Rarity poured wine with a flat, almost dazed expression. The wine wasn’t for her. She floated it over, a bit unstably, to Twilight, and then sighed softly in absolute contentment. The universe was good. It was kind. Things proceeded as they must and in the order given them by righteous intention.
Twilight sat on her couch--this too was as it should be--and took a sip of the wine she’d been given. She made a face. Twilight Sparkle was okay with wine. Truth be told, she enjoyed alcohol more than she let on. A long bout of habitual drinking in her graduate years had convinced her never to let herself become too familiar with fancy bottles of intoxication, and so she was demure regarding her tastes.
The wine in question was a pinot noir. Twilight hated pinot noir. Okay, hate was too strong a word. She disliked it. Hatred she reserved for targets of her ire more needful, such as Shiraz wines and muscatto. The former was too dry and miserable, the latter was bubbly and annoying. Wine had two duties--red and dry, yes--but to err too far on either side was to tip order itself into disorder.
Which was funny to think about here, at the end of all things. The end of all things according to Rarity, at least.
“How are you feeling, Twilight?” Rarity asked. Her voice, beautiful as always--sonorous as always--was strangely flat and hollow. It was not sad sounding. It was just… empty. Empty like a bell is empty once you tear away the tongue. Empty like a clarinet without a reed is empty. Empty and flat like the plains they say are all that you can find past Jannah-in-the-West between the city and the great marshes and before the hills and the Place of Rest. Empty like the sky when Rainbow Dash went on a furious kicking spree.
“I’m fine,” Twilight said. She tried the wine again. Drinking too fast, yet, but in small sips. It was not good.
“You don’t like it.”
“It’s pinot noir.”
“Pinot noir is a proper drink for a proper lady,” Rarity said. She sank into the couch about an inch.
“If you say so.”
“I do, in fact, say so. I would know. I am very definitely a lady in every sense of the word, vulgar and noble alike. Being such, by definition, I would know what a lady drinks. Because I’m a lady.” She sniffed. “It follows.”
“QED?”
“What?”
Twilight sighed. “Nothing.”
Twilight looked around her friend’s living room. Or at least, she looked at what she could actually see of it. The lights were dimmed, with the only illumination coming from the kitchen through the door. Much of the living room was given over to piles of scraps and sundries. Messy, yes, but nothing unsanitary necessarily, and even in this she noted that Rarity was consistent. There was almost a pattern to the scattered piles, if you forgot that they were, in fact, piles. If you cocked your head to the side, lost your sense of decency and decorum, and sorta squinted at them, the piles began to align into something vaguely resembling order, like a constellation drawn by a drunkard.
Or maybe, just maybe, Twilight Sparkle was a mildly neurotic and very stressed genius with a penchant for analysis that crossed over into the borderline obsessive and so she saw things that weren’t there.
Rarity lounged before her. Lounged is what she would call it because Twilight Sparkle, for all of her stress and all of her issues, at least tried to be charitable, especially to her friends. In truth Rarity had more melted into the cushions and coagulated into a vaguely reclining shape.
“So... “ Twilight swirled the dark red substance in her glass. “I, uh. Fluttershy mentioned you missed your spa appointment. And Sweetie Belle showed up at Applejack’s house wanting food. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that the scorch marks in your kitchen are from her attempt to cook for herself?”
“I’m mostly sure that’s what happened, yes,” Rarity said.
“She seemed to think you were cursed by a, ah, ‘zombie curse’,” Twilight continued.
“And how, Twilight my dear, did you come by these morsels of information? I thought you were sequestered away in your high tower for the duration.”
“Duration of what?”
Rarity blinked at her.
“I’m not sure, actually. It’s just a phrase I heard once that got stuck in my head. It’s an affectation, Twilight, and that means that it doesn’t have to make sense. It’s artificial. Everything is artificial.”
“I see.”
“Yes. I’m glad you understand.”
“I was going to ask what was wrong, but…”
Rarity shifted slightly. Whatever her intent had been, it apparently had been forgotten or abandoned halfway through, for she rose a few inches only to slump onto her side.
“The world is a lot more foolish at this angle,” Rarity announced.
