Both Sides Now

The morning's edition of the Post sat on the table between them. Neither pony had read it, neither mentioned it, but both were thinking about it as they went through the motions of breakfast together.

Rarity finished off her cup of tea.

Twilight folded the Journal in half.

"Shall we--" Rarity began, moving her hoof.

"Do you want--" Twilight interrupted, also reaching.

Their hooves touched over the front page of the Post, bringing an abrupt silence.

A smile spread across Twilight's face. Rarity laughed a little, and Twilight joined her.

In unison they silently browsed the paper. Twilight scanned the headlines for mentions of the Open Forum and found only a lengthy interview with an anonymous source that claimed, among other things, that the gathering of the mayors in Canterlot was nothing more than a front for the changeling spawning season, it being accepted as fact by the interviewer that all the ruling parties in Equestria were in fact disguised changelings. Rarity skimmed over the pictures, searching for Twilight or herself; she did spot a piece involving the Heart of the Sunrise, but all that turned out to be was the fanciful claim that it was a method for Princess Celestia to spray the unsusepcting population with invisible mind-controlling gas.

The last page turned, they looked at each other.

"Nothing," Rarity said, her statement giving the whole endeavor a queer sense of finality.

"Maybe we were too subtle," Twilight mused, tapping her chin with her hoof.

"Maybe." They were at somewhat of an impasse now, Rarity thought. Forward or back? Press on or cry off? She was reminded a little of the shepherd's dilemma, of whether it was better to choose something unknown and dangerous over familiar and unsatisfying.

Twilight glanced at the cover of the Post and shook her head. "I don't know if I'm relieved or disappointed."

"Me either," Rarity said.

She caught Twilight's gaze and they stared at each other for a long quiet moment, stuck, waiting for a choice to be made.

"You know," Rarity said slowly, "it does seem quite a shame to go to all that effort and have nothing to show for it."

"That's what I was thinking," Twilight said, calmly nodding her head. "And there's still tonight to put on a bit of a performance for everypony."

"That there is." Rarity glanced out the window, over a Canterlot covered in long shadows from the rising sun. "We'll just have to try harder this time," she said with a cryptic smile.

"Yeah," Twilight agreed.

That was all they spoke of their faux relationship for that morning, but it did leave Twilight wondering idly through the day: just how would they try harder?

-/-

Rarity fussed just out of Twilight's view of her in the bathroom mirror, doing something to her mane to keep it in place. This round of preparation had been the longest, and the most quiet. There was tension, where there had been none before. Twilight had initially thought it was due to the setting -- the opera had a shade more protocol and presentation to it than the garden party or the flight on the airship -- but she found her thoughts returning less to making an etiquette mistake and more to Rarity's suggestion that they be more convincing in their fake relationship.

Just how would they do that? How did you make something hidden more obvious? Maybe if she thought of it like they wanted somepony to notice, but they could still have the room to play anything off as just being good friends. Like they were flaunting their secret in front of everypony, daring some lone voice in the crowd to pipe up and declare the emperor's new crown was nothing more than a bird's nest. She kept thinking back to her theater techniques, but so far they were failing her. For a play, she would have lines to learn; real life was rarely so forgiving.

"I think," Rarity said, snapping Twilight out of her thoughts, "that we are finished."

She drew herself up level to Twilight, examining her work. Twilight's mane was pinned around her neck in a simple criss-cross, as not to distract from the tiara she wore. It was reminiscent of her crown, silver instead of gold, set with sapphires deep like the ocean. They complimented the midnight blue of her dress, which was simple and unfettered with accents or frills. It was sleek, straightforward, regal. Like Twilight herself.

Her own dress was black, a sharp contrast to her white coat which had plenty of freedom to be on display. Rarity had straightened her mane, letting it provide natural color to her ensemble, letting it hang evenly by her shoulders as if perpetually wet. She had aimed for elegance through simplicity, employing less-is-more in every facet of her designs, suggesting nobility and refinement rather than stating it outright, and oh my, how she had succeeded.

"Every eye is going to be on us tonight," Rarity said to Twilight's reflection.

Twilight turned her head this way and that, studying the finished product. She judged herself just as beautiful and put-together as Rarity always was. It was an odd feeling. Like she had just put on a mask and was preparing to perform.

