Maturity

Chapters

Chapter I

Chapter I

Twilight stumbled deliriously into her bedroom above the Canterlot Library. The thick, dusty tomes on advanced illusion magic she’d been levitating behind her tumbled to the ground. She cringed at the racket and glanced toward the foot of the bed, but to her immense relief, Spike still slept like a rock. He knew something was wrong, and were he awake, he’d know that the night’s events had only made it worse. He’d kept his observations to himself so far, but she didn’t doubt he’d finally broach the subject if he saw her in her current, frazzled state.

The worst part would be that she couldn’t tell him what it was even if she wanted. Why was there a veritable fire in that place about which nopony really talked? Why did it flare up as if blown with a pair of bellows—the mental image sent a quiver down her spine that almost made her whimper—whenever Celestia would turn away from her to scrawl some elaborate glyph or other on the chalkboard downstairs, the unconscious swaying of her tail giving Twilight’s mind all the material it needed to keep her up into the late hours of the night? Why her? Why not that obnoxious azure-furred filly who insisted on wearing that over-the-top hat and cape everywhere? The thought made another unwanted image flash before her mind’s eye—and another, and several more, as her boundless imagination filled her head with all the myriad possibilities of how that might play out. Burying her head in her hooves and unconsciously arching her back, she whispered to nopony in particular, "Why me?"

The answers to all those questions and many more completely, miraculously eluded her, and that drove her almost as mad as how her out-of-control fantasies were causing her classroom performance to slip. She used to have a keen mind, a sharp wit, and no trouble keeping up with her centuries-old mentor. At that moment, she doubted she could even hold a conversation with one of her old professors—though she had to admit their wrinkled, bony bodies, scraggly manes, and sunken eyes would probably make it easier. She managed to not think of the alternative.

As previously stated, she wasn’t a stupid filly. She knew what estrus was, and she knew that she was old enough to be experiencing her first cycle, but she also knew that the last time she’d spent any substantial length of time outdoors—when some of her classes had taken place in the courtyard—was more than a year ago. Ever since she became Celestia’s personal apprentice, she’d spent all her waking hours in the ill-lit aisles of the library, behind the rich navy-blue curtains of her bedroom, or wandering through the halls of Canterlot Castle, in which the only natural light was filtered through the towering stained-glass windows. She avoided the main floor of the library, even going so far as to arrange for her lessons to take place after dusk and just before Celestia went to bed, because the sunlight shining through the gaping portal to the outside world had actually started to hurt her eyes. In part, it was deliberate; her budding sexuality was a distraction for which she simply didn't have time.

No, it had to be something else. Of course, the easiest way to know for certain would be to reach down with her hoof and, well, you know. She caught herself midway through the motion and pulled herself back to her hooves. Even if Spike wasn’t sleeping mere feet away, she didn’t dare touch herself for fear of spreading what she was certain could only be some kind of infection. She had to admit that there wasn’t much logic in that explanation either, but on the other hoof, she had gleaned through her studies that the air was full of invisible spore-creatures that got up to similar mischief.

Deciding the least she could do was take a soak to dull the pungent odor, she hobbled off to the bathroom and shut the door behind her. The shifting of her thighs almost made the journey unbearable. She turned both faucets on, intending to fill the tub that was too big for her a third of the way with lukewarm water, but something off in the far corner, by the stacks of clean white towels, caught her eye—or rather, somepony.

The running water muffled Twilight's yelp, but a grumble of "Go to bed, Twilight" still emanated through the door.

"What are you doing here?" Twilight hissed, never taking her eyes off the intruder.

"Oh, come now, Twilight Sparkle," the filly said, rising from the nest of dampened towels and slinking toward her like a house cat relishing the helpless chirping of a flightless bird. "You should at least know the answer to that profoundly stupid question."

The effect would have been patently ridiculous, but Twilight couldn’t help noticing the way the filly’s dripping-wet fur clung to her lithe body. She trembled, only partly out of fear. The way the filly’s approach directed attention to the bob of her tail almost distracted her from the musky scent in the air, the scent that wasn’t entirely her own. Twilight’s eyes narrowed. Her voice low, threatening, she said, "You did this to me."

The filly, who had started circling around her like the a sexy little wolf, laughed gaily. "Trixie has done nothing of the sort, but she’s flattered that you think of her that way." She lowered her voice in kind. "Between you and her, she does too."

With no further warning, she lunged at Twilight, knocking her onto her back, and positioned herself atop her. Her hind legs held fast around Twilight’s lower abdomen while her forelegs wrestled Twilight’s to the ground. Thick strands of her limp silver mane traced wet lines on Twilight’s cheek as her lips closed the distance with Twilight’s.

Hot, wet desire warred with Twilight’s panic for control of her clouded mind and pounding heart, but the latter soon won out. Lighting her horn to throw the filly off with her magic, Twilight cried, "Trixie, stop!"

Instead of an invisible force throwing her backward, the filly vanished, as did the sensation of wetness her damp coat had left on Twilight’s chest.

The wetness between Twilight’s thighs remained. If anything, it was worse than before. Only then did Twilight realize, mostly from the way the pounding moved from her heart to her head, that her horn had been lit all along. Her attempt to light it again had caused her magic to short circuit, dispelling the apparition. That was what she got for studying advanced illusion magic in her state. Had she been in her right mind, she’d have seen right through her mind’s trick—on reflection, it was literally transparent. Her thoughts were cut short when a wave of water crept along her back. Her eyes widened.

She scrambled to her hooves and turned to find water cascading over the sides of the towering ivory tub. Her first instinct was to shut the faucets off with her magic, but her attempt to do so only sent a stabbing pain through her head. Seeing the water seep toward the door, where it would soak into the carpet on the other side, or worse, drip through to the books on the lower level, she scampered toward the stack of towels where the filly had lain, grabbed a few, and strew the rest across the tile floor. To her horror, they floated.

Nearly slipping as she scampered back across the floor toward the door, she drew the towels out and wedged them under the door. They stemmed the flow, but they wouldn’t last if she didn’t cut the water off at its source. She dragged the stool from the side of the tub to the back, climbed up, and twisted the faucets with her hooves. The dramatic cliche of them coming unscrewed didn’t happen; the flow from the tap reduced to a trickle, but there was still the matter of the full tub and flooded floor.

She drew a deep breath and dived in with a splash, the cool water enveloping her entire body almost making her lose her breath. Upon siking to the bottom, she pulled the plug. She didn’t know how to swim, but her fear of being punished far outweighed her fear of drowning. Unable to climb out until the water drained, she sat and watched for agonizing moments as gravity sucked it in a whirlpool through the all-too-small drain. Her lungs began to ache. She’d made the water too cold, but its soothing effect on her infected area barely registered.

Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, the water level dropped low enough for her to thrust her head up, her mane plastered over her eyes, and take a huge gulp of the steamy air. By the time she stopped coughing, the last of the water had drained. She struggled to pull herself out of the tub, what was usually a minor inconvenience having become a monumental ordeal. She wanted to cry for help, but even if Spike heard her, opening the door would defeat the purpose of all her hard work. At least, for the moment, she smelled a little better.

Thankfully, her headache had subsided. Taking care not to let her mind wander lest she have another aggressively horny filly on her hooves, she levitated the driest towel toward her and dried herself off. She moaned as, in her absent mindedness and haste to be done with the whole sordid mess, she rubbed the terrycloth into her vulva.

She cast the towel into a corner; unfolded the others with her magic; and began a cycle of pressing them into the floor, wringing them out over the tub, and repeating until all the water had been soaked up. She tossed all the towels, including the ones that had been wedged under the door, into the laundry hamper and slowly opened the door. It creaked like it hadn’t been oiled in years, as doors are wont to do when there’s a baby, dragon, or baby dragon sleeping nearby. Fortunately, he had fallen back to sleep after the stint with the apparition and probably hadn’t been awake enough to remember anything come morning.

Nevertheless, Twilight needed to find a solution before tomorrow’s lesson, when Celestia would expect her to demonstrate all that she’d learned about advanced illusion magic. As it was, she’d be cramming all morning and afternoon.

With that in mind, she took a deep breath, held it, and let it out in a haggard sigh. She hadn’t wanted it to come to this, but at this point, she didn’t see what choice she had. None of her books had mentioned anything relevant to her condition, and her attempts to resolve it by trial and error had all ended in disaster—though none so spectacularly as tonight’s. She needed somepony with real-world experience, and the royal physician was almost certainly out drinking and flirting with the graduate students. That left but one pony to whom she could turn.

Trying her best to ignore her palpitating heart, she pushed aside the heap of grimoires she’d left by the door and crept out. The library was pitch black, but she dared not light her horn, for the doors were open twenty-four hours in case students with morning classes wanted to get some extra studying in—a cause she'd support wholeheartedly on any other night.

None of the desk lamps were lit, but there could still be bat ponies, whose vision was as good in the dark as any nighttime predator’s. She didn’t pick up on the intrinsic fault in her reasoning, nor did she consider that bat ponies, like the winged rodents after which they’re named, have excellent hearing. Perhaps her prudence was still warranted, though, for it saved her from accidentally giving form to the many horrors—from peckish cockatrices to azure fillies posing suggestively in transparent nightgowns—with which her imagination filled the darkness.

Normally, the rain, thunder, and lightning pelting, shaking, and flashing through the windows lining the halls of abandoned castles could be attributed to nature’s dramatic flair. In this case, the castle only looked abandoned because, for better or worse, the vestigial remnants of Luna’s night guard, who slept among the rafters by day, were out scouting the dark perimeter of the castle grounds. Given that they weren’t formally employed, many more had probably descended to the base of the mountain to hunt. The kitchens, though they stocked fish for ambassadors of predatory species, closed their doors during the night. When Luna had been there, the castle had come alive during the night, as much so as it ever was during the day, but she hadn’t been there for a long time. Thus, the castle’s state of activity or inactivity mirrored Celestia’s sleep cycle.

