The wind carried stray leaves and the scent of ripe apples northeast through the crisp autumn air. It threatened to steal away the wispiest branches from the ancient tree that housed Ponyville's famous Golden Oak Library, but neither the roar of its passing nor the light rain it blew against the window like nails could take Applejack's frown away. She stared out over the town. Her gaze traveled along the shifting shadows cast by Ponyville's rooftops, stretching and morphing as the sun was lowered from the sky, and the candlelight that soon shone from every window. Her thoughts were on the orchards around her home, Sweet Apple Acres, and the ponies who lived there: a headstrong brother and a little sister who wasn't so little any longer. Mostly, though, her thoughts revolved around another member of her family – the pony who had been sitting at the table downstairs for the last two hours – and the ways Applejack was determined to distract her.
With a final sultry wink at her reflection Applejack turned her gaze from the storm and sauntered down the stairs, hips swaying and lips lifted in a grin of anticipation. Perhaps she no longer had a quiet dinner at Ponyville's most expensive restaurant to look forward to, but she didn't need to be spending her hard-earned bits anyway. It's not like she had to impress anypony, and she'd thrown together a meal that more than made up for it, if she said so herself. Besides, after the careful application of some tools and techniques her more fashion-conscious friends had taught her, Applejack had other ways of showing her affection.
Her velveted hooves made not a sound on the wooden landing. “Hey, sugarcube,” she cooed as she rested a shoulder on the doorframe. “How's your evening looking?” She knew what Twilight would say. Gorgeous, radiant, stunning—one of them fancy words for good-looking. She waited long enough for Twilight to finish her sentence and look away from the book in her hooves...
But she didn't. She just flipped to the next page.
Applejack took advantage of her distraction to tug the sock on her left foreleg back into place. For some reason it just didn't want to stay up. “Yoo-hoo!” Applejack called with a patient smirk. “Equestria to Twilight!” She tilted her head to read the back cover of the book that she found so captivating. It wasn't the expected gibberish, theory this and magic that. No, it was a plain white cover that Applejack had come to know well.
Her ears fell back against her scalp. Dang it, she complained to herself, not this again. Applejack approached cautiously; even after a solid year she still didn't know how to handle Twilight when she got in a mood like this one. “Twi, could you put that old thing down for a minute?” she asked hesitantly.
The book closed slowly; Twilight's eyes drank in the flashes of color upon its pages until they were sealed away. Uncertainty twisted the frown on her muzzle and the book in her hooves. She held it tightly to her chest as she turned her head toward Applejack. Even as distracted as she seemed to be, what Twilight saw made her eyes widen.
Applejack's mane hung loose that night, brushed into place to trail over her shoulders and down along her back just so. Tight stockings in a reddish-burgundy velvet ran up her forelegs to the elbow, just shy of meeting her torso, and from rear hooves to hocks. Her eyelids were reddened too, painted with a rust-colored powder that made her emerald eyes pop and helped hide her crow's feet. A simple gold chain held a delicate ruby solitaire against her throat. She was gorgeous... radiant... stunning... but...
Twilight's shoulders slumped. “Applejack, you are so beautiful,” she breathed.
Applejack blinked. The words were right, but the tone... “Oh,” she said finally. “Well, don't you worry about that right now.” She stepped closer and gingerly took a seat next to her conflicted unicorn, flinching when her warmth met the cold wooden floor. “Talk to me, Twi. What's eating you this time?”
Twilight lowered her gaze to the book clutched in her forelegs: her wedding album. “I've come to a conclusion,” she said, but her words were uncertain enough to make Applejack wonder.
“What about?” she asked.
“Well, I... I'm sorry, AJ,” Twilight muttered after a moment. “This isn't fair to you.”
“It's okay, Twi,” Applejack replied for the hundredth time. She covered Twilight's hooves with one of her own. “I understand.”
Twi shook her head. “No, AJ, I'm not talking about my photographs.”
Her head tilted just a hair to her left. “Then what is it, sugarcube?” she asked patiently. Twilight squeezed her photo album tightly; Applejack wound her forelegs between Twi's coat and wings and squeezed just as hard. “Come on, Twi, you can tell me.”
Twilight shook her head. Regret pinched her brow and beaded in the corners of her eyes. “I'm so sorry, Applejack,” she mumbled, eyes downcast. “It's... everything. We have to break up.”
