Life Is Only Real When You Are Near

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9

Prologue

Rainbow couldn’t hold back her grin as she observed the turns, the swirls, and twirls of her student and best friend. When Derpy performed some of the most complicated and daring stunts of the Wonderbolts programme Rainbow jumped up and down, smiling, fluttering her wings.

“That was really awesome!” Rainbow shouted.

“Now that’s impressive work,” Rainbow commented.

“That’s very good, Dee! Now do the barrel roll again,” Rainbow advised.

Derpy affirmed Rainbow’s suggestion with a nod then performed the trick required by ascending high up into the sky, away from the fields and the nearby trees.

Pride swelled through Rainbow’s chest every time Derpy did a barrel roll then plunged twisting down till she was only one hundred meters above the ground and soared upwards at a sharp angle, rising a cloud of dust by a powerful beat of her wings, a squid like propulsion performed by an equine. Her spine tingled with excitement while her forelegs jittered and her wings fluttered from the desire to lift off from the ground and join Derpy in her flight.

Betraying her novicehood Derpy got caught by a draught of wind, banked too much to the left, and went spinning straight into the Evefreee, into its thick green canopy not admitting a single sliver of light into the space beneath.

In less than a second Rainbow was in the air and flying quick to catch the unfortunate horse. She stopped when Derpy, instead of getting tangled in the upper region of the forest amidst its nest of twisting branches, bulbous and thick, regained control and flew ahead, unwavering, neither descending nor ascending, above the sea of solid green.

When she found herself far away from the green lumps of the Everfree’s canopy Derpy turned around and returned back towards Rainbow, soaring, her wings flapping, in the air. The closer Derpy got to Rainbow the slower her flight became. It reached almost standstill when she found herself in front of her mentor and friend.

Rainbow winked. “I said you’d be Wonderbolt material soon. That last thing – you didn’t even need my help.”

Derpy, blushing, smiled. “Sorry. I got carried away in my excitement – at the feeling that I’m doing it, really doing it – and lost my grip. Just like you always say to me – when flying, be alert.”

“But you regained your balance,” Rainbow said. “That’s the most important thing.”

“Really?

Rainbow nodded. “Uh-uh. Every flier makes mistakes – even the best ones – but the master knows how to get out of them in style. Like you.”

Derpy squeed, then hugged Rainbow tight around her neck. Rainbow oophed, smiled, and hugged Derpy in return, enjoying the silky touch of her mane and the warmth of her coat. Feeling Derpy so close Rainbow strengthened her hug. Nopony was around. She could let herself be.

Derpy unwrapped from Rainbow and looked at her teacher and friend, her eyes wide and sparkling, quivering from joy.

“Thank you, Rainbow,” she said in a high pitched, trembling tone.

“Never say never,” Rainbow said. “I told you had it in you – I have the eye for that kind of stuff, you know? Our training is finished for today and my part is done. Now let’s get moving to my part of the deal. Have you written the next chapter?”

Derpy nodded.

“I remember you stopped at the point when the four detectives sent that mailmare into trance to get answers but they did it without precaution and all kind of stuff spoke through her.” Rainbow, excited, said, talking feverish and quick. “I think the last one to appear was the spirit of the founder of Neighttown who went on a boooring monologue about how he built the city and then seduced and covered his marefiend. I think you stopped there. So what happens next?”

Derpy smugly smiled. “Dawn comes. Miss Dashe is cleared. She and her marefriend chill as dawn approaches and then... suprise.”

“Really?!” Rainbow asked, surprised, eyes wide open, eyebrows lifted. “What surprise? I want to know.”

When Rainbow and Derpy landed on the ground Derpy moved closer to Rainbow and breathed over Rainbow's muzzle and cheeks.

“You forgot one little part of our arrangement,” she said, lightly blushing.

“Which one?”

Derpy smiled softly, lunged forwards, and stroked her head against Rainbow’s neck. Rainbow closed her eyes and enjoyed the mane caressing her skin. That light touch made her feel warm and tingly all over. When Derpy looked back at Rainbow and sent her warm and moist breath over Rainbow’s face Rainbow’s tingling gathered between her hindlegs and pleasant warmth filled her private parts. While observing Derpy, her eyes half lidded, Rainbow did a quick check of the surrounding with her peripheral sight. No single living soul around. Great.

“The one were we do things that special someponies do,” Derpy said. “You on me. Me… on you.”

The more Rainbow inhaled of Derpy’s breath, redolent of baked sweets, the stronger she felt pleasant and moist warmth gather between her legs. Rainbow brought her legs together and rubbed her thighs against each other, feeling her sweltering wetness spurt on her skin, enjoying the shivers, electric, life affirming, run up her spine.

The light wind bristling the field and soughing through the Everfree nearby only made her excitement stronger, more concrete, as its chilly fingers touched her aroused bits. She had been so busy with Derpy the last few days, teaching her difficult maneuvers and high end tricks, that she forgot about their special time dedicated to special games intimate and sweet. Now with the basic training all done, finally relaxed and from worries free, that tension brewing within and demanding release jettisoned all other concerns from the ship of Rainbow’s mind and reigned supreme. The fact they were alone and away from Ponyville, resting amidst forlorn valleys and hills, unknown, unkempt, made the excitement fierce. With nopony around to spy on her Rainbow could let herself go and enjoy her most favourite style of love.

Rainbow breathed over Derpy’s face, sending strands of Derpy’s blonde hair away from her eyes, askew but so innocent and deep.

“My place? Your place?” she asked.

Derpy kissed Rainbow lightly on her lips – what kiss that was, like the touch of feather yet electric as a thunderbolt, making Rainbow tremble and shiver all over – then cocked her head left.

“What do you prefer?”

“Yours,” Rainbow whispered, her voice cracking, hoarse. “It’s feels cozy. Mine’s like Twilight’s palace: all big and kinda empty.”

“Let’s go, then,” Derpy said, turned, and shot up into the sky, leaving a dust cloud behind.

Rainbow backed from the brown cloud that quickly dissipated into the void, then darted into the sky and flew on Derpy’s heels.

True to Rainbow’s advice Derpy cast a quick look back, then focused on sky in front. In time she’ll get used to keeping the high state of concentration and alertness demanded by flight at all times. Right now, however, focusing on one thing only was best for her.

