Kiss the girl, Celestia thought as she caught her fellow Princess generously sweeping over her form in full appreciation for the gown she wore even before properly greeting the royal mare herself.
“You look stunning tonight, Celestia.”
Instead she only managed to favorably return such a heated look before their eyes met and purred, “As do you, Twilight.”
Kiss the girl, she thought again as she spun the younger Princess round and round on the dance floor and observed with delight her struggling catch of breath when they came colliding back together.
Instead she released the Princess and bowed her head in the utmost respect.
“Thank you for the dance, Princess,” Twilight smiled through hazy lids and blazing cheeks.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Celestia wore a similar expression.
Kiss the girl, she thought once more as she spotted Twilight sitting alone in the outer gardens, her gloomy gaze turned in wonder to the stars brightly illuminating the night.
Instead Celestia sat beside her and watched as a light shot across the cloudless moon.
“Beautiful night, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Celestia wasn’t looking at the sky.
“Although, it’s a little airy.” Twilight’s mood instantly changed as Celestia tenderly wrapped her under a wing.
Kiss the girl, the first and last thought on Celestia’s mind when Twilight sent her friends ahead and lingered in the hall to say her goodbyes.
“Are you sure you don’t need help with anything else?” Her innocent eyes sparkled like the purest set of diamonds Celestia had ever seen.
Instead the older pulled her into one last embrace, as she always did when Twilight felt like insisting, and sent her on her way.
“Your friends are waiting, go. You’ve done more than enough here tonight.”
And now, as she stood over the balcony and watched Twilight and her friends disappear from sight, Celestia’s heart ached at the thought of all the perfectly missed opportunities she had to simply kiss the girl she longed for.
A breeze that wafted ever so softly over her skin left an echo that sounded an awful lot like someone whistling, “Kiss the girl, kiss the girl.”
But she hadn’t. Not just tonight. There were always instances where she looked back and wished she could have gathered the courage to lean and place even the gentlest of pecks across those waiting lips. Why couldn’t she do it? Why did she always hesitate at the last minute?
She looked over the castle gardens, out to where the bushes suspiciously were tapered to spell out, “k-i-s-s t-h-e g-i-r-l.”
She wanted to. Oh, how badly she wanted to. But her heart and mind were in constant battle. Was it something Twilight wished for? Would her kiss, her love, be returned?
Did Twilight want her just as much?
With a heavy sigh, Celestia turned her gaze to the stars. She couldn’t bear the thought of a false assumption, to have her love be… Unrequited. Denied. Cast away like a foolish play of cards.
The stars, however, thought otherwise.
“Yes, stupid, she does want to kiss you, which you should know since you both spend an inordinate amount of time eyefucking each other. No, seriously, can we just talk about that for a minute? You two make everyone around you either go, ‘aww’, or ‘eww’. Get a room and get on with it already! Come on, she’s waiting on you! Chop chop!”
Alright, Celestia thought with a shrug of indifference, it was a compelling argument. They did spend a lot of time subtly staring at each other, sending over flirtatious looks, strategic bats of eyelashes here and there, insinuating tones, and… Not to mention the stronger hints, like… Lingering a second longer after a particularly good hug, the rise and fall of her chest as she deeply inhales her intoxicating scent, and… Sexy bottom lip biting and munching and… Hoofs insistently rubbing up and down flanks and tongues rasped over cutie marks and.. oh, breaths whispered against sensitive flesh, and moans, sweet, sweet, delectable moans, oh Starswirl in heaven, she should have kissed the damn girl when she had the chance!
Celestia thanked the universe and its vague reminders, or rather, Discord and Luna- she wasn’t that stupid- and made her way down to the Malt Shoppe where she casually overheard one of Twilight’s friends, the blue one, say they’d be venturing to after the Gala.
She stormed in and quickly found her desired target, about three seconds away from taking her first bite of sugary powdered doughnut. Enough time for Celestia to gallop and urgently whip her from the treat without delay.
“Celestia? What are you-”
It was all Twilight could say before she was pressed lip to soft, luring, delicious lip with Celestia. Twilight gasped her surprise at the sudden lunge and Celestia took the opportunity to delve with the elegance of grace into their first lover’s kiss, with no further reluctance from her mate, either. No, in fact, Twilight was reduced to excessive panting within mere moments of contact.
It was exactly how she imagined it’d be.
And then someone coughed from the table behind them.
“Uhh.. Princess Celestia?”
She broke apart wide eyed and mouthed her apology to Twilight, who was still lost in the moment’s bliss.
“Did you.. Just.. Kiss me?”
“Yes, I did,” Celestia chuckled. Eyes fluttered, face flushed, Twilight could barely keep her eyes open as Celestia raised her chin with a hoof. “And I’d like to do it again.”
“She.. She really kissed… Me…”
“DAMMIT, RAINBOW DASH!” An irritably huffy yet dainty voice sounded off from behind them. “You cheated somehow, I just know it!”
“Haha! Told ya there was no way Twilight’d do it first!” Dash hit the table and the pitter patter of coins could be heard flicking through the air. “Come on you saps, pay up!”
Two collective groans, an enthusiastic ‘Aw, man!’ and a country ‘whee-haw!’, along with more bits being shoved along the table’s surface, filled the silence as Celestia suddenly felt very aware of the audience they’d taken.
