And I looked down, and I was Moss.

How much time had passed was… unclear. The feeling of hooves around my neck-- why, had that even happened? It didn’t seem right, didn’t seem real at all. It was like a dream.

I was pouring coffee into a thick, white mug at the counter. There was a clatter of dishes behind me, the sound of a fully-stocked diner kitchen, of a bustle of waitstaff and chefs all shouting.

The dark and enchanting scent of the coffee wafted up to my nose-- Moss’s nose-- our nose. Even the smell of it seemed to relax us. It was familiar, it was warm, and it wrapped us up in its comforting embrace. With a smell like that, it was a little easier to forget the stress of starting anew.

We turned to place the coffee pot back on its little pedestal, then leaned down to retrieve a large, grey, plastic tub filled with dirty dishes.

A voice cleared its throat.

“Uhm, miss?” it said.

We paused, turned to face the voice.

She smiled at us. “Sorry to bother you, but I don’t seem to have any cream for this. Would you mind too terribly bringing me some?”

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry!” We shook our head. “That was silly of me.”

We reached under the counter again, pulled out a little basket filled with those tiny, plastic-encased half-and-half servings. We slid them over to our customer, who sat with her hooves folded politely in her lap.

And we paused again.

She was utterly plain. A dusty purple coat, a long, straight, dark blue mane. She was a unicorn. Those were really the only remarkable traits about her. She wasn’t especially tall or short, not noticeably wide or thin. Her eyes were clear and warm. Her smile was…

Yes, that was it. Her smile. It wasn’t the forced smile of most customers. It was different.

“I’m sorry, you…” We cocked our head. “You look very familiar to me.”

A blush rose in her cheeks. “Oh, I get that a lot. I just have one of those faces, I guess.”

“What’s your name?” we asked.

“It’s Dusk Shine,” she replied. Her voice hit the higher notes in a way which nearly caused her voice to break. That was familiar, too.

We smiled at her. “It’s nice to meet you, Dusk Shine. My name’s Mossy Bridge, but most ponies call me Moss.” We tapped our nametag.

“Moss,” Dusk repeated, rolling the sound about in her mouth. She tossed her mane over her shoulder, and there was a shimmer there. Some sort of foreign glint, more than a well-styled mane. Almost like a star. “That’s a lovely name.”

“Moss, let’s get those dishes clean!”

Our ears flattened. “Excuse me.”

We returned to the bin of dirty dishes and lifted it carefully, then pushed through the doors into the kitchen.

It was a madhouse in the back. There were dozens of ponies rushing to and fro, cooking eggs on enormous griddles, flipping pancakes with practiced skill. The whole place sizzled with an electric energy which I hadn’t felt in quite a long time, filled with smells so heavenly that I could almost feel myself floating through the kitchen. I--Rarity, that is--had long been deprived of crowds and commotion. It had not occurred to me that I would miss it.

We dumped our bin into the industrial washer and pulled the lid down. The whole beast began to hum as warm water filled its cavity.

Then we turned, and just observed for a moment.

In all the times I had visited this diner, I had never seen it so lively. I really had no idea that this many ponies even worked here, let alone seen them all working at the same time, ducking under plates and pouring unknown liquids over the griddle with reckless abandon, chopping mysterious forms at dizzying speeds.

I wondered where all of these ponies had gone.

“Moss, honey, think you could help me out?” It was Blue Moon, sidling up to us. She looked innocent and frazzled, a completely different pony than I had ever known. “Table four ordered something I didn’t quite understand and I couldn’t…”

“I’ll go figure it out for you,” we said, warm and comforting.

Blue Moon looked relieved.

This was not the dichotomy I had come to understand.

We wove back through the kitchen staff and out into the general space of the restaurant. It was packed out here, too. Screaming foals, families stopping the middle of long road trips. Haulers sat alone, caps pulled low over their eyes. There was an unusually large number of construction workers here, as well.

Dusk Shine’s eyes lit up when I emerged from the kitchen. “Oh, Moss! I was wondering--”

“One second, please!” We flashed her an apologetic grin. “I’ll be with you in just a second.”

Dusk nodded.