Rainbow, however, had trouble keeping her attention spread across the whole visual field. Derpy’s secret lips, swollen, glistening, of a delicate tinge of pink, captured her stare, hawklike and acute. The sight of the excited bubblegum pink made Rainbow tense from pleasure. Her mouth salivated from the desire to plant her tongue against that rosy goodness, sweetly tasting and smelling sweet. Rainbow knew she could give herself a push and reach Derpy’s home in a flash but she wanted to savour the view and kindle the fire raging in her crotch.

When she saw Derpy’s lips wink and drops of liquid fall, sparkling, from between Derpy’s legs as Derpy banked right or left Rainbow smiled and felt proud that she didn’t allow her impatience got hold of her this time.

Chapter 1

Rainbow became interested in Derpy because of some callous remarks.

She needed Spike as an assistant for some Nightmare Mare pranks but she didn’t find him at the usual locales. She asked Rarity what Spike was up to and Rarity, frowning, sullen and withdrawn, said he liked to hang out at the post office these days where he waited for Gabby to arrive and joined her on her run.

And so Rainbow found herself at the post office around noon. Like she expected, Spike wasn’t present. Rainbow turned towards the reception desk, wanting to ask if Spike had left or had yet to appear, but frowned, sighed. A seven pony long queue stood before the single receptionist who happened to be Derpy Hooves.

The six ponies behind the first didn’t look quite pleased, scowling, eyes throwing daggers, blowing air loudly out, but the first one made them all look like saints. A large buff earth pony with a dark brown mane and tail and with forelegs the size of boulders and a hoof crashing mountains for a destiny mark shouted loudly and growled furiously at the receptionist, shivering, afraid.

“What do you mean you can’t accept my letter?” he asked, his voice booming.

Rainbow picked the earthy scent of cider and beer mixed with something pungent and sharp. Not good.

“We can’t accept letters without address or postmarks, sir,” Derpy said, smiling but her ears dropped, pressed against her head. Rainbow could see shivers of sweat on her forehead.

“What do you mean no bucking address?” The pony said. “It’s for my bucking friend in Phoenix City. What’s his name? Earwiggler or something.”

“But you have to write it on the envelope, sir,” Derpy tensely but steadily said. “And don’t forget to buy a stamp.”

“I already bought a BUCKIN’ stamp!” The pony shouted, staggering.

Acting on instinct Rainbow flew right to him then tapped him on the shoulder. She clenched her teeth while her cheeks turned into coals, scalding, red. How dare that drunk motherbucker shout at Derpy like that!

The brown pony swivelled right like an old creaking ship past its expiry date, threatening to overturn and submerge into the sea.

“Hey, bucko, how about you leave right now without me causing any pain to you,” Rainbow said, staring so fierce that her eyes seemed to cut through steel.

“Who the buck are you?”

“A concerned citizen,” Rainbow said, then looked at Derpy. “Her friend.”

“Well, how ‘bout you stay out of it. This bucking business is between me and your bucking friend who can’t even do her work bucking right.”

Rainbow observed how Derpy’s eyes went wide then watery and heard some cruel snickering interspersed with a rare surprised ahhh from behind.

She had enough.

Scowling, she flew into the air and pressed her right hoof against the drunken pony’s nose.

“Listen, pal, if you don’t apologize to her and leave the place right now, I’ll make sure you’ll regret your actions,” Rainbow, growling, said.

The drunken pony’s pupils shrivelled to pinpricks and his mouth opened into a snarl. He stretched his right hoof and was ready to strike but met Rainbow’s rainbow trail instead of his target, who was already standing to his left.

“Last warning,” Rainbow said.

“Buck you,” the pony responded and swayed left, stretching his right hoof. Rainbow once again dashed off, leaving a rainbow trail in her wake. The aggressive pony lost his stance and fell chin first on the floor. Thud.

Rainbow landed behind and, smiling, said, “You know, I have a direct line with Twilight, princess of friendship, the manager of the big hunk of rock over there, who conveniently started a bootcamp for unfriendly citizens this month, starring Maud as teacher. And you know what? You’re in it, bud.”

The drunken pony’s eyes widened and a sober expression took over his face.

Rainbow’s smile widened as she looked at the dawning realization of oblivion hitting the drunk.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Rainbow continued, “A whole month of lessons about friendship from Pinkie Pie’s awesome sister. By the end you’ll learn how to be nice and a lot about rocks.”

“You can’t do this!” The drunk, standing unsteady on his limbs, said.

A ribbon of rainbow flew out of the post office, clothes wavering and flapping from the sudden burst of wind, then returned back, sending swirling once again the hems of dresses, suits, and shorts.

“Done,” Rainbow said, eyes closed, head lifted high. “You can come in and take him to friendship camp.”

Two pegasi, coat of white and mane of blue, flew into the post office, landed on both sides of the drunken pony, staggering while standing.

They saw Rainbow. They nodded. They grabbed the hooligan by the forelegs and dragged him out of the post office into the blue vastness of the sky.

With her chin held high and chest pushed forward Rainbow waited till the queue, sullen and silent, eyes cast down, finished their business with Derpy Hooves and left her to finally put the sign “Lunch Break” on her desk. Derpy walked right, passed through the swinging doors that separated the work space from the customer hall, and stood in front of Rainbow.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Derpy quietly said.

“Why?” Rainbow asked, perplexed. “Nopony should be humiliated this way. Ever.”

“He’s just one of many. He’s gone, but others will come. Later today, tomorrow, and the day after that. I appreciate what you did, but it’s pointless. And it’s our security guard’s duty anyway. If I feel threatened I whistle and he comes and pushes the curmudgeon out.”

“But I didn’t push the guy out. I sent him to a friendship camp – a place worse than Tartarus, if you ask me.”

Derpy looked up at Rainbow with an inquisitive look. “How can I repay you?”

“No need. Just tell me if Spike’s been around or not.”

“He went with Gabby half an hour ago. They won’t be here soon.”

Rainbow sighed, shoulders drooped. “I guess it’s not my Nightmare Night this year.”

“Maybe I can help?”

Rainbow lowered her head and placed her right foreleg on her neck. “Well… Do not take it the wrong way, but you’re clumsy. You’ll spoil the tricks by hitting against something or dropping them out of hooves.”

Derpy smiled lightly. “No offence taken.”

Smiling and relieved, Rainbow turned around. “Okay, then. I’m off. See you later, Derp.”

