Aftermath
Twilight yawned loudly as she passed through the door to Golden Oaks library, slamming it shut behind her. Lighting her horn in a gentle glow, she flicked on the lights, illuminating the front room. It had been days since she'd last been here, and she could already see dust collecting across some of the shelves. She knew she'd have to clean again, but – as another yawn reminded her – it could wait for tomorrow.
With a quiet groan, the unicorn magically lifted the saddlebags from her back, careful to avoid the sleeping dragon nestled against the back of her neck, and set them on a small table near the door. At that moment, nothing sounded better than a good, long sleep in her warm bed. First, though, she had to tackle the arduous and daunting task of climbing the stairs to the second floor.
Momentarily contemplating simply sleeping on the floor – which was looking more and more comfortable the longer she stood there – a small snore from Spike shook the idea from her mind. Taking small, short, tired steps, she walked across the endless expanse of floor to her stairs, preparing to climb the stairs that looked taller and taller the closer she got. Sleep clung to her mind like glue as she began her journey of a thousand steps.
Thankfully, the staircase proved to be a couple million steps short of the infinite ascent she had feared it to be, and Twilight reached the top with her passenger in what felt like no time at all. Although it was more than likely she'd fallen asleep half way up and was simply dreaming of her successful ascent. If that was the case, though, why did she still feel like she'd just spent the last three days on a treadmill cranked up to max speed? All she'd been through was the surprise wedding of her brother, whose wife had been replaced by the Changeling queen, who then proceeded to trap her in a cave as Canterlot was invaded by her army. Certainly no reason to feel as exhausted as she did right then.
Shaking the thoughts and memories from her head she trotted down the hall to her bedroom. It was over now, and after a good night's sleep life would all go back to normal. They would have spent the night in Canterlot in the rooms Celestia had provided them, but Applejack had to get back to the farm the next day, and it was agreed they'd all go back so the farmer wouldn't have to make the long trip alone. Having caught the last train of the night after the wedding, they'd arrived back in Ponyville past midnight, making pretty good time all things considered.
Twilight finally reached her bed, and the clock on the wall told of the morning hour. As she levitated Spike off her back and into his basket, she gave a languid stretch and a yawn. The blankets were pulled back in preparation for her entrance to the one thing that could release her from the exhaustion. However, just as her first sore, tired hoof made contact with the plush mattress, the last sound in the world that she wanted to hear came from the front room of the library.
Knocking.
Her face fell down into her pillow, landing with a muffled thud. “Go away,” she muttered into the soft fabric, clenching her eyes shut and fearing another round of knocks that she knew her curious and curious nature would force her to answer. However, to her relief – and mild surprise – the next set didn't come at all. It must have been one weird pony to consider their visit important enough to happen at two in the morning, but not urgent enough to knock a second time.
Then came the tapping.
Snapping her head up from her bed, Twilight looked toward the source of the new noise; her balcony doors. On the other side of which the blackened silhouette of a pegasus could be seen standing, shifting around anxiously. Knowing there was only one pony who would even think of knocking on her balcony door, Twilight begrudgingly walked over and flung the doors open in a magical glow, using the same glow to illuminate her late-night visitor.
“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked quietly, keeping her voice low. “Why are you on my balcony at two in the morning?
The cyan pegasus scratched the back of her neck awkwardly. “I kinda needed to talk to you.”
“And it couldn't wait until tomorrow?” Twilight deadpanned.
“Er... no, actually. The only way I'm going to get to sleep tonight is if I deal with this. Can... uh... can I come in?” Rainbow asked, clearly unsure about something as she glanced around herself, as though somepony would be watching her.
Twilight took a moment to look the pegasus over. She certainly seemed like she hadn’t gotten any sleep, minus the nervous energy that practically radiated from her body, and there was an urgency in her voice Twilight wouldn't feel right ignoring. With a small, mournful glance back at her bed, Twilight stepped aside. “Come on, I'll make some tea.”
Rainbow gave a grateful smile and stepped into the darkened room, lifting herself onto the tips of her hooves as she noticed the sleeping dragon in his basket.
“Don't worry,” Twilight noted casually as she closed the balcony doors. “He won't wake up unless you drop a weight on his tail.”
Chuckling quietly, Rainbow nodded and made her way more smoothly to the stairs leading to the main room of the library. Twilight joined her, and together they moved through the dark room to the kitchen, where Twilight flicked on the lights and set about making tea with her magic, motioning towards a table with her hoof. “Take a seat, tea will be ready in a moment.”
