Threshold

After so many days of waking up with intrusive thoughts bombarding me, it was oddly unsettling for my mind to be blank that morning.

I was in the flat above the gas station. Nightwhisper was beside me, his breath sour and hot on my cheek. My hooves were folded over my stomach. For a while, I merely stared at the ceiling and felt them slowly move up and down as I breathed.

The words were still there, humming about somewhere. But it was my own voice that whispered them.

I rolled over very slowly. My mane rubbed along the stained pillows, followed by the sizzle of static electricity. Nightwhisper’s breath was now concentrated on the back of my neck. I couldn’t be sure that this was better.

Mostly, I was tired. Emotionally, mentally, physically… however else such a situation can be described. I couldn’t imagine getting out of bed and facing another day that may or may not matter at all. There is a deep and unrelenting exhaustion which comes from existential dread. I don’t feel guilty in the least in implying that my special brand might be worse than most.

And yet there existed a small part of me, very small, which felt differently. A tiny, flickering ember of something else.

I watched the window with the desperation of a prisoner gazing through the bars of their cell. Surely, in just a few moments, Rainbow Dash would appear there, in the darkness. She would whisk me outside and we would finally leave and…

She did not appear.

She did not appear, but the darkness was slowly gobbled up by encroaching rays of sunlight. Night was a safe, quiet time for me to rearrange my thoughts. And yet it was always lost. Daylight brought with it the need to… to do things. To be somepony. I was beginning to hate the light altogether.

The sun rose. The alarm blared.

Nightwhisper grabbed one end of his pillow and yanked it over his ear. He curled up into a ball and moaned softly.

The alarm was for me, not him.

I rose from the bed with practiced precision. The springs didn’t make a sound. I walked around the bed, laid a hoof on the top of the alarm clock, and felt about for the button which would turn it off.

The blaring ceased.

I breathed a sigh of relief, as did Nightwhisper. The difference was that, while he was now settling deeper into bed, it was now my job to prepare a breakfast which he would find palatable. A nearly impossible task.

And as I went about my routine, a battle raged within me. Half of me wanted to eject completely. To leave my body and consider other things. Philosophize about my situation. Fret, if you will. The other half knew that, should I begin to threat, it might be quite difficult to stop. The other half wanted to lose myself in monotony. Don’t think too hard, darling. You just might lose your mind.

And as I argued with myself, like I always did, I puttered about the kitchen, cracked eggs and separated yolks from white. Buttered a pan. Bread in the toaster. Moved about in relative silence as the world woke up.

The world may have woken up, but nopony here did. That was certain. The sun was for me alone. A reminder of times past. When I had a point, a purpose, a varied routine. Even as the events of the past few days churned to a muddy mess in my head, I found it impossible to tear away.

Was that because I liked it?

I paused to consider. No words in my head.

It was empty in here now.

I couldn’t remember the things I did, I could only remember what things had happened. There was such a monumental difference and it was oh so difficult to explain. I knew facts. No emotions. No memories. I had read of my own life somewhere, been told of it by somepony else. Like some sort of cruel history lesson.

They hadn’t told me about Moss.

They hadn’t told me, and that wasn’t fair.

No.

Not fair.

I paused once more, this time in body and in thought.

Moss was not a fact.

Moss was a… a feeling. A memory. I knew I had seen it, but nopony had told me because it… it wasn’t a fact.

And I knew, deeply, intrinsically, that it hadn’t happened yet.

No rope had been knotted. No lifeless form had hung from the roof. No police had come to take her away. No water had washed away the chalk. Those things could happen. Would happen. But they hadn’t happened yet.

A prickle crept up my spine and into my shoulder blades. The little flicker inside me burned a bit brighter.

Whatever Rainbow had done… time was non-linear. Everything that has ever happened or ever will happen in the history of this dusty little town was happening now. All at once.

So Moss was dead.

But she was also alive.

So she was dying right now, but also pouring a cup of coffee at the diner.

And I looked down, and I was Moss. I was pouring coffee into a thick, white mug at the bar. There was a clatter of dishes behind me-- but not from my kitchen sink. From a fully-stocked diner kitchen, from a bustle of waitstaff and chefs all shouting.