"Rarity," Twilight said, turning to face her instead of her reflection. She knew the rest of her sentence, the question she wanted to ask, but it wouldn't come out of her mouth. It was lodged in her throat, stubborn.

"Yes, Twilight?" She smiled. It was a kind smile, open, welcoming. It made the space safe.

"...How did you mean we should try harder?" The feeling of being a student again washed over her, asking a question she didn't already suspect the answer to.

"Oh, darling." Rarity's smile took on a note of sympathy. "Is that why you've been so agitated this whole time?"

So she had noticed. Twilight had thought she was keeping her feelings fairly well-masked. So much for that.

"I just meant," she continued, "we might stand to be a little more..."

She placed a hoof on Twilight's shoulder, gently, softly, while not looking away from Twilight's eyes.

"...Physical."

A memory came back to Twilight, watching from the wings as a director ran her actors through a series of exercises up on the stage. They weren't vocal exercises or anything to do with character -- nopony had even seen scripts yet, she recalled -- but trust exercises: falling so another pony would catch you, short team games, being guided around obstacles on the stage while blindfolded, that sort of thing. The director had explained at the end of the day, after no lines had been read and no roles assigned, that being comfortable as a group was crucial to bringing the right atmosphere up on the stage, and Twilight had scoffed from the wings and had been glad she didn't have to run through the foolish routines.

But she hadn't known any of these ponies. They had been strangers, unknowns she had become more familiar with by the time she gained the courage to step out onto the stage herself in front of a waiting audience. By her last performance, she might have been willing to give that director's silly exercises a try.

Rarity was no stranger. She could trust her with a lot more than to catch her, were Twilight to faint into her.

But, like in the theater, they had to have rehearsals before the curtain ever went up.

"We should..." Twilight swallowed. "We should practice a little. So we're comfortable."

"Of course," Rarity said. Her hoof was still resting on Twilight's shoulder. "It wouldn't be awkward, if I...?"

She took a step towards Twilight, moving close enough that they were face to face. If they bent their forelegs at the same time, they would collide. Twilight had to straighten up her neck to not have her muzzle bump into Rarity's, and Rarity got a good sense of just how much taller Twilight had become since becoming an alicorn. Rarity was right inside her personal space. She had been this close to Twilight while fixing her mane, but with their eyes so close like this, with their lips close enough to easily meet, it was significantly different. Charged. Ripe with possibility.

"No," Twilight said in a low voice, quiet and perfectly audible. She brought her own hoof up and brushed back Rarity's mane, revealing her ear. The touch caused prickles to break out all along her neck. "And if I whispered something in your ear..."

She leaned in to Rarity, her lips lightly grazing her ear. Rarity felt her soft breath.

"...Would that be alright?"

Twilight had been murmuring asides to her for the whole weekend, but this was something else. Rarity had felt her words, intimate and private, a hushed missive for her and her alone. Finsing the right way to reply was quite difficult.

"Th-that would be alright," she managed.

She drew back, and Twilight did also. Had Rarity put that much color in Twilight's cheeks, when she was applying her makeup?

Forcing a smile, she said, "We are friends after all, darling."

"That's all completely normal between friends," Twilight agreed. "Nothing out of the ordinary."

"We could even," Rarity said with a tilt of her head, "push a little further."

Twilight blinked, surprise and curiosity in her dancing lavender eyes.

"If you were comfortable with it, darling."

"I..."

She leaned in to Rarity again, slow like the landscape had passed beneath the Heart of the Sunrise.

"...I think so."

Twilight had tipped her head too, counter to the direction Rarity had gone. There was so little distance between them. Air from Twilight's nostrils played softly over the pelt of Rarity's muzzle.

They were in the right position. Just an inch or two more, and they would kiss. They could kiss here, in private, and nopony would ever know. They could share a kiss as friends.

Rarity touched her hoof to the side of Twilight's muzzle, partly to steady her, partly to steady herself. "You," she said, her voice feeling uncooperative, "you don't want to smudge your makeup."

She felt Twilight tense beneath her hoof, heard her suck in her breath. "That's true," she said, practicality and reason returned her her voice. The moment had come and passed.

"And it would take too long to reapply," Rarity continued. She pulled back from Twilight and took a deep breath.

"And we don't have time for that." She glanced through the open door to the clock.

"We should be going, in fact."

"We don't want to be late."

