.
.
The white stork glares. Ruffles its soot-ridden wings, a show of hubris in the face of pollution. A strut of its left leg, then a strut of its right as it surveys its newfound dominion of faded brick and bloated cement. Satisfied, it kneels down, dropping from its beak a collection of twigs. The stork nudges them about here and there, all while knowing that what it has is still far from home. In time, it reminds itself as it gazes unwaveringly into the blistering sun. In time.
*Click*
I, Photo Finish, take my last photo of the month, sighing to myself for another job well done. The editor had been barking at me about it for the past few days. Kept on moaning about contingencies, the just-in-cases, that whole little song and dance of his. I could do without it personally, though I’m sure he would be nothing without that annoying jig in his step. With this last photo finally in the saddlebag, it would be safe to assume that he would at the very least be somewhat grateful. He should be so when he sees the photo I have for him. He must be.
A careful disassembly of my equipment later, I'm on the nearest tram back to the rickety apartment I for now shall call home. As always, I would seat myself at the rightmost window seat in the second-to-last row. Oftentimes, my eyes would just trail along with the silk of the scenery as the tram weaves between the buildings. Some may find their architecture fascinating, I’m sure. If you’d ask me, however, the view can feel a bit too close to home.
My interests only really begin to stir when the tram emerges into the city square. The grand fountain stands in the absolute middle, an astute obelisk of the times. Ponies of all ages congregate around it within their own lively little companies. I glimpse children in a game of tag, their scampering hoofsteps scattering a flock of pigeons.
In between the sundering flush of feathers, I notice a couple cuddling on the fountain’s marble rim. From beneath his chin, where her head had rested upon his crossed hooves, she looks up at him and smiles. He notices seconds later and smiles back. He leans in for a kiss.
A burst of life fills my aching lungs as I light up the cigarette in between my teeth.
By the time I arrive at my station, I'm the only one remaining, left alone to recline in my seat. I close my eyes, savouring the feeling of being coddled by the swirling warmth of nicotine in my lungs and the gentle laze that had engulfed me after a long afternoon of scooting about. I should celebrate, I tell myself. With all the work I had done this time around, I certainly deserved it.
Home was a four-minute walk away—a rental, one I would only use for purposes of work, nothing more. As I make my approach, a tepid smile runs across my cheeks when I notice a mare standing amid a metropolis of suitcases that had been erected before the doorsteps leading into my apartment. Her coat wafts with the prodigious blue of the summer sky. Her mane, one I remember to be a frilly mess of prospective silver and prosperous gold, had been trimmed and combed back, a respectful attempt to be easy on the eyes.
The moment she catches my approach, she weaponises her precious little pout, as though it is in any way necessary.
“Come in,” I tell her.
She beams. “Best big sis ever.”
I’ve always hated her white lies.
⟡
⟡
There is a saying in my family. That Mill Finish will never be a mare you’d want waiting at your doorstep.
I suppose there is some truth to that. It would not be any fault of hers. Millie, her personality, I find, has a little bit of a je ne sais quoi, one that my parents had wholly disapproved. Per her wish, she seldom sees them anymore. The victory was hers, she told me once in secret, and no one will say anything otherwise.
Sometimes, I wonder if that was really the case. Sometimes, I think she wonders about it herself too.
I have not seen my little sister for some time. It feels odd, standing at the doorway of my dining room and seeing her in my wooden chair, carving out with utmost care a piece from the plate of buttered toast I had left over from lunchtime as she looks to the city outside. Seeing her like this, it makes one speculate what may have compelled her to come here. Long story short, a free bird like her never flies close to the nest without reason. After all, when it comes to Millie, to want the company of anyone, much less her sister, would be a notion she’d reject as asinine. Then again, I suppose absence does make the heart grow fonder.
Millie notices me ogling. She turns her head to face me wholly even as she chews. “You told me you’ve quit smoking.”
It is in her nature to tease. “I told you that so we could keep the story straight whenever Maman wants to find something about me to complain about.”
“Incorrigible! Just like your father!” She laughs at her terrible impression of our mother. “You’d think by her age, she would just give up.”
I exhale. The smoke trickles out from my lips into the sky like childhood dreams. “She would sooner cast away the eyes in her head than to give up on something she deems to be right, no matter how trivial.”
