Seashell (print rewrite)

SEASHELL

Excerpt XV
From the journal of Sunburst, August 27, YS 1329:

I’m sure that some kind of inevitability of circumstance making her somepony else is what Princess Twilight feels when she has to be the kind-looking but untouchable sculpture that constitutes the public face of a princess. She has no choice, or so she believes. I don’t think she even knows it happens. For the most part, nopony else does either.

My eyes are open and I see it now.

Am I the only one?

Most significantly, by contrast I see why that’s not her real self. I see it in the little things where Captain Dash is involved. I saw it in the roses, and I see it in the way they eat dinner together when they can find the time and privacy. I’m starting to see it just every so often in the tiny split-second glances during morning briefings the captain delivers to the princess. I see it in passing in the hallways, in quick looks back over the withers.

It’d be easier if I didn’t see it, but I do, and I can’t be numb to it, no matter how foolish it might be not to, so there’s the truth about the princess. She’s different around Captain Dash. In little glimmers another more real pony comes through—a much happier pony.

It’s subconscious, and she has no idea… but it’s there.

And what about Captain Dash, for her part? Does this go both ways?

It would be easy to chalk this up to just unrequited longing by the princess, but I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Captain Dash’s part in whatever is between them seems more deeply hidden, but I can’t say I think she’s oblivious or not participating. It’s clear enough that in her moments alone with the princess, she does drop her mask of being just a guard and opens herself up as something else instead.

Out in the open, there’s the same little things as with the princess, the glances, but it's harder to catch—faster, sneakier, and even more hidden. She’s good at it. Even with my scout training to observe and pick out all the hidden details, I’m hard-pressed to even say it’s really there. Honestly, I’m not always sure. Sometimes I think so, sometimes I think I’m just imagining it. Maybe that’s why it was easy to pretend at first not to see anything.

But now that I do, I can’t help the feeling that she seems scared of it. She fights and resists revealing anything as hard as she can. I suppose that’s necessary. A princess can get away with a few things here and there, a blind eye turned in an unspoken due paid to her status as royalty. If Captain Dash’s very well-shaped flank happens to catch her eye for just a second, well… she can be forgiven. We all look at other ponies once in a while. It’s a reflex, really, she can’t help it. That’s how it would be brushed off.

The captain of the guard, on the other hoof, has no such luxury. She has to have unparalleled discipline. She’s the leader who has to set the foundational example for all the rest of us in the guard, and that means no unprofessional lusty eyes on another pony she can’t have. It means nothing unbecoming or unsightly to her position, ever.

There’s something so obvious she could never hide it, though.

Just her presence and her service here says it the most and the loudest, enough to overpower any amount of caution and secrecy and render them a moot point.

I know that she loves the princess.

The more I keep thinking about it, the more it’s obvious. Whatever life she had in Ponyville, she left it behind to follow the princess to Canterlot. Maybe after the passing of her wife that wasn’t a whole lot, but still, the fact remains: she accepted the Princess’s personal commission to serve, and pledged her own life to defend her princess against anything that might threaten harm. She’s made it clear to us all in her dedication that this isn’t just her job, it’s her personal calling. She gave the princess her life, to do what she would with it, just so that she could be here and stay with her. If there isn’t love in that, of the highest kind, we might as well just all give up and stop looking because I don't know where else to find it in this world.

In all the little things I’ve seen and all the puzzle pieces falling into place now that I know what I’m looking at, I’m realizing that Princess Twilight and Captain Dash bring out what’s most real and most essential about each other, from deep down in their hearts under the masks they have to wear in public. Under the Princess’s crown, and under the guard’s chainmail coat—under their respective shells—there’s the reality of who they both are.

In the center of it all, under all the outward images and all the defenses, there’s the two ponies who are nearly mad with the desire and the unconscious will to give themselves so completely to each other, if only they could.

That’s love.

I think… no, I know… they don't even see it themselves, because they can't afford to, not in their positions. But that’s love.

I suppose this journal entry is my confession—my admission that, although I may not know much about love being as solitary as I am, I know what I see in them and I can’t deny it any more. I’m ready to be honest with myself about it now. I would rather feel that needle’s stab in my flesh than try to pretend there’s nothing there. I can’t help wondering if it would be better for them to see it, too, difficult as it might be. Pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin. How can anypony live, I mean really be alive, in the state of numbness that comes from trying to have neither?
 
 
Enough about love for today.