The towering stained-glass windows were arranged in such a way that the view was never lacking by day, but by night, the great gaping wounds into the blackness outdoors reminded Twilight of the rifts in the fabric of the universe into which the overly ambitious conjurers of lore were known to fall. Coupled with the odd shadows the lightning cast from the pillars and statues lining the halls and marking the intersections, respectively, she was so busy shaking from the chill air and icy fear that gripped her spine that she quite failed to notice the warmth returning to her nethers.

On a number of occasions—almost every night, to be precise—she’d accompanied Celestia as far as the door to Celestia’s room after her lessons to ask questions. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel drawn to her, but she explained it away as a symptom of her unquenchable thirst for knowledge. In truth, Celestia’s mere presence was enough to put her mind at ease, to assure her that everything was going to be all right.

That she’d stopped feeling like that and been eager to get away from her as quickly as possible in the last couple weeks had probably tipped Celestia off that something was wrong, but she’d come up with many a creative excuse.

Celestia, for her part, had pretended not to be concerned.

Twilight could see it in her eyes, though. She knew those vibrant lilac eyes best for the good-humored I-know-something-you-don’t look they so often wore during her lessons. She loved that look. That she hadn’t seen it since her symptoms had started to manifest, that her once-pure feelings had been so tainted by the effect her condition was having on her mind, was like a griffin’s talons squeezing her heart.

So caught up in the tangled mess of her thoughts and feelings was she that she almost failed to notice the light from the torches of an earth-pony guard patrol ascending the stairs at the end of the hall. By the time she did, there was no time to duck behind one of the marble pillars that stood on either side of the central carpet. She had mere seconds before the guards spotted her, and there was no telling what would happen then—to them, that is. She hadn’t come this far to be turned away.

She hadn’t learned any combat magic yet, offensive or defensive, but that was probably for the best. She might have been tempted to use it. She did know illusions, though. You might say she had a rather intimate relationship with them. For once, that might work in her favor.

Smirking a devilish smirk at her own cleverness that looked wholly out of place on her innocent face, she flattened herself into the carpet in the shadow of a pillar, tried to imagine what color it was by day, and cast a simple enchantment to change the color of her fur, her mane and tail, and even the whites of her eyes to match it. Anypony looking directly at her would have to be a foal not to see through her disguise, but that wasn’t going to be an issue.

By then, the sentries were nearly upon her. Barring the odd flash of lightning, though, visibility was low, and from where they were standing, for all the things that would be aroused by the emergence of a scantily clad maid from the darkness further down the hall, suspicion would hardly be one of them.

The problem was that Twilight would have to draw upon her memories for inspiration, as she lacked the skill to create illusions from scratch, and even if she didn’t, the guards probably knew all the castle servants; they’d recognize an unfamiliar face. The problem there was twofold. First, she’d be sullying some otherwise-respectable mare’s reputation. Second, in order to create an apparition, she’d have to guide each of its movements with her mind’s eye—each curve of its back, each crease of its skirt, each swish of its tail, each fold of its… You get the idea, and so did she. It was already causing moisture to accumulate in a place about which she tried hard not to think. Why her affliction made her so horny, she had no idea. Maybe she had some really messed-up fetishes. There was no time for such considerations, though. It was then or never.

A flash of lightning, the brightest yet, accompanied by a resounding crash of thunder that rattled the windows, gave her away. Seeing the guards come up beside her, she buried her head in her hooves and waited for the withering embarrassment that would follow as that all-too-familiar scent reached her nostrils.

…But the guards didn’t see her. They stood on either side of her, making her heart beat so loud she almost scolded it aloud for broadcasting her presence to everypony within a hundred yards, but they were too distracted by the yelp that echoed down the hall from further up ahead to notice her. If they smelled anything, they must have attributed it to the young pegasus-pony maid with the sandy mane and short tail who huddled behind a marble pillar that was the same graham-cracker brown as her early winter fur as she stared out the window, where a silhouetted branch had burned the image of a roc’s scaly claw into her retinas.

"Um…" one of the guards began, squinting to make out the cutie mark of a bright, skewered apple that was barely visible beneath the hem of her black skirt and trying to ignore what was clearly visible a hoof's length to the left of it. "Toffee? Why are you out so late?"

Peering through the gap between her forelegs, Twilight couldn’t help being impressed with her own subconscious.

Toffee Apple, who came by to clean the library long before Twilight dragged herself out of bed, was the only mare Twilight knew who was as skittish as she. She was lonely herself, her birth into a predominantly earth-pony lineage having made her the subject of a controversy she was all too eager to leave behind. She was also the mare who had taken it upon herself to care for her when Twilight had come down with a nasty fever, tucking her into bed, reading books to her, bathing her, and on one occasion, letting her touch her wings. That had ended in embarrassment for both Toffee and Twilight when she’d tried something she’d learned in one of her books and drawn a soft moan from Toffee’s lips.

There was no denying after that that Twilight had a bit of a crush on her, though her dedication to her studies had saved her the further embarrassment of pursuing it.

"Toffee?" the guard repeated, louder, and began to approach her.

His partner followed.

Twilight gave herself a mental kick, both for letting her mind wander and for the strife she was about to cause for one of the few ponies she counted among her friends, and took control of the apparition. The guards having their backs to her, she could safely pour more magic into her horn, enveloping it in a magenta corona.

Toffee twisted her head around to meet the guards’ eyes, which were obscured under the shadows from their torches, scrambled to her shaking hooves, and backed away, calling back with as much assertiveness as she could muster, "Don’t come any closer!"

The guards stopped and shared a puzzled glance before the second guard continued his approach and said, "You’re not in trouble, Toffee. It’s just that you’re out past curfew. Let us escort you to your room."

"I said stay back!" Toffee shouted, her eyes wild. She galloped down the hall and disappeared into the shadows. A moment later, an anguished cry, the sort one makes upon twisting one’s ankle while running in the dark, echoed back.

"Dammit, Toffee!" the second guard shouted, taking off after her.

The first guard ran close behind as he grumbled, "Not again."

Twilight booked it down the stairs from whence the guards had come before more could respond to the commotion. She missed a step and tumbled to the base. Fortunately, it wasn’t far, and there was nopony close enough to hear her yelp.

"Ouch," she muttered, got up, and checked herself for bruises. There were a few, but they weren’t enough to hinder her progress.

"Oh, Twilight! What happened? Are you hurt?" Toffee’s voice, as sweet as caramel, made Twilight turn her head around.

Twilight groaned. Of course she’d forgotten to dispel her illusion. She would have taken solace in the fact that her fur wasn’t scarlet anymore, but Toffee’s hooves checking her body for the bruises she’d already found changed that. That Toffee had apparently misplaced her outfit somewhere between following her down the stairs and leading the guards in the opposite direction didn’t help matters. She willed herself to back away and objected, "Look, Toffee, I know you’re just a figment of my imagination."

Toffee withdrew her hooves and gave her a look. "I’m hurt, Twilight."

Twilight felt her heart sink. She opened her mouth to apologize before she remembered the ridiculousness of the situation. She said flatly, "I can see right through you."

Even still, she couldn’t bring herself to send her away. The sentimental, irrational part of her considered doing so on par with hurting the real Toffee, but the part of her she actually listened to was her curiosity, which convinced her that it was a perfect opportunity to explore the nature of complex illusions.

Toffee rolled her eyes and smiled wryly. "All right, fine, you’ve got me, but what’s so wrong with that? Everything from my touch to my personality to my cute little flank is exactly as you remember it. I may be a figment of your imagination, but your mind makes me real."

She ran her wingtip down Twilight’s spine and encircled the magenta star adorning Twilight’s haunch, eliciting an involuntary shiver. "The only difference is that you have complete control over me. You can make me do things the real Toffee would never dare. For example..."

She lifted Twilight’s chin with her wing and lowered her head.

Twilight knew the right thing to do was to pull away, to end the charade and get on with her mission, but the look in the faintly translucent Toffee’s half-lidded hazel eyes turned her muscles to jelly and filled her chest with such a swarm of butterflies that several materialized in the air around them. A monarch landed on Toffee, where her right ear met her wavy mane, making her smile as its spindly legs tickled her.

When their lips met, Twilight found herself draping her lanky forelegs around the base of Toffee’s neck, where they nestled into Toffee’s fur. The warm, fuzzy feeling that enrobed her like a blanket drew a muffled noise from deep in her throat.

When Toffee pulled away, Twilight leaned forward involuntarily.

Twilight was still in a daze, but the feeling of her body being lifted up off the cold ground as Toffee eased herself onto her back and took her with her brought her back to her senses. Her hind legs were spread on either side of Toffee’s chest, and Toffee’s fur tickled between her legs.

Toffee nuzzled Twilight's cheek.

Twilight tried to protest, but all that came out was a gasp at the spasm of pleasure sent through her body when Toffee’s hooves grasped her hind quarters and turned her around so her labia was within reach of Toffee's lips. Seeing the patch of wetness she’d left on Toffee’s abdomen turned her on more than ever. Further down, she saw Toffee's hind legs laying open and inviting before her. She knew what she was meant to do, but something still held her back.

"I can't do this," she said, and reluctantly, she dismounted.

Toffee rolled onto her side, propped her upper body up on her forelegs so she could catch Twilight’s eyes, and said, "I know you have to talk to Celestia tonight, but it’s not like she’s going anywhere." She reached out with her wing to stroke Twilight's neck. "Since I’m just a figment of your imagination, you don’t have to worry about giving me whatever bug you've caught, so let me help you. There aren’t many more guards between here and Celestia’s chamber, but wouldn’t sneaking past them be easier if you weren’t so distracted?"

"I want to, Toffee," Twilight said. "I really, really want to, but I can’t."

Toffee looked at her expectantly.

"This is wrong," Twilight continued. "Celestia knows it’s enticing, but even if the real Toffee never found out, if we went through with this, if I… had my way with you, I could never look at her the same way again."

