“Consider: Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.” She says, the younger sister standing Somewhere between Then and Now, Adjacent to Never and Resting like a ship in port above Forever, Or, to tell it true, I do not know where and when they were, But that there were two of them There are always two of them, in different guises across varied time there are Always Two. One, she upon the right, A Proud mare and a Good one, Her heart beat in her chest like a sturdy marching drum, her eyes Like bonfires blazed with burning Charity, her Lips tasted of Honey, her Body was the Sun and her hooves were cast in shining bronze Light, blinding and searing light pours from her unendingly, and Here, past the furthest shore and beyond the sphere of the world she Lets down her mane And her glory is free, her body a ripple of the solar wind upon Arbol. What heart can hide from such a light? What eye can see it? What mind could If it were possible to see her for long Bear it? There are terrors of the flesh and of the spirit, born of miserable things But there is another Terror, and that is the knowledge, like knives at one’s throat Digging in That Someone has seen too much and brought too much of you into the light And that there is nothing coming but some Awful Embrace-- To say it in short what horror compares to Love without Expectation? That is what it is like to see the Sun, walking in the god’s playing field Between one universe and the next. Yet her sister was different. See the moon, See it, if you can-- Her form is nothing and no one, it is Less presence. No presence, but the weight of the lack of Something How dark is the night which knows no torch, no candle, no Stars by which prisoners in baleful cages chart their coming escape And yet that night which passes eventually can not compare to the Night Exultant What revelries can soil the streets of the cities, what passion could lovers have, what Torments could wrack lonely minds in the feverish valley between midnight and morning That could compare to this deepst Night, which shrouds the Moon For she too has let her glory unfurl in the safety of the space between worlds. Her hooves are silver, her eyes are dark pools beneath the coldest mountains, her Steps are measured to plum upon the wild beats of distant paeans. Her lips are wine and Hemlock, her body is the formless darkness which sits in wait at the base of the skull Patient for that last gentle Departure. To see her is to see That last rendezvous with death that all things have, the clearing at the end of the path where sits Some Other Thing Different from all that came before it, And if one could bear to watch (If one could bear not to watch) Perhaps she would turn her eyes on you, and then If so You would know what it is like not to be seen, not to be Found out so much as Known. It is one thing to have the secrets you buried deep beneath your house come Awful into the light And it is another entirely to have those secrets kept where they are And have someone recite them by rote, their voice Mocking and then Becoming your own, their cadance your cadance their Tongue your tongue their heart your heart their flesh your flesh. To be Known darkly and deeply is the most frightening thing. The Sun laughed, and said: “What is there that is alien to me? And to what do I find myself estranged? “What could be so bound to me as you are, Moon Dearest Ours in Sisterhood “And be foreign?” (They walk side by side these Two, the world entire, and beyond them (I think, are other worlds and times, the (Roiling) “Sister Sun, do not pretend that your light has addled your thoughts, “Nor, as you love us, profess ignorance.” “If I might--” “You might not. Peace “Be still, and listen.” So spake the Moon and the stars appeared about them A field in truth a Shining Plain of Abrol, so they call it somewhere and so I’m told These Two know it as.such, Or, Again--I speak only what I’m told, and have only that to offer-- Or, just so I’m told. The Moon and Sun came to rest upon A new world, another iteration of Being and Time And rested in a garden there, which they found Furnished with alabaster couches adorned with softest pillows And other Earthly and Unearthly delights And continued their long Argument. Ponies came and went. Lovely ponies, their eyes bright with Love, full of it like a cup poured by a cheerful drunkard runs over And their talk would pause a moment --I mean this less literally-- Until such ponies would pass, or leave, or find themselves too busy To sit with the Sisters Two in their gardens. Then the Argument would begin again, Going ‘round and ‘round again. “I am not as you are,” began the Moon again, As the last of their friends parted with a peaceful sigh. “Nor can I be--what alliance can Day have with Night? What “Bond can thrive between the Fire and the Shadows which Dance at the edge? “Can the commoner come into eat at the King’s feast? “No, I think that we are altogether different. More than that-- “More I mean to say that we are a chasm which cannot be bridged. “We must be parted, at some point, we must be “And when that hour comes I fear there will be no chance of healing.” “You are as I are,” the Sun sang softly into her cups as faceless servants brought wine. A castle was being built now to wall the garden off. No ponies could Breach it without consent. Only now could their glory be let loose, where their small friends And fragile subjects might be safe, knowing the glow without losing their eyes to the light. “You are flesh as I am flesh. You are blood as I am blood. You “Live as I live, and walk as I walk. You said to listen, and I have always listened. “If I might, “Do you not care for the little ones who sit at our feet? And do you not teach them to sing songs “Which echo in our stone halls, this castle living with their harmony, their voices bright bells? “Sister, Dearest Sister, you and I cannot be kept apart. Even if Time were to crack “And the foxes all faced the hounds at last “Even if, my love, my heart, “Even if all Being were split in two halves and we found ourselves truly on either side of the gulf “Even if that were to come to pass, I tell you that we would be united again.” “You have not brought an answer forward,” the Moon said, years later, “And you have not answered