We Will All Be Changed

Chapters

Where There is Knowledge, It Will Pass Away
For We Know in Part, and We Prophesy in Part
But When Completeness Comes, What is in Part Disappears
I Tell You a Mystery, We Shall Not All Sleep, But We Shall All Be Changed

Where There is Knowledge, It Will Pass Away

It hadn’t been that bad.

Honestly, it hadn’t been. Not really. I knew what bad was like. It was like yelling. Arguing. Not arguing, but arguing, really fighting and not just bickering. Bad means you leave and don’t want to see someone again. If anything, I wanted to see her again more than anything. I wanted to fly down the stairs, crest the hill, toss myself into the shitty car and drive until I was at her apartment. I wanted to burst in there and redo the whole day, reconstruct it like a crime scene. We would retrace our every step and analyze every word, letting each sentence go by only once we had workshopped it to perfection.

Our afternoon would have been golden, mathematically perfect. But the problem with that kind of trial and error is that it takes time and it has to happen at the pace of the real, and it is so awfully slow to do things in real time. In a lab that means waiting. In games it means selecting an option after saving and testing a route. In life? In life, it seems to mean that you have unpleasant afternoons and feel like a failure for an indeterminate amount of time, and then the feeling fades and it sits in the bottom of your stomach like a rock.

Laying in bed, watching the sun slide in through the blinds and illuminate strips along my jeans, I can’t help but let my mind wander. Images and figures parade in front of my vision like ghosts, half-there in the mind’s eye. Half finished projects, old forgotten books, Rarity driving, her arms outstretched and her hair in the wind with the convertible top down, the pile of papers filling my desk from our last group project, the hair on the floor of the salon as I asked for a mirror.

The haircut probably started this. What prompted me?

I got it cut in the height of summer. Maybe it was the heat, the itchy sweltering humidity, the way it clung to me and turned my long hair into a prison. It clung to my face, it got into everything. I hated it. I’d never hated it so much as this summer. Not that I’d always hated it, or always loved it. Had I?

I went into that salon wanting a trim. It was the hottest day on record since my parents were my age--I checked--and I slouched into the too-bright building in sweaty, grungy everything. I hadn’t slept in 40 hours. School and caffeine and stress and the sun and the humidity had conspired against me. And I sat down in that chair in the cold salon and I looked at myself, unshowered and unhappy, and heard that familiar question (So, how much are we taking?) asked so jovially and I snapped, I think. I blurted out, I want it short. And she replied, a bit baffled, how short? And I, just as baffled, just looked at the hairdresser in the mirror and said, short as a boy’s.

And it was, in fact, pretty short.

I stumbled out of that building in shock, I think. But when I stood on the sidewalk, and felt the breeze, and felt lighter, I couldn’t help but laugh. I felt like I’d tunneled out of some prison yard.

Rarity had been horrified. Maybe that wasn’t the nicest way to say it. But she hadn’t liked the new haircut at all. She’d moaned and lamented and generally mourned my hair, and in truth I had felt bad about cutting it when she did. She loved my hair. I actually loved that she loved it. I probably kept it long for as long as I did specifically because she loved it. But we didn’t fight about my hair.

In truth, with time I let it grow out just a bit, and she grew to even like it. She smiled and called me her little butch and ran her fingers through it. I didn’t like being called that, and didn’t know why, but I liked the touch of her hand and the sound of her voice. And I liked the breeze and the lightness.

I gained weight over the summer. Rarity only commented once, specifically because my old clothes were obviously becoming uncomfortable, and suggested that she could go shopping with me if I wanted. Something about that made me nervous, which was new. I said I’d be fine. She never shamed me about it. She worried about the acid reflux I picked up from the coffee and the constant snack food and the long nights, but she never made me feel like I was wrong or a bad person.

I sat up, and looked at the tall mirror in the corner of my room. My reflection gazed back at me. God, but I looked like shit. I looked like a kid trying to wear their parent’s clothes. My eyes had bags under them from lack of sleep. My hair was a mess. The button-up wasn’t the right size. My jeans were way too loose, bought from the men’s section of the Walmart in a hurry.

I grimaced, and the me in the mirror grimaced back.

Maybe she was right to be weird about this. About how I looked. Maybe it was bad, that I was this way. Not that I knew what this way was.

