Both Sides Now

Twilight heard humming from the bathroom, which signaled Rarity was nearly finished with her morning beauty routine. Using her magic, she tapped lightly on the closed door. "You can have breakfast with me again, if you'd like," she said, "I got enough for both of us."

"Certainly," came the reply, "just give me a moment to finish."

Nodding to herself, Twilight turned the page of her newspaper. She only managed to make it into the second line of the story before Rarity emerged, coat brushed, makeup applied, mane just so. A fleeting thought crossed her mind if her own morning routine, which was combing her mane until it didn't look like mice were nesting in it, would be good enough for Rarity.

"You might appreciate this," Twilight told her, indicating one of the open papers. Rarity leaned over her shoulder to see what Twilight was pointing to: a cartoon, etched in sharp black lines, depicting Big Apple dressed up as the Statue of Harmony, holding up a torch and clad in a robe. The caricature had a pair of obviously false cardboard wings and a pained expression on his face, and doodles of the four princesses snickered at him from the sidelines.

"That's quite a good likeness of you there," Rarity said with a smile, tapping the charcoal swirl that represented Twilight.

"Really captures my eyes, I thought," Twilight said, playing along.

Rarity browsed the collection of pastries, selecting a croissant. She put the kettle on to boil, despite the smell of Twilight's coffee being particularly alluring this morning.

"Tch," Twilight clucked from behind her.

"Hm?" Rarity sat at the table where Twilight was absorbed in an article; she recognized the greenish tinge of the Post's papers.

Twilight looked up at her. She seemed surprised; perhaps she wasn't aware she had made a noise.

"Oh," she said, "just this."

She pushed the Post across the table, and Rarity turned it around to read as she took a bite of her croissant.

A blown-up photograph, grainy and colorless, showed herself with her mouth close to Twilight's ear, obviously taken on the sly at the garden party yesterday morning. If it had been a normal picture, focused and not taken from behind some bushes somewhere, it would have been an unremarkable candid photo; the poor quality image and poorer quality paper it was printed on made it seem automatically as if the two ponies in the picture were conspiring, or at least being secretive in some fashion.

The headline was spectacularly unsubtle in what conclusion it wanted its readers to draw. TWILIGHT SPARKLE'S SECRET SUITOR?, it read.

Rarity scanned the article, phrases leaping out at her: close friend or cozy companion?; inseparable for the entire event; whispering and giggling like schoolfillies; a pony-tale pairing -- the princess and the small-town dressmaker.

Wrinkling her nose, she turned the paper back around to Twilight, who was giving Rarity a cheery smile.

"Old material," Twilight said, with complete nonchalance. "You'd think there wasn't much value in repeating themselves, but that's the high standards at the Post." She peered down at the newspaper, still smiling. "Maybe I should feed them a story like Shining does, tell them we've been cursed and we've swapped bodies or something."

"Your brother makes up nonsense like this?" Rarity asked.

"Oh," Twilight said, closing the paper. "Yeah, you didn't see the cover."

Rarity read at the headline: WHO WEARS THE PANTS? -- Crystal Empire's Prince Spends More Time In Frocks Than His Wife, Says Source. It overlayed a picture of Shining Armor glancing away to the side, clearly as much of an indication of guilt as if there was actual evidence of him ever having worn a dress.

"He does this all the time," Twilight said. "Once, he convinced them that King Sombra was still alive, and Cadance was keeping him locked up in the basement as her love-slave."

"It doesn't..." Rarity cleared her throat. "...Doesn't bother you, that the paper just lies like that?"

"No, why should it? I mean, we're not really having... what did it say?" She flipped back to the piece about them. "'A clandestine tryst beneath the noses of the Equestrian electorate.' It's just the Post."

"No." Rarity glanced at the kettle, seeing the wisps of smoke pouring from its spout, and stood. "I suppose you're right."

She picked up one of the beautiful teacups and turned it back and forth, but her hooves barely felt the smooth surface and her eyes didn't see the pattern of flowers. Twilight had just ignored the silly story -- why couldn't she? Part of it was seeing a falsified romance sharing space with nonsense tales of bat-ponies and sewer-dwelling monsters and otherworldly visitors in the night. It made out that the idea of Twilight's fictional courtship was just as nonsensical. Why? Romance grew strong out of a bed of friendship. If Twilight fell for any of her friends, it would come as no surprise to Rarity.

