Compatī

I knew it was a bad idea heading back to the portal room alone. The moment I stepped inside, my eyes locked onto Sunset, and the hurt started all over again.

She lay on a heap of pillows, her head cradled in the crook of her elbow. She looked so peaceful, but I knew the hell she waded through every moment she spent in there.

I sat down at the edge of the chalk circle, my tail curled around my hooves. A few errant hairs spread out from the bunch, and where they touched the chalk lines a faint glow of magic caused them to burn and shrivel. If I remembered right, that meant the chalk’s insulating properties were wearing out. We’d have to redo them soon, before it started acting less like a containment field and more like a tesla coil. With how much magic we had behind this thing, I didn't want to think about just how nasty that could get.

The doors opened behind me, and Twilight stepped in. She seemed surprised to find me here, almost backing out of the room like she’d walked in on something private. But somewhere in that silly head of hers she found a smile worth sharing.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked, stepping into the room proper.

“Not really, no.”

She sat down beside me. Her wing brushed against my side, just lightly enough to be accidental.

“I can’t either,” she said after a pregnant pause. Her eyes trailed the weave of chalk lines and cracks in the floor—everywhere but me. Eventually, our eyes both gravitated toward Sunset, just beyond the faint pink glow radiating from the glyph.

“She’ll be okay,” she said. Her voice rang with conviction, but it didn’t take a mind reader to know she said it more for herself than me. The melancholy clung to her like perfume. “They both will.”

“I know,” I said with the same conviction. We were both drenched in it. “We’re all doing our best, her and… well….”

When she didn’t say anything, I absently brushed a few more hairs onto the chalk to watch them sizzle, and a wisp of smoke trailed its way toward the ceiling.

Twilight followed the trail with her eyes, lost in whatever doomsday scenarios ran circles in her head. With a brain like hers, I could only imagine how many.

“We’re doing our best,” she echoed. She kept it in for my sake. Tried to, I should say. She was a leader, a princess. She wasn’t allowed to show weakness, but for all that she tried, she looked more like a pane of glass that would shatter if I touched her.

I hated seeing her like this. I hated looking at her knowing there was nothing I could do to make it easier for her and that I in fact was just another bullet point on her laundry list of stress factors. Me wallowing in my own mental bullshit was one thing, but I couldn’t stand knowing she felt the same way.

I had seen her smile before—like, really smile, not just the placating ones she tossed out when conversationally appropriate. On that first “date” Starlight threw us on, when I finally got her off the topic of Sunset, it was a magical thing all its own. Honestly, just getting her to smile again would drown out all the worries bogging me down. It’d make my presence worthwhile.

“Sometimes it can feel like our best isn’t enough,” she said.

And now, apparently, was my time to shine. Smile for the world, smile for her.

“Sometimes it’s not,” I said. “At least for regular ponies. But when it comes to you, I don’t think there’s a best that isn’t not enough.”

That got a tiny, incredulous smile out of her. Not the kind I was looking for, but it was a start.

“‘A best that isn’t not enough’? What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean exactly that. A best that isn’t not enough of a best to be best enough.” I flashed her a “Trademark Coppertone Grin,” as Sunset always called them. If you can’t blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit, right?

And there peeked out the smile I wanted to see, the confused but amused smile that said I wasn’t a complete waste of oxygen. She laughed as she said, “W-what even are the words coming out of your mouth right now?”

I shrugged flippantly. “Ones that make you laugh.”

Like the flip of a switch, she flushed a deep red, and a breathless laugh got the better of her. She made a nervous show of looking at anything but me, and I figured now was time to press the advantage.

“Ones that make you realize that other ponies realize just how ‘best enough’ you really are,” I continued. “You know, if there’s one thing I’ve known about you from before we met, it’s that you’re the princess of pulling a victory out of your ass at the last second.”

She scrunched up her nose. “I’m the Princess of Friendship, not… pulling a victory—”

“King Sombra, Discord, Chrysalis, that blizzard up in the Crystal Empire we all heard about.”