Applejack only tightened her grip on her marefriend. “Whoa, hey now!” she said softly; she couldn't quite keep the panicked edge from her voice. “What in tarnation brought this on? Does the Princess want you back to Canterlot after all? I told you we'd figure something out!”
Twilight pushed away from Applejack and climbed to her hooves. Her head rose but her eyes stayed fixed on AJ's hooves. “I still love Rainbow too much,” she said sadly. “I could never love you like I loved her.”
Lightning crashed through Applejack's heart and anger tightened her eyes. “Hey... Hey now, Twi, just hold on!”
Twilight took a step back. “I can't hold on any longer, AJ. It wouldn't be fair to you.”
AJ matched her with a step forward. “But... But sug...”
“No, Applejack. I'm sorry. I've made up my mind.”
“Without even talking to me?” she asked, her teary gaze fighting to catch Twi's.
Twilight nodded. “It's...” She glanced up for a split second but couldn't hold her gaze. “It's for the best.”
“No it ain't!” Applejack shouted, tears dripping from her furious eyes. “This is just you getting all self-righteous and trying not to hurt anypony's feelings. Well, look!” she cried. She reached out and jerked Twilight's muzzle away from the photo album. “I'm hurting!”
Twi's cheeks were damp too, but her eyes shone with determination. “But not for long, Applejack,” she said surely. “I know there's somepony out there who can love you more than I can. I'm sorry I fooled you this last year.”
“Twi, don't do this!” she wept. Her hooves darted out to recapture Twilight and cradle her head against her chest. “I know I ain't never gonna replace her – you and I both know nopony out there can replace Rainbow Dash – but I don't want to!” Applejack ignored her struggling and gripped more tightly. “You'll always have these memories, Twi, but it's time to start the next chapter of your life.”
“There are no more chapters!” she said crossly. Her horn lit up and brought forth a wall between them, which expanded until it forced them apart. Once freed Twilight began to pace back and forth, her eyes trailing the floorboards. “I've already reached my epilogue. I won't let it be yours too.”
Applejack worked her mouth wordlessly, startled into silence. After a moment to organize her thoughts she lifted a disappointed hoof toward Twilight. “Don't you say that, Twi,” Applejack admonished her. “You've got lots of years yet and I ain't about to let you throw 'em away pining.”
“I won't spend them lying to you, either,” Twilight countered. “I love you enough to do you that favor.”
“You don't have to lie,” Applejack assured her with a shake of her head. “I know where I stand and I'm okay with that.”
Twilight shook her head. “You're not okay with it. You resent her.” A flicker of emotion twisted her brow, sadness or irritation. “Even if you don't know it, it's obvious to me.”
Applejack looked away and sniffed back the last of her tears. “Maybe I do, sometimes, but...”
“And I think you resent me too.”
“I do not!” Applejack barked. “”If you did something to push me away, I'd tell you.”
Twilight frowned. “If you say it I'll believe you, but that doesn't change my mind.”
“Look, Twi, I said I love you and I mean it.”
“I know you do,” she said with a slow nod. “That's why I have to stop this now.”
Applejack drew back and took a deep breath. “On our anniversary?” She cast a furious and desperate sidelong glance at her. “You really want to break up on our one-year anniversary?”
“It makes perfect sense,” Twilight said, but for once there was no joy in the thought. “If something was going to change, it would have by now.”
“But...”
“It hasn't, Applejack. I've been waiting all year for some sort of feeling... Nothing has changed. I do love you very much, but I can never love you the way I loved Rainbow Dash.”
“I don't care!” Applejack cried. “I don't care if I have to play second fiddle to her 'til the day we die. You're worth it!”
“It wouldn't be fair of me to ask you to stay if I can't feel that way about you.”
Applejack bared her teeth and locked her elbows. “You don't have to ask, I'm telling you—”
Twilight tenderly placed a hoof on her shoulder. “No, Applejack.”
“But Twi, don't you see how happy you've made me?” She tried to entwine her tail around Twilight's, but it twitched away.
“I've tried to make this work for a whole year, Applejack, and I've failed.” A bitter grimace twisted her muzzle. “I won't put you through another year.”
“I don't need a year! Just gimme one more night,” she begged. “Please?”
“AJ, don't...” she began, but even after a solid year she still hadn't found a way to handle AJ when she dug her hooves in.
