Via Prisma

   "I suppose I never really got around to finishing it," Rarity replied, touching the thick gabardine that lined the bottom of the outer layer. "Sometimes... I don't know. You sort of run out of time for things like this, don't you." She put her hands on her hips. "I want to get back to this kind of thing." Her voice had fallen until it was nearly a whisper. "I want..."

   At this, she trailed off, absorbed in thought. The word 'want' had roused tiny emotions from the corners of her mind - wisps of anxiety, wisps of something bittersweet, wisps of something else unknown. "... Sometimes I don't really know what I want, Applejack."

   She turned as she said this, and met her bright green eyes directly. Then, without warning, as though the stillness folded in on itself, she was close. The room pressurized, wrapped up in the curtains around them, wrapped up in the shadows. It was ruined and completed by Applejack's sudden movement, a single step, a nervous lean -

   Perhaps it was too sudden. She went rigid. Her breath stopped. Despite how tender she was, how she only lightly touched her cheek, Rarity remained perfectly still. Shocked.

   Their lips only touched twice before Applejack moved away, as though the gravity that had built up between them had inverted. She didn't even end the second kiss, just cut the motion off at the midpoint. For a longing moment, Rarity's eyes remained closed, her mouth hanging lazily open.

   "I..." Applejack began, and Rarity finally looked up at her - bright red, hands anxiously held in front of her, looking down and away as much as she could. "I - I'm sorry," she stammered. "I didn't - mean to, uh... I mean, I thought you were -"

   "Applejack," Rarity murmured, staring, thinking.

   She continued as though she hadn't heard, her eyebrows knitted. "I probably should have - y'know, asked before springin' something like that onto... I - I mean, I thought there was some kinda -"

   "Applejack," Rarity interjected with a half-amused half-smile, pressing a finger to Applejack's lips habitually. Then, realizing the accidental correlation, she retracted her hand - and hesitated. All at once, those lips, those eyes - every feature of her round, flushed face - they had become compelling. She drew her thumb out across her cheek, riveted by her stare. When had she started staring? "What are you apol-"

   She never got to finish that question. Rather, she had been swept up again in that electric, anxious embrace, and melted into it.

   Eventually - what may have been a minute or ten minutes later - they found themselves against the back wall, on the floor, on a tame blue arabesque rug, and a cloud had moved over what little sun found its way through the curtain. They had intensified, but no words had yet been spoken. Finally, Applejack, who had moved to her neck and up to her cheek (at her gentle direction) pulled away at a slight angle and once more stared, her breath short. The sun reached up and put a glint in her eye, silver-green, and it sent another rush of hot compulsion through Rarity. She reached cautiously to her washed-out red flannel shirt and undid the top button. And still no words were spoken.

   They spent a while afterwards on the floor, beside one another. The sign at the door still said 'out to lunch,' and the sunlight still passed over them in waves. It was a few minutes before they got to speaking - well, real speaking, not apology or instruction.

   "So, uh," Applejack began, rising to her knees. She still seemed smaller, less confident. More relaxed, though. "Is this... gonna be a thing?"

   Rarity giggled at the phrasing, and rolled onto her side. Then, her smile lessened as she considered the question. She inhaled for a moment as though to speak, but suddenly lost the words. Applejack looked down at her, hopeful, searching her eyes. Then, memories surged, old emotions filling her head and her chest. "I - I do like you, Applejack." It was true. It burned with truth - nebulous, revealing truth.

   Applejack had been fiddling with one of the buttons on her shirt, and began to redo them. "What does that mean?" she asked quietly.

   "It means..." She stopped herself. Internally, some fraction of her was shouting - of course it's going to be a thing. You dunce. You idiot. Discomfort barricaded that shout, fear of the unknown. But, momentarily, it broke through. "Do you want it to be a thing?"

   "Y-yeah," Applejack replied with a grin. "I'm not gonna lie."

   "Well, I wouldn't... mind meeting up again." What an understatement.

   They caught one another's stare once more, and Applejack's grin grew to a full smile. "Neither would I." She glanced up at the wall behind Rarity and finished buttoning her shirt. "I'm probably runnin' long on my lunch break right now, so I should probably, um, get goin'."