“I… well, um…”

“Am I wrong?”

She hooked her mouth in a little frown, and I struggled to not flash a smile before it was due. “Okay fine, so we win by the skin of our teeth sometimes. What’s your point?”

There was no point, really. Small talk never had a point other than filling the silence or helping somepony get over their uncertainties.

Or, like Sunset said, getting to know a pony you kinda liked.

I shrugged and tossed out my tried and true ace in the hole: “If a spoon’s made of silver, you call it a silver spoon, right?”

That got another scrunchy face out of her and holy crap, this time I couldn’t help the stupid laugh it got out of me. But the glyph’s magical hum seeped through the cracks of our little back-and-forth to remind me where we were, and the mood soured as quickly as it came on.

I sighed. “I just… Everything will turn out okay, one way or another. I know it will.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Twilight said. It was her turn to smile for the world, and she brought that smile around to me. The tiniest upturn in her eyebrows begged me to elaborate on the things dragging me down. She was a shoulder to lean on, a friend to confide in, and I couldn’t deny her.

“I just… I know everything will turn out okay,” I said. “I believe that. I really do. But like, it’s been so much, you know? Just, all of this. How much of a toll it’s clearly taken on everypony, and… I don’t like knowing how much everypony’s suffered because of it. Part of me just wishes this all never happened.”

Twilight let that hang for a moment before saying, “I don’t.” She had a little smile on her face as she stared past Sunset. “For one, Sunset’s been hurting for a long time. What we’re doing has made it hurt worse in the short term, but I believe it’ll be better in the long run. And two—” She turned her smile toward me. “—I got to meet you.”

I knew she meant it earnestly, but in light of all our interactions—and that five-star performance of a blush she put on barely a minute ago—I couldn’t help hearing it way differently in my head. I had to look away to keep from snickering, and I pursed my lips to keep a smirk from giving me away.

She fluffed up. “W-what? I’m being serious.”

So much for hiding it. Now that she prodded for info, I couldn’t keep it in, and trying only turned what should have been a simple laugh into a full-blown snort fest better saved for when Sunset was being a complete doofus. I put my hoof up to my mouth to try and hold in what little I could.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” I said between laughs. “But that was the cheesiest pick-up line I’ve ever heard.”

Her cheeks went the most perfect shade of red, and she scrunched up her nose and oh sweet Celestia, if only I could have taken a picture. “That, that wasn’t supposed to be a pick-up line!”

“‘Wasn’t supposed to be’? So it was, huh?”

“Wha— I. No, I…” She shifted her weight from her left hoof to her right. “What makes you think I’m… that I’m into you?”

I eyed her just to be sure I heard her correctly. She had to be denying it out of embarrassment. There’s no way she was that in the closet, not after that little spat.

Though, it’d be easy enough to find out, and the playful side of me yearned to stretch its legs. I got up and stood in front of her.

I was maybe two inches taller than her, and I made sure to use every bit of it to keep that fluster of hers going.

Her eyes locked with mine, and the nervous uncertainty in them as they danced back and forth told me all I needed.

Careful not to step on her tail, I walked around behind her, putting on a bit of hip sway to get her attention. I could feel her eyes on me, tracing up and down my body, taking in what she couldn’t touch. I gave her a sidelong glance, just enough to show my own sliver of interest and stir up in her that subconscious need for more.

“Copper, what are you—”

I brushed up beside her, making sure to nuzzle up under her chin.

Her breath hitched, and out went those wings of hers that she never seemed to know what to do with. She went rigid, like her brain had jumped the rails at 6000 rpm and blasted clean out the side of her head, and so I went in for the kill.

I trailed the tip of my nose up her jawline to moan an “mhm” into her ear, and the shivers on her breath had me biting back a grin.

Circling fully around her, I kept my eyes locked with hers as I let my shoulders, then my hips, then my tail brush along her chest. The rosy shade of pink dominating her cheeks would have had me laughing were I enjoying this solely at her expense. Truth be told, I was having far more fun than I deserved.

