A to Z

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I met Twilight in the library near the biography section.

I was sitting in one of those big, overstuffed chairs by the window reading ‘Ponies Weekly’ when I suddenly felt like I was being watched. I looked up, and saw her staring at me. She sat in the chair opposite me; her royal purple fur gleaming in the light from the window and her back hooves tucked underneath her comfortably. Her large eyes were the same color as her fur, and they watched me, unblinking.

She had a book propped up against a cushion, but I couldn’t make out the title because she had it turned face down, as if watching me were infinitely more interesting than reading a book. I was both flattered and annoyed; I didn't go to the library to get cruised. I got enough of that at the boutique every day.

The amusing thing is, I was never that much of a reader before Twilight. In fact, I’d only been going to the library for a month or so when I met her. I’d never been to the Canterlot library, even though I regularly made bi-weekly trips to the capital city for business. One day I had finished a meeting at the newly christened branch of my boutique and felt like I needed some peace and quiet, so I thought I’d see if what everypony said about the library being peaceful was true.

I had no idea how wonderful the library was. Once I finished school as a filly, I made it a point to avoid all things academic that didn’t have to do with my work. But that first visit made me a believer. I’d make a trip to the library at least once every time I visited the city from Ponyville, maybe even two, not for the books but for the silence, the utter sense of solitude.

Everypony whispers in the library, everypony is deferential to your need for peace and quiet. It was so unlike my job at the boutique, where there is always something going on, somepony wanting to discuss something with me that I never got any peace, I couldn’t help but return again and again.

I’d have been happy to sit by the window on the second floor and watch the ponies outside go by, but the other library goers gave me funny looks. Sometimes homeless ponies go to the library to cool off in the summer. I didn’t think I looked like a hopony -- Celestia forbid! -- but I figured if I had my nose stuck in a magazine, they’d leave me alone.

I looked up from an article about how to win your stallion in ten easy steps to see her still watching me, her hoof placed between the pages of the book, marking her place. Her mane was a deeper shade of indigo than her coat, with a bright pink stripe down the side. She was about my age, I thought. It was hard to tell with unicorns. Magic does strange things to ponies, and when you expect a youngish looking unicorn mare to be interested, all of a sudden they turn out to be your parents age and you’re both embarrassed.

I realized I’d been staring at her and felt myself blush. My coat is as white as can be, my mane a similar color to hers, and at times I feel as though fate was playing a cruel joke on me. Considering my career, not many things go well with my natural coloration, and I have to accommodate my lighter shade with my ensemble. There had been many times I wished I had been born with a darker coat, or at least a shade easier to work with when designing something.

“Aren’t you hot?” the mare across from me finally asked.

I flinched. Her voice seemed too echo throughout the entire wing. Nopony seemed to notice, however, and I shrugged. “Not really.”

“I’m hot.” She reached up with her hoof to flick her mane over her shoulder, fanning her neck and the side of her face. “It’s usually nice in here, but today it feels like all the windows are bolted shut and the whole city is on fire.”

She was appealing, as was her dark, sweat-matted throat, but I didn’t really want to talk about the heat. I wanted to read about the famous couples that had broken up and gotten back together over the summer -- and what they were wearing. I wanted to be left alone. I raised the magazine up and covered my face, hoping to discourage any further conversation.

I didn’t give in to the temptation to give in a peek around the pages to see if she was still watching me. I finished reading about Grassy Knoll and Elusive Night’s newest fling and moved on to a fascinating tale about how unicorn magic could help you lose those pesky pounds in fifteen days.

I heard the swish of upholstery and fur and was almost disappointed that I’d run her off so soon. I jumped when she pulled the magazine away from my face. “That stuff will rot your brain,” she said simply.

Then she dumped the book she’d been reading in front of me and crouched down to her haunches by my chair. “There. A is for Autumn,” she whispered close to my ear.

I flipped the book over. Times of Our Lives by Autumn Breeze; one of those ‘romantic’ stories that actually didn’t have much romance in it. It was one of those historical novels full of metaphors and whatnot. I shook my head and tried to give it back to her. “It’s not really my style, dear.” I tried not to sound sarcastic.

She pushed it back at me. “Try it, you’ll like it.”

“I don’t have a library card,” I blurted.

She blinked, and then laughed, causing a shiver to crawl up my back. “It’s okay. I already checked it out. Just have in back in two weeks, alright?”

Then she was gone, her hooves clopping softly on the floor and her mane flowing out behind her like a dark purple cloud. I watched her until she walked through the door. Then I remembered to close my mouth.

