Twilight Sparkle was not a genius. Genius is a trait that lets a creature make great leaps of understanding without all the needed steps to get there. It was the stuff revolutionary discoveries were made of, but of course, Twilight Sparkle was not a genius.

She worked day (and when Spike didn't keep track of her, night too) after day on the problem she had assigned herself, and each step brought knowledge and understanding. It was almost abstract in its very idea, 'What happens when an organic creature without a history of magic enters a magic field?' It was absurd to her, at first, because everything on Equus was affected by magic.

Canterlot Castle's science labs were extensive, and although Twilight was mostly the only pony working in them, she had seen another more often than not. Belay, to Twilight's surprise, was doing some amazing research into using magic itself to power electrical devices. The conversion of one energy into the other had never been looked into before, and in the few weeks that Belay had been on the task, it had grown from theory to prototype.

Twilight trotted into the lab for the day, and spotted Belay already at work. "Good morning!" She made a point of trotting over and talking to Belay every chance she got, it wasn't every day that an alien from another world decided to do some revolutionary research in the same lab as you.

"Good morning, Twilight." Belay reached a hoof up and rubbed his head with a hoof and looked at the Princess. Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, was without a doubt one of the most adorable mares Belay had come across. Not only was she brutally smart, but she was sexy, and the best bit was she was self-aware of neither. "Sleep well?"

Completely missing the fact that Belay was checking her out, Twilight nodded. "The beds in the castle remind me of when I was just a filly, studying here under Princess Celestia." She pointed at the small box Belay had before him on the bench. "Is this 'it'?"

"One of. I gave the other one to Luna to perform a test with it in space." Despite repeated coaxing by all concerned, it was hard for Belay to not use titles before names. In the FSP, and particularly in the military corps, titles and names were very important. "She and Kiera are going to be testing it both inside and outside Kiera, while I perform more tests on this one here."

"Princess Luna is doing research for you?" For the slightest moment Twilight felt a pang of jealousy, and while she tried to shove it away, it persisted. Irrational, the feeling was something she wanted to focus on later.

Belay so wanted to hit on Twilight it was almost eating him up. "The Princess just likes going into space. You should see how excited she gets when Kiera lifts off. I think my work is just a happy excuse for her to get away."

Twilight was a little shocked at the frank deconstruction. The little green monster died a horrible, sudden death, and she chuckled. "To be honest, I would like to get away for a little while, but I am so close to being able to reverse,"—she gestured to Belay—"this."

"What about lunch, later?" Belay's brain was yelling at him. Taking a princess on a date was just about the worst idea ever, but his voice had a life of its own. "Don't think I haven't noticed you skipping meals. A two-hour lunch break won't be a major drain on your time."

"S-Sure." Twilight blinked in surprise. A little voice in her head informed her that she had just accepted a lunch-date from a stallion (which made her a little panicked), but another part pointed out that the stallion was a creature from another world (which made her excited), and yet another added that the nice-looking alien that the other parts were referring to was also a fellow scientist (which almost made her melt into a puddle).

"Great." Alarm bells rang in Belay's head, and he tried to tell himself that just because he was going out for lunch, it wasn't a date. "I'll get these experiments set up and started, and we can go at midday?"

Nodding in reply, Twilight tried to find a safer topic before opening her mouth. "I might be ready to test this latest formula soon. I need to run it through the last few tests." A safe topic found, Twilight relaxed again.

"I'll see you then!" Belay wanted to thump himself on the head repeatedly. The moment Twilight retreated to the far end of the lab, he did thump himself by planting a forehoof on his forehead. "Idiot. Just go to a club and pick up a cute mare. Why do you have to chase a princess…?"

Dustin had been nervous about her lunch-date all day. Her morning had been spent with Princess Luna, teaching her about yet more of Kiera's systems, but even the illustrious company of the morning didn't take her mind off the pony sitting across the table from her.

Night Light looked distracted. His somewhat dark azure coat was brushed to perfection, and his mane was styled to within an inch of its life. Twilight Velvet had spent most of the morning on his tail, and after complaining about its terrible condition while she worked, she eventually proclaimed it passable. He was distracted, of course, because there was a cute mare sitting opposite him.

