In Dreams

Chapters

Going to Bed
Level 1
Level 3
Waking Up
Level 2

Going to Bed

“Maybe it means… no, no, that can’t be right.” Twilight tapped the end of her chin with her hoof, one eye squinted down at the paper in front of her.

She bit the inside of her lip, moving her jaw around in thought. She momentarily flashed her gaze towards a pair of candles on the table, making sure they were properly spaced and at a suitable height to provide lighting. This was at least the tenth time she had assured herself they were perfect. A tired sigh left her lips as she looked down at the small piece of parchment once more.

Her wings itched at her sides as she adjusted herself, her pillow losing its fluff under her constant pressure. The creep testing involving mechanical values flashed through Twilight’s mind, but she quickly abandoned the thought. She already understood physics and mechanical testing of materials.

Actually, she had mastered quite a lot. Not only was she one of the few ponies holding research papers in magic, equine anatomy, material engineering, and even weather mechanisms, she was also the first pony to graduate from Celestia’s personal tutelage in over a hundred years. Intelligence aside, not only was she one of only eight ponies able to use the Elements of Harmony, she was also the newly crowned Princess of Equestria. There was little she hadn’t done or couldn’t understand.

However, sitting on the thin tan parchment in front of her was a riddle that she couldn’t grasp, a clue that she couldn’t see.

It was a poem.

Twilight’s lips puckered and twisted as she attempted to read the words in a different way for the hundredth time that night. But once more no ground was gained or new knowledge presented to her. It made her teeth grit in aggravation.

“What is the difficulty with this?” She questioned herself for the thousandth time. “The secret texts of Tirek weren’t this difficult to decipher.” Her lip fed itself between her teeth. “Maybe… maybe there’s an additional text that’s needed to decipher it.” The idea was plausible, but unlikely, and Twilight knew it.

She had not found the short scroll with any other additional documents or books. It was highly unlikely that, if the document was important enough to warrant a translation key, it would be kept in anything short of a secure vault. Instead, she had found it caught between two texts, one referring to flight patterns and the other to meteorological history in relation to geography. It was neither the place for a poem nor a secure document.

For the millionth time, Twilight sighed.

“Maybe I should go to bed,” she spoke softly. “Spike does make a good point when he says a good night’s sleep helps the mind.” As if to encourage herself, her mouth opened widely to release a restrained yawn, shaking her jaw lightly as she tried to stifle it. Her wings drooped in defeat.

“Alright,” she resigned, “but tomorrow, I’m going to get to the bottom of this poem if it kills me. Metaphorically speaking, of course. The pillow beneath her lifted slightly as she rose from it, hooves trotting lightly across the floor. It took little time for her to reach the stairs, and even less to make the short ascent up them.

When she reached the top, she leaned her head over the railing, looking at the candles burning above the texts. Her horn hummed with a brief spell of magic, summoning a dark magenta aura about it. With a small flick of her head, the lights beneath were extinguished, covering the room in the familiar blanket of darkness.

Nodding in satisfaction, the alicorn walked into her room, shutting the door behind her lightly as she did to avoid waking up Spike. Her bed was stretched out along the far wall, illuminated softly under the light of Luna’s moon.

Twilight tiptoed towards the bed, careful to make little noise as she passed by her sleeping dragon. She settled into the blankets easily, savoring the softness of the mattress and the insulation of the sheets warming her body over the cool night air.

But sleep still did not come.

Her eyes remained stubbornly shut, hoping to force the comfort of sleep upon herself, yet it still did not come. The air was still, Spike’s breathing soft, and her bed more than simply comfortable, but sleep evaded her expertly nonetheless.

She grunted in annoyance as she turned over, eyes opening as she did so. She stared out the window, looking up at the few clouds that dotted the sky. They were thin and wispy, hardly enough to be considered cloud cover at all. It was either due to the laziness of the weather team or a request from a group hoping to conduct some activities at night. The moonlight wasn’t bright, but it was better than nothing.

But thoughts of the clouds slowly pulled Twilight’s mind away from the poem still sitting on the table far beneath. However, it didn’t ease her mind into the slumbering state she was hoping for. Instead the young alicorn found her mind thinking of a mare that frequently populated the skies, making the vacant air above more of a home than the ground below.

Twilight felt a smile pull at her lips and her covers grow twice as hot. She briefly entertained the notion they simply insulated her own growing heat. She pulled the blankets over her head, hiding her blushing features from the world. Though no ponies were currently looking upon her, it was a hard thing to say that no pony had seen her blush.

Over the past few weeks, Rainbow Dash had done a marvelous job at making Twilight’s lavender cheeks turn every shade of red on the visible color spectrum.

Whenever they were out in public together, the rainbow-maned mare made their relationship more than abundantly clear to any passing pony. Brushing her wings over the alicorn’s back, letting her cyan hooves gently graze at her undercarriage, softly licking behind her ears, kissing with near-reckless abandon…

The moan left Twilight’s lips before she knew it was coming.

She pulled the covers tighter over her head, willing for the mysteries of the poem to plague her mind more than the pegasus at the moment. She needed sleep to think clearly, but she had a greater chance of simply tiring her already taxed mind with thought than to “pleasure” herself into slumber.

It was practically molten beneath the covers.

Twilight focused hard on the poem, reciting under her breath each of the fifteen lines that made up the entire poem. There wasn’t a meter that carried it or tune it was spoken across. They were just words that paused between each line.

For once, Twilight was disappointed with her analytical mind. The idea had occurred to her far earlier in the day that finding the meaning of the poem would be far more difficult for her due to her very realistic and concrete nature, but she never imagined it would be this difficult.

She only barely suppressed a grunt as she threw the covers off of her body, letting the night air nip at her now exposed coat. She grumbled, realizing that the chill only wakened her even more than before.

What she needed was a pony that understood the arts better than she did-- not that they would be hard to find. But it had to be a pony that was used to teaching, or at least skilled in such matters. It was easy to understand something, but it was a rare trait to be able to make clear to others the thoughts of one’s own mind.

Against her better judgment, Twilight turned her head back to the window, looking out to the dark night sky. The clouds that had strewn the sky had since moved on, either by the wind or dissipation. All that was left was the pale moon left hanging against the black backdrop. It was a beautiful sight, one that a pony could enjoy without an artistic eye.

Twilight’s eyes lifted as she realized what that meant.

“Princess Luna,” she whispered to herself enthusiastically, well aware that a raise in her volume would awaken her stubborn-to-sleep dragon.

It was so obvious! Of course the princesses were great teachers. They needed to be in order to rule, and Luna had to be artistically inclined if she was to make the stars as she did. Celestia was credited with it before Luna’s return, but it took only a brief amount of time for the grace to be returned to the younger alicorn.

If there was a pony she could ask about the poem, Princess Luna was the one for the job. And, just like all things that were simple for her to understand, Twilight already had a plan to meet her.

It would take far too long to try and find her in the halls in Canterlot, as travel alone would likely exhaust the night princess’s court hours, and Twilight could not wait until the next night. However, thanks to the information Scootaloo had passed on following her outing with her friends, she knew that Princess Luna had an additional way to keep track of her ponies.

“What better way for her to show me what the poem means than in a dream?” Twilight was almost giggling with excitement. The idea seemed to implausibly simple right now; it was a wonder she had not done it before.

That was when she realized she had to fall asleep in order to dream. Dreams being formed by the usually least active and involuntary sections of the brain, they were only able to work once the motor functions of the body were temporarily halted for REM cycles.

Twilight’s mind pondered quickly any ideas that she could use. Papers, research, documentation, literature; any findings that could possibly help her fall asleep and give her the greatest chance of dreaming.

Her mind recalled one.

Her eyes lightly fluttered as she recalled the information. It was a dissertation from Starswirl, as most of the important documents always were. In it, he theorized a spell that strengthened certain sections of the brain so their impulses were more likely to induce dream states, and, as a consequence, sleep.

Twilight had yet to try the spell herself, but if there was a good time for everything, then this would be it. Best case scenario, she would fall asleep, find Luna, discover the purpose of the infuriating poem, and then wake up to a bright new morning. Worst case scenario… well, at least she was already in her bed.

Summoning her magic into her horn, Twilight focused her mind on creating the silent incantation of the spell. The familiar vibrations of her horn were enough her magic was working.

The sudden loss of feeling also helped.

Twilight gasped as she awoke. Well, awoke wasn’t quite the right word.

Her lavender eyes quickly looked around to see where she was. It took only a blink of her eyes to realize she was no longer in her room, laying over her comfortable bed. The longer her eyes lingered over the area surrounding her, the more obvious it became where she was.

The landscape was vast and unmarked. There were no rivers, roads, or even stars above to show her where she was. The air was still, with not even a single wisp of wind pushing against her coat.