The customers at table four were rowdy, but not unbearably so. We took the best notes we could, catching Blue’s mistake, and listening to an unrelated personal story from one of the patrons.

Moss was very good at listening to these kinds of ponies. She was able to find something to care about in every story, in every pony, a skill which was grossly undervalued and practically undefinable. She just truly liked other ponies-- and, when she didn't, she found a way to.

When the pony finally wrapped up her long and meandering story, we smiled. “I’ll be back with food for you all real soon, okay?”

We trotted back behind the bar and passed the order through the window to a waiting Blue Moon.

“Thanks, sugar. I owe you one,” she said.

We merely shrugged.

We took a step back, looked up at a clock on the wall. It was nearly ten, the time Moss normally took a small break to eat an egg salad sandwich in the back. Nearly, but not quite.

Dusk was quiet, but I could feel her watching us, waiting patiently but attentively for us to return to her.

We huffed. “I’m on break! Watch my tables, Blue!” we called through the window after the strange mare.

The apron she always wore came off over our head, and we draped it over the bar right next to Dusk. The egg salad sandwich, hiding under the bar and wrapped in clingy plastic, was tossed beside it.

“Mind if I sit with you?” we asked.

Dusk smiled. “Please do.”

The familiarity washed over me again as we moved to sit on a stool beside Dusk. The world beyond us began to fade away, almost; the noise from the kitchen and the customers and the radio all retreated. The colors and motion seemed fuzzier, now, as if seen through a lens smeared with petroleum jelly.

“You’re not from here, either, are you?” Dusk asked.

“Wow.” We chuckled. “That’s right! I’m actually from Canterlot. I moved here because…” Our hoof twitched towards our empty flank. “Just because, I guess. I wanted a change of pace.”

Dusk giggled, and the sound was like the delicate tinkling of crystal. “Well, that sure is a change of pace, alright.”

We were unwrapping our sandwich now. It was nice to have something to focus on. “Where are you from? Nearby?”

She shook her head. “Not at all. I’m from Canterlot, too. I’ve been travelling recently.”

“Where to?”

She sighed, stared into her coffee cup. “It’s hard to explain. I’m just sort of… wandering. And when I get a feeling about a place, I stop. When I get a feeling about a pony, I make sure to stop them, too. For a chat.”

“Did you get a feeling about me?” we asked.

“It’s strange.” Dusk turned to look over her shoulder, out at the desert beyond. “This town has given me quite a few feelings. That construction zone, first of all. What are they building over there?”

“A shopping center,” we responded. “It’s supposed to boost the local economy or something. With these new autocarriages, the town stands a real chance at growing. We already have a gas station, did you know that?”

“Is that what that is?” Dusk asked, her gaze shifting from the construction to the already-established gas station. The noonday sun gleamed in her eyes. “I don’t have much experience with those things yet. I suppose I will soon.”

“What else gave you a feeling?”

“Hm?” Dusk turned back to face us. “Oh! Right. Well, it was actually this place. Open Doors Diner… it’s a very odd name, don’t you think?”

We laughed. “I think it’s kinda friendly!”

Dusk giggled again, like sparkling sunlight on water. “I hadn’t thought of it that way!”

We smiled.

Dusk sighed wistfully. “You remind me of an old friend of mine. Always looking on the bright side, always so cheerful and energetic.”

“An old friend?” we asked.

Dusk nodded. “All friends are old sometime, you know.”

“I guess.”

A silence hung between us. Dusk seemed to be fighting off a dark cloud as she stared down into her mug, the light cream swirling with the darkness of her last sip of coffee. Her eyebrows knit together the slightest bit. A shadow passed over her face, and for a moment I saw somepony else. It was less than a second, blink-and-you-miss-it kind of change, but it was there.

At long last, she lifted her mug with twinkling magic and delicately sipped out the last swallow. “I’ve actually been looking for someplace to stay for a few days. Is there a motel nearby?”

“There is!” We pointed behind her and out the windows, in the general direction of the motel. “It’s actually where I’m living right now. I bet, if you let me come with you, I could get the owner to give you a discount.”

Dusk’s eyes were brimmed with glee. “Oh, would you? That would be just perfect.”