"It would be bad form to keep anypony waiting, wouldn't it?" Rarity asked.

Twilight gave her a shaky smile. "Especially for a princess," she said.

Rarity smiled back at her, and within a minute they were headed for the lobby, the front door, the night at the opera.

-/-

The opera house sat in the heart of the city, a great dome visible from all of the streets above it and, due to sheer size, even some of the streets below. It had began life as an open air amphitheater, serving as both a forum for public gatherings and a stage for public performances. Little remained of its origins save for the imposing columns that surrounded the building on the side where the mountain was lower, carved from slabs of pale marble and preserved over the centuries, beautiful in their austerity. Ponies entered the building from the high side, Canterlot Castle to one's back, the lights of the city spread out below. The city was like a living entity, humming and buzzing and drawing breath, and the opera house a rare calm and stately edifice that had endured thousands of years through the passage of time and would endure thousands more, a round white eye in the glittering storm.

They descended down the main street that ran through Canterlot like an artery, following the natural contours of the mountain down from the castle and through the city to fan out in the outer suburbs. They turned to approach the opera house, lights visible and the thriving sound of crowds growing with each step they took. This was their last moment to be alone for the evening.

"Nervous?" Rarity asked. She could see the red carpet leading up to the tall open doors.

Twilight took a second to reflect upon herself. "No," she answered with a growing grin, "no, I don't think I am."

"Just remember," Rarity said with a cunning smile, "as far as anypony knows, we're just friends."

"Right," Twilight agreed, and winked at her.

The red carpet led them into the foyer, a large cavernous space that was made to seem small by its high ceiling and smaller still by the bubbling crowd. A wide sweeping staircase crawled around the rounded outer wall, with ponies standing on every stair and packed in just as close on the upper floor. Banners hung from the balcony: the old insignias of the sun and the moon, a stylized Crystal Heart that looked like stained glass, and a fourth that held the abstract star of Twilight's cutie mark. Rarity made a note to ask Twilight when that had been designed; she couldn't imagine her friend laying out the specifics of the color and shape of her heraldry.

Twilight took an involuntary step closer to Rarity. She knew there were a lot of ponies here specifically for the Open Forum, but they hadn't been packed into a small space like this. She thought of learning about potions as a little filly, and the diagrams that showed how gas spread out to fill whatever it was contained in, differentiating it from liquids and solids. Everypony here was one of those little motes of gas: without the room to move around freely like in the Gardens or the deck of the Heart, they were packed in tight and jostling against each other.

But then as if on cue, the crowd parted as best they could to let Twilight and Rarity pass, heads slightly bowed in deference to royalty and her escort. Twilight saw faces in the crowd she recognized: there was Sunbeam, her eyes closed, and Fair Banks beside her flashing a grin; she saw Ironclad on the stairs, his neck stiff, his medals hanging as he dipped low; it gave her a small amount of pleasure to see Big Apple averting his eyes to the floor.

She was struck by the sudden desire to laugh, the whole scenario seeming outrageously silly. She didn't get dressed up to go to the opera, she certainly didn't need everypony bowing and scraping as she walked in the room. The fanciest she got of her own volition was salads with both red and white clovers in them. She could practically feel the heavy hoof of archaic rule parting the crowd. Was Luna playing up the formality because that was what everypony expected, or was this really how she remembered life from a thousand years ago? How did they all not laugh at how outrageously overwrought it all was?

What stopped her laughing was thinking of the role she was playing. Twilight, the real Twilight, might think all the pageantry ridiculous, but the Twilight she was pretending to be had a marefriend who quite enjoyed this sort of thing, and she was certainly not going to make fun of it. In fact, she should be congratulating herself on such a fitting series of dates, she thought as they walked along the gap where the carpet continued.

Rarity held in a gasp of awe. Her mind went back to when she had been a little filly, acting out tea parties with her dolls with such precision and poise, her mother asking why she kept talking like that even when she wasn't playing ("However do you mean, mother?" "You can just call me mom, sweetie."), and dreaming that one day the regal royal family to which she truly belonged would find her and take her in to their beautiful home in Canterlot and prepare her for a life in the nobles' court. This dream had seen various permutations over the years -- one being marriage to a prince rather than estranged set of birth parents -- but it had never died completely, not even for a moment, and now, walking through the parted sea of genuflecting ponies, at the side of a princess and looking her most fabulous, it felt like that dream had finally come true. This, she thought, is what having arrived feels like.

