What Was, What Is, and What Will Be

You and I on the path from the Apple family farm down into the city, enjoying the warm summer evening… I freely admit that I’m in Heaven. My mind still feels a bit foggy, but in more of a pleasant background hum sort of way,

Our hands are still entwined. You haven’t commented on it. Instead you’ve simply tormented me, laughing, with idle speculation regarding my impossible lesbian dating career to come in Canterlot. It sounds so strangely nice, even sort of normal, when you talk about it. I had expected, oh, I don’t know. I had expected something more foreign to my experience, something odd and confusing. But I suppose that was silly. People are, despite it all, just people.

I admit that it’s fun. You’ve always had a way of charming me, Twilight. When first we met, you seemed so painfully focused like a knife’s edge. What mattered was the thing you wanted, the thing directly in front of you. You barely conversed without some sort of reason related to research or your academic pursuits! But it didn’t take long at all for you to open up for us. You truly blossomed.

And I was blessed to be there for all of it. I’ve gotten to listen to you grow in so many ways. I wish I could tell you that. I also wish that I had grown as much as you seem to have!

“You know,” you say at some point, as we finally cross from fields into town, “I’m joking, but I’m also kind of serious. About dating, like, in a very casual way. Or at least going out, meeting people. It can really help.”

“I know,” I say, and sigh.

You seem like you want to say something, and I long to discover what it is. But the secret seems to die on your lips. We walk together under the light of a lonely street lamp and in the passing glow I see such a strange mixture of signs and symbols in your beautiful face, as if I see you only in the midst of a changing of the guard. Not for the first time I wish I could tap into your train of thought. You offered to teach me something of the theory of such magics but I refused. I said it was out of a lack of skill, and I stand by that, but also… even as much as I want to know, the mystery is also a delight. To see every move on the chessboard can be so lonely.

I can’t help but sink into the past, and I say so. “It’s lovely, walking here with you again. We took a lot of evening strolls through town when you and I were looking our future careers in the face. We talked and talked…”

You smile and squeeze my hand. “Yeah, we did. Honestly, some of those worries were excuses.”

“What?” I blink at you. “What do you mean?”

You roll your eyes, which I can’t even be affronted by, and say, “I wanted to spend time with you. I was… I guess I was wanting some reassurance.”

“Of what?” I ask, but… but perhaps I know.

I, too, wanted some reassurances. I wanted fleeting last moments that proved that the ghosts of… whatever it was I felt then were real. I wanted to hold your hand where no one would see us, and where I would not be questioned or be asked to question! Maybe at the time I could very willfully excuse that as some kind of young indulgence, but eventually I had to know it wasn’t. Right? Eventually.

“That you’d still be there. I wanted… I wanted some memories, for when I left.” You laugh. “Not that you didn’t follow me, eventually! Sort of. But you travel more than I think anyone I know.”

“More than I would like, sometimes,” I grouse. “It gets exhausting, Twilight. I have to! Well. I have to travel some. Its hard to leave things in others hands, even when those others are capable.”

“I don’t know how Celestia does it so easily,” you say, and I feel the strains of awe there that you’ve kept from your early days as her prized pupil. “I can imagine what its like, but I can’t imagine being… sanguine about it. I understand. Its hard to let go, even when you could—even when you should. I can tell it weighs on you. The last couple of times we spent any time together, it was obvious.”

I look away from you, down towards the cobblestones. I want to say that I am fine, that I can handle it! That wouldn’t be a lie. I can endure it all, and I have endured it. I’ve borne up under all the hours in lonely train cars far from home, looking over reports with branch managers in crowded office backrooms, pushing through tedious repeats of repeats of marketing meetings in expensive restaurants that I like less and less, despite the tasteful decor. Do I like it? I’m not sure if I do, truly. I like parts of it. I like feeling as if I can bare up under it all. I like the victorious feeling! But not the rest, not in the way I used to, when it was more novel.

“Maybe that’ll change,” I say softly. “If we’re changing things. I mean, if I am.”

You hum and with a start I realize that we’re almost to the door of the original boutique. I closed this one—well, not closed. That’s a dour way to say that I moved the business elsewhere and converted the space into a workshop and retreat for myself. It still has the old charm, even with no light behind the windows.

I fumble around in pockets for the keys. You let my hand go and lean beside the door. When I look up to unlock the door, I almost miss the lock because of the distraction of your eyes, reflecting a tiny bit of the street lamp light back at me.

The door swings open, and you are first inside before I can say a word. Without even thinking, I step through and find the light switch.