“Incorrigible,” Millie sighs. “Just like our father.”
“We’re no better,” I point out, looking askance at my sister’s many suitcases still waiting by the front door. “Is there anything I need to be worrying about from this point onward?”
Millie gasps, dropping both fork and knife onto the floor on purpose, scattering the breadcrumbs across the wooden floor for me to have to clean later. “You wound me, Fifi!” she exclaims.
I crush my cigarette in a makeshift ashtray I had folded from the old newspapers that once covered my windows, before kneeling down to pick up the silverware for her. “You rarely do this,” I tell her. “You, showing up in town, suitcases aplenty. One wonders. One can’t help it.”
“Is it wrong to want to meet my big sister?” Millie remarks with a convenient smile in tow. “Do you think I’m so volatile that the mere act of passing you by would throw all your future plans off balance, ma soeur?”
“It is just rather unexpected, you being here.” My admission bothers her, I can tell. “You’re the kind of pony who’d much rather spend her holidays club hopping in Mareseille over visiting her family, we both know that.”
“Well, I don’t see why that would mean anything bad’s about to happen.”
“It just feels odd, that’s all.”
“You mean to say it’s not fair.”
The urge to reach for another cigarette comes over me.
“I suppose,” was all I could utter in light of her sudden peeling of façades. I seat myself across from her, allowing myself to brace for the confrontation that I had feared would transpire. “I have a lot of questions, Millie. I just don’t know if I have the courage to ask them, because I know that if I do, I’m going to learn some things about you that I really wish I hadn’t.”
She leans in, sandwiching both hooves beneath her chin with a grin, the bent line of scorn stretching thinly from cheek to cheek. “Where do you want to start?’
I choose not to indulge her. “I just want to know one thing. If that’s alright with you.”
Millie gapes. “You’re asking me for permission?” Disapproval, a pouncing leopard—an uncanny resemblance to the mother she claims to think so little about. “Now, that! That is very unlike you.”
“I didn’t want to seem insensitive.”
“Oh. Right. Because I’m supposed to be the sensitive one of the two of us. Keeping the story straight, gotcha.” She kicks back in her chair and laughs with a bitterness I’ve become all too familiar with. “Don’t wanna disappoint dear old Maman, after all.”
I exhale, hoof running along the creases on my forehead. “Maman isn’t here.”
“For all we know, she could be in the next room right now. Listening in on us.” Millie aims the fork directly at me, her piercing glare rising to accompany the glinting silverware. “After all, why else would you do this?”
“Do what?”
“You’re being patient with me,” she spits. She may as well stick the fork into my neck. “This is not you. You don’t do this. I’ve seen you around, I know what it is you do. This is not you.”
“I changed.” The truth of the matter is simple, even if it may be hard to digest. “Times change. Seasons do. Night and day, they make it so effortless. The princesses, we know now that they can change too. Thus, ponies change. Thus, I change.”
To that—to all my honesty, my earnesty, my want of her welcome.
"You’re wasting your breath.”
I shrug. “I’ve wasted a lot more on lesser ponies.”
“I don’t need your pity. I’ve been doing just fine without it.” Millie narrows her gaze. “You don’t trust me, do you? You still don’t, after all this time.”
My words could only come loose with the heaviest of sighs. “I trust you, I really do.”
“Then why does it feel like you’re still looking down on me, soeur chérie?” Her voice trembles ever so slightly. “You said you changed, yet all this feels the same.”
“I’m not doing all this because Maman is telling me to, Millie. I’m doing this because I want to. You have to understand that.”
“What’s the difference at this point.” Millie shakes her head, eyes shut. “Merde, it disgusts me how much you sound like her.”
The floor sinks with those words.
The space that I had been sculpting between us collapses with it.
I watch her.
Millie says nothing else. She takes another bite of the toast.
Even so, I continue to watch her.
I do so for the longest time.
Only to be reminded just how much the sight of her exhausts me.
Without further ado, I turn to walk away to another room, all while fumbling about desperately for the comfort of a cigarette. I could not leave her, however, without a few strong words of my own.
“At least I’m not the one who keeps bringing her up.”