I hate mirrors. I genuinely hate them. If I didn’t need one, I wouldn’t ever look at that stupid reflection. I wouldn’t look at that person’s gangly limbs and frail frame and weird face that never felt like my face. No matter how much I reached up and touched it, no matter how I watched the hands in the mirror move, it was never my face. It was someone else’s. I tried to explain it to Rarity once. She was working in that boutique in high school, and was adamant about helping me look good for the dance that I mostly wanted to go to because I wanted to be with friends. She’d loaded me down with things to wear and pushed me into the changing room with gleeful energy and I’d tried things on and wandered out to show her.

And at some point, I said something about the mirror. I’m not even sure what I said, but she cocked her head to the side and said something like, why darling, how could you not love seeing your beautiful face? My heart melted, I forgot the mirror, I went back in side. She has a way of doing that. It’s easy for Rarity to charm me, and I love when she does. Her natural grace just overwhelms me sometimes.

I tried again, not long after the haircut. We were sitting on her bed. Lazy afternoon, the a/c purring in the background, her hand on my naked back, my feet in the soft carpet, her gaudy mirror like a begilded monolith before me. I said, you know that I hate these? I always have. I look terrible in them.

And she’d replied, why was that? And I fumbled words, years of contemplation coming apart like wet paper in my hands as I tried to put it into words. I looked wrong in them. They showed the wrong thing.

I must have sounded odd, because she sat up, and when she laid her head on my shoulder the image I saw changed. I didn’t look right. But she did. I smiled despite myself.

Twilight, you are a beautiful woman, she’d said. And… It didn’t make me happy. I must have looked so shocked! I don’t know. I was too busy looking at her eyes in the reflection. You’ve interalized a lot of terrible things. We all do, growing up.

It’s true! We’d talked about that before. You grow up in a world that demands you have a certain body and of course you come out a little skewed. I remember Rarity, pointing her wine glass at me across the bed, talking about the pressure to be perfectly slim yet full in all the exactly right places, how she loathed it, how it made her feel miserable growing up. And I got that! But. What I felt wasn’t that. I didn’t look at myself in that mirror and think that I needed more curves. Hell, if anything I had too many. I hated every single one of them. I hated how they labeled me. Those curves, those hips, that silhouette forces me into the tight confines of other people’s expectations which I never consented to. I never consented to being talked about the way they talk about me. I never signed off on being seen this way.

I used to be mad that I had to hang out with girls who didn’t share my interests. I grew up, I got over the “not like other girls” mindset that’s so toxic, but I didn’t feel differently. Just because I didn’t resent other girls didn’t mean I liked being sorted into a box with them. It wasn’t a bad box. It wasn’t about it being a bad box. The person I see in the mirror is in that box, but I am not that person. Or something.

I watch my shoulders sag. This is foolish. I have a school work to finish and a study group to meet up with tonight in the library. I have too much on my plate to stare at mirrors and ask questions about nothing.

So I don’t. I get up and head to my desk. The mirror isn’t going anywhere. It never does.

For We Know in Part, and We Prophesy in Part

Twilight looked simply lovely. She always did, but she certainly did now. Something about the way her face lit up when she jumped into an explanation did wonders for the soul. I knew so little about what she talked about, and yet I followed. She had a natural knack for teaching, bringing you along on the ride of passion with her, letting you have just enough time to see and know before whisking you off into some new adventure.

She talks with her hands, but she keeps one on the table for me, palm up so that I can snake my arm across the glossy table and touch it, enjoying the warmth. Twilight thinks of herself as artless, but it is not so. Her art is in the precise details, in the unspoken planning. A lesser architect signposted, called attention to every small act of love, but Twilight needed no applause. Every sign was small and intimate. It was a secret shared just for me, left behind to discover like a lover’s note slid between the cracks of a garden wall.

She has a strange sort of boyish charm. I had just been telling Fluttershy about it the other day. Fluttershy, her hair like a forest, her eyes emeralds, her soft hands curled around the old mug she kept in my kitchen when she moved out. She has a boyish sort of charm, the kind of thing I expect from some Trottingham school boy out of an old book. Tweed jackets and earnest discussions of Beowulf. She is more into the hard sciences, but the air remained.

And Fluttershy had nodded and she had smiled and she had said, Rarity, why does it bother you? The other thing? And I hadn’t had an answer, had I?

