"Alright. Now I am back in atmo', I need one of you two to get ready for some EVA work." Kiera's voice came in perfectly clear over both Dust and Belay's implants. "I have been talking with Luna, and she has given me permission to take a sample of the moon. The surface of it is highly reactive to the magic field."

Belay's attention was stolen from the coffee he and Dust had been sharing. "So you could make an instrument to measure the… Wait! Field?"

"Not it." Dust ignored the sudden burst of static she received. "Look, I have had to deal with an amorous mare that I had no idea how to handle, so cut me some slack."

" 'Had'?" Kiera's tone suddenly switched to highly inquisitive. "Dust, don't tell me you have decided to pursue a married mare? The scandal it would cause!"

"Kiera?" Waiting for the tiny burst of inquisitive static, Dust simulated the best raspberry she could. "None of your business!"

Belay giggled. "She totally is. I think they looked adorable together. The older mare, the young filly barely old enough to—" Even her subvocalizations became muffled by the hoof stuffed in her mouth.

"I already called it, Bel. Not it. Your job. You are better at EVA anyway, and you look better in a pressure suit." Pulling her hoof back, Dustin relaxed back into her seat. Reaching for her coffee, she lifted it up and sipped it. "There was something neat about being offline, if you catch my drift."

Belay scoffed. "Neither of you could understand the other."

"Yeah, but it meant we had to do a lot more showing, rather than telling." Reflecting back on her time with Twilight Velvet, Dust realized it was more nerves at breaking social taboo—her own and the Equestrians'—that held her back. "What I am saying is, you were right."

Staring at Dust, Belay reached up to tap her comms button. "Kiera, please tell me you got that? You did record Dustin y Neil telling me she was wrong?"

"You suck, Bel, you know that?" Dust rolled her eyes at her partner's jab.

Kiera broke into the conversation with a little static. "I definitely did. Don't worry, I am loading the recording into an FTL pod now. Soon, all civilization will know that Dustin y Neil can actually be wrong. This will revolutionize science more than the discovery of the first magitar!"

"You know what?" Standing up, Dust gulped down the rest of her coffee and started to make her way out of the cafe. "You both can go blow a ramjet." Lifting her hooves in an almost prancing gait, Dust made her way out onto the street.

Real air, the air of a planet that wasn't recycled by chemical filtration thousands upon thousands of times, was an amazing thing. Kiera's scrubbers and air cleaning were state of the art, but despite all the careful chemistry done on it, it didn't stand up to a single breath on a planet. Canterlot was high on a mountain, which meant a thinner atmosphere, but at the same time a non-industrialized race left no impact on it either. In short, Dustin enjoyed breathing the air of Equus almost as much as drinking its coffee.

After a light lunch, she wanted to look around town and find some sights that didn't include a particular mare that Dust realized made her warm up a little just thinking about. Ponies, of course, were everywhere, and even just that little fact was somehow amazing. Unicorns casually using magic. Pegasi zooming through the air. A touch of jealousy touched Dust's thoughts until she remembered that she could objectively study both without being too mired in the details.

"Look who I have found." The translation from Kiera slipped through Dustin's implant, overlaying the words she could understand on top of Twilight Velvet's voice. "I was just out shopping and thought to myself, 'Is that Dustin over there?' " Twilight held up the apple she had been inspecting, making sure there was nothing wrong with it before putting it in her bag. A coin was exchanged with the merchant, and Twilight walked closer to Dust.

There was a million and one questions Dustin had for Twilight, and each was an excuse for why this was probably a bad idea. "I was worried that I would ruin things here. I don't even know the social rules enough yet not to make a big blunder an—" Her eyes widened, and Dust felt a moment of hesitation. Twilight Velvet's lips were soft, and the way she nuzzled around her own mouth she seemed a little hungry, needy.

Without a moment to question anything further, Dustin committed to the kiss. Pressing back, she felt warmth flow between her and Twilight. Each movement of her own mouth translated into Velvet's, and back again. The slightest hint of Twilight Velvet's tongue running along her lips urged Dust to open her mouth, but the other mare was not ready to go further than just lips.

The words, "Buck it," came to Dust's mind and she pushed with her own tongue. She watched Twilight's eyes for a hint she had done something wrong, overstepped some boundary, but tasting sweet berries and honey in the other mare's mouth, Dust could only see excitement in her eyes.

Twilight Velvet closed her lips down on Dustin's probing tongue. She gripped it ever so gently between her teeth and drew back from the soft and silky touch of her new friend's mouth. "Well aren't you full of pleasant surprises?"

Dust was hungry again. She kissed Twilight's lips with a little peck. "I realized something." Drawing her head back, she couldn't believe how beautiful Twilight's eyes seemed.

"What did you realize, Dustin?" Twilight turned a little, her body language offering Dust the chance to walk beside her.

"I realized that with your daughter working on fixing all this, I'm probably not going to get another chance to experience such a…" Dustin fished for a word to describe what she thought Twilight was offering. Before it dragged too much, she studied Twilight's face for an answer—and it came. "Wonderful pony."