A voice cleared its throat.

“Uhm, miss?” it said.

I looked up. And there I was, pouring coffee for--

Pouring coffee on my hooves.

The shock of heat made me cry out, and I was back in my kitchen.

“Oh!” I jumped again, spilled more coffee in the process. “Oh, goodness…”

With shaking magic, I managed to place the coffee pot back on the table, continually retreating from the flow of liquid seeping across the floor. I grabbed a hooftowel and began to mop up the mess. In my haste to clear the area, my hip bumped the table.

Time slowed as the coffee pot rocked, then fell. It shattered on impact. Hot coffee exploded across the floor, splattering my legs and chest.

There was a loud creak from the bedroom.

“Rarity?”

Shit.

Even more frantic now, I began to scoop up shards of glass with magic and hooves alike.

The rough sounds of Nightwhisper emerging from his room echoed through the silence.

“Rarity? What’s going on out there?”

Emotionless. Should have been concern. Could have been anger, I suppose. But there was simply nothing there, and that was so much more terrifying.

“N-nothing!” I called back, as sweetly as I could. “Go back to bed!”

Nightwhisper growled.

Not sweet enough.

His shadow, at last, passed over the doorway and fell onto the threshold.

My breath hitched.

He stood above me, his form grey and dark and overwhelming. He did not stand with pride, though. He stood with a sort of slimy self-possession. A winner who won by cheating.

He sneered down at me, doing his best to maintain a look of disgust.

“You stupid bitch.”

“Nightwhisper, I--”

“You can’t even make a fuckin’ pot of coffee without embarrassing me, can you?” He took a step forward.

I scrambled backwards. My hooves slipped in the mess. “I can fix it, I can--”

“There shouldn’t be anything to fix!” He roared, punching the doorframe with one hoof. “I shouldn’t have to fix things for you, Rarity! I shouldn’t have to follow you around making things better! I shouldn’t have to convince everypony I know that I’m the one in control!”

“You are!” I said. My back was against the sink, now, nowhere else to go. “You are in control! You’re in control!”

Rays of sunlight crept over his face. A shaft of light illuminated his eyes. For the very first time, I felt like he saw me. He looked into my eyes and saw me, Rarity, the element of generosity, a mare from Ponyville who was so giving and loving that no decent pony could possibly do a thing to her.

But that wasn’t really what he saw.

He saw a victim.

A punching bag.

“No, Rarity,” he said, his voice so horrifically even. He raised his hoof. “This is being in control.”

I didn’t even have time to put up my hooves in defence. His hoof bashed into my cheek, and my head whipped to the side. The sizzle of heat down my neck almost hurt worse than the flaring pain spread over my face.

“I wouldn’t have to do this if you just listened to me!” A twinge of emotion crept into his voice. So distant and strange, though-- could have been anger. Could have been glee.

He raised his other hoof, but no waiting this time. It slammed into my stomach, and I doubled forward. I could feel my organs lurching to recover from the blow.

Why was this so real? Where were the facts? Why were these not just facts?

The facts.

Say the facts, Rarity.

I am Rarity.

I can’t remember the day.

I am alive.

Nightwhisper gets angry.

He gets angry when I do things he doesn’t ask me to do.

He didn’t ask me to break the coffee pot.

And so he was angry.

And he hit me.

He hit me six times.

Twice in the face, three times in the gut, and one kick between my legs.

When he was done, he opened the fridge. He drank three gulps of orange juice straight out of the carton. He put it back, closed the fridge, wiped his mouth with the back of his hoof.

“I’m going to work,” Nightwhisper said. “You’d better be here when I get back.”

And he left.

And those are the facts. That’s all I prefer to remember of the incident.

I sat on the kitchen floor for a very long time. Although, perhaps, it was very little time at all. I suppose I don’t have any way of truly knowing.

I wondered what day it was. I wondered about the best way to clean up the glass and coffee. I wondered how late the diner stayed open. I wondered how many auto-carriages had come by the gas station. I wondered what Nightwhisper would want for dinner.