When she looked ahead Rainbow saw the CMC standing precariously on each other’s shoulders, trying to reach an ornate envelope on the topmost shelf of the rotating letters and envelopes stand. Sweetie Belle stood on Aplebloom and Aplebloom stood on Scootaloo who stood, in turn, on her scooter going back and forth in jerky motions underneath her hindlegs.

Rainbow bristled and suspected the CMC tower would lose its balance any moment now and would come toppling, crashing, down. When Scoot’s scooter shifted left and Scootaloo tilted to the right, sending Sweetie Belle away and screaming from the upper shelf of the swiveling display that interested her so much, Rainbow understood it was time to move.

As Rainbow tensed all her legs, preparing for the squid-like propulsion jump, something flew by and sent her mane batting against her face. When Rainbow removed the green and violet and blue strands of her hair from her mouth and eyes she saw Derpy hovering midair, holding Sweetie in her hooves. Apple Bloom lay on top Scotaloo. The scooter, the source of this disaster, rolled towards the reception desk, lost its momentum and fell.

Gently Derpy put Sweetie on the floor then, smiling, landed on her fours.

Mouth and eyes wide open, Rainbow strolled to the gray-blonde mare.

“How did you do that?” she asked.

“Do what?” Derpy said.

“Welll...How do I put it mildly…You’re no the best flier around, not even a good flier, but right now you flew in a straight line without zigzagging and hitting the wall or missing the target,” Rainbow said.

Derpy shrugged. “I don’t know. It happens sometimes.”

As she looked into Derpy’s weird eyes, one looking down, the other up, Rainbow didn’t consider that as an adequate answer. The speed, the preciseness, the fluidness when catching Sweetie Belle betrayed sophistication and skill hiding within the nondescript mare that looked goofy, kinda silly, with her eyes. If Derpy really lacked training, then it meant she had amazing talent for flight. That notion, however, beckoned the question: why didn’t she develop it further?

“Thanks, Derpy?” Sweetie said. “If it weren’t for you I would’ve to explain to Rarity why I had new bruises and listen to her hour long lecture about protection and security.”

“It’s fine,” Derpy said, then took a post card from the upper shelf. “Is this one you were looking for?”

“Yes,” the three fillies said in unison.

Derpy smiled. “Come with me. I’ll break my lunch break for you. The next time don’t stand on scooters, ‘kay?”

“We needed height and didn’t have anything better than my scooter, so,” Scootaloo, blushing, her neck brushing, explained.

“You can ask me or my coworkers around. It’s our job to assist customers,” Derpy said.

She went behind the reception desk, put the lunch sign to the side and waited, her forelegs on the stand, for the CMC to drop their bits.

“See you later, Derpy,” Rainbow, smiling but perturbed, said.

“Later, Rainbow,” Derpy said in a happy tone.

Rainbow turned towards the exit, tensed her legs for the jump, and left the post-office with a powerful flap of her wings. She circled for a while around Ponyville kicking wayward clouds away – overcast weather was scheduled for the weekend – thinking about Derpy and her thing. At first she had thought Derpy was just stupid, then she softened and considered Derpy as somepony under the thumb of really bad luck. After long reflection and observation Rainbow perceived Derpy as a bad and clumsy flyer, mainly because of her sight, always askew and never straight.

Maybe she was wrong?

Chapter 2

The next day Rainbow got serious about Derpy.

After a morning shower, hot, and light breakfast, milk and oats, Rainbow stood in the entrance hall, looking from the window left to the main door, waiting for the mailmare to arrive. She didn’t have any special delivery. She just wanted to leave worry free, secure that her daily news were inside her home, not outside under the influence of winds.

When she saw Derpy zigzagging, wobbling, through the sky Rainbow couldn’t hold back her smile. It wasn’t a cruel grin, of all innocence bereft, but the smile of a friend giggling at the antiques of one’s old buddy who despite graduating from school decades ago still had that juvenile gay touch. Rainbow guessed it was Derpy’s optimism which in the beginning she had thought as foolishness but later recognized as a life approach. She should really get to know her.

What surprised Rainbow this day was Derpy’s companion who followed Derpy in her twisting path across the morning sky, cloudless and light blue, and carried the maroon bag filled with newspapers in her hooves.

Dying from curiosity, Rainbow didn’t wait till the mailpony and her friend landed. She went outside to greet them.

“Ocellus, what are you doing with Derpy?” Rainbow asked the landing changeling.

Ocellus put her feet on the cloud, folded her inner wings, thin as gossamer, shimmering like silk, then her carapace and said, “It’s trade month, teacher Rainbow Dash. Did you forget?”

Rainbow tilted her head and rubbed her neck. “I was kinda busy with the Wonderbolts to get the latest news. On the bright side, you had pretty short days, thanks to me.”

“Headmaster Twilight said that we, nonponies, must observe ponies at their every day work to get a deeper knowledge of pony culture. The next month the pony students will examine ours.”

Rainbow looked at Derpy standing near Ocellus, happy, smiling, eyes shining, a folded paper under her right wing.

“Don’t get it the wrong way, but why did you choose the postal services?”

“It’s the safest, quietest, job out there,” Ocellus said.

“Why not librarian?”

“Yona got it first. This one’s not bad, either.”

Ocellus took the paper from underneath Derpy’s wings then presented it to Rainbow Dash. “Here’s your Daily Eagle.”

Rainbow stretched her hooves, ready for the take, when a strong gust of wind accidentally blew from right to left. The newspaper flew, flitting, swirling, into the air and went down slowly to the hills and troughs beneath Rainbow's personal cloud.

“I’ll get it,” Ocellus said, turning left, spreading her wings.

When Ocellus shifted her hooves she tripped over the newspapers’ bag, toppled, and fell down from Rainbow’s porch. The straps of the newspaper's purse tensed around the changeling's legs and then he bag rolled to the side and in a flash disappeared beneath the border of the cloud.

In less than a second Rainbow was airborne and tense. After a single look down, however, she exhaled and relaxed. Derpy held Ocellus in her left hoof and the newspaper bag, brown, swollen, with papers pregnant, in her right.

With eyes wide open Rainbow watched how Derpy put Ocellus with utmost care on the white patio in front of her home. Derpy had been nothing but a blur a few moments ago. In a blink she had disappeared. Another blink and she had already caught Ocellus, who hadn't even had the time to spread her wings, and the purse.

“Sorry,” Ocellus said, her voice so quiet almost a murmur in the wind. She rolled her forelegs over each other and did her best to avoid Derpy’s crooked gaze.

