No apology came from the corridor. Images of her sister’s begging apology, the wretched realisation of how she treated Sweetie, having her as a loving sister again as she had been when Sweetie was a toddler, even of her just saying something to Sweetie which wasn’t a warning or a reproach; they all disappeared as she heard Rarity walk away. Throat burning, Sweetie Belle pressed her face into the sheets. Her face was as hot as Rarity’s … whatever that was called … had been last night and her soaked cheeks quickly made everything damp and sticky, nonetheless she scrunched the covers around her head with her fore hooves, feeling as if burying herself in them hard enough might help her feel less hurt.

She bawled into the sheet until her chest couldn’t support more than a sob and her eyes had run out of water to cry, she could think of nothing but Rarity as her memories played in an endless torture. She was shown the memories she wanted so badly: of when she was tiny and Rarity had been the best sister in the world, when the future designer had made her very first outfits to put on her, when her older sister had licked her tummy to tickle her, when Rarity brought her out to play with all of her big friends. These pictures were twisted into reflections of what she had lost, however, by the many more which came between them. She was never anything more than an annoyance, Rarity would prefer for her not to exist at all.

~Such delirious fantasies merged seamlessly into true dreams and it is entirely uncertain when she fell asleep, but fall asleep she did. Her imagination eventually relented, and left her with one nice hope before going to sleep itself. It was a very shoddy scenario, the surroundings hardly even existed, but the object it focused on was in perfect detail. How could Rarity, even summoned up by an exhausted and fraught mind, be any less? “Sweetie, I’m sorry. I love you, I really do; I’ve just been so wrapped up in work ever since I took over the boutique that I haven’t been able to spare a single thought. Do you still love me?” A firm, mute, nod.

Rarity’s face went soft in relief. She cantered the few steps between them and rubbed her head back and forth against the side of Sweetie Belle’s neck. The little filly could feel a lovely tingle when the horn rubbed her fur the wrong way with every other stroke. “Oh, I love you so much. Never leave again.” She was engulfed in a hug as her big sister squeezed her and rubbed her muzzle in a most unladylike manner. It all faded away just as their jaws locked together (Rarity felt oddly clumsy and shy, but that was just because Sweetie’s mind only had Scoots’ fumbling advances to work with).~

+++++

Sweetie Belle woke slowly, feeling heavy and hemmed in. After a stupid pause, her brain resolved that these feelings were in fact external, rather than a symptom of melancholy. There was a body folded around her back, a pair of legs resting on her side. She squirmed around in disbelief and happiness. She stopped when she was on her back, it felt deeply unnatural but it was the closest she could get to facing Rarity without leaving her loose hold first.

She laid her head on its side and nuzzled the neck in front of her. The light blanket of purple mane between her head and the pillow felt incredible. Sweetie poured all that she could into feeling everything to its fullest. With Rarity here, like this, they could be just as she wanted them to be. Maybe they could be? Surely her sister had come because she was sorry. After what happened when they were last in the same bed, there must surely have been a change of heart? For now Sweetie drove of all such distracting thoughts and just breathed the beautiful mare in. The sun had not yet fully risen, and Rarity was not a “morning pony”. She had a few hours of bliss to come, at least.

With the Crusaders’ ingrained optimism, she even dared hope that it could last longer than that. Maybe these dramatic events had been the death throes of her sister’s coldness. Maybe Rarity had found it in herself to love her little sister again.

+++++

After several brief hours of snuggling, she felt Rarity’s silky chest change its rhythm against her snout. Her big sister squirmed slightly and then stretched around her, all without opening her eyes. This was it; in seconds Rarity would either be professing her love for her or screaming at her for getting to close again. Sweetie cowered slightly, whilst also keeping her snout pressed happily up against the silky coat, she was utterly unsure of what would happen and what was best to do now. A long groan was groaned as the mare shuddered, having reached the limit of her stretch. She fell back into her sleeping position, but with her eyes open. She leaned her head down and kissed her sister’s forehead, causing even more forceful snuggling as the happy little filly seemed to try both to crush her ribcage and, at the same time, to bury herself inside it. “Good morning to you too, Sweetie,” smiled Rarity, “I … I came to try and make up with you. I realised that I’ve acted in the most atrocious manner over the last couple of days, and maybe I wasn’t so great even before that. I should have talked to you rather than just losing my temper repeatedly, I certainly should never have struck you. I am sorry. I do love you so much, underneath it all, you have to believe me.”