Applejack stared at her with a fearsome passion. “One more night to prove to you how much I love you,” she said firmly. “That's it. You give me one more chance to prove that you don't need no photo albums or nothing, 'cause you got me now, Twilight, and I got you.”
“Please...”
Applejack shook her head. She wiped her cheeks, leaving a faint copper trail across each one, and stood tall. Those stockings really brought out her eyes, Twilight noticed, and her cutie mark...
One of them had slipped off by the time Applejack fled the library with the next sunrise. The necklace lay on the floor, its fine gold links snapped and twisted; the ruby had popped free of its setting and rolled away to hide under the sofa until it was over. Beside the necklace lay an unopened wooden box; it was scratched down one side, tied in a violet bow, and the perfect size for a hooflet.
Twilight lay on her bed upstairs. Her limbs were tucked against her belly and her sticky eyes were shut tight and darting to and fro as she dreamed. Rainbow Dash watched over her from the photo album beside her.
A year passed. Applejack spent so many days surrounded by friends and so many nights alone.
“Your relationship was progressing far too quickly,” Rarity kept saying. “Just let her move at her own pace; she'll come back to you when she's ready.”
Two years. Twilight moved back to Canterlot, hounded, she said, by the memories that waited around every street corner.
“Maybe it just wasn't meant to be,” Pinkie advised. “You only get one soul mate, AJ, and Dashie was Twilight's. Maybe you just have to keep looking.”
AJ's hindhooves lashed out toward the apple tree so hard she stumbled backward and nearly collapsed into the grass. “I don't wanna keep looking, dang it!” she growled. “Why can't she see she ain't making any sense?”
“You've tried, like, a bajillion times, AJ. She's not gonna change her mind. So since she can't let go, maybe it's time for you to give it a try.”
Three.
Applejack found another, a farmer's uncle from out by the White Tail Woods, a stallion ten years her elder with a twinkle in his eye and a joke on his tongue. Suddenly life without Twi didn't seem so bad.
Five years.
Life without Applejack stayed just the same.
Twilight attended AJ's wedding, her first baby shower, Pinkie Pie's third, but never did she enjoy those things for herself. Instead she worked and studied and shared tea with the three other Princesses. At first her peers were quick to point out Twilight's bitter disposition, but even all of the Princesses' power was not enough to soothe her. All too soon they grew accustomed and let her be.
Ten years.
On the four thousand nine hundred sixteenth night since Rainbow had been taken from her, Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes...
Once again she found herself whimpering as she soared through the air at breakneck speed, faster than the average pegasus could imagine. Her eyes were squeezed shut but as is the way of dreams, she could still see the clouds and endless treetops rushing past.
From below her came the sound of laughter. “Open your eyes, Twilight!”
She obeyed the voice immediately.
“Don't be scared,” Rainbow called back from below and to her right, the lead goose in their little half-V. “You're doing fine!”
Upon hearing the words Twilight felt faint waves of relief and pride wash over her, but they barely eroded the fear that gnawed a pit in her stomach. “We're going too fast!” she cried.
“Your wings burning already?”
The muscles beneath her feathers throbbed pleasantly. “No!” she called back. “Can we please slow down?”
Rainbow turned her head just far enough to give her a smirk. “You want to make the decisions?” she called. “Fine! You take the front then!” With that she turned up her nose and pulled into a backflip right over Twilight's head.
“Rainbow, wait!” Twilight squeaked, but she kept her eyes and hooves forward, too nervous to turn even her head. With the lift from Rainbow's wingtip removed, she had to concentrate on flapping harder to stay aloft and stable.
“You're doing great, Twilight,” Rainbow called from behind Twilight's right wing, where she was riding the lift Twilight provided in turn. “See? You don't need me! You can do this!”
She was doing great. Twilight was panting for breath and her wing joints were on fire, but she soon found herself wearing a goofy grin as she stared down at the treetops whizzing by. “I'm doing it!” she crowed.
“You're doing it!” Rainbow echoed.
Twilight laughed and pushed herself to fly even faster, her mane whipping back and forth behind her with each shift of her wings.
“Wanna go higher?”
She didn't need to answer. Twilight angled her wings and flew toward the sun.
“Higher!”
They broke past the clouds. One of them burst as Twilight tore through its chilly core, making her shiver even as she sweated in the heat of the summer sun.
“Higher!”