Instead of showing annoyance, even a tiniest bit of a frown, Derpy patted Ocellus on her neck.

“It’s okay,” she said. “When we’ll get back to the office I tell you about my first day. It was a terrible disaster. Now let’s get going.”

“Hey, before you go, can I ask you something?” Rainbow quickly said.

“Yes, of course.”

“Would you like to train with me?”

It was Derpy’s turn to open wide her eyes and stare at Rainbow in total shock.

“Why? I’m not a good flier at all,” she said, eyes darting left and right, ears pressed to her head.

Ocellus nudged Derpy beneath her wing. “That’s not true. You caught me before I could even open my wings and you caught the bag before it spilled all the newspapers. You’re a good flier. If Rainbow sees that, then it’s true.”

“She is right,” Rainbow said, then put her right foreleg on Derpy’s shoulder. “So, how about today at five?”

Derpy nodded, coyly.

“Then it’s set,” Rainbow, smiling, said. “Thanks for the newspaper. See you later. Be more careful, Ocellus.”

Ocellus nodded, then spread her carapace and wings. With a quiet flap she lifted herself in the air, then flew across the rolling hills and fields towards Ponyville, a conglomeration of red dots and stripes of gray smoke floating up and disappearing into the air so far to be almost near the horizon, looking microscopically small against the background of the sole snow capped mountain of Canterlot.

“I’ll make sure to have the bag from now on. See you,” Derpy said and with a powerful swing of wings catapulted herself next to her young and alien student.

Rainbow closed the door, thick and sturdy, made from magically thickened and hardened clouds, and smiled at the thought of training Derpy. There was something magical and wonderful in seeing that unlucky mare with wrongfully tilted eyes smile. Rainbow hoped she would manage to make Derpy smile more.

Chapter 3

Rainbow lowered her head and sighed in defeat.

She gave Derpy the simplest tricks – from the barrel roll to the chandelle – and Derpy failed them all.

The simple roll sent Derpy swirling out of control while the simple loop never achieved perfect form, with Derpy forgetting to close the curve and going straight to the ground and Rainbow having to grab her and swoop up. Upward and downward spins ended up with Derpy losing her grip, either spinning too much and too fast or dashing far into the sky ahead instead of closing the stunt. The eight figure never reached conclusion or perfect shape. Instead of looking like an eight Derpy’s stunt created the number eight as perceived in reverie of dreams or madness of drinks: the trajectory waving, unsteady, one loop short, the other elongated, more a taper than a ring. While doing the chandelle, ascending and preparing to turn, Derpy craned to one side, lost her grip, and got entangled in a current of wind. The only maneuver Derpy perfectly performed was the slow roll, changing her position slow and flying for long stretches in particular position before shifting to the next.

Rainbow facehooved many times, and sighed even more. At one point she wanted to give up the whole affair, fly to Derpy and say that was enough and send her home; but her inner feeling along with the memories of Derpy’s speed and elegance she had seen kept her glued to this spot on the outskirts of Ponyville, to this stretch of rolling hills with waving grass far away from well travelled roads and uninvited eyes. She had seen the potential lying inside Derpy – she had – but what brought it to the fore? What activated it and made Derpy move like a pro?

By the time the sun touched the horizon and the sky turned deep orange and then red with a carpet of dark blue above them, Rainbow understood some things. Derpy started the trick well and always lost it in the middle. She began good but then got clumsy for some reason as if the original force that made her adequately perform left her to her own devices and alone. Did the problem lie not in Derpy’s eyesight but something else?

Frowning, one hoof under her chin, her eyes so focused on Derpy trying to do two loops in a row that everything else became distant and dim, Rainbow felt close to the solution. She needed to scratch the last remnants of the patina of ignorance away and the answer will stand clear, bright as the brightest star at night, and then she would make Derpy fly like a master and see her smile and her eyes shine.

A burst of purple that ended in a fireworks of sparks brought Rainbow out of trance. She looked right and saw Spike falling to the ground.

And she saw the miracle she had wanted to bring this whole tedious afternoon.

As Derpy saw Spike while closing her first loop, her eyes widened, then focused. In less than a second she did the second loop perfectly and after finishing it beat her wings and flew in a straight, mathematically, geometrically, physically straight, line towards Spike who by this time managed to gather himself and spread his wings. He didn’t do a single bat. Derpy had him in her hooves before he could do a single flap, then gently brought him to the ground near Rainbow Dash, her mouth open, her eyes opened wide in wonder.

“Thanks, Derpy,” Spike, nonchalant, said. “But it wasn’t needed. I got wings. See?”

He flew in the air, turned his back to Derpy, and fluttered his thin membranous wings.

“Sorry. I forgot about them,” Derpy said. “I got used so much to seeing you without wings that it still slips from my mind that you’re a grown up dragon. Kinda.”

“You’d be surprised how often I hear that. Anyway, I’m fine. Twilight needs to adjust her teleportation spells, tough,” Spike said and landed once again on the ground.

Rainbow, however, wasn’t looking at the little drake. Her eyes were focused on Derpy, on the gray-gold mare who performed a trick perfectly and caught Spike with incredible ease and speed.

Derpy acted her usual self, smiling. Her golden eyes, askew but so sincere, reflected the last of the sunlight: gold reflecting upon gold. Her long blonde mare, of a hue less intense than her eyes, was messy and tangled thanks to the strenuous exercises amidst unfriendly flows and tides. Strands of hair jutted out across her head and neck and peeped, straw like, from the spaces between her ears and head. Like a coast ravaged and eroded by the sea Derpy’s mane looked where it lay against her neck, the ends of her hair either prickling the thick tendons of her neck or sticking out into the air.

The messy hair and the innocent stare of her eyes gave to Derpy an aura of youthful naivety coupled with exuberant acitvity, of adolescence not forgotten and lost. Taking this into consideration and remembering the way Derpy had performed the last aerobatic stunt, betraying a skilful flier hiding somewhere deep within, Rainbow felt more than a simple desire to make Derpy fly good. She burned with curiosity and perceived that nopony knew Derpy particularly well – where she lived, what she liked, what she feared and what she dreamt. If somewhere within lies such a perfect flier then what else Derpy hides from everypony else, either by design or by accident.

These were the questions for later. Flying first, then the rest.

“Uh, Rainbow, you okay?” Spike asked.

Rainbow shook her head, then said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“You looked very weird for a moment, like you were lost really deep in your thoughts, and by really I mean really lost. That’s all.”