But the dead giveaway was mountains of books surrounding her, stretching for miles into the air above her.

“It worked!” she cheered happily, prancing lightly in place as she marveled at the volumes of texts around her. “Yes! It’s so good to know that something productive was finally done today!” Her prancing devolved back into trotting, letting her move at a joyful pace forwards.

Her eager lavender eyes scoured the cover of each text she could see, reading the spines as they climbed higher and higher into the sky. Her wings flapped excitedly, giving her greater and greater altitude to read the titles of each of these novels with.

But with each one she read, her excitement was dampened.

“History of Early Equestria,” she noted the spine of one book before turning to another. “Lessons for Early Foalhood, Notes Regarding Dual Female Reproduction, Naked Singularity, Spellbound Fireflies, Growing Pains...” a slow sigh left her lips.

“These are books that I’ve already read.” Twilight was disappointed. Not surprised, just disappointed.

It made perfect sense that all of the texts were things she had either previously read, wrote, or experienced. This was her mind, after all. She laughed a little now at the idea of finding a book she didn’t recognize, seeing some words she hadn’t experienced before.

She thought the poem was driving her crazy. Twilight knew she was liable to lose her mind trying to figure out how her mind had conjured a book she had never read or experienced before.

“Hello!”

That wasn’t her voice.

The alicorn’s movements stiffened as her coat bristled, ears perking to their tallest. Her wide lavender eyes stared forwards, stiff as a statue in the Canterlot Gardens. Slowly, eerily so, the alicorn began to hear the soft clopping of hooves. They weren’t disguised or in a rush. They moved at an even pace. Practiced, one might say.

That made Twilight smile.

“Is anypony here?”

It was Luna; it had to be. There were no other ponies that could so freely enter her dreams, let alone the dreams of any pony. It was an art lost when Princess Luna was banished, and it only made sense that she was the only one now who could cast it.

The mare began to lightly trot towards the sounding of the approaching hooves, hoping to limit the time spent searching for the princess. The sounds of clopping hooves grew in volume the closer the two became, and Twilight unintentionally found her pace increasing.

Striding past another column of books, the lavender mare turned to see what she thought would be The Princess of the Night, Guardian of Dreams.

The pony she saw was not the pony she was expecting.

“Rainbow?” Twilight spoke the mare’s name curiously, as if unsure that the pony with a muscular feminine figure, rainbow mane and tail, and pink eyes was the pony she was thinking of.

Said mare raised her own brows in surprise.

“Twi?” She asked in mild shock. “What are you doin’ here?”

Author's Note

Let me make it clear that this is an experiment, of course. It doesn’t flow like my usual stories because I’m attempting a different method of narration and dialogue while trying to mix two genres together. What they are will become quickly obvious next chapter. That said, please be honest with any reviews or comments, as I value knowing my strengths and weakness. I do tally them.

Also, again, in case it isn’t quite obvious, Twilight and Dash are in a relationship, it is physical and that WILL come into play, hence the rating and warning.

Level 1

“Seriously, why are you here, Twi?” The question was posed to Twilight for the umpteenth time, and, despite her best effort, she had no real answer for it. No matter how many times she looked at the pegasus, no matter how many times said mare floated circles above her, the alicorn could think of only broken hypotheses to explain the situation.

No matter how well Twilight could claim to know Rainbow, she knew she did not know enough to create a realistic imagining of the pegasus. There would be too many small details that she would be able to pick up on. The playing with her wings, the uneven alignment of her eyelids, and especially her constant questioning. If this were a dream, then Rainbow would be idealized, not realistic.

Or at the very least she’d be aware of the fact that she was in a dream.

“C’mon, Twi, one minute I’m snoozing on cloud nine and the next I’m flying in Apocrypha. What’s going on?” Twilight raised her own brows at that.

“Apocrypha?” She questioned. “How did you know about that place?” Rainbow’s confused and slightly anxious gaze fell into a dry stare.

“Seriously? You seriously think I wouldn’t remember? You’ve only talked about that place every time the words books, endless, and reading were used in the same sentence.” Twilight felt a light blush of embarrassment flood her cheeks.

Yeah, this was definitely the real Rainbow Dash.

“W-Well,” Twilight uneasily began. “I’m not sure how you got here… but I cast a spell to force myself into a dream state.” She saw the question coming before Dash had a chance to ask it. “I wanted to talk to Princess Luna, and this seemed like the fastest way to do so. I mean, she does visit the dreams of ponies…”

“Kay,” Dash noted. “Then why were you looking for the princess? Couldn’t you just write a letter to Celestia? It’s not like you have to wait to meet her or anything.” Rainbow settled back to the floor as she spoke, making it easier to approach the alicorn. That was another detail Twilight noted.

“No, it’s… it isn’t anything important. Just a question that’s been bothering me all day.” She immediately cursed her own dismissive words. If there was one trait about Dash that everypony knew, it was her inability to let go of things.

“So this question has been bothering you all day, it’s something that you haven’t been able to figure it out yet, annoying you enough that you are casting spells on yourself to meet the princess in your dreams.” Twilight nibbled on her lip. “Okay, spill. Is this really important or where you just tryin’ out some new spell so we could get it on in your dreams?” The question threw the alicorn for a loop.

“Well… I-It’s not that it isn’t important, just… I don’t think it would interest you.” The alicorn turned her head away from the pegasus, finding a column of books interesting to read. She reminded herself of when she had read each of the texts before as she did so.

She recalled reading “Basic Transmutation” in her second class at Canterlot University, “Morphogenetic Magical Metastasis” in her fifth biology class, and “Rainbow Dash is Nibbling on My Ear” at this current moment.

Wait…

Twilight felt her coat bristle as a wet tongue lathed her inner ear. Her legs weakened the second it made contact, and her chest shivered with them. Her jaw clenched to keep an erotic moan from rolling past her lips.

“Twi-light,” Dash whispered huskily into her ear, half nibbling on the thin coat and skin of her pinna. The alicorn stood on shaking limbs as the pegasus continued her sensual assault.

Her eyes widened, however, as she saw the world around her change.

“What secret are you keeping from me?” Bite, lick, nuzzle.

Oh that touch and… and that voice.

The alicorn shut her eyes to focus her mind. An ironic act considering that she was still very sure she was dreaming. But every luscious tease and lick of Dash’s tongue shook the alicorn’s once-iron will. A very brief thought in Twilight’s distracted mind reminded her that this was something that only Dash could do, as she herself had yet to understand, let alone master the pegasus’s touch.

“Aw, are you gonna ignore little old me?” Twilight felt the mare’s hooves slowly run down her back, treading over her coat with the care of a masseuse. It forced a trembling breath from her throat, lowering her chest to the ground. Another small afterthought noted how warm the floor was, as opposed to the usual cold that most tiles held. The thought was quickly swept away once more.

Dash’s hooves expertly played with Twilight’s wings, rubbing the thin muscles. They kneaded and rolled the sensitive appendages, turning the sensitive fibers into conduits for her pleasure.

“Spill it, Twi,” Dash commanded lightly, making the mare beneath her bite her lips to keep the moans from escaping. “Tell me what’s been on your mind all day that’s not me.” Another fleeting thought ghosted through Twilight’s mind, perceiving the now obvious reason why Dash was so curious about her current obsession. It was quickly drowned beneath the waves of pleasure that pulsed through her.

The world around the mimicked her emotional state, much to the intrigue of the currently pleasure-tortured mare.

The columns of books that so accurately portrayed the organization of her mind swayed under a nonexistent wind, making them bend miles high into the air. Not a single book fell, however, as if they were all conjoined at their covers and pages. Twilight attempted to focus on the pillars of text, hoping that focusing on them would somehow allow her mind to stray away from Dash’s intoxicating… and accurate… ministrations.

For every time Dash flicked Twilight’s ears, the books would sway forwards, bending at angles she was sure would offset their center of gravity. For every nibble she teased along the mare’s pinna, the pillars shook soundlessly. Then, for every heavy breath the pegasus blew into the alicorn’s ear, the books appeared to melt little by little, dissolving under the effects of an unfelt and unseen heat.

“Still keeping quiet?” Dash whispered in a tone that bade for nothing but whine of desire. “Maybe I should kick it up a notch.” Twilight had never felt so conflicted between feeling insatiable desire and abhorred rejection in her life.

She sucked in a breath of air as she felt Dash’s hoof slide down her coat.

The stunt flier’s hoof twisted around her carriage, slowly rubbing over the coat that decorated her lower belly and making gentle circles through the lavender fur. It teasingly slunk further and further back, rubbing unhurried circles around Twilight’s sensitive glands.

The mare’s forelegs gave out, leaving her back end protruding up into the air. She would have been embarrassed, moving quickly to pull herself into a ball in the very least, if her eyes were not pulling upwards and her jaw stuck open. Her tongue flopped uselessly out of her jaw, laying on the ground with a collecting pool of drool.