Toffee gave her an odd little smile. She said, "You know, Twilight, that’s a really mature thing of you to say. If I was the real Toffee, I’d be really touched." Her smile turned wry. "...And not in the way I was when you tried to massage my wings."

Twilight had the courtesy to blush.

Toffee hugged her and faded out of existence with no effort on Twilight’s part.

Twilight didn’t know illusions could do that.

The rest of the trek was uneventful. Toffee’s words, which Twilight understood—at least on an intellectual level—were really hers, had renewed her confidence. Suddenly, keeping her focus despite her new bruises and exacerbated symptoms didn’t seem so unmanageable, allowing her to sneak past the remaining sentries, stationary and otherwise, simply by silencing her hoofsteps and keeping to the shadows. On one occasion, she was even bold enough to hide from a patrol going one way in the shadow of another going the other way. Later, she tried taking on the appearance of one of the guards she’d passed, but synchronizing the facade with her movements proved impossibly intensive, as did remaining camouflaged while in motion. She wondered how Aurora, the enigmatic and arguably insane scholar responsible for the most esoteric text on illusion magic to which Celestia had granted her access, could write it off as the most elementary of tricks, the likes of which no pupa beyond its third year should be far from mastering.

At length, she passed through the hauntingly vacant throne room, descended the long, straight staircase behind the back door, and turned into a long corridor, at the end of which stood the towering double doors of gold-filigreed mahogany to Celestia’s private chamber. A matching set of doors in silver-filigreed ebony stood at the opposite end, leading to Luna's private chamber, but nopony alive today save Celestia herself had ever seen what lay beyond.

By comparison, few ponies outside Celestia’s personal bodyguard had ever seen what lay on the other side of her doors, and fewer still had set hoof there. Twilight was about to become one of those privileged few, for even though the door was undoubtedly locked and there were no keys in sight, she had complete confidence in the lockpicking skills she’d picked up in order to get into the forbidden wings of the library and the individually locked grimoires contained therein.

Before she could try her luck, though, she had to get past the elite guards who stood on either side of the entryway, bickering.

***

Ironheart was a unicorn stallion with the standard characteristics of a royal guard of his race: pale-blue eyes, gray fur, a two-tone cobalt mane and tail, and gilded, enchanted armor obscuring his cutie mark and maintaining the appearance of uniformity. Having tried to start a conversation with his newly assigned partner, found that they had exactly nothing in common, and become increasingly frustrated with him, without shifting his eyes from the derelict hallway other than to cast the periodic, wary glance up into the vacant rafters, he asked, "Why did you enlist, anyway? You’re clearly not cut out for this stuff, and—"

"One thing at a time, Muscles," Feathers—his partner, a pegasus-pony stallion who mirrored him in every aspect except his gangly build, plaster-white fur, and complete lack of any pretense that he could care less about the possibility of intruders as he stared directly at Ironheart—cut him off. "First of all, I didn’t enlist; I was recruited. I’ll grant that I’m an unlikely choice—"

"You can say that again," Ironheart cut him off in turn, still refusing to twitch even the smallest of his facial muscles, which, against all common sense, had the same lean, sculpted appearance as the rest of his body. "Before Shining Armor was made captain, we oversaw your company’s passage through basic—all three of your companies’, I should say. While the others tried their damnedest to impress us, all you wanted to do was mock the very establishment you were trying to join. Why Her Majesty didn’t honor any of my multiple requests to have you discharged is almost as beyond me as that we’re now working side by side. It’s enough to make a guard want to turn in his plumes."

Feathers was silent.

Ironheart felt the faintest pang of guilt. He hated his partner; there was no doubt about that, but he was also thoughtful enough to know on some level that part of that hatred was directed at the aspects of himself he saw reflected in him. Notably, the sensitivity he tried with such success to protect from the outside world was as apparent in Feathers as the malicious bloodlust in the slit pupils of every bat pony with whom he’d ever had the displeasure of making eye contact.

A fleeting glance in Feathers’s direction revealed that his eyes wore the vacant look they often did when immersed in thought. He didn’t even try to imagine what Feathers might be thinking. He knew doing so would be an exercise in futility. Instead, he considered that Feathers’s lack of an emotional reaction could be attributable to the sheer volume of verbal abuse with which he’d battered him since the start of their conversation. He felt another pang of guilt. When the silence became agitating, he asked, "What?"

Feathers snapped back to reality. "Huh? Oh. Well, at first, I was wondering whether you would actually care what my answer was or if you were just expressing a feeling. I decided it was the latter. Knowing you’d never admit it, though, I got to musing about why you find my existence so offensive. Is it because, in rising from the bottommost rank to the second highest—making you my equal and me answerable only to Shining Armor and Celestia herself—practically overnight, I’ve devalued your efforts in getting to where you are?"

Ironheart hid his surprise almost as well as every other emotion he’d ever experienced. "You hit the nail right on the head."

"Want to know how I did it?"

"No."

"Is there anything you can do to stop me from telling you?"

Ironheart considered his options. He could run Feathers through with his horn—which, unlike civilian unicorns’, was filed into a vicious stabbing point for use in the event that his magic should fail—use any of the varied methods of magical interrogation and execution in which he’d been instructed in his specialty school, or just abandon his post and hope Feathers didn’t follow him, but every solution that sprang to mind would invariably be followed by disciplinary action ranging from demotion to immediate, dishonorable discharge. At length, he answered, "No."

Feathers grinned. The opportunity for which he’d been waiting, the chance to prove to Ironheart that there was more to him than the featherbrained airhead as which he came across, was finally upon him. Had he known the full extent of Ironheart’s rationale, he’d further recognize it as an opportunity to reconcile Ironheart with that aspect of his nature that was the real reason for his enlisting. He began, "For starters, my name isn’t really ‘Feathers.’ That’s just the stage name I adopted when, like so many other starry-eyed colts and fillies, I came to Canterlot to seek my fortune. I couldn’t have anypony from home catching word of my inevitable fame and trying to take me away from it, after all."

"What’s your real name, then?" Ironheart asked.

"Good question. I don’t actually know. I’ve gone by ‘Feathers’ for so long that it might as well be my real name."

Ironheart didn’t have it in him to be surprised. Here was just one more thing about Feathers he couldn’t understand. If you didn’t know your name, how could you know who you were? How could anypony? "You really don’t know?"

"That’s what I said, yes. Anyway, unlike most, I had a knack for the performing arts—which is to say that passers by liked watching me stumble over myself to get their attention from my improvised stage—and I milked it for all it was worth, which amounted to enough to have a one-room cloud house built in the shade beneath the city, where airspace was cheapest because it didn’t interfere with the nobles’ views from their stately mansions.

"I had free running water in the form of the great waterfalls that spilled past the city, though, and there were miles of grazing land between the base of the mountain and Cloudsdale. It was awhile before I could afford real food, but it was worth it just for the experience."

"This isn’t telling me how you became one of Celestia’s personal bodyguards. It’s not even telling me why you were recruited in the first place," Ironheart complained. If he was being honest with himself, though, he’d admit that he was taking a genuine interest in Feathers’s story. It was actually a nice way to pass the time, he thought, but he soon checked himself for entertaining such an absurd notion. "The guard doesn’t go for slapstick."

"Or any other style of humor, for that matter," Feathers added. "All in good time, Muscles. It’s not like you have somewhere to be."

"Thanks to you," Ironheart wanted to say, but he caught himself. Nevertheless, his good mood vanished as swiftly as it’d arrived. Had he spoken, he was sure he’d never hear the end of it if Feathers pried out of him to what he’d be alluding. Feathers would probably want to talk to him about his feelings, about like what it must have been, and other topics with which he was totally out of his depth. There was only one pony whom he’d even consider allowing to broach such subjects, and that pony had died in the line of duty. He became aware that Feathers had stopped talking, and upon looking to see the concern painted all over his face, promptly looked away. He didn’t know what his own face was betraying, but he knew it wasn’t stony stoicism.

"You all right, Muscles?" Feathers asked.

"Nothing. I mean, I’m fine. Carry on."

"Well, long story short, I was gliding over the darker part of town on my way home when I saw a mare being mugged. I swooped in, still wearing the mockup of Celestia’s regalia I’d had on for that day’s performance, and scared the little bastard off. In the low light, I bet he really thought Her Majesty herself was descending from the heavens to pass her divine judgment on his blank flank. The mare, for her part, wasn’t exactly grateful. She seemed to think she could have handled him, that the frilly dress she was wearing could stop the stiletto that was the length of his foreleg from sliding under her ribs and skewering both her kidneys.

"The guards that had heard her scream were grateful, though. They weren’t too proud to admit that they would have been too late, and they knew what would have happened had I not intervened. After they’d had a good laugh at my expense and I’d agreed to take off my mane and tail wigs, they offered to take me back to the barracks with them to talk to a recruiter. Knowing what a hard-ass bunch the higher-ranking royal guards were and taking lightening them up as a personal challenge of far more worth than what I’d been doing, I agreed. Since you seem to know what happened in the months that followed, I’ll skip to the part you don’t know.

"I was content to fool around with the other rookies, in more senses than one, and had little interest in advancement. ‘What was the point in looking toward the future when I could die at any moment?’ I figured. Sure, I could fight when push came to shove, but that wasn’t my talent. Anyway, I captured Celestia’s interest in the aftermath of that failed negotiation with the Griffian ambassador. You remember that, right?"

"I was there when it happened."

"I wasn’t, but Celestia… she confided in me afterward."

Ironheart was too caught up in reliving the anger he’d felt that day to be surprised at what Feathers was telling him.

"That that bastard saw fit to bring her sister into it…" Feathers began, mirroring Ironheart’s thoughts. "It’s unthinkable. It was like he wanted her to lash out at him. Had she gotten physical, no doubt he’d have gotten exactly what he wanted—a war with Equestria—regardless of whether that was what the Great Eyries of Griffia wanted."

