A Year Later

Twilight woke up from a restful sleep. After her talk with Rainbow Dash yesterday, she found it hard to fall asleep last night. When she did, however, she fell into a deep dreamless sleep that surrounded her like a mist of fog. She woke up early, but did not rush getting ready for the day. She took her time brushing her mane, and even felt adventurous enough to put on some makeup. She had several meetings to attend today, and found that looking her best was an easy way to persuade others to see things in her particular light.

Just as she finished touching up her mascara, she heard a knock on the door. She cocked her head to the doorway, “Who is it?”

“Who do you think.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and grinned at the casual reply. “Come on in, Spike.” The door creaked open, and a green and purple baby dragon made his way inside.

“Good morning, Twilight. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, for some reason. Usually the day before meetings I can’t get a wink of shut eye, but last night was...different. What’s up?”

Spike revealed several scrolls rolled up under his arm. “I came to review the meeting notes from last time to refresh you on what the topics are today.”

“Oh, okay. Fire when ready.”

“Okay, so. You have a meeting with Celestia at ten o’clock. This is about her formal request for a weekly cake sent from the Pie household.”

“And how I have to convince her that eating like that will only end up in tragedy for her waistline?” Twilight gave a small chuckle.

Spike snickered, “For sure. Next up is a meeting with the newly elected King of Griffonstone.”

Twilight clapped her hooves. “Ohh! I’m so eager to talk diplomatic and friendship relations with him! What do you think he’ll be like? He’ll probably love books, be smart, brave”- she looked out the window of her room -“probably handsome…”

“Ahem. Moving on. After those two meetings, you’ll break for lunch-”

A sudden thought struck Twilight. “Hey, how’s Rainbow Dash doing?”

Spike stammered, as he tried to quickly hop on this sudden train of thought. “Wha-what? Who? Oh, Rainbow Dash? I guess she’s fine. Haven’t heard from her since yesterday. Why?”

Twilight rubbed her chin. “Well, we had a few...words between us yesterday. She left in a bit of a hurry, and I was just making sure she was doing okay.”

Spike remembered yesterday. He had gone off to fetch some tea, and heard the whole argument from the kitchen. “Like I said, I wouldn’t know. Why don’t you take a break after lunch to go check on her? I was just getting to the after lunch schedule, and it shows that you have a block of an hour free time.”

“I suppose I could. I mean, after yesterday, what harm could come from it, right? If anything, she’ll know that I still care about her.”

“Yeah, it might do some good.” Spike turned to leave, but a thought popped into his mind. “Hey, Twilight, quick question.”

“Yes, Spike?”

“What Rainbow Dash said yesterday, about the man being here and doing all those things...I mean, I know how you feel about it, but do you think she could be right? Could what she said happened really have happened?”

Twilight sighed. “Spike, almost anything is possible. Except that. I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t make logical sense. It’d be foolish to let something like that into our conscience. Especially with no actual proof to back it up.” She turned to give herself one more once-over look in the mirror. “It may help Rainbow Dash feel some kind of spiritual fulfillment; but for me, it just sounds like another fairy tale.”

Scootaloo picked up her back and hugged Applejack goodbye. “Later! I’m off to school!”

Applejack grinned. “And you better head right to school, got it? No sneaking off to Rainbow Dash’s house to bug her now that you got them purty little wings.”

“Psh. Why would I do something like that? I value my education far too much to do a silly thing like that!”

The last thing Scootaloo heard was Applejack yelling at her in her thick southern accent as she flew out the door.

Scootaloo flew to Rainbow’s house quickly, as to not waste too much time. She knocked on the door, and Rainbow answered. “Hey Scoots, what’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much. I’m on my way to school. Just wanted to stop by and see how yesterday went with you and Twilight.”

Rainbow scratched the back of her head. “Oh. Yeah, that. It uh, it went...well.”

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “Rainbow, you know you’re a horrible liar, right?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Look, it just didn’t go as well as I thought. Maybe it was a dumb idea. After all, it is Twilight we’re talking about.”

“Well, I’m sure she’ll get over it. She’s the princess of friendship, after all. Look, I gotta get going, and you have to get to work. Cheer up, alright? Don’t forget, tomorrow’s our practice day.”

The two exchanged a quick hug, and parted ways. As Rainbow Dash prepared to leave for work, she pondered her exchange with Twilight a day earlier, and muttered to herself, “I hope you’re right, Scoots.”

Rainbow Dash busted clouds with vigor as she neared her lunch break, and it couldn’t come soon enough. When she returned back to her house last night after her argument with Twilight, she forgot to eat anything, and woke up late this morning, which meant no morning bagel for her. No dinner and a missed breakfast due to poor time management meant one hungry blue pegasus.