“Hmm…” Dash amusingly hummed as she continued her well-honed teasing of the alicorn’s nethers. It made Twilight moan in need. “I guess we are in your dreams, Twi,” she spoke with an almost oblivious tone. Almost. “Can’t imagine any other reason why the books are doing that stuff.” Though her mind was hazed by lust induced by the pegasus’s touch, Twilight attempted to straighten her eyes enough to see what was happening.

As Dash said, the books were changing, just as the alicorn expected. Then again, she didn’t know what to expect.

Their swaying had since ceased, their tall forms stilling. However, they were anything but stable. One by one, the pillars began to fall into the ground, dropping through the floor as if a hole had opened beneath each one of them. Each one began to descend, and the further each fell, the more other stacks began to descend with it.

Despite the disappearance of the solitary objects in her landscape, her mind was anything but bare.

The holes the books fell through, in fact, remained very much in place. More than that, they grew. Their emptiness stretched until they were conjoined with one another, slowly forming curved lines between their various dots across the landscape. Their emptiness was just as short lived as their solitariness.

From much the same void the books fell into, water began to rise. Water wasn’t the proper word. Real water wasn’t pink, didn’t smell like sweet, and certainly didn’t sparkle the way they did close to Twilight’s still half-focused gaze.

“This is just as weird as it is awesome.” Dash spoke from behind the alicorn, her touch having yet to leave or even slow. Twilight felt the mare lean down beside her head before she spoke again. When she did, it was in the sweet-tantalizing voice. “Wonder what will happen when I do… this!”

Twilight had no time to prepare.

Dash’s hoof pulled back the half-a-hoof necessary to rub itself over her sensitive entrance. A high moan pushed itself past Twilight’s lips before she felt her throat clamp up. Her forehooves pushed at the ground uselessly, attempting to gain any kind of support for herself, but none was to be had.

Instead, she was at the mercy of Dash’s whimsical playing, teasing, and occasional prodding. Her wings flapped without her command as her struggling legs eventually fell into the pink liquid of a nearby river. The warmness of the liquid did nothing to help Twilight’s now emanating heat.

“Just as easy in your dreams as it is on the library floor,” Dash teased again by her ear, giving it another lick for control’s sake. Twilight found herself leaning into the touch, anything to break the wall that was building itself within her. “Now’s probably a good time to ask again, huh?” The mare leaned in closer to Twilight’s ears, so close that even her shallow breaths played with the sensitive folds.

“What were you working on today?” The words didn’t do much to permeate Twilight’s pleasure-addicted mind. Dash stopping her ministrations, however, was more than enough to earn a whine from the alicorn.

Twilight bit her lip in hopes that it would keep her seemingly uncontrollable voice in check, but her legs took up the slack. Her rear legs swayed left and right, attempting to mount herself back on Dash’s hoof, but it was no where to be found.

Even through a bit lip, Twilight’s protesting whimper was audible.

“Sorry, ‘princess’,” Dash spoke with that same teasing voice. Never before did Twilight regret teaching a pony new tricks more. “But I’m not finishing this until you spill the beans.” She leaned down close to the alicorn again, snickering under her breath as she did so.

“Then I’ll let you spill everything over the floor.”

Twilight’s throat began to swell with a barely restrained cry, the urge to beg Dash to finish what she had so magnificently started rising with her approach towards orgasm. Her silent pleas were reflected in the land around her.

Trees began to bloom between the twists and turns of the pink riverbanks. Twisted trunks entwined with one another, ending with great pillow-like leaves. The leaves were a luscious red, and shaped in the epitome of symbols of love. Hearts.

As if the blooming of floral life was not enough, clouds began to form above them as well, shaped as anything but the clouds she was used to in the home of Ponyville. They were made like beds, flattened on top with frames that were made to rock.

“Whoa, thinking of something naughty again, egghead?” Dash commented from beside her, giving her ear another tease for good measure. Twilight was already on her knees. If she could have spoken properly, she would beg.

“If you can just tell me what you were working on, I’ll finish you off. Does that sound good to you?” It sounded heavenly to the alicorn, but without the ability to speak due to her betraying body, it was just a toy being tantalizingly held in front of her.

And to think, she came here looking for Luna and a bit of knowledge. Instead she found herself at the hoof’s end of Dash’s mercy. Such is the way of being in a relationship with the most determined pegasus in all of Equestria.

“-oem.” Her lips loosely spoke, unable to clasp together long enough to make the snapping of a ‘p’. Dash was quite clearly more confused than enlightened.

“What?” She questioned. “You were working on your home?” Twilight rubbed her head on the floor, pushing the mess of drool that had collected beneath her further into her fur.

She swallowed hard on a ball in her throat, doing her best to control her shivering body and clearly addled mind. If she wanted release, she had to control herself, even if for just a second.

“Reading a poem.” Twilight finished with a gasp of air, hoping to cool her still heated body.

“A poem, huh?” Dash commented, still keeping her hoof away from Twilight’s wet nethers. “Trying to understand it, I bet. Probably too wrapped up in what my hoof feels like all day to think straight about a poem. Am I right?”

No, the pegasus couldn’t have been further off if she tried. There were a hundred and twenty three reasons Twilight was unable to figure out the poem that bothered her so, but Dash’s attentiveness to her… pleasure was certainly not one of them. Not during the day, at least.

But the truth mattered little when what she needed was so close.

“Y-Yes…” her lips shivered as she spoke, hoping that the prismatic mare would finally help her out. Her begging was not unrewarded.

“Alright, fair is fair.”

Dash’s hoof dug back into Twilight.

The alicorn froze as her rear legs extended to their fullest, pushing her rear into the air until her tail fell down her back, laying between her completely extended wings. Her breathing was reduced to erotic groans, each push of the pegasus forcing out a higher and higher pitch.

Her vision was taken from her as her eyes rolled backwards, lids spasming with the uncontrollable electrical impulses of her mind. For every twist, tease, and push of Dash’s hoof, Twilight’s mind only wanted one thing. More.

“You’re almost there, egghead,” Dash whispered Twilight’s pet name into her ear, giving the edge of the thin skin a light lick. “Ready to let it out?” The alicorn whimpered in need. It was all the pegasus needed to hear.

For a moment, just a flash of a second, Dash lifted her hoof from the mare. Twilight nearly cried in protest, the wall inside of her ready to give with the force of collapsing mountain. But her needs and fears were alleviated, and then some, when something new pressed against her.

Dash’s tongue.

With all the expertise their months together had provided, the pegasus began to lick and prod the alicorn’s sensitive folds with her long, wet appendage, sucking and licking at the folds of Twilight with all the knowledge Twilight had yet to master herself.

The princess was reduced to joyful whimpers and suppliant mewls for more. Her wings flapped without her control or command, weak words of begging slipping and rolling from her lips, each one accented by another maneuver of the pegasus’s agile tongue.

And again, as with every event that had happened to her thus far, the world around them changed.

The rivers began to rush with Twilight’s pulsating need, the trees turning from saplings to forest giants. The clouds above began to blanket the sky, glowing with the illusion of rainbows falling from the undersides. It was impossible, all of it, but Twilight couldn’t care. Not right now, at least. Not with Dash pushing closer and closer to the ultimate release.

And what a release it was.

With a high cry of pleasure, Twilight felt her entire system give a shockwave of electricity. Her every muscle extended to their fullest length, back arching with the full release from her hot lips and spraying her juices into the waiting muzzle of Rainbow Dash. The mare deftly licked up every drop.

The world around the roared at the release, exploding into a technicolor of shapes and symbols that the alicorn didn’t have the ability currently process.

It was simply heaven, surrounded by the bliss that was the afterglow of Rainbow’s work.

Then, in a slump, Twilight fell under her own weight.

Much slower than how the pressure built, Twilight felt her breathing normalize, her vision return to her as her eyes slowly drifted back into place. Her wings curled at her sides as her forelegs did much the same, tucking themselves under her carriage.

The world around them morphed once more, all being observed by the eyes of the mares. The rivers of pink and lavender hues solidified, coming to halt like the deep freeze of winter. The trees of hearts and cloud beds around them melted and flattened, respectively. They sunk back into the ground, leaving behind not a trace of their existence.

But as the scenery of Twilight’s erotic mind faded, so too did the pillars of her intellectual mind rise.

The columns and pillars of books returned, swooping past the alicorn and pegasus. Like they were pushed from the ground below, the volumes rose into the sky, stretching past the eyesight either mare was capable of holding. They quickly became walls next to one another, blocking the view of the far off and endless horizon with their own seemingly endless height and length.

Then, with a very dull yet audible boom, the changing shapes ceased and stability returned to the dreamscape that was Twilight’s mind. In a sense, at least.