“Yes, I’d imagine so. Are you… alright?”
“No.”
“Yeah, okay, I set myself up for that answer.”
Rarity blinked some more. She extended a hoof and then withdrew it.
“I will be fine,” she said. “I have merely taken a bit too much of my prescribed medication and will not be very lively for, oh, another seven hours. That is a rough estimate.”
Twilight’s chest felt tight. Something cold was there, but she did not know why. Nor was she entirely sure why her stomach felt suddenly as if the bottom of it had fallen out. She could speculate on it, she could process what she had heard, but she tried not to. It would not do to be caught up in her own feelings.
“Just an accident, then?”
“You could say that, yes.”
Twilight frowned and set the wine down. “Rarity, that’s not a very reassuring answer.”
“You aren’t a reassuring answer.”
Twilight resisted the urge to point out that she was also not summoned on account of a question, because arguing with the overly medicated it a fruitless endeavor, as she had learned when her parents recounted her experience having her wisdom teeth removed. Some lessons stay with us. Not the useful ones, mind you. Just some. The useful lessons tend to slide off and puddle out around your hooves like an uneaten ice cream cone.
“I’m not, I guess. If you say so. Why did you take your medicine above the prescribed amount?”
“Why did you come here?”
Twilight sighed.
“Because you are my friend, and because your other friends had started putting the pieces together and we are worried.”
Rarity mumbled something. She shifted on the couch again until she was laying flat on her stomach, staring at the arm of the couch.
“This is a very nice couch,” she observed. “I actually got quite a nice deal on it, did you know? It’s not actually as well-crafted or as expensive as it appears. Fifty bits for the whole thing.”
Twilight took a deep breath.
“That is a good price,” she replied. “What did you say before that?”
“Before what?”
Twilight grit her teeth.
It was hard not to be frustrated. It was. It shouldn’t be. Here was Rarity, obviously not alright, obviously not herself, and avoidant… and Twilight was getting angry about it. This was exactly the wrong response to have and she knew it. But it was just… it was frustrating. Could nothing just keep itself together for five minutes? She’d left them all perfectly alright and fine. Ponyville had been perfectly fine. Everything running smoothly, all of her friends happily whistling about their work and enjoying their play, the sun bright in the sky, etc. And she shuts herself in to work on the mountain of paper work and has fever dreams and catches pnuemonia and maybe has a conversation with a very out of character sister-in-law and Princess and emerges to discover that Rarity’s little sister is staying at the Apple’s farm for the night and Rarity was a pony puddle on her surprisingly cheap fainting couch in a dark living room with scorch marks in her kitchen and a teary-eyed Fluttershy was convinced a missed spa date meant that she had done some dreadful unknown thing to irreparably destroy their friendship. Also, Rainbow Dash had the feather flu, which sucked, but one thing at a time. One nexus of things at a time. Yes. That.
“Rarity,” she began, slowly so as to not be derailed. “Can we talk about why you took your medicine over the prescribed amount? And now that I think about it, I didn’t know you were taking any.”
“As needed.”
“Why did you need it?”
Rarity flopped. She did this in slow motion, slowly rotating her body around on the cheapish yet admittedly rather nice fainting couch until she was lying on her back. Her legs folded in on themselves, again slowly. Then they extended slowly. And then she flailed them. Slowly.
“Twiiiiilliiiiiigggghhhttttttttt,” she groaned, somehow adding two extra syllables into it.
“Yes, Rarity?”
“I feel very strange.”
“Yes, I had gathered that.”
“Ask meeee… questions!”
Twilight sighed. “Why?”
“Because…” Rarity blinked. She flailed slowly some more. Twilight was reminded of Pinkie’s odd biking-flying contraption, and then promptly she tried to forget it because Pinkie’s weird inventions hurt her brain. “Beeeccauseee they are…. Delightfullll.”
“Delightful.”
“Yes,” Rarity said. She sniffed. “I am delightful.”
“Yes, usually.”
Twilight watched. She sipped her pinot and continued to find it not to her liking. Rarity seemed to be deep in thought.
“Am I delightful?” she asked the ceiling.