My workshop is as I last left it, what feels like a lifetime ago. It’s messy, organized along some ergonomic schema that made perfect sense to me a year ago but which escapes me now. Before I can even offer up an embarrassed look explanation, you are already looking around with a look of unabashed wonder. I can’t say a thing.

You ask a few questions, remark on some old sketchbooks that I left on a table, generally just… explore. I follow you around like some sort of dutifully loyal hound, answering and explaining and accepting bewildering praise.

But eventually, the late hour draws us back to the matter at hand. We walk back into the living space and you settle down on the couch while I pour a nightcap for us both, and start thinking very hard about the sleeping arrangements.

I knew, objectively, that there was only going to be one bed. I knew that when I set on coming here. But I hadn’t been really considering that. I hadn’t taken it seriously. And now, with a bottle of port in my hands in my lonely little kitchen, I am very much taking the impending inevitability seriously.

I lick my lips, pour us both partial glasses. The question is not whether you’ll be in my bed, but in what way I will broach the subject. I mustn’t be crass, obviously, but being too… honest… no, subtlety is as always the answer. I’ll have to work my way towards it. Nothing to it, Rarity.

I step out into the dim light of my own living room, currently lit by only a single lamp that casts you, the couch, and the little coffee table in warm orange hues. There you are, sitting leisurely on my old couch. In this short moment before you turn your head towards me, I see a strange expression on your face. I don’t know what it means. It is not an unpleasant emotion, it seems. But then I think I do know it—its the face you make when deep in concentration. I put on a big smile and hand you your glass, and of course the obligatory—

“So, I hope this bed of yours is big enough,” you say, and take a sip as soon as you’ve had your little ritual.

Outflanked, I cough on my own drink and nod. I slide down carefully onto the old couch. There’s a t least a person’s space between us. I could bear no more, and I am unsure if I can risk much less.

“Good! Glad to hear it.”

I recover quite quickly, far more quickly than I believe most others in my position would have, and feign and air of nonchalance.

It feels strange to be here. I can feel what’s on the other side of the wall, beckoning me as it has all night, but the closer we get, the harder it seems to breach it. Breach it! The mere fact I’m thinking of such a thing is scandalous in itself, yet here I am. Or was. I rather don’t know anymore.

You continue sipping your drink, the two of us quietly lost in our thoughts. I wonder what you’re thinking of. Do you want to go to bed? Sleep? Tired of waiting to see what happens, perhaps? Not that you’d ever let me feel such a thing, kind as you are, but… but maybe you’ve realized you were hoping for practice, when all I can offer is theory.

Dread claws its way up my spine to besiege my brain. The electricity in the air isn’t gone, but its tenuous. Uncertain. It could become anything. It could become nothing.

Normally, the uncertainty is delicious. Dozens and dozens of secret, quaint little moments that you and I stole in our youth flash by, another dozen or so subtle rendezvous since, and in all of them the uncertainty was most of the fun. The forbiddenness was fun. But it isn’t now. I am not sure why.

“What are your plans, going forward?” you ask, looking into your drink, and then meeting my eyes. “I mean, I assume you’re going to take at least a little time to yourself.”

“I’m taking time off now,” I reply, tearing free of your gaze reluctantly. “Isn’t that enough?”

“It could be.” You click your tongue. “Do you think it is? You’ve had a pretty large shakeup in your life. You have a lot of things to think about!”

“I am thinking about them.” I grimace. I have thought about them, to be fair. The finances, the house, my business. I confess that I had probably been thinking about it long before now. Its hard for me to admit, but perhaps when I chose to keep our accounts separate, I may have been anticipating the day when it would be useful to have my assets cordoned off. I say as much, and you listen patiently, but I can tell in the way you tense that you are not satisfied.

I feel suddenly that I am being examined. Analyzed. Again I am a creature in an enclosure in your gaze. It is unmooring, but not unwelcome.

“What have you thought about them?” you ask softly. Sharply, the world comes back into focus.

My throat feels so dry as I say, “I haven’t… come to any conclusion, yet. I’m still trying to understand my options. I hadn’t expected this. I mean…”

You scoot closer and put your hand on mine for a moment. “I know. Rarity…” you cough, turn away, and when you look back at me your face is wearing a smile again. “Actually, let’s lighten the mood. It’s a bit late, isn’t it? Wouldn’t want to go to bed feeling ill at ease.”

I nod. “That’s fair. I—”

“Superb.” You set your glass down and turn your entire body towards me on the couch. “Remember what we used to do? When we were younger and it was far too late and everyone else had managed to fall asleep, all the girls around us, but you and I were still awake?”

“We used to, ah, play a game,” I said. “Questions. We would ask questions. I remember.”