Ironheart remembered Celestia's reaction with crystal clarity. It had had a game-changing effect on his perception of her. He’d picked up on a subconscious level that Celestia still hadn’t come to terms with her actions to save Equestria all those centuries ago. He’d seen that as a sign of vulnerability, but the restraint she’d demonstrated in not unleashing the full fury of the sun on that contemptible halfbreed had shown that what she’d lacked in strength of character, she’d made up for in strength of resolve. It had induced him to see her as less needing of protection and more deserving of admiration, which was good; he needed a monarch up to whom he could look lest he start questioning the very justification for her rule.

What he hadn’t understood was that she’d chosen to mourn the loss of her sister for fear of both letting her sister’s suffering go unacknowledged and losing that humbling aspect of her nature that pushed her to try to compensate for what she’d done, reasoning that the Elements of Harmony, mindless instruments of the bearer's will that they were, would have done as she’d asked had she taken the time in the past to cultivate that facet of her character.

Feathers continued, "I happened to see her returning to her private chamber after that, her entourage of guards conspicuously absent. I left my post to ask her what was wrong, and she stopped and gave me a look." Feathers smiled. "It was the kind of look you give somepony when you're torn between berating him for his audacity and taking the shoulder he's offering you to cry on. Without going into detail, in the end, she opted for the latter and invited me in. After she regained her composure, we spoke at length.

"It turns out that even though she genuinely cares about her little ponies, those who are willing to talk to her like she’s one of them and not some ageless sun goddess have been few and far between since… Well, you know. Who would have thought, right? For that reason, she had need of a confidant, somepony to whom she could talk candidly. Thus, she promoted me to one of her personal bodyguards so she’d always have me by her side if she needed me. She hasn’t yet, but I don’t mind. I’m just happy to be—Celestia’s mercy, what is that thing?"

Feathers pointed to a vaguely pony-shaped creature with perforated hooves, a shiny black carapace, fangs more pronounced than any bat pony’s, compound eyes, and sickly green, filamentous wings that buzzed in agitation as it materialized before them, gave a hideous hiss, and galloped down the adjacent hallway.

"Dammit, Feathers!" Ironheart growled, bounding after it.

Feathers followed in short order. "What? What is it?"

"It’s a changeling," Ironheart shouted back. He rounded the corner and half-tumbled down the stairs as Feathers, whose long legs made up for his lesser muscle mass, caught up with him. Neither saw Twilight crouched behind the pillar on the far side of the upper landing. "I’d have seen through its camouflage and had the presence of mind to restrain it if you hadn’t been distracting me, but now it’s loose in the castle. I hope you’re proud of yourself."

"How could I have known? Celestia, I thought they were just stories!"

"You couldn’t, not any more than we can know what innocent pony’s identify it’s going to have stolen by the time we catch up with it—damn, that bugger’s fast! ...But I could have known. This isn’t the first changeling I’ve seen. My brother, the only family I had left, died fighting them. Sucked him dry, the bastards. All that was left was a gray husk. It still walked and talked in a mimicry of life. It even returned to camp for debriefing, but there was no spark left in it. I took it upon myself to put it… him… out of his misery."

"Ironheart… I’m so sorry!"

"Can it, Feathers. The last thing I need right now is…"

The voices trailed off as Ironheart and Feathers reached the base of the stairs and disappeared into the dark hallway beyond. Unbeknownst to them, the changeling had long since returned to the nightmare from whence it came.

Twilight hadn’t intended to stir up such unpleasant memories for Ironheart, but judging from the foregoing conversation, he was in such a state that a head of cabbage falling from the rafters and bouncing out of view might have set him off. She would have liked to see that, actually, but there was no time to lose. They’d soon realize the blatantly obvious: that the changeling, real or not, was a distraction to draw them away from the door while somepony—or something—tried to get inside. With that in mind, she made her way down the hall to the colossal mahogany doors as fast as her legs could carry her, not even bothering with her muffling enchantment.

When she got there, she recognized the lock by the opulent gilding swirling away from it in a sun-shaped pattern. She laced into it with her telekinesis, grabbing each of the pins and tumblers in turn and applying varied amounts of pressure while twisting the plug and holding the shell in place so as not to apply too much force and rip out the whole mechanism. Just when she thought she had it, though, she realized there was an added level of security. In addition to the original, five more sets of tumblers were arranged around the inner perimeter despite there being no place on the outside for a six-sided key to enter.

She realized the lock was never meant to have a key, that magic was the intended means of opening it, and on account of her inability to either keep the first set of tumblers from springing back into place when she shifted her attention to the next or divide her attention between all 36 individual sets, there was no way she was getting in. The thought of knocking or trying the handles never crossed her mind.

The sound of hoofsteps pounding back up the stairs reached her ears. There was nowhere to hide and no time to run. She couldn’t even blend into the carpet like she had before; based on what she’d overheard, Ironheart's keen eyes would zero in on her in seconds, and then she’d have one more thing to explain. There were no two ways around it: she’d be caught.

Feathers rounded the corner first and stopped dead when he saw her looking very small and uncomfortable as she stood with her back to the great wooden barrier. "Twilight?" he asked, out of breath. "What in Tartarus are you doing here?"

Ironheart caught up with him seconds later, nearly ran into him, but recovered and trotted right up to Twilight, saying, "It’s not safe here, Twilight. There’s a changeling on the loose. It could be anyplace—or anypony."

Twilight backed away, all attempts at forming words dying in her throat. She wasn’t supposed to be caught. That wasn’t how it worked, but that wasn’t even the worst part. She was an observant filly, and she now that she could see them both clearly, she couldn’t help noticing the way Feathers looked at him. She couldn’t help her own mind wandering, either. Thankfully, she was in no state of mind to use her magic even if she wanted.

"Hang on," Ironheart said, stopped a short ways away, and looked her over. "How do we know you’re really Twilight?"

Owing to the Royal Guard’s success in keeping the few rogue changelings daring enough to attack Equestria beyond the southern border, ad hoc illusion-dispelling incantations wouldn’t be developed until the pony-changeling conflict escalated in the years to come, and even then, not until Princess Cadence herself would fall into enemy hooves. Thus, there really was no simple way for Ironheart to know that the little lavender filly cowering before him wouldn’t, at any moment, erupt in a flash of green fire to reveal a changeling ready to do exactly what you’d expect of a cornered animal with very large fangs. Knowing this, Twilight was still at a loss for words. The sexy scenes playing out in her head, involving all the royal guards she’d ever met plus Feathers and Ironheart making out in a steamy locker room, didn’t help matters. Realizing just how little control she had over her brain, she resolved to take a course in meditation if she made it through this.

"Tell me something only the real Twilight would know," Ironheart pressed. His muscles tensed as if he were preparing to tackle her should she try to escape.

For better or worse, Twilight found her voice, and without thinking, asked, "That would be pretty pointless, wouldn't it? All changelings are capable of basic telepathy with other species. Had I been captured, the changeling responsible could have easily stolen a handful of my memories, and probably would have, given what a cliche question that is."

She neglected to mention the intimate contact that sort of transference would necessitate. She really didn’t need the mental image of herself stuck to the floor while a changeling stood over her and touched its horn to… Dammit!

"You’re not helping yourself, here, Twilight."

Yeah, no kidding. Twilight was surprised he hadn’t picked up on the scent radiating off of her, even considering that unicorns have the poorest sense of smell of all the pony races.

Feathers, who had taken to watching Ironheart’s back in case their friend from earlier decided to ambush them, turned a curious eye toward her. Pegasus ponies, in contrast, have the most heightened.

Twilight glanced in his direction, realized exactly what the look he was giving her said, and blushed. She’d have died of embarrassment were she in any rush to expedite the inevitable.

Feathers, for his part, abandoned his watch, stepped forward until he stood abreast with Ironheart, and asked, "Twilight, why did you come here?"

The look of genuine concern in his pale-blue eyes reminded Twilight of Celestia’s to such an extent that she might have divulged all her secrets had Ironheart not still been standing over her like a watchdog. With that in mind, she answered simply, honestly, "I need to see her."

***

Celestia trod along a barren expanse of gray, her hooves leaving shallow imprints in the blanket of dust that smothered everything in sight. For miles around, nothing save the odd crag or dust-filled crater served to alleviate the monotony, while the black emptiness that stretched infinitely overhead was broken only by a scattering of pinpricks that shone like tiny splinters of her glorious sun.

The thought was absurd, she knew, but every so often, she would entertain the theories that that long-forgotten cult of madmares, the Round-Equus Atheists, had posited to explain natural phenomena without implicating her or her sister. She would remember how they’d amassed a respectable following—mostly griffins, zebras, and other outlanders—up until their fateful voyage over the edge of the world. She would have liked to think that there were other worlds out there, for that, she knew, would imply that there were other sun goddesses out there, one for each "star system," as the hypothesized formations were called. Alas, even if there were, they would be much too far away for her to have any hope of meeting them.

Lost in her thoughts, a favorable alternative to her surroundings, she walked on for what felt like hours but was, in all likelihood, probably minutes. Time, Star Swirl had once impressed upon her, was seldom to be taken seriously. Her hooves knew the way even though her conscious mind didn’t, for despite the lack of hoof prints to show for her efforts, she’d been down it a thousand times before. On the occasion that she was struck with deja vu, she attributed the discrepancy to the ever-present breeze that twisted the particulate earth into low-flying clouds around her hooves. If she stood perfectly still, she could feel the ground eroding under her hooves as if she were standing in the outgoing tide, but the sea that lay before her held none of the same appeal.

At length, she crested the ridge of that great crater that formed the eye of the mammoth visage, at the center of which, facing away from her, stood an alicorn mare with a coat as black as the void, a mane and tail that glimmered like a nebula, and armor molded from pieces of the fallen sky. The mare’s wings, she noticed, were folded tightly against her sides.

"I need to see you," she pleaded in a breathless voice.