Twilight couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, you are.”
“But whyyyyyyyy?”
Twilight sighed. Again. “Well, your passion for your work is infectious. I don’t really… know a lot about fashion. I always felt like I was somehow deficient--you know, as a mare--for not liking those things somehow. Which is really honestly rather silly,” Twilight paused to take another sip. The good thing about wine was that the more one drank, the less one noticed how un-good Pinot Noir was. “I mean, it isn’t like you have to like or be good at certain things to be mare enough to be a mare. That entire sentence is ludicrous. I mean you just… are? I don’t know. But it’s nice and I rather like it.”
Rarity squirmed.
“Twilight,” she said, her voice noticeably less wobbly.
“Yes?”
“I wish to cry. But I cannot. Because my marshmellowy body is full of medicine designed to prevent me from doing such shameful things.”
“Cry? Why? Are you alright?” Twilight began to lurch forward in alarm.
“Nothing is alright. You are a beautiful mare and very mare-like. Because you are one. That is a thing that you are, and nopony can tell you differently. You are very lovely, and your horn is very nice. I am very fond of your horn.” A pause. “Is it longer now?”
“What?”
“Your horn.”
Twilight touched her horn, and then stopped doing that because it seemed a bit unseemly. She flushed. “Well, yes. It is. It grew. Um… thank you? Thank you for saying my horn is, uh, nice?”
“It is very horny.”
Twilight sputtered. Unfortunately she had been mid-sip, and missed whatever it was Rarity said in trying not to gag. She coughed, and then managed a strangled, “I like yours too.”
“Why thank you. I like mine a lot. Asssskkkk me questions.”
“I…” Twilight coughed again and set her glass down. “I… alright. Questions. Rarity, will you please stop touching your horn?”
“Why.”
“It’s… it’s indecent! I think? I’m not really sure?”
Rarity blinked at her. “Horns are weird.”
“Can we please stop talking about being hor--okay. Question. Why did you take your medicine?”
Rarity tried to look at her own horn and failed. Bored with this, she flopped slowly back onto her side so she could better look at Twilight and waved a hoof at her.
“No fair! Not fair at all you saucy, bad, delicious mare. Something else.”
Twilight felt like her face was on fire. “Fine. Why did you buy a fainting couch?”
Rarity smiled. “To faint on!”
“Okay. Okay, yes, I set myself up for that one. I acknowledge that. But were you planning on doing a lot of fainting, or…?”
“You have lovely eyes, Twilight.”
Twilight stared.
“Pardon?” she said flatly.
“Your eyes are very lovely.”
Twilight bit her lip. “I… I mean… Th--”
“I’ve always thought so. They are like chunks of beautiful amethyst in a… what do they call those holes they dig in the ground?”
“Tunnels?” Twilight supplied, baffled.
“No! The ones with the gold and the hard hats! And those adorable little carts.”
Twilight went back to drinking. “Mines. You mean mines.”
“Yes!! Mines. Like amethyst in a mine. Do they mine those?”
“I… I don’t really know.”
“I also do not know, which is absolutely criminal. I am a purveyor of fine, pretty, expensive rocks. Stones if you will. Which I will. Stoneees. You know which ones are my favorite?”
“Um… which?”
Rarity giggled. “Sapphires. If I was going to have an alter-ego, she would be Sapphire. Did you know, I once fantasized about being a generous escort named Sapphire? I would be very, very exclusive, because I myself am very exclusive and elusive. I would help the poor and unfortunate, the lonely lost hearts who needed somepony beautiful and lovely to believe in them. Sapphire, the heroine of love and carnal desire.”
Rarity fluttered her eyelashes. Or, rather, she attempted to do so in a suitably flirtatious manner but mostly it looked silly because benzodiazepines often cause drowsiness, confusion, and minor loss of finer muscle control and Rarity knew this. Not that knowing this actually helped her in any way. Experience does not teach what we expect it to teach. It rarely teaches at all, despite what we might say or hope.
Twilight finished her glass. She leaned back.
“You know, honestly, that sounds right up your alley.”