“Right. And you, Rarity! You have not answered my earlier question.”

I blink, genuinely confused. “I… what question? I’m sorry, Twilight, I’m not sure what you could be referring to.”

“I asked how you felt about girls,” you say, as if that is a reasonable thing to say to me.

“That.” I say, words piling up in my brain so fast that none of them can force their way to the fore. I swallow. “That. I, ah. Well. I would say that I am… Isn’t this a bit… I’m not nearly drunk enough to talk about this!”

“Rarity, come on. It’ll be fun! You know just as well as I do that scandalizing each other and ourselves is just as fun now as it was then. Be brave.”

“I’ve thought about it,” I admit. “Girls. Women, I mean. My interest in them! Thought about it.”

You chuckle. “Really riveting stuff there.”

I’m glad that you put down your glass as I push a pillow off the couch at you. “Twilight Sparkle, you are a boor! You are absolutely the worst! Fine! I have thought about it a lot and I think I am very attracted! Are you happy!”

Unmoved, you press your advantage. Your singsong condescendingly at me, “I am happy! Good girl, was that so hard?” And then when my heart turns over on itself and I look away you scoot even closer. Damn you!

“It’s just very different, is all,” I say.

“Only a bit. At some level its not so different.” You pause, the tempo of your pursuit broken slightly as you say softly, “Okay, yes, it is really pretty different. There’s so much context and—Nope, back on target. You’ll not shake me off that easily.”I stick my tongue out at you, presumably because alcohol makes me stupid. But, shockingly, this fails to deter you. “Rarity, this is a perfect opportunity for you to stake out new territory. But its your decision to make. Isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t, ah, aware I was making a decision.” In my head like a strip of magnesium, a flare of nervousness lights up the entire conversation. I am ruthlessly examining every word, every movement, every tilt of your head. The way the shadow falls on your face. The lump in my throat, the sudden heaviness of my breathing.

Twilight, you and I have skirted the edge of something great and cavernous for so long.

Years have passed. We balance on railings overlooking the deeps. We laugh and play and wink and hold hands in the darkness but you’ve never pushed me over and I’ve never dared to stay long enough to do the same. At least, I don’t think I have.

In my mind, in thi s moment that stretches out before me, the foggy giddiness of alcohol leaves and I am sober and my sight is clear… and I don’t know what to do. My uncertainty is not vacillation, not right now. It’s a simple monolithic fact. I don’t know what to do. I am like the old explorers looking out over the great ocean towards Griffonia in another age, the kind we write romanticized, dashing novels about—on the other side of the Wall is an unknown country. It’s a place that has customs I do not know and expectations that no one’s told me yet. I realize that I cannot go there myself. Not as I am. Not right now. I don’t know when I would be able to, if I would be able to. I don’t know if its possible. I don’t know if it would be better or worse if it was.

The Wall is tangible and the other side is not.

But when I tell you that I wasn’t aware that I was making a decision, I can read the skepticism in your eyes. “Aren’t you?” you ask me. “Aren’t you, right now?”

“I’m not sure how.”

The silence hangs over and between us. My mind tries to convince me that I imagined this whole exchange, that it fabricated those words. Any moment now, Twilight will look at me with confusion and ask what I’m referring to, and I’ll laugh, and we’ll move on, and I won’t have to think about this. But the idea that it might not have happened is no relief.

You tilt your head just so. “Tell me about it.” It isn’t commiseration. Its more… not quite imperious. It isn’t a command so much as a statement of future fact. I will tell you.

So I do. “I don’t know the way. Or, I guess I do know, but I can’t make myself just… take a step. My feet won’t cooperate with my mind or my heart, Twilight. The ceiling’s collapsed in and trapped me under the weight and I can’t move.”

“You make the future sound frightening. Why?”

“It is!” I say. My face is hot, I can feel it and put a hand on my on chest where my heart is beating wildly out of rhythm. “It is frightening!”

You reach out and touch my chin. I stare down at your hand, back to your face, away from there. There is nowhere to look that makes it less real and immediate. “Rarity,” you say so softly, “it’s scary only in so much as its new. Think about this: would I be prodding you like this if there were something bad on the other side? Look me in the eyes.”

Perhaps teaching has worn off on you, Twilight, because the nearest touch of authority in that last bit did make me do as you asked. You are smiling at me and I feel suddenly foolish, as if you’ve said something obvious and the joke of it eludes me.

“I suppose you wouldn’t lure me into danger,” I admit.

“I wouldn’t. I’m only asking you to consider what it is you really want,” you say to me.