The trees were a sea of green like moss on the landscape below; the sun felt close enough to touch. Twilight whooped in ecstacy as she pushed and pushed until she could push no more.
Suddenly Rainbow's forehooves gripped hers. She was flying belly-up, beaming up at Twilight with tremendous pride in her eyes. “Best feeling in the world, huh?” she said, the words full of that passion Twilight found so thrilling. Her smile grew devilish. “Well, second-best.”
Twilight cocked her head at Rainbow. “You're always telling me that flying is the best thing in the world,” she said as they flew upward to where the air was thin and even the clouds were faint. “What could top that?”
“Do you trust me?” Rainbow said in lieu of a reply. Twilight nodded without hesitation. Rainbow's smirk faded into a small and honest grin; she wrapped her forelegs around Twilight's neck, folded her wings to her sides and tipped backward. “Then come on,” she said softly.
Twilight tucked her wings without thinking and the pair began to fall head-first toward the earth.
They clasped each other tightly as they plummeted, not out of fear but out of need and a deep feeling of oneness. They spun slowly in the air, guided by the occasional subtle twitch of Rainbow's wing. The world was wind and blue and roar, and there was room in it for only two ponies.
Twilight opened her mouth hesitantly into a wide but careful smile. “Is this... Is this what I think it is?” she said loudly to be heard over the rush of the air past their ears. She didn't sound displeased.
Rainbow's eyes were closed and her muzzle was half an inch from Twilight's. “Don't think,” she whispered, her words almost stolen away by the wind that ripped at their manes and tails. “Just feel.”
“I've read about this,” Twilight insisted. Her eyes were damp; she couldn't say whether it was from the fierce wind or the sudden waves of roiling emotion churning in her gut. “Is it? Because if it is...”
Without opening her eyes Rainbow slowly moved her head forward until her lips locked onto Twilight's. The alicorn's words were silenced and her heart pounded harder than ever as she returned the kiss. Her hooves slid up Rainbow's barrel and around her neck; Rainbow's wrapped around Twilight's hips and pulled her close. Rainbow tilted her head and forced Twilight's lips a little further apart. Twilight accepted her greedily, closing her eyes and letting them roll back as she reveled in the feeling of Rainbow's tongue washing and writhing over her own. She whimpered through her nose and twisted her hindlegs around one of Rainbow's.
Too soon she pulled back to take a shaky breath. Rainbow's mouth tried to follow Twi's but she caught herself before pushing for more. “Rainbow,” Twilight said; their lips brushed together with each syllable. “A-are you asking me to...?”
Rainbow's lips barely moved against hers. “Yes.”
Twilight's hooves tangled themselves in Rainbow's colorful mane and pulled her back in for another kiss. Her legs pulled Rainbow's captured thigh against her body.
A long few seconds were lost to their passion. Twilight let out a pair of heavy breaths through her nose and finally pulled back far enough to beam at her pegasus with unbridled joy. “Yes!” Twilight exclaimed. “Yes, Rainbow Dash, I will marry you!”
Rainbow looked back with heavily-lidded eyes and a lazy smile. “I've been waiting two years to hear you say that,” she sighed happily.
Twilight rested her cheek against Rainbow's neck and closed her eyes. “I wonder what the girls will say...”
“When I say 'break',” Rainbow said softly, “push off of me with your hooves and pull out of the dive. Ready?”
Twilight slowly opened her eyes as realization dawned. Despite how she felt, they couldn't fall forever. She slid her hooves free and untangled her legs. “Ready...”
“Okay... Break!”
She pushed away from Rainbow Dash and twitched her muzzle as it burrowed into something cool and smoky. Her bed had disappeared. She was laying on something as soft and sturdy as any cloud, but it couldn't be a cloud with that unnatural fuschia coloration. She shrank into herself and her eye rolled upward to where her ceiling used to be. The sky above her was the darkest of blues and speckled here and there with stars and suns and worlds, but nearer the horizon it gradually faded into a bright tangerine.
“Am I still dreaming?” she wondered aloud.
Somepony stroked her mane. “No, babe,” her pegasus replied. “Not anymore.”
Twilight's limbs flailed about as she rolled gracelessly onto her other side. “Rainbow Dash?” she cried in disbelief.
There she was. Twilight's lost marefriend rested on her haunches with a toothy grin and tears of joy in her eyes. She was just as she'd been before: lithe, tight, confident... Sure, her mane was a bit longer than it had been and there was a new scar from her scalp to her jawline, but she was still her Rainbow through and through.
