Author's Note
Check the description for a .pdf version. It is not recommended to read this story on FimFiction.
Chapter 1
Anxiously, Twilight found herself pacing around on the main floor of the library, throwing occasional glances at the unmoving door. The two months which lay between now and the defeat of Nightmare Moon ought to have given her the time to adjust to her new life, but while she was overall happier than ever before, at times the entire friendship business still seemed strange... and unsafe. At the very least, she was pretty sure that she wasn’t supposed to be this nervous, just because one of her closest friends was visiting.
Of course, for all the fuss with the elements, they were not actually that close. Two months back, Twilight might have believed that all of her social shortcomings had been miraculously solved, but the following weeks had gradually revealed the rather obvious fact that she’d still have to get to know her new friends better for that to become a reality.
For a while, that hadn’t been so difficult. It had even been fun. It was just that, usually, they met in groups.
Usually, they were more than just two.
Twilight gave a small sigh. It was much better to calm herself and take things as they came, than asking herself silly irrational questions like, what would happen if they didn’t get along? What would happen if Rarity ended up finding her boring? What would it mean for the elements? Could they even work if two of their members didn’t get along? What would Celestia say? What would it mean for her studies? And for Equestria? What would happen if the elements were needed for something, but didn’t work because of her? What if the fate of the entire world hung in the balance??
Suddenly, a much more significant thought made her wince. She was seeing Rarity. Should she have put something on? Surely, clothes were not expected for a casual meetup of this nature... r-right? Twilight almost broke a sweat, wondering just how it was possible that she wasn’t certain about such an incredibly basic thing. Then again... no, she was pretty sure that it wasn’t expected. That seemed ridiculous. But it was Rarity.
The knock that announced the arrival of her anticipated visitor put an end to this thought, and to all those which might have followed. More nervous than she was willing to admit to even herself, Twilight sped over to the door, taking the latch in a purple cloud and pulling it open.
Rarity stood in the entrance – to Twilight’s relief not wearing anything.
“Evening, darling.” There was a short, awkward moment as Twilight wasn’t sure which gesture was appropriate for an introduction, then Rarity’s mannerism provided an answer and they exchanged a short hug.
“Uh... hi,” Twilight said. “Come in.”
Rarity nodded, following her inside.
“Would you, um... like some tea?”
“Mh-hmh.”
“Black or green? Or herbal?”
“Green, please.”
“Gyokuro or Sencha?
Rarity laughed. “I’m afraid I don’t know enough to tell the difference.” But only a moment later, her face seemed to light up. “Actually, my mother used to make Gyokoru when I-”
“Gyokuro,” Twilight corrected her automatically, only to regret it a moment later. “Err, I mean... u-um... sorry.”
“Gyokuro.” If Rarity was bothered by the comment, she didn’t show it. “My mother used to make it, I believe. I did not like it then, but I haven’t tasted it in years. I’d like to try again.”Twilight nodded, heading for the kitchen. “Did you....” She put on water, and pulled a tin out of a cabinet. “... have any... plans for tonight?”
“Not really.” Twilight turned her head. Rarity gave a shrug, seemingly unconcerned. “We could just spend some time together, I thought. I’m sure we’ll find things to do.”
That answer didn’t serve to calm her nerves.
“You could start by telling me about your day, if you wish. What is everyday life like for a true magician such as yourself? I should add that I know preciously little about magic myself, mind you.”
“Oh. Uhm.” Twilight blinked, thinking about how to answer. “Most of it is reading...”
“Really? How so?”
“Well, for one because you can only do so much actual training in a day. It’s too exhausting. But also, a big part of learning spells is just reading. Even reading about unrelated things helps, because it’s easier to do magic when you’ve recently learned something you found interesting.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes.” Twilight threw some leaves into her tea pot, then took the other pot off the fire, pouring water over them. “It’s been shown by a study conducted a few decades ago by... in Canterlot. They took a group of students and had half of them play around for two days, while the other half was given access to the Royal Library to research a topic of their choice. Then, they tested each student on how fast she’d be able to learn a simple spell, and the first group averaged almost twice the time of the second.”