Your eyes have always been beautiful, Twilight, but were they always so deep, like twin pools of mystic, aetherial power? Is it your command of magic that brings that light, or is it you? Is there no distinction? I wish I knew the answers to these questions. I want to ask you, even though it would be foolish.

“But I don’t know what I really want.” But I do know, don’t I? I do know exactly what it is I really, truly want.

I want you to kiss me, Twilight. I want it more than anything else in this moment. No, I need you to kiss me. As in, Twilight, my friend, my guide, perhaps maybe something more, I specifically need you to be the one that kisses me, because I am frozen in place.

“You do,” you say. You press in. Your hand is so warm on my cheek. “I know you do.”

“I can’t,” I say, desperate to explain. But I don’t know how! I have no idea how to make it sound right, to get across my need. I know you can understand, I know you could just read it there in my eyes if only you would look! Surely you see it. Surely you wouldn’t—

“It’s not something others can just do for you,” you say, confirming my suspicion. “You have to do it for yourself. Nobody’ll carry you over that first step, Rarity.” Your hand leaves my chin, and I despair, only for your fingers to run through my hair. Your face changes.

For just a moment, I wonder what’s behind this… its not a mask. It’s not exactly a character. It is you, but its a version of you, an angle of you, as if in different light you might become just slightly different. You grew confident, but this quiet knowing you have is new. The surety is almost heady. Even your suggestions feel as certain as if they were recountings of things that have already passed.

I wish I had said then, “What happens if I say it outright?” I wish I had held together that well. So dearly I wish I had held together that well. Your mercy is the only thing between me and abject humiliation, because at this point I was wound up. I felt like I could barely speak, so whatever it was I said came out half-strangled and you laughed.

“Is that the best you can do?” you tease. I nod.

You lean in—and its so unreal—and stop right before you reach me. Your lips are so close to mine, so agonizingly close. “I suppose I can take that as a first step.”

Twilight, I’ve been kissed so many times in my life. But I cannot think of another like the one we share as your fingers grip my hair lightly and your whole body presses as close as the couch can allow. I feel like my mind is fleeing on wings. I feel like my body is shaking itself apart in shock and joy. Time erodes. Space falls away. I have no idea how I ended up on my back, or how many times you kissed me or, honestly, even where. Every atom of me is singing.

When you come up for air, it leaves me feeling weak. Almost dizzy.

Twilight, do you remember what I said about versions of you? And how for the past hour, the past day, the past year, really, you’ve been a version I both envied and admired, confident in having finally accepted a truth you’d been too afraid to accept for years on end. You were in control, I suppose.

And yet, when you finally speak, as unwilling to move too much as I am, when you finally ask in a quiet voice, “Well? Was that good?”

You sound… afraid? No. You sound stressed, which is so painfully you, reminding me so much of a younger you anxiously pacing outside Celestia’s office. Were I more collected in this moment, I might say something to that effect—but I can’t make the jest come out right in my mind.

And I laugh, because for my entire life I feared the wall with an animal fear, afraid that the world would end if I even so much as dared touch it, let alone kiss it, and as you pull back, half-laughing with me as you protest, “It can’t have been that bad!”, I feel so relieved I might cry at the sight of the wall not… not crumbled completely, but for the first time, not insurmountable.

“It wasn’t! I just…” I gesture wildly. Was the air around us always this warm? “The wall comes down and its just…” The insane thing is, I realize, is that I don’t even know where to begin explaining this to you. We share circumstances, but not perfectly, and you don’t know what I mean when I describe the wall! I don’t know how to explain this apparently untrue story I’ve been just… painting over everything.

How do you explain that in a moment the aesthetic of your life, not the passing trend or the fashion of the day, but the underlying spirit of how you approach the world has just been shaken? If I am the art that I make myself, finding out that my references are totally mistaken is just too much.

“I didn’t know it could happen,” I manage after a moment. “I just assumed it couldn’t. I was so sure.”

If I expected this to throw you off, I shouldn’t have. You snort with barely contained laughter and shake your head. “Rarity, why wouldn’t it be? That’s ridiculous. Why shouldn’t it be possible? Honestly?”

“Twilight, I’ve rigorously constructed an entire personal aesthetic from assuming it is not possible. Aggressively cultivated this image built after the certainty I had about what was in store for me. Of course it… it felt… It just still doesn’t seem right, or…”

You stop laughing, you stop smiling. You look so pained. I want to ask what I see in your eyes and I’m afraid because I can clearly see myself reflected in them. What did I say?