She heaved her upper body off of the cloud and snared her in a hug that nearly tipped Rainbow onto her, laughing joyously as the relief she'd been waiting for for thirteen and a half years finally came. “Rainbow!” she cried in her ear. “I've missed you so much!”
“I missed you too,” Rainbow said, her voice tight with emotion. “I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye. Maybe I can make up for it now.”
“But how?” Twilight asked, her eyes wide with incomprehension. “Did the other princesses find you somehow?”
“No, you... uh... you died in your sleep,” Rainbow mumbled awkwardly. “I don't think Celestia or Cadance knows. Luna does.”
Twilight chewed the inside of her cheek. “Huh,” she said uncertainly. She fell back onto the cloud and stared up at the stars.
Rainbow rolled her shoulders and scratched at the back of her neck. “Um... Sorry you're dead.”
Twilight smiled up at her. “Don't be.” She reached up with both hooves to snare her pegasus's muzzle and drag it down to meet her own.
The kiss wasn't as hungry as the one they'd shared in her dream, but it was just as passionate. Rainbow released Twilight's lips for a quick breath but Twilight rolled upright and nearly pushed Rainbow onto her back in her eagerness. “I missed you... so much,” she muttered, letting the words escape whenever her lips were free.
Rainbow broke away and rested her forehead against Twilight's. “You too,” Rainbow sighed contentedly. Her chest twitched and she sniffed back some tears. “I love you, babe,” she choked.
“I love you more, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight assured her. She wiped Rainbow's eyes. “We have all of eternity to make up for the time we've been apart.” Rainbow nodded and let out a broken whine. Her unpracticed sobs shook her shoulders violently; Twilight wrapped her forelegs and wings tightly around them and let out a breath across her ear. “This time I won't let you do it alone.”
After a moment Rainbow cleared her throat and smiled at her, for once unashamed of the tears that streaked her coat. “I've been waiting so long to fly with you again.”
Twilight nodded happily. “I've gotten better.”
“I know,” Rainbow said proudly. “I've been watching.”
Twilight's cheeks ached pleasantly. It had been so long since she'd smiled like that. “You have?”
“I couldn't look away,” she assured her. “I saw it all. I was there with you at my funeral, and when you found Applejack...”
The smile finally disappeared. Twilight's eyes widened and regret pinched them at the corners.
“...and then when Luna teleported into your room after you died. That's when—”
“You— You saw me and Applejack?” Twilight said hesitantly.
Rainbow nodded. “I was there when it ended too.” She cut Twilight's apology short with a raised hoof. “And there's nothing for you to be sorry for. I wanted you to be happy, Twilight, and I'm glad it was with Applejack and not somepony I didn't know and trust.”
The heaviness in her belly disappeared as Twilight nodded; she couldn't help but feel a warmth within at the thought that Rainbow had been so selfless even after she'd gone. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“Don't sweat it,” Rainbow replied with a dismissive shake of her head. She heaved herself onto her hooves. “That's enough of those old memories,” she said suddenly, giving her cheeks a final swipe with a hoof. “Let's make some new ones!”
Twilight stood eagerly. “How?” she asked. “What's it like up here? What do ponies here do for fun?”
“Whatever we want,” Rainbow said happily.
“Then what do you want to do, Rainbow?”
Rainbow's wings spread wide and she looked ready to bounce on her hooftips. “Race you?” she asked.
Her love laughed with a little shake of her head. “Of course,” she chuckled. She spread her wings. “You're on!”
Rainbow smiled slyly at her. “Come and get me, then.” Rainbow shot into the air, leaving behind her signature rainbow trail.
“And when I catch you,” Twilight said softly as she allowed her marefriend a head start, “I'm never going to let you go again.” With the strength of an alicorn and the youthful vigor she hadn't felt since they'd been together last, Twilight kicked off of the cloud, leaving a crackling violet trail behind as she sped after Rainbow Dash. The swirling rays of color mingled in their wake.
She didn't know where they were going. She didn't care. All that mattered was that Rainbow would be there, and she would be there every time. Rainbow was leading her skyward, toward the navy blue heights of the skies over the Great Beyond. Twilight giggled with anticipation as she inched closer and closer, letting happiness fall in droplets upon the clouds below...
They had a lot of catching up to do.