But she wouldn't let it go to her head. She couldn't, not tonight, not when she had both a mock duty as Princess Twilight's lover and a real duty to her friend Twilight to stay by her side. She'd be quite willing to be Twilight's shield against too much social interaction on a regular basis -- Rarity understood the value of moments to be by one's self, but Twilight took it to the extreme at times -- if it meant being at events like this one. Why, she'd even encourage tonight's little romantic ruse becoming an extended performance.

The path ended with a pony who must have been one of the castle staff, yet there was no simple red jacket for her tonight; instead she wore a deep red tunic with puffy sleeves matched with an equally-puffy hat that may have been last in fashion a few centuries ago.

Rarity thought it contributed nicely to the atmosphere of a time passed on that had been revived in the ancient amphitheater.

Twilight wondered if the sleeves were as warm and itchy as they looked.

"This way please, Your Highness," she said, holding open the door she stood in front of. Above the door was a neat wooden plaque that read Box IV; hanging from the door was a sign that was obviously a part of tonight's theatrics: Royal Admittance Only.

The door led to a winding narrow corridor in rich velvet and dark wood. Twilight was reminded of being backstage, which in a strange way this almost was; the passageway was so thin it must have been almost squeezed between the walls of the foyer and the seating area. Rarity had to choose between brushing against the walls or Twilight if she wanted to remain shoulder-to-shoulder with her; she purposefully walked close to Twilight and, for good measure, flicked her tail against Twilight's in the hopes they were still somewhat visible to the crowd, and felt Twilight stifle a giggle.

A sharp turn later and they were confronted with a staircase that could only be traversed one at a time. Rarity dipped her head and said, "After you, Princess."

Twilight made an undignified face. "Pfft, knock it off, you don't have to do that if there's nopony around."

"Au contraire, the mark of a consummate actress is maintaining her role even without an audience."

"You know, you're right. Let me try that again." Twilight closed her eyes and let out a quick breath, resetting herself. She was not the Twilight playing a part; she was the Twilight keeping a secret, and she did the first thing that came to mind.

Which happened to be leaning forward in the confined space and planting a soft kiss on Rarity's cheek. It was easy for her to do -- easy for her character to do, she reasoned -- and really no more intimate than the kind of kiss-hello Rarity sometimes employed. Well, not much more.

Rarity froze, and blinked. Twilight smiled at her, somewhere between a friend and a lover's smile, and turned and began climbing the stairs. The first phase of a new romance was all about discovery, full of surprises -- she had just nailed the surprise portion.

-/-

Their box, an intimate nook with only two seats with plush cushions flanked by a cabinet bearing a pair of glasses and a bottle of sparkling wine, overlooked rows and rows of empty seats. Another formality: the royalty was to be seated first.

"I hope everypony out there wasn't kept waiting because of us," Twilight said, hastily taking her seat. The crowd of politicians and other movers and shakers had just started to file in to the seats below, bringing with them the hubbub from the foyer.

"I don't think so." Rarity decided to keep to herself the fleeting thought that, if she were a princess, she may occasionally feel the urge to keep ponies waiting, just because. "Luna doesn't appear to be here yet."

She gestured across the theater to the other boxes. One held Princess Celestia, chatting with an older mare she didn't recognize. The other contained Twilight's brother and sister-in-law, who were waving to them. The fourth box, the one beside their own, was unoccupied.

Twilight waved to Cadance. She watched Shining lean back in his seat, pantomime and exaggerated yawn and stretch, and rest his arm around his wife. It seemed he had absolutely no troubles not taking any of this too seriously.

Rarity felt movement beside her. Twilight was fanning out her wings, making a show of settling herself, and she let one fall over Rarity's shoulder. She flashed Twilight a smile and went back to pouring wine, flawlessly maintaining her character and determined not to let Twilight catch her off-guard again like she had with the kiss.

Shining's eyes went wide. Then he chuckled and nudged Cadance. Funny joke, sis. Hey, check them out over there.

But although Cadance smiled at them, Twilight noted that she didn't laugh. Her smile was measured, like she expected this. Like she knew what they were up to.