“I kinda was. I was,” Rainbow started then it hit her, the final piece of the puzzle. Like a madmare Rainbow smiled, scaring Spike once again.

Her eyes happy and shining, Rainbow hovered and hugged Spike tight, then let him go and rubbed gently his head. “Spike, you’re the best, you know that?”

“I… don’t know what I did, but thanks,” Spike said. “But let’s get down to business. Twilight’s inviting you to the weekly spa session, followed by ice cream dinner at Shem The Icemare, the best ice cream shop in Ponyville.”

Standing on the ground, Rainbows cast her eyes between Derpy and Spike. The choice she had to make. Twilight was her best friend, all right, but she had seen the light in Derpy’s case. Derpy, being who she were, would greet the news that Rainbow must abandon her with a nod and a smile, without even holding the shadow of a grunt. Still the thought of leaving Derpy right now didn’t sit well with Rainbow Dash. It felt unpleasant, rotten, to drag Derpy to this field and then leave her all alone because Twilight called her. But Twilight and the others…

Rainbow looked once more at Derpy’s ruffled frame then said, “Sorry, Spike, I can’t. Have other plans for today.”

“Twilight pays.”

Rainbow shook her head right and left. “Still can’t. I’ll make it up to her. I promise. I’m kinda busy right now.”

Spike shrugged. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

He was airborne in a single flap of wings then set his course toward Ponyville where the first lights, points of intimate yellow, glowed from within the miniature windows of the little homes with thatched roofs beneath the starry sky of the deepest blue.

“What other plans do you have for today? What could be more important than princess Twilight, princess of friendship, the Third Clarity?” Derpy, curious, asked.

Grinning, Rainbow stared at the unkempt looking mare who looked cutely tomboyish.

“You,” she said.

Derpy tilted her head. “Me?”

“I know your problem,” Rainbow said. “And I know how to solve it.”

Chapter 4

“You see, Derpy, you’re not stupid and you’re not clumsy. You lack attention. That's all.”

“I don’t get it.”

Rainbow and Derpy sat on the same grassy knoll above which Derpy had so disastrously flown earlier today. Instead of the vibrant blueness of daylight the envelope of night covered them, starry and clear, quiet and serene.

“Your problem is that you start good then your attention goes away and you go woobly and then crash,” Rainbow said. “When you see somepony in trouble you’re gall… galva… galvun… well, you become totally alert and perform the deeds in a blink.”

“You say I’m scatterbrained?”

Rainbow nodded.

“It makes sense,” Derpy said. "But what can I do about it?”

“What happened when you saw the Crusaders, Ocellus, and Spike?”

“I felt all of me focus on them. As if nothing was more important than saving them.”

“You probably felt a sharpening of senses and full body presence, right?”

Frowning, Derpy looked on the ground then back at Rainbow to her right. “Yes.”

Rainbow stood on her four legs.

“So, how about you bring that right now when performing a double loop?” she asked.

“Isn’t it too late?”

“A few tricks. Nothing more. Pinkie promise.”

“Okay,” Derpy, standing up, said.

With a single flap Derpy was airborne and with the next one, covering Rainbow in a cloud of dust, she darted far into the sky, starlit and dark blue.

With eyes nailed to the gray-gold mare, who positioned herself into a horizontal line preparing for the trick, Rainbow stood on the grassy hill, her legs tense, her whole being hoping for success.

When Derpy moved upwards and began the curve, Rainbow’s mouth went dry and she tilted forward on her legs. Rainbow trembled and sweated upon seeing Derpy reach the highest point of the curve and begin her descent. She caught her breath but was ready to let it out in a desperate sigh as Derpy wobbled at the point when she needed to close the first loop and begin the second.

Wait!

Rainbow saw Derpy squint her eyes and frown her brows. The wobbling that she had come to associate with Derpy spinning out of control ceased. Derpy entered the second loop with the perfection of a Wonderbolt.

Derpy’s flight reached almost standstill when she reached the highest point of the curve with her belly greeting the starry heaven and her spine the ground below. Rainbow feared she would fall. Instead of stopping Derpy squinted once again and gave herself another push by stretching her forelegs and flapping her wings. Her efforts weren’t in vain. She finished the second loop perfectly.

Rainbow jumped, yelling, her wings flapping. Yes! She had found the problem! She knew the solution!

Looking back, surprised by her own manifestation of skill, Derpy smiled.

“I did it, Rainbow!” she shouted. “I did it!”

And then Derpy banked to the right and went swirling down to the wavy ground: a solid sea of green made of knurls, troughs, and hills.

In a flash Rainbow whizzed next to Derpy and steadied Derpy’s fall with her hooves.

Even in the darkness of the night Derpy’s eyes glistened like gold, fuelled by her own surprise and joy at what she had just achieved. How beautiful they looked. So shining and so happy. And that smile: wide, open, showing Derpy’s teeth that shone as brilliantly as the moon. And her hair. A mess thanks to the winds yet so perfect in their interlaced mess of yellow: strands that pointed right, strands that pointed left, strands jutting out of her head.

“I did it, Rainbow!” Derpy, incredulous, repeated. “I did it!”

“I told you,” Rainbow, smiling, said. “Now let’s do something more. How about an eight loop? Remember: when losing it, restore your focus.”

Derpy nodded. “Okay.”

With a powerful flap of her wings Derpy dashed upwards. Derpy gained altitude and, eyes focused and brows wrinkled, sped up ahead. She arched up, started the curve of the first loop. Once again she wobbled at the azimuth of the circle but gathered herself, her crossed eyes becoming straight for a second, and dived down nicely. On the crossing point at the end of the first circle and the beginning of the second one Derpy, however, lost her grip.

Instead of continuing with her belly up Derpy, to make the convex ascent easier for her, decided to turn around mid flight but lost all control as a result. She went spinning out of the circle, her wings folded and unable to find balance on the nocturnal winds.

Rainbow reached Derpy at the speed of light. With outspread forelegs she gripped Derpy by her shoulders and stopped her swirling descent; and with her hooves still on Derpy’s shoulders she watched Derpy open her eyes and look at her with a wide frightened stare.

“I’m sorry,” Derpy said, her voice trembling. Weak.

“It’s no biggie,” Rainbow, smiling, her head tilted, said. “Don’t try to change your position next time, ‘kay? You were doing fine till you decided to do that.”

“But it’s difficult to fly that way with your belly up. Very confusing.”

