Femboi and Chill

“Uhhh... Twilight?”

The duvet of her already plush bed is soft, with patterns of stars and purple constellations that squish under your light posterior. You're dressed in a comfy pink hoodie with matching shorts and long striped socks. Everything about this moment is the living embodiment of chill, and the only thing that stands out is the relatively rigid placement of Twilight Sparkle's left arm as it wraps around your chest—feeling in no small part like the metal safety bar of a roller coaster seat.

You bring your hands up and grip her wrist. She'd be considered an exceptionally slender, petite young creature—if not for the fact that you are also in the room.

“Are you... sure that you're relaxing?”

“Uh huh,” she drones. The starry glow from various nightlights glisten off her spectacles. She sits with her back against a cushion of pillows as she holds you from behind, and her free hand is making circular gestures in the air. This controls a magical field that telekinetically orbits numerous things in a tight circle around the bed: notepads, pens, calculators, graphing calculators, an abacus, and even a laptop. Somehow—with magical-mental ambidexterity—the bookish college girl works deep into her current assignment, floating the necessary object closer when the time comes to extend the length of her extenuating calculations. “As relaxed as I will ever be,” she states, and yet her voice sounds like a vibrating cheese grater.

You try to look back at her. Everything about this room—the way it's painted, the way it's neatly arranged—feels deep and purple and thoughtful. Just like her. You struggle to find warmth, although you don't blame the young woman. It's very cold up in space, and the atmosphere of this planet is just far too limiting for her expanding thoughts.

“But... uhm...” You try on a playful smile. “...are you sure you can concentrate?”

“I asked you over so that I could concentrate,” she says, eyes darting through thick lenses at the objects, notes, and tools floating about. “And—so far—I must say it's doing wonders.” A thoughtful blink, and then the robotic eye movements resume. “Sunset Shimmer's advice is on the nose as always.”

“Just... uhm...” Your fingers squeeze her arm. Although she's “hugging” you, there's still something tense and stiff about the gesture. It must be tough for Twilight to relish the closeness of a friend when her mind is a million miles up in orbit. “Just what are you working on?”

“My latest astronomical research project for the Everton Independent Study program,” she pronounces. She pauses the laptop in mid-glide and creates a string of words across a program, followed by a complex mathematical computation. “Hypothetical Theorems on Gravitational Redistribution as a Result of Cross-Universal Quantum Disturbances.”

You blink. “Oh.” Your face scrunches up. “Does... that have something to do with the mirror portal or something?”

“It's the baseline inspiration for my theorem,yes,” Twilight says, nodding as she looks past you at a floating calculator. “It's based on a conversation I had with Sunset the other day. She says that—with the gravitational distortion caused on a microcosmic scale from the wormhole effect of the portal to Equestria—it's likely that a certain distortion to time and space could conceivably be detected with the use of variably-distributed atomic clocks...”

“Wow. That sounds...” You squirm slightly in her grasp, trying to breathe better. “...atomic.”

“Mmmhmm.” She nods. “I'm just trying to come up with a figure that will best summarize my postulations.”

“Any way I can help with that?”

“You're helping just enough by being here.”

You look at yourself... and at the arm that's got you pinned in place. A nervous smile crosses your lips. “You sure about that?”

“You can try talking.”

“Wouldn't that distract you, Twilight?”

“Mmm-mmm...” She shakes her head, her violet ponytail flouncing slightly behind her head. “Sometimes I turn on sports broadcasts on the radio while I do schoolwork.”

You giggle explosively, feet kicking against the bedspread. “You?! Twilight?! You listen to sports broadcasts?”

“I just like the background noise,” Twilight says. “It puts me at ease.”

“That's... interesting...”

“Quite...” Twilight continues rotating tools and notes closer and further and closer. “I stems from my BBBFF.”

“Shining Armor?”

“Yes. When I was much younger, I would come into his room and sleep on his bean bag while he did homework with the sound of footbasket games in the background. Or hockeyball. I never really learned the sports... I just knew that he liked it. And I was happy that he was happy. Sometimes I'd snuggle up to him on the couch and fall asleep as he watched the big game on the tv.”

You smile genuinely. “Awwww... that sounds really sweet.”

“Uh huh.” She telekinetically twirls and twirls her things about the room. “Anyways, feel free to talk about anything you want, Cherish. It'll help.”

“Anything at all?”

“Yes. The less pure silence, the better.”

You tongue the inside of your mouth, staring up at the star-patterns still glued to Twilight Sparkle's bedroom ceiling from elementary school years. You think about all the things you could tell her... the things you've longed to tell her... to tell all of the girls...

Things like how you almost sort of wish that they would give you a schedule for... for... well... for this. Every day of the week finds you at a different household, but where you're going and who you're going to be with seems to be revealed to you at the last second with very little input on your behalf. Sure, you could say “no” at any given time, but so far you have yet to do so. Perhaps because you're afraid to. Perhaps because this “roll” of visits and hang-outs and snuggle “dates” have left you feeling so sublime, so adored, and so very much the opposite of alone that you can't find the strength to boldly interrupt it.

You think about telling Twilight Sparkle how adorable she is. How “girly” she is. Not “girly” in the same way that Rarity or Pinkie Pie or—egads—Fluttershy—is. But these past few months you've come to admire how perkily Twilight carries herself. How prim and proper she dresses... and yet how playful her hairdo is and how demure and uncertain her way of simply standing around is. How tender and fragile she looks, like she's always needing to be hugged, and yet she's so incredibly confident and stalwart in how she looks at the world... how she analyzes the most complicated of things and makes the whole universe so manageable for the whole of her friends. Her head is in the stars, and still things go over it, and it makes you giggle and it makes you want to hug her... and see others hug her... and see her brought to all the smiles and happy tears that she deserves.