The lunch whistle let out it’s afternoon steam, and all the ponies around to hear it broke for lunch. Rainbow flew to her house for a salad and some apple juice, as well as a well-deserved power nap to follow it up.

She heard a knock on the door, just as she was about to take her first bite into her salad. “Aww, come on! Ugh, coming!” She got up from her recliner and flew gently to the door, and peered through the spyglass.

It was Twilight.

Suddenly, her gut felt a hundred pounds heavier, and she couldn’t breathe right. What if things would be awkward? What if Twilight came to berate her some more for her beliefs? She looked through the spyglass again, and saw Twilight waiting patiently with a plain expression on her face. Rainbow took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. She put on her best fake smile, and opened the door for her friend. “Twilight! So good to see you! How you doin’, girl?”

Twilight raised a weary brow upon seeing her friend’s overzealous greeting. “I’m alright, I suppose. That’s the reason I came here, actually, to check up on you.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to, really. Wanna come in? I just made a salad.”

“Sure, that sounds great.”

The two walked into the house. Rainbow offered her some lunch, “Want a plate?”

Twilight put a hoof up. “No, really, that’s fine. Listen, about yesterday, I-”

Rainbow waved a dismissing hoof. “It’s okay, Twilight, I get it.”

“You do?”

“Sure. I mean, I have to admit, I was a little offended at the fact that you thought I was lying, but-”

“I never said you were lying, I just said that I didn’t believe you.”

Rainbow’s face fell. “Twilight, that’s like, the definition of thinking someone’s lying.”

Twilight shook her head. “Either way, I’m sorry. I hope this hasn’t come between us. You know how hard it is for me to get into the supernatural side of things. I’m more for hard science, not fairy tales.”

Rainbow felt her blood beginning to heat a bit at Twilight using that term. “Fairy tale? Is that what that was to you? My life changes in so many different ways in such a short time, extraordinary things happen to me, and you dismiss it as a fairy tale?”

Twilight panicked. “No no! I didn’t mean it that way, I-”

“Then how did you mean it?” Rainbow closed in on Twilight. “You come to my house to apologize, and now you insult me?”

Twilight found herself bumping her backside against the door. “Rainbow, please! Can you listen for just one minute?”

Rainbow calmed down enough to take a few deep breaths. “What?”

Twilight let out a breath of her own. “Okay, look. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I just said that, and I’m sorry things ended the way they did yesterday. But, you have to understand, this is hard for me, you know? I’m not good with this kind of stuff. And when you came to me, I thought something was wrong. I thought you were hurt or needed something. But when you told me what you told me, I just didn’t know what to make of it. I felt like I wanted to ask questions, but I didn’t know what to ask. Plus, no offense, but you kind of spoke really super fast.” Twilight looked down at the cloud floor, as looking up at Rainbow Dash seemed to be too much work.

Rainbow felt her growing rage subside as she looked at her friend. Worried, scared, whatever anypony wanted to call it, Twilight was feeling something. And whatever she was feeling, it wasn’t arrogance. Rainbow could tell that much.

Rainbow sighed. “Nah, you’re good. I just guess I was excited, ya know? Nothing like this has ever happened to me, or anypony else in forever. I just thought what better person to share this with than you? You love this kind of stuff! You’re always reading books on mythology, and science, and all this other brainiac stuff that no one cares about, I figured you’d care about this.”

That last statement hit Twilight hard in the gut like a cannonball. She let out her breath she was holding and looked at Rainbow with a half smile. “Look, I have an idea. If you want, you can re-tell it to me. Maybe I missed something, or just wasn’t paying close enough attention.”

Rainbow blushed. “Yeah, I kind of was talking fast, I suppose.”

Twilight’s ears perked up. “I’ll tell you what. Come by the castle after work, and you can tell me there. And I promise, that I’ll actually ask good questions, ones that will actually spike my own curiosity. Deal?”

Rainbow returned the half-smile. “Deal. I guess I should get back to work, it’s almost two and I have another acre and a half of clouds to clear by four o-clock. Time’s-a-ticking.”

They said their goodbyes and Rainbow closed her door. She turned back to her chair, only to see an uneaten salad glaring back at her. “Gahh! When can I ever eat?!”

After Rainbow Dash and Twilight had met together once again later that evening, Rainbow re-told her story. She described it in as much detail as she could remember, and Twilight listened intently to every word and even asked for clarification when she needed to.

“And then I came to tell you the other day, and, well, we all know how that ended.” Rainbow said the last statement with a bit of meekness attached to it, as she did not want to unearth old memories of the other night.