But that wasn't all the piece was insinuating, was it? It was about Twilight the princess and a mostly-nameless dressmaker, a pony with no colorful pedigree who should be grateful royalty should be even giving her the time of day. It didn't read at all like she and Twilight were friends, but more like she was some fetching commoner who had caught Twilight's eye who was being taken on a whirlwind romantic tour of the high life in Canterlot. No mention that she had designed for Sapphire Shores, or that her work had been given approval by Hoity Toity and Prim Hemline. No hint that Princess Celestia knew her by name.

It read like she was an outsider intruding above her station.

This small-town dressmaker is good enough for a princess, she thought, as clear as if she had said it out loud.

And then an idea came to Rarity, a kind of stunning serendipity that she would have only thought possible when deep in the creative zone. A threefold solution that would give Twilight some more confidence in their upcoming social engagement, build herself a little more cachet in the fashion world, and play a peevish little joke on the Post.

"Twilight," Rarity said, turning to her.

Twilight looked up from the Journal and her mostly-finished breakfast. There was a look in Rarity's eyes she couldn't quite decipher. A little dangerous, almost. Interesting. Intense. Intriguing. But still dangerous.

"...What if we were a couple?" she asked, her head cocked artfully to one side, her long mane cascading down her neck.

Twilight stared. She could feel her brain locking up. Had Rarity just asked her out? Had she been giving off some romantic signals she wasn't aware of? Had she--

"I mean," Rarity continued, "it's not so unreasonable to think, is it? It's almost plausible. I dare say we could do a fair job at making everypony ask themselves if we were or not."

A half-formed checklist crossed Twilight's mind before she realized that, before planning just how they would pull this off, there was an important question in need of asking: "And why would we do that?"

"Because it would be like putting on a play," Rarity said with relish. "You'd be playing the role of Twilight Sparkle, trying to keep her relationship with her friend Rarity a secret. You'd have to stay in character the whole weekend, all through the trip on the airship and the opera, but when it was all done..."

She took a sip from her teacup, the steam wafting before her eyes.

"...You could go back to being yourself. Performance over, curtains closed." She leaned back to watch the gears turn in Twilight's head.

Twilight saw herself at the opera beside Rarity, both in their elegant dresses, making their laughter a little too personal, making their touches last a little too long. Watching everypony else to see if they were seeing it. Listening to their questions for the real questions behind them. It would be like a big game, and none of it would mean anything. She could just set it all aside, come Monday morning. No. Rarity and me? That's silly. Did you see that piece in-- yeah, they'll print anything. A trivial distraction for a night of triviality. It was fitting.

Rarity saw the days after, with the rumor given suitable time to take on a life of its own and reach out to the right places. It could open doors for her if she was, temporarily, Rarity the consort of a princess rather than just Rarity from Ponyville, and those doors wouldn't shut once she clarified how she was just simple Rarity the close friend of a princess, either. Oh, it's just dreadful, how the gossip spreads, isn't it? No, Princess Twilight and I are just friends, although we are quite close, I can see why ponies started to talk. We would make quite a striking couple, would we not? The whitest of white lies. It was perfect.

Twilight didn't even realize she was nodding until she noticed Rarity smiling at her, like a cat pleased with itself at the mouse it had finally cornered. A similar expression spread across her own face.

"That," she said, "is a really good idea."

-/-

"How long have we been together?" Twilight said, breaking the silence. Watching herself transform in the mirror was interesting but slow-going. She hoped Rarity could talk while fixing her mane.

"What do you mean?" Rarity said around a bobby pin held in the side of her mouth.

"Well, if we're going to pretend to be a couple," Twilight said, letting Rarity tug her head into the correct position, "we should have a little backstory to work with."

"You really do take acting seriously, don't you?" Rarity said with a smile Twilight couldn't see.

"A little." Twilight watched herself smile involuntarily in the mirror. She wondered if Rarity noticed. "It's practical, mostly. We can keep our stories straight. Be on the same page. Whatever the metaphor is. So, how long have we been seeing each other?"

"A short time, I think. It's all very new and exciting."

"Do our friends know?"

"Yes. No, wait, no. Let's keep it to just us."

"Wow, so a really short time, then."

"They might suspect, though." Rarity stuck the bobby pin in place, trying to imagine which of their friends might notice a change between her and Twilight first. Her conclusion after a brief moment's thought was 'not Rainbow Dash'.

