Giving it a try

by The Bricklayer

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Sad, Romance, Drama, Moondancer, Princess Celestia
Length: 1770

Twilight's just gotten back to Ponyville after amending her friendships with her oldest friends. She's happy about that, but still there's something nagging at her.

Twilight's just gotten back to Ponyville after amending her friendships with her oldest friends. She's happy about that, but still there's something nagging at her. If she didn't know better, Moondancer was more pained about Twilight coming to the party then any friend had a right to be. Of course, when Moondancer comes to her with the full truth, Twilight is left with a hard choice on her hooves. And it might just take a bit of advice from her mentor to make up her mind...

Contains Moondancer/Twilight shipping and motherly Celestia. Takes place after Amending Fences.

Published 2016-05-06 18:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2016-05-06 18:40:02 UTC

Twilight's Dilemma

With a yawn, Twilight opened the bedroom door to her castle in Ponyville. It was late, and Luna's moon shown through the window with it's moonlight casting a almost eerie glow. It was comforting as well, in it's own way. Twilight sighed, her bed never looked so good after her long journey back from Canterlot. During her brief stay there, she'd made up with some of her oldest friends, Lyra, Minutte, Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts and Moondancer.

Ah, Moondancer. Making up with her was a tale in itself. You see, after Twilight had left the city to Ponyville right before Nightmare Moon's return during the Summer Sun Celebration, Moondancer had become a shut-in with only her books and spells that she wanted to learn to console her. She was actually worse then Twilight had ever been if you could believe it. Speaking of Twilight, currently she was frowning in guilt each time she thought of her old friend. It was HER fault she ended up the way she did, alone and bitter. If she had just gone to that party things might have been different.

"No..." Twilight said to herself. "Nightmare Moon was about to return, and if I had gone to that party I might never have been aware of it and she would have taken over the kingdom and probably Equus as well!" Twilight panicked as she consoled herself. "So therefore I had very good reasons to ditch Moondancer." She continued as she fell to the bed before letting out another loud yawn.

But not even Twilight herself believed her own words. She could have gone to that party, at least for a little bit and spent time with her friends and still found out about Nightmare later that night.

"I was too interested in my books and studies. Look where that almost got me..." Twilight muttered. "I could have lost a very good friend. Tartarus, I almost did."

As she said this, she thought back to the party she and Pinkie had organized to make it up to Moondancer.

"Well, sure, why wouldn't it? That was only the first time I put myself out there, and then you didn't even bother to show up! Then you left town without saying goodbye even though we were supposed to be friends! I was humiliated!" Moondancer yelled at her, in rage and pain. All around her, the party guests watched the developing situation with looks of interest their activities forgottened. Moondancer meanwhile continued her rant with Twilight taking a step back.

"I felt like I wasn't important! I never wanted to let myself be hurt like that again! Those three finally convinced me that I had value! That other ponies might like me and want to be my friend! And you! Didn't! Show! Up!" With that she let out a loud scream before collapsing into sobs.

Back in the present, Twilight frowned to herself. While she had seen other ponies mad because of mistakes made in their friendships, it was nothing like that.

"It's almost as if..." Twilight mused. "Nah, it couldn't be. Moondancer couldn't possibly have a..."

Then it hit her, like a bullet fired from a gun.

"She does... Oh dear Celestia, Moondancer has a crush on me." Twilight said slowly before it fully registered and she repeated this, this time in shock. "Moondancer's got a crush on me! What... WHAT!?!"

With that, Twilight fainted dead away.

The next morning Spike found Twilight pacing around and muttering to herself under her breath in the castle's library various books scattered around. Spike took a glance at one as he picked it up and frowned to himself.

"Romance novels? What the heck is Twilight doing with these? She's never been one for that sort of stuff." Spike murmured to himself in thought.

All the while, nearby Twilight continued pacing and muttering to herself. "No no no... This does not compute, she can't possibly... But she does!"

Spike raised a eyebrow. Okay, now he was really interested.

"Uh Twi, what's going on?" He asked, but received no answer.

Instead, Twilight dashed out of the room saying "I have to see Moondancer about this!" leaving Spike to mutter to himself "Why do I even bother?" with a shrug before he said "Oh well, maybe Rarity needs my help."

It wasn't long before Twilight found Moondancer at the Canterlot Royal Library with her nose in a book rather unsurprisingly. Moondancer didn't notice the room's newest arrival at first but she definitely did when Twilight grabbed her and whirled her around.

"Doyouhaveacrushonme?" Twilight said, far to rapidly for her friend to get any of what she just said. Moondancer blinked in confusion.

"Uh... What? Twilight, what are you doing here?" Moondancer asked slowly before she took a wild guess. "Wait, are you here to finally teach me Haycarte's method?" She asked, only to get a head shake from Twilight.

