Time and Tide
by Ceffyl Dwr
Today had felt good. She felt good. But the night would still make everything that little bit better.
Wouldn’t it?
Twilight scrunched her muzzle as doubt crept into her silent mantra. Her stomach fluttered, reluctant to be soothed by the unspoken words.
The absence of clouds had made the sun the sole anchor in the sky, pulling the expanse of smudged hues insistently down towards the stretch of beach. Shielding her eyes with a hoof, Twilight watched her friends as they splashed and twisted in the water, the ripples shed from their bodies soon lost within the surf and currents. The heavy heat of the day had turned their voices into muted echoes, identical and yet different to how Twilight had always remembered them sounding.
As she scrabbled with her thoughts, she became aware of the earlier good feeling dissipating. She closed her eyes, a mechanism learned to prevent her from seeing the world whenever that bright, warm filter slipped. How many more times were they all going to be able to come together like this, willingly surrendering themselves to a single perfect moment in time? When the sun rose again, it would bring with it their responsibilities and ever-diverging ways of life. She knew that slowly, and yet inexorably, the branches and partings would once more come back into focus.
The tide pressed against her flank and trailing hind legs, dousing the lazy heat from her body and tugging insistently through her tail as it retreated. Sitting beside her, Trixie continued to quietly make alterations to her sandcastle, the raspberry glow from her horn barely noticeable in the evening light. A second arch had been erected since Twilight had last looked at the castle, curving elegantly above the glittering protrusions of sand at her hooves—towers, ramparts and turrets all silently competing against one another. It looked fantastic, and yet it looked absurd.
“It looks fantastic.”
Trixie lifted her head, that speartip smile on her lips. “You’re only jealous, Sparkle,” she replied, instantly interpreting what wasn’t said from what was.
Twilight looked down at her own effort, suddenly feeling protective of its form. Somewhere in the distance she heard Rainbow Dash and Applejack whooping and hollering, but she didn’t look up. The line of the sun against the horizon had felt too much like a beginning; the creeping palette of night too much of an ending. The shifting clash unsettled her stomach and made waspish movements across her chest.
“Better hurry up, Sparkle. You’re running out of time and your castle looks—” the frown in Trixie’s voice became suddenly apparent “—well, lame. Are you even trying? You promised me a battle of wits, skill and... sand.”
The foam-flecked surf splashed once more against Twilight’s legs, the tide pressing on, resetting the beach for tomorrow. She scratched a hoof across the sand, wondering whether any of the water molecules had swept up here previously. As unlikely as it was, some part of her wished that they had. It made the whole process a little more comforting—something that remembered all of those tracks and marks and moments, even as they washed them clean from existence.
When her gaze finally settled back on her sandcastle—a squat dome circled by deep trenches—a laugh bubbled from between her lips. “I guess not. But you’re about to be sorry that you put so much effort into yours.”
Trixie’s eyes held the sun as she scuffed a hoof of sand at Twilight. “When have I ever been sorry for doing anything, Sparkle?” She gestured flamboyantly at her castle. “Sand is boring. It starts the day boring and it ends the day boring. But for a while at least, this sand will be amazing and spectacular.”
“We are still talking about the castle, right?”
“Hah.” Trixie’s bark of a laugh made Twilight shudder. It was both harsh and joyful, almost exclusively reserved for those rare moments when she was caught off guard—yet impressed nevertheless. It had quickly become one of Twilight’s favourite sounds.
She tapped the sand beside one of her moats and grinned. “Well, even if mine is... modest, I still think it’s going to last longer.”
Trixie shuffled close, casually brushing sand from her forelegs as she gazed down at the mound. “Against the tide, perhaps. But in the memory? I doubt it.”
For a moment it felt as though a cloud had passed between the sun and the beach. The salt-flecked wind turned jagged and hostile, tugging at Twilight’s eyes, her throat. Trixie’s words coiled easily through skin and muscle, finding a home deep in the pit of Twilight’s stomach.
The water charged forward again, pooling into the imprint of a horseshoe nearby, smoothing it quickly out of existence. Twilight swallowed.
Would Rarity remember standing in that spot as she tried desperately to get the melting fragments of Pinkie’s ice cream out of her mane? In a few months, would Rarity even remember it happening at all?
“Do you think everypony will remember this weekend?” she asked. It felt as though sand had managed to get inside her mouth, but the need to ask the question had become desperate. It was lonely just thinking about things all the time; she was trying to get better at not doing so.