“Oh, doesn’t it?” Rarity gushed. “I have always so loved to help and be helpful.”
“I know. I like that about you. May I ask you another question?”
“Of course, my most lovely and beautiful of friends.”
“How are you feeling right now? Physically.”
Rarity harumph’d. “I feel excellent. My body is in open revolt, my poor tummy is a bit empty-feeling, my sharp mind is very fuzzy, and also standing is very tiring. Not difficult. Tiring. I am choosing to lie down of my own volition. That is a thing I am doing.”
“Do you mind if I stay with you until you are better?” Twilight asked. “Would you mind if I came and sat on the couch with you?”
“I would like that perhaps slightly too much. Please do.”
Twilight shrugged and moved. Rarity also moved, albeit much more slowly, until Twilight found her friend nuzzled into her side. She flushed.
Having a crush on Rarity was a bit unfortunate when she was not entirely in her right mind. She nuzzled Rarity, and sighed.
“I guess… I guess it doesn’t really matter why,” Twilight said. “I mean, why you did it. I can ask you when you’re better.”
“Daaaarling, I am better. I am the best. I, Rarity, am delightful. You said so.”
Twilight smiled. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Questions!”
“Okay. Questions.” Twilight rested her chin on the top of Rarity’s head and thought. It was actually far more comfortable than she had expected it to be, and it wasn’t strange. Friends were affectionate. That was fine and normal and healthy. “Well, how is business?”
“Business is such a vulgar word,” Rarity grumbled and nuzzled Twilight, who blushed. “Business is doing splendidly. I am making bits hoof over… over other hoof. Because I have four of them. I have four shops! One for each hoof. Which one is which hoof? Twilight, assist me.”
“Assist you?”
Rarity stretched and laid herself completely on Twilight, who squirmed beneath her weight. Not that it was a lot… okay, Twilight had to be honest, it was a bit more than her own. Not that she minded. Not that she didn’t like it a lot. Her brain was a bit scattered.
“Yes. Assist me. Which shop is which hoooof.”
“I… what?”
“I think my home in Ponyville should be my right front hoof.”
“Um… because you’re right hoofed?”
“It’s my favorite one. I use it for everything. Eeeeeverything.”
“Everything.”
Rarity flailed, but in a very polite and controlled way. Mostly controlled. Control was difficult. “Yes,” she said. “Everything. I walk on it. I push things with it. I sometimes run my sewing machine with it. I clo--”
Twilight made a choking noise. “Um, next question!”
“Oooh I do so love questions. Do continue.”
Twilight’s mind raced. She grasped for a question. Any question. Any question at all.
“How is Coco doing? In, um, Manehattan? I think it was Manehattan. Wasn’t she running your boutique there?”
“Coco is such a cute pony, don’t you think?”
“I… guess? I hadn’t really thought about it. I’ve only met her once or twice.”
“Not as cute as you, of course. She is doing very well.”
“Erm, thanks. I, uh, I’m glad. You know, I admire how you can balance being an artist with being a businesspony. It’s honestly impressive. I wish I had your acumen.”
“Dear, it’s nothing, really. You could do the same. The secret is Big Mac.”
Twilight blinked.
“What?”
“He does my taxes.”
“He… what?”
“He does everypony in town’s taxes.”
“Not Rainbow Dash. I do Rainbow Dash’s taxes,” Twilight said.
“That’s because Rainbow forgot to ask him. She always forgets. She’s going to go to pony jail, you know.”
Twilight groaned. “Yes, I know. Her records are awful. Rarity, her forms from the Weather Bureau literally had cider and cheesy-hot chip stains.”
Rarity giggled. “Of course.”
“My first official pardon is going to be for tax evasion.”
“Oh, will there be a ceremony? I could make you such a lovely dress.”
Twilight covered her eyes. “It’ll be in all the papers! Princess Twilight engages in nepotism, allows friends to skip tax payments! The common pony will be in an uproar!”
“It would be a lovely dress. Very sexy. It would cling to your beautiful, sensuous flanks--”
“And Celestia will be disappointed in me and maybe I’ll have to be grounded from being a princess? How do you--”
“--and maybe a little short in the back so I can have a nice view, being of course at your side as a part of your court--”
“--like, how do you even punish a princess? I don’t--”
“Well, with a nice crop, one hopes.”