“I see. That’s quite interesting, I wonder... would a similar thing be true for other activities as well?”
“I doubt it.” Twilight lit her horn, erupting a single spark that glued itself to the bottom of the teacup. “Or to a much lesser extent, at least. It helps magic because how we perform magic is related to how we take in information.”
“You just cast something, didn’t you?”
“Oh, I just set a short timer. This tea has to brew for a bit over two minutes to be perfect.”
“I see. You like tea, I’m gathering?”Twilight nodded, gesturing for Rarity to take a seat as she put the kettle and two cups onto the table.
“My fillyhood wouldn’t have been half as fun without it.”
“Really?”
“You have no idea,” Twilight assured Rarity at her disbelieving expression. “You haven’t spent most of your time in your room reading dusty old books.”
“No, I can’t say that I have.”
“Uhm...” Twilight blushed a bit, for a moment remembering whom she was talking to, but kept going. “You know, the fewer things you have going on in your life, the more you’ll get into those. You have to have something... you know?”
“For you it was reading and tea, then? And magic?”
“And messing around with my brother, and playing with, err... a doll. But that was about it.”
“A doll?”
“Don’t ask. Please.”
Rarity smirked. “Very well.”
“What about you?” Offense was the best defense.
“Mh...” Rarity didn’t seem to feel any pressure to come up with a quick answer, instead shifting her gaze around the room while she was thinking.
“I’d say, Fluttershy, my parents, chess, trying to behave like a proper lady, school, and worrying what other ponies think of me.”
The answer was surprising to Twilight, both in how thorough it was, and because it displayed an amount of self-awareness that she hadn’t expected the fashionista to have. But also because...
“... chess? And Fluttershy?”
“Mh?”
“So you’ve known Fluttershy since...”
“About a year after she came to Ponyville, which was six years ago. She used to live in Cloudsdale.”
“Oh.” Somewhat taken off course by the unexpected information, Twilight tried to think of a response, but nothing came to mind. Eventually, she saved herself with another question.
“Uhm, chess?”Rarity nodded. “An older cousin of mine introduced me to chess, and we always used to play it when she visited. Which was quite often.”
“Are you good at it?”
“Not really.” Rarity gave a relaxed smile. “It’s been too long, and I’ve since come to dislike it, and games in general. I don’t enjoy competition.”
“Really?”
Her alarm spell went off, and she poured the contents of the kettle into the two cups, then went to throw the used leaves into the trash.
“With your line of work, I’d have thought you liked competing. Isn’t the fashion industry like that, where everypony has to try to outperform their rivals?”
“The farther you get, the more it becomes like that, I’m afraid. But there is a subtle difference between wanting to compete and doing your best which then happens to compete.” Rarity blew at her cup. “I’m not claiming to be perfect at it, but I’m doing my best.”
“You mean your best at not focusing on the competition?”Rarity nodded. “Competition is... not good for me. I get too invested in it, and lose sight of what really matters. I live more happily the less I think about it. Or, care about it, rather.”
A small, pleasant chill ran down her spine. She really hadn’t known Rarity before.
“I don’t like competing either,” she said in a quiet voice. “Especially not with friends. I don’t like having to consider them my opponent. I... I don’t really understand this whole friendly rivalry thing.”
“No rivalry between you and other magicians?”
“What other magicians,” Twilight said drily.
“Pardon?”
“Nopony actually studies magic,” she elaborated. “There’s a difference between learning how a spell works and learning how to cast it, and if you only learn how to cast it, then you’re not a magician. You’ll just have a small list of spells you can do, and nothing in between. Even if all you needed was a small variation of one of the spells you knew, you couldn’t do it, because you wouldn’t understand the drafting process.”
“But there are books about it, aren’t there?”
“Most of them are really old...” Twilight sighed solemnly. “Back when we didn’t have as many spells, studying magic was necessary, because you can’t design spells if you don’t know how they work. But now, fewer and fewer ponies do it.”
“It takes more work, I presume?”