“Like I said, don’t hang up. It’s a difficult trick and I didn’t expect you to perform it perfectly anyway soooo… let it pass. At least now I know where you are and how to work with you. And that’s progress.”

“Will I be able to fly like you?” Derpy asked.

Rainbow contemplated Derpy’s sandy mane that fell like a waterfall of yellow to the left.

She swallowed, winked, nodded.

“Of course!” she said. “You have it in you. But let’s go with the basics first and the first thing you need to remember is… attention. Stay focused. Always.”

Derpy’s eyes widened. “But how? I always got sidetracked and I can’t keep that deep focus all the time.”

“Practice – that’s the key,” Rainbow, grinning, said. For some reason still unknown to her Rainbow liked the feel of Derpy’s silk-soft silk-smooth coat against her hooves. “Attention is like a muscle. You don’t have it if you don’t use it and when you focus it hurts. You train it and train it day after day, again and again, and you have nice working muscles that don’t ache any more. Practice is key.”

“But I have trouble with my thoughts,” Derpy sighed. “I can’t turn them off like a faucet for very long.”

“So that’s why you’re ditzy and kinda in the clouds all the time,” Rainbow said. Finally but reluctantly she removed her hooves from Derpy’s frame and flew a few inches away. The lack of Derpy’s warmth, of Derpy’s hot fast breath, felt wrong to her. Like getting out of the comfy morning bed into the pre-dawn cold wrong.

Derpy nodded. “My parents always used to say that I’m always in the clouds and rarely on the ground: a pegasus squared.”

“Well, there’s a solution for this. You watch your thoughts, your feelings, your sensations every single waking moment.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean by what do I mean? It’s simple. Have you ever meditated?”

Derpy lifted her right hoof to her chin and rolled her eyes. “Yes. Kinda. A long time ago at a goat trance party. Tree Hugger showed it.”

“And how do you meditate?”

“You sit with your legs crossed like this,” Derpy said, closed her eyes, and folded her hindlegs into a half lotus. The beat of her wings held her steady in the air. “Put your forehooves into your lap like this,” she said and placed her right hoof on top of the left in front of her groin, right beneath her navel. “And then you watch whatever comes into your head. Bad thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts that have an I in them, good and bad memories, good and bad feelings, the itches and the pains – you just watch it all without getting into them like usual when thinking.”

Rainbow, smiling, nodded. “That’s right. But what I want you to do is to keep that attitude at all times no matter what.”

“Even if somepony makes me sad?” Derpy asked, unfolding her hindlegs.

“Uh-uh.”

“Even if something makes me angry.”

“Especially if something makes you angry. The point is to make it all the time because the exercise makes you detached from your mind and more present in the moment, which is the most important skill a flyer can have. If you’ll do it you’ll become like me in no time: you’ll be able to fly with focus and take notice of everything around you. I promise.”

Derpy smiled wildly, showing her beautiful white teeth shining moon-like in the night, then lunged forward and hugged Rainbow tight. So tight, in fact, Rainbow had all the air in her lungs pressed out. So tight that Rainbow forgot to beat her wings and both of them, entwined, fell.

“Derpy, not so strong,” Rainbow said in a rasping voice, gritty, hoarse.

Derpy saw the dark green fields behind Rainbow approaching them, widened her eyes, let Rainbow go.

“Oops!” she said as her gray cheeks quickly turned red. “I got too excited. It’s just that… it’s just that nopony had ever seen me in such a way, you know?”

Rainbow batted her wings again. She looked at Derpy and saw that Derpy’s eyes looked watery and sparkled, reflecting lunar light. Something contracted in Rainbow’s chest. She frowned.

“It’s no problem,” she said. “I like the way you hug, by the way, but the next don’t make it so strong, okay?”

Her eyes still liquid, Derpy smiled, nodded. “Okay. So what’s next?”

Rainbow tilted her head down, her eyebrows knitted, her eyes staring intently on the ground. She looked at the waving field right below them, at the grass undulating from the nightly currents and changing hue from deep green to celadon as the wind caressed its stems, then stared at Derpy with a grin.

“Let’s go home and meet tomorrow at five o’clock,” she said. “You’re out by that time?”

Derpy nodded.

“And that’s the daily schedule from now on.”

Derpy again nodded.

“Cool. See you tomorrow, Dee.”

“See you, too, Rainbow.”

Rainbow turned around and zipped off ahead, leaving a vibrant sparkling rainbow, quickly dissipating, right behind her. On the way to her cloud home Rainbow jiggled ideas about how to train Derpy, where to start and how to proceed, where to put the focus first. The last one was easy – for now Derpy should focus on developing attention. Once that was out of the way she would bloom like a rose at dawn – such was the degree of Derpy’s hidden, unconscious, skill. While Derpy’s attention was developing they would perfect different basic tricks: loops, double loops, eight loops, chandelles.

The more Rainbow meditated upon Derpy’s problems the more she wondered about why was Derpy so lost in thought. She never had suspected that Derpy was a pathologically overactive thinker. Twilight, almost always OCD and on the intellectual edge – yes. Derpy, free-floating and serene – no. In the end it was another of Derpy’s idiosyncrasies that Rainbow wished to understand, and given time she obviously will.

She had a hunch the answer would surprise her deep.

Chapter 5

Derpy exceeded all Rainbow’s expectations.

In a few months she could fly straight and avoid spinning, perform loops and double loops without wobbling. The eight loops still were troublesome and the sequence of several elements in a row – a double loop followed by chandelle and an eight loop on the vertical plane, for example – ended after the first part with Derpy careening left or right and then swirling wildly out of control.

Still, the progress was immense and, what was most important for Rainbow, it made Derpy feel great. Derpy was by essence a cheerful pony that withstood the vicissitudes of life with a serene smile; however, after Rainbow’s training and noticing her own success, Derpy’s smile grew bolder, more intense. She flitted through the air faster and graceful than before, wasn’t afraid to lose balance and crash into something any more. When Rainbow visited Derpy at the post office during the last hours of Derpy’s work she noticed that Derpy acted happy and bouncing, not happy but resigned. Derpy smiled a lot and talked with her clients more in a cheerful happy tone and easily settled any incipient anger and rage within the frustrated and the drunk that occasionally stumbled into the office.