Both mares stopped. They blinked in unison.
“Next question,” Twilight said blankly.
“Twilight.”
“Yes?”
Rarity shifted again. “Ponyville has to be my right hoof. It can’t be my back hooves. They just aren’t as good.”
“Oh, for the love of Celestia,” Twilight paused. Unbidden, her midnight rendezvous returned to her. “Celestia AND Luna,” she amended quickly. “In the… for the love of both of those ponies, why aren’t they as good? Your hooves are all equally good. We’re ponies. They’re all the same hooves don’t… I…”
“Well, yes, for walking,” Rarity slurred. “But have you tried reaching your--”
Twilight did not die or explode. Her mane did not catch fire. This was an improvement, and later when she had some time alone she would be very proud of the progress she made. Instead, she just started talking.
“Shouldn’t you be talking about this with Fluttershy? I’m not sure this--”
“Fluttershy?”
Twilight flailed. Rarity slipped back onto the couch like a ragdoll and lay there, astonished. Or not astonished in the sense of surprised, because she was far too medicated for true bewilderment, but rather in the archaic sense. Or really just in a sort of referential sense. She mostly laid there and thought that her fifty bit couch was actually very nice, really. Oh. Sixty bits. She lied. She would have to correct that later.
“Yes. Aren’t you two secretly dating?” Twilight had a horrible thought. “Oh, no, what if it wasn’t secret? What if you told everypony but I forgot and now I’m making a fool of myself by having forgotten and how could I forget something like that, or what if you didn’t want me to know because I’m not as close as the others or you thought I might judge you or disapprove or whatever word is supposed to go there, I’m not sure, is it misapprove? Not, it’s--”
“Twilight?”
“Look, sometimes words are hard! I’m not great at them! I like numbers! Numbers make sense! Numbers come out alright in the end and you don’t have to worry about it until something is off and you spend four hours in front of a blackboard asking yourself what went wrong clinging to your chalk begging the gods of calculus for mercy because Celestia will be fresh out because she’s actually secretly the least merciful of all creatures, have you seen what she does to her guards? She even apologizes for not giving you proper instructions, and its the worst thing in the universe cause it makes you feel about an inch tall and--”
“I’m dating Fluttershy?”
“Yes! Yes, aren’t you??”
They blinked at each other.
“I…” Rarity furrowed her brow. “I don’t think I am. Was I?”
“I… I thought so.”
“I am mostly sure I am not dating Fluttershy. Mostly. I would almost definitely remember having dated Fluttershy. I certainly remember making sweet, passionate, frenzied love to her that one time, but that was a year ago.”
“You--wait, what?”
“Yes. It was lovely. Did you know her p--”
“Rarity, I’m going to die. I’m going to die, and you’ll have killed me. You will be arrested for regicide and given a kangaroo trial.”
“What on earth is a Kangaroo?”
“It’s… nevermind. It’s a thing that exists. You aren’t dating Fluttershy? But--”
Some things hit us immediately. We react to them with lightning speed. Others? Others hit us later, sometimes moments after they happen. Sometimes it takes hours. But eventually, all things catch up to us. No one can escape the inevitable.
“Wait, did you say you and Fluttershy, um… like… You know. That you and her…” Twilight sputtered.
“Hm?”
“That you two, um… but you aren’t?”
“Words, Twilight.”
“I’m very bad at words!”
Rarity, who was laying on her back in what was, because of Twilight’s vantage, something of a compromising position, purred. Or attempted to purr. On a normal day, it would have worked out rather well. Rarity was very charming. One might even say that Rarity could, were she so inclined, be both charming and seductive; that she might, given opportunity, time, and the appropriate mood lighting, be something of a temptress. Her honeyed words, her lidded come-hither looks, her perfectly filed and polished horn, her luscious lips--Twilight Sparkle was really losing her composure at this point, and she knew it--all of these things and more might in fact be rather tempting.