Her story winds down. The lab is getting more demanding. Her fellow assistants are pulling through but its hard and she’s exhausted. She wants to sleep, she says, but then she gives me a lazy smile that says she does not want to sleep just yet. (Lord, make me chaste, but not yet--I read too, Twilight, I read just as much! Just different things!) It’s been a week since I’ve seen her and we both know its been too long and we left on a sour note and suffered for it, but we don’t say any of that that because saying it revives that moment and its feelings so instead we just smile at each other, almost timidly, prodding at the edges of possibility. The evening is still young, and so are we. The world is still open.

I have the weekend off, she says, and I feel a happy flutter in my chest.

Do you? I ask, grinning. My dear, that is quite a lot of time to have you all to myself.

A pause. Did you have any plans? I ask, feigning curiosity where I feel a squirming worry. To be denied--

My weekend has your name written all over it, she says with that cheeky face I love. She blinks and then laughs and says it is actually literally written all over it. In gel pen, the ones I bought her, pink and purple and my name on her calendar. It’s silly, a bit childish. I can’t help but giggle with her about it. Show me when you get home, I say. She asks if I’m not coming back with her, and I tell her, oh no, she’s coming back with me. And she snorts, and I squeeze her hand.

When the check comes, I give the waiter a look and he smirks as he plops the check down in front of me. Twilight tries to object, but I’m well practiced in cutting this off, and I’ve already maneuvered the card and check back into the fellow’s hand.

She gives me a look and I indulge in a bit of playfulness, sticking my tongue out at her. It was my turn, I insisted, despite knowing that it was definitely not. But I still feel the sting of my own misconduct from our last date.

She seems to have forgiven, but I am not sure I’ve quite forgiven myself. What was I thinking? What prompted my irritation? The week apart has made it hard to even imagine being peeved with her.

We leave hand in hand. Of course I move in closer than is strictly necessary--I’d say it is, in fact, strictly necessary--despite the warmth of the encroaching summer night. She squeezes my hand, and even though I know it’s foolish, I can’t help but imagine myself turning to her and suggesting we drive off to god knows where, go find a place to lay out and look at the sky, do some other fool thing.

The drive back to my apartment is uneventful, but nice. We’re quiet much of the way. Her music is playing, something intricate in a language I don’t know. It isn’t quite what I’d listen to on my own, but she was always finding strange new things and it was nice to explore vicariously through her.

When we arrived home, I hesitated in my own door way for just a moment. I could hear Twilight taking off her shoes behind me. Some of my quiet, strange cheer evaporated.

Memory hit me suddenly. Fluttershy, sitting on my couch, her brow knitted in concern and thought. You should talk to her about it. You should explain how you feel.

Yes, I said in tandem with her past self, but how do you explain something that’s more feeling than thought? How do you say, something is wrong and I need to know what it is?

I think you just say that. Like, um. Those words, Fluttershy responded, shifting in the past before me.

Twilight asks if I’m alright, and I assure her quickly that I am. Everything is quite alright, I just had a bit of deja vu. She accepts this--I hope she accepts this--and I briskly move ahead of her, worried my feelings will betray me.

I’d commented on her clothes. That’s how it’d started. And a spat about clothes wouldn’t have been so bad, it shouldn’t have been, but it wasn’t about the clothes. It wasn’t about the wrong sizes and ill-advised color choices. It was about how I felt like she was a puzzle and I had lost the box with the full picture.

I liked the butch aesthetic. She could certainly pull it off! She could pull it off, as much as I was confident she could pull off any look she wanted. I wanted to support her no matter what she chose to do with her appearance. If she would just let me help her! I’d been exasperated, yes, but the look in her eyes. I’d tried to backpedal, say that she was beautiful—which she was—and I was sorry if I had implied otherwise. I tried to be more clear that I just wanted to help. And the look went on and on. It was just raw hurt. And I didn’t understand why.

I shook my head and spoke up from the den. I was thinking we might could watch something, I said loud enough for Twilight to hear. There’s popcorn and I have box wine.

Box wine? She asks, already in my kitchen, amusement obvious in her voice. Isn’t that a bit lowbrow for your tastes?

I roll my eyes. Darling, part of growing up is realizing that sometimes dignity is slightly less important than thrift. For your information, wine is wine even when it comes in a garish little box. It tastes just as good.

She laughs, and I can’t help but listen. Even with my distress, I still loved it.

Settling in for the evening, the distress died down, but the memory of my conversation with Fluttershy played over and over. Wine helps, and movies help, but memories have a way of slipping in between the noise.

