Starlight's Weekend Off

'I've really forgotten how nice this scenery is. I should do this more often.'

Starlight leaned back in her seat as the Crystal Empire Express chugged along the track headed north. The scenery was helping her relax, which was fortunate for her, because nothing else was.

'Is this weekend going to be it? Will we have the night that ends up being... The night?'

She and Sunburst had been dating for a month, and things had been going great. Their first weekend had been down in Ponyville, during a weekend off for the royal family. It had ended with one of the most amazing dinners they ever had. The following week seemed to take forever to pass. By then, she had created a transportation rune that would take her to Sunburst's room, and vice versa. Travel between the two locations became instantaneous. Sunburst learned a valuable lesson when Flurry Heart had accidentally used the rune. Luckily, Starlight had been in her room, and she was back in the Crystaller's room within two minutes. After that and a good laugh, Starlight made sure to attune the rune to Sunburst's horn only.

The second weekend in the Crystal Empire had been just as fun. Sunburst took charge and took her to his favorite restaurants in the city, as well as cooking together for breakfast. By the time the third week had rolled around back to Ponyville, Starlight was overly worried that it had started to feel routine, and that maybe it was time to take the next step in their relationship... Not that they hadn't accidentally tried already. Sunburst naively misread Starlight's intentions when they spent the first night sleeping together, and a bottle of their hometown's finest wine had made Starlight a little loose the second night at dinner, and she had made the offer, which Sunburst politely turned down. He said he wanted clear heads when that decision was made, and for it to be as memorable as they could make it.

That was the primary reason for the train ride this morning. Starlight needed something her runes took away: Time.

Time to think. Plan. Make sure she was really ready before she told Sunburst she was.

'So... Am I?' She asked herself.

She was pretty sure she was. She had been thinking about it all week. The trek from the castle library to her room carrying 'Aphrodisiacs, Contraceptives, and 148 Other Spectacularly Spicy Spells' at three in the morning was probably the stealthiest she had ever been. She was relieved to have found the book she needed, but at the same time she wondered what in Celestia's name a book like that was doing in Twilight's castle library. She felt it would be infinitely better to be prepared rather than come down after one of these weekends and have to do something along the lines of "abortion-cadabra" or something like that. Sure enough, after a week of practicing in her room at night, she had 'et oblinito cuniculum' down to a T. It was ready if she was. And if any part of it slipped her mind, well, the book was tucked securely into the back corner of her saddlebags.

'Deep breaths, Starlight.' The unicorn told herself.

She breathed in, held it for barely a moment, then exhaled.

Yes. Yes she was ready. If he was. But... What if he wasn't...? What if his naivety on the first night sent him reeling back and afraid to re-approach the subject? Both of them wanted to move way too fast on the first date, but how fast was too fast, and just as importantly, how slow was too slow?

Starlight started to mentally kick herself. Dancing around the situation like this wasn't going to do her any favors. The simplest way of dealing with this was just to tell her special somepony that she was ready, and then the ball was in his court.

The train whistle gave out three long blows, announcing their proximity to the Crystal Empire platform.

When the butterflies in her stomach wouldn't settle, she began to wonder if this is how Sunburst felt on the train ride down, and as he made his way up the stairs to her room to confess how he felt about her. It worked out, so she just had to go with her gut and believe this would work out too.

The train slowed to a stop at the platform, and Starlight got to her hooves as the doors opened, the binding of the spell book bumped against her side, making sure those stomach butterflies were nice and fluttery as she walked towards the exit. She got off with around a dozen other visitors to the Crystal Empire and didn't have to search for Sunburst for long. She spotted him waving at the other end of the platform, and he immediately started trotting towards his marefriend, the two of them coming in for a hug and a kiss.

"Feels like a month has gone by..." Sunburst said, releasing his date. Starlight cleared her throat, her cheeks already having a spot of pink on them.

"Sunburst, I get the feeling that this is a lot like how you felt at the start of our first weekend together, so I have to get this out in the open now. I'm looking forward to whatever you have planned for us this weekend, but I just want to let you know..." Starlight paused, her face flushing red.

"If you want to take that next step... In our relationship, I just want you to know... I'm ready."

Princess Twilight Sparkle pushed her rolling library ladder down the row of shelves, clipboard firmly in her magic grasp, quill furiously checking off boxes as her eyes darted up the shelves level by level, making sure all books were accounted for before she began Reshelving Day. She figured it would be the perfect time with Starlight away for the weekend. So far, everything was in order. She went down one more row, and her eyes caught an irregularity; a missing book; the other eight books on that shelf were leaning to the right with space for one more.

"Spike! Missing book!" Twilight called out, and her dragon assistant came running.

"Just give me the title and I'll go check the studies."

Twilight flipped several pages on her clipboard, and looked down to the list of books that were supposed to be in this section, and quickly cross referenced all nine of them.

"Title... Aphrodesiaaaaaa-you know what, never mind I know what I did with that book I'll get it later sorry you can go back to whatever you were doing thanks!" Twilight said rather hurriedly and pushed her ladder onward without a second look to the dragon. Spike just shrugged and walked back out of the library, wondering what in Equestria an Afro Daisy was.