By the time two weeks had rolled around, I had returned to Ponyville and came back to Canterlot, and I’d gotten through Times of Our Lives. I still wasn’t convinced I was cut out for that literary stuff, but I was kind of surprised it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected it to be. I dropped the book in the slot in the lobby of the library and headed for my favorite chair.

She was already there, looking resplendent with her mane flowing over her shoulders and down her back. She looked up at me from the book she was reading. Another closed book lay on the table beside her. “Did you like it?” she asked without preamble.

I shrugged. “It was alright. I’m not really into that highbrow older stuff.”

She arched an eyebrow. “You’re going to be a tough nut to crack, I can tell.”

I played it cool. I sat down across from her and magicked a magazine from a nearby rack to me, opening it up to an article about makeup. She looked like she was fit to be tied, her jaw working in silent irritation at my blasé attitude towards literature. I smirked over the top of my magazine. “I’m tougher than you think.”

It was part challenge, part bravado. I was intimidated by her beauty and her obvious intellect.

She didn’t disappoint; she glided over and dropped both books on the arm of my chair. “B is for the Buckfeather sisters. Two books, two weeks.”

There was no way I was going to read two books in two weeks. But before I could tell her that, she was gone. I looked at the books. Feathered Heights by Aire Buckfeather, Once Again in the Sky by Eire Buckfeather. I vaguely recalled Feathered Heights from school. Well, I remembered reading the synopsis for a report on classical pegasii writers.

Somehow, I got the books done in two weeks. More amazing, I really liked Once Again in the Sky. I showed up at the library, puffed up like a showmare, and returned the books. I grinned when I saw her sitting in her usual chair, her eyes carefully skimming the words of her book.

“Well?” she asked, looking up from her book.

“I liked Erie. She was more direct with her words.”

“Like you,” she sniffed, arching her eyebrow. “And Arie?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Too whiny.”

She nodded. “I’m Twilight, by the way.”

I was surprised. I figured she’d just go on being the ‘mysterious library mare’. “Rarity,” I said.

She studied me, her dark lashes blinking slowly, languidly. She stroked the pages of the book in her lap with a hoof. My eyes flicked down at the action and I felt the muscles in my belly tighten as the pages fluttered softly. Her gaze never shifted from my face, but by her quiet smile I suspected she knew the effect she had on me.

She stood and crossed the narrow expanse between our chairs. She knelt down, placing the book beside me with a gentle caress of my foreleg. “C is for kiss,” she whispered, and before I could even argue that kiss most definitely not start with the letter C, my entire body froze up when I felt the tip of her tongue sweep across the rim of my ear.

I shivered violently, unable to keep the soft gasp that escaped my lips to myself. She straightened, giggling quietly, and it wasn’t until she glided through the doors that I looked down that C was actually for Selene Cold-Kiss.

That… was so cheating.

I was still making at least one trip to the library each time I was in Canterlot, and I saw Twilight each time. I looked forward to our meetings and, if I was being honest with myself, I’d have to say I was looking forward to the books she would choose for me. I’d expected something like Deluthe Dogday for D, but what I got instead of the Does and Don’ts of Dating by Doctor Doo. She handed it over with a feral smile and an ‘accidental’ scratch of her horn against my fetlock. When I got home, I sucked the mark she left on me, imagining it was her fur.

I read Doctor Doo in an hour.

And so the weeks rolled by. Twilight gave me the books Water Falls by Fly High, Interrupted by Moonsong, Neigh Neigh the Sheep Lord by Azalea Pot. The books were eclectic, unpredictable, wonderful because she chose them for me, and exciting because I enjoyed almost all of them.

Our flirtations quickly grew bolder -- the brush of her face against my cheek or foreleg when she bent to give me a book, my lips pressing to her horn as she pulled away.

By the time she introduced me to Query Quill’s Touch of Fillydelphia, I was starving for her touch. I returned the book two weeks later, breathless with anticipation. Only, Twilight wasn’t there. Her chair was empty. I thought that maybe I was a day or so early, but no, it had been two weeks to the day. I left the library angry and hurt, and with an insistent throb between my thighs.

I spotted her as I left the library, leaning against a side of a building across the street. Her mane was loose, flowing over her shoulders in that way I found so attractive. She didn’t smile as I stalked over.

“Is something the matter? She asked, quirking her head to the side in a show of false curiosity. “Miss me?”

“You bitch.”