Rainbow nodded and did as instructed, watching with mild fascination as Twilight controlled a seemingly impossible number of items at once in her telekinetic grasp. In no time at all she'd magically heated a teapot full of water and poured two cups, each with a teabag, and sat at the table across from the pegasus already there. The tea followed, and as the cups clinked quietly against the wooden table, Twilight asked, “So what's so important that you had to come to my house at two in the morning?”
“Yeah... sorry about that, but I had to get this done,” Rainbow explained, staring down into her cup of steaming tea. She took a sip and cringed. “You got some sugar?”
Rolling her eyes, Twilight lit her horn, and a small pot of sugarcubes was set on the table. Rainbow nodded appreciatively, dropping one after another into her cup. The unicorn watched her silently for a few moments, listening to the gentle plop...plop...plop of the cubes. She could feel the cavities forming from the other side of the table.
Taking another sip, Rainbow smacked her lips a moment, before shrugging and adding two more sugarcubes.
Twilight cleared her throat. “What did you need to do?”
“Oh!” Rainbow snapped her head up. “Sorry. Yeah, listen. I really need to apologize.”
Twilight's eyes widened briefly. “Oh? What for?”
“About... well... about the other day,” she admitted slowly, her hooves idly toying with the mug in front of her.
Memories flashed across Twilight's mind of a day she'd rather not remember. “You're going to have to be a bit more specific. There have been a lot of 'other days'.” She flashed her horn and the sugarcubes were gone before Rainow could take another one. Twilight gave her tea a little stir before lifting it to her muzzle.
“When... well, when we abandoned you,” Rainbow said, once again lowering her head back down to her tea. “When you told us that it wasn't Cadence. When we all just... walked away.”
Twilight froze with her teacup half way back down to the table. With her head down, Rainbow didn't see it, and Twilight set her cup down before the pegasus could notice, but the short silence that followed spoke volumes. “I... told you I already forgave you girls for that,” Twilight said slowly, shifting in her chair and clearing her throat. Her voice was flat and measured.
Rainbow winced when she heard that controlled tone. “Have you though?”
“I...” trailing off, Twilight took a long, slow drink of her tea before looking up and smiling brightly at the prismatic maned mare across the table. “Of course I have; you girls just made a mistake, nothing wrong with that. The important thing is that we all made it out okay.”
“You don't sound too sure of that,” Rainbow said. “In fact, you sound less sure every time you say it. So how about we skip the rest of this and go straight to you telling me how I can make it up to you?”
Clenching her jaw tightly, Twilight muttered, “You don't have to do anything.”
“But I want to,” Rainbow shot back quickly.
“You want to make it up to me? Then drop it and accept my forgiveness,” Twilight growled. “Don't push this, Dash.”
“I can't accept what I haven’t earned,” the pegasus countered, and she voice lowered slightly. “I want to know what's really going on with you, and what I can do to help. So until you tell me that, I'm not dropping anything.”
Twilight ground her teeth together, her horn glowing brighter as she gripped her cup tightly. “Why? Why do you have to do this?”
“Because you would do the same for me if I was trying to hide something this big,” Rainbow said with a casual shrug. She downed half her tea in one gulp, looking into her cup and swishing it around before finishing it and setting her empty cup down, patiently waiting for a response.
Clenching her eyes closed, Twilight took a few deep breaths, smoothing out her ruffled mane with a hoof. Her mask of calmness was the cork of a champagne bottle of anger and frustration, and Rainbow was relentlessly shaking the bottle. Worst of all, she knew Rainbow was right; she'd do the exact same thing, and that just made the pressure grow ever higher.
“C'mon, Twi; you're hiding how you really feel. What was it you told me, that I don't have to hide my feelings from you? No matter what the circumstances back then were, you meant that, and it goes both ways.”
“I'm not hiding anything!” Twilight shouted suddenly, standing and slamming her hooves into the table. The cork was starting to slip.
“You sure seem like you are,” Rainbow pointed out. “You'll feel a lot better if you tell me.”
“Just drop it, Dash.”
“Not until you tell me the truth.”
“I. Am.”
“No you're not, Twilight!” Rainbow yelled, raising her voice for the first time as her patience started wearing thin. As much as she wanted to do this, she had her limits for how much of Twilight's bullheaded-ness she could take
“Why does it even matter to you!? Isn't me telling you you're forgiven enough!?” Twilight shouted back. The pressure was building.
“It would be if it wasn't a lie!”
“Like you could even understand how I felt when you all left me!”
“I can try!” Rainbow's words left the room in a thick blanket of silence, both mares breathing heavily from their sudden shouting match. The quiet didn't last long as the cork flew from the bottle.
“Fine, you want to know what I really feel? You want to know what I really think? Well I'll tell you; I felt like you were the worst friends I could have made in Ponyville. I felt like none of you deserved your Elements. Fluttershy was anything but kind to me in that throne room, and Pinkie never once tried to make me smile! Rarity sure as hay wasn’t generous enough to give me the time to explain myself, and Applejack couldn't tell my honesty from Chrysalis’s lies when we were both right in front of her face. And you...
