So we've been told, and some choose to believe it
Twilight wound up the music box and stared out her window. It was another quiet night in Ponyville. The lights of the town flickered out one by one. Shops rattled closed, the few stragglers on the streets huddled and vanished into the warm glow of their homes, and Twilight was quiet. She’d seen it all before.
The castle window fogged up from her breath, so she took a step back. When she was little, she’d draw a face in it, but now she wished she could draw somepony else’s. It never looked quite right when she tried, so she let it be, and peered through the misty glass.
There was still one pony on the streets. The silhouette ran about in the long shadows of dusk, making sure everything was safe before flying back home. No one ever noticed, except for Twilight, who watched it all from a foggy blurred window. She didn’t need to see the colors clearly to know who it was.
The music box warbled on, but Twilight didn’t pay it much attention. It was all background noise, anyway. She knew the words by heart, and some evenings she caught herself humming along. Not this time, though. Tonight she watched, breathlessly, as the pegasus below darted around the town. It was beautiful, poetic, and comforting. Twilight revelled in the routine.
One by one, the streets darkened. Most ponies hated this time of night, the twilight moments where the sunset casts its pale orange glow on the quiet homes. Twilight loved it. Everything was peaceful, everything was perfect, and the lone figure below ambled about, making sure everypony was safely in their homes.
Nopony acknowledged what the pegasus did every evening. Twilight doubted that most of them even noticed. She noticed, though. She was the sole witness. The overseer. The watcher behind the foggy window.
One by one, Twilight could see the blurry outlines of colors. This was the moment she’d been waiting for. Strings of light crisscrossing the main roads of Ponyville glittered to life. The beads of moisture on the window magnified the myriad of hues. It was beautiful. Candy-striped poles shone in the neon glow, bulbs reflected prisms of light onto the street.
It was almost as beautiful as the pegasus herself. Twilight smiled as the lone shadow finished her rounds. In the dewdrops on the glass, she could see the pony turn around and look up at her. What was she doing? The silhouette never did this before. This wasn’t part of the routine.
The moment hung in the air like a snowflake on a spiderweb. Their eyes met. Magenta met violet. Colors clashed in the light of dusk. Why was she staring? Did she see her? Did she know?
Twilight let out a shaky breath. She reached up a hoof to wipe away the glass, but stopped herself. Part of her didn’t want to know. Maybe the pegasus was just admiring the castle during sunset. Maybe she wasn’t looking back, wondering if Twilight was watching her, witnessing her evening walk. That’s all it probably was, too. Just a walk, to enjoy the night air before it got too cold.
Sure. Twilight almost convinced herself. Sometimes, things aren’t what they seem. Sometimes, wishes - silent feverish hopes - don’t come true. She wasn’t staring back at Twilight. She was just admiring the view.
Twilight didn’t want to believe it was a coincidence. She chose to imagine that the pony on the street was looking back at her. Silhouettes making eye contact. It was all the more poetic that way.
The figure turned away, and Twilight felt warm all of a sudden. It could just be the fault of the fireplace and air circulation. It could be she was catching a fever from standing next to a cold window every night. Twilight decided to believe something different.
The droplets of moisture on the window beaded and ran down slowly, leaving trails of color and light behind. Twilight peeked between the paths, like bars in a cage. They kept her from seeing the lone silhouette, washed in the brilliance of Hearth's Warming lights. The lights were beautiful, and Twilight didn’t blame the pony below for taking a minute to admire them. Twilight enjoyed gazing at beautiful things in the evenings, too.
It would take an extraordinary amount of guts to admit to herself or anypony else any and all feelings behind the moments she shared with the unwitting mare. Twilight didn’t feel like being extraordinarily brave. She was perfectly content to watch from a distance, at least for now. The thought of someday trickled through her mind like the drips of water on the window, pooling on the windowsill.
The pegasus took to the air, wings flapping in a prismatic halo as she rose. It was beautiful. Twilight didn’t want it to end. She wanted to save a snapshot of the pegasus hanging in the air, surrounded by the hush of dusk and the glimmer of tiny lights.
Moments can’t last forever, though, and neither can memories. Twilight knew that, but she wished she could save it forever, and hold it close to her heart. At the end of everything, she didn’t want to forget this.
Up, the pegasus rose. Higher and higher, until she was nothing but a shadow over the sunset. Her wings spread, and for a split second it looked as though her wings defined the horizon. Twilight wished that she could see the other mare’s expression. Was it defiant? Fierce? Proud? Joyful? Twilight would give anything to see it.
Then the moment ended, and the pegasus pierced the heavens. In her mind, Twilight pictured the mare giving a wild whoop, spearing the sparse sundrenched clouds, spinning to infinity. Twilight lost sight of her as the pegasus flew over the castle, but it didn’t matter. She’d see her again tomorrow.
The music box rattled on, slowing down at the end of the song, but Twilight paid it no mind. The image of the pegasus stayed in her mind. The first of many stars twinkled to life. Nature’s Hearth’s Warming decorations. Twilight had no difficulty describing the glow of dusk, but it was harder for her to name other things.
What she felt, and who she felt it for, as a completely hypothetical and coincidental example.
The feeling… what was it? Could it be the stirrings of… no, that was impossible, wasn’t it? She couldn’t feel that for a friend, right?
And who she felt it for? That was just as hard. It was easier to let the pegasus be unnamed, at least in the moments of sunset. Why name it, when the mystery was almost as beautiful as the mare herself?
Was it love? Twilight didn’t want to acknowledge it, if it was. Then again, she hoped it was, in the most secret part of her heart.
The music box whirred to a stop behind her, but that was okay. Twilight turned from the window, lost in thought and unspoken wishes.
Author's Note
Will Twilight ever paint with all the colors of the wind? Will she learn how to play the ukulele? Will I acknowledge that I like this ship, and write more with these two?
Find out some of this and more in my next fic. ♥