“Much.”
“I see.” Rarity took a careful sip of her tea, the cup engulfed in a pale shade of silver. “Mhh, this is actually quite good. Much better than what I remember.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“Are there any mysterious secrets that one must know to prepare Gyokuro correctly, of which my parents might have lacked knowledge?”
Even though she wasn’t sure how much of Rarity’s question was serious, Twilight decided to give the accurate answer.
“Uhm. The most common mistake is probably to use boiling water. Gyokuro brews best with water at only around 140 degrees; going above that means it loses some of its flavor.”
“Interesting.” Rarity took another sip, her face showcasing clear signs of approval. “I shall try this myself, some time.”
“I have reserves in stock,” Twilight remarked. “The shop in Ponyville doesn’t have all the tea I like, and it could always run out, so I make sure to keep backup supplies. I could give you some, if you want.
“That’s nice of you. I’ll take some when I leave.”
Twilight gave a smile, hoping that she wasn’t blushing. Then, just as she was beginning to wonder whether the current silence was long enough to be considered uncomfortable, Rarity interrupted it.
“Show me a spell!”
“Uhm... what?”
“Show me a spell,” Rarity repeated. “You said that you’re one of the few ponies who actually studies magic, so it shouldn’t be hard to impress a pony like me, who only knows a single spell besides levitation.”
“Which one is that?” Twilight asked curiously.
“A locater for gemstones. But don’t distract.”
“...” Twilight considered the task at hoof, scouring through her internal archive for possibilities. “Any preference?”
“How about something visual?”
“Like a light show?”
“That sounds marvelous.”
“Uhm... yeah, I could do that. Give me a moment.”Rarity nodded, lifting her cup back to her lips as she waited. Despite the confidence she had shown, what Twilight had promised was no easy task. She had never learned a specific spell for this purpose, which meant that she had to improvise, and that meant doing all the pattern alignment manually. That by itself was horrendously difficult, but also largely what she had been practicing for the last thirteen years. Now, however, she had to do it in limited time, and preferably at the first try. At least it was safe, otherwise it would have been foolish to consent to the request.
“Something wrong, dear?”Twilight blinked, her concentration disrupted.“No, but I have to improvise a spell,” she explained. “That takes time. I’ll need another... well, about twice as much time as I’ve had so far.”
“I see. Apologies.”
Twilight nodded, focusing back on the task. She knew what she wanted, and she knew how to do it, and despite the difficulties, she was confident that she could do it, particularly now that she had already begun. Soon, she had figured out what pattern would get the effect for each individual element, now all she needed to do was to multiply that... adjust the movement...
Without further ado, Twilight lit her horn in a gradually intensifying shade of purple, causing one, two, three specks of light to emerge, one white, one a light blue and the third a dark purple, matching the colors of Rarity’s skin, cutie mark and mane. Carefully, she let them twirl and dance around a bit, getting more confident as she did so, soon having them almost cross, letting the blue run in loops around the white while the purple one drew wide circles around both. Eventually, she was bold enough to erupt a forth, a darker blue that was trying to match the color of Rarity’s eyes.
She spent a while having them rotate in a circle, trying to add unique subtleties to each one; a bounce up and down to the white one, in and out for the blue one, adding spirals to the purple’s path, and varying the color saturation of the last, dark blue orb. Then she broke the pattern at once, having all of them flee outward, only to be drawn in at the next moment, colliding in the middle into a single bulb with all the colors of the rainbow, which she held for a few seconds until she made it explode into a hundred tiny sparkling bits that quickly faded away as she ended the stream with a sigh of relief.
Rarity clapped her hooves once it was over, even giving a light cheer. Now, Twilight was pretty sure that she was blushing, but she didn’t really mind anymore.
“That was beautiful.”
“... thanks.”
“Have you ever considered making it a show? If that was just what you came up with in two minutes, then I’m sure if you put in a week’s worth of work, many ponies would pay to see it.”