Twilight weakly pushed herself back to her hooves, her form exhausted in spite of the unreal state she was existing within. Her breath was still labored, her body hotter than a smithy’s coal, and her vagina still pulsing from the abuse it had endured.

But she was satisfied, and somehow, that made it a physical impossibility to be mad at Rainbow, no matter how cheekily she was smiling at Twilight.

“Feeling better?” Dash tentatively asked, earning a miffed expression from the alicorn.

She was just forcibly taken into a sexual encounter, albeit by her mare-friend, reduced to a slobbering pony kept on the edge of release, though not without a bit of desire, and forced to speak with a voice she found two octaves higher and two degrees further than submissive, still with a good amount of bliss at the end.

Miffed was the perfect word to describe herself now. Caught between satisfied and perturbed. But she had to admit, this wasn’t anything drastically new for the pegasus. If anything, it was par for the course.

“Yes,” Twilight admitted with a sigh, shaking her head as she did so. “Just… warn me next time you’re going to do that. I would have told you what I was working on anyways.” It earned a good amount of snickering from the pegasus.

“Yeah, I know you would have, but how can I resist turning a princess of Equestria into putty with my hooves?” Twilight rolled her eyes as she gritted her teeth.

“Keep laughing, Dash. Don’t forget that turnabout is fair play.” The words were only spoken as a half threat, and Dash saw through the serious voice to the playful tone underneath.

“Right, yeah, I get it.” The pegasus snorted as she rubbed her snout. “So…” Rainbow spoke, her form settling on the ground as she did so. “How does the first part, er, line go in this poem?” She waved her hoof before tucking it back beneath her chest.

Twilight was at a slight loss at Dash’s behaviour.

“Wait… you want to help me?” Twilight asked curiously. It was not the thought of Dash helping her that was odd. That was actually the very definition of her norm. What was odd was the matter which the pegasus was volunteering to help her with. Rainbow may have been a reader, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed literary analysis. That was just something she didn’t care much for.

“Well yeah, I mean, it’s not like I have anywhere else to go right now.” That made two points in her favor. “Plus, I did sort of get your rocks off.” Three points and a hot blush from the alicorn.

“Alright,” Twilight took a breath before she started. She spoke with as much of a meter as she imagined the poem carried, being sure to say every word with the utmost care.

Level 3

Author's Note

Just so I don’t leave you thinking that I’m going to end the story here, let me assure that there’s one more chapter after this, already half way written. Oh, and have a song that I COULD NOT find on Youtube or downloadable, and thus, was unable to post in the story. Cheers!

Enjoy the Beauty of Colors!

Level 3

The pair of ponies were still in the dreamscape, the alicorn holding the pegasus close to her. Twilight had both of her forelegs wrapped tightly around Dash, leaning against her silently. Rainbow leaned her own weight into the mare, hiding a portion of her muzzle as she did so.

The world around them was still one of ice, a tundra of snow and cold. The hollow whistle of wind echoed around them, drifting over the ice and billowing over the blankets of snow. From their hooves to the far horizon, the land was nothing but a barren, cold land.

Neither Twilight nor Rainbow felt the cold, just as they had not felt the heat of the sauna nor the moisture of rivers when they were flowing. Twilight didn’t feel any of the bitter frost cling to her coat, nor the sharp winds stinging her sensitive ears. All she cared to feel now was Dash’s coat against her own, the soft warmth between them both. She hoped it was enough to beat off the tundra she felt inside.

“I’m… I’m sorry Rainbow.” Twilight muttered to the pegasus, strengthening her hold with what little she could. “I had no idea. I had… absolutely no idea.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow replied emptily, “Not many ponies do. None of the girls do at least.” The pegasus rubbed her muzzle deeper into the alicorn’s fur.

“If I had any idea, I wouldn’t have brought up the poem in the first place.”

“You didn’t even know what the poem was about. I’d bet a feather that you would have ended up here even if you did know.” Twilight bit her lip at the comment. Dash was right, of course, that being Twilight would have needed foreknowledge of both the poem and Rainbow’s loss.

“That just makes me regret it even more.” Twilight twisted her head until it was lying on top of Dash’s, holding the pegasus close to her. She felt Rainbow breathe against her fur, tickling her despite the ice that surrounded the pair.

“It’s okay.” Dash let out a soft sigh as she spoke. “It happened a long time ago. That poem…” Twilight felt her mate smile against her fur. “My dad wrote it after it happened. Probably why I couldn’t stand reading for so long.” Despite what Rainbow finished with, Twilight was far more intrigued by what she began with.

“Wait, your dad wrote the poem?” The alicorn stopped the slow kneading of her hooves, though her grip did not release. “That’s… amazing. The chances of that are astronomical.” Twilight stared out into the land of snow that surrounded the pair, watching as the billowing of the snow slowly ceased. It was likely due to her shocked state that things began to freeze, movement wise.

“Yeah,” Rainbow agreed. “My dad gives away the one poem he never put his name on, and it some how ends up in the hooves of the one mare I love more than anypony else almost a decade later. That’s something alright.” Twilight could taste the bitterness in Dash’s voice.

The alicorn sucked in a breath of air, drawing it from between Rainbow’s prismatic mane. She could taste the sky from between the mare’s multi-colored hairs-- the dampness of clouds, the aloofness of the air, the freedom of the sky, but more than anything else, the sourness of an old wound. Twilight only wished she knew what to say, but there was ever only one thing anypony could think to ask.

“Do you want to talk about it?” It was a horribly overused question, one proposed by every pony that had not endured the loss or pain another pony was shouldering. It always sounded so false, so fake. But Twilight, despite her lessons in friendship, could not think of anything else to ask.

Rainbow snaked one of her hooves upwards, stopping only when it hung off Twilight’s leg. She twisted her neck, taking in a deep breath through the alicorn’s lavender fur. Twilight made a small note to ask what she tasted like later, amending the question to be in relevance to her fur and not her… other faculties.

“Sure.”

Twilight honestly wasn’t prepared for Dash to reply in such a way, so sure that the pegasus she knew would simply offer words that she was alright in spite of how she honestly felt.

Just as carefully as the wind had stopped, the snow around the pair began to melt. The empty tundra disappeared in the place of barren land, mountains falling until they left an open horizon to gaze into.

Twilight leaned back, focusing her lavender gaze on the cyan mare. She watched as grass bloomed behind Dash, green blades that complimented her blue fur so well twisting around them. A sad smile was etched over her lips, a somber expression of acceptance. It was not one Twilight was used to the pegasus wearing.

The land around her continued to diminish, the grass-patched land fading into a dreary landscape, an empty land that begged for life, for joy, for something. But much like Twilight felt inside, it waited for something it itself could not create. The cracked and dusty land could grow no trees or grass, and the alicorn could not make her own happiness, not without the aid of the mare she was holding at leg’s length.

Twilight swallowed on nothing, trying to force a bulge in her throat downwards. Dash must have seen the action, or perhaps something else that Twilight was not aware of. The hoof she had hooked over the alicorn’s leg slowly began to slide upwards, tracing the length with a delicate touch.

With a mesmerizing pace, it finally reached Twilight’s muzzle, softly grazing the alicorn’s cheek. She found her eyes fluttering at the touch, curious of how often she had wanted Dash to touch her so gently out of the bed.

“It’s alright Twilight.” Dash’s words kept the veil of Twilight’s mind from shutting, keeping her attention focused on the mare. “It happened a long time ago. Like, more than half my life ago.” Her hoof left Twilight’s cheek, but her pink gaze remained just as fixed on the mare as before. Twilight found herself falling into those eyes, so similar yet so vastly different to the look the prismatic mare usually gave her.

There was confidence, hanging on the edges of her vision, and her love was never out of sight for Twilight. But deeper now, she could see a subdued form of sadness, the wound of what remained when the time of grieving had past. A cold breath was taken in by the alicorn, chilling her to her bones. The sky high above them became just as cold, every cloud gone from its canvas.

“Who… who was it?” Twilight found herself asking, unsure if she had thought of the question before it had left her lips. She wanted to know, but not at the expense of digging a fresh grave. Her cloud of fears was easily batted away when Dash started to speak, her smile still hung over her lips.

“My brother.” Her voice was softer than a freshly formed cloud. It was all that kept Twilight’s eyes from tearing.

“Your… brother…” Twilight breathlessly repeated. She didn’t have to check to know that the land around her was changing again, forming once more the arctic ice of her sorrow. How could she not feel the pain of remorse at such words?

“Yeah, he… he wasn’t good at flying.” Dash closed her eyes, twisting her head as if to rock the memory out of herself. “Really I… I don’t remember much of it. Like I said before, I was little, like, maybe just out of my foal years.”