"Sorry I'm not quite as exciting as my Twitwi. I sometimes wonder how we even met, until I remember that she chased me down and put a bridle on me." Night picked up his cup of juice with a hoof, not wanting to distract Dustin too much.

"B-Bridle? Like the head-thing?" Snapped from her shock by a greater one, Dustin had the distinct feeling she was about to learn a little more than she might have wanted about her friends.

Setting his juice back down, Night leaned back in the comfortable little booth of the diner. "Well, we were both at school at the time, and my Twitwi wasn't my Twitwi yet. She and her friends, unbeknownst to me, had taken up a mission.

"You see, we had two Saddle Arabians in class that year, and they wore bridles everywhere. Theirs, it seemed, were to proclaim them as eligible, but my Twitwi learned about another kind." Thinking back, Night Light had to smile at the memory first meeting Twilight Velvet. "I didn't know a thing about all this at the time, of course, but apparently she had decided to stalk me."

Dustin was smiling at the story, and realized that Twilight Velvet's forwardness wasn't a recent thing, and certainly wasn't just aimed at her. "What did she do?"

"There I was, sitting under a tree with my homework, eating lunch and making an early start on it, when she pulled a betrothal bridle over my head. Apparently, in the old days of Saddle Arabia, there was a tradition for mares to hunt down and capture stallions of another tribe. Where she got hold of such a bridle, I will never know." Night had another sip, and hid his smile with the glass. "I felt the straps pulling tight around my head, and a bit pulled between my teeth."

"This sounds kinky." Dustin giggled at the mental image. Just then, their lunch arrived.

"Here you are." The waitress put a plate with sandwiches before each of her table's customers.

"Thank you," Dustin and Night both said at the same time.

Night waited for the waitress to leave again. "It really wasn't meant to be. I tried to call for help, but the bit on those things is designed to pin your tongue down. I was gasping and wheezing, and she not only fastened the bridle on, but gave a tug on the reins." He sighed and forgot he was talking to Dustin. "Then our eyes met."

Dustin was blown away by the description. "No way! Love at first sight?"

"No, I bucked around a bit, but she firmly yanked on the reins. Turns out those things have a bit of an enchantment on them too. I was struck by an instinctive relaxation, which was the enchantment channeling a little of Twitwi's magic. Took me two days to shake it off, but by then I was hooked on her." Lifting a sandwich up, Night took a good bite from it. "She realized what the bridle did, of course, and took it off. But the effect lingered for a few days, and she didn't want to tell Princess Celestia."

"Are you saying she kept you hidden for—for how long?" Completely distracted by the story, Dustin ate her food without really thinking about it. Her movements were natural now, normal.

"Four days. She fed me, washed me, took care of my almost unconscious self. She even did my homework and handed it in." Munching down on his sandwich, Night Light kept sneaking glances at Dustin, his eyes catching every curve. "And at night she read to me. She never once did anything inappropriate, and when I woke up I kissed her."

"What did she do then?" Dustin was fully invested in the story, and ate the last of her sandwich.

Night finished off his lunch too, gulping the juice down. "She asked me out on a date, I said yes. I moved into her room three months later, and when we graduated we got married and the rest is history."

It struck Dustin that weeks ago—when she first arrived—there was no way she would believe such a fantastic story, but knowing how extensively used magic was, she accepted it without a word against it. Not to mention she knew how close Night Light and Twilight Velvet were.

"How did you and Belay meet up?" Night could tell his question caught Dustin off guard, but it was only fair. He tried to wave down the waitress, and managed to get her to acknowledge him from another table.

"I let you talk me into this, didn't I?" Not holding a grudge, Dustin smiled. "Kiera was in getting a refit…" She lifted a hoof to her chin to try to explain it better. "She was getting upgrades to her ship-self."

"Oh! Out with the old, in with the new?" As the waitress came closer, Night turned his attention to her. "Two bowls of your nicest ice cream. Caramel and chocolate."

Dustin waited until the waitress left the surrounding area, and then continued. "So Kiera was busy getting her refit, and she had some other shell-people to talk to, and I had the run of the base for a month. Before I go further, I will say I despise other brawns—that's the legs-part of a brain-brawn team—they seem so snooty sometimes. So I normally just go to the regular crew rec areas… bars.