I didn’t wonder where Rainbow Dash had been.

I didn’t wonder who had killed Moss.

I certainly didn’t wonder how I would ever escape.

I didn’t wonder about those things because there was simply nothing to wonder about. The answers seemed clear to me.

Rainbow wasn’t here.

Moss wasn’t real.

And I wouldn’t ever escape everything. Not ever.

Maybe these things were true, and maybe they weren’t, but things seemed easier this way.

I stood up. My stomach lurched again. My face burned, my neck ached. It was difficult to stay standing at all. But I began to clean up the glass.

Because it was easier this way.

The flicker inside was dying down. I longed to go bury my head in the sand underneath that cactus, dig up my mementos, live in a memory for a while. The only memories I could trust, it seemed. And yet there was even a doubt about that, wasn’t there?

Don’t think that way, Rarity. Sweep up the glass, Rarity. That’s it. Mop up the coffee like a good mare. Listen to your coltfriend. Do as you’re told. That’s the only way to stay out of trouble, isn’t it?

My neck ached and burned. My hoof went to my throat for a moment, grasped at something which wasn’t really there. The feeling passed away as quickly as it had snuck up on me.

Back to mopping up.

The tiles on the kitchen floor… they were familiar one moment, strangely unfamiliar the next. Had they changed? Had I changed?

I stood up. The light here was so bright. The clatter of dishes was back. A pleasantly low buzz of conversation filled the space. The details of the landscape were so far away, though; all fuzzy and blurry, like looking through a lense smeared with vaseline.

“Moss, sweetheart, let somepony else do that.”

I blinked. It was so clear to me, and yet I could hardly take it all in. “I-I’m sorry?”

Blue Moon. She stood before me, looking somehow younger. “I said ‘let somepony else do that.’ We don’t need you all crouched over on the floor, now.”

“B-but I was--”

“And for Celestia’s sake, darlin’, pull down your skirt!” Blue hissed, giving my uniform a tug. “We don’t need nopony takin’ peeks. ‘Specially with your…”

I cocked my head. “My…?”

Blue bit her lip, seemed to struggle not to speak, then rolled her eyes. “Oh, nevermind. Forget I said anything.”

She brushed past me, and the light changed. The landscape began to come into sharper focus. It wasn’t the diner-- the ceilings were much too high. It wasn’t the apartment, either. This was someplace else.

I almost didn’t recognize. It was the shopping center, but brand new. Everything was shiny and bright, the lights were intact and glowing with an intensity which almost reminded me of a hospital. There were still no stores in the fronts, however. Everything was a blank slate, it seemed.

I looked down at my hooves. White fur, splattered with brown. I could still smell the coffee, hot from the pot. My hooves were mine. My body was mine.

“Hello?” My voice was mine, too. “Hello there?”

Why was I always playing catch-up with myself?

I took several deep and calming breaths. I closed my eyes.

“I am Rarity. Today is… well, I’m not sure what today is. But I am alive.” I sighed lightly. “I’m alive…”

“Well, that’s good to hear.”

I jumped, a hoof flying up to my chest to clutch at my thudding heart.

Rainbow Dash. Of course, Rainbow Dash. She was standing up above me, as always, wings spread, as always, and wearing a somber smile. The light through her wings landed upon me with the power of a heavenly light. My guardian angel. My little blue pegasus.

The sight of her should have made me furious. Why hadn’t she saved me? Why hadn’t she--

And I couldn’t even make it to a second reason before a choked sob burst from my lips. I could already feel a large, hot tear cutting a furrow through the fur on my cheek.

Rainbow’s expression of warm welcoming quickly fell into a concerned frown. She practically dove from her perch down to the ground floor and came running to me.

“Rarity?” Her hoof brushed my own hoof out of my face, searching for a cheek to hold. “Rarity, what happened? What’s happening?”

I tried to blubber something at her--maybe a scolding, maybe a thank you--but very little comprehensible information actually came out.

Rainbow was doing her best to keep up with wiping away my tears and my mane and even my own hooves, but it took nearly all of her concentration and some of her quickest moves to finally catch that first glimpse of my face.