“Twilight?” she called but her Princess was still floating on her own lovestruck little bubble.
“She.. Wants to kiss.. Again..”
Oh boy. This… Could have been better planned. Celestia sat with annoyance, mostly at herself and all those perfectly wasted romantic opportunities, and at the shouts of “No fair, give mine back!” and “Winner’s fair and fare for winners!”
Not even two seconds later Celestia was completely winded and knocked to the floor by a desperate Twilight seeking to reconnect their lips for that promised second kiss. Celestia’s answering shout was entirely mauled by Twilight’s frantic taste of teeth and tongue. So she wanted it spicy this time, huh? Celestia was not one to back down. She growled and kissed back just as eagerly until they were fumbling over and over and around each other, trying to pin the other fully down in an all out kissing war.
“Hey, what?!” Followed by a scream of “YES! I-I mean, ‘yay’,” and a snooty, “Serves you right!” and more bits being shuffled across the table plus the sound of rabid manic growling from the two lovers filled the air. Dash sounded every bit as heartbroken as a gambler who was just lost a couple thousand bits.
It was ten. She lost ten bits.
Just then the doors to the shop opened and the unmistakable slithering drawl of one scheming little Draconequus shouted above them all, “Who had dibs on ’Kissing Death Match on the Floor’, hmm? Ah, yes; the prize goes to me and Fluttershy, of course!”
“Rainbow Dash,” Rarity ground out while trying to yank the last coin from Dash’s grip. “You lost the bet fair and square! Now hand over that bit!”
“No way! Celestia kissed her first, I still win!”
Fluttershy wrapped her hooves around Rarity’s waist to help her pull. The force of their tug- of- war sent the table crashing through the window and the owners yelling at everyone to calm down.
“But she kissed her back! Its- not- your- win, Dash!”
In between the chaos, Celestia, who let Twilight pin her just for the sake of being rewarded with shy, trembling lips in much too sensual places, broke away with a well earned nibble to the younger’s bottom lip. Twilight’s devilish mind was quick to haul the implication and she shivered with new anticipation of the hormonal kind.
“What are we still doing here?” She asked while cautiously scanning the commotion her friends started. Rarity spelled all the staff’s drink dispensers to aim at Applejack because the mare ‘accidentally’ dumped the extra powder and crumbs in the doughnut box all over her freshly worn dress, which in Rarity speak was on par with declaring World War Seven. Hell had officially opened over in the Fluttershy/Dash corner where the shy mare could be seen in what Twilight could only describe as an act of pure tenacity, zooming around the room chasing Dash with the fury of an untamed Manticore trying to get the last bit that Dash absolutely refused to part with. Pinkie Pie was last seen behind the counter in a mix of eating pies and throwing them at anyone who came within ten feet of her, friend or otherwise. And Discord, Starswirl bless, enchanted the lights into rainbow disco balls that shot sticky cotton candy web lasers and transformed all the seats in the entire place into gigantic coin snatching monsters with wings to help Fluttershy collect their winnings, which, in reality, just created a further mess of money and candy. He was currently inconspicuously floating in a pool of residual strawberry banana milkshake blend collected in the flap of Applejack’s hat.
Jesus Christ, Twilight had to swear to a God from a different dimension just to keep up.
“Hmm,” Celestia hummed up the length of her neck to bring Twilight’s attention back to where it should have been. She gave her ear a gentle lick and seductively asked, “My castle, or yours?”
“Yours!” Twilight blurted red-faced and shot Celestia the look of, ’as if you even have to ask!’
One swoop of magic later and they were safely tucked away in the privacy of Celestia’s bedroom for all the passionate kissing they could wish for, among other, ahem, rather enjoyable activities.
Back at the shop, the doors opened for a final time and a voluminous roar thundered as if magnified by a magical speaker box.
“I BELIEVE YOU ARE ALL MISTAKEN, FOR IT IS I WHO HAVE WON THIS BET.”
Six sets of eyes, and a few pets, stopped mid air to gape at the Lunar Princess as she made her entrance. Rainbow had one of Pinkie’s rubber chickens by the neck and was using it to beat the coin purse into submission to get her bits back. Pinkie and Applejack were covered in blueberry pie from head to toe, which Pinkie gracefully licked with one swipe of her tongue, and cleaned Applejack’s, too. Fluttershy was stuck in a tangle of cotton candy web and made friends with the candy corn spider that occupied it. And all of Rarity’s crying meshed terribly with the soda and candy infused mess and she was now glued to the underside of the barista’s door. Her runny mascara looked like she had been sufficiently gagged by a giant, thick, gooey and creamy-
Cupcake. Merlin’s beard, what did you think I was going to say?
“What do you mean, you’ve won?!” Boneless flopped with a squee as Dash ranted around like a thundercloud.
“My bet was ‘get a room and get on with it already’,” Luna swept a flash of blue magic over the field to undo and set right the diner to its antebellum state. All the scattered coins collected themselves into neat piles where the Princess spelled them into a briefcase, and then out of sight. Dash groaned. Her bits! Her prize! All of it, gone! Washed down the drain like the unfiltered tears of a plebeian watering hole!
“And I do believe that is precisely what they’ve just done,” Luna finished her thought with a smile and wink, “Pleasure doing business with you all.”
And with that she disappeared, leaving five broke friends and one irritated shopkeep behind.