Twilight spoke slowly as she carefully chose her words. “So Rainbow, if you claim to know this man, how do you communicate?”

Rainbow rubbed the back of her head. “See, that part’s kind of tricky. It’s like, I talk to Him, and He makes stuff happen. I’m not sure how to describe it.”

“You mean you pray?”

Rainbow’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! That’s it! I pray, and He hears me.”

“Hmm. This sure does make for some interesting possibilities. Is there a way you can have me talk to Him?”

Rainbow cocked a brow in confusion, “What do you mean? Like, a letter or something?”

“Yes, that’s exactly it. Can you have this Jesus person write a letter to me?”

Rainbow tossed her words around in her head. “Well, I don’t know. See, it’s a pony-to-pony thing, ya know? The way I talk to Him might not be how you do, and so on. I mean, the most I can tell you is to just...talk. Just talk like you would to me, or any other pony. And He’ll hear you, if you believe.”

“Well, how am I supposed to talk to Him if I don’t believe?”

“That’s something you’ll have to work out with Him.”

Twilight smacked her forehead. This was harder than she thought.

Rainbow saw how stressed she was, and put a hoof out onto Twilight’s. “Look, I’ll tell ya what. I’ll ask Him the next time I talk to Him about you, and see if He can, I dunno, cook something up. Maybe if I pray for you, it’ll be like encouraging Him or something. I’m not really sure how this works, but it couldn’t hurt, right?”

Twilight smiled at her friend’s gesture. “Of course, Rainbow, thank you.”

The two talked for another half an hour about odd and end things to finish off their night on a lighter note. Rainbow said her goodbyes and flew off into the night towards her home. Twilight waved her friend off, and returned to her quarters for the evening.
Twilight once again heard the familiar tap tap of her door, followed by a tiny dragon making his entrance. “Is it okay if I come in?”

“I believe you already are. But yeah, come in.” Twilight smiled at Spikes delayed manners.

“So, how did the revised talk go?”

Twilight huffed. “Well, it went better than last night’s, that’s for sure. I actually find myself curious to talk to this Jesus guy, but I’m not sure how.”

Spike put his claw up to his chin in thought, and had an idea. “Why don’t you write Him a letter? I’ll even send it off for you.”

Twilight smiled at her number one assistant’s humble suggestion. “Thank you, Spike, but I’m not sure He’d even get it.”

“You never know, Twilight. Stranger things have been known to happen. And so what if He doesn’t get it? At least you’ve tried.” He suddenly had a minor coughing fit, to which several throat-clearing attempts were made after.

Twilight’s expression lifted for a moment, “Spike, are you okay?”
Spike laughed. “Just a little cough is all. All those nights outside Rarity’s window trying to serenade her are catching up to me, I suppose.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and playfully slapped Spike’s shoulder, to which he giggled.

After a good minute or two of laughing and kidding around, Twilight thought back to what Spike had previously said, and pondered his suggestion for a moment. “You know what? Spike, I’m going to do this. Could you leave me for a few minutes while I collect my thoughts?”

Spike smiled. “As you wish, princess.” He turned, closed the door, and left Twilight to her letter.

Twilight walked gingerly over to her writing table, got a fresh sheet of parchment out, dipped her quill in her ink, and penned her letter.

Dear Jesus,

My friend Rainbow Dash speaks very highly of You. In fact, upon hearing her description of You, I find this hunger to know who, or rather, what You are. I’m not quite sure if this letter will reach You, but I do ask that You would contact me as soon as possible for a talk. I’d love to get to know You, if You’re everything Rainbow says You are.

Sincerely,

Princess Twilight Sparkle

Looking down at what she wrote, she smiled. “Spike!” No sooner than she called him did he poke through her doorway.

“Yes?”

“Could you please send this out? I’m not sure to where, but I’ll trust your judgement.”

“I’ll do my best, Twilight.” With that, he blew his signature green flame onto the letter, and it dissipated in thin air.

Twilight yawned, and stretched out her forelimbs. “C’mon, let’s get some sleep. It’s getting late, and if I remember right, you have a cough to fight off.”

They chuckled, and retired for the night.

Princess Celestia signed the last of her documents and blew out her candles for the evening. She left her study, and locked the door. As she walked down the halls, she caught glimpse of Luna raising the moon in the sky. She nodded in silent acknowledgement, and continued on to her quarters.

Celestia brushed her mane, and got ready for bed. Just as she was getting tucked in, a scroll dropped out of a green tint of light onto her comforter. Figuring it was for her, she gently opened it, and read its contents. She felt the corners of her mouth tug into a grin, and set the letter on the nightstand.

Before she went to bed, she made a mental note to have a talk with Twilight as soon as she could.