That's silly, thought Twilight. Shining probably told her about the article in the Post. No, or that thing Rarity said to him. That must have been it. But something about that explanation didn't sit quite right.

"Who's she, I wonder?" Rarity asked, gesturing to the mare Celestia was talking to. She passed Twilight a flute of bubbling wine.

"Oh, I know her. She used to be an opera singer." Twilight's brow crinkled, trying to come up with her name. "Trebelle, I think. She's a friend of Celestia's."

Rarity leaned in close and murmured, "Looks like a little bit more than a friend, if you ask me."

"That's terrible. You're terrible." She pushed her away, trying not to smile at the lascivious grin Rarity was giving her. "They're just talking! They're just..."

"Just friends like us, dear?" Rarity asked sweetly.

Twilight had some rebuttal forming, but it got lost partway as she watched Celestia and Trebelle talk and laugh and reminisce. She sipped from her glass, thinking. They were close, and Twilight remembered them always being close; on the few occasions Twilight had met with Trebelle, she was reminded of the difference in how her mother spoke to her friends and how she spoke to Twilight herself, and how a similar change came over Princess Celestia. It was subtle, but it was there, and she had never noticed it with anypony else.

It could mean they were just close friends. But it could mean something else.

Very rarely did Twilight think of Celestia as a pony made of flesh and blood, of wants and hopes and desires. She knew she had borne children, many in her long lifetime, but that was academic knowledge. It was also with a detached analysis that Twilight could recognize she must have been in love, more than any pony with a comparatively fleeting lifespan could understand, and have been loved in return, not as a teacher or mother or ruler but as a partner. These were facts with no emotional heft behind them. But looking at her mentor with new eyes, she could imagine it -- the rising star of the opera and her royal patron, an affair carried out behind closed doors after the lowering of the sun.

Love... Twilight wasn't sure how it factored in to her perception of Princess Celestia. It made her vulnerable, assailable in a way that a princess shouldn't be. Except that didn't make much sense, because if she was incapable of love it would be impossible for her to be the warm caring ruler Twilight knew her to be. Plus, there was a wonderful counterexample sitting a few lengths away with her head on her brother's shoulder. A princess could love, could be loved.

Then why did it feel like she would be breaking some sort of rule when she thought about herself? Why did it feel like what she and Rarity were doing was flaunting some great taboo?

It would need to be another time for Twilight to answer these questions, for the audience was seated, and the lights were dimming.

The curtain was still lit and closed. A rush of wings came from above the back rows and a shadow passed over the crowd, stilling the murmurs of the audience. It was the right place, Rarity thought as she finished her glass, to be theatrical in one's entrance, but no sooner had she finished her thought did she realize how woeful and understatement it was.

Princess Luna had taken the stage, and she was not alone.

"Twilight," she whispered, "it seems you were correct."

Much of the crowd had a similar reaction to the bat-pony that stood by Luna's side: hushed gasps, sibilant whispers. He folded his leathery wings around his broad barrel, a dark cloak that made him into a living shadow, brooding and dangerous. He was square-jawed, barrel-chested, like a gargoyle somepony had breathed life into. Pegasi tended towards slight builds, lithe and airy enough to lift themselves up to the clouds, but if Luna's companion was in any way typical then it was clear that bat-ponies used heaving muscle and brute strength to take to the skies.

Luna had started talking, welcoming the crowd in floral formal language. It was wasted, as not a single pony was listening.

"I think we've been upstaged," Twilight said out of the side of her mouth. "There's no way we're the most gossip-worthy couple now."

"You don't think they're...?" Rarity asked in a similarly low voice.

Celestia and Trebelle was conjecture, an idle what-if; Luna and this mysterious bat-pony, with his hulking physique that would turn heads even without its unusual variations, was so blatant Twilight was surprised Rarity was questioning it. "Oh yeah," she said, "there is no doubt that Luna is riding that."

Rarity made a choked noise in muffling her laughter. Her hoof wavered, almost spilling the fresh glass she was pouring. Riding that, indeed! She wondered if the wine was affecting Twilight especially quickly; if this was a hint to what tipsy Twilight was like, then tipsy Twilight seemed fun.

Luna's speech had finished. She bade the visitors a pleasant night, and lighted to her box with her striking friend with a similar abrupt flurry as her arrival to the stage. A moment of chatter from the audience was superseded by the orchestra waking. The lights faded completely, and the curtain drew back. The show was beginning.