Twilight said nothing, keeping herself still and focused, memorizing every word Dash spoke. The words around them stilled to mimic her focus, letting not a thing but Rainbow move. She had both of her forehooves on the ground, wings at her sides, and her eyes at the brink of shedding tears.

“He was a foal, hardly old enough to talk. I don’t even know if he ever spoke, really.” Dash gave an empty breath. It was the saddest chuckle Twilight had ever heard, forced out to keep the pegasus from crying.

“When I was flying with my mom, he watched from the clouds beneath us, giggling as he saw us up above. My dad would keep him between his hooves, trying to keep him from getting any bright ideas. Turns out, that’s exactly what was happening.”

Twilight didn’t like where the story was going. Then again, she already knew the end. It only made sense the path was just as tragic as the destination. She could feel the cracks in her heart forming, preparing for what was going to happen. Fissures opened up along the world they were in, chasms growing and swallowing the snow and ice that sat atop of them. Neither paid them any mind.

“One night, he was able to get out of his crib, popping down on the clouds like they were pillows. He just walked right out of the room, my mom and dad too passed out to even know it. He didn’t even make a noise when he walked out the house, not whining or gurgling or nothing. Just… nothing.”

Dash’s mouth was halfway open, and it stayed that way for some time. By the way her eyes were focusing on an uninteresting piece of snow, Twilight could safely assume the pegasus was caught in her memory. Wet trails finally started to smear the fur on Twilight’s face. It took only a breath of air longer before they started appearing on Rainbow’s as well.

The world began to change again, and once more, it was nothing like what Twilight wanted to see.

Dark clouds formed overhead, blacker than night and twice as ominous. Thunder rumbled through them, threatening to dampen the ground far beneath. The ice and snow quickly melted, their wet remains falling into the many fissures over the landscape. Just as quickly, the cracks in the land began to close, each one giving a soft boom as it shut tightly.

No sooner did the fissures close when the rain begin to fall. It was not a torrent of water, gushing down at an unbelievable pace. It was soft and gentle, like a heavy mist over Twilight’s dream land. Though neither mare felt even a drop from the rain, as they had felt neither heat nor cold before, the tears falling from their own eyes more than made up for it.

“When we… we all woke up the next day, my parents flipped. We couldn’t find him anywhere in the house. His crib, the kitchen, the playroom…. Nowhere.” The pegasus sniffled. A rumble of thunder came above the pair, a clear sign to Twilight that she already feared what was about to be said.

“Turns out, we were looking too high.” The bitterest of laughs came from Dash, as if she was leaking acid as the words were spat from her mouth. A crack of thunder echoed over the land.

Lightning erupted over the land, the only thing keeping Twilight’s gasp from being heard. The misty rain became a monsoon, falling in droplets far heavier than before. They pelted the ground viciously, churning the dirt and splashing the puddles.

Twilight found herself breathless, too shocked to complete even the simple action. She was stuck, only able to stare at Rainbow in mute horror. It only became worse when Dash finally offered her pink gaze to the alicorn. Tears were falling from her eyes as her chest shook.

The princess’s jaw worked uselessly, not even able to conjure an overused statement for the situation she was in. There were no sympathies her words could properly convey, no eloquent metaphors to remind Dash how far she’d come. There were just her tears. Her tears from her eyes and the tears from the sky.

Against the constricting feeling of her own chest, Twilight sucked in a breath of air, feeling the speed of her tears increase as they came. She took a few testing breaths, making sure her throat would not choke her before she began to speak. Words did come to her, but as she suspected, this didn’t come close to expressing what her heart was feeling. The roar of thunder above made it clearer to her.

“I…” Twilight, once more, found herself saying something that sounded fake. The tears were the only evidence that she was honest in what she spoke. “I can’t even imagine it.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to.” Dash was shaking her head as she spoke, keeping her eyes trained on the ground beneath them. Twilight watched her tears fall into the puddle forming beneath them.

Twilight was taking slow breaths, doing her utmost to regain control of her emotions. Every slow exhale came out as a whine, and every other inhale came as hiccup. Her chest was tighter than the bark on a tree, constricting her breathing and forcing out more of her own bitter tears.

That’s when she felt a pair of hooves wrap around her.

“Shh…” Dash softly hushed into her ear, soothing the troubled mare. “It’s alright Twilight. It’s okay.” Twilight couldn’t imagine this situation being anything close to okay. She wrapped her hooves weakly around Dash, pulling her tear-stained muzzle into the pegasus’s underbelly.

The storm around them drowned out the soft cries of the alicorn, already muffled by the cyan fur of Dash. For every tear that Twilight shed, the storm unleashed a thousand more, drowning the land no differently than Twilight’s sorrow was drowning her.

Rainbow continued to hold her, rubbing circles between the alicorn’s wings, whispering sweet nothings into her ears. They were nearly inaudible against the crashing thunder above, but simply the soft rumble of her voice was doing wonders for Twilight. Greedily even, she continued to grip the pegasus, unwilling to let go of her.

She was crying for a foal she had never met, for something that had happened years ago, but still she continued to cry. This wasn’t just anypony, and this wasn’t just any secret. This was Dash’s most protected memory, the most sacred thing the pegasus had ever offered anyone, and in the confines of Twilight’s dreams, she had spoken it.

That was why Twilight was crying.

The storm began to subside, with all the pace a collection of clouds would show in the real Equestria. Their dark colors lightened, the heavy rain easing, and the light eventually began to peek through the cover above. Twilight kept her hold firmly against the pegasus, savoring the warmth of the mare and the soothing words she spoke. If she weren’t already asleep, she might have done it again against Dash.

Carefully, with a few sniffles to control her still-leaking eyes, Twilight leaned away from Rainbow until she sat on her own haunches. Her eyes, blurred from the tears, looked at the pegasus, watching as the light from above continued to shine down upon her. A halo would have been too obvious. Right now, it appeared to Twilight that her wings were made of gold.

It made the alicorn realize a crucial fact.

“You aren’t the real Dash, are you?” Twilight was already sure of her answer. She was wrong before, but right now. The sad smile Rainbow gave her was answer enough. “I thought so.”

“And here I thought it was the way I got you off earlier that would have made it clear.” Twilight blushed at the bluntness of the statement; just like Rainbow. This wasn’t the real Dash. She was just a figment of her highly accurate imagination. The world heated with Twilight’s body as the blush intensified.

“Can… Can I ask you a few more questions, then? Not about the poem?” Rainbow gave a light scoff of air before nodding. She gave a verbal answer regardless.

“You hate keeping secrets. It would be kind of weird for your mind to be hiding something from you, wouldn’t it?” Twilight felt herself laugh at that logic. It was a bit twisted, but straight enough to make sense to her rigid mind, even if she was talking to it.

“Well… is he… real?”

Were Twilight talking to the real Rainbow Dash, her marefriend of only a few months but love for close to a year, the question would have been far longer and far gentler. But since this was, as Twilight had come to conclude, a verbal storage of information, it was not necessary. That being said, she still couldn’t suppress the ball in her gut that threatened to consume her.

The Dash in front blinked before her sad smile became a little more somber. It threatened to turn into a frown at any second.

“Yeah,” Rainbow answered. “He was.” The pegasus, be it because the real Rainbow knew Twilight so well or because she was literally in the alicorn’s mind, was already to answer the unspoken question.

“Twilight, you pick up on a lot more than you think. You’ve been dating me, the real Rainbow Dash, for months now. You’ve seen her home, her work, and met her dad, too. You know… you know that Dash had a younger brother, and you know that she’s heard this poem before.”

“How would I… how could I possibly know that?” The question came out as far more pleading than Twilight intended it to be. It didn’t stop Dash from answering.

“Cause you love me, and I love you.” Just as before, the land bloomed with hearts at the sincerity of the pegasus’s words. Twilight’s wings unfolded in tandem with the world around her. “We know just about everything about one another, things we talk about and things we’d rather leave unsaid.”

“Then… the real Dash?” The sky above began to shine a blinding light down on the pair, brilliant in its glow. It made the pegasus look like an angel, with her prismatic mane glimmering with all the brilliance of a fresh dawn. And yet, the soft confident smile over the mare’s lips was all Twilight could focus on.

“Who knows what she knows.” Rainbow lightly trotted closer to Twilight, stopping only when she was close enough to touch the alicorn.

“Rainbow?” Twilight was confused. It didn’t last long.

“I love you Twilight, and I always will.” Dash spoke easily, her hoof stroking the alicorn’s face as she did so. Twilight leaned into the touch, loving the care that Rainbow was giving her. She felt her cheeks warm at the sensation. Thinking on it, the rest of her body was getting rather heated.