She was so hurt. She was so hurt and I didn’t understand why, and I dug the hole even deeper—

“What set her off? I mean, what was the first thing that seemed to hurt?”

I mentioned that her shirt seemed a bit big, and that I could help her if she wanted to go shopping one weekend, and then she seemed to be uncomfortable, so I assumed she felt slighted! So I said she was beautiful, and…

“And it hurt.”

Yes! But whyever should it?

“I… I have an idea, but I’m worried that if I tell you that you’ll latch on to it. You and Twilight can, uh, fixate.”

I’m not blind to my foibles, dear, I say flatly.

Twilight yawned beside me. I snuggled in close, shifting the blanket around us as I laid my head on her chest. She was comfortable as always. I did this sometimes just to hear her heart beating like a steady little timpani.

I blinked, surprised and pleased at that, when I felt her hand run through my hair. She was usually so cautious, self-concious about ruining my hard work, that I hadn’t the heart to tell her that I missed the way my mother would play with my hair. I all but purr.

“So, I’ve talked to Twilight some, cause she’s not been doing great. You know, lack of sleep and diet…”

I’m aware. I’ve been worried myself, but trying not to pressure her. You know how she can be when she feels like she has a duty to see a thing through. I’d never abandon her to it entirely, but I’ve learned to help without being a stumbling block.

“She mentioned that. She was really grateful. But, um. I don’t know where to start.”

Start at the beginning, dear.

“That’s just it. Where’s the beginning?”

I love you, she says, and I look up and before she can move her hand I kiss her palm. I love her too, I say, and catch her eyes. Twilight, I say on impulse, and my heart hammers in my chest. I’ve wanted to apologize all night, I say. For last week.

And she looks away and seems nervous. Its okay, she says at last, but I know its not—not yet. Let me make it up to you? I suggest softly. She looks down at me, intrigued. Asks me what I have in mind.

“Has she told you about mirrors? That’s where she started with me…”

I tell her that its a surprise, and raise up to kiss her soft lips, and I don’t stop until she’s gasping for breath. She says yes, she’ll go with me wherever and do whatever, and I tell her with a bit of smugness that oh, I knew she’d be up for the adventure, I have ways of making it worth her while, and it is a terribly silly thing to say but she laughs and that is enough for me.

But When Completeness Comes, What is in Part Disappears

I know that I’m awake first because my throat is sandpaper and refuses to be ignored, and secondly because Rarity’s hair tickles my cheek until I settle my chin firmly on her head as she cuddles closer.

I stifle a yawn and stretch carefully, making sure not to disturb her or the cat which I’m sure is somewhere in the folds of this bed, ready to remind me exactly who owns this apartment de facto if not de jure. Opalescence may not actively despise me after a few years, but I doubt she’ll ever be really fond of anyone who isn’t Rarity. If tolerating being handled counted as fondness.

Slipping out of bed was both a herculean task and a sad one. I was always a bit sad when our mornings together in bed ended. Even if the rest of the day was lovely, the intimacy of the morning before you crawled out into the sunlight was the best and most important thing. But nature did not care about my preferences.

Washing my hands and face in Rarity’s sink, I caught my reflection again and just… sighed. She’d apologized, and said something or other about making it up to me, but my enthusiasm for whatever she had planned was anemic at best. I didn’t know how to explain myself, and I could tell that she was trying to figure it out.

Of course she would. I would, if I were her. I had investigated myself trying to understand my own feelings. In the mildly hungover clarity of morning I knew exactly what was wrong with me and the wrongness grimaced at me right there.

I glanced back through the doorway at her. Her arm laid across where my body had been. Her hair felt unevenly around her beautiful face, and the blanket had fallen down to her stomach. It took me a moment to realize her eyes were open, watching me.

Oh. Hey, I said limply. Good morning.

Good morning, she replied, her voice so warm.

Was going to make you some breakfast, I lied. Though I suppose it wasn’t a lie as soon as I’d said it. I probably would, now. I asked her if she wanted eggs, and she did, which was good because making scrambled eggs was essentially a kind of mantra for me at this point.

I retreated to her kitchen. As I cracked eggs and stirred and poured and all the little mundane procedure, I could almost hear Shining explaining it step by step like he had when I was a child. Every time I did this I felt like he was there and like I was six again and it was Saturday morning and my brother had decided it would be fun to see if a little kid like me could use the stove properly.