“You did the most disloyal thing a pony could ever do: You abandoned me. You left me all alone in that throne room. Do you have any idea how much that hurt me?”
Rainbow nodded, her eyes turned down to her cup. She had been expecting something like this, and she wasn't about to cut Twilight short after she forced her into it. She heard the unicorn take a shaky breath before continuing her rant.
“Even Celestia walked out. She couldn't tell when her own niece had been replaced by a changeling! You were all so willing to pass it off as pre-wedding stress, and ignored the only pony who actually knew her. The only pony who had the authority to tell you when Cadence was acting off. And you know what the worst part is? After I was thrown into the caves, none of you even came looking for me! You all just assumed I was so petty that I was jealous because she was marrying my brother, and didn't even bat an eye when I went missing!
“What if I hadn't found a way out of the caves? How long would it have taken you to come looking for me? Would you just wait for me at the train station on the way home? Maybe 'give me some time' and come to my door a week or two later? How long would you wait!?”
“We'd have found you right after the wedding!” Rainbow protested suddenly, jumping up from the table. “We wouldn't just leave you in Canterlot!”
Twilight's eyebrows raised momentarily before she snorted derisively. “You didn't have a problem just leaving me in the crystal caverns. Didn’t have a problem leaving me out of the wedding!”
“We didn't know you were trapped! You have to know that we would have noticed you actually going missing!” The pegasus insisted.
“Do I!?” Twilight’s rage-filled shout filled the kitchen. “From where I’m standing it doesn’t look like it!”
Rainbow flinched, her hooves shaking as she held her empty cup. “Twi-”
“But oh, don’t worry; you’re sorry.” The word was dripping with venom. “And because you’re all so very sorry I’m supposed to just forgive and forget, right? Just forget what you did to me. Forget how you made me feel. Just forget how you all betrayed me!” Her hooves slammed into the table. Her cup fell and the sound of shattering glass brought the room lurching into silence.
“You know we’d have come for you,” Rainbow said again, firmer this time. Or maybe there was just less background noise.
“I...” Twilight's tirade faltered as she took a timid step back, lowering her head, eyes trailing along the spilt tea. “I do know that... See? This is why I just wanted you to leave it alone; I'm angry at you girls and for reasons that don't make any sense.”
“You have every right to be made at us, Twi,” Rainbow said quietly. She stood and grabbed a cloth, mopping up the broken cup as Twilight collapsed into her chair.
“I’m being stupid.”
Rainbow sighed. “It’s not stupid.”
“Yes it is!” Twilight insisted. She threw her hooves out in a vague gesture. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know any better. You couldn’t have known.”
“You got a broom?” Rainbow asked. She was pointed to a cabinet, and came back to start sweeping up the glass. “It doesn’t matter if we knew or not. We should have trusted you. No matter what.”
Snorting, Twilight shook her head. She watched as the pegasus cleaned the mess she’d made. Recalled every other time her friends had fixed her mistakes. “I didn’t give you any reasons to trust me. I was acting crazy.”
“It doesn’t matter, Twilight!” Rainbow’s voice grew louder as her frustration started showing. “We were the ones who were wrong. We never should have doubted you. You have every reason to still be mad at us. This won’t go away on its own.”
“Why can't you just leave it alone and let me work through it myself?”
“Oh, I don't know, maybe because I care? Because I care when my best friend is obviously struggling with something? Because I care when my friends are hurting?”
“But why do you care so much?” Twilight asked quietly, barely more than a whisper as she continued to stare at the table.
“Damn it, Twilight, I care so much because I love you!” Rainbow instantly realized what she'd said and clamped her jaw shut, but the damage had already been done; Twilight’s head, once turned down to the ground, snapped up to meet her wide eyes with and equally surprised expression.
The room fell into a deathly silence as the words soaked into the very walls around them. A few tense moments passed before the sound of the kitchen door opening echoed around the pair.
“What the hay is with all... the... shouting...” Spike trailed off, looking between the two ponies in the room, both of them seemingly oblivious to the world around them. “Uh... Twilight? Rainbow Dash?”
He didn’t get an answer, and without enough information Spike did the only thing he could think of: “Right... I'm going back to bed. Try and keep it down,” he said before making a hasty exit back out the door and up the stairs to his bed.
Twilight blinked.
Rainbow Dash blinked in return.
Twilight blinked again.
Rainbow copied the gesture.
“So...” Twilight started awkwardly, finally tearing her eyes away from Rainbow to look down to the floor as she scratched the back of her neck awkwardly.