Trixie was humming a merry tune, her eyes focused on the ground as she scooped a hurried trench around her castle. Twilight watched her work for a few moments, feeling her lips twitch into a shallow smile. Trixie always seemed to know when she was speaking rhetorically, but sometimes she called it wrong. When it happened, Twilight always felt more unpredictable, a little surer of the things she brought to the relationship.
Sometimes Twilight found herself wondering whether Trixie knew that too, and called it wrong on purpose.
After another few seconds she poked her marefriend gently on the flank. “Hey, you listening?”
The sand and pink hues had made a desert of Trixie’s cornflower mane. Her eyes glittered as they tracked the coming tide. “I heard you, Sparkle. And of course they—we—will. It’s been a wonderful day so far. Sure, lazing around on a beach all day can get a little dull, but the tavern and arcade crawl tonight should more than make up for it.” She blinked at the look on Twilight’s face. “Ponyfeathers, Twilight, I was joking. You know if the wind changes you’ll be stuck like that.”
Twilight poked out her tongue and looked away to where Starlight Glimmer and Fluttershy were lying, stretched out under a pair of parasols with their forelegs entwined. Beyond them the beach stretched on, lonely, if not empty.
“I just thought this trip would be a nice way of celebrating us coming together as friends.” Her gaze fell back to the ocean, where Pinkie Pie and Meadow Flower were throwing a beach ball between each other. “But I wonder now whether it’s just yet another reminder of what we’ve become.”
“Oh charming. You make a mare feel appreciated.” Trixie’s mock pout disappeared with the tide. “It’s fine, though. Trixie is nothing if not thick-skinned.”
Twilight laughed, but the sound broke too easily in the air. “Sorry, I’m sorry.” She nuzzled Trixie, encouraged by the purr that escaped her marefriend’s throat. “It’s funny, but this was never what I expected my toughest friendship lesson to be.” She watched the silhouettes of her friends bleed into the brightness of the sunset. “Making friends can be hard sometimes, sure, but worrying about growing apart from them all?”
“You don’t want to be forgotten?” Trixie’s eyes were fixed on the tide as it lapped into and over the shallow trench she had made. Her body tensed momentarily.
Twilight noticed the movement. She pressed her muzzle against her marefriend’s cheek, drawing in her scent. “No. I just don’t want to be the only pony who remembers.”
Trixie was silent for a moment, and Twilight could feel her breathing slow to the rhythm of the tide. Then she snorted. “Oh please, Sparkle. We’re all here aren’t we?”
“Just about,” Twilight replied. “I got the feeling not everypony wanted to come.”
“That’s just you overthinking and overworrying about the fact that some of us are busier than others. Anyway, isn’t the desire to make memories better than the desire to remember them?”
“That’s...” Twilight paused, the line repeating in her head.
“Just some friendship nonsense Starlight’s been spouting of late. Probably picked it up from you, I imagine.” Trixie flashed her teeth. “I swear, Twilight, you rub off on ponies in the most dreadful of ways.”
Twilight’s body shook as she giggled, and she used the motion to press herself closer. Trixie twisted her body, taking hold of Twilight’s face between her forehooves. “But not even you get to tell ponies how and when they remember those moments. You just have to believe that they will.”
“And if they don’t?” Twilight jerked her head free, irritated by Trixie’s casual conclusion.
She shrugged. “Then they don’t. You think I remember even half the shows I put on round Equestria? But I bet you that after each one, somepony does.”
Twilight grunted. “You hope.”
“Please, Twilight. These are my shows we’re talking about. I know.” Trixie flicked a hoof through her mane. “And as for today? Well, I’m personally going to remember it as the time I built a sandcastle that was so much better than yours.”
At that moment the tide lurched in again, a foaming churn of water that slapped across their flanks and the lower quarters of Trixie’s castle. Trixie watched as one side of the castle, smoothed and glistening from the impact, cracked and slumped over. Then she grinned at Twilight.
Twilight just stared at her. Framed by the sun, Trixie was a bundle of colours and shadows; without hard outlines holding her together, and the salt and sand that stained her pelt making her an illusion. And yet, in that one moment, she looked more real than ever before.
Twilight considered her own forelegs—anchored and solid, leaving tracks and imprints in the warm grit. What would she look like with her colours bleeding across the sand and sky? Could she ever exist the way Trixie seemed to? Was she even supposed to?
The salt wind slapped against her cheeks, splintering her thoughts. “Trixie...” She shook her head. “What are you really going to take from today?”