"She was chilling in a bar, and when I walked in I could see her working on a design. Now, a mare—girl—alone is something I try to always help with, but when I found out she had a brain too—"

Night cut in. "Kiera? She is the brain to your brawn, right?"

"I meant Belay was smart. Some people tended to coast through life doing the absolute minimum of work, and here I find somepony I can talk to and have fun with." Dustin kept mixing ponyisms into her speech, but she gave up correcting them after a while. "So while Kiera was being refitted, we had a little fun, and when her ride was about to leave I asked if she wanted a better job."

The waitress arrived with their ice cream, and Dustin couldn't help herself trying some right away. "Oh, this is good!"

"Next time we are going to Donut Joe's. If you think this ice cream is good, you should try the mango gelato he has." Swirling his spoon around to mix the two flavors, Night took a spoon full of his own and sighed in bliss.

"It's still the best thing I have eaten so far." Dustin tried a little more, just as her brain told her that she had somehow just committed to a second date. Blushing, she pushed back to the safe topic. "Belay was working as a cargo officer, so Kiera hired her on as that. We didn't take cargo, by the way, it was just a good excuse to help her train up.

"Over two years Belay not only took the brawn training, and almost passed it all, but she got a degree in engineering." Pausing for more ice cream, Dusting used it to cool herself down a little. "Personally, we didn't do so well. After a year we found too many things wrong in the bedroom, and agreed to keep it friendly."

"Just like that?" Night felt immensely skeptical. "So you stayed friends after that?"

"For a year we made things work, but it became more and more obvious that we just didn't like the same things." Staring down into the bowel, Dustin sighed. "She was fun, but she—" Dustin cut off sharply, and shook her head. "I am not going to talk about it, sorry, Night."

"I wouldn't push you to. What a mare likes in the bedroom shouldn't be table conversation." Quick as a shot, Night reached out his spoon and claimed some of Dustin's ice cream.

The shock of the theft left Dustin blinking. Without realizing what she was doing, she reached out with her spoon and liberated some of Night Light's dessert. "But ours is?"

"If you want to talk about it, I am open to." Repeating the earlier maneuver, Night Light scooped up some of Dustin's ice cream and ate it. "Is it just me being a stallion?"

"What? No." Dustin blushed. "I experimented—more than experimented—and it was fun. I like mares, but you definitely don't turn me off." The blush got stronger as she realized she had just uttered an understatement. "It's me."

"Not used to being a mare?" This time, when Night Light scooped up some of Dustin's ice cream, instead of taking it for himself he held the spoon up in front of Dustin's lips. A hopeful look crossed his face, and he raised one eyebrow. At the last moment—before Night was going to reclaim his spoon—Dustin opened her mouth for him.

The taste of ice cream was somehow augmented by the fun of having it fed to her. Dustin made a slow slurp as the spoon was withdrawn from her mouth. "It's not even that. Technically, I have half of what I did when I had fun with stallions."

"But you have something extra." Night waited for Dustin to load up her own spoon, and then opened his mouth in waiting. Eyes closed, he smiled wide when he felt a spoon touch his tongue. Closing his mouth, he sighed and let Dustin pull the empty spoon back out.

Dustin smiled at how happy Night Light looked. "Yeah. I just—I just think it is a big plunge."

"What if I gave you my absolute promise to not touch you there?" Once more, Night loaded his spoon up and presented it to Dustin. There was no delay, Dustin claimed the contents of the spoon.

"You haven't broken your promise, and it isn't that I don't like being played with—there." Dustin saw there was only a single spoonful left on Night's plate. Quick as she could, she speared out, got it on her spoon, and claimed it for herself.

"You thief. So nuzzles and licks are fine, but everything else goes elsewhere." His eyes flashing, Night scooped up the last ice cream from Dustin's plate, and held it up for her. "I am sure we can both have some fun with that."

Dustin felt good about herself, but she was trusting Night Light with her fears, and as she tasted the last of the ice cream, she realized it was worth it. "Okay."

Author's Note

Night Light and Twilight Velvet: wanna go to space?

The squeeing from each of the two ponies was too loud for a microphone to record.

So I do this "Ask x" thing, x can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and ~~I~~ they will definitely hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories and of course, ~~I~~ they will answer the best question(s) in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer, try and keep it to one answer per post! ~~I~~ They will pick one question per chapter.

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