What made Rainbow proud was the increased fluidity and grace of Derpy’s movements, whether walking or flying. It meant that Derpy had applied the exercise Rainbow had given her well. Often times Derpy herself commented about how her life in general had changed, how much the colours stood up, how richer the sounds were, and how strongly she felt here and now, fully present in the solid world, not lost in her usual mental fog.

“It’s like I finally opened my eyes,” she, one time after training, said.

“That’s how I live. If you want to be a good flier it’s totally necessary to be all here and now, present and alert,” Rainbow explained, content. “Because when you’re flying, and especially if you’re flying with others or through Cloudsdale or through mountains, you need to see what’s around you because one wrong move and you can either crash into somepony or smash against a wall or rock or something.”

“I know that well,” Derpy said, then nodded to Rainbow and they parted ways.

Rainbow, however, wasn’t only happy from seeing Derpy growth.

She really enjoyed Derpy giggles, being near the gray horse. After the Wonderbolts or the friendship school she grabbed a bite then bolted to Derpy, her excitement rising with every single mile till it burst into a happy grin the moment she saw Derpy at work, Derpy’s forelegs on the stand, Derpy’s head tilted and listening to a customer's appeal. Rainbow couldn’t explain it but there was something cute and homely about Derpy in the way she smiled and looked at you with her tilted but so incredibly expressive and shiny eyes, in the way her mane flowed to the side with a shimmering ripple as she tilted her head to the side.

Watching Derpy grow was a pleasure of its own; and nothing made Rainbow feel better than seeing how Derpy’s crazy angular flying achieved a nice fluid flow. Derpy’s success made Rainbow feel more accomplished than the success of her students at the Friendship school. Sure, they too were top notch and put either the best buckball or cheerleading teams and made Rainbow incredibly happy but seeing Derpy, a horse everypony regarded as clutzy if not outright dumb, make good stride tickled Rainbow’s heart in a way she thought not possible.

Often after training Rainbow took Derpy to an inn for dinner, and often they visited the spa to wash away the tension and the sweat. She didn’t know why she did it. Teacher-trainee solidarity? Guilt over some past issue when she had scolded Derpy for some innocent mistake? Maybe she simply liked being near Derpy and enjoyed Derpy’s serenity that seemed to be lifted straight from Fluttershy. The reason didn’t matter in the end. Being with Derpy felt good – really good – and that was the only thing Rainbow needed to know about the motives of her actions.

During the pleasant dinner, and especially in the spa when they sweated the tension out in the sauna sitting flank to flank, Rainbow always questioned Derpy about her life outside her job.

It was on such an occasion that Rainbow decided to find out where Derpy lives, to take a look at Derpy’s home.

After a gruesome training, during which she had trained Derpy how to exit a loop into an ascending spiral, Rainbow took her to the spa.

They sweated in the lodge and got a private massage while laying side to side. Rainbow watched silently her gray-yellow companion as she laid belly down on one of the benches and enjoyed the masseur’s hooves going up and down her back, kneading the painful knots nearby her wings. For reasons unknown Rainbow liked the way Derpy lay there, smiling lightly, head to side, eyes closed, her wings stretched, hanging down the sides of the bench.

Farther right Rainbow saw the curve of Derpy’s flanks, well toned, and the curve’s slow descent to Derpy's knees, and she admired how out of the rising slope of Derpy’s rump came out out, like a stream of water out of a fountain, Derpy’s sandy yellow tail. Although she wasn’t much of an admirer of dips and hills of a mare’s body, Rainbow felt enraptured by the wave of Derpy’s overall form: by the way the curve of Derpy’s spine descended and hid between her wings and then reappeared again and turned into her flank.

When the massage ended and she felt light and free, as if walking on clouds, Rainbow looked languidly at Derpy, stretching her hooves after a long lay, and asked, “Want to have a bite? They offer some really good stuff here.”

Derpy smiled with a smile so satisfied Rainbow tingled from merely witnessing it.

“No. I’m good,” she said. “I’ve prepared something for myself back home.”

“Oh,” Rainbow said. Her smile faltered.

Derpy frowned, then cast her eyes down. “I hope I didn’t disappoint you.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s fine. Don’t fret over it.”

Derpy lifted her head and grinned. She moved closer to Rainbow.

“How about you come to my place and we eat together,” she said. “You’re always taking me out and I’m very grateful for that – I think you’ve taken to every place Ponyville and Canterlot can offer – but how about something… different this time. Something… not so public.”

Rainbow opened her eyes wide. Her cheeks hurt from her immense smile. “Are you really fine with that ‘cause if you’re fine I’m totally down with that?”

Derpy closed her eyes and nodded. “Of course.”

“Lead the way, Dee!” Rainbow said.

She stepped aside and opened the way for Derpy out of the massage room.

Once out of the spa Rainbow and Derpy found themselves amidst Ponyville at night, streets barren, pony-free.

“I live not far from here,” Derpy said.

“I though you lived in Cloudsdale.”

Derpy shook her head. Rainbow, enraptured, observed the flitting of Derpy’s mane, how it batted across Derpy’s face.

“No. I have a cloud home near Ponyville,” she said.

“But why?”

“I work at Ponyville, and you saw how bad I flew before. It’s easier for me to drop and place the paper on the porch than to manoeuvre through Clousdale’s streets. I always hit something. Or somepony.”

“Yeah… I saw. Let’s go. I’m starving and, I guess, you too.”

Derpy nodded, straightened her wings, dashed into the sky above. Rainbow followed her.

While flying above the thatched roofs Rainbow, daredevil grin on her face, banked left and tried to nudge Derpy under her wings. Derpy, however, always managed to steer away from Rainbow’s sudden prongs. Rainbow grinned wider and returned back to her starting position, satisfied from Derpy’s progress, from her growth.

Just a few months ago Derpy had flown like somepony metaphorically lost in clouds, barely paying attention to what was in front or next to her; but now she was totally present, aware of her surroundings and flying with newfound grace, already showing glimpses of that professional touch when you not as much as fly through the sky but dance with the sky, with its space, allowing it to carry you when needed instead of pushing obstinately through.

They flew above Ponyville in silence. Rainbow had a hunch Derpy wasn’t ready for multitasking during flight. Rainbow, however, allowed herself to look at Derpy’s flying to her right, her forelegs stretched ahead, her ears pressed to her head, her wings batting calmly, batting slow. Rainbow noticed that, compared to other ponies, Derpy seemed to smile all time, even when alone; and Rainbow understood that she wanted to protect that smile at all costs.