The mare turned her head so one icy blue, reptilian eye connected with hers, and spoke, the words forming directly in Celestia’s mind, "There’s no sound where the wind never blows."

Celestia awoke with a chill that even her bedding of self-warming phoenix down couldn’t abate. She looked through the open stained-glass window to see the cold, lifeless moon that stared unnervingly into her soul. She frowned. The mountain wind billowed her scarlet silk curtains—which looked the color of dried blood in the evening gloom—and lanced through her fine summer fur. Unlike most ponies’, her coat didn’t change with the seasons.

She stretched her aching legs, got up, and went to shut the window, making a mental note to remind Philomena to be mindful of such things when she goes on her nightly expeditions to terrorize the rats of Canterlot's alleys. With the howling gone, she became aware of muffled voices arguing outside her door. This was nothing new. She’d grown so accustomed to Ironheart and Feathers’s bickering that she’d made a trip down to the archives in weeks past to find a muffling spell she could cast over her room. This wasn’t the first time she’d forgotten to cast it. Despite their flaws, she held them both in high esteem and felt confident that they could be great friends if they resolved their issues with each other. What caught her attention this time was that they weren’t arguing with each other; they were arguing with a new voice, a familiar voice… a filly's voice.

"Get away!" she heard the shrill voice cry, shaking her free from her stupor.

In an instant, Celestia was beside the double doors, leaving the intervening space feeling somewhat cheated, and tugged hard on the sculpted gold handles with her prehensile wings. The lock, incidentally, had never been secured.

Twilight, who had backed up against the door, yelped as she lost her balance, fell flat on her back, and found herself gazing upside down into Celestia’s lilac eyes.

Celestia, her bewildered eyes narrowing and her mouth drawing into a frown, shifted her gaze from Twilight to Feathers before settling on the most likely culprit.

Twilight scrambled to her hooves and instinctively sought safety amid Celestia’s legs.

"Ironheart," Celestia said, with all the gravity of a grand piano falling out of the highest window in Canterlot Castle.

Ironheart snapped a salute.

"I trust there's a reason why I was not notified that my personal prodigy had requested an audience."

"I have reason to believe that she’s not who she appears to be, Your Majesty."

"What reason would that be, Ironheart?" Celestia asked, feeling the beating of Twilight’s young heart intensify and Twilight’s foreleg wrapping more snugly around hers as the words left her mouth. She felt the warmth radiating off Twilight’s lanky body and the scruffy lavender fur that meshed with her own coat. She thought she noticed something else as well, a scent that was hard to mistake, but she told herself she was still too groggy to be sure.

Under any other circumstances, she’d welcome the embrace—ponies needed physical contact like they needed friendship, and I don’t need to tell you how little of either Celestia had in her life—but under these circumstances, all it did was assure her of one thing: Twilight was exactly who she said she was. Of the consorts she’d taken on in centuries past, who had ranged from ponies to zebras, griffins, diamond dogs, and during an especially adventurous phase of what she considered her youth, dragons, there had been one—and only one—changeling, and while he had, at her insistence, been able to disguise the frigid touch of his exoskeleton, he’d explained that it was a trick only adult changelings could fully master. During one of their discussions of the limits of his shapeshifting abilities, he’d also explained that while he could, with some effort, take on a larger form, such as that of a regal alicorn, taking on a smaller one got very bizarre very quickly when anything came into contact with the space his actual body occupied.

To his credit, Ironheart didn’t know that. Thus, his explanation about the changeling that had somehow managed to get as far as her back door before letting its disguise drop in an act of carelessness that could only be rationalized as an attempt to draw him and Feathers away, made a semblance of sense.

Celestia stood in silence for a moment, trying to fit together the pieces of a puzzle she couldn’t clearly see through the fog that blanketed her thoughts, but then something clicked. The fog lifted from her sleep-deprived brain, and everything made a whole lot more sense.

Twilight, who, like Feathers and Ironheart, had been studying Celestia’s expression, cringed at the sudden change and released her hold on Celestia’s leg. She blushed at the knowing smirk Celestia shot her, and though she hadn’t vocally been accused of anything, she opened her mouth to attempt to form her defense.

Celestia didn’t give her the chance. "I appreciate your concern," she said to her guards, "but we are in no danger here. The changeling you thought you saw was just a figment of an overactive imagination—I won't say whose. Now, if you'll excuse us, I would have a word with my prodigy in private."

Twilight felt her heart skip a beat at those last two words. "It's almost too good to be true," she thought, but that thought soon passed, chased away by the reality of the matter. It was too good to be true. Like a convict walking to the gallows, she followed Celestia through the towering doors she had tried so hard to open just moments ago. The irony didn’t escape her, and she decided that she hated irony. The hope that Celestia, after scolding her for so abusing the knowledge with which she’d been privileged, would deign to resolve her dilemma was all that kept her from trying her luck at teleporting as far away as her enfeebled magic could carry her. In retrospect, the possibility that her subconscious might have landed her in an even stickier situation was another compelling reason.

Meanwhile, Ironheart had nearly come to grips with what had just happened, but the doors closing and the locking mechanism audibly being manipulated into place behind Twilight and Celestia silenced the protest he was forming.

Inside, the golden aura that expanded from Celestia’s horn and washed over the room before soaking into the walls silenced all extraneous noise.

"The door's locked," Twilight thought, as Celestia lit the antique oil lamps that lay scattered around the room, "the door I can’t open. There’s no getting out now. I’m trapped." The thought was kind of arousing. She was trapped in the private bedchamber of the most beautiful mare in Equestria, about whom she’d reluctantly entertained more deviant fantasies than she cared to count. She didn’t think her circumstances could get any worse, but then they did.

The final lamp lit, Celestia turned to look at her.

Twilight tried to make herself as small as possible and shut her eyes in anticipation of whatever horrible reprimand Celestia had been formulating in her head. Though the room was uncomfortably warm compared to the hallways through which she’d spent the past hour wandering, she shivered. Her heart boomed like a Zebrican ceremonial drum at a harvest festival as her ears twitched to pick up the only audible sound: Celestia’s encroaching hoofsteps. They stopped inches away from her, and her heartbeat soared to a thunderous crescendo.

"Twilight, please," Celestia admonished, sounding almost hurt, "stop shivering. What do you think I’m going to do to you?"

Twilight didn’t answer, nor did she open her eyes despite the frightful images—not the least bit sexy—with which the question filled her head.

Her rampant thoughts ground to a screeching thought when she felt Celestia’s muzzle brush her cheek. She blushed madly and opened her eyes to find Celestia’s face inches from hers. The warmth that had started between her eyes and spread across her cheeks filled her body, leaving her feeling so dizzy she’d have fallen over were she not already laying flat on the carpeted floor. The good-natured amusement pulling Celestia’s lips into a smile and creasing the corners of her lilac eyes, half-veiled as they were behind her disheveled mane that shimmered like the lights over the Crystal Mountains, overwhelmed Twilight with the urge to kiss her.

Celestia pulled away in time to save Twilight from deepening the grave she'd dug for herself, drawing herself back up to her full, imposing height.

Twilight wasn’t sure what had come over her—or rather, she was, but she wasn’t ready to acknowledge it. To her infinite relief, her blush began to wane. As frayed as her nerves were, she knew in her heart that she was safe with Celestia. The heat of the moment may have made her forget, but that heat had passed. Another remained, though, and it was getting worse. Remembering Toffee's words, imaginary though they were, she found the strength to rise to her hooves, meet Celestia’s eyes, and ask, "Aren’t you going to punish me?"

Celestia pretended to think about this for a moment. When she felt she'd kept her in suspense long enough, she asked, "Would it make you feel any better if I did?"

Twilight bit her lip at the slew of images—these ones very sexy—that flew past her mind’s eye, making her unsure of her answer. "I don’t think so."

"Then I won’t," Celestia resolved. She walked around to the side of her sprawling four-poster bed—which was built on a frame of the same gold-filigreed mahogany as the doors, and upon closer inspection, the windows—crept under the scarlet silk curtains that hung around the perimeter, lay atop the lushly cushioned mattress with her back to the headboard, facing Twilight, and stretched her wings before folding them back against her sides.

The graceful movement took Twilight’s breath away. It was at that point that Twilight noticed that Celestia wasn’t wearing her regalia, without which she looked naked, almost vulnerable, and incredibly attractive. Her jeweled torc, tiara, and shoes all rested opposite the mirror atop the vanity table that occupied the space between the window and the frosted glass door to the bathroom in the back. By all indications, the bathroom was every bit as opulent as the rest of the space, being more akin to a personal spa than anything else. Twilight saw that the walls were covered from top to bottom in assorted treasures of more sentimental than practical value, not counting their status as remnants of bygone ages, but she didn’t have time to study them in any detail.

"Would you care to join me?" Celestia asked.

Twilight snapped her attention back to see Celestia offering her a friendly smile as she cocked her head and lay with her unshod forelegs folded over each other. "Dear goddess," Twilight thought, "she wants me to come to bed with her." No images flashed through her mind; the reality of the matter left nothing to the imagination. That she’d awoken in the library more than once to find herself curled up beneath Celestia’s wing after a lesson that ran later than expected apparently didn’t register to her as being even remotely the same. Until recently, those had been the nights when she’d slept best. As of late, though, she’d had to be sure to send Celestia away before falling asleep. Her sleep had suffered for it, and unbeknownst to her, so had Celestia’s. She just couldn’t trust herself, though, and more than that, she didn’t want whatever had come over her to come over Celestia. That's what she told herself, anyway.

At length, she found her voice. "I don’t think so."

Celestia shrugged. "I hope you’ll pardon my informality; I was trying to rest when I heard you outside. I would like to get back to doing so, but I trust you wouldn't have come all the way here in the middle of the night, no doubt using your recently learned illusion magic to evade my guard patrols, if you didn’t have a very good reason."

