Author's Note

Suggested soundtrack.

She came, and found no one.

Twilight was not drenched in sweat. Far from it. But she could feel how every pore in her body was emanating an acrid, unpleasant excretion. She felt disgusted by it. She wouldn’t shower it away, though. She wasn’t in a mood to. She felt a cold, detached, irritated laziness. Her face slackened into a half-lidded, cold frown. The hunger, the greed, the lust, the sheer wanting that had been driving and oppressing her was gone. It did not leave behind happiness, satisfaction, or even contentment—only a relief, a void. She knew how playing with herself made her feel. She knew it didn’t really make things better, knew it did not fulfill her. And yeah, playing with herself was the operative phrase; playing by herself, alone, but by her own rules. No fear, no dependency, no compromise, no doubt, no pain… no gain either. No satisfaction, no happiness. Only the measly relief of an itch scratched, in the full knowledge that soon, inevitably, it will start itching again, that it would never truly leave her alone.

Twilight sat up. The mess around her barely registered. She couldn't bring herself to care about any of it. Books and pictures, haphazardly strewn, spoke of high passion and low appetites, of tense embraces and wet kisses, of forbidden pleasures that Twilight hadn’t felt guilt or shame about in a long time. Minutes ago, she had been immersed in them in a trance, running after an unattainable prize, the figures’ overt desire in symbiosis with her own. Now, she couldn’t even remember how that felt, to lust, to want, to strive. She only regarded the scene with a tired, slightly disgusted indifference. The kind one usually reserves for the cold, damp leftovers of an uninspiring meal.

Between the lines of text and the dots of pigment, imaginary characters and paid actors and models writhed and heaved, twisted and thrust, grabbed and released. They bit and they kissed and they clawed and they cried. Over and over again, in every combination, every permutation. Better them than… better this than the alternative. She knew that, without these anchors, these strangers and phantasms, her imagination would go to work on its own, and it would use the people she knew, the bodies she saw, breathing, hot, alive, at hoof. She did not want to think of her friends, her neighbors, her acquaintances like that. It felt wrong to debase and use their image in her mind. What’s more, there was the continued, persistent, unassailable contrast between the world of pleasures and excitements her dreams offered, and the frustrating status quo… She started crafting schemes and drafting lines, she ran conversations and scenarios in her head, she became overwhelmed with the desperate need to change things and get what she wanted, no matter the cost, the only consequence of any weight being her fulfillment. It was wrong, it was unbearable.

So she danced alone, to her own tune. Easier than leading, much easier than synchronizing. She didn’t have to wrestle or weasel or charm or earn consent. She didn’t have to worry about consequences and circumstances and audiences. She danced alone, and it was safe. She played by herself, and kept herself company.

She didn’t feel like getting up. She didn’t feel like doing anything. Plans, organization, schedules, checklists, none of that mattered. Nothing at all mattered. She couldn’t care less. And there was relief in that, too, there was peace, there was sanity. The scorching fire was not quenched, but it had become, for now, a dull ember. That was the best that she could hope for.

She curled unto herself. Hugged herself. With deep, slow breaths, heedless of the chaos around her, unconcerned with her own unpleasant smell, or the sticky stains on the blankets, she drifted into slumber and silence, her dreams blissfully free of the kisses and caresses of the ponies she knew, and loved, and could never have.