Perhaps I had started to bruise. But it must have been written all over my face.

“Nightwhisper,” Rainbow growled. But not like he had growled. “He hit you, didn’t he?”

I didn’t answer, didn’t nod, just bawled a little louder and buried my face in Rainbow’s mane.

She didn’t know what to do. I think she was fighting through anger, as she tends to. That little pony is a wound spring of pure fury. You need only point her in the direction of a target and fire. I expected her to pull away and march right over to beat the living hell out of that stallion herself.

But she didn’t.

Rainbow held it back. She held it all back, the easy way out, to embrace me gently. To stroke my mane. To listen to my sobbing and sniffling and coughing and retching, and do nothing but whisper the tiniest of affirmations.

“It’s okay.”

It wasn’t.

“You’re okay.”

I wasn’t.

“I’ve got you.”

She… she did.

I snuggled in deeper, reaching for and grasping at little locks of her mane. Just trying to get a hold on something. On anything.

She was wonderfully patient. She let me tug at her mane and soak her chest with tears and snot. She let me blubber meaningless shouts of confusion and fear and hurt into her without missing a beat.

Loyalty, indeed.

Eventually, the well ran dry. I was left with a sick feeling in my chest and throat, but no more tears to cry.

Rainbow’s embrace tightened for a moment. I pressed into her with all I had. She loosened her grip and held me at leg’s length.

“Alright, you know the drill.” Rainbow cleared her throat. “You point me in the direction of the bastard and I’ll kick his ass!”

I tried to chuckle, but the sound came out mangled.

“Or…” Rainbow rubbed the back of her head with one hoof. “I mean, I dunno. What would help?”

My heart ached.

“Nightwhisper is going to kill me if he finds out I’m with you again.”

Rainbow scoffed. “I’ll kill him first! He doesn’t even know who I am.”

I made a small sound of discomfort and looked at the floor.

“I mean…” Rainbow shuffled her hooves. “Look, I’ll protect you.”

“I should really just go home.”

“You’re right,” Rainbow said. “But that stupid apartment isn’t your home.”

“I can’t leave.”

“You can!” rainbow insisted. “You can pick up and go anytime you want! That crazy stallion doesn’t have any power over you!”

“I don’t know…” I murmured. “I think he does.”

Rainbow narrowed her eyes.

“I just get the feeling he would--” I swallowed. “He would do something. He wouldn’t give up. He would find me if I left.”

And the feeling of helplessness came crashing back onto me. There really was no escape, was there? There was only Nightwhisper, and running from Nightwhisper. There was only monotony, unless I wanted to live in fear for the rest of my life.

“Rarity, listen to me:” Rainbow put her forehooves on my shoulders and spun me to face her. “Nightwhisper has no power over you.”

I looked into her eyes. Clarity.

I believed her.

“Then, what do we do?”

“Well--”

“Wait.” I put a hoof up to Rainbow’s mouth to silence her.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I was just--”

“Shush!” I pressed my hoof more firmly onto her lips. “Let me think.”

With a bit of concentration, the words came back.

MISSING

GODDESS

DUSK

The flicker warmed again, its glow casting harsh shadows over the darker corners of my consciousness.

“I think I need to find Moss.”

Rainbow cocked her head, but studiously said nothing.

“She’s still alive. At least, I think she is…” I wondered, for a moment, how valid my claim was. But the flicker burned through it. “And she didn’t kill herself, Rainbow.”

A flash of recognition crossed Rainbow’s face, and her features darkened as her gaze turned to the ground.

“You have to believe me,” I said. “She’s still alive, Rainbow, I promise. And we’re going to save her!”

Her pained silence lingered on.

“Do you believe me?”

Rainbow bit her lip, then looked back up at me. Her eyes shimmered with an emotion I couldn’t quite understand. Sadness? Longing? “I believe you.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, goodness, I knew you would.”

The feeling of solace which washed over me rushed me back into Rainbow’s embrace. This one was different, though. Try as she might, her strokes were stiffer. Simultaneously more distant, and yet begging to be closer. So reluctant in touching me at all, yet just as reluctant in letting go.

It was very close to being comforting.