"Why are we keeping things a secret?" Twilight asked. "Maybe you don't want all the scrutiny from the press?" But as she said it, she knew it didn't sit right.

"We're just seeing how things go between us before we say anything official," Rarity said. She rose, and was able to see the reflection of Twilight's face beside hers. "We're just testing the waters."

Twilight glanced off into some indistinct point in the mirror, a serious expression of thought crossing her face. "Mm, that makes sense." She turned her head to look at the real Rarity, and asked her with a cheeky grin, "What do you like most about me?"

"You make me smile," Rarity said without missing a beat. It was a simple reason, but believable: Twilight was an especially easy pony to get along with, once her shell was broken a little. Effortless. Very easy to connect with. "What," she said, and swallowed, "what about me? What does the Princess of Friendship see in a humble dressmaker?"

Twilight studied Rarity's face for an immeasurable length of time. It seemed like Rarity should go back to working on her mane, but she wouldn't until Twilight gave her answer. Maybe she couldn't. Or maybe it was only a brief moment, a quick blink, as Twilight's brain tested and discarded an array of responses in tandem, time slowing as she searched for the one that lit up the brightest.

"You're genuine," she said at last. Some mounting sense of pressure released as Rarity disappeared behind the other side of her head. "You want everypony to be the best version of themselves. That sort of altruism is... not many ponies have that."

A silence fell between them. In it, Twilight realized she had been saying something she really did admire about Rarity. Well, that was an admirable quality, wasn't it? If she was attracted to Rarity, that would be something she would be attracted to.

Rarity stood behind her and gave her a nudge. "Come on," she said, "let's take a look at you."

Twilight stepped back from the mirror so she stood beside Rarity. Her dress was the dusky blue of an overcast sky, light and long. Rarity had pinned parts of her mane up so it stuck up into the air like some exotic flower. It looks haphazard and random, but Twilight knew if she attempted such a style with her mane it would less like an artful mess and more like an actual mess.

Rarity's dress was a purple the color of heady wine, with a hat to match. She looked to Twilight like an elegant lady, a refined aristocrat for whom an afternoon sojourn on an airship was commonplace, pedestrian even, and it suited her. Twilight herself felt like her reflection was an impostor, a Twilight Sparkle who was pretending to be more sophisticated than she was able.

"We look ready for our first date," Rarity proclaimed, turning to grin at Twilight.

There was something else she was pretending to be, Twilight remembered. Perhaps it was fitting that it felt like she was about to go out on stage.

She looked at Rarity, nervously smiling. "Shall we, Lady Rarity?"

Rarity giggled. "Lead the way, Princess Twilight."

-/-

The Heart of the Sunrise sat docked at Canterlot's highest air-port, her massive crystalline prow looming over the gathered crowd like a breeching whale. She was the largest ship to sail the skies, large enough to comfortably carry the weekend's entire political congregation on her broad deck. Her hull gleamed in the sunlight of the cloudless sky, fused turquoise and aquamarine extracted from deep within the caves beneath Canterlot, and her balloon, a mauve and vermilion behemoth strapped in place with yards and yards of bright golden rigging, bobbed and swayed almost imperceptibly in the minute breeze.

Twilight walked up the gangway in silence, Rarity by her side. Just how would she feel, were she in a relationship? A secret relationship, at that. She was awful at keeping secrets. Well... no, that wasn't completely true. She was only awful at keeping them when she had to lie to keep them, when somepony asked her a question she knew the answer to and her "I don't know" sounded false and dishonest. If she was dating, privately, that might not be anypony's business but hers. And her significant other. But that didn't solve the matter of how she would feel, only how she might act. Perhaps she wouldn't feel all that different, either. Maybe she'd walk with just a little more confidence in her step, speak with a little more sureness in her voice, knowing that her secret special somepony was watching out for her.

"Nervous?" Rarity asked as the reached the Heart of the Sunrise's deck.

Twilight shook her head, clearing her thoughts. She had been far away, deep within herself, and for a moment coming back to the brisk mountain air and the dull roar of the crowd below was jarring.

It's like I missed my cue, she thought, and gave Rarity a smile.

"A little," she admitted.

"Perfectly reasonable," Rarity said, "though there's no need to be, darling. I promise, I'll stay right by your side the entire afternoon."