A low moan left the alicorn, far more erotic than she believed the simple contact of the pegasus would produce from her. Her legs were beginning to shiver and her wings tense. Twilight opened her eyes, hazed as they were, and she looked at Dash. The pegasus was staring back at her with such a peaceful expression.

The world around her was slowly evaporating, her books turning to fine mist as they gradually seeped away from thought. Each shuddering breath the alicorn made had more and more of them evaporating into nothingness, turning her filled mind into a white void.

“… gonna have to wake up soon.” The alicorn was having a hard time understanding the words, her hearing slowly fading. Her eyes were as heavy as she was hot, which was to say dangerously so.

She took in another shaking breath, and then nothingness consumed her.

Waking Up

Dash wasn’t a pony that stuck to schedules. She slept through many an alarm clock, forewent a lot of chores, and was held accountable more than once for saving work up until the last minute. There were only ever three things that she was sure to do on time; her training regimen, her naps, and her marefriend.

Currently she was working on the last one.

The morning air was frigid on her wings, but it was nothing she wasn’t used to. It only took a few stretches to get her wings warmed up and a few minutes for her to be out of her home and on her way to Twilight’s. The alicorn’s now-famous library home was a short flight, practically a glide, and it was one the pegasus could make in her sleep.

She reached the tree in a short amount of time, circling the hollowed home before stopping in mid air. She beat her wings in a hover, keeping her hoof level with one of the many windows decorating her marefriend’s home.

Normally, Dash would already be inside and standing on Twilight’s wooden floor with a proud smile on her face, making the whole journey from her home to the alicorn’s without ever letting her hooves touch the ground. But right now, however, she had a different idea.

The silence from the home was more than evident, made only clearer by the still air of Ponyville’s morning. The months of dating the princess had taught the pegasus a few things about the mare that most other ponies didn’t know. Things that, to be completely clear, most ponies wouldn’t want others to know.

Dash was about to use one of those lessons now.

With all the gentleness of a freshly-formed cloud, Dash lightly pushed open the window of the alicorn’s bedroom, moving it at the perfect speed to ensure its silence. When it was propped open far enough, she gave her wings a strong flap before folding them to her sides. The force from her powered muscles sent her in the perfect arc, moving through the available space without touching the wood around her.

Her wings immediately extended when she made it inside, letting her slowly fall to the floor. Her hooves made a patter quieter than a scurrying mouse. Dash opened her eyes to their widest, hoping to adjust them to the shade of darkness that still covered Twilight’s room.

As softly as her landing, Rainbow began to tip-hoof across the room, looking for the familiar basket and blanket of young Spike the Dragon. He was easy enough to find, his snoring a constant reminder of his sleep. The pegasus licked her lips in concentration as she slowly wrapped her legs around his basket, carefully lifting him into the air.

The dragon squirmed at the change, but didn’t wake up. Biting back a small chuckle, Dash moved with the same level speed and care as before towards the door. When she was close enough, her wing extended, wrapping around the handle of the object. With a bit of movement on her torso’s part, her wing slowly pulled the door open.

She made a grimace as a slow creaking noise filled the air.

Her ears perked and twisted as she heard a ruffling from the bed, sheets being creased with movement. Dash stopped on a bit, waiting still as stone until the noise died.

Dash carefully set Spike’s basket down outside of the room, making the baby dragon stir in his slumber, pulling the blankets closer to his scaly skin. He did nothing more. With a bit more care than before, Rainbow shut the door.

When she turned back to the bed, even in the dark, the pegasus was wearing a positively devious expression.

There were a lot of things that Rainbow learned about Twilight that not many ponies knew. She had learned some of them out on their walks, but she’d discovered a lot more in the bedroom, specifically late in the night or early in the morning. Her personal favorite was the one she was about to exploit.

Twilight was always “warm” in the mornings.

Dash’s body slunk to the ground as she carefully moved her way across the floor, keeping her wings flexed to her sides. The bed was easier to see, with its thick outline even in the dark of the room, than most other objects in the room. It helped that the occupant of said bed was currently moving. However, Dash was undeterred, as she continued her slow approach towards the vulnerable mare.

Her body stopped only when she was nearly leaning against the wood of Twilight’s bed, feeling the small ruffling of the sheets that hung over the side. Dash had her ears perked like fine points, listening intently for the mare on the bed. She heard the breathing of the pony, the inhale and exhale of air, soft and rhythmic like one would expect from a mare deep in the enthralls of a dream.

What Rainbow did not expect to hear was the small shake on those breaths.

As a pony that was used to exercising until her body shook with exhaustion, she knew the telltale breath of a trembling body. Small breaks in the periodic breathing, the minute quakes of her voice edging through her respiration, they were key things Dash was trained to not miss, as training past exhaustion had hurt her one too many times before.

But now the question was obvious. Twilight certainly wasn’t back from a hard workout, Dash herself was warm without the blankets the alicorn had, so it was unlikely Twilight was cold, so what was making Twilight shake like a scared filly?

All Rainbow had to do was remind herself that her marefriend was asleep, and the idea came to her like a stray cloud in an open sky.

“Oh this is just too good,” Dash whispered hardly above a breath’s volume. “You must have been thinkin’ the same thing as me Twi.” The mare on the bed moaned through her breathing, twisting as she did so. The covers by Rainbow were pulled further onto the bed, sliding over the pegasus’s coat as they traveled. They didn’t wipe the grin from the mare’s face.

As careful as when she had entered, Rainbow peaked over the edge of the bed, looking for her mare. In the darkness, she was able to see the outline of the newly crowned princess, but hardly a detail more. Dash licked her lips in mild frustration.

Carefully, she raised and lowered her forehooves onto the bed, tucking her wings tightly against herself. She did her utmost to keep her weight on her hind legs, preventing the bed from dipping towards her. Dash licked her lips in concentration

The further onto the bed she crawled, slower and slower to prevent any drastic movements, the easier it was to see Twilight’s state. Her body was shivering, the blanket on top of her lightly shaking. Her breath was hot, leaving little clouds of smoke as they passed her lips. Then she was still moaning, no differently than before. Dash licked her lips in excitement.

That was up until she saw the light strands of tears falling from her eyes.

“Twi?” The pegasus spoke carefully, all thoughts of stealthily assaulting the alicorn gone. Her hooves forcefully dimpled the bed as she made her way next to the newly crowned princes.

Though the veil of darkness still hindered much of her vision, it was only clearer now than before. Glistening trails of tears were falling down Twilight’s lavender coat, matting her fur and staining the pillows beneath her. Dash’s reaction was as quick as before.

“Yo, Twilight,” she spoke her marefriend’s name as she placed her hoof Twilight’s shoulder, lightly shaking her form. “C’mon Twilight, wake up.” A heated whimper came from the mare, something Dash could honestly say she didn’t want to see. Not with the tears at least.

Regardless, the alicorn slumbered fitfully through the pegasus’s cajoling motions, not waking at the actions of the athlete. It made Rainbow bite her lip in annoyance. If there were three things she couldn’t stand it was quitters, failure, and seeing her friends being hurt. Twilight was crying, and she was more than just a friend, she was her marefriend. That made it only so much worse.

“Twilight.” Dash spoke louder, foregoing whispers now for volume. “Twilight, what’s wrong?” Rainbow gave another shove of the alicorn, turning Twilight over onto her back. Her eyes didn’t so much as flutter at the force.

Pushing wasn’t working, volume wasn’t working, there had to be something else. The idea that followed was natural, and yet, Rainbow had a hard time thinking of anything more foalish. Seeing Twilight crying, however, she couldn’t care. She’d dye her mane and call herself Ditzy Doo if it meant making the alicorn feel better.

Puckering up, Rainbow planted a heated kiss on Twilight’s lips.

The moment she touched the alicorn, the sensation of heat overcame Dash. She wasn’t sure if it was because Twilight was as warm as a drink left in the sun or if she still got “hot” from kissing the mare. Either way, it was a great feeling. If Dash wasn’t so concerned with Twilight’s inability to wake up, she might have savored it a bit more. Thankfully, however, Loyalty was her middle name.

Dash ended the kiss chastely, pulling back to see if anything about Twilight had changed. She was still the same lavender alicorn, lying under her star adorned covers. The wet markings of tears still marred the sides of her face.

But her eyes were open, and she was staring right up at the Dash.

“Rainbow?” Twilight whispered quietly, eyes staring upwards. Dash expected the surprise, she wasn’t too worried about the haziness that came with most early mornings, but there was something else in those eyes that Rainbow couldn’t let go of.

It was a void, the kind of emptiness that Dash only saw Twilight give when she had bad news.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Dash nodded her head as she spoke. “What’s wrong Twi-whoa!” The exclamation left the pegasus as she found herself being pulled down to the alicorn.