This was it. This was her chance. All Twilight had to do was ask, and she could finally be rid of her condition. She knew beyond a doubt that Celestia would know what was wrong with her and be willing to help her, but while she had no idea how right she was, she just couldn’t bring herself to pop the question. Instead, she asked, "Shouldn't you be mad about that?"

"I don’t know," Celestia answered honestly. "Tell me what’s wrong, and if I think it justifies your actions, I’ll let you off easy. If not, well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it."

Twilight gulped down the fear that rose in her chest, but all that did was agitate the butterflies desperately trying to escape her stomach. There was no turning back now. With a trembling sigh, she began, "Okay, here goes…"

Needless to say, Twilight regaled Celestia with the details of the past few days, going into increasingly explicit detail as the events came to a climax. She told her about Trixie, about Toffee, about Ironheart and Feathers, and finally, she told her about Celestia. That was the hardest part, but she’d picked up too much momentum to stop herself. Having somepony she trusted completely, somepony to whom she could tell anything, if only because that somepony had lived long enough to have heard it all before, had brought her face to face with certain inescapable conclusions. She knew she’d been deluding herself. She knew exactly what her condition was, and it was no infection. She still didn’t know how it’d come over her, given how little time she spent in direct sunlight, but she probably could have figured it out by now had she been willing to face the implications. She had already resolved, for better or for worse, to share those implications.

She owed somepony that much.

Celestia, for her part, was silent and attentive, her expression unreadable, her thoughts more so, as all she asked was the occasional clarifying question, such as "How long have you felt this way?" or "What was going through your mind at the time?"

Twilight’s soliloquy forced her to come to terms with certain matters to which she had felt far more comfortable turning a blind eye—Twilight’s budding sexuality, how it had made itself manifest despite her almost complete lack of exposure to sunlight, how this development would, and already had, affected her studies, and Twilight’s attraction to her, about which she’d apparently known long before even Twilight had. Twilight’s condition, she knew, wasn’t the trouble. The trouble was its cause, and she knew that too. We'll get to that later.

If anypony found out what I’m about to tell you, it’d make matters even more complicated than they already were. The truth was that while she could hide her feelings as well as you'd expect of a mare her age, she did have them. She had had every intention of waiting until Twilight had reached physical maturity to make them known, but she knew to what conclusion Twilight was drawing near. Each word spoken brought her closer to it. She knew that once it was given voice, nothing could ever be the same again.

Twilight’s closing statement—the last nail in the coffin, as she saw it—went something like this: "I think it’s more than that, though. I think… I think I’m in love with you, Celestia. I know how that sounds. I know how wrong it is, how disgusted you must be with me for even entertaining these thoughts, for thinking there’s even a glimmer of hope, a chance in Tartarus of… I don’t even know, but that’s fine. I’ve accepted that. I was so afraid, but I’m not anymore. I can’t help the way I feel about you, but I can’t tell you to feel the same way, either. Even in the mad kind of world it’d have to be for you to feel the same, I don’t think you’d be able to tell me. You’re a princess, and I’m… I’m a lovestruck filly."

"Twilight," Celestia tried.

"No," Twilight said, as she paced back across the room. "I’ve started this; now I need to finish it. Then you can send me away, and I'll go quietly."

Celestia didn't respond.

Twilight, who, for all her courage, hadn’t been able to bring herself to look at her since she started her monologue, continued, "Like I said, it’s fine. I’m not going to pine after you until I’m old and gray. I’ve read those stories; I think they’re stupid... I’ll find somepony else, somepony who makes me feel the same way you do… someday."

She sighed. "I don’t even know why I came here tonight other than to force myself to admit that, to get it out of my system, and you know, I feel so much better now. It’s out. I can’t take it back. I wouldn’t if I could, because I can see so much clearer now."

She met Celestia’s eyes long enough to say, "I love you, Celestia."

She turned away from the love of her short life, turned toward the door, forgetting that she couldn’t open it, and said, "I love you enough to respect that you’d rather be alone."

Resting a hoof on the base of the door and heaving another sigh, she said, "Goodbye, Celestia. If I don’t see you for tomorrow’s lesson, maybe that's for the best. The regular semester starts soon; I’ll see about enrolling."

"Twilight," Celestia said sharply.

The edge in that voice was worse than any reprimand Twilight could have expected, because it wasn’t anything she ever expected. She turned on the spot, and what she saw broke her heart. "Celestia... you’re crying."

Celestia wiped the tears from the eye that wasn’t obscured behind her mane and said, "You didn’t give me a chance to respond."

"I didn’t think there was anything left to say," Twilight tried to explain, but the words sounded hollow even to her. "No, that’s a lie. The truth is that I thought it’d be too painful to hear you trying to 'let me down easy.' I thought I'd save us both the trouble."

Celestia stepped off the bed, lay down on the floor so she could meet Twilight’s eyes, and gently ran her hoof through Twilight’s magenta-striped indigo mane.

Twilight hadn’t felt Celestia’s touch in what seemed like ages, probably wasn’t, but was, at any rate, far too long. She resisted the impulse to rub her cheek against Celestia’s foreleg like a cat marking its territory, but her blush was plainly visible even through her winter fur. Equestrian scientists, oft-ridiculed minority that they were, had yet to develop fiber optics, but when they did, they would extrapolate an explanation long overdue and patently false.

Celestia smiled through the mist in her eyes. "Twilight, for all that you’re not the kind of mare who would have any business in a pulp romance novel, you’ve still fallen victim to one of the genre’s most classic plot devices—talking yourself out of something, as ponies all too often do, without considering the possibility that you might actually be a character in a storybook."

"What do you mean?" Twilight asked, her heart lurching into motion to keep up with this new development. She knew the answer, but she knew better than to cut ahead. There was a natural progression to these things.

"You never considered the possibility that I might love you too," Celestia said.

She met Twilight’s lips in a tender kiss.

There are really no words to describe the first kiss between lovers, be they a colt approaching the playground filly who’s caught his eye or two beings older than the stars journeying across time and space for a fleeting moment of passion. Many have tried, and some have nearly succeeded. All I’ll say is that those who’ve been in Twilight and Celestia’s position will know exactly how they felt, and those who haven’t, well, someday, they will too.

When the moment that lasted forever ended, Twilight was the one who broke the kiss. As much as she wanted to lose herself in Celestia’s embrace until the walls crumbled down around them, a nagging thought—something Celestia had said—robbed her of the perfect bliss about which she’d heard so much in those books she’d be so embarrassed to admit that she actually liked. "Wait," she said, "are you saying we’re just characters, that this is just some story, not a word of it true?"

"I never said that," Celestia said, her face taking on that I-know-something-you-don’t look that Twilight knew so well for both infuriating her and making her love her all the more. "All I’m saying is that when you’ve lived as long as I have, you come to see that fate has a sense of humor. Sometimes, the things you thought could only happen in stories for little fillies and colts happen in real life. Someday, you’ll meet somepony whose knowledge of that fact is even more intimate than mine."

"Who?"

"Spoilers," was Celestia’s enigmatic and entirely too self-satisfied answer. Grinning at Twilight’s frustration, Celestia rose, turned with a swish of her tail that brushed across Twilight’s neck, and climbed back onto her bed.

Twilight followed, and accepting the invitation of Celestia’s raised wing, cuddled against her side. The arousal that had so clouded her thoughts before began to creep up on her again. The emotional release her speech had offered had numbed her to it such that she didn’t pounce Celestia the moment their lips met, but it had returned since then. She didn’t take long to realize that Celestia couldn’t have not known the effect their intimate proximity would have on her. The difference was that this time, she didn’t try to fight it. This time, the feeling was not one of wanting but one of having, and it was nothing short of euphoria.

Experimentally, she ran her hoof along the underside of Celestia’s wing. Emboldened by the delightful sound doing so elicited, she snuggled a little closer, so she could just barely feel the quickening beat of Celestia’s heart. Before Celestia, who had taken to nuzzling behind her ears, could offer comment, she said, "You know, if we want to know for sure that we’re not in a story for little fillies and colts, there’s only one way. For all the things that can happen in those stories, there’s one thing that never does."

Celestia drew her head back so she could look askance at Twilight and spoke with a tone of mock scandal, "Twilight Sparkle! That you would even suggest such a thing… I’m shocked. What if I should come under the influence of your most dreadful condition?"

"I’d like nothing more," Twilight purred. She pushed Celestia onto her side, finding her more than yielding.

"Hmm," Celestia hummed, and ran her wingtip from Twilight’s spine to the base of her tail, where it lingered. "Before we go any further, wouldn’t you like to know what caused it?"

"You can tell me after," Twilight answered. She she made no move to keep things going, though.

Celestia cocked her head and asked, "Is something wrong, my love?"

Twilight pecked the base of her neck and said, "That I’ve waited this long to hear you call me that, for one thing. Other than that, well, I have to wonder… Why are you so okay with this?"

Celestia nuzzled just beneath Twilight’s jaw. "With what, my love?"

Twilight moaned softly, leaned into the touch, and traced a sun in Celestia’s fur with her hoof. "You know what I mean."

Celestia grinned. "I’m sure I know nothing of the sort."

"Oh, I see. You want me to say it. All right, I’ll say it. Why are you, Princess Celestia of Equestria, completely okay with a filly trying to seduce you?"

Celestia pouted at having her fun cut short, but drawing Twilight up to her head, where it lay on a bright orange cushion, she answered anyway, "Because, Twilight Sparkle, Only Mare This Side of Zebrica Brave Enough to Try, I meant what I said earlier; I do love you. That that may mean something a little different for me than it does for you, given the way age and experience play into these things, makes no difference. When you’re so old that any lover other than an elder dragon is as a foal to you, your options are to dramatically limit your prospects or learn to see through such foolish qualifiers as age, gender, and species... And before you ask, yes, there was one elder dragon I saw fit to take as my consort. It was... an experience, but not one I’m in a hurry to repeat."

Twilight thought about this, then asked, "Are you asking me to be your consort?"