But at present, with no mood lighting, with her ability to weave words severely compromised, and with her admittedly delightfully plump marshmellowy body at an awkward angle, her attempt to purr seductively mostly sounded like very mild sleep apnea.
“But you have such a lovely voice,” Rarity purred/failed at purring.
“I do not! It’s… it’s squeaky and unpleasant.”
“It is musical and uplifting. I’ve heard you sing.”
“No you haven’t!”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Darling. We’ve all heard each other sing. We all sing all the time, at random intervals, for any reason at all. We dance, even! I’ve seen you dance, you saucy mare! I have seen many steps that you stepped to beats of ethereal music forced upon us by the lingering touch of the creative fires of song which formed our world when the Authors first put pen to paper.”
“What. No. Don’t explain that. Let’s put a pin in it, a bright pin and a note that says ‘URGENT: DEMAND PROPER EXPLANATION’ on it, but a pin and then let’s put it on a board. On my wall. Yes. Okay, back to what I was freaking out about.”
“If we must.”
“You and Fluttershy…”
“Yes,” Rarity said, encouragingly.
“Did…”
“Yes.”
“You engaged…”
Rarity flailed until she was slightly raised, enough to lay a hoof on Twilight’s leg. “Take your time, dearest.”
“You. Fluttershy. Coitus.”
Rarity tried to clap. She missed. She missed again. She kind of got it the third time, but it was honestly sort of weak and they both knew it. Out of pity, Twilight chose not to drag her about it. Twilight, unlike her kind and benevolent mentor, was a mare primarily of mercy. That was a lie. She was primarily a mare of stress, and then science, and then magic, which was also science maybe, and then friendship, and then mercy. And then donuts. Stars, she loved donuts. Donuts were just the absolute best thing. They were better than danishes. She wanted some right now.
“Yes,” Rarity said when she shame of her absolutely devestatingly weak clapping had passed over them both. “Fluttershy and I… Fluttershy and myself?”
“It’s ‘I’, I think,” Twilight offered.
“Yes. We engaged in coitus. We made the beast with two backs. We humped our way up the mountain of bliss.” Rarity yawned. “We… we played tonsil hockey. We gave into bestial passions. We worshipped the ancient Pony fertility gods in their proper ways. I used my tongue and I made h--”
“Rarity.”
“Yes?”
“Please don’t tell me specifics. As much as, to be frank with you, I want to know specifics. If you want to tell me when you aren’t wallowing in slow motion, you can do that.”
Rarity wallowed.
“Fair. More than fair, darling.”
“Thanks, I thought so too.”
“But we aren’t dating.”
“I… can I ask why not? Is that okay?”
Rarity paused. Or rather, she let the silence linger on as she stopped wallowing and laid very still.
“You know,” she said at last, “I’m not sure.”
Twilight swallowed something sad down and turned towards Rarity. “Rarity, we don’t--”
“I find I want to talk about it,” she said softly. “I feel… not better. But less strange.”
Twilight smiled weakly. “Good.”
“It was… she and I… is it bad to talk about another in such a way, Twilight?”
“I’m not sure.”
Twilight faced her now. Rarity flailed, and this time Twilight helped pull her up.
“She had never been with anyone. I was so very lonely. We… talked. We were talking. One thing led to another. I was feeling very sentimental, and she is such a dear, and I admit I had a crush, and when she said she’d never been kissed…” Rarity cringed. “I am generous,” she managed.
“So you just… kissed her?”
“I am not a very smart mare, Twilight. That is your job.”
“You’re smart,” Twilight murmured, unable to do much besides imagine it. “And then… So…”
“I was… mortified,” Rarity said. “We both were. Not of… I mean…”
She faltered and then laid back.
“You were embarrassed, but not of each other. Not because it was Fluttershy.”
“I felt like I had… I don’t know. I’m a modern mare, Twilight. I am no stranger to… pr… what is that word?”
“Promiscuity? Though, unless you have an awful lot more sex than you talk about, I’m not sure that’s really what you’re going for.”
“Thank you, Dictionary Sparkle,” Rarity said and giggled. “It was not the casualness of our encounter, or rather it is not casual encounters in general? I think? It…” she groaned. “I am sentimental. I am sentimental and foolish mare. I fretted so that her first time was with me! And in such a way!”