I didn’t know what Rarity had planned. My earlier feelings softened as I listened to the quiet sizzling pan. Rarity could be dramatic, and I wasn’t sure how I would handle dramatic, but she was also thoughtful and thoughtful I could handle. The day stretched out before us and I began to calculate what exactly I could expect.

I might have kept on planning, except that her arms snuck around my middle as I plated her eggs and she kissed the side of my neck. Thanks, she said, and I smiled and closed my eyes for a beat.

You’re welcome, I told her, and we stayed like that.

After breakfast, she took her sweet time getting to whatever it was that she had planned. I stewed in hopeful dread. It could be something nice. It could be something very nice. Historically speaking, most things Rarity planned were nice, even if I wasn’t sure at first.

She went about her normal routine, getting ready for… I didn’t know what. Still. I ended up curled on her couch for what felt like an eternity, reading on my phone until the sound of her clearing her throat forced my attention upwards.

She was stunning. She always was, but doubly so now. Hair perfect, makeup like she was expecting to impress, clothes immaculate--and new, I didn’t think I’d seen that skirt--and her smile wide and smug.

We’re headed out! She announced it more than said it. I blinked at her.

And where are we going? I asked, and she rolled her eyes at me.

Twilight, came the admonishment, it isn’t a surprise if one isn’t surprised.

I did point out that I was, presently, surprised by her announcement, but she countered that she’d warned me, and in a few minutes I was both defeated and in her car.

The drive was lively. Rarity had her music on this time, and we talked back and forth. She wanted to know about my friends in grad school, and I wanted to know about how her work had gone. I traded stories about sitting in cold computer labs ranting at a rubber duck about why such and such coding solution should work, damn you, for gossip from the art shows and the hubbub of artists moaning into coffee.

We were downtown before I asked again where we were headed. Again she refused to answer, her smile still smug, but I wondered. I always wonder with Rarity. She’s said before that I am an open book and I believe her, but as much as I wish she were the same, she is not. I cannot help but betray my feelings, but hers are so hard to read. Is that smile genuine, or is it hiding worry?

Looking around, I imagine the map of town I’d memorized so long before, when Shining first insisted that I navigate on my own. There was the old Frugal’s grocery building, the one with the mural… and that was the little pizza place he always insisted was the best—

Oh. Oh, I had an idea where we were going.

But I didn’t say anything. Not yet. Not until she pulled us into the mall parking lot and my heart sank into my stomach. She parked the car, and then… sighed. It was like she gathered all of her strength into a single breath.

She spoke before I could.

The last time I tried to help, I messed up royally, she began. She didn’t look towards me. Her hands gripped the steering wheel white-knuckled, then unfurling like a cat’s careful reaching, then clenching again. Managing stress. I hated to see it so naked. But she continued: if you truly do not want my help, there is a fallback. I wanted to make things up to you, and I know I do not have to do something bold, but I wished to.

What did you have in mind? I asked her, swallowing, mind skipping ahead moments hours the two of us frustrated and awkward and—

You want to, ah. The word is presentation, so I’m told. You want to present a different way.

Truth be told, I wish I could just blurt out yes, but I can’t. I just blink.

Rarity continues, her voice too fast, too fragile: And I’ve worked with men before, and I do know somethings about how one presents masculinely. Not that you have to be the same, but if you wanted to. If it were something you wanted to do. Which I think you do. And I really want to support that. And I thought if I hurt you because you thought I didn’t, and I showed that I did—

I reach out, not entirely sure why, and touch her arm. Her whole body sags. The words fall away.

I tell her its alright. It is alright. It really is.

Because… because I am still worried. I am nervous, and in a new way. Not in a I don’t want to talk about this way but in a I do, in fact, want to talk about this an awful lot but am not sure what talking will end up doing. The nervousness of possibility.

I want to, I tell her. I’m just nervous.

She says she is nervous. I ask why.

She counters, why am I?

I’m not entirely sure, I lie.

Same, she lies.

This is kinda silly, isn’t it? I say, trying to smile. But I think I want to go ahead and try. I was nervous before and that just made me feel bad, right?

She nods.

So, I continue carefully, so carefully, laying out a foundation of half-truths—So, logically, if letting myself be nervous and pushing you out doesn’t help, and I’m not happy with what I’ve done on my own… logically speaking—

Doing it together, Rarity says.

I nod. It’s worth a shot, I tell her, and my heart hammers in my ears.

Why? I can’t stop to think. We’re out of the car and headed in.