In lieu of a real answer, Celestia rolled onto her back to gaze up at the ceiling and said, "I wouldn’t take on just any filly, but you’re not just any filly. You’re my personal prodigy, and that’s not just because you’ve excelled so far beyond your peers. Without getting into too many spoilers, let’s just say that you have a destiny, Twilight. Not everypony does, and it’s not as set in stone as the stories make it out to be. It’s my job to prepare you for it, but in the end, whether you succeed or fail will be up to you."

Turning her head to face Twilight, she said, "I’ll admit that I was worried, but in coming to me tonight and saying what you did, you set my mind at ease. You proved that your maturity is as far beyond your years as your magical ability. To answer your question, though, you can be my consort if you like—I want you to—but it would have to stay between us. For all that my little ponies have good intentions, they’re also naive. I know how this sounds, but even your mother and father would have to be kept in the dark, at least until you're of age."

"All they would see is their physical goddess and paragon of virtue courting their daughter," Twilight concluded. "Their minds would break."

"That's one way to put it, yes."

"That just makes it easier, though, doesn’t it? This way, you know that I’m not the kind of pony who’d just be after the status being seen by your side would bring me, and considering how I made it as far as your back door undetected despite being at the height of estrus, you can trust me to be discretion itself."

Celestia kissed her. "You say that as if I didn’t already know your love was genuine. On the other hoof, how do I know you’re not just using me to satisfy your carnal urges?"

Twilight was reasonably certain that wasn’t a serious question, but she still felt it deserved a serious answer. She lapsed into silence as she thought at length about what she could do to prove her sincerity. Then she realized she’d been overthinking it, that the answer for which Celestia was looking was incredibly, deceptively simple.

She climbed atop Celestia’s chest, sat with her hind legs splayed to either side, wiggled her hips under the pretense of getting comfortable, the noise that escaped her lips attesting to her ulterior motives, and gazed down into Celestia’s eyes, for at the moment, Celestia's mane had fallen aside, and both positively glimmered as they met hers.

"Celestia," she began.

"Yes, Twilight," Celestia answered, smiling softly.

"Will you take me on as your consort, if only in this room?" Twilight smiled as she felt the warmth of Celestia’s wings draping over her back.

Celestia drew her forelegs back to prop up her upper body, but her wings cradled Twilight and kept her from falling. "In this room only, we will express our love, but no matter where we are, until the day we decide to part ways, you will be my consort... and I will be yours."

"I wouldn’t have it any other way," Twilight said, her eyes glistening in the flickering beams of lamplight that pierced the drapery, and lay her head over Celestia’s heart, to which she listened as attentively as she had to any lesson. While the feelings of warmth and security that washed over her as she lay there in Celestia’s feathery embrace weren’t the fleeting bliss she’d first tasted on Celestia’s lips, she still felt she could have laid there forever—or at least until morning, when Celestia had to resume her royal duties.

Celestia had other plans.

She lay back against the bedding, slid her wings down to cup Twilight’s petite flanks, causing Twilight’s breath to catch in her throat, and slid Twilight that little bit further up her chest that allowed her to meet her lips in another luscious kiss. She was surprised to find Twilight being the one to initiate tongue contact, but she welcomed it, lidding her eyes so she might focus fully on the sensations. Twilight’s body pressed firmly against her chest, Twilight’s tongue greeting hers like an old friend, and the growing scent of Twilight’s arousal filled her with a giddiness she hadn’t felt in literal ages. That the acts in which she was about to engage were forbidden by word of her own law didn’t escape her; it made her heartbeat that much more erratic.

For all that she had an excellent memory for her lovers past, it had been so long since she’d done anything like this that she almost felt like she was discovering it all anew. So caught up in her reverie was she that she hardly noticed the familiar tingle of unicorn magic searching her underbelly until the invisible force alighted on her breasts, grasping and massaging them just a little too roughly. She gasped, breaking the kiss and opening her eyes to see Twilight’s horn aglow with a magenta aura, but the stimulation was so intensely erotic that she could pose no resistance when Twilight’s lips again brushed against hers.

In the back of her mind, she wondered how she could be so easily taken. The only explanation—which filled her with renewed affection for her little pony consort and allowed her to fully surrender to Twilight’s attention, even when one of Twilight’s phantasmal hooves slid down to her soft inner thigh—was that she was just that taken with her. Her hind leg twitched in anticipation, and her tail flicked to and fro as Twilight’s magic drew closer to the object of its searching caress. One wing remained wrapped around Twilight’s back, but the other sprawled lazily at her side. Her breath became a shallow pant; her heart raced to keep up. Her anticipation peaked, but the realization that she wasn’t returning the favor brought her back down from her momentary high.

Opening her eyes and withdrawing her lips, she brought her foreleg up to touch the tip of Twilight’s horn. The interference caused Twilight’s magic to fizzle in an instant.

"Celestia..." Twilight began.

Celestia touched her wingtip to Twilight’s lips.

Twilight looked at her, her expression a mix of confusion and barely contained desire, and opened her mouth as if she was about to say something anyway. All that escaped her lips, though, was an adorably drawn-out moan, for Celestia’s other wingtip had sneaked around to the underside of her dock. Celestia's featherlight touch made her tail lash wildly and her hind legs go limp. Her naked nether region was moist, almost sticky, and undeniably hot. Moreover, it was scarcely an inch away from Celestia’s chest. No sooner did she process the thought than the wings withdrew and the golden aura of Celestia’s magic enrobed her entire body. As her fur offered no resistance, it was as though every inch of her sensitive skin were being tickled with a million microscopic feathers. Neither her nipples nor nethers were spared their onslaught, and it was all she could do to not burst into a fit of giggles—for if she did, she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop—even as waves of the most intense pleasure she’d yet felt swept over her.

Her world turned ninety degrees, and only the familiar heat of the phoenix-down blanket against her side made her realize what had happened.

Celestia also lay on her side. Her magic faded out.

Twilight felt a pang of irrational self-consciousness upon regaining her senses and seeing that the angle at which she’d been lain left exactly nothing to Celestia’s imagination. She blushed and folded her legs, but her nipples were still plainly visible.

Celestia giggled.

Twilight felt her heart palpitate when Celestia’s hoof—her solid, corporeal hoof, with all the subtle imperfections that no degree of magical finesse could perfectly imitate—touched her exposed breasts. It mimicked the ministrations she had given earlier but with just the right amount of pressure, and she couldn’t help spreading her hind legs and reaching down with her front hooves to push it toward her vulva.

"Ahhh!" she cried out, clamping her thighs around the hoof, only managing to rub it harder against her sensitized vagina. A feeling of unrivaled intensity shot through her body, but it was too brief, too sharp to be enjoyable. It failed to tip her over the edge, but it succeeded in magnifying her lust beyond what she’d have thought possible were she presently capable of coherent thought.

"Patience, my dear Twilight," Celestia teased, withdrawing her hoof.

Twilight would have pounced her, but the feeling of Celestia’s hoof returning to lightly caress her vulva robbed her of her coordination and put her in such a suggestible state that she could only close her eyes and surrender herself to her lover.

"Good things come to those who wait," Celestia went on softly, sensually. She rubbed Twilight’s vagina in a gentle, circular motion that hastened in time with the rhythmic expansion and contraction of Twilight's chest.

Twilight’s panting grew more desperate as Celestia’s hoof moved over her clitoris. Her whole body trembled, and she tried in vain to hold back what was building inside her. It started as a hum that rapidly grew in pitch, "Mmmmhhh!"

...And ended as an eruption of pleasure that made her hind leg spasm, her eyes fly open, and the words "Oh my Celestia!" lurch forth from her lips. The feeling that started between her legs and surged and resurged throughout her body with each gasping breath took on a whole new level of intensity when Celestia kissed her and held her tight. The feeling did eventually subside, probably in less time than it felt like, but the warmth of Celestia’s body remained. She realized she was dripping with sweat.

Celestia didn’t seem to care.

Twilight found her eyelids growing heavy, but she dared not let them close lest she awaken to find that it was all an incredibly vivid dream brought on by her recent studies.

After a short while, Celestia asked, "How do you feel?"

"Amazing," Twilight sighed.

"You know," Celestia began, her voice thick with mischief, "that was only the beginning."

"There’s more?" Twilight asked incredulously, pulling away so she could see Celestia's expression.

"Oh, yes," Celestia purred. "There's much more." She pushed Twilight onto her back, positioned herself behind her, laying on her belly with her hind legs spread in such a way that anypony who were to walk in on them would have caught a breathtaking view, and with her front hooves, parted Twilight's thighs in much the same manner.

She licked her lips, looked up, and asked, "Are you ready?"

"For whaaa—" Twilight never finished her sentence, for Celestia chose that moment to run her tongue up the length of Twilight’s vulva. The second pass parted Twilight’s labia, and the third ended with Celestia kissing Twilight’s clitoris.

Twilight tried to pick up where she’d left off earlier, parting Celestia’s nether lips and exploring every inch of Celestia’s vagina with her magic, as a blind pony might try to process a new face. Without the benefit of sight, she noted some success in the way Celestia’s rhythm grew unsteady, but the mounting pleasure soon made her lose her concentration.

"Celestia..." she tried, but the rest of whatever she might have said was lost to the realm where all attempts at meaningful mid-coitus communication end up. She glanced down to the gap between her legs. The sight of Celestia’s lilac eyes gazing back at her and Celestia’s tongue lapping at the sensitive, fleshy folds of her vagina was too much for her. She threw her head back and cried out as another orgasm broke over her like a water balloon filled with liquid bliss.

Celestia didn't stop.

When Twilight regained her bearings, admittedly in less time than before, she saw Celestia’s head directly above hers. She reached out with her forelegs and pulled her into a kiss.

Celestia’s surprise was apparent, and Twilight soon found out why. There was something different about the taste of Celestia’s lips, and she didn’t take long to realize what it was.