We smiled back at her. “I have a good feeling about you, Dusk. I think we could be good friends.”

“I think we could, too.”

That filled us with a feeling I couldn’t quite name. Hope for the future, but, at the same time, a desperate longing for the past. Comforting familiarity coupled with daring new ventures. To call it confusion would be an oversimplification-- We felt all of these things at once. Perhaps it was a symptom of two minds sharing a single body.

But then that would mean that I should know. I should know… something. I was missing something, something which had once been very close to me but now seemed far enough away that I could hardly even narrow down its origin. Was this a memory? A dream? Should I have known this plain, little mare? Should I have known somepony else, some other occurrence?

I wanted to shout out for help, to demand that somepony stop this parade of madness and answer my questions. That wasn’t my job, though. My job was to observe, for some looming and unknown examination.

We looked up at the clock on the wall. Still a good fifteen minutes left before we were expected back at work. “Why don’t I walk you there now? I could use a break from all the commotion.”

“That sounds wonderful!” Dusk clapped her hooves once, decisively. “Thank you, Moss.”

“It’s no trouble,” we said. “Coffee’s on me.”

“Oh, don’t be silly.”

Dusk dropped a few bits on the counter, though not with the carelessness of most customers. She placed them, almost without thinking, in a very neat pile beside the mug. The small and precise action brushed against familiarity once again, though I was still merely grasping at the barest bones of evidence.

As we left the diner, I couldn’t help but notice how mild the weather was. For noon, in the San Palomino desert, it was practically freezing. The air was still and the sky was littered with clouds.

“Wow! The pegasi here must be very talented,” Dusk remarked. “It’s so beautiful out here, don’t you think?”

“Sure is,” we agreed.

After spotting the motel in the distance, Dusk quickly overtook us. Her strides were long and purposeful.

Her mistake was in taking the lead. She was exposed, especially to us. And what else were we meant to do, anyway? Look away? Was there some sort of etiquette rule here I had simply forgotten to obey? Not that it would have helped; Moss was very much in control.

Dusk, walking with a blissful smile on her face, allowed her spells to fade. All she wanted was to spread her wings under the warmth of the sun. What winged pony wouldn’t want that?

The wings melted out of her sides, seeming to emerge from the fur itself.

We, to my surprise, didn’t do a thing. Our heartbeat accelerated, and we sucked in a breath, but said nothing.

Dusk spread her wings further and further, the feathers slipping over one another with the grace and ease of silk on silk. In only a few moments, her wings were spread like little umbrellas over the sand, casting ghostly shadows across the rippling desert.

We bit our lip and steadied ourselves. Our eyes coasted over Dusk’s body, searching for anything else which seemed out of place. She wasn’t a blankflank, exactly-- she had a cutie mark, but it seemed so unremarkable that the moment we looked away we couldn’t remember it. Her coat and her mane, while seeming quite ordinary, hid an unmistakable rippling motion which seemed out of synch with the wind, with her steps, with anything that might realistically be the cause.

She was taking unusually deep breaths, as if trying to capture the scent of the landscape around her. We, curiously, sniffed along with her. Under the smell of gasoline mingled with diner food, there was an undertone of cracked asphalt, of dust, of undisturbed water and cleaning products. It was the smell of an empty--yet distinctly used--space, somehow hanging over the desert.

The longer we sniffed, the more it seemed to be coming from Dusk.

A lock of mane fell out from behind our ear, and we took it into our mouth to chew on thoughtfully.

Moss had never met Luna or Celestia. Few ponies had-- even those who lived in Canterlot. But she had read many an artistic retelling of meeting the princesses. One thing that seemed to stand out in such discussions, without fail, was their smell.

Celestia smelled like orange juice with a pinch of sugar. She smelled like freshly sharpened pencils, like gently washed linens, like roses just cut from the garden and placed in a crystal vase. All clean, all bright, all carefully arranged.

Luna, on the other hoof, smelled more like the depths of a forest, or the waves which washed up on the shore, or the rushing waters of a stream from the mountaintop. Her smells were natural, undeveloped, uncontrollable.

Thinking that way, it was quite obvious that “Dusk” wasn’t Dusk at all. Celestia was the pony-made, Luna was the untouched, which left the unregarded.

