Void of Song
1A
Twilight Sparkle’s head bobbed to the beat of the music, gently setting her hair into a slow sway. Her eyes remained locked onto a tomb recently referred to her by none other than the Princess herself, one that detailed the finer aspects of illusionary magics. Of course, she already knew most of it, since it was a revision copy of the version she’d gone through already. Didn’t hurt to review.
Most of her attention was in fact directed towards the maid several metres from her perch in the Castle Library, the occasional subtle glance sent towards the scantily clad servant to monitor her progress in vainly cleaning the area of dust. Not like it was really needed, to be honest. Most ponies who were allowed into the Castle were neat nobles, and those who even bothered with reading were intellectuals.
She shifted her hind legs against each other and sunk a little further into the wool cushion she was laying on. Her forehooves remained folded against her chest.
This time of day, the Library was mostly barren of other ponies, and Twilight didn’t mind in the slightest. It meant she didn’t need to turn up her headphones past any more than perhaps thirteen percent. The song eventually crossfaded into another. The new one faster and a little more frantic, if a little bitter. The maid shifted her stance forward to reach across an elevated reading surface, sticking her flank out in the process. Twilight smiled and went back to reading.
It was a nice flank, to be sure. Toned from all the running around the owner did, but it had a bit of fun bounce to it that seemed to only grace the most gifted mares. The flutter of the maid’s deep red wings betrayed her nervousness.
‘Nervous about... what?’
A shadow crossed into her reading light. A frown briefly tugged at her lips, but she ignored it and merely pushed the tomb slightly backwards into another lightsource. A few more seconds of the song went by until she felt something gently prodding her shoulder.
She twitched away from it, sighed and pulled off her headphones with a flick of magic, letting them rest around her lower neck. The headband was warm. Putting on her best smile that conveyed undying annoyance, she turned to face the perpetrator.
A unicorn colt stood oddly far away from her, eyes averted in what she could only interpret as the antithesis of confidence. Blonde slicked back mane, white coat, blue eyes. She sized him up and down as he remained totally silent, not uttering a sound. She could have made the case he was almost reverent in his posture, like how some nobles behaved around the Princess.
‘Shy?’ she concluded, interest flagging. Another awkward moment passed as the beat in the new song picked up, only just audible over the gentle rumbling of the inner workings of the castle from the headphones.
“Yeah?” She prompted bluntly, not moving. The colt jumped at the sound of her voice, eyes flicking guiltily over her form for a moment before he finally met her eyes.
“Uhm, hi…” he began lamely, leaning his head back slightly.
Great, another suitor. Being Celestia’s student tended to mean every noble and their dog (a diamond dog, to be specific) was trying to get her hoof in marriage. She had yet to figure out precisely why, but she assumed it had something to do with politics.
She didn’t like politics.
“Hello,” she parroted stiffly, not bothering with faking interest. She had better things to do than talk to random noble colts, even if it was her fourth day doing nothing in a row on an eight day break. The song fell in tempo, going into a refrain with a far more gentle tone than it began with. Her thin patience was ground down to nothing when he coughed roughly to prepare himself for something.
“Er, yes. Hello… my name is Blu-”
“Look, I’m busy doing something, and you don’t look too confident there-,” she paused, gauging his reaction. He seemed relieved, oddly enough.
“-how about you tell me point blank why you’re talking to me so I can go back to what I was doing?” She prompted, turning fully towards the colt as she tapped the musical device’s, pause key with a deft tendril of magic to avoid wasting any more of the charge.
Sure, she could have easily recharged it to full in less than a few seconds, but that took a small amount of effort she wasn’t planning on spending on a day off. The colt blinked silently, frowned, then nodded.
“I’m-...” he paused, glanced around, then returned his gaze to her. He seemed a less nervous, and more annoyed, “... the son of the Baron of Hoofington, and I’m currently being forced to talk to you under threat of not getting the classes I requested. I don’t know why.”
She nodded, not really caring about the colt’s daddy issues, but she was feeling generous. She was partially sure that sway the maid was putting into her flanks was intentional, and that made her feel pretty good about herself. The flicking of the tail was a sign for something in any case, at least.