Was I right all along? Gods, what if I was? What if this foolish, stupid, forbidden moment turns sour? What if it already has! It makes sense. I wish I could have a moment alone to wail. This was stupid! Stupid, stupid, impetuous Rarity! You’ve crossed every boundary to get here, and didn’t think a single jot about the consequences! I’ll have to smooth this over, blame the drink—

Twilight, what would you think of me if you could see the way I jump from one extreme to another? You used to tease me about this, but you were cutting to the quick in a way I’m still not sure you understand. You hesitate just a moment, and already I am ready to fill in the hole you just punched through the wall. Here’s the mortar, here’s the trowel, ready to entomb myself again. Ridiculous! Rarity!

“Rarity… I’m sorry.” You reach out again and tip my chin up until I’m looking into your eyes. Your voice is gentle, but firm. “I shouldn’t have laughed. I understand. It’s been a long day. You’re going through a lot right now. I got caught up in the moment, I should have been slower about this, I should have…” you trail off. I must look indignant, because you put up a hand and say. “Hold on. I’m not implying I shouldn’t have done, uh, all that. I think I definitely should have. We probably should have. Like, a while ago.”

“I’m not sure I was ready.”

“Probably not? I probably wasn’t either. I’d have to think about it more, in, ah, light of… nevermind.” You cough and draw yourself up straighter, somehow. “I don’t want to stop talking here, but… it’s late.”

I blink at you. Are we seriously talking about time in this, the most central and critical of—my eyes catch the clock on the far wall and I stop that thought immediately. “Gods above, how did that happen?”

I can feel the smug, absolutely terrible reply before it makes impact. “Time flies when you’re having fun, you know.”

“Terrible,” I say automatically, scowling. “But you’re not wrong.”

This time, I reach and take your hand. You smile down at it.

“Bed?” you say, and I wordlessly nod, because saying literally anything at that point would have ruined my reputation for tact and propriety. I assure you Twilight that internally I was screaming and flailing and quite going mad over everything from the casual tone in which you said that to the very word and everything it entailed! But I didn’t say anything, and so none of that escaped me.

I’ll not speak of the rest because it was a blur for me. One minute, I was walking behind you, being led through my own home, and the next I was climbing into bed acutely aware of exactly how many inches were between myself and you. On one hand, you would likely be proud of the amount of mental energy I spent figuring this out based on my knowledge of how big the bed was. On the other hand, it was yet another thing that if I were to let out into the world I would never hear the end of. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

You lay near me, facing me, and we whisper in the darkness. Most of what we talk about isn’t consequential, but of course it isn’t. What better way to ruminate on the sound of your voice? It’s all that fills my mind. I can’t focus on our plans for tomorrow, seeing our friends, any of it. But your voice I can hold onto until the whole world goes dark, I think.

Finally, as if you could read my heart, you whisper to me that, I know that I can get closer, right? So I do. I can feel your hot breath and shiver a bit before you suggest turning on my side and sleeping close. I’m moving before I can even respond and there we are, your arm around me, our legs intertwined.

“Were you planning this?” I ask. My eyes are so heavy. Traitorous body, deny me even a moment of this.

“Planning?” You hum. “Not exactly. Not at first. But I’m observant when I want to be, you know that. I wondered if it might be… well, if it might be time to try and say what I wanted to say. I had wondered. But you don’t want to rush in, you know?”

“I understand.” I cuddle closer, more securely against you. “Part of me was desperate for some sort of yearning gesture.”

“I could tell.”

If I were not so comfortable I would have wriggled free just to wave a finger at you. But, I am very comfortable, so I don’t. “You are incorrigible and a scoundrel.”

“Not really. I’m very boring.”

“Hardly.” After a pause, I say, “Twilight, are you alright?”

You nod into my hair. I think it is just about then I realize that you’re trying to hide your face from me, that you likely asked me to lay just so with that in mind. Twilight. I’ve been so lost in my own thoughts I could barely hold your own.

“You’ve waited for me a long time,” I say quietly. It’s not a question.

“I was a bit terrified,” you say. Your beautiful voice is so muffled. “I’m sorry. It just sort of happened. I’ll be alright in a moment.”

“Dear, its alright.” All of the worried, anxious vacillating of the night falls away. I reach back for you, realize that its not quite the right angle, and settle for a soothing tone instead. “Twilight. It’s alright to be a little emotional right now.”

“I’m supposed to be more disciplined about this. I’m a wizard, damn it.”

“I know. But you’re just human, after all.”

My answer is a displeased grumble. I smile into the darkness. The confidence is you, but so is this too. “Thank you for… I’m not sure what to call this.”

You nod. You hold me that much tighter, releasing the stress of the night, and in the darkness I feel as if the weight of some nameless vast thing falls of my shoulders.