Sweetie was practically squealing by this point. “So you do love me! You’ve thought it through and you’re ok with it now! Oh, I love you so much!”

Rarity put a hoof on her chest, firmly but not pushing her away. “Yes, but no. I do love you, and I realise now how I’ve been neglecting you, but I am certainly not fine with that.”

The filly frowned in a puzzled way, “Why not?”

Rarity rolled onto her back, disentangling herself from her sister, to stare at the ceiling. “It’s just wrong with family. I know you said that Apple Bloom and her family do it but I’m not sure that I believe you. Even if they do, it’s weird and wrong. For Celestia’s sake, Big Mac! His … it’s almost as big as she is! How do…? No, no, no, I don’t want to think about it. We just can’t, alright, ponies have always been against siblings having sex, always.”

“But you haven’t said why. It sounds stupid to me. And you know that Applejack would never do anything that she thought was wrong. She’s one of the best ponies we know. An’ Apple Bloom says that Big Mac uses her mouth instead and she’s learnt how to keep her throat open, that’s why she won that speed eating competition. She said that she can feel it inside her chest.”

Rarity pulled a disgusted face, but her hips started to squirm slightly. “Well, it’s because the babies they make almost always end up horribly ill or disabled because of it, it’s called inbreeding.”

“We can’t have babies, Rarity. We’re both fillies. Silly.”

A pause, “Even so, you’re still a foal! You certainly can’t have sex with foals, and I am most certainly not a foalfiddler!”

“But I remember Pinkie once saying that you would probably sleep with anything, and that Spike was lucky because he’d fallen for the only pony in town he had a chance with.”

“PINKAMENA DIANE PIE, YOU UTTER BITCH!”

Sweetie flinched, but plunged on, “And why not have sex with foals anyway? I like it, and it's not like it's anyone's business but ours. You still haven’t given me an actual reason for anything. It doesn’t matter that I’m your sister or a foal, you aren’t exactly going to get me pregnant. I think that you’re making excuses.” She jumped up and straddled her sister,

“Am I not cute enough?” She saw Rarity’s eyes run up and down her body.

“No. No, you certainly are cute.”

“Didn’t I make you feel good when I did that? Don’t you want me to feel good?”

“Well, yes, but…” Sweetie sat down heavily on her sister’s stomach, noticing how her spread legs made her lower lips sit open against her the smooth skin beneath her. She pouted and made the soppiest puppy eyes she could. “Well, maybe, no sex, but maybe, we could be a bit more physical, I guess,” Rarity made it sound like a question, “there couldn’t be any harm in that.” She slowly put a foreleg up around Sweetie’s neck and dragged her in for a kiss. They spent a lot of time in that first kiss, lips hardly touching, almost chaste. Rarity gently moved her hooves back and forth through the two-tone mane. Sweetie couldn’t even think of anything other than the kiss itself. Rarity eventually parted their lips for a moment, when they came back together their jaws opened wide, their tongues went adventuring, and all hints of moralising were discarded.

Author's Note

This one seems very mushy to me, but maybe that’s just because feels always make me *ahem* feel *ahem* uncomfortable. It’s the first chapter that wasn’t written in one sitting at about 2am (it turns out that I’m now too busy to devote that much time to it in a row, even in the middle of the night), so it may read very differently, please do tell me off if you don’t like the result. I’m not sure how convincingly I’ve portrayed the change of heart in this chapter, it may look like she just suddenly flipped personalities.