She'd been going about getting into character completely the wrong way, Twilight suddenly realized. It wasn't just any pony who she was in love with, it was Rarity. Her friend Rarity, who she trusted completely and who already was keeping her company during the tedious parts of this conference. She could be a little nervous, but there was absolutely no reason to worry.

Twilight laughed, a little at the situation and a little at herself. "Thanks for being here with me," she said.

"The pleasure is all mine, I assure you."

They had made it over to the far side of the deck. Twilight looked out over the strake, down to the long distance between the airship and where the slope of the mountain resumed. "I mean it," Twilight said, resting a hoof on the polished blue-green surface. "It's really nice to have some pony here to keep me grounded. Although--" She tilted her head to indicate over the edge. "--Maybe grounded isn't the right word to use, right now."

"No, Rarity said, watching Twilight lean a little over the lip of the ship, "perhaps not."

"I used to be really scared of heights, did you know that?" Twilight asked.

Rarity had not. She couldn't imagine Twilight with illogical fears, things she couldn't rationalize into submission. Other ponies, especially when present in large crowds, were chaotic and unpredictable; Rarity thrived in that kind of spontaneity, but she knew not all ponies did, so Twilight's aversion to socializing was somewhat understandable. But heights had that same kind of exhilaration, of being made to feel small when all around you was so large, when you could see clear out to the horizon; provided one was on stable footing, being far off the ground was fun.

"But then I just got over it, all of a sudden," Twilight continued, "after I got these." She gave her wings a small stretch before folding them neatly back against her sides. "I mean, can't really be scared I'll fall if I can fly, right?"

"Not if you have trust in yourself, no," Rarity said, thinking a little of Fluttershy.

"It's strange," Twilight said, turning to look at Rarity, "how something like that can just change overnight, isn't it?"

Rarity smiled at her. Was this Twilight acting, being more forthcoming with personal information about herself? It was sweet, a very heartfelt approach to courting that was a pleasant change of pace from coy flirting and none-too-subtle compliments. "It is strange," she agreed. "We change all the time, on the inside, but it's always little by little so one never truly noticed unless one looks."

A bell sounded, a deep clanging chime, signalling a lift in the activity on the deck of the ship. The crowd moved away from Twilight and Rarity's side of the deck, fanning out along the port side.

"I think we're setting sail," Twilight said. "Taking off? Can you set sail, without a sail?"

"We should go wave to the crowd," Rarity said, brushing Twilight's flank with her tail.

"Right," said Twilight, grinning sheepishly, "right."

-/-

The crowd at the dock grew smaller and smaller as the Heart of the Sunrise took to the skies. Twilight waved with the rest of the passengers, bidding farewell to nopony and everypony. Rarity held her hat in her hoof and let it flap in the wind like a flag.

The main engines came to life with a cacophony of pops and sputtering before settling in to a deep thrum, a rhythmic churning that made the whole ship seem like a living thing with a mighty beating heart. The dock and the crowd on it fell from view until all of Canterlot was visible from the Heart of the Sunrise's port side with a single glance, the entirety of the old noble city spilling down the side of the mountain like an intricate tapestry.

"Quite a sight, isn't it, Princess Twilight?" a calm voice asked from by her shoulder.

Twilight turned to look at the mare who spoke. She had a long brown mane that hung flat, nearly reaching to the deck of the ship, and a vivid floral dress; Twilight recognized her from not only her studying the mayors all over Equestria, but from the other day at the royal gardens.

"It's very impressive," she said. "I've never seen Canterlot like this before."

"So I take it you never traveled by airship, when you lived here?" the long-haired mare asked. Twilight recognized the purpose of the question immediately: I know your history. I read up on you. And I want you to know I did.

She shook her head. "Always balloon, and they land much lower down. But," she said, pouncing on an opening in the budding conversation, "I'm sure this couldn't compare to seeing all of Las Pegasus from the skies."

The long-haired mare gave her a thin smile. "I see you have done your homework, Princess Twilight."

"That most definitely goes without saying," Rarity interjected with a polite laugh, offering her hoof.

The long-haired mare shook it with business-like efficiency. "Sunbeam," she said, "mayor of Las Pegasus."

"And I am Rarity," Rarity replied, "close friend of Twilight Sparkle and her companion for this weekend."

Twilight thought she might have seen a little reaction on Sunbeam's placid face at how Rarity very intentionally didn't address her as Princess, but it was so slight it was possible she imagined it.