“Yep... I... uh... I guess I should...” Rainbow trailed, off, at a complete loss for what she actually should be doing at that moment.
“Explain; you should definitely start with that,” Twilight offered quickly.
Rainbow coughed into her hoof, grimacing at the floor that had suddenly become the most fascinating thing in the room. “Right... explaining... explaining is good.”
Silence fell once more upon the room, thick with the weight of the situation as neither ponies did anything. Finally, Twilight forced herself to her hooves and said, “More tea?”
“Yeah…” was all Rainbow could say as she took her seat again. Seconds passed like hours and an eternity later another cup was set in front of her. She cringed. “You got-” a mountain of sugarcubes were dropped into her glass, and despite herself she could feel the barest hint of a smile graced her lips.
Twilight cleared her throat. Rainbow winced.
“Listen, Twi, this isn’t about me. I-I know what I said but…” she looked up and saw the pointed look on the unicorn’s face. “Seriously. I doesn’t matter. I’m here because I felt bad about what happened. What-... what I did. Nothing else.”
Nodding her head slowly, Twilight blew gently on the steam rising above her cup. “Is it true?”
“Twi-”
“Is it true?” Twilight asked again, her face unreadable.
Rainbow sighed, leaning back at her chair and looking up to the roof as thought he rings of the wood would hold an answer for her. She hesitated a moment, then lowered her gaze, meeting Twilight’s eyes. “Yeah, it’s true. I have feelings for you. Have for a while, now.”
The matter-of-fact way she said it caught Twilight off guard, and her next question came out as a squeek; “Why?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rainbow dismissed the question with a wave of her hoof. “I’m not here to talk about me.”
“Well I’m tired of talking about me!” Twilight snapped. She cringed. “Sorry. I’ve already said everything I needed to say. It’s your turn.”
Frowning, Rainbow eventually relented with a nod. “If you’re sure. I… well, I guess…” she bit her lip. Took a sip of her tea. Smile as she tasted the sugar. “Yeah. I totally fell for you. Hard. Dunno what it was, really. Just… something about you.” She chuckled. “Everything, more like it. But...” her tone grew somber.
“Rainbow-”
“Yeah, I know. I’m being really lame here.” The pegasus’s hooves fiddled with her cup, and she could feel a blush rising in her cheeks. “Look, this mushy stuff isn’t really my thing. I had planned to ask you out at the wedding. I figured, y’know, how much more romantic could you get? But then everything happened. And I knew it wasn’t a good time. Then we came home, and I couldn't sleep. Just kept thinking about what- what we did to you. I knew you weren’t okay, and I just… I had to come and do- I don’t even know. Do something. I shoulda known this isn’t really my area.”
Twilight sighed, lighting her horn and lifting Rainbow’s head with a gentle push of magic so their eyes met. “It- you did help. Getting all that off my chest does make me feel a little better.”
“Glad I could help, but you really should let the rest of the girls know how you feel,” Rainbow said with a gentle smile.
“Yeah…” Twilight trailed off, staring into her tea a moment. She took a breath. Could smell the sugar coming from her guest’s cup. “I’ll make you a deal then.”
Rainbow’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Oh?”
“I’ll talk to the girls on two conditions. One is that you’re there with me. I think it’ll be easier if I have somepony there who already knows.”
“Done,” Rainbow agreed without hesitation. “What’s the other?”
Twilight smirked slyly. “You ask me out on a proper date.”
“O-oh.”
“Well?”
Rainbow blushed, coughing into her hoof. “Twi, you don’t gotta-”
“Rainbow.” Twilight stared at her flatly.
“I’m just saying I don’t mind waiting for this mess to be over to-”
“Rainbow.”
“If you don’t want to I’ll totally-”
“Rainbow Dash.”
“I mean it’s kinda sudden, and I-” Rainbow was forcefully cut off as Twilight leaned over the table and pressed their lips together. The connection lasted only second but to the pegasus it seemed to go on for an eternity, and when at last it was ended she felt like an elderly mare. She blinked, and focused on Twilight’s blushing face. “Twi-”
“Well?”
Rainbow grinned. “Wanna go out?”
“Yes, Rainbow.” she said, hiding a giggle behind her hoof. “I’ll go on a date with you.”
Author's Note
Before you comment; I know. Trust me; I know. I rolled my eyes writing this. I warned you all this was stupid melodrama for the sake of melodrama. However, I also have to confess that, occasionally, I enjoy these kinds of things. It's a guilty pleasure of mine, and I posted this for the sake of those like me, who can find some enjoyment from these sheer absurdity of this.
If you must judge me for this, so be it, but understand I know this is dumb. I just like to indulge myself from time to time.