my complaint. I did not expect you to, but “I supposed you should hear so. My complaint, again, “Put simply, again: “We are utterly different. Oil and water. I, the oil, and you the waters of life “I am the end and you are the beginning, and all your happiness in me finds its shallow grave.” The castle grew taller, and around it sprouted up a town, bustling with life. A principality was here which struggled valiantly with a world that had been accustomed to Unkind deeds, and by gentle firmness was it softened and its edges blunted. The Argument, which never dies, paused. Things there were to do, and foes to slay, Friends to cherish, and lovers to submit to in joy together But it could not die. Such things do not die. It would be like saying that sadness was over. Old advisors died, old heroes faded, and again there came a conversation over a dinner table. “What is so different? I have answered you as I know your question. Logically, “You are of the same sort of thing as I am. We wear the same shape. “Our aspects are different, yes, but you do mean something so small as that. “Our natures as they are physically you cannot mean, for that would be foolishness, “And the night’s foolishness is a different kind of foolishness, more madness than anything else.” “And what, pray tell, would you know of night?” “Enough, I think, to last me today,” the Sun answered at length. “And a bit of tomorrow. I know what it is like to sink into a soft bed at the close of day. I know “The passion of the night, the mystery of it (from afar) and the contradiction of it. I know “How dark it can get, how a thing can seem to be but not as the shadows change. I know “The hollow feeling of famine after midnight, and the fear which stabs the heart and dashes it I know.”” “No, you know the surface,” the Moon said with a sneer. “You do not know much, sister Mine. Not much! And not enough, not enough “By half. What would I know of the sun after all? “I know my shadow lengthening at noon and my stomach empty by mid day. I know “The frustration of heat and the indignity of sweat, I know “The alienation of one’s labor and the hardening of one’s callouses under arrogant fire.” “Perhaps, sister, the problem is you do not know the Sun,” said the Sun, and meant it in more way that one. “Perhaps you do not see that we are alike because you see trifles and imagine horrors. “Has it occurred to you that there is more to the day than a shadow of your experience?” War came, and with it all the woes that flesh is sadly heir to-- Famine, plague, and victory, Death’s fellow travelers Circles around the principality like vultures. But the tide turns. Peace brings time, and time brings the space for talking, and these things breed Argument. “And has it occurred to you that the same might be said of you? That my experience “Is not as full as yours? That there is more to the Night than revels and song? “You think that your light will shine forever, and maybe it will-- “You think your love will last forever, and maybe it will-- “But I won’t hold my breath. I won’t wait to see. You’ll snap or I’ll snap. “Sisterhood, our love and our yoke, is not some immutable thing. “You know that nothing lasts. We too will die.” The Sun sighed long and loud. “What is your motivation? Why do you continue this? Do you want me to leave you be?” “No, I want the opposite.” “Then why persist?” “Because I must. Because if we do not know where the edge is, how will we be safe anywhere?” The days were longer. The days were fuller, and not happier. The Principality had grown. The ponies did not come often into the garden, and the Moon rarely left. Sullen, she saw no one. She had all the time in the world for Argument But the Sun was exhausted from growing duties. Talk was turned down in favor of bed. Again, again Again Like so-- “Sister, would you talk? Would you parley with us upon the green? We can talk of anything “Anything at all, even if it is not our old discussion, anything! I wish to hear you speak.” “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t, I’m--” The Moon stalks the high walls around her garden and considers the nature of time. The Sun slinks into her bed until tomorrow. The Sun assumes the world is always a cycle. She assumes all things move from one to another, She assumes that what works for me will work for you. She assumes that The numbers add up and that the sentence scans. She assumes. The Moon says “Time, you “Insatiable beast. You highwaymare of Being, you “Shred all things and break their bones in the end. You catch us all. “You catch even Us, my sister and I. Time always catches up. “We came here to rest awhile before we continued in Arbol “And bit by bit our stay extended. Tomorrow, we said, tomorrow we shall leave. “We can go any time we want to,” she said and shivered in dark on the edge of winter “That is what we said. We can go anywhere “But I’ll tell you this, sister, and I’ll fill you in, Time: “I hoped for this. I hoped that one day I would be right. I hoped because “I will know one way or another by the end of it all which of us was right. “Is love elastic? Does it bend under the weight of necessity, or does it snap? “If I lose upon the field, or if I win, what then? What then? “What then?” She continues at length. “Here are my truths, Night which I made. Hear them and write them upon your hearts “Nothing comes from nothing, and from barren ground no seeds sprout into plants. “Love is read by its fruits. Patient, kind, aye--but its the fruit we see, it’s the “The outside that we need. We’ll “Try again, if you find me. If you come after me, if you give chase “For I’ll lead you astray a thousand years “A chase after a wild goose and you’ll trip out among the stars and land on “Cold and lonely Sulva, you know the place “The moon above this world, the place that’s dead on one side and alive on the other. “Time, you bitch, learn this: long ago we had our own trials and mine was Sulva, to live among the living there. My burden was to watch them die. My burden was to “Lead them. “My sister’s? I know not. “But mine taught me this: that love is in the fruits “And that if there is any endurance to a thing it must be tested. “So I’ll test my sister quickly, when night is in its darkest core “And we’ll know it all one way or another, won’t we?”