‘If he was sent here by somepony to talk to me, obviously that pony is watching for my reaction, right?’ She reasoned, pointedly not looking around for the perpetrator. That would give the colt away, and make the exercise moot regardless of what she did.
“Okay, congratulations. You talked to me. Need to meet any goals, or was that it?” She pressed, leaning forwards with a small forced smile, her tone still flat. If she looked like the colt interested her, then perhaps the colt’s sender would feel like it was successful and allow him the classes he desired?
It was pretty under hoofed to threaten a teenage colt with poor education.
“Not that I really know of,” the colt sighed, pressing his lips together.
“Welp, you best be on your way then. I would say I was fun talking to you but…” she left the thought unsaid, mimed laughing in good nature and pulled the headphones back on. The colt wandered away out of her peripheral view. She missed whatever he’d said or any expression he made, and didn’t particularly care otherwise.
He was gone, and she could stop pretending to be interested for his benefit.
She snorted and went back to ogling the maid’s flank, who now seemed to be cleaning the same table she cleaned a half hour ago, one that left her at the perfect viewing angle for her.
Finishing one last rotation of the cloth, the pegasus maid turned to steal a glance at Twilight and made eye contact. Twilight smiled and waved, flipping the tomb closed. The maid ducked her head back down to what she was doing for a few moments, pretending not to notice.
‘Coy, shy, hard to get, or not interested?’
The analyst inside her began ticking off every box that fit the various descriptions. Obviously, the maid wasn’t doing her job properly, so she’d have to have ulterior motives for going back to the table. However, the case could be made that she was merely lazy. Twilight sighed and flipped her music back on, tapping the ‘next’ button without looking.
The song cut to another, this one an instrumental of something with a cello.
The maid looked back again with a decent amount more confidence and stuck the rag into a pocket, turned and trotted over to her in one fluid motion. Twilight flipped the music off again, pulled the headset off and set it down in it’s hard case in her saddlebags.
Her personal room’s door flicked open, slamming into the doorstop. A set of saddlebags was gently flung telekinetically through onto the couch in the small living room, and Twilight stumbled through backwards with the pegasus lip locked with her. It was an awkward affair, maneuvering through the thin hallway backwards while also avoiding stepping on her partner’s hooves.
The door sung shut firmly, a pre-baked auditory muting ward surrounding it. It wouldn’t be nearly as effective as a custom enchantment or even a directed spell, but it was easy and better than absolutely nothing.
Not breaking pace, she focused hard for a moment and ‘activated’ the pre-prepared spell she’d cast on the kitchen some hours earlier, and the coffee maker gurgled to life. The pegasus seemed to notice her lapse in concentration and broke the kiss, glancing around.
“What’s wrong Twilight?” Claret asked, tilting her head to the side. Twilight had managed to pry a name from her after a few minutes of flirting, among other things.
Claret Shade, born in lower Canterlot to a poor family. Dark red coat, dark brown mane, light blue eyes. She was forced to concede she’d see her cutie mark soon enough, so she’d yet to learn anything about what she was really good at.
Twilight assumed it had something to do with cleaning.
She didn’t feel like she’d just turned on the coffee for later, so she had to think of something else. The maid had yet to actually take off her clothes yet, since she was apparently still on duty -and as much as the dirty novella she’d read every other month liked to pretend, maids actually had to work hard to clean things, and therefore got dirty and/or sweaty- so she chose that.
She pretended to sniff the air and look slightly put off, then pointed at Claret’s outfit.
“You stink,” she lied bluntly, being sure she wore the most non-hostile expression she could. Even threw in a bit of mirth to seal the deal. Claret very well could have smelt of nothing but heavy cleaning chemicals and filth, but Twilight wouldn’t have been able to tell, since a casting accident three months ago had burnt out most of the nerves in her nose and tongue, which had it’s ups and downs.
“S-sorry! I should have taken a shower before, I’ll just go and ta-” Claret stammered and blushed, but was cut off by Twilight kissing her again. After a moment, she’d calmed down enough and leaned back into the kiss. Her tongue brushed gently over the very tip of Twilight’s, sending a pleasurable jolt down her spine.