I let that excitement sharpen my lips into a grin as I turned back toward her, inches from her face.

Her eyes danced back and forth between mine, every breath she took hot and heavy, no matter how hard she tried hiding it.

Oh, she wanted it.

I came an inch closer, and she matched me. Back went her ears, and I was certain every creature in a mile radius could hear her heart hammering in her chest. It ignited a fire in my blood that had me biting my lip, which only drove her more wild.

I could feel her breath on my muzzle. It took every ounce of willpower to keep from following through on every instinct screaming in my ears. I cupped her chin in my hoof, drew her forward ever so slightly. She was like putty in my hooves. And just before leaning in to commit to that passionate release, I stepped back, letting my hoof trail away from her and watched her lean wistfully after me.

“You were saying?” I said as coyly as possible.

She blinked for the first time since I brushed against her and took a heavy breath as if regaining herself from a spell. She took a step back and cleared her throat into her hoof.

“I, uh… that was… unexpected.”

I snorted. “But not unwanted, hmm?”

I carefully brushed my mane out of my face on the sly. Couldn’t have her thinking I enjoyed that as much as she did, could we? Well, maybe just a little…

That was, until I caught Sunset out of the corner of my eye, and my playful side went yipping back to its cage, tail between its legs.

But I couldn’t let that show—not after the performance I just put on for her—and so up went the mask of satisfaction as I flaunted each and every curve, the way my old modeling gigs taught me, and sat beside her, close enough to brush against her wing in a way that certainly wasn’t accidental.

After that little performance, she kept her eyes strictly forward. Though, she pressed a very measured amount of weight against me, and I couldn’t help but notice she placed her hoof daringly close to mine.

“Okay, yeah,” she said. “So I like you. Like, that kind of like. You’re beautiful, attentive, academic, artistic and all sorts of things that don’t normally go together that make you this… unique individual that I can’t help but admire.”

She finally found the courage to look at me, and I in turn met her gaze. She could have kissed me right there had she chosen to, and it seemed she realized it herself, given how quickly she retreated to looking at her hooves.

“A-and it’s not just you,” she said, laying her ears back. “Er, I mean, it is you, but like—”

“I know what you mean,” I said before she could ramble herself into a tizzy. I bit back a stupid smile of my own.

“R-right. So yes, I’ve always kind of… gravitated toward mares. I just… I’ve been worried. About my friends knowing. I’m the Princess of Friendship, not the Princess of…” She waggled her hoof in an attempt to dredge up the right word, but I couldn’t help myself:

“The Princess of Friendship with Benefits?” I said.

She fluffed up at that. “Th-that’s not what I was going to say. But… that sentiment, more or less, yes. Rainbow Dash pokes enough fun at me as it is.”

“Because she’s your friend? And that’s a thing friends do?”

“I get that she’s poking fun for fun’s sake, because she would never mean to hurt her friends. I know that. But… it still hurts.” She wilted, looking down at her hooves.

“Then you should tell her that. Just be serious about it. Or, be direct about it, I should say. Just tell her that in no uncertain terms. It’s always the rise they get out of you that eggs them on.” I laughed. “I should know. That was very much me with, uh… with Sunset.”

It was ironic, me counseling the Princess of Friendship on a friendship problem. I almost laughed again, but luckily I kept that in. Probably wouldn’t have flown well.

“And really,” I continued, “I don’t think they’ll think any differently of you in the slightest. For one thing, they’re your friends, and two, they already know. I guarantee it. It’s why Rainbow Dash is poking fun in the first place.”

“You really think so?”

And out came that laugh from a moment ago. “If my dad’s already picked up on it, then they sure as shit have.”

She clicked her teeth shut and stared at the floor beneath her hooves as if some grave understanding suddenly dawned on her.

“But for real,” I continued, to shut down whatever doomsday movie reel she had playing in her head. “They’re your friends. All this worrying you’re doing, it’s a non-issue.

“Just…” I paused to think what would be best to say, and I remembered what Sunset told me not even a few hours ago. “Just be your realest self. That’s the you everypony likes the most.”

