, but he’s staying for a while, right? I’ll come join you guys tomorrow.”

“Okay, well, thanks Twilight!”

“Don’t mention it. Have a good night, Starlight, and don’t let Spike keep you up too long.”

She smiles a little too big and waves as she walks down the long hallway.

I wake up at the bank of the river again. It’s too much. The bitterness of it all wells into my mouth and I sit down in the slurry of mud to just cry it out. But there’s nothing to come, and all the tiredness accumulated in me from sleeping so bad for so long holds only dry humor about it all. My barren tear ducts fill me suddenly with rage; I jump up on all fours and scream, “Fuck you too, river!”

“Is that you, Twilight? Such vulgarity, could I be right?”

Your voice about makes me jump out of my skin, but you’re unperturbed. The gold rings you wear around your neck and your leg, the earings too, are gone. You look even more beautiful naked than in your jewelry, I notice in the back of my mind. The lack of gold also makes you looks smaller. “Zecora! Oh, I was—this is—I was just…” Shame and embarrassment warm up my face. As if you’ve caught me writing my Starswirl fanfiction or something.

You motion for me to come to you, and I do. You put a hoof on my neck and hug me tight, and it feels like the closest thing to home in a long time. I can’t help but notice how warm your neck is pressed against mine.

“It’s not safe to talk out here, come to my hut, poor dear.”

“Thanks Zecora. It’s nice to see you in pony again. I like your neck.”

You smile at me. My face cools a bit, but all that energy redirects to knot my stomach up. It doesn’t help that I realize how stupid the phrase “I like your neck” must sound, even if you understand what I meant.