She moaned quietly, exaggerating the feeling.
Pushing back, Twilight turned Claret into the wall and pushed her onto her hind legs with a gentle push of telekinesis, pressing her hooves into the shoulders of the pegasus, breaking the kiss again.
“I didn’t say I really cared,” Twilight whispered hotly into the ear of the pegasus, nipping at it gently. Claret shuddered under the attention, hugging Twilight with her wings and arching into her.
Through the outfit, she could faintly feel the pegasus shudder. ‘Perhaps a virgin?’ A predatory grin etched itself along her expression as she slid her hooves around the back of the maid, feeling around for the buttons holding it on.
Faintly, she heard knocking. She ignored it, licking at the nape of Claret’s neck, who seemed to enjoy it very much. Her legs shivered and looked to be weakening. The knocking came again, but Twilight and her target was far too focused on each other to notice anymore.
The handle rattled.
Twilight nuzzled under the chin of Claret, enjoying the sensation of her fur brushing against her own. She finally managed to find a button with her right fore hoof, tugging at it with a small burst of telekinesis.
The door slammed open with a deafening bang. Solid oak made a very good auditory conductor. The maid screeched in surprise, and lost balance, falling onto Twilight and knocking the both of them over.
“TWILIGHT!” A harsh, condescending distinctly familiar male voice echoed through the hallway and sent her ears ringing. She remained silent as Claret fumbled around atop of her, pointedly avoiding touching her as much as possible.
“I’m sorry! Sorry!” Claret yelped and scampered past the stallion in the entrance, nearly tripping over herself on the way out, nearly in tears with ears folded back and wings fluttering.
A few moments of silence passed, and Twilight remained where she was, staring at the stone ceiling on her back. She didn’t bother even trying to cover herself as she slowly turned to face the annoyance, deadpanned expression glaring right at the righteous unicorn standing in her doorway.
“Y’know Shining, I’m traditionally supposed to be the once cock-blocking you.”
“You can’t keep doing this, Twilight! Eventually I’m going to have to tell Mom and Dad!” Shining protested, throwing his hooves around erratically as she sipped at her coffee. A little milk went a long way when you didn’t need to taste what you were drinking, and she found it was all coffee really needed.
It mellowed the bitter edge of the coffee that made her mouth feel dry. She swallowed and set the mug down, now mostly empty.
“Neat,” she all but hissed, locking eye contact with her brother. Shining Armor blinked, dumbfounded.
“Seriously, Twi, it’s really not healthy,” he sighed, leaning back into the chair and rubbing his temples.
Twilight snorted and looked away.
“Maybe I just wanted to get laid.”
He grimaced and dropped his hooves, standing up.
“-you need to get into a stable relationship is all I’m saying, preferably with somepony who is your intellectual equal,” he added while walking over to the fridge to pull out some fruit.
“I turned eighteen three months ago, I’m allowed to do whatever-” before she could say anything more, he tossed an apple at her, forcing her to divert her attention towards the red projectile long enough to catch it. By the time it had stopped moving -centimeters in front of her muzzle-, Shining had already started talking.
“I just want what’s best for you, okay?” He assured, kicking the fridge shut and striding back to his chair. “Like, it’s perfectly fine to want to… have sex,” saying the words like they were actually filthy, “sure, but only when it’s with somepony you love-”
“Plagiarism isn’t healthy, especially when you’re copying a bright pink bitch,” she cut in, locking eye contact with him in challenge. He seemed to deflate. It was no secret she wasn’t a great fan of Mi Amore Cadenza, the foreign alicorn from ‘elsewhere’ in the world. Celestia never gave her a straight answer.
“If you’re only here to stop me doing what I want to do on the beck and call of the most manipulative pony this side Equestria, I don’t want to hear it,” she concluded, turning away to bite aggressively as she could into the apple.
He sighed again, pushing out of his chair and walking towards the door.
“Goodnight, Twilight.”
“Yeah, eat a dick.”