"I believe we saw you," Rarity continued, "at the gardens."

"Then you no doubt also saw my companion for the weekend," Sunbeam said, "drumming up support for his film project."

"We did," Twilight said. "He was quite..."

She searched for a neutral verb, as Sunbeam's dour tone suggested she wasn't as impressed with Fair Banks as he undoubtedly would have wanted.

"...Lively," she settled on.

"A pleasant euphemism for irksome," Sunbeam said, her thin smile returning.

"No, no," Rarity said, "his project sounded most interesting. I'm having a meeting with him later to discuss it, as a matter of fact."

"Forgive me." Sunbeam closed her eyes, her smile broadening but becoming visibly less genuine. "It's me that finds his liveliness irksome, which I believe is only natural when a pony is bent on discussing his business in thoroughly non-business settings, like this lovely cruise here. I've no doubt he finds me as frustrating to be around as I him, so that's probably why he's made himself scarce." She glanced around, as if Banks would appear from behind her.

Rarity and Twilight exchanged a quick glance, unsure what to make of this.

"So," Sunbeam continued, "in the interest of the spirit of this event, I shall leave all my pressing questions to you, Princess Twilight, for Monday." She pushed away from the ship's strake, clearly bowing out of their conversation.

"It was lovely to have met you," Rarity said with what sounded like genuine enthusiasm.

"Yes, it was," Twilight agreed with what felt like perfunctory niceness.

Sunbeam dipped her head, the tip of her mane managing to graze the deck. "Continue to enjoy the trip," she said as she departed.

"She was a little... brusque," Rarity said in a voice meant only for Twilight.

"Funny," Twilight said, "that's the exact phrase that I had written down about Sunbeam. Brusque."

"It was awfully nice of her to leave us to our pleasant cruise together though, wouldn't you agree?"

Twilight giggled a little at their secret, their multiple layers of deception. "Very. Maybe she could tell we wanted some alone time."

Rarity looked around the deck. "That seems to be what everypony else is doing. Keeping to themselves, I mean. Though, I don't blame them." She swept her eyes over the horizon. "This view is amazing."

Scanning the vast swath of Equestria that she could see, Twilight had to agree -- fields and farms and little patches of woods stretched on in all directions away from Canterlot for what looked like forever, broken by the occasional stone wall or railroad track. The Heart of the Sunrise hadn't left Canterlot far behind, and Twilight could see where tracks wound through a dense cluster of houses before climbing up the mountain.

"I think I can see my old house from here," Twilight said, trying to imagine its location relative to the train tracks.

"Ooh, where?" Rarity asked. She leaned with Twilight over the edge, their shoulders brushing.

Twilight pointed to the houses, small as miniatures, and said, "Okay, see there? Right about--"

A violent updraft took her words from her, as well as Rarity's hat.

Rarity gasped, and watched it fly away like an errant leaf. She had just enough time to lament her outfit being incomplete before Twilight seized the hat within her magic, floating it back down to rest on Rarity's head. While she tilted her hat back to make it sit better, Rarity realized that she was sharing a gaze with Twilight, both of them staring at each other with little idea of what exactly to say next.

The moment was broken by the sound of applause, one pony stomping their hooves on the deck.

Twilight turned to look first, Rarity following with her eyes quickly after. They had impressed an older stallion, old enough that his cropped mane and the bristling mustache that hung to his square jaw had faded to grey. He wore a uniform, the exact rank Rarity didn't know, but he must have been terribly important by the number of medals and stripes affixed to the breast.

"Bravo!" he cried, striding across the deck to meet them. Rarity noticed that he walked with a slight limp in his hind leg, and how it didn't affect his grandfatherly smile. "Splendid reflexes, Cadet Sparkle."

"Sir," Twilight said, smiling back, "thank you, sir."

The stallion dipped his head, once to Twilight and once to Rarity. "General Ironclad," he said, his voice gruff and dusty like pipe smoke.

"Rarity." She sketched a brief curtsy. "Should I address you as sir," she asked with a mischievous smile, "or is that only required of service members?"

"Only service members," Ironclad said, "and our newest princess here. For you see, Princess Twilight trained under me in the art of warfare and tactical deployment, and a fearsome good student she was. It's regrettable she never elected to continue her studies in any other military discipline, she would have made a fine officer."