⟡
⟡
The afternoon dwindles. Most of it had been spent with me on the window seat in the alcove, cigarette in hoof as I keenly observe the quiet world outside. I could perhaps spend my time here regaling about its beauty, its tranquility, but nothing about it catches my eye unfortunately. I fear it is what happens when you see so much of it come your way. You become disenchanted by it. Your mind wanders.
Millie remains in the forefront, my lone denizen. It pains me sometimes, how comfortable my sister is with saying these things. I do it only once, I feel nauseated, asphyxiated. Meanwhile, she could go on and on, freely, confidently, missing not a single beat, speaking as though the whole world is against her.
Perhaps I should’ve gone about it differently. Perhaps, instead of asking her why she’s here, I should’ve asked how she’s doing, where she’s been, whether or not she misses me as much as I have missed her. Perhaps then she would tell me more about the things she saw, the faces she met, the moments where she would think to herself: ‘Wow, Fifi would’ve loved this if she were here right now.’
I asked her about it once. The last time we spoke. About what she does, to grasp the essence of it.
“It’s not an adventure,” she tried to explain to me. “I’m not doing this because I’m going on some incredible, life-changing journey. I’m not searching for answers or anything like that. I’m doing this for the exact same reason you’re doing your photography work, Fifi.”
I don’t think I’ve ever understood it.
“It’s just that simple.”
I don’t think I’m supposed to.
“It is what I’m supposed to do.”
Mill Finish, the mare who bears that name, is as familiar to me as a stranger. She is a picture that eludes my frame of mind no matter how much I try to capture her. To engage with her is a fiendish enigma, an endeavour that would sooner shatter one’s spine than have her acquiesce with your desires. All my life, I cannot claim to understand her. I cannot hope to even conceive the faintest idea of the distant galaxies that comprised her.
But perhaps that’s where the beauty truly lies.
Perhaps the beauty comes not from understanding her, but from not understanding her.
Perhaps the beauty lies in a single truth, one I now know to be absolute. One that easily overshadows every defect and deformity that I had been nurtured to recognise in her.
That Millie is, and always will be, my little sister.
The evening arrives alongside my epiphany rather unceremoniously. It settles comfortably in the quaint scenery before me, as though it had always been there. I find myself leaning into the glass, longing for the touch of the setting sun even as I blemish the view with crumbling clouds of nicotine.
Yet the warmth I ache for comes from behind. They shakily brush against my sides, only to pull away. It is only when I willfully lean back into them that Millie commits, her hooves encroaching upon me gradually as they wrap themselves around my waist.
“I’m sorry.”
I droop in her embrace. “I’m sorry too.”
Millie buries her face into me. Carves a twinkling river that slides down my back. “I get it if you want me to leave,” she gulps. “I get it.”
I place my cigarette aside. My forehooves reach down to join her; my breathing slows to match her every rise, her every fall. For the briefest moment, we vanish into each other. We convulse, we simmer, we softly linger onward, as one.
“I just want to know one thing.” Pulling away, if only because I wish to face her, I try again. No matter how tight my chest feels or how much my lips quiver, I know I must try again. “You don't have to answer if you don't want to. But if you do want to, I just want you to be honest about it. Just one thing, if that’s fine with you.”
Slowly, Millie nods.
I could see them shimmer in her eyes. The many ghosts of our coloured past, coalescing.
“Is everything okay?” I finally bring myself to ask. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Millie gazes into me for the longest time. She seems to be considering what I’ve said deeply. It’s rather uncommon for her; forethought was never really her strong suit. “There’s nothing to worry about,” her careful response comes soon afterward. “I just needed a place to crash for a couple of days. I’ll be out of your mane before you know it.”
“Okay.” I rise and head for the bathroom. “If you need anything, just talk to me, okay? I'm here for you.”
“Mm.”
I know a way to make her feel better. “Why don’t you go and get dressed? Maybe figure out what you wish to eat for dinner tonight and I’ll take you there? My treat.”
Millie giggles.
For a moment, it feels as though we were children again.
⟡
⟡
Macaroni and cheese.
Of all the foods one could ever get in the heartland of the Czequestrian Republic, Mill Finish went with macaroni and cheese.