“Hmm.” The grin twisted into an expression of mock-concentration. “Mostly? That sand gets everywhere.” She laughed at the hurt look on Twilight’s face. “Does it really matter what I think, though? You’re going to take it with you anyway. Pack it all up inside that saddlebag you call a head.”
“Well apparently one of us has to.” Twilight wasn’t sure why Trixie’s dismissal of her question stung so much, but it did.
“Let the sand remember it,” Trixie replied, her voice becoming firm. “Or trust your skin to—let your skin and your eyes and your heart remember it.” She poked Twilight’s head gently. “I’m having to be sentimental because of you, Sparkle, and I don’t like it one bit. You know it doesn’t have to be all up there, ready to be pulled out at a moment’s notice. Just... Live in the moment for a while. Can’t that be enough?”
When Twilight didn’t answer she poked her head again. “Well?”
“I don’t know, can’t it?” Twilight huffed, rising to her hooves and taking a step back. She scuffed the sand beneath her, blinking against the darkening light. She didn’t want to think about it. It always became too much whenever she did—her own personal tide rising up from deep within her, frothing and snapping and pulling her down to where some empty blue void waited. It was a place that held indistinct shapes which dissembled and reassembled quicker than she could track, ever-changing and always out of reach.
The beach had started to spin and Twilight suddenly felt wet sand against her back. She stared up at the empty sky for a moment, waiting for the disorientation to pass. Only then did she realise that she hadn’t fainted. She had been pushed.
“Trixie, what the—?” The words died in her throat as Trixie stepped into her field of vision, standing with her legs straddling Twilight’s body. Her marefriend’s expression was unreadable, but her eyes glittered as she dipped her head so low their muzzles almost touched. Then she dropped her head lower.
“Tri—Oh!” Fire broke out across her neck as Trixie’s muzzle started to track peppery kisses and nips down one side of it.
“Tell me your skin won’t remember this, Twilight,” Trixie whispered in her ear before resuming her attack. “I dare you.”
Twilight opened her mouth to protest, but could only manage a low moan. She found herself slowly leaning her head to one side—not enough to concede defeat, just enough—opening her body up to Trixie’s insistent lips. She heard a triumphant growl as her marefriend’s tongue traced gentle patterns up her neck and towards her muzzle. She felt the heat building beneath her ribs. She felt the heat building everywhere. Twilight braced her forelegs against the damp ground, but they didn’t feel as though they were working. Perhaps they weren’t really trying to.
“It won’t,” she whispered, her voice becoming little more than a desperate, brittle pant. “It won’t remember. Try again—Oh! Trixie, try harder!”
Trixie lifted her head momentarily; her satisfied eyes dim and heavy-lidded in the crimson light. Then she complied, dipping down once more. Twilight felt a delicious shiver pass from her dock to her muzzle, and threw her legs around Trixie’s flank, pulling her marefriend down on top of her. The warmth was home. She knew then that her body would never forget it.
“Oh come on, guys! Get a room or something, will ya?”
Twilight’s eyes went wide, and she hastily peered past Trixie’s sand-flecked mane. Rainbow Dash was hovering alongside them, the tang of the ocean clinging to her body. She pressed a hoof close to her open mouth and loudly pretended to gag. “Or better still, just stop altogether. It’s gross.”
Twilight glared at her friend, and gently pushed against Trixie so she was able to sit up. Standing behind Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Big Mac were adding coy smiles to her protest. Twilight looked at each of them in turn.
“We had a room, actually. A nice empty beach-shaped room—” she squinted, distracted by the arrival of Starlight and Fluttershy “—um, thing.”
“Real articulate,” Trixie whispered, sitting back down beside her.
“Gee, this again?” Starlight looked down at them. A mock-grimace quickly crossed her face. “Gotta admit, Trix, it is a little bit gross. I mean, Twilight’s my teacher and housemate. It’s a step or two away from you dating my mom.”
Trixie looped a foreleg behind Twilight’s back. Her eyes sparkled. “Your hot, sexy mom.”
“Who, I might point out, is younger than both of you,” Twilight spluttered.
The laughter that filled the air was like kindling to a dying flame. Twilight turned her head towards it, embracing the warmth.
Applejack glanced up at the darkening sky. “Well, best be getting a shift on I reckon,” she said, waving to the others still in the water. “Gotta whole lot of cider drinkin’ ahead of us, and we all know how long it takes Dash here to find her pace.”