It was a bit of a blur, at first, Rarity is talking so fast and I don’t catch all of it and she knows that and I know she knows, but she talks regardless because talking is better than silence. It fills the nervous aching hole. I catch tidbits. Designs, cuts. Something about getting the right sort of jeans, and how its more important to getting a good silhouette than you’d think. Something about sizing. My head is swimming. I wish I could take notes because of course I wish I could, because the only reason I was always taking notes is because excitement does frustrating things to my brain.

She pulled things off racks and I made noises of approval or shook my head. It was all a bit formal, I said, but she laughed and told me that not everything had to be casual, and that she knew I had the casual down. I had enough graphic tees to fill a few closets. Don’t think of it as formal, she said to me as she showed me a blazer. Think of it as professional. Because you will have to be professional eventually, and when you do…

I nodded.

When she ushered me into the changing room and closed the door, I froze. Changing rooms do that to me. I can’t stand them. A whole room devoted to a mirror.

I hung the haul of new things up and just… sat down. Sitting helped. It made the world feel more stable. I needed that.

I knew she was waiting outside, eager to see me. And I wanted her to see me! But the feeling in my stomach was too much.

Truth be told, sitting there, pointedly not looking at myself in the mirror and staring down at my old boots, I realized that I couldn’t keep avoiding this forever. This being, of course, the real reason for the hair cut and the clothes and the mirror-hate. I didn’t cut my hair because it was too hot, the heat just helped me make a decision. I didn’t change my clothes because I wanted to be comfortable or just because I was trying something new. I didn’t hate mirrors because of societal pressures to be beautiful.

I slipped out of the boots.

Shining bought them for me, half a decade ago. Treat them well, he’d said. And they’ll treat you well—and hell, they’ll last forever.

I wanted to be like him. Not just in the normal way, admiring an older sibling, but in a very specific way. I wanted to be like him, and very specifically not like me. The feeling grew more intense as I grew older and my body changed and his voice dropped and mine didn’t, and I retreated into books. I didn’t want to be the part of him out in the sun, running and sweating, and yet I still wanted to look like him, to be spoken to like him, to hear my voice sound less…

I wanted to be a man, and I’d known it for years.

But what did you do with that? What could you do with that? Some things were just impossible, weren’t they? The world wasn’t made out of iron but it didn’t bend just because I wanted it so fervently to bend this one time.

I placed the boots together in front of the mirror and then stood up and faced myself.

I shrugged out of my shirt and, perhaps hoping it would lighten my spirits, stuck my tongue out at the reflection there. Dumb body. Off came the pants. Dumb, dumb body. I didn’t want it. If I could just be incorporeal thought, just idea and inclination and words, I would be that in a heartbeat. If I could be just code in a server, be in the same automatons I spent my nights perfecting, I would do it. I would trade cold steel and silicon and copper wiring and ten million lines of assembly for this awful flesh and its hateful curves and its stupid face.

I dress quickly. I try not to think about it, and I try not to watch myself do so. Hope is poisonous. Hope is what happens when its 1 AM and you think you’ve solved all the problems and the bugs are dealt with, and then nothing works and so hope is dashed and you talk it out with the rubber duck someone got you as a joke and realize that you’d rushed because you wanted to go home. Hope is what got you stuck in a cold computer lab by yourself for hours.

The worst part of all is that I know that Rarity is more than competent about this sort of thing, and that expecting to look anything other than great is probably too much to ask. It’ll look good, and I’ll have to admit that because I’ve frankly used up all the lying left in my exhausted spirit, and then…. I don’t know what happens then.

I button the shirt carefully. I hadn’t quite got used to the buttons being on the other side.

I think the thing that scares me most is that it might not be impossible. Hypothetically, if a thing were impossible, one could adjust oneself to live with this fact. The immutability of it would be a firm foundation upon which to build. But to have a thing be maybe possible, half-possible, whatever. That’s just not a foundation upon which you can build something. At least, it doesn’t feel like it.

I slip the boots back on. That’s familiar, at least. I tug at the sleeves of the blazer. It fits. Snug where it should be snug and loose where it should be loose. The shirt fits. I reflexively straighten the collar.

What would it mean for me and Rarity?

Now that makes me pause. I haven’t looked up yet. Somehow, in all of this, that is the one angle I had not anticipated. What did it mean for me and—

Rarity’s voice filters in under the door. Darling, she says, are you alright? If something doesn’t fit, it’s quite alright to skip it. Don’t force yourself on my account!