"We played chess," Twilight clarified, "when I was a little filly."

"Which is the perfect encapsulation of strategy and tactics. How to hide your motives while your enemy sees your every move! How to plan not just from move to move but for the game's end! Should be required for all recruits, I've said for years."

Rarity found she could perfectly picture this grizzled veteran sitting opposite a precocious filly and running her through the rigors of chess, but not quite the circumstances that led up to such a meeting.

"You know," Rarity said, "I don't think I've ever played chess." Cards were her mother's forte -- she was an especially sneaky bridge player -- and Rarity had osmosed more hoofball trivia from her father than she ever needed.

"Then you, young lady, shall have to ask Princess Twilight to teach you." Ironclad's eyes lit up like coal lamps on a clouded night. "Fantastically simple game to learn, devilishly tricky to master. Equestria needs more ponies skilled at the fine art of chess. Though I do warn you: Twilight is terribly good and absolutely ruthless, so you will have to caution her to take it easy on you for the first, oh... dozen matches, I should think."

Twilight looked off to the side, clearly a little embarrassed at this praise. "I'm not that great. I'm okay."

"She's beaten me," Ironclad said, puffing out his chest of medals, "and that's a feat I can say very few have ever accomplished."

Rarity beamed at Twilight. "Then it seems I would definitely be in good hooves."

"Indeed you shall, young lady, indeed you shall."

"You must show me when we get home, darling," Rarity said.

The conversation took a brief hitch. It lasted less than a second, but was felt by all. Rarity watched Ironclad react, wrestling with her statement: was that just a friendly endearment, or was there something deeper? Just what was meant by home: was it back to Ponyville, or was it one of their personal homes that the other spent a lot of time visiting, because they were...?

Instead of pursuing any momentary curiosity Ironclad may have had, he turned his attention to Twilight. "While we are on the subject, I am awaiting your next correspondence, cadet."

Grinning, Twilight said, "I sent it just before I left, sir."

"Aha, then it should be on my desk by sundown, provided it hasn't been intercepted by the enemy." He lowered his voice and spoke through his bristly mustache, feigning serious concern over Twilight's mail being captured. "So, do you have the nerve to trade your princess for a unicorn, just for a momentary opening in the fifth column?"

"You'll have to wait and see, sir," Twilight said with a smug and guarded smile.

"You see?" Ironclad focused on Rarity again. "Ruthless!" He roared with laughter. "I shall expect a full debriefing on your attempts at training a fresh recruit, cadet."

"Sir," Twilight said, "yes, sir."

"And, incidentally." He tapped a hoof to the side of his muzzle, indicating silence, while giving the pair of them a meaningful look. "Your secret is safe with me."

Twilight frowned. "What secret?"

"Mm, what secret, indeed." He smiled to himself, his mustache curling. "Dismissed, cadet."

And with that he turned and began to march away, leaving a very puzzled Twilight in his wake.

"My," Rarity said, "he is certainly quite a character. Wouldn't you say, Cadet Sparkle?"

Twilight rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof and laughed to herself. "He was my brother's instructor when he joined the royal guard," she explained. "This was before Ironclad became a general, obviously. I may, in a moment of wanting to be exactly like my big brother, have insisted he be my instructor too, and playing chess was the compromise. He taught me the basics while Shining was running laps, and after that we played by mail. Have for years."

"Ah, so that's what that was." For the first time, she saw Twilight as something she had never thought of her as before: somepony's little sister. Rarity had a little sister. But Sweetie Belle was nothing like Twilight. Then again, Sweetie Belle was a very different pony too, sometimes, when she didn't know Rarity could hear her, so maybe there was some common, little-sister bond she and some aspect of Twilight shared.

"And all the time, I've been a cadet," Twilight said. "You know, because I never graduated from my training."

The image of filly Twilight playing chess with General Ironclad came back to her, this time with an ill-fitting helmet perched on her head to make her look like a real soldier. "That sounds lovely," she said, "a very sweet gesture."

"He's a pretty sweet guy, underneath it all," Twilight agreed. "I wonder what he meant by my secret."

Rarity glanced sidelong at her. When Twilight didn't respond, she cocked an eyebrow at her.

Twilight's eyes went wide; that they would be discovered so easily clearly hadn't occurred to her. "You don't think...?" she asked.

"Maybe he read it in the Post," Rarity suggested, not completely sure if she was serious or joking.

