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.
Twilight Sparkle stood on the observation desk, staring out over her city.
It wasn’t really a city. Nor was it hers in the sense that she’d not built it. It wasn’t anyone’s. It was just… a place.
She liked that it was empty. She liked that the city had mysteries, but none of them were demanding anything at all from her. If she wanted to solve them, she could. If she didn’t want to, they lay dormant and waiting.
She shouldn’t complain. Not that she had! But she shouldn’t. Life had been hooved over on a silver platter and she was acutely aware of it. Family, friends, inherited wealth some day and a stipend from the rents on the lands she now technically owned by right of being a Princess. Oh, being a Princess. That should go first, probably.
But sometimes, Twilight wished she could. A thousand more petty assaults on her patience could she endure if she could have but a day of solitude and freedom. It wasn’t likely to happen out there.
But here? Here it could happen. In a world with only one pony, it was a lot harder to ask--
And then there were two ponies.
She flinched back, baffled. Who would even know--?
Oh. That was who. She let out a breath in sudden relief, but it was short lived. It was only Rarity. But it was never just “only Rarity”, was it?
It wasn’t as if she had been avoiding Rarity. It wasn’t that. She was fairly sure. If anyone’s presence was to be bearable, it would be that graceful unicorn. But she didn’t want to bear it. Not this one moment. Every other moment, yes and yes forever, just not this one moment.
But it wouldn’t do to whine about it. There were worse fates.
So, instead, she went out on the balcony and looked down for a moment. She felt the wind in her mane, and marveled how real it was. The city was ludicrous and impossible, a dream somewhere between nostalgia and melancholy. Somewhere for a pony feeling like she felt.
She’d meant for this place, this city and its commanding tower, to be an outpost to hide out in for a little while until the stormclouds in her heart had dissipated. But they hadn’t gone away, really. Being pensive and indecisive was certainly better than being worried and fretful, but it wasn’t as if she’d really solved anything by taking this sabbatical from reality.
She wasn’t sure why, but she started to speak over the rusty rail into the cold wind that smelled of the sea.
“You know, I used to think that being together would be like this. Just like the city in a glass, plucked right out of time. I used to think being together would be like finding a smooth stone in a river. You take it out, dry it off, put it on your desk. It’s nice, and it reminds you of a wonderful place. But the river can no longer erode it. Does that make sense?
“I was so sure that was how it was supposed to work. It was supposed to be this… this collage of snapshots, all of them wildly happy or softly content, and then you would just freeze all of that. That was a relationship. That was love.”
She slumped a bit and sat down.
“I’m not sure I like being wrong. Sometimes I do,” she told the air. “When it comes to science, when it comes to magic… sometimes being wrong can be fun. It means I learn something new, and now I can be even more sure than I was. But being wrong about this doesn’t feel like that. I don’t lose important things because I was going about one of Starswirl’s variations in an unorthodox manner. I don’t end up a-alone.”
She paused, and cleared her throat.
“Wow. Okay. That was… uh, unexpected.
“You know… one of the weirdest days of my life was the day after Spike moved out? I had never been on my own. Spike lived with me in the tower, and before that I had lived in dorms or with my family. I just had never been really, truly, on my own. You girls think of my old life as lonely, but it always had other ponies in the background of it.”
Where was Rarity, she wondered. Was she down there, on the ruined highways? Had she wandered into one of the overgrown malls or stood transfixed by the old movie advertisements? She could see her love and hear her soft tapping hoofs against the tile as she inspected the remains of an old boutique on one of the city’s many high streets in what she guessed had been some sort of shopping district.
Did she walk by the shining sea, and smell the salt and feel the wind, like Twilight did?
All of a sudden, she found she was desperate to know.
“I guess I was afraid,” she said at last. “You know. Of being officially, technically, exactly alone. I wasn’t prepared. I couldn’t make contingencies for a state of being I knew nothing about. Without data, you can’t draw conclusions. No bricks without straw,” she added with a smirk. It felt a bit out of place, a bit weak. She dropped it. “I planned something for that day so it wouldn’t be so empty. I was going to rework how I organized the shelves, so I could learn to do it without Spike. The palace library was even smaller then, though to you it probably has always seemed massive. I had planned on it taking me four or five hours, with lunch splitting the work evenly in two. It was just long enough to tire me out.
“Except it wasn’t. I spent all day in there. I forgot to meet everyone for lunch and showed up late and frazzled. I didn’t get take out at my favorite place like I had planned to, and I sent the staff home early. I just wandered. I do that, sometimes. I wander. Usually I do it up here--” she tapped her head. “But sometimes… Well. I found this gem for a reason.” She chuckled.
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.
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.
When the door open, I find you staring slackly at me. Of course you must have known I was coming. No, I know you knew.
It's so charming. You are prepared for every contingency, but I've always been something for which you could never prepare. Your plans, your composure, they all melt away before me. Is it me, or is it you? I've never been quite sure, but I've also never minded it. I enjoy seeing you on your backhoof sometimes, dear. It's just so cute.
"Hello, Twilight," I call out as I step into the penthouse. That's what this is, I assume--lavishly furnished in a stark white, with long couches and a few tasteful paintings. The lighting was soft, comforting.
You probably can't hear me, on second thought, out there on the balcony. I walk out to you.