Rainbow Dash snorted. “And we haven’t even eaten yet. We also all know how much of a lightweight AJ is when she’s drinking on an empty stomach.”
“Seems somepony has forgotten that night in Las Pegasus then.” Applejack grinned from beneath the shadow of her hat as Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Meadow Flower trotted over, shaking sand and water from their salt-flecked bodies. “Betcha Rares hasn’t, mind.”
“Hm, what’s that, dear?” Rarity looked at each of them in turn, her expression curious.
“Oh come on! You can’t have forgotten that, Rarity!” Rainbow Dash beamed proudly. “You know, when you were trying to carry me back from the casino to the hotel and I totally yakked in your—”
“Oh, yes. I had, actually.” Rarity scowled. “Rather, I had tried to. I do hope you’re both not planning a repeat of that particular drinking game. I hear that Sandflanks is a little more... respectable than Las Pegasus.”
“Huh.” Rainbow Dash bumped her flank against Applejack’s. “We’ll see about that, right?”
Twilight laughed at Rarity’s disappointed sigh. “I don’t think I even remember that happening.”
“I think you were inside with Fluttershy, still trying to win your first game,” Starlight replied, grinning.
Twilight matched it. “That I do remember. Well then, shall we head over to the pier and get started?”
“Last one there’s buying!” With a whoop, Rainbow Dash set off, the other ponies in pursuit. Twilight watched them gallop and fly across the beach towards the dark smudge of the pier, the lights on it just beginning to burn against the bruising sky. A beating heart and the vessels that had since become a part of it—a heart that she hadn’t heard beat as one for a while, but which was clearly pumping to the same rhythm it always had, even if sometimes she failed to notice.
“You okay?”
Twilight blinked. Trixie was still beside her, watching.
She rubbed a hoof across her face and smiled. “I am. I just... I had forgotten about that night in Las Pegasus.” It suddenly felt as though the most wonderful smile was on her face, and she checked her reflection in the pooling tide to make sure. “How about that? I had forgotten, and everypony else remembered.”
Trixie pressed her lips gently against Twilight’s. “Come on, Sparkle. If I have to pick up the tab for your friends and their bottomless stomachs I won’t be a happy mare.”
Twilight laughed, the sound spilling easily from her mouth. “Don’t worry. As it so happens, I know of a pretty good teleportation spell.” The sight of Trixie’s half-scandalised, half-impressed expression made her heart flutter. “Just... hold on for one minute.”
She trotted over to the remains of Trixie’s castle.
“Would you do it differently?” she asked, looking down at it. The moment the words left her mouth she knew it was a stupid question. Trixie’s expression merely confirmed it.
“As if.” Trixie pressed her flank against Twilight’s. “Would you?”
Twilight studied her castle. It too was fragmented, soon to be lost forever to the tide. But until then it was doing what a sandcastle was supposed to do. She nodded. “As if,” she replied, hearing the smile in her voice cut through the sound of the surf.
Trixie flashed a smile in approval. “Right answer. Now can we go? This day isn’t getting any younger you know.”
Casting one last glance at the beach, Twilight nodded. The day had felt good and she felt good. When all was said and done, that was all that mattered.
“You’re wrong about that.” Her horn began to glow, a soft light enveloping them both. “The day is still young. And you know what? It always will be.”
Author's Note
Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear what you thought.
The idea of using sandcastles to represent the passage of time is hardly uncommon (I think; perhaps I've just read a disproportionate amount of fiction where it's been used in such a way) but when the idea popped into my head, the resulting story (Twilight worrying about her close friendships becoming tempered by time) quickly followed. It's rare for an idea to emerge so fully formed (for me, anyway) and so I didn't want to not write this. The notion of being the only one of an old and close group of friends that remembers/cares about the good times and those relationships, when time slowly pushes you apart, is something I reflect on a lot.
The original version was in present tense, but it didn't completely work and flow together the way I wanted to. I redrafted it in past tense, but I attempted to keep some of the more evocative, immediate and ethereal qualities of the present tense in there. It needed some further revision to ensure it didn't feel as though I was straddling the two tenses, and I'm really grateful to Exuno and Winston for spotting some issues with the (original) final draft.
I also departed somewhat from my previous depictions of Trixie and Twilight's relationship. On reflection, I think their personalities would make such a relationship spiky and challenging, though not without love and affection, and I hope I captured this element within the story.
I'll probably update my blog with a more detailed retrospective in time. But for now, I hope you enjoyed this.