She smiled at that. “Come on, let’s take a walk.”

She turned and disappeared down a neary sidewalk. I hesitated for a moment before trotting after her, my tail flicking irritably in my wake. I tried to play it cool as we passed stalls and storefronts. It wasn’t as if we both didn’t know what was going to happen. But, as dumb as it sounds and as much as I wanted her, I was afraid if we got involved. If we fucked, then things would change. The library would never be the same again.

“Nervous?” she asked, watching over her shoulder as I followed at her flank.

I snorted delicately. “Should I be?”

She slowed to a lazy canter beside be and I felt her tail brush along the back of my legs. “No, Rarity, you shouldn’t be nervous.” She lowered her head so that her horn ‘accidentally’ nudged against my shoulder. That, with the feeling of her tail winding around my gaskin, was almost too much. “You should be wet.”

I was soaked. But I wasn’t about to admit that aloud.

“We can cross, Rarity,” she murmured at an intersection, her tail sliding up under my gaskin and stifle from behind, so close to my cunt that I trembled where I stood. I snorted and kept moving, ignoring the other ponies milling around the roads and trying to focus on the sheer action of walking. I felt the fine hairs of her tail brush along my slick lips and I gasped.

So much for playing it cool. I wanted to push her into an alleyway and beg for her to fuck me, but I didn’t. I kept walking.

Her horn suddenly glittered with magic, a pale lavender glow trailing along the spiral-base, and I felt pressure along my labia. They parted easily, and I squeezed my muscles as much as I could to stave off the impending assault.

She chuckled softly. “Nice try,” she admonished.

I didn’t answer. I turned the corner sharply, suddenly realizing that we had walked in one long circle, making it back to the library. I bit back a groan as her tail flicked between my legs again.

“Careful, careful,” Twilight chided as I nearly ran headlong into an elderly mare coming out of the library. “Maybe it’s time we headed back inside.”

I didn’t question. I nearly galloped up the stairs to the front doors, using all my self-restraint to keep me from slamming the doors open. The speed-walk to the back room was a blur. It was technically a restricted section, but Twilight seemed perfectly as ease with ducking underneath the red velvet-roped archway, shooting a playful wink in my direction as she disappeared past a stack of tomes.

I followed her without hesitation.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when I turned the corner and found myself pushed up against the bookcase, the wind knocked out of me and her back leg sliding between mine. She ground herself into me, and it was all I could do to keep from crying out as she worked me into a froth. Her leg worked and her teeth nipped at my neck, her breath hot against my fur. My thighs shook with the strain of holding up my weight and what she was doing to me.

“Come for me, Rarity.”

It was all the encouragement I needed. In the shadows of the restricted section of the library, I came on Twilight’s gaskin grinding up against me, her teeth clamping down on my neck. I cooed softly and ran my tongue along her horn -- the only part of her I could reach. Months of pent up lust had driven me to this, a quickie in the library, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care because Twilight’s leg was working, easing me down from my orgasm and her voice in my ear, whispering about how good I was, how pretty and how wet. I came and came again. And when I was done, she pulled her leg back and her teeth finally released me.

Before my heartbeat had returned to normal, she was gone.

The weeks went by in a blur. Books took on a whole new meaning. I walked into the Ponyville bookstore one day to buy a gift for my little sister and had to rush to the bathroom to get myself off. Just the smell of a book was enough to need to take a bath. I wanted to tell Twilight but I figured she would just laugh. I also assumed she already knew.

She introduced me to the poetry of Hopper Run and, even more appropriately, Indigo Sun. The hypnotic words of the well-known filly-fooler invaded my dreams, causing me to wake in a fever of lust, my hoof working between my thighs, massaging my clit even as I slept. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest when she breezed through the door of the library two weeks later.

“Indigo get you hot?” she asked, settling in the chair across from me, her little sky-blue sundress flowing around her legs, her thick, purple mane curled around her neck seductively.

I didn’t answer. She smiled and stood up, jerking her head in silent command. I hesitated only a moment before following her across the wing of the library to the bathrooms in the far corner. She pulled me into a stall. Once inside, she slid the lock home and pushed me down on the lid of the toilet. She reached down and pulled the bottom of her dress up with her teeth, lifting up to her barrel. Within moments, my mouth was pressed to her slit, sucking her as hard as I’d ever dreamed of sucking anypony.

“Oh, yes, that’s it,” she moaned, her voice soft and urgent. “You must have really liked Indigo.”