“Twilight?” we asked.

She bristled, seemed to realize that she had given herself away, and snapped her wings into her sides. They disappeared as easily as they had first emerged.

“It’s okay, I know it’s you,” we continued. “I’m not scared or anything.”

Twilight stayed frozen, facing away.

“What are you doing here?” We took a step towards her. “Don’t you have better things to do than wander around in our little desert? I mean, a school to run, or classes to teach, or something?”

Twilight kicked up a little cloud of sand.

“I mean… are you alright? Do you need help?”

Twilight chuckled dryly. “I guess I do, don’t I?” She turned to face me, looking almost guilty. “I’m still new to this. I’m not a very good liar. That used to be a good thing!”

As she spoke, the illusion she had been holding began to melt away. Purple and pink streaks unfolded from her once-muted mane, her cutie mark now bold against the lavender hue of her coat. Her wings once again unfurled from her sides, this time to stay.

We said nothing, merely watched as a princess took form before us. Her mane, now long and smooth, undulated gently against her shoulder.

Twilight seemed uncomfortable, now out of things to say. “Why don’t we have a talk? In your room? I feel like I owe you an explanation.”

We scoffed. “You do?”

Twilight shrugged. “The one thing I’ve been told to do is follow my gut. My gut says I should talk to you.”

She turned, her long and elegant tail dragging through the sand with the weight of a snake. We fell in behind her and following the serpentine trail she left behind. The two of us trotted through the sand at a steady clip, and the doubling sensation set in once more.

Moss was, understandably, confused. Otherwise, her mind seemed strangely empty. There was little excitement, little fear, little of anything at all. She seemed to be following her gut, too.

My mind, on the other hoof, was desperately trying to catch up. There was a great joy in relief in having found Twilight just as I had left her. Of course there was. I would me mad not to miss my friend.

But there was a little voice in the back of my head just whispering the same word over and over…

Dusk

Dusk

Dusk

Twilight was Dusk, and Dusk was Twilight. But Twilight would never--

We slipped the key into the lock and gave it a gentle turn. The motel room door swung open to reveal what was, unsurprisingly, exactly like the other two motel rooms I had had the pleasure of exploring. Same bed, same closet, same end tables, same lamp.

This room was not buried under a mound of stolen government documents, however. Nor was it disturbingly… undisturbed.

There was an open suitcase at the end of the mattress. It had some clothes in it--the bottom ones folded, the top ones tossed in a pile--but not much else. There was a book on the closer of the two end tables, with a business-card bookmark. The armchair was empty except for an apron tossed over the back.

“Um…” We moved to close the closet, suddenly all too self-aware of the presence in our room. “You can take a seat. P-princess.”

Twilight smiled. “Thank you.”

She curled up on the chair like a dog in a bed, her elegant mane and tail draped over the upholstery and puddling onto the floor. Her wings were tucked tightly against her sides.

We sat on the end of the bed, our hooves in our dirty laundry.

Twilight looked at me expectantly.

“What--” We stopped ourselves, took a steadying breath. “Well, pardon my bluntness, but what’s a princess doing out here?”

Twilight giggled, like birdsong. “Consider yourself pardoned. The sort answer is, I’m not a princess yet.”

We narrowed our eyes, said nothing.

“I mean, I--” Twilight opened her wings a bit, gazed at them as one might observe a scar or a tattoo. Some foreign and unwelcome object. “I have these. I had a coronation. But I’m not a princess yet.”

“I don’t understand.”

Twilight sighed, but not in annoyance. It was more wistful than anything. “I didn’t, either. Because there’s a lot about the princesses that doesn’t exactly get shared, you know?”

We shrugged. “I guess I don’t.”

She giggled again, like the call of a spring peeper. “Touche. What I mean is… well, there’s lot of complex and powerful magic at work in royalty. It isn’t often talked about because it isn’t easily understood, and, in the grand scheme of things, means very little to the general Equestrian population.

“Luna, as you know, is the Moon Princess. She raises the moon at night, lowers it in the morning. She rules over the night. But she has other domains.”

“Dreams?” I asked.