This is just how things are when it comes to her, I suppose. Having had a childhood bathed in opulence and splendour, Millie had discovered at some point that she leans towards much simpler tastes, or should I say more homely. Either way, her dispositions, however inconsequential, had displeased many in the family, our parents included. I personally am indifferent.
It’s strange, really. When I watch her scarf her macaroni down at the dinner table, it feels like we are home again. All we needed to complete the picture was for Maman to come around the corner and give Millie a proper scolding. Yes, even in public, my mother would show no manner of restraint at blasting out her proclamations of dining etiquette for the world to hear. Millie told me it always sounded like an exorcism when our mother did that. Looking back at it, I find it hard to disagree.
Things feel different now. Things are different now. Looking at Millie now as she playfully pirouettes her way down the street, it has become extraordinarily clear to me just how much the times have changed, how far we’ve diverged. I watch as she swirls in between the antique street lamps. Her shadows, in their multitudes, thoughtlessly fall upon me. She laughs freely, vociferously, into the silent night; I withhold the urge to do the same.
It is only then that I notice it.
“You’re wearing my dress.” A simple fitting I ordered for her, yellow with red polka dots. A dress that she told me was too tacky for her. “The one I gave to you last Hearth’s Warming.” The one that I thought she would’ve thrown away by New Year’s.
Millie smiles. A waxing moon from ear to ear. “Slowpoke.”
I cannot help but gawk at the sight. A smoky laugh bursts from my chest. Then another. Then another. Then another and another and another and...
She laughs along with me.
“Photo?”
Millie decides to call me by my name only when we are upon the side of a bridge, gazing at the glittering slivers of topaz and silver distending within the rippling waters.
“Can I have one?” she asks.
“One what?”
“A smoke.”
I reach for the box in my pocket, even as I try and fail not to smirk. “Of all the things you choose to take after me. What would Maman think of you, following in my hoofsteps?”
She smiles in return. “Nothing less than what she had thought of me already.”
From the crumpled box, I deftly withdraw a pair of cigarettes. One for her, one for me. Wordlessly, I light mine first with my lighter hovering just before my chin, before leaning in towards her as she places her stick between her lips.
Our cigarettes touch, as do our foreheads.
A swell of warmth lights up the world between us.
“I love you, Fifi, you know that?” she says to me after a long, hefty puff. “I just want you to know that.”
I yearn to respond, only to find myself unable to. Instead, I wrap my hoof around her shoulder, my heat merging with hers as we look into the river together. Two sisters huddling in the cold.
“I love you,” she whimpers to me repeatedly, a mantra lost to the lonely dark as her tears drip into the everflowing waters. “I love you.”
It will be the last thing that she ever says to me.
⟡
⟡
Here lies a saying that should've been in my family.
Mill Finish will never be a mare who would be there for you when you need her most.
I never saw her again after that night. I suppose it’s in her nature to fly from the nest without a word, a single sound. I cannot help but despise her for it, yet at the same time, I don’t think I could ever blame her.
Still, she should’ve been there. She should’ve been sitting at the chair, eating what remains of my buttered toast from the day before.
I should’ve made her stay.
I'd imagine Mother and Father would think her dead if they were in my place. Good riddance, they might say, one less problem to worry about. As for me, I'd like to think that she’s out there somewhere, living her life, doing her best. Maybe even waiting for me in that tacky yellow dress.
That's what I like to believe.
I think it's the best thing, if not the only thing I can do for her.
To believe.
*Click*
On my way to the station to board the last train back to Canterlot, I take my last photo of the month, this one for myself. It is a photo of a stork, one flying high above the city, at times joining those of us mingling in between the stone walls and slate roofs. I do not know if it was the same stork from before. All I know is that it has no thought or care of the world beneath it. It just flies on, as though it is bereft of any purpose. Or perhaps that, in of itself, is its purpose.
I hope it finally finds the home it deserves.
I hope we all do.
.
.
Author's Note
dither
/ˈdɪðə/
verb
- — To tremble, shake, or shiver with cold
- — To be uncertain or unable to make a decision about doing something
- — (computer graphics) To render an approximation of (an image, etc.) by using dot patterns to approximate (the features of) colors not in the system palette
- — To intentionally add noise to a signal to randomize errors that occur in the processing of both digital audio and digital video data