Her sarcasm drove me on. I slid my tongue out and drove it between her lips, curling and probing, nipping at her engorged clit with my teeth, sucking it, letting it go, sucking it back. Soon, she could barely breathe, let alone add any more sarcastic commentary. I shoved my hoof between my own legs and worked at myself furiously, desperate to catch up as I sucked her. She came on my tongue with a gush of fluid that I lapped up gently while I shuddered through my own orgasm.

The bathroom door opened and somepony entered. We adjusted ourselves quickly -- no mean trick with both of us in a single stall -- and then she slipped out while I waited for the other mare to finish up. By the time I escaped the bathroom, Twilight was gone.

As we neared the end of the alphabet, I wondered what she would find for X and Z. I figured something my Row Xylophone, but somehow that just didn’t seem right for her. I was right. Instead, she presented me with a fascinating little book called There’s a Whip in My Bag by Limestome X. I smirked, wondering if Twilight was trying to tell me something. I flipped to the back of the book, where the library’s stamp should be. It was blank.

I looked up at her, declaring, “This didn’t come from the library.”

“I planned to donate my copy when you were done with it.”

She left my soaked. So did the book.

Y was an vampony romance tale by Sanguine Yarn. I stayed up all night to finish it it, I liked it that much. I’m still working on reading the others in the series. When I returned Yarn, I found Twilight sitting in my chair for a change. The library was quiet that day, very few patrons perusing the aisles. Maybe it was the weather, dark and unusually chilly for late-spring. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part. When she beckoned me over and smiled, I settled directly on her lap, my head resting on her shoulder. She was wearing plain saddlebags that day, and I remembered it was the same thing she had worn the first day I’d met her. I felt the softness of her fur press into my side and I ached to touch her, feel her.

“You liked Yarn,” she said.

I nodded against the top of her head. “Yes. I liked her a lot.”

She turned her head so that her muzzle was against my neck. Instead of pulling away, I arched my neck. She nipped lightly at the stretched tendon, then pressed a wet kiss to my fur. “I want to fuck you right here,” she said, a touch lighter than a whisper. I didn’t care. I wanted the same exact thing.

This time, it was me pulling her towards the restricted section. I don’t think anypony noticed, but I would have knocked anyone on their haunches who tried to stop us. I pulled Twilight past the barrier, shoved her up against a bookshelf, and ground myself on her gaskin until I came with a whimper. When I tried to slide my hoof between her hind legs, she shook her head and pushed me off. “Not today.”

We left the library. My heart thudded dully in my chest, partly from the after-effects of the powerful orgasm I’d just had and partly in fear. Something felt different between us, something had changed.

I expected her to say something before we parted ways, but she didn’t. I knew this was Z. I was curious what she’d chosen, but at the moment I was more interested in the strange expression on her face. I saw a vulnerability I’d never seen before, and it frightened me.

She turned and walked away without a word. I looked back at the book in my hands. It wasn’t a book from the library, it was a journal. Twilight’s journal. I flipped to the first page and saw a note there:

I know it’s not Z, but just pretend it is, okay?

It was written by Twilight Sparkle and the date of the first entry was the day we’d met, just over a year ago.

Hot tears pricked my eyes even while wetness trickled down my thighs from my earlier orgasm. I read the book that night, cover to cover, then I locked the door to the boutique and read it again. Twilight wrote about herself, us, the book, and the sex. It was the best of all the books she had given me.

I waited at the library two weeks later, but she never showed up. Somehow I knew she wouldn’t. I never saw her at the library again. Our alphabet game had come to an end. Still, I held out hope for five months that one day she’d stroll into the library and give me that little, knowing smile. I stopped by more often and I even got a library card.

She’d made me hunger for books as much as for her body. I stocked books in my boutique -- both for me to read as well as my clients -- and, when I had enough staff on payroll to give me some free time, even decided to take an extra-curricular course in literature at Canterlot University. It’d waited almost to the deadline to enroll, so when I finally got around to picking the class, the only literature class left was something called “Literature - special topics.” I signed up, figuring why not.

The first day of class I cantered into the full classroom and took a seat at the back. The professor strode in several minutes later in a blur of purple fur. She levitated a piece of chalk and scrawled her name and the title of the class on the board. When she turned around, she saw me towards the back. There was a moment of startled recognition, and then she grinned. I grinned back.

On the board, she’d written: Twilight Sparkle, Mare’s Literature, A to Z.

I was fairly certain I was going to get an A from this class. After all, I’d already completed to required reading list.

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