I stumble over words, saying I’ll be out in a moment. I had been almost calm before but god now I’m not sure if I want her to see me.

I open the door anyway and step out, and she’s there. She’s there, and her smile starts small and grows and grows and she lets out a little squeal of happiness and hugs me.

You look wonderful! She says. Handsome, like a scholar should!

I’m an engineer, I complain.

It’s the same thing, she counters.

It is not the same thing, and I tell her this, but she hushes me and steps back to admire her handiwork. She makes me turn around in a circle and she hums and hums.

Dear, you look excellent. I really think this is a good look in general, the coat and—

I cut her off. Rarity, I say. She blinks at me.

Yes, dear? She answers.

I think I’m ready to say something but I’m not sure what it means. I swallow again. I’m worried if I say—

You should, she says. Because it doesn’t matter what it is. We’ll be okay. We shall be fine. I promise you. Whatever it is, we will talk. And this time I will listen, and we will figure it out.

My eyes feel… itchy. Red. I don’t know that eyes can feel red, but mine somehow do. I wipe them and my hand comes away wet. Rares, I say, and my voice sounds a little pinched. I don’t think I’m a girl, Rares.

She takes a deep breath.

Is it good or bad that you don’t look like one right now? She offers quietly.

I think its a good thing, I say. I think so.

She nods.

I like it, she says.

I like it too.

Twi...I, do I still…

Twilight is fine, I say quickly. We can talk about that. Maybe. Maybe later. We, uh.

Twilight. You look dashing. I probably should have found you a tie but I thought you would revolt, she says weakly.

I bite my lip. Yeah, I admit. I might have. They’re too… Sunday Morning Best. I know how to tie one.

She snorts. Of course you do.

Yeah, of course I do. Why wouldn’t I learn how, watching videos on the internet quietly by myself, practicing over and over with one I borrowed from my dad’s drawers one saturday afternoon when everyone was napping or reading? It makes sense now. Lots of things do.

What does that mean… no, you said it was okay, I say. Is this okay? I don’t want to ask but I do. Is this okay?

Right now? She asks it softly. We are standing awkwardly in the row of changing rooms and I swear to god that its a miracle that no one is staring at us.

Yes, I reply. Right now. Is this okay. Are we okay. That we, you know. It would mean we weren’t… Or that we were… I mean if you’re a woman and I’m...

I think so, she says. I already said that. I mean. I’m sorry, she says and rubs her temples. I mean, I realized I was stuck in a loop, I repeated myself. Yes, I am okay. And you are okay. And you look splendid. I’m not sure what to say. The more I try to figure it out the more flustered I become, Twilight. But I can’t help but be happy, and whatever that means, you can have that. And you look splendid. I said it again. Damn it. It’s still true.

I try to smile, and to my own surprise, its not hard.

Thanks, I say. There’s a few more in there. Do you want me to, ah—

Please, she says. Her face is flushed. Before we stand here being idiots for another moment.

I retreat, laughing as much from the weird stress as from what she said. But I keep smiling. And the mirror doesn’t bother me. It can’t touch me for just a moment.

I Tell You a Mystery, We Shall Not All Sleep, But We Shall All Be Changed

They let us leave with Twilight wearing the outfit I’d assembled, which I appreciated. The woman checking us out had a smile that was just a bit more than professional, and I didn’t blame her.

Twilight was truly dashing. She—he?—they? Had been just as good looking in something professional as I could have hoped in my wildest dreams. I admit I’d not had as clear a plan after shopping. I’d really only made it that far. But Twilight didn’t seem fazed at all.

We walked leisurely, the whole length of the mall, warm hand in warm hand, and it was beautiful. I didn’t know another word for it. A weight was off Twilight. I could tell. I could feel it like it had come off of my own shoulders. And it was so, so strange. I don’t know how to describe the feeling.

With Twilight’s hand in mine, the feeling was more… it was like being on uneven ground, climbing together. Twilight let go for a moment to adjust something and instantly I felt a little colder, a little more uneasy. And then the hand was back, and the world stabilized. A bit.

We got lunch in the food court. It’s gauche, but it tastes good and it makes Twilight happy. The greasier, more carb-laden food is the more happy Twilight is, it seems. Sometimes I roll my eyes, but it is endearing in a way. Twilight—complex, full of deep ideas and endless calculations, and also extremely simple in her animal comforts.