Twilight’s hooves were wrapped tightly around Rainbow, pulling at her neck and hugging her close. It buried Dash’s face into the moist pillows of the princess, doubtlessly from the tears that were being shed. But while her eyes and muzzle were muffled, her ears were left perked and up.

It made the soft sobs of the alicorn only that much easier to hear.

One part of Rainbow was ready to beat her wings out of the embrace, to set herself above her marefriend and demand to know what was wrong. That would be the normal thing to do. However, this wasn’t a normal situation and Twilight wasn’t a normal mare.

So instead, Dash let herself be hugged, letting Twilight continue to shed her tears over the pegasus as she stroked her coat. Rainbow only adjusted herself to make it easier to breathe.

The darkness around them was a cold blanket, but it was not unwelcome. Dash was sure from the multitude of interactions with her friends that some things were better off remaining unseen. Rarity would not want to be seen in the early mornings, Applejack wouldn’t be kind to anyone spying on her family private time, and Twilight, most of all, would not enjoy being watched while she was crying.

“Difficult” didn’t begin to describe what the situation felt like to Rainbow. This was outside her usual norm, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t stand it.

“It’s okay Twi,” she whispered into the alicorn’s ears, lightly rubbing her leg on Twilight’s side. It was a difficult position to hold, but she could tell it helped; at least that’s how she interrupted the increased strength in the alicorn’s grip.

It was beyond odd, Dash realized, how she had come in here hoping to get Twilight off, nearly thinking that it was going to happen, only to end up comforting the princess through her tears. It was odd, no doubt, but oddities seemed to be the norm in their relationship.

“I-I’m sorry,” Twilight blubbered through her still wet throat, her gripping starting to shake, deciding if it would be more appropriate to either let go or hold onto the pegasus. “I… I-I just had a…I-I don’t know.”

“A bad dream?” Dash didn’t think it was that hard to figure out what it was. Twilight, however, wasn’t so quick to judge, even things she had been in the middle of.

“No…” She whispered. “No it wasn’t a bad dream. I mean, I wanted to dream. I even cast a spell on myself to make it happen. So-”

“Wait.” There was something Twilight said that had to be addressed. “You wanted to dream?” She pushed herself up, the force being enough of a queue for the alicorn to release her. In the darkness, Rainbow could only hope her look of confusion was clear. “Why the hay did you want that?”

“It’s…” Twilight began, but her voice quickly fell off, eyes searching for something beyond Dash. The pegasus fought the urge to look behind her. “It’s a long story. I-I just… I cast a spell on myself to dream.”

That settled a piece of the puzzle Dash wasn’t expecting to solve.

“That’s why you wouldn’t wake up,” she muttered to herself, letting her head drop into the alicorn’s exposed belly. A quick gasp and tension of the muzzles came from Twilight, but both settled as quickly as they came. “So… are you gonna tell me about this dream?”

She felt the alicorn adjust herself, sliding over the bed with small adjustments. Dash lifted her head up, letting the alicorn move with more ease. The moment she did, Twilight began to lower herself as well. She slid down the bed, stopping only when her eyes were even with the pegasus. Rainbow blinked as Twilight stared at her.

“Dash?” The alicorn spoke her name questioningly. Rainbow wasn’t sure if it was to assure herself she was awake or that Dash was real.

“Yeah?” Dash felt the alicorn slip her hooves around her, pulling her way to the pegasus’s chest, stopping only where the muzzles were breaths apart.

“Why do you love me?”

Of all the questions the pegasus could have expected, that was the least likely on her list. Given this was Twilight, the mare she had dated for the better part of a year now, a princess who never quite left the curiosity phase of her foalhood, it was still something she never expected.

If she was expecting a question at all, it would have been closer to why she was in her bedroom so early or why she was so worried even, regardless of the alicorn crying. Asking why she was in love, however, was probably the farthest thing from her mind at the moment.

“You must have had one heck of a dream.”

Twilight laughed lightly, letting her head fall into the crook of Dash’s shoulder. Rainbow folded her wings over the alicorn, holding her mare possessively close. Twilight repeated the action in kind.

“I want to talk about it later.” She whispered. “I… I want to talk about everything.”

Dash blinked, unsure of what the mare was referring to. It was one thing for Twilight to be curious, more like something she could always count on the princess to be. But the statement, the openness to the comment… It had no specific context, no subject to solely focus on. That was unlike the alicorn.

Then again, she had never woken up a mare with a kiss before. If new things had to happen, better they come in pairs.

“I love you Dash.” Twilight whispered to Rainbow, snuggling closer the mare. Dash only pulled her closer.

“Love you too, egghead.”

Author's Note

And that's the show folks!

Level 2

“When the cold of winter comes, starless night will cover day.”

“In the veiling of the sun, we will walk in bitter rain.”

“When the seas and mountains fall, and we come to end of days.”

“In the dark I hear a call, calling me there.”

“I will go there, and back again.”

Twilight wasn’t completely aware of the world around her as she recited the poem, not to the degree that she normally was. It was more difficult than she previously thought; recalling memories within a dream. Thankfully, or not, she had stared at those same five lines long enough to have them engraved in her mind as well as anything else she had studied.

That may have been the reason why she felt herself trying to sing the lyrics as she spoke them, believing in her theory that the true magic of the words were beyond their meaning, and focused deeper on the enunciation of the words. And as such, she spoke them as she believed they were meant to be spoken.

When she was done, her eyes opened to see the same columns of books around her, unchanged and unmoving. There were no clouds shifting through the pillars, no trees growing from the ground, and nothing different than before.

Nothing, except for Dash’s jaw on the floor. Twilight took it as she saw it.

“I know,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s extremely confusing and all around impossible to understand. I’ve tried looking up various geographical phenomena across Equestria, but none of them detail any nights during the day. Celestia was very rigorous with her duties during Luna’s absence, and even the few texts before the dual monarchy never detail any such event.”

“That’s not to mention the second line. It has the exact opposite problem from the first line. I’m willing to bet nearly one hundred percent of the storm cloud ‘veils the sun’, and it certainly would be rather easy for a pony or two to walk in the rain. Hay, I see ponies do it all the time!”

“Twilight…” Dash lightly spoke behind the alicorn, but she paid little attention.

“And of course I’ve analyzed with the assumption that the lines are metaphors for various parts in a pony’s life, but nearly all the levels at which I’ve compared the text to forms of joy, merriment, romance, work, depression, or even life in general haven’t worked.”

“Twilight!” Rainbow had since risen to her hooves, walking towards the rambling mare. Twilight was too far into her own thoughts to pay attention.

“It’s the implications that keep ruining me, because it’s easy to strap a low-point in life to the text, but then what do the words imply with it? It could mean anyone of a hundred different possibilities and-” Twilight stopped as she felt hooves grabbing at her shoulders.

“Twilight!” Rainbow nearly yelled at Twilight, silencing the lavender mare instantly.

The silence that followed was pregnant, tense, and uneasy. Both mares could feel the towers of books around them sway, as if ready to topple with the slightest touch. Twilight swallowed lightly on a ball in her throat, following by inhaling a calming breath. The towers slowed to a still. Dash gave them an eye before turning back towards the alicorn.

“Twilight,” Dash began. “Where did you find that poem?” The question made one of Twilight’s brows rise, unsure of how that pertained to her current conundrum.

“It was in my books back at the library.” She answered easily. “I was reorganizing the sections regarding pegasus specific wing dynamics and meteorology, because the two usually go hoof in hoof. Somepony must have left it there when they were looking through them before.” Dash nodded at the words, her eyes slowly turning from the alicorn. She mumbled under her breath, causing Twilight to perk her ears in interest. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” Rainbow dismissed with a wave of her hoof. The lavender mare was half way to opening her mouth to insist on an answer, but Dash beat her to it. “I-I was just thinking that you could… could have asked the pony who gave it to you. That’s all.”

Twilight let out a soft sigh. “That was my first idea. Both books haven’t been checked out for some time, but they have been reorganized. Spike told me that it wasn’t there before, so I can only assume that somepony visiting the library left it there on accident.” Twilight looked around the endless stacks of books, a joke forming in her mind. “Do you think I could read my own mind to remember who that pony was?”

“Yeah, heh, probably not.” The tone in which the pegasus spoke was obviously downcast, earning the immediate attention of the alicorn.

“Dash?” Twilight questioned, trotting the short distance to her. “What’s wrong?” The pegasus lightly shook her head.

“Nothing, nothing just….” Dash’s hoof lightly circled in the air, as if she were trying to catch a stray thought. “I… I’m pretty sure I get that poem of yours.” Twilight’s eyes couldn’t fly open fast enough.

“What?!” Her wings expanded as she let out the sudden declaration.

The towers of books around them suddenly jumped into the air, putting both mares instantly in a defensive stance. But just as quickly were they thrown into the air did they come falling back down, landing in the still perfect pillars like before. Twilight had to remind herself this was a dream, so it was possible.