"Dustin, you haven't experienced anything yet." A smile curved Twilight's lips, planted there by their kiss, watered with every glance that Dustin gave her. "The rest of the day will be ours, and I have just the way to spend it."

The silly fear tried to push back into Dust's thoughts. Tried to shove her mind into rejecting the situation. "Twilight Velvet, are you asking me out on a date?" The moment she asked she got a broader smile from Twilight, and the mare's eyes danced with excitement.

"It is normally the stallion who asks, I know. That is how things normally work, but who has time for normal?" Twilight smooched Dust's cheek again. "Come on, there is this lovely place I go to just dance and listen to amazing music."

Dust blinked at the logic and jump in topic. Inhaling a deep breath, she metaphorically dove in without checking the depth of the water. "Sounds great."

Laughing, Twilight set the pace to a trot and took them from the market square. Through city streets, and past buildings that looked like dancers and musicians were at work in, Dust and Twilight just laughed with each silly thing they did. Hopping through a plaza and not touching any cracks. Dancing down a street and not caring who was watching. Dust took all her cues from Twilight, and the mare seemed completely unreserved.

Heavy, synth-focused music hit Dustin's ears and she swiveled them towards the source with barely a thought. A brief moment of levity touched her lips and she giggled.

"What's so funny?" Twilight led the way towards the best nightclub in town. The place was even better in the warm-up hours, when the DJ would sometimes talk to fans, and would take tons of requests.

"I was just thinking what it would be like to write a pony how-to guide. Chapter One: Understanding Your Ears." Dust giggled outright now.

"Chapter Two would have to be about language, with a little translator book for common words." Twilight waved to the big stallion at the door. She gave a slight nod to Dust, and the bouncer suddenly ignored their presence completely. "Understanding a smooch." She leaned up and kissed Dust on the cheek.

"I need this book." Having promised herself that she would not get flustered, Dust just nuzzled back. "Are all ponies this… affectionate? Girl… Fillyfriends I have had in the past ranged from reserved to…" Dust blushed, wondering how to mention more overt things.

"Sex?" Twilight laughed at the chagrin on Dust's face. "I have had two foals, Dust. Both are fully grown, I know what sex is." She leaned up, as if to whisper in Dust's ear. "It's fun, but not on the first date. That isn't a social rule, just one of mine."

"Doesn't last night count?" Dust couldn't believe she had asked, but the mock outrage on Twilight's face told her it had been received well.

"Dustin, you went from holding back everything, to very naughty all of a sudden." Guiding her new friend to the dance floor, Twilight Velvet didn't stop until she had crossed it and sidled up to the DJ booth. A white unicorn with flashing blue hair and pink shades was working the booth. The unicorn's head was bopping, one ear pressed to a single can of her headset. "Vinyl!"

Slowing down, Dustin felt the music all around her. The music was both familiar and completely different to the normal synth she liked, but it was growing on her rapidly. Her hooves began to move on their own, and her body twisted and gyrated.

Vinyl cocked one eyebrow behind her glasses. Looking from the dancer down to Twilight Velvet, she reached a hoof down and got a solid rapport back her fellow unicorn. Setting her cans down, she paused the progression she was working on. With only the thumping beat and sharp strikes of the currently playing track as a backing, she tilted her head slightly to Dustin.

"Her? Somepony I am enjoying more with every thing I learn about them. She started as a project for my daughter, but I think I am ready for some extra credit." Twilight followed Vinyl's gaze to the dancing mare. Something about Dust's movement seemed both fluid and alien. "Excuse me, but more of this if you don't mind."

Grinning, Vinyl cued up the next few tracks in advance, but the third one was something she hoped the pair would enjoy. Slipping her cans back on, she returned to her creation-in-progress.

Dust laughed aloud when Twilight bumped against her. A pony's body wasn't built to be shoved around well, and being an earth pony that went double for Dust. But despite her solid build, she moved with the imparted energy, twirling around to return it with a gentle bump of her shoulder.

The comms button was useless. Between the jerking movement and sounds that maxed out the little microphone's dynamic range, Kiera was blind and deaf to Dust's antics. Images slipped through from time to time, however, and from what Kiera could see her brawn was having a great time.

Changing from track to track was seamless, and the music didn't drop so much as a half-measure. One song slipped into the next, and then the next, but when a new one started Dust froze mid-movement. A slow number, complete with soft brass-like tones came from the big stack of speakers. Slow music was slow music, and nearly everywhere in the universe—where romance existed in some fashion—had similar implications for slow music.

Dust pressed herself to Twilight, and together they rose up into bipedal stances. Twilight's hooves moved, one taking Dust's while the other guided Dust's free foreleg down to Twilight's midsection. Dust had barely a second to realize that Twilight was taking the lead before the slow dance started.

Rocking slowly from side to side, Dust leaned into Twilight and put her forelegs up and around the other mare. Left only able to stare into Twilight Velvet's eyes, they continued to follow the steps that were built in to any couple.