You think about telling her that she's the kind of girl you've always admired... the kind of girl you've always longed to look and feel like. A casually pretty girl. Yes, being glamorous and princessy is a very dreamly thing, but you wish you could express to her—express to anyone, really—the simple, pure, unfiltered joy you feel in the concept of walking around with satin-lace underwear beneath your everyday clothes. Of being allowed to curtsy instead of bow. Of being acquainted with flowers and the color pink. Of sitting down every time you go. Of carrying a purse. Of having a visible bra-seam. Of being strong and soft all at once... to always have that demure and dainty fallback beneath all the convoluted layers of what society thinks, fears, and imposes.

You think about explaining to Twilight how much you wish you were in her place... how much you wish you were in her shorts... wearing her shorts... being her... having that same soft skin and tender flesh... that rugged struggle beneath such a delicate facade. Yes, even having all of the annoying things about being a woman: the regular biological hurdles and high maintenance both sanitary and cosmetic that it's practically an infinitely-expanding art form to conquer—and yet done so with such inspiring finesse. You know that if all of these things came true, you would undoubtedly regret it and choke on your own silly desires—and yet a part of you pines for it anyways.

And then you wish to tell her that you know that there's so much about you—for whatever blissfully lucky reason—that almost matches her to a T: the softness, the demure stature, the femininely-coded expertise that you've either inherited or mastered after twenty-one years of sashaying across this earth. You think about confessing to her that you're as close you could ever be to her—or someone like her—literally snuggling there on her bed in her room in her holiest of holy demains... and yet you still feel like something is lacking. Like you're never more than halfway there, and even if you did reach that same heavenly spot... it still would leave you wanting for more.

You want to tell her how happy you are after these last few months of being befriended by these lady friends... and yet how starved you feel... and how guilty you feel for feeling that way.

You want to tell Twilight that every time you feel like giggling, you also feel like crying, and the only thing damming it all in is being held close... and you wish she could stop focusing so much on her Everton studies so she could hold you closer.

You long to tell her all these things...

...but you settle on something else instead.

“Your parents are nice,” you finally manage, smiling sweetly into the purple haze of her telekinesis. “If your big brother's anything like him, I would like to meet him as well.”

“Hmmmm...” She takes a long breath. A warm one. You feel a slight twitch to her fingers. They curl and uncurl from where her wrist drapes off of you. “That would be nice, actually. You should meet Cadance—my future sister-in-law as well. She would absolutely adore you.”

“Really?”

“I could see her trying to make you into the flower girl for their wedding.”

“Heeheehee...” You smile, blushing tenderly. “That's a happy thought.”

“Uh huh.”

You fidget slightly. “Do... do you think your parents are curious?”

No response.

You tilt your head back. “Twilight?”

“Huh?” She snaps out of an intense mathematical calculation, glancing at you. “Curious about what?”

“About... why you brought a strange man into your bedroom?”

“You're not exactly a stranger at this point, Cherish.”

“Even still...” You clear your throat. “I'm a boi... and we're both just... chilling in here...”

“Well,” she murmurs, eyeing her floating array of resource tools. “It's not exactly that way with you, Cherish.”

You close your eyes, enduring a calm breath as you cling tighter to her arm. “Yeah. I guess you're right.”

Silence.

“Besides...” Twilight muses. “If it was Timber whom I brought in here, things would be understandably different.”

You reopen your eyes. Your limbs tighten; your lungs fill. Then, you speak: “How is Timber doing these days, Twilight?”

“Oh. Timber...?” There's a flicker to the telekinetic field. A warm breath rolls through Twilight, and you can tell from the inflection in her voice that the egghead is smiling. “Oh. He's just... fantastic.”

“Really?” You glance back at her. “That's a word I've never heard used to describe him before.”

“Oh, but he is... in his own little ways...” Her wrist relaxes. “His goofy... dorky ways...” Her arm loses tension, draping lovingly around you. “Like when he tries to be sly and flirtatious...” The orbiting objects float lower and lower to the bed, the magic dimming, replaced by the tender mirth in her voice. “...and he attempts to show off by being strong and sweaty. Always smelling of pine... always...”

“Heehee...” You smile as you feel her hug growing tighter. “When was the last time you both hung out together?”

“Oh... j-just last Tuesday!” She practically hums. Twilight gazes past the walls of her room, snaking in another arm to hug you tight. The objects are no longer enchanted, and right now it's just you, her smile, and her words. “We went to the aquarium together. He tried to impress me by naming all the species he could see, but he was incorrect about at least twenty of the mollusks he pointed out. Then we started talking about global warming and how it's a good thing that none of our friends live in Florida. And then we went out for lunch, and he suggested this Mexican place that serves 'the raddest quesadillas.' And I told him how I don't like cheesy foods and he freaked out and got all chivalrous and tried to take us to a place that only sold vegan stuff and it was soooooo adorable how he fretted over somehow offending me—which he didn't. Timber's a big goofy show-off, but deep down inside he really only wants me to feel happy and respected.”

“Uh huh...” You sigh away a bittersweet cloud, closing your eyes as you relish in how closely she's holding you. “Tell me more. Like... what do you two plan on doing on your next date?”

“Oh! The planetarium! He used to pick me up there when I volunteered, but we've never actually both gone just to watch a laser light show. They've got some event planned to the music of The Arcade Fire. Ever heard of them? I haven't—but Timber loves them to death. He says a lot of people call them 'too hipster,' but I dunno. They sound alright to me. I love the way Timber's face lights up whenever a song he enjoys comes on the radio. Why, this one time, we were riding around in his pickup truck and...”