Twilight nodded. “That’s precisely right! She can enter the dreams of ponies and alter them. But that’s only part of her greater magic, it just so happens that most ponies can see that part of it.”

“What’s the rest?”

“It’s--” Twilight struggled to find the words. “Well, you see, her powers are to ponies as they are to the planet. Ponies have their own nights, and she is there to watch over them in the darkness.”

“Their own nights?” we repeated. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“I think it only truly makes sense to Luna.” Twilight smiled to herself. “She’s not exactly the sharing type.”

“What does this have to do with you?” we asked. We then looked down at our hooves. “I’m sorry, I’m just confused.”

“Well,” Twilight said, “ponies have their own dark nights. They also have their own shining days, which means that there must be an inbetween. A twilight. Right?”

We were chewing on our mane again.

Twilight appeared to be visibly struggling towards a satisfactory explanation. “There is always a transition, however small. We cannot be in the darkness one moment, and in the light the next. Something must happen to make this change-- a catalyst. And, sometimes, the change takes so long that it is its own stage. The change, the inbetween, is its own place. Don’t you think?”

“I dunno.” We were shifting uncomfortably on the mattress. This was starting to get personal. “What kind of changes?”

“I don’t know, either,” Twilight said. “Not yet. That’s what I’m doing out here. I’m trying to find the places that are in-between. And the ponies.”

“In disguise?”

“Yes, in disguise.”

“Why?”

Twilight shrugged. “That’s how Luna and Celestia did it, when they were my age. They travelled Equestria looking for ponies who needed their help. Just following their instincts.”

“So, wait--” We shook our head. “Is that why you wanted to talk to me? You think that I need help? Your help?”

Twilight shrank away from our accusatory tone. “I don’t know, Moss. If I am supposed to help you, it isn’t a judgement. It’s a fact of the universe. I think I’m meant to walk with you.”

Our hoof ran back over our flank, bare under the skirt we wore.

“And you’re the first pony I’ve met that I felt this way about,” Twilight added hastily. “I-I could be wrong. But if you need somepony to be by your side right now… I think I could.”

The smell washed over us again. A smell of empty places, uninteresting places. Places which nopony would ever want to be in, and yet so often find themselves in. The smell of transition, of the inbetween.

We stood up and began to un-tie our apron. The cloth slipped off over our head and fell to the floor with a gentle and final sound.

Twilight watched, her head cocked. It was a strange scene: undressing for a pony who only seemed confused.

We took off our top, the one with the name tag pinned to it. The plastic scraped against our cheek as we tugged the garment off. It fell to the floor beside the apron.

Last, the skirt. This was the thing which did the true disguising. It was funny to think that the both of us--Twilight and Moss--were in disguise. For very different reasons, and yet reasons which were tangled together.

The skirt slipped down to the floor in a ring around our back hooves. Only smooth, brown fur was beneath it. No cutie mark to be seen. A shameful emptiness where destiny should have been written.

Twilight stared for a moment, then nodded. “That seems right to me.”

“So you’re here to… to help me get it?” We hiked our skirt back up.

“I don’t know,” Twilight said. “Maybe. I’m not quite sure what my job is. I just have the feeling that I’m supposed to protect you.”

We blushed. “I’m not certain I need protecting.”

“Why hide, then?” Twilight asked. “Isn’t that skirt a form of protection?”

“Well, isn’t the skirt a more sensible one?” We were struggling our top back on as we spoke. “What would you do, exactly, to protect me?”

Twilight looked down. “I guess that’s fair.”

“It’s very kind of you to stop by, Twilight, but for now…” We paused to sigh and smooth our apron. “Well, for now, I think it’s enough to know that I’ve got an angel on my shoulder. And a princess, no less! That... that helps.”

“It does?” Twilight asked.

“Well, sure,” we said. “Sometimes it’s enough just to know somepony’s on your side.”

“Huh.” Twilight nodded. “That’s funny, I think I may have missed that lesson growing up.”

“You never run out of stuff to learn, do you?” We glanced at the clock. “I’ve gotta get back to the diner. Break’s nearly up. Thanks for talking to me… although it kinda seems like you needed it more than I did.”

It was Twilight’s turn to blush. “That might be true.”