Vinyl's face was covered with the biggest grin as she watched the two mares dance close. The tune was way too slow for her normal tastes, but she had been getting to like slower and more classical things lately. The slightest hint of a base note reminded her of a cello, and she quickly moved the high-energy track she was working on from her deck and started something slower, something with a cello leading the rhythm.

"Dustin gets to have all the fun while I do the work." Belay was settled as best he could in the pilot's chair of the ship. Beside him—and Kiera in her shell of course—Princess Luna watched every movement his hooves made on the interface board. "At least show me what your button can see."

For the second time that day, Luna, Princess of the Night, left the planet of Equus. Kiera's skill with her own engines made the escape from the planet as smooth as a train ride on the Friendship Express. One of the screens showed the city of Canterlot fading below them, while the main screen showed the expanse of an endless night. Luna's magic was still gone, hidden from her horn by the shielding Kiera had told her about. "I would like to see your other assistant's situation too."

Dreams were Luna's forte, and she had found two mares dreaming some curious things the previous night. She blinked a little when Belay lifted a hoof up and back, but Luna had walked enough modern ponies' dreams to understand the gesture. Lifting her shod hoof, she gave the stallion's hoof a tap.

"Outvoted. And I am sure the rules say that a princess counts for two votes." Operating the logging and service systems for his EVA gear, Belay gave a wink to Luna. "Come on Kiera, make with the picture.

An auxiliary screen lit, showing an image of light gray fur up close. So close, in fact, that the camera was pressed against the follicles. "Happy?" Kiera gave Belay a little jolt of static that roughly approximated a raspberry. Cutting the view, Kiera replaced it with a diagram of their orbit changes and eventual rendezvous with the same position as last time. "Luna, could you bring the moon as close as you had it last time?"

"Don't you want to land on it?" Luna was confused by all the mathematics scrolling on the screen. She could instinctively understand magic and flight, but these adjustments of thrust and angle were a little foreign.

"Wait!" A note of panic touched Kiera's voice. "Please don't move anything yet. We have too much delta-V and at the wrong angle to be able to land. How close can you bring it?" She was already adjusting her vectors.

Luna lifted her hoof and tapped a point just before the ship on the diagram screen. "I can put it a few pony-lengths in front of you, wherever you stop. But I thought everything was relative? No matter how fast you are going, I can push the moon before you."

"We are doing this wrong." Tapping his head with a hoof, Belay rolled his eyes. "Don't move the moon to us. Your Highness, can you move us to just a little above the moon and hold us there?"

Reaching out and touching the moon, Luna felt around what she now knew to be an immense shape. The cables of power that caught on it and pooled around it in expanding rings vibrated to her will. "Now?"

Kiera shut down her engines completely, even her attitude thrusters. "Okay, I am read—" She would never get used to the pull. A force she couldn't measure—yet—yanked her from her transfer orbit and pulled her, with both amazing speed and precision, so that she hovered above the huge asteroid that was Equus' "moon."

"Is that okay?" Luna barely felt challenged by the mass of the ship. It was akin to playing with a boat in your bathtub when you normally pilot huge ocean vessels. "Kiera?"

"Sorry, just startled." Kiera didn't need to admit it, she knew it. Her nutrients were suddenly too acidic, and there was a slight complaint in one of her neural interface circuits. Telling herself it was all psychosomatic, she calmly checked all her systems one by one. "Okay." She activated her attitude thrust controls. "Let go now, please."

"How do you do that? I can't feel any magic here at all." Belay looked up at Luna in awe, his eyes tracing the great starfield-mane.

"There is a trick, but not one I could teach." With an even tone, Luna hoped that the mare would let that particular can of worms go. It was bad enough when a regular pony got it into their head to become an alicorn, but she knew Belay was probably the only pony that could attempt it. "Attempting it without being ready is… is fatal."

Belay heaved a sigh of relief. "So no wings for me, then. Time to get this into gear." Climbing from the pilot's couch, he started to make his way down the main coaxial shaft to where the EVA gear was stored. "Okay, Kiera, how are we doing this?"

Kiera, for the first time since her graduation, was unable to multitask properly. All her attention was on Luna, who looked like she had jumped from calm contemplation to a panic, and then to a dead run to the docking area. "Luna?!"

"DO NOT EXIT THE SHIP!" Luna deployed the Royal Canterlot Voice with full force, sending it vibrating through every bulkhead and pipe. "HALT IMMEDIATELY!"

His mind suddenly thrown into lockdown, Belay was frozen in place by the sheer force of Luna's voice. He stared back at the coaxial behind him and saw the Princess poke her head in. "W-W-What's wrong?"

Luna didn't want to risk anything. She rushed to Belay and pulled him back from the airlock. "If thee wend outside, thou would surely die!" Just the double bulkhead separated Luna and Belay from the "steel-like cables" of magic that would have ripped the unicorn to pieces.

Author's Note

Twilight: do you think it would be safe to walk on the surface of the source of all magic?

"The surface of the source of all magic?" Twilight's face creased in momentary confusion. "But magic comes from all things. It is in the air, the plants, even the animals around us."

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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