At any other time, the thought might have disgusted her, but now, it just made her hornier. Now she wanted to see what Celestia tasted like.

When their lips parted, Celestia chided, "Come, now, Twilight, I know this is your first time, but you’re making it too easy."

"You haven’t even given me a chance," Twilight complained.

"All right," Celestia conceded. "How do you want me?"

"On your back," Twilight commanded, suddenly all business. Now that her head was a little clearer, she realized she had something to prove.

Celestia complied, though she teasingly pulled a blanket over herself as she did so.

Twilight tunneled under it at the end where Celestia’s back hooves stuck out until she found her way to Celestia’s hindquarters. The self-warming blanket that surrounded her on all sides cut off Celestia’s body not far up her belly and only let in faint, orange-tinted light, lending a very curious atmosphere as she gazed at Celestia’s vagina. She had sneaked more than a few glances in passing, of course, and she’d had more than a few more on this night alone, but never before had she had the chance to just sit and admire.

The sparse illustrations in the books through which she’d looked in the middle of the night when nopony was around simply didn’t compare. For one thing, they didn’t account for the intoxicating scent of another mare's arousal, the faint rise and fall of her entire body as she breathed in and out, or any of the myriad other little details that seemed to make all the difference. That was to say nothing of the vagina itself. She’d often read of the female sex organ referred to as a beautiful, delicate flower, and she’d often thought such descriptions ridiculous and uninformative. Now, though, she could think of no comparison more suitable. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. If she used her imagination, even the scent could be considered floral. An unwelcome voice in her head reminded her of the flowers reportedly growing in the Everfree Forest that smell of rotting flesh.

Assuring herself that Celestia’s vagina smelled like nothing of the sort, she ran her hoof down Celestia’s thigh with the same reverence an archaeologist might upon unearthing a perfectly preserved statue from ancient Rompeii. Whatever she was about to do to it—she hadn’t decided yet—felt almost like an act of sacrilege. Considering that she was thinking of giving cunnilingus to a physical goddess, her feelings weren’t unjustified. Reminding herself that Celestia wanted it as much as she did—and taking no small thrill in that fact—she mentally prepared herself.

Tentatively, almost timidly, she lay with her front hooves on either side of Celestia’s haunches and her head less than a hoof’s length from Celestia’s bare clitoris, which she now recognized for what had brought her to such a height of pleasure when Celestia had attended to her. She didn't doubt Celestia could feel her breath. From this distance, she could see the sheen of moisture that clearly indicated Celestia’s arousal. The heat radiating off her was stronger than that which came from the blanket, and the smell was all consuming.

Deciding to save the best for last, she brought her head lower, to where a stallion would find purchase, pushed her muzzle between the soft, pink folds, and probed the inner walls with her tongue. There was no cavernous space as she’d expected. Instead, the walls yielded only as much as the intruding object necessitated. She imagined the sensation for a stallion would be nothing short of ecstasy. Briefly, she entertained the notion of penetrating her with her horn, but she didn’t think Celestia would appreciate that.

Celestia lifted the blanket to look in at her. Breathlessly, she said, "Twilight, love..."

Twilight retracted her wet muzzle and looked back at her curiously, licking her upper lip.

"Would you kindly stop being such a tease?" Celestia asked. She had meant to sound sassy, but there was a hint of pleading in her voice.

"Good things come to those who wait, love," Twilight replied. She gave Celestia’s clitoris a flick of her tongue.

Celestia shuddered and threatened, "Do I have to make you orgasm again, Twilight?"

The thought of Celestia taking her by force was incredibly erotic, but Twilight still had a point to make. She took the blanket in her magic and brought it down so they were both concealed under it, and to Celestia’s visible relief, wasted no time in resuming her ministrations. Considering the size difference, though, she soon became aware that she'd have to get more creative to elicit the same kind of response Celestia had. She got up, climbed atop Celestia’s abdomen, and once again sat with her legs splayed on either side of Celestia’s body. The difference was that this time, her head was directly over Celestia’s vagina, her breasts rubbed against Celestia’s with the slightest motion of her hips, and she hiked up her tail so Celestia would have a clear view of her vulva.

Without delay, she went to work, splaying Celestia’s labia with her tongue and carving a groove as far down as her neck allowed before withdrawing and repeating the process, drawing closer to Celestia's clitoris with each pass.

Celestia, having decided that Twilight was going too fast for her liking, reached down with her wing to massage Twilight’s vulva. She succeeded in giving her pause, but only for a moment.

Twilight took it as a challenge, and in response, she made Celestia’s clitoris her singular focus, licking, sucking, kissing, and nibbling it with renewed fervor, gyrating her hips all the while. The sensation of their nipples rubbing against one another probably didn’t help her any more than it hindered Celestia, but it felt too wonderful to stop. In fact, it gave her an idea.

Celestia applied more force, but her efforts were in vain; her motions had already grown unsteady, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell Twilight to stop. Her breathing grew heavy, and she became acutely aware of the mounting tension that always preluded orgasm. As familiar as it was, as many times in as many circumstances as she’d experienced it, perhaps on account of just how long it had been, she couldn’t help feeling like it was the very first time. Like an old friend throwing her a surprise party, before she knew it, it had her surrounded. Though it had ceased to bear the poetic connotations she had no doubt Twilight would ascribe to hers, it was still a truly wonderful feeling, one she hadn’t felt in far, far too long, one she wanted to feel again very soon. How fortunate, then, that she had a consort who was as eager as she was.

"Is that something you’d like to try?" Twilight asked, somewhat demurely. "It’s fine if you don’t. This is our first time, after all, and it seems… well… pretty intimate."

Celestia became aware that Twilight, while still straddling her abdomen, had turned to face her and made some kind of proposition that she had completely missed. The blanket had also been tossed aside at some point. The lamplight cast their shadows against the curtains that surrounded them on all sides. Propping herself up on her forelegs, she considered her options before smiling and admitting, "Twilight, I have no idea what you just asked, but I trust you; I’m sure whatever you have in mind is nothing to which I’d object."

"All right," Twilight said. "Just stay like that for a second." She slid her hind quarters backward. One hind leg hooked over Celestia's, she leaned back into a position mirroring Celestia's.

Celestia didn't take long to realize exactly what Twilight had in mind, and even after what they'd just done, her heart threatened to leap forth from her chest. It was intimate all right. It was the most intimate thing too mares could do. She could count on her front hooves the number of lovers with whom she’d shared it, and one of them had been the zebra who’d first introduced her to it. As for the other, well, she didn't talk about her.

...And yet, she had no will to back out. She did trust Twilight, and she saw no reason not to share this new level of intimacy with her. That Twilight had been the one to suggest it helped. With that in mind, she adjusted her pose so as to make it as easy as possible for Twilight, who appeared to be having trouble positioning herself.

Twilight cast her a grateful glance, took a deep breath, and said, "Okay… here goes."

Celestia felt the warmth and moisture of Twilight's nether lips meeting hers in an impassioned kiss. Her vision losing focus, she breathed, "Dear Luna…"

She’d forgotten how incredible this felt. The melting pot of sensations that was their slick vulvae, their delicate labiae, and their pert clitorises sliding, rubbing, and enmeshing with one another in an indiscriminate orgy of two was so overwhelming that she completely failed to realize what she’d just let slip. She gently gyrated her hips in time with Twilight's, and once they'd established a rhythm, sought to meet Twilight’s eyes.

Twilight, for her part, was just as enraptured. Her eyes shut tight and her breathing as heavy as if she were running a marathon, one would not be far off the mark in imagining that she was in a world all her own, where she and Celestia were the only ponies who mattered, the pleasure they gave each other so freely the very meaning of their existence. She recognized the approach of her third orgasm of the night, and when she opened her eyes and saw Celestia looking back at her, it overtook her. She cried out. Her body trembled, but she didn't stop.

Celestia, unable to help herself, soon joined her amid the peaks of earthly bliss.

Strictly speaking, what she and Twilight were doing was no more pleasurable than any of the other exotic sex acts in which they could have engaged, horn and wing play being prime examples. What made it so special, so intensely erotic that it could give even a mare with her experience the most intense orgasms—plural—she’d ever felt, was the psychological aspect. It was an act only worth sharing with a mare with which you had a truly special bond. Otherwise, it just wasn’t worth the effort. It would tire you out all too quickly, but my goddess, if you really loved somepony, if you wanted to be with her in the most intimate way possible, if you wanted to give her the same pleasure she gave you and reach orgasm in near-perfect unison, there was only one thing for you to do.

Twilight and Celestia did just that.

Afterward, with Twilight resting atop her chest and blanketed beneath her downy wings, Celestia gave the explanation she'd promised. She was more than just a sun goddess, you see; among mares, whose estrus cycles were triggered by sunlight, she was also a fertility goddess. Time spent in her presence had the same effect on them as time spent in direct sunlight. That was the sole reason why her Royal Guard, as compared to Luna’s, was composed exclusively of stallions. There was nothing sexual about it, and Twilight received a nip in the ear for her insinuations to the contrary. In truth, she hadn’t taken on a consort since she sent Luna away almost a thousand years ago. Before Twilight, she just hadn’t been able to give herself, in body or in mind, to any potential love interest.

When the topic of conversation turned to one of the myriad relics adorning the walls, Celestia explained that it had been a gift from a formerly barren Zebrican queen to whom she had restored fertility as a gesture of her peaceful intent. She neglected to describe exactly what that had entailed, but Twilight could—and did—use her imagination.

Having already cleaned each other off in the personal spa that passed for her bathroom, they fell asleep together. Despite the lost hours, both awoke the next morning feeling more rested than they had in months. While Twilight knew for a fact that ponies slept better in groups— hearkening back to their nights under the stars when some would stand watch so others could enter the deeper stages of sleep—she decided she preferred the romantic over the scientific explanation.

Knowing Twilight’s presence was solely responsible for keeping the bitter night air at bay, Celestia held that both were valid.