Twilight juggled abstractions that I am not sure I could even begin to consider. And she spent half of her life in semi-dirty pajamas eating hot pockets and fritos by the computer light. I don’t know why I found this delightful, but secretly I did! I suppose it was honest. It was so absolutely, unthinkingly honest, so absolutely natural that it had not and perhaps would not ever occur to her unprompted to alter this. Life was lived in the moment as much as in the future. Twilight Sparkle planned, and she stressed, but he also lived sometimes with absolutely no qualms for the minor mores of lesser minds and busybodies and I envied them that.

And the honesty was really the problem, wasn’t it?

I am not honest. Oh, I can be honest. I am not deficient in honesty, or incapable of it! Truth be told, I can be brutally or kindly honest with the best of them! But I am not honest. It isn’t something I just do. It’s something I choose to do, because it is right, or useful, or asked for. For me, honesty is an action, and not a way of being.

Art is artifice. Artifice is the creation of simulacrum. I create. I mold. To tell the truth one tells it slant. All of this is such a terrible way to explain how uncomfortable I am being so, so openly without the comfort of artifice. Some people wear clothes for warmth and I wear them because what we put on is what we are. I obsessed over color and shape because that is the fundamental material out of which the whole world is made.

Twilight had stood in front of me, naked despite the coat, their heart exposed, and I had just… I hadn’t known what to say. It’s so easy to think that in the moment you will have some perfectly lovely think to say that will put a cap on all your feelings, that will be just like in the books you read, but god you won’t. You almost certainly won’t. You’ll do it once and try to bottle the moment forever and it’ll burn through until it sears your hands. I had nothing. I had nothing now.

Twilight sat eating fried rice like the world was fine, talking of this and that, mostly how… I needed to just be comfortable. He. Twilight. He. No more mental fumbling. He. I swallowed. Twilight talked about how much he was looking forward to finishing their current project, something about an autonomous arm of sorts, with some kind of multitool. Frankly it sounded like it was a bit terrifying, but he was excited. And I liked that excitement. I was happy listening.

God that happiness is so fragile.

We were going to have to talk about things, weren’t we? Even if they were talks that ended happily, we did have to have them. And god, where would we start? Names. Pronouns? Clothes I think we had kind of handled. Medicine? Us? Him? Us?

Twilight may plan too aggressively but I can’t plan at all when its too sudden. My mind is a shattered mosaic, thoughts all scattered to the four corners.

On impulse, I touched Twilight’s hand and he smiled at me, brushing a bit of hair from his eyes more by habit than by necessity. I think. The smile endures. I want to keep the image of it in my mind. I want to savor it the way one savors a coffee in the evening after a dinner, slowly and leisurely and without urgency.

I’ve never dated a man. I hated the whole “gold star lesbian” label but to some people, I would be one. I had never in my life been interested in a man. I hadn’t been repulsed by them, just uninterested. The men I knew did not share interests with me. Their talk did not move me the way that women had. I did not understand them in some way. At least so I said.

I look at Twilight and I do not feel that way, but what does it mean? And what am I to do with that reality? Is my very continued interest an invalidation of who he is? That isn’t something Twilight brought up, so why do I? Should I? I wanted to crush my mind between two hands. What step is first, and what comes next? What? What? What?

I squeeze his hand before releasing it.

And I don’t know. And he doesn’t know.

How’re you feeling? He asked.

I say I am not sure. And he agrees.

What's there to be sure of? He offers. Really. I don’t have any certainties but two. That I know who I am, and that I want to be here, right now, with you.

I only know the second one, I said.

He smiled. Then let me help. We’ll go step by step.

I nodded.

His eyes and my own locked.

We all change, he said. Nothing’s constant, remember? And that’s not a bad thing.

I remembered.

A river and the woman who walks through it. Heroclitus. I remember, I say. I love you, Twilight.

And he loved me too.

Author's Note

I'd like to apologize to any transmasculine or nonbinary people who feel that I've missed the mark. I likely have. I consulted with people beforehand, but am acutely aware that our experiences--mine as a trans woman and yours as a man or amab nonbinary person--are very different even as there are parallels.

Trans men often do not get their stories seen for one reason or another. I have hoped to help change that in my own sphere as I could, and for Pride month I worked on a story, because I didn't want to just do another trans story about a woman because I'd done it already, and it felt right to focus on a trans man. I hope that's alright.