“I...” Twilight gave somewhat of a helpless shrug. The thought was not new to her, but she had no interest in pursuing that path. “No, not really. I don’t think it’s something I’d want to do, and... I don’t enjoy performing in front of a crowd. Plus,” she added with a giggle, “I don’t have financial problems.”
“So being the princess’ personal protegée pays well? I’ve been wondering.”
“Ah.” Twilight instinctively took a sip of her tea to buy time. “Um. Yeah.”
To this, Rarity gave no response, and the conversation died down for a time. Then...
“Let’s play something!”
“Uhm. Play what?”
“How about...” It wasn’t lost on Twilight that Rarity leaned forward in her seat as she said this. “Truth or dare!”Heat shot into Twilight’s head, mixed with a surge of panic, and she frantically shook her head.
“No? Why not?”
“I... it...”
“Yes?”
“Well...” Twilight fidgeted around nervously, trying to dodge the other pony’s gaze. “It’s...” She tried to come up with a word other than ‘embarrassing’. “...private.”
“Ah.” Rarity giggled. “True, that.”
“A-and... uh...”
“How about a lighter version, then? You don’t have to do things you don’t want to. Or answer things.”
“Uhh... but wouldn’t that defeat the point?”
“Only if we overuse it.”
“Um. I guess...”
“No pressure, dear. It was just an idea.”
Twilight felt herself stalling a bit more, but only to bridge time before taking the inevitable easy way out she had just been offered. At the same time, she felt a vague stitch of regret for not going to be having said yes...
“Okay.”
Rarity’s face lit up. “Splendid!” She giggled lightly, taking another sip at her tea. “It’ll be fun, you’ll see.”
“S-sure.”
“Do you... mhh... have a spell to do a coin flip?”
“No. Simulating randomness is almost impossible.”
“A real coin, then?”
“I guess, yeah.” Giving herself a push, Twilight stood up. “We can use my room if you want.”
“Did you plan this?” Twilight asked, feeling Rarity’s breath hot against her skin.
“I was hopeful,” Rarity responded, “I like you, but I did not mean for it to be so sudden, or even today, Twilight, I do not mean to take advantage of you.”
But Twilight did not let her talk more.
They kissed again.
Rarity’s lips tasted... not sweet, but wonderful... in a way which Twilight could not seem to place.
“Don’t be sorry,” she whispered, “I don’t think this is a mistake, or does it feel like one to you?”
“You are inexperienced, Twilight,” Rarity said, though it seemed to take great effort from her, “the only pony who has ever won your affection is a teacher, who was three times your age, and you’ve never talked about it with anypony, not even your brother. We might not get along together. It could be a mistake. I didn’t mean for it to be this way, but you...” she paused. “... took the initiative and I didn’t say no. I am not blaming you, dear, please understand that. We can try this if you want but there is a chance it doesn’t work out.”
Twilight gulped, and slowly, things seemed to become less surreal again. Suddenly Rarity’s words made sense. Even Twilight knew that a single moment of romantic attraction was not the best basis for a relationship. As right as it had felt a moment ago, it might not be the smart thing to do. In the back of her mind she knew that this was a decision not to be taken lightly.
She bit her lip.
“Your choice, Twilight. You can take your time, if you want.”
Twilight nodded.
“Yes...” she said eventually. “You’re right. It wouldn’t be smart.”
Rarity’s smile vanished. Twilight could feel a stitching pain in the left part of her breast as she realized how disappointed the fashionista really was – no, how disappointed Rarity really was.
“But that doesn’t mean there can’t be anything between us,” Twilight added quickly. “I only said no to starting a relationship right now. We could still, uhm-”
“-go on a date?” Rarity suggested.
Twilight nodded.
Rarity smiled again, though now maybe it was a bit forced. But not much, really. And as Twilight kept watching her and their gazes met once more, it seemed to become real again.
“So we’ll spend more time together,” Rarity said, “and if we have fun together, then we try again?”
Twilight nodded. “How about in three days,” she said, feeling an urge to take the initiative, “I could take you to dinner? Then we have some time to think things through.”
“That sounds lovely.” And Rarity smiled. “But dear, why not let me choose the place?”