The sentiment hung between us, like a balloon whose string she wasn’t quite ready to grasp.

“Be my realest self?” Her eyes met mine, then retreated to the floor. A second passed, and she hesitantly reconsidered. She searched me, like she wanted to say something her brain couldn’t put into words.

She didn’t have to say anything, though… I knew that look better than I had any right to. I had lived the feelings etched across her face for as long as I could remember. And it was because of that commiseration that I didn’t flinch when she leaned in and kissed me, right on the lips.

It was a weak little thing, like she’d never done it before, or was too afraid to commit. I almost felt bad, as if I were somehow taking advantage of her, but my heart somersaulted nevertheless, and in that moment the world was nothing more than the two of us.

It felt right. It felt natural. Wanting and being wanted. I wanted to kiss her back, to hold her against me, to submerge myself in these feelings that for the first time in my life made sense, that for the first time in my life weren’t a lie.

But just… not in front of her.

I put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder to ease her back to arm’s length, and the hurt in her eyes had me regretting wandering down here tonight.

“You’re still in love with her.” Her eyes gravitated toward Sunset, wings slack at her sides. “Aren’t you?”

“What? N-no, that’s—”

“No, it’s okay.” She let out a little laugh that ended with a frown. “I, I get it. She’s…” A sigh. “Well, she’s Sunset.”

She’s Sunset… Like that was self-explanatory. Like she was this immaculate ideal us mere mortals were all cursed to compare ourselves to and be deemed unworthy—this untouchable goddess that I would never hold as my one and only, the one that got away.

And damn it, she was. She really, truly was—and yet she wasn’t, and both were right answers but I was still somehow wrong and I couldn’t keep lying to myself.

“Don’t say that,” I said. It came out shaky no matter how hard I tried. “Please don’t say that. Don’t make me think about it, don’t make me think about her.”

I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut to keep the tears in. “I’m trying to move past her. Damn it, I told her I was moving past her. But the harder I try to move the more I feel like I’m standing still.”

The tears pushed through, and I figured I might as well give up that charade now, like I had everything else worthwhile in my life. I sobbed into the back of my hoof, and there went whatever shred of dignity I had going for me.

Twilight put a hoof on my shoulder. I flinched at first, but I quickly leaned into it as if it were the only thing keeping me from falling into space.

“That’s… not how hearts work,” Twilight said. Her voice was oddly distant, but there was a certainty to it, some princessy wisdom I clung to if only to keep from bolting. “You don’t just… flip a switch and turn off your feelings. Some hurts take time. Some never go away, and we have to learn how to manage them.”

Some hurts never go away. Wasn’t that the truth. Wasn’t that my life, from the moment I first felt that tug for another mare and every day since. Knowing I was a disappointment, a burden, an abnormality. I was a problem I couldn’t fix. No matter who I loved or who I hid it from, I was a fucking wreck that did nothing but drag others down with me. I…

Star Chaser’s face sprang to mind, that warm smile full of life and love whenever she looked at me, and that was the final straw.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered. I tried taking a breath, but my lungs chose now of all moments to stop working. “I can’t…”

“Copper, what’s—”

I teleported back to my room upstairs. It was the first place I could think of that wasn’t next to Twilight.

I couldn’t be there. I couldn’t stand seeing her look at me with that kind of sympathy, that kind of… desire to be remotely close to me. I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t drag her down, too. The world was spinning and my heart beat faster and faster as I scrambled for a way out that didn’t exist and why the fuck did I teleport here of all places? I stumbled into the dresser, put my hooves to my head, and gritted my teeth. I couldn’t breathe.

There was a crack and flash of magic to my left, and there suddenly Twilight lorded over me. The stern look on her face had me cowering against the dresser like a cornered animal.

“How did you…” I barely got out. “How did you know where I went?”

“If you honestly think I can’t trace magic in my own castle,” Twilight said, “then you don’t know me.”

The tone of her voice had me shaking. “I-I’m sorry, I—”

She put a hoof to my lips, and I shut up.