Look at you! Nervously shuffling like a school filly with a crush. Never change, Twilight. Please never lose that shy filly's air. You are your purest, sweetest, and kindest when all of your plans fall apart. It's like watching a guard let down her armor piece by piece, and seeing the pony that is beneath. The armor was impressive. The armor was useful. But when it is not needed, when it's not dangerous or urgent, the real mare comes out like a bat blinking in the sunlight somehow changed for the better.
"Hi," you say at last. "I, um... I didn't mean..."
I just smile at you and walk the last bit of distance on my long journey to nuzzle your cheek and kiss your sweet mouth. "I know."
"I swear, I was just coming back!"
"I know," I murmur, and kiss along your cheek to your neck and then lay my head there, humming gently.
"You're not, ah, you're not mad?"
I shake my head gently, trying not to snag your ear with my horn. "Not at all, dearest. You were just having a breather."
You sag against me, and I keep you up. Together we sit like that, bodies close and breathing soft. I don't know how long we stay like that. I don't particularly care how long. I'm just happy to touch you again. Your voice is like music in my ears. What kind of music? What kind of music would best capture how I feel? A symphony in Canterlot, snuggled together in your royal box seats? One of the dark jazz cafes in the lower city, nestled in a back booth with wine and the freeform sax? The lyre that nice mare plays in the town square once a week, delicate strings? I don't know. Maybe it is all of them.
"How did you figure it out?" you murmur in my ear. As I smile and continue to hum, I feel you stroking my mane. Did you ever realize how significant that is? I'm so careful about my coiffure, but whenever you do this I simply let you, and could not be bothered to mind in the slightest. You're not the only one who lets her guard down, you know.
"Well," I say breathily, wanting more to lounge than to talk suddenly, "I was going to ask if you wanted some tea. I went up to your study and you were absent. I wasn't bothered, but I noticed something new on your desk and examined it. I didn't mean to pry, dear. But as soon as I came near..."
You nod. "You felt me, I'm guessing."
"I did."
You chuckle--how I love the sound!-- and say, "You know, I was curious if it might have that effect. Thank you for providing a few more data points, love."
The first time you called me love you were so shy about it, you know?
"You're very welcome," I say. "Do you remember the first time you called me that?"
"Hm. The first time?"
"Yes." I straighten my back and then smile as I lock my gaze with yours. "I've come a long way. Might I rest for a moment on the couch inside, preferrably with a beautiful mare by my side?"
You flush and I can't help but giggle as we move back inside. I lay out on the couch, only now realizing just how sore my legs are, and you lay down beside me. Your head rests on my chest, your mane spilling out behind you, and I can't help but love how close we are, how wonderful this is. It still feels... It doesn't feel new but it is wonderful. There's a seed of the novel in each touch and each soft moment that lacks urgency between us. We can fall forward like this, fall into this familiar ease I could not have envisioned years ago.
"The first time," I say again, "you were so shy. We had been dating about... oh, I think it was about four months? Five? I had accompanied you to Manehattan, or perhaps we had both accompanied each other. I forget the errand. We were on a walk, and I complained of the cold."
"I remember now," you say lightly, and then giggle. "I thought a lady didn't whine."
"I will have you know that I never whine," I said and gave a little harrumph. "But I was complaining about how cold it was, and you offered me your coat. Do you remember what you said? It was so gallant."
"You'll have to forgive me. I don't remember the exact words," you say, sounding genuinely contrite. I reach out idly and lay a hoof over you.
"Of course, Twilight. You said, 'I'll keep you warm, love,' like you were a dashing hero in some play! I could have swooned on the spot!"
I can't help it. I just have to revel. Reveling includes a bit of rolling around giggling. You push me a bit, laughing, and I see you're flushed again. "There's no way I said that."
"I guarantee it," I say. "On my life, on my honor as a Lady, I say it's true! And then you'd realized what you'd said, and the look on your face!" You bat at me, still insisting that you had never said such a thing, but I just laugh.
The truth, the deeper truth, was that as I looked at your face and saw many things. You were a bit embarrassed, yes, but you were a bit frightened. You meant it. You knew you meant it. You weren't sure if I would know how you meant it. It had only been four months, I could almost hear you think those words. Only four months. Isn't that too soon?
Maybe. But I wasn't interested in asking that. I wasn't interested in questioning your feelings just that moment. I just wanted to accept them.
I find I feel the same way.
But Twilight, you're always the one that keeps chasing. "I... I was feeling stressed," you begin. "I just wanted to get away for a moment."
"Hm. How long?"
"Just a few hours," you say. "I was planning on being back in time for dinner."
"In time to try the caterer's fare? You remember he's coming by?"
You squirm a bit. "I, uh, yes I remembered. It's on my list. Er, lists. There are a few."
"Oh, I'm aware."
"Heh. Sorry," you say, and I shush you.
"None of that."
"I, ah, I was worried when you entered the city that you'd think I was having cold hooves."
I shake my head. "I know better than that. It hadn't crossed my mind."
It did cross my mind. For a few moments it was all I could think about. But only for a moment.
"I'm glad," you say, and the fragility in those two words breaks my heart.
I adjust our position on the couch so I can kiss you. "Would you like to stay here for awhile longer? It's rather grown on me."
You nod, and I smile.
"Then let's stay awhile. You and I and the quiet."