“I mean…” Twilight started again. “You already understand the poem? Dash, I don’t mean to be too blunt here, but… the most analytical thing I’ve ever seen you read is the author’s bio on Daring Do, and that was about my mother.” Dash gave a little chuckle with an averting gaze.

“Yeah well… doesn’t mean I can’t understand it, right?” As simple as the admission was, it was a point the alicorn couldn’t ignore. She was assuming too much about her marefriend by conjecture alone.

“Yes,” Twilight quickly conceded. “You’re right Rainbow. I just… I’ve been working on this literally all day, and I was getting ready for all night. I’m a little surprised that you got it so quickly.”

“Y-Yeah,” Rainbow returned with a small shake in her voice. Her hoof scratched at the back of her head. “I guess there are some things other than flying I can pick up on, huh?” The pegasus gave the alicorn a smile, her smile to be precise.

But something was wrong.

It was favoring one side; with the coat beneath her right eye pulled back much tighter than her left. Her head was slightly lolled towards the favored side as well. But something about Dash’s eyes irked Twilight. They weren’t full of the confident vigor that usually came with her signature smirk. But for the life of her, Twilight couldn’t guess what they were.

“So you want me to tell you what it means?” Dash’s question caught Twilight off guard. The alicorn’s mouth was open, in preparation to ask said pegasus if she was alright, even ready to respond to the usual ‘fine’ with acknowledgement towards superior understanding of Dash’s small idioms and facial expressions.

In the end though, Dash spoke first and with a rather engaging conversation topic. Twilight was forced to concede to her marefriend.

“Yes, of course.” She spoke clearly, but made a small nibble on her lip before she continued. “Can we… you know.” Her hoof motioned towards said pegasus, let out a small snicker before waving her wing. Twilight was already trotting the few hooves distance needed to close the gap between them. Dash fell in tune with her actions almost immediately.

As soon as Twilight was by the pegasus’ side, Dash extended and wrapped a wing around her, blanketing the alicorn about her carriage. Even with their mating only moments behind them, Twilight savored the warm embrace. The heat of their bonding was intense, but just letting their coats mingle did so much more for her concentration and peace of mind.

The two settled on the ground, no heat to disturb them and no discomfort to speak of. Twilight adjusted her hooves beneath herself, unapologetically pushing herself closer to Rainbow as she did. The pegasus spoke no words of mind. When they were still Dash gave the alicorn an eye as she spoke.

“Better egghead?” Dash asked her sweetly, pet-name included. Twilight genuinely smiled as she leaned into the pegasus’s touch.

“Better than before, and I was already great.” The amendment made Dash chuckle like Dash always did; confidently and with joy. It warmed Twilight as much as her touch.

The alicorn’s eyes dared to venture around the many pillars of books, only to notice that the world had changed like before. It did not become the euphoric mass of love and joy as it had during her release, but instead it was… calming.

The books had silently descended, dropped away into the ground like before. In their place there were pools of hot water surrounding them, columns of steam slowly rising into the air. Normally, Twilight was quite sure the closeness to the vicinity of steaming pools would make her embrace with the pegasus unbearable, yet, she continued to feel nothing but elation at the touch.

The rest of the landscape remained just as barren as before, no stray odd objects, no changes in the landscape, and certainly no other signs of life for all her eyes could see. It was just Dash, herself, and the secret of a poem hovering above their heads with the steam of heated water of course.

This was as close to heaven as she needed to be.

“So,” Twilight mewled as she adjusted herself beside the pegasus. “Can you start?”

“Alright, but cut me some slack. I’m new to the teaching thing.” Twilight couldn’t help but lightly giggle at the pegasus’s comment.

“Of course Dash,” she assured as she rubbed at her marefriend’s side. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Right,” Rainbow took in a breath of air, pushing lightly against Twilight as she did so. “Well, to start, what do you feel when you’re thinking about the poem?” It was only thanks to the comfortable state Twilight was in that the question didn’t catch her off guard.

“Well, not much. I’m analyzing it with an open mind, looking for similarities or possible representations in the words. Its hard to properly analyze something if you let your emotions drive you a certain direction.” It was true, at least in the alicorn’s experience. Strong beliefs were often the reason such critical information in regards to magic was undiscovered for so long. She listed the existence of the Ley Lines to start.

Her examples, however, were thrown aside as Dash started to shake her head.

“See, that’s the problem right there.” The pegasus spoke while she raised her hoof. She gave the lavender mare a small boop on her nose, forcing Twilight to raise her own leg to rub at her snout. The two shared a soft smile at the action before Rainbow continued.

“That poem, I got it because… because I understand what it was trying to say. I don’t get it because I know the symbols or all that stuff, that’s your cloud, not mine. I get it because it’s trying to make you feel someway, and I know why it is.” Twilight’s curiosity was anything but extinguished. Dash took one look at her eyes before nibbling on her lip.

“Look, think of it like this dream of yours.” Dash waved her hoof as she gave the instruction to the alicorn, pushing away a few stray clouds of steam as she did so.

“What do you mean?” The metaphor didn’t register in the alicorn’s mind in the slightest.

“None of this stuff changed while you were telling me the poem. Like, at all.” Twilight blinked as she recalled that moment.

Rainbow was right. The whole time Twilight recited the poem, her towers of books remained. Nothing changed at all in her dreamscape. Not the books, not the land, nothing at all. But whenever Dash started touching her, everything changed, be it the release of an orgasm or the soft embrace of the pegasus’s wing, the land changed.

It wasn’t hard for her to see what affected the land, it was too easy to see. This was a dream, which was in her mind. Like all emotions, they began in one of the two insular cortices, hence, her mind. Anything she felt would easily correspond to her dreams. As nothing changed in her dream, nothing changed with her emotions.

Twilight wasn’t feeling anything when she thought of the poem. That was a problem.

“But… But that defeats the ARP.” One look at Dash’s confused expression and Twilight reiterated. “The Apathetic Research Principle, the research law stating that all experiments or areas of investigation should be done so under minimal to no emotional attachment, as it can cause discrepancies between what is real and what isn’t.”

“You’re seriously gonna try throwing that one out there when you’re the supposed ‘Princess of Friendship’? Best friends with the ‘Princess of Love’?” Twilight felt a blush climb through her body again, making the sauna pools around them generate a bit more steam than before. She wished it was because the pegasus holding her close, but she knew better.

Dash caught on too, as the signature smirk was evident in her eyes. It was complete this time with the glow in her pink irises.

“C’mon Twi, even I got this one figured out.” That made Twilight burn for a very different reason. Thankfully once more, Rainbow caught on. “Look, try it like this.” Her hoof waved in front of her, pushing the steam as she did so. “Poems and stuff like it are meant to make their readers feel something, right?” Twilight nodded slowly.

“Well, yes, but most of those same poems are able to be broken down and analyzed by their elements, like anything else.” Dash caught on quick.

“C’mon Twi, nothing’s 100%.” If there were a table keeping score of their conversation, Twilight was sure Rainbow was leading her by miles. Sometimes she was more annoyed than pleased by the pegasus’s quick wit. “Like I was saying, the poems are supposed to make us feel. To get them to feel right, the pony writing them has probably got to be feeling something like what they want the poem to feel like. It’s… It’s like flying. I can describe what flying is like a hundred times better than Applejack or Rarity, ‘cause they can’t fly. Probably the same thing for you and magic.”

That supposed scoreboard, the one Twilight was thankful her dream had yet to conjure up, she wasn’t so sure it would be long enough to track the difference between her and Rainbow at this moment.

Then a point of Rainbow’s hammered home.

“Dash,” Twilight began. “If you’re right, then… then that means you not only know what the pony who wrote the poem was trying to say, but you felt like it before, right?” The alicorn felt the wing over her back shiver. It was probably the worst way to realize she was right. “What was the poem about Dash?”

The pegasus licked her lips, eyes turning away from the alicorn. Twilight was patient, as she had to be with Rainbow by her side. Her patience had grown for the cyan mare’s brashness and unapologetic tenacity to charge forward. Now though, it paid off to let the mare take her time before speaking.

“The poem…” Dash began, “The poem’s about accepting somepony’s death.”

Twilight’s eyes couldn’t open any wider. Dots connected in her mind like a light fuse burning down an obvious trail. As her mind did, the world changed again.

The steam quickly began to dissipate, either rising to impossible heights in the sky or vanishing altogether. The hot water didn’t vanish, so much as it stopped moving. The small ripples of rising heat stopped, the waves of motion ceased, as the temperature dropped. Even when the water was what could be called cold, it continued to drop.

The water became ice. In the second after, a world of snow-covered mountains and trenches surrounded the pair.

Dash hugged Twilight closer to her. Twilight pulled her nearer as well.