The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. My heart pounded a mile a minute. The power in her stature, the intensity in her eyes, and all the insanities spinning in my head circled back on a simple terrifying truth: with the simplest flick of her horn, she could kill me on the spot.

I wanted to run. I wanted to cry. But even the tears were too afraid to show themselves, and I wanted to die rather than keep staring into those eyes. But as the seconds wore on, I was able to weasel out a more reasonable understanding of what I saw in them.

It wasn’t anger. There was a sternness, for sure, but there was also patience. She had this certainty about her that I had never seen in another pony, a confidence of motion as she cupped my hooves in hers, gently but firmly, and stared me dead in the eye.

“Breathe,” she said. She took a slow, deep breath, in through her nose, then out through her mouth, and I followed her lead.

In through my nose, out through my mouth. In, then out. Slow and steady.

She never took her eyes off me, and I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to. For as much command as there was in her gaze, there was also safety. I saw it more clearly with every breath. So long as I kept staring, so long as I kept breathing in time with her, nothing could ever hurt me—she wouldn’t let it.

She wanted to help. She was the Princess of Friendship. There was no dragging her down. Rather… she wanted to lift me up, to help me realize some potential only she could see, and damn it if I let myself believe.

With every breath, the panic ebbed until I was left safe and sound in her gaze, and within the blissful silence of that moment, she was the most beautiful thing.

She sensed that I had composed myself, and a smile crept onto her face to light up the room. Her eyes danced back and forth between mine, searching for words she wanted to say but couldn’t find. Ears pinned back, she came a little closer and cocked her head ever so slightly, and the hopeless romantic in me recognized that cue better than anything.

This time, we both went for it. It started out small, chaste, but she pressed into it just the tiniest bit, and that sparked the match.

I let out a little moan, and she replied with a shuddering breath. She pressed further, the taste of her breath driving me wild, prompting me to let one of my hooves travel up her foreleg to her shoulder blade and pull her chest against mine while the other trailed up the back of her neck to tangle itself in her mane.

She followed my lead, pressing her weight against me, wrapping her hooves around me—touching, feeling, roving down the length of my sides, to my hips and back again. It sent shivers up my spine. Gently, she put her hooves on my chest, and I let her push me backward for the bed and all the wonderful places my mind started roaming.

But leave it to my dumbass self to be a smidge farther from the bed than I realized.

Rather than falling dramatically into the sheets and my laundry list of romantic ideations, my butt caught the edge of the mattress and slipped forward when it sagged under my weight, which caused me to panic and flail for anything I could grab ahold of. Of course, that meant Twilight, who came tumbling sideways with me, and in all that grace of motion I conked the back of my head on the bed frame.

It was a mystery how I managed it, but fuck it hurt. I clutched the back of my head with both hooves as the pain sharpened to a fine point, just below the crown. It was already starting to swell up. Naturally, my brain thought it fitting to add an extra “fuck you” to the mix by reminding me that I had explicitly told myself I wouldn’t drag her down with me, and there kinda went the mood.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” Twilight said, already helping me up. “I was following your lead, and you were really into it, and it just felt right and—”

It was my turn to put a hoof to her lips and have the satisfaction of shutting up the princess herself. At the flip of a switch, her cheeks flared up like Hearth’s Warming lights, and her wings made another show of not knowing what to do—less a Princess of Anything and more the quirky, neurotic, complicated neophile I had gotten to know.

Her eyes were a mess of emotions. I could practically hear her freaking out inside her head, in the same vein as our little “experiment” not ten minutes earlier. To top it all off, she wore the picture-perfect look of a mare who thought she was reaching so far out of her own league and had been rightfully put back in her place.

Not that that was true. The princess title alone handily outweighed whatever shortcomings she saw in herself, not to mention she was quite the looker if we were talking leagues and all that fake social hierarchy bullshit. But fake or not, her confidence to try despite them was enough to put a wry smile on my face.

I wrapped her in my magic and threw her on the bed.