"Maybe it was you calling me darling."

"I call everypony darling. Darling."

"Yes, but he doesn't know that."

-/-

The Heart of the Sunrise took a slow, lazy arc around the area surrounding Canterlot, a trip that took nearly the whole afternoon before she was pointed back in the direction of the mountain. On the return leg, the ship rose high into the sky, far above the highest tower of Canterlot Castle, parting through the gathered clouds and rising above them, the billowy ephemeral tops spread out beneath them like a white ocean.

All attention on the ship drew to Princess Cadance, who had cleared a space for herself to address the crowd. Twilight knew this was going to be a short speech thanking everypony for their attendance, hoping they were enjoying themselves, wishing them a pleasant night tomorrow at the opera, and so on. She knew the major points but planned on listening anyway, until she felt a hoof tap on her shoulder. She turned to see her brother had appeared behind her and Rarity, wearing his dress uniform.

"Hey," he said, keeping his voice below the level of the crowd and the wind.

"Shouldn't you be listening to your wife?" Twilight asked in a similar hushed voice.

"I've heard this one already," Shining said. "Cadance tested it out on me."

Rarity listened to the siblings talk, finding the way Twilight's tone changed when she was speaking with somepony she was familiar and comfortable with fascinating. She wasn't a completely different pony, but she was different. She was less guarded, the quiet conversation neatly bouncing back and forth between her brother like a shuttlecock.

"I saw you messing with the Post again, by the way," Twilight said.

Shining chuckled. "I made the front page this time. Not too bad."

"You should have worn a evening gown today, it would have really sold the story."

"I'm saving that for tomorrow night." He took a quick breath. "I didn't know you were pulling one over the Post too, you should have told me."

Rarity glanced back at Shining, giving her eyelashes a calculated flutter. "Whatever makes you so certain the story was planted?" she asked, leaving Twilight's brother with his mouth hanging open a little.

"And now," Cadance announced, raising her voice and cutting off any further questions Shining might have had about Rarity and Twilight's relationship, "I believe it's almost sunset."

From their places in the crowd, Celestia and Luna both spread their wings. A corona of light surrounded the princesses, warm and golden for Celestia, liquid silver for Luna. The sun sank below the clouds, guided down by the two sisters, and disappeared for just a moment before its light dropped below the horizon.

Then the stars came shooting from beyond the edge of the world, streaking across the sky like rockets, each one landing in its designated place with only a fading contrail of light to show it had ever been moving.

The crowd gasped in awe, and a babble of voices broke out as ponies turned to their neighbors to comment on the display. From the snippets of sentences she could hear, Rarity could tell this was a first-time occurrence for many of the passengers, which gave her a strange warm feeling in her chest. Somewhere between pride and having a secret.

"Oh," Twilight said, still looking up at the stars, "I hadn't known they were going to do that. If I did, I might not have pointed it out the other night."

"I'm glad you did." Rarity huddled closer to Twilight, as not to be overheard. "Knowing what was going to happen... well, it was like knowing something just for us."

Twilight gave her a look Rarity couldn't decipher. "Yeah," she said, "it is a bit like that."

Perhaps she was thinking of the same secret Rarity herself had on her mind.

-/-

As the Heart of the Sunrise sank into the clouds in the dark, Rarity and Twilight once again found themselves alone by the edge of the ship. When Canterlot came into view, Rarity couldn't contain herself. The city was lit with ten thousand pinpricks of light, a glittering, sparkling beacon in the dusk. The whole mountain looked like a diamond, shining with its own inner light.

She seized Twilight's shoulder and drew in a breath. "Oh, Twilight," she said, "it's beautiful. I never knew Canterlot could look like this."

"Neither did I," Twilight said, sounding stunned.

Together they watched the mountain and the castle on its peak draw inexorably closer as the light of the sun faded to nothingness, the lights guiding the Heart of the Sunrise home.

Twilight looked away so she could murmur into Rarity's ear. "How's this for a first date?" she asked, smiling at the side of her mouth.

"First rate," Rarity said. "The best I've ever been on, in fact."

Straightening up and turning back to Canterlot, Twilight felt two emotions at odds with each other inside of her. One was pride, for hearing she had done something as good as it could be done never got old regardless of the source. The other was a kind of soft pity, that nopony had ever been able to give Rarity the kind of pony-tale romance she sought after.

She deserved it, after all.