"Listen, you didn't have to come all this way to see me." Moondancer reassured. "We were all going to meet up in Ponyville next week. Lyra's suggestion, remember?"

Twilight then took Moondancer aside to a row of bookcases deep in the library where nopony could hear anything of the discussion of what they were about to have.

"Do you... Oh Celestia, can't believe this is that hard for me to ask..." Twilight muttered to herself before regaining her composure. "Moondancer, do you have a crush on me?"

Moondancer's jaw dropped before she rapidly shook her head no in denial. But Twilight wasn't fooled in the slightest as she could tell when somepony was lying to her. In fact, Moondancer was denying things almost the exact same way Twilight herself used to. Actually, she looked like Twilight did when her foalsitter once caught her with her hoof in the cookie jar. Twilight arched a eyebrow and gave Moondancer a deadpan look, making her give up the ghost so to speak at last.

"YES!" Moondancer finally shouted. "Yes, of course I have a crush on you! Did it really take you this long for you to figure that out?" Moondancer snapped. "I thought you were smart." She added sarcastically and Twilight blanched.

"I... I didn't know." She whispered just loud enough for Moondancer to hear.

"Could I have really made it any more obvious?" Moondancer retorted. "What, did I have hang up some big sign to say it?"

With that, Moondancer ran off sobbing while Twilight watched.

"I really didn't know..." She whispered sadly. "But what do I do? It's not like I've ever encountered this particular form of friendship problem before. Maybe the Princess knows what to do..." Twilight thought.

Princess Celestia was having a nice day, and absolutely nothing could ruin it. To make the most of it, she intended to just curl up with a good book and just spend the next few hours lost in it. Let's put it this way, there was a reason Twilight looked up to her so much besides her good heart and wisdom. Wisdom which Twilight was very much in need of right now, as Celestia found out when her faithful student crashed in through her bedroom doors. Celestia groaned, she thought Luna was the only one who would ever do that...

"Twilight, what's wrong?" Celestia asked in concern seeing her student's panicked look.

"Moondancer, she has a crush on me and I don't know what to do!" Twilight once again said rapidly, and like before it was far too rapid for Celestia to understand any of it.

"Twilight, calm down and take a few deep breaths. Here, take this." Celestia said, before levitating a glass of water towards the lavender alicorn which was currently following her teacher and mother in all but blood's directions. Twilight gladly took the water and drank it all down before she explained her situation. Celestia took it all in and sighed.

"Well, this is a problem isn't it?" She murmured. "Well, there is no easy solution to this but here's what I suggest. But before I do that, let me ask you something Twilight. Do you like Moondancer in more then a friendly way?" Celestia asked kindly.

"I... I don't know." Twilight stammered. "I guess... I don't know. It's all so confusing."

"Romance never is easy." Celestia smiled. "Trust me, I know. Did I ever tell you about me and Discord?"

Twilight's jaw dropped. Despite hearing many stories from her mentor, this was one thing she'd never shared in Twilight's memory. Celestia saw her expression and chuckled to herself.

"Trust me, it's not that hard to guess how interesting and often difficult that was." Celestia smiled again. "Anyways, what I would suggest for this would be just to give it a try. You never know how things may turn out."

Twilight said "T-thank you." before running off in search of Moondancer once more. Celestia looked at the door and sighed. Time to call the castle repair crews once again...

A few moments later, Twilight was knocking on the door of Moondancer's house. It was swiftly opened, and Twilight met Moondancer once more.

"What do you want?" Moondancer asked bitterly.

"To apologize." Twilight said sadly. "I should have noticed."

Of all the things that had been going through Moondancer's mind and what she expected, this wasn't remotely close to any of them whatsoever.

"W-what?" She stammered, and Twilight smiled.

"I said I'm sorry."

Moondancer shook her head and smiled sadly.

"No, I'm the one who should be sorry. I flew off the handle at you again." She said, before she and her crush shared a hug which was followed by a rather awkward silence. Moondancer coughed to break it up.

"Well, that was..."

Twilight chuckled.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Hey, listen. I didn't come hear just to apologize. I came here to ask you something." She began, and what she said next led to another jaw drop from Moondancer.

"I came to ask you out on a date. Y'know, just to see what'll happen. Who's to say, right? For all I know it may work." Twilight stammered and Moondancer smiled the brightest she had all day.

"I'd like that."

END

Author's Note

Okay, let's face it. This is what quite a few of us thought would make more sense for Moondancer to be so angry with Twilight about. While I understand and accept the jilted friend angle, it does work quite well in my opinion but I just had to write this.:twilightsmile:

Anyways, with this being one of the few romance things I've ever done it's probably crap.:twilightblush: What do you guys think?