Twilight made a small, sad noise. “But Fluttershy and you are so close.”
“Yes. And we are still. Poor dear. I was so very worried about… “she yawned. “Mm. About that. Very worried.”
“Do you like her?” Twilight asked, though the question clawed at her heart. Why was she even asking? This was ridiculous. This whole thing was ridiculous. First she wakes up at 2 AM to hallucinate about her sister in law drinking paint thinner and trying to seduce her, and now she was prying into a medicated Rarity’s love life. What was wrong with her? Why was she such a bad pony?
What would a good pony do, Twilight thought. What would a good pony do, in this place and in this time? Tuck Rarity in, make sure she had some water, and return to her couch. That was probably what a good pony would do.
“Rarity?”
“Yes, dear?”
Twilight swallowed. “Rarity, I’ve not been a very good friend. I’m sorry I asked you all of this when you weren’t… you know. All together.”
Rarity lurched up and fell against her, clinging tightly.
“Twilight, you simply mustn’t say such a thing. You are a fine friend, and I love you. Also, I love you.”
Twilight giggled. “You said that twice.”
“I meant it in two different ways.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” Rarity nuzzled her and she nuzzled back. “Can I ask what happened?”
Rarity sighed.
“Will you tell the others?”
Twilight shook her head.
And then it caught up with her, as things are oft to do.
“Wait, two ways? Wha--”
Rarity put a hoof over her mouth. “Shush, dear, it’s Rarity time. You are a very, very good friend, Twilight Sparkle. But today was a very bad day. A dreadful, calamitous day. I had several orders. Coco wrote me a letter apologizing for the sales report from Manehattan and the poor dear was so upset. My sister kissed a colt and was excited to tell me about it, and that got me thinking about Fluttershy and her dear, kind face and her sweet lips, and how cruel it is to love two mares at once and how I am growing older.”
“Two, older, what?”
Rarity continued on, unabated. “And how, eventually, I am going to die, and nopony at all shall remember Rarity or her paltry dresses, or her charm or her wit. They shall walk over her grave in half a century and not remember her at all. All will be for naught. Perhaps even Celestia dies, and the sun goes down, and art is as meaningless and pointless as I fear, and my emotions about it are a weak affectation, a display begging for attention to stave off my own dire loneliness in this bland and watered down life.”
Twilight blinked at her.
“Do you get the urge to stress so much you go on long rants?” she asked at length.
“Yes. Why?”
“Rarity, I think we’re two sides of the same pony.”
“Twilight, do you also wish some pony would make sweet love to you in the depths of the night when you can’t sleep?”
“Like always, yes. I got to writing fanfiction about it.”
“Is it as steamy as Fluttershy’s novels?” Rarity asked, suddenly alert.
“Flutt...Fluttershy writes… I knew it.”
“She hasn’t let you read any? That is a crime. You must read her newest release. The sweet dear is such a naughty mare, you know.”
Twilight flushed. “I’m… ahem, I can imagine it. I’m trying not to. Failing. Oh. Oh goodness.”
Rarity grinned.
“Twilight. This is a very stupid encounter, isn’t it?”
“In some ways.”
“I’m about to be very, very stupid. But I am in my right mind, before you protest. Because there are two mares I love, and today I panicked myself about it, but I am now quite incapable of panic and my inhibitions have given way to a great desire to do something rash yet harmless.”
“I... “ Twilight cocked her head to the side. “What?”
“I am going to kiss you. I am going to kiss you frequently. Savagely. Passionately. Artlessly. A lot.”
“What.”
Rarity tackled her and Twilight Sparkle saw stars. Partially because her head hit the arm of the couch, but partially because Rarity was kissing her and it was both astonishing and…. Oh dear.
When they came up for air, Rarity grinned at her.
“How do you feel about polyamory?”
And Twilight sputtered.
“Because while I’m being rash, you simply have to experience Fluttershy when she’s--”
Twilight groaned. Not in a sexy way. More in the way of the baffled and overwhelmed.
And it was awesome.