We shrugged. “I don’t mind. Why do you think I work at a diner?”

Twilight and Moss parted ways at the door of our motel room. Twilight said something about ambling on, looking for other ponies to walk beside. She made some joke about doing better next time, staying Dusk instead of giving herself away so easily. It was half-hearted, at best.

There was a sorrow in leaving Twilight’s side and trudging back across the desert. I think that Moss and I felt it equally, as silly as that sounds.

And then things began to change.

As we walked back to Open Doors, each step grew longer, heavier. We pushed into it, through it, but could not overcome the unseen force and finally stood frozen in the sand. Everything around us seemed to be doing just the opposite: speeding up, careening out of control. While we were trapped in one place, we seemed to watch several years of development happening in only a few minutes.

Bright forms of ponies brushed past us, nothing more than a single color in a great smear.

Construction on the shopping center accelerated to breakneck speeds, completing the exterior and… halting. No branded trucks pulled up to unload their wares, no “grand opening” banners were hung. Sand blew through the structure, and it started to sink into the desert.

The smears of color grew fewer as time pushed on. The telephone poles flashed all sorts of colors as they were covered over and over again with missing signs, torn down in anger and misery, or perhaps just by the wind.

Darker smears appeared, as well. Only occasionally, moving carefully in groups like a pack of timberwolves. Slipping in an out of shadows.

And, suddenly, there I was! I, Rarity, standing in the sand in front of Moss. We just stared at each other for a moment, and then I began to change, too.

At first, I had looked like my old self. Almost hard to recognize, if I’m honest. The long and healthy mane, flowing over my shoulder in only a few great curls. The brightness, the life in my eyes. How exciting! Such a small town. So inspiring. I would be a big fish in a little pond, here. Wouldn't that be nice?

But the ponies saw me differently, just as they had taken notice of Dusk. The smears retreated further and further, gave me greater berth, as the shopping center sank.

My face melted from a peppy grin into an expressionless board. I wore less makeup, worked less on my mane. At some point, I cut it off. Less mane was less to deal with, and all of my time was now taken by Nightwhisper. I needed to make time for him, needed to give him my time.

The shopping center was completely gone, now. Never filled. A place between pony-made nonsense and natural wonders. A place built and abandoned.

And then I was myself again, in an instant. I was looking at Moss, standing in the desert, not ever changing. Stuck at the threshold of herself, of what she could be.

She didn’t get her cutie mark. Which should have meant that Twilight, my Twilight, was still watching over her.

Why wasn’t she?

Because… well, wasn’t she the Goddess? Wasn’t she Dusk? Wasn’t she Missing?

“Twilight!” I cried, my voice at last my own, under my control. “Twilight, where did you go? You were supposed to protect her!”

I fell into the sand and began to cry. These tears were wild and completely unstoppable, pouring out of me at such a rate that I feared I might drown.

As I sobbed and wailed, the other things slowed down. The light dimmed. The wind died down. The intensity of everything receded, and I was left with only my tiny, fragile body in a great wasteland of loss. I had never felt so exposed. I had never felt so lost and scared and angry. And yet, my intensity faded, as well. The exhaustion of crying was enough to soften things.

Dusk Goddess

“Shut up!” I screamed, my throat ragged. “Don’t you dare! I know, now! Don’t you dare taunt me!”

The Dusk Guardians. They were Twilight's, weren't they? Little minions of darkness that she had created and abandoned. She couldn't even be bothered to complete the holy task she had been given.

Please accept our offering...

I lifted my head. The desert was shrouded in such complete darkness that it seemed my eyes were still closed.

...of the Eternal Pariah...

My mane was practically glued to my face with tears and snot. I wiped it away, hoping it would somehow allow me to see. Darkness remained.

“Hello?” I murmured.

...forever on The Threshold.

“Rarity?”

My head whipped towards the sound, but I could see nothing.

“Rarity!” the voice hissed again. It sounded far away, through a tunnel or over a poor connection.

I moaned softly. Pain was beginning to register across my body-- just dull aches, but growing in intensity. “Rainbow?”

“Rarity, wake up!” Rainbow commanded.

I opened my eyes.

Author's Note

Threshold will be over soon.

Have patience.