Pressing her muzzle close to Twilight's ear to be heard over the opening flourishes of the score, Rarity murmured, "Then we shall just have to up our game, as it were."

She passed Twilight her newly-filled glass, and let her free hoof fall down her chest, coming to rest on Twilight's leg. In the darkness, Twilight's expression was impossible to read, but she covered Rarity's hoof with her own, and sipped from her glass. On the stage, the shepherd was taking in his surroundings in the Underworld.

Twilight's heart beat fast, spurred on by a growing fire in her belly. That was the wine. Mostly the wine. There was also Rarity touching her leg contributing. The bar had been raised, like there was a hidden competition amongst the royal boxes: they were no longer up against the open couple and the discreet couple, but also the exotic and mysterious couple. And as the shepherd descended into the depths, her mind raced, searching for a way they could take the lead.

There is no competition, a rational part of her insisted. It's all something you've fabricated.

But that gave everything a kind of security to it, didn't it? Succeeding or failing was something private, something for only Rarity and herself. It didn't matter, in the end. It would be like taking a test she had written for herself. It wouldn't really be like taking a test at all.

Nopony can even see what you're doing from down there.

No, Twilight thought. No, they couldn't.

The shepherd had found the false miller's daughter. As she convinced him they had to go deeper down to get back to the surface, Twilight shifted her leg, pressing it against Rarity's. She was soft, comfortable. The contact was pleasant, the warmth from Rarity's body a nice physical sensation, like running through a thicket dappled with rays of sunshine or turning the pages of an age-worn book. Friends could do this, be in such close proximity to each other, couldn't they? She couldn't see why not. It was a little foolish that such intimacy was almost exclusively reserved for lovers.

Rarity relaxed into her. The way they were sitting was less like they were two dignified ponies dressed up in a box at the opera but a couple spending a night in on their worn loveseat, the performance in front of her and the crowd below her seeming peripheral. She tried to imagine her and Twilight in such a situation, possibly accompanied by their nearly-finished bottle of wine, and found it quite easy in a way that she had never been able to manage with any of her previous romantic fixations. Twilight was capable of being every part the image of immaculate royalty, but she was also homey, able to relax and sprawl out on a pile of cushions; it was no wonder all her crushes had come to nothing, if they were all missing to a fault that important private part of a relationship. But then, they had all been ponies whom she had only known the surface of, no inkling of their depths; Twilight was a whole pony, rounded and living and breathing before her.

She idly rubbed Twilight's leg while the shepherd and the disguised fae queen journeyed on, hardly aware she was doing it. The wine was taking its toll on her, as she could feel warmth in her cheeks and a tickling in her stomach. She should stop, before she got silly. But the little devil on her shoulder, the one that spoke up when there was another slice of cake or the last scoop of ice cream to be had, it was also a proponent of another bottle of wine. She could have ignored it. But the shepherd hadn't even made it to the prison where the real miller's daughter was being held yet. With so much of the opera left to go, Rarity gave Twilight's leg a squeeze and uncorked a second bottle.

That was when she felt Twilight's hoof on her own leg. That was not especially unusual, given the commitment the two of them had shown to their roles tonight, but Rarity did get somewhat of a shock when that hoof began to creep up her leg, parting the split in her dress. For a brief moment continuing made sense, letting Twilight quiet that niggling tingle between her legs -- blasted wine -- but then the orchestra sounded a descending spiral of notes to accompany the fae queen revealing herself, and she remembered where she -- they -- were. It was an act. It was all an act, no matter how seriously Twilight was taking things.

"Twilight!" she hissed, covering the errant hoof with her own. Not moving it back. Just stopping it.

Twilight looked at her, her face shrouded. Was she smiling? What sort of a smile was it? Was it saying it's okay, this is all part of the act? Or was it something else?

Rarity put her mouth to Twilight's ear, feeling the shoulder devil urging her to keep pace with Twilight's improvisation, feeling the wine nudging her into decidedly silly territory.

"Later," she whispered, and nipped on her ear.

The hoof high up on her leg squeezed. It didn't journey any higher.

But neither did it back away.

-/-

Neither of them were focused enough on the stage to be able to recall just how the opera ended, who the shepherd emerged into the sunlight with.

It didn't seem very important.