“Alright,” Twilight said, “but I’ll pay.”
Rarity smirked. “Though it might not be proper for a true lady to take that offer, I have a hunch that you can afford it ...”
Both of them laughed.
“It’s a date?” Twilight asked hopefully, and Rarity nodded, still smiling.
“It’s a date.”
Author's Note
Hey there! I hope you arrived here from my notes on the .pdf version.
The idea that sparked this story has nothing to do with what it is now. The first thing I ever published on FimFiction is a piece titled "Infintiy," an ambitious tale about an alternate progression of life for the main6, that was set to go on indefinitely. As you can guess, it never went past a single published chapter, even though I had countless ideas for future plot points. One of those was about Twilight dreaming the world were consumed by a horrible cataclysm and seeking out the literal goddess (not Celestia, but someone above her) of the world to ask, "how could you let this happen?" The goddess said it was an accident, that she has been so wrapped up in a thought that she simply did not notice... however, she would fix everything, bring everypony back to life and restore the world, exactly as it has been before. I flipped between wanting this to be a dream and a real thing.
Later it became quite obvious that I wouldn't continue with Infinity in the foreseeable future, but I still liked this idea, so I decided to pack it into its own story. I wanted it to be a protest against tagging, and sort of against the idea of genres. It had to be a romance story – as harmless as it gets – and in the third chapter, as Twilight and Rarity meet for dinner in a lovely little restaurant, Rarity suddenly points to a comet in the sky, and Twilight turns her head in time to see a second one, a third one, and suddenly countless comets, all sailing across the sky, and then the sky itself bursts into flames, and chaos breaks out, and as the sky is dissolving to ash, that ash falls down and covers the world, getting into Twilight's lungs as she seeks to bring Rarity and herself to safety, fleeing into the caves near the Diamond Dog area. She casts one last spell to rip herself out of the physical plane onto the magical one, which is essentially suicide you see, and a painful one too, but it's the only way to seek out goddess Liara, which no-pony ought to know of, but Celestia had mentioned her once... and just like it was planed in the original story, Liara makes it all right again, and at last Twilight finds herself in the same restaurant once more, with Rarity at her side, keeping their memories... in light of what happened, the thing between them seems much less mysterious, and they now discuss it openly, both concluding that, despite their horrific experience, this is something so important that they don't want to lose it. And so the story concludes, but the romance does not.
I wrote all that before I got very far into the first chapter. But there was a problem. I wanted the beginning – the first two chapters – to be a captivating romance story, and I wasn't really very good at writing captivating romance. Eventually I wrote it anyway, driven by wanting to reach chapters two and three, as well as the small section about Twilight apologizing to Rarity for having looked down on her before, which was written as an idle scene long before I knew what the second chapter would look like. But as I got the Truth or Truth idea, I began to actually get into it. Suddenly I cared about the romance story as a romance story, not as a setup for a world-ending cataclysm. Then I read House of Leaves, and discovered what you can do with formatting to enhance the plot. House of Leaves does it for an agoraphobic and claustrophobic effect; I use it to signal Twilight leaving her c o m f o r t z o n e, and while it is time-consuming, I simply loved the effect it has; I don't know if anyone else does (and I've never seen it done by anyone else) but I do, so I kept doing it. Alas I got really attached to the story, so much that I decided, screw all the world-ending business, this is now a proper, straight-forward romance story, with no dark twists whatsoever, and even rated E!
It is the first time that I tried to develop feelings during the story... usually I simply start off with two of the main6 already being in a relationship, and have that in the background without ever talking about it explicitly. The only exception is The Shrotcut, but even there, it starts off with Twilight already feeling things for Fluttershy. Here, it was all about recreating each moment as authentically as possible, so following my usual priorities, all coin-flips were randomized and all questions were chosen on-the-fly, including the one which lead to the ending. After all, how could I ever write a spontaneous progression believably if not by living the situation myself, as closely as I can? Even so, I'm not sure how well I did.
Anyways. meow! I'm a pony!