Derpy’s place was one storey home drifting north to Ponyville, above the plains that began to curve and swell before turning into hills further north, closer to Canterlot. Like all home clouds its walls were white; its roof, deep blue. What set the roof apart was its humbleness: it didn’t stand out like like a big blue triangle but was flat and small, almost squeezed against the house. Rainbow liked the windows most. Large rectangles on both sides of the door, dark curtains hiding the space within, the windows gave an aura of sophistication, of modernity, to the modest little home.

Rainbow thought she liked Cloudsdelian design, a neoclassic style hearkening to the pegasi honourable roots, and thought the new architecture, an appropriation of Manehatten’s experiments in style, looked not flashy and opulent enough: an earth pony pragmatism applied to the lofty and sophisticated culture of the pegasi. Derpy’s flat house made her reconsider her likes.

Derpy landed on the cloud before the front door, saw Rainbow land left to her, then said, “And here’s where I live. It’s not as good as your place, but -”

“Are you kidding me?” Rainbow, eyes wide, ears perked, said. “It’s awesome in a... kinda lowkey way.”

Derpy smiled. “Glad you liked it. Let’s go inside. It’s little bit cold today.”

Intimate and cosy - these were the first feelings Derpy's homely abode invoked in her. Rainbow guessed it was the size that gave such an effect: the smaller and more crammed the room was, the stronger the intimacy effect. Her own own place, with its vast hallways and large spacious rooms and ceiling up high, radiated epic and high culture but as result felt a little bit empty, impersonal and cold: a replica of Twilight’s castle. As Rainbow looked at the living room that spread from right to left, carpeted, heated by a fireplace in the right wall, with stacks of papers lying on the table and the floor, she thought that she needed to renovate her own place a little. Not something drastic. A little bit of disorder, maybe.

Rainbow looked left, to the other part of the living room, and dropped her jaw. Bookcases lined the walls: bookcases brimming with books from bottom to the top. Blue armchairs stood on the edges of the green and yellow carpet barely visible between the stacks of paper bound by cord. The brown cord split the topmost page of the stack into four rectangles of white by crossing it both vertically and horizontally; and right in the middle of the page its formed a simple bow knot.

Curious, Rainbow flew to one such stack and took it in her forelegs. The bounded pages were as thick as Twilight’s encyclopedic books and just as heavy. Rainbow lifted the right downmost angle, then released it and checked the right upmost one.

“Is this...a book you’re writing?” She, squinting, asked.

Derpy put a hoof on her neck and nodded coyly. “Yeah. It’s one of the finished ones.” She pointed to right side of the room, near the fireplace that cracked and shone. “This is the one I’m writing right now.”

Rainbow landed, cradling Derpy’s manuscript in her right foreleg. “This is what you do in your freetime? Read and write?”

Derpy nodded, eyes closed.

“And I’m the first to know this, right?”

Derpy nodded once again.

“It’s… surprising. Really! Don’t take it the wrong way but you look as a kinda of pony that is, uh, not bright enough for reading.”

Derpy smiled lightly. “I know that. But I try not to think about it. Yeah, I have skewed eyesight and therefore fly badly but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I built racing cars for my cousins!”

“It didn’t look spectacular in the last race, though.”

“I was asked to fail. That part of the family said they didn’t trust me as the older sister because of my vision but the little cousin wanted to race with me so we reached a compromise.”

Rainbow lowered her head and lowered her ears. “Sorry.”

Derpy tilted her head left and smiled. “It’s no problem. By that time everypony thought that I’m mentally challenged and didn’t say anything.”

“But why didn’t you challenge them?”

Derpy lifted her eyes and put her right foreleg under her chin. After a long pondering she looked back at Rainbow but instead of smiling she looked sad, brows furrowed, eyes wide and her pupils shaking.

“I got used to it,” she said. “Everypony looked at me as the town retard and I… and I… closed in… gave up… Until you came, that is.”

Rainbow smiled and saluted Derpy by pressing her right foreleg, holding the book, against her forehead. “Happy to serve, Dee.”

Derpy hugged Rainbow, pushed Rainbow as close as possibly to her own grey frame. Rainbow made an ooph as her chest pressed against Derpy but this time she decided not warn about Derpy about her lack of air.

Derpy loosened her grip and looked into Rainbow’s eyes.

Rainbow couldn’t hold back her smile as she looked into Derpy’s beautiful golden eyes, magical and wonderful, so bubbly and so sparkling even with their tilt. Derpy’s warm breath going up her muzzle and down her neck felt as intimate and warm as the fire glowing yellow and orange, cracking, behind Derpy.

Rainbow put her forelegs on Derpy’s shoulders then said, “Come on, let’s go and eat. I want to see how good of a cook you are and you’re a good one, I bet.”

Smiling, Derpy released Rainbow from her embrace, yet Rainbow saw a small transitory frown on Derpy’s face, a twinge of her eyebrows, a trail of longing in her eyes. Did she do something wrong?

When Derpy restored her smile, however, Rainbow understood that everything was good.

“Come, let’s go into the kitchen,” Derpy said.

Since the house was of a modern design, the kitchen wasn’t a different room. In fact, it lay just ahead of the living room with the fireplace and was separated from the living room by a short white stand. Just like everything Rainbow had witnessed so far the kitchen looked miniature and cramped. In the middle of the kitchen was the table with pots and pans hanging above it. Drawers lined the walls.

Derpy, meanwhile, put some delicious and spicy smelling dishes, enveloped in the red glow of a thermal spell, on the table.

“Do you usually eat here?” Rainbow asked, looking up, at the kitchen utensils hanging above her head.

“No,” Derpy said. “I like in the study room. And with a good book.”

“Should we go there or?”

“Let’s stay here,” Derpy said. “That place is a mess. You’ve seen it.”

She placed a white plate with a hay loaf in front of Rainbow Dash. As Rainbow sniffed the coming vapours her belly rumbled and reminded her she hadn’t had a single bite since two o’clock. The moment Derpy gave her a knife and fork Rainbow stuck the fork into the load and cut it with the knife. She put the first piece into her mouth and then opened her eyes wide.

“This is fantastic, Dee! You know that?” Rainbow, chewing, said.

“It’s nothing special. You’re just telling it because you’re hungry.”

“No! I’m telling you, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Cross my heart and hope to fly and stick a cupcake in my eye!”

“If you say so,” Derpy said with blushing cheeks, then put a loaf on her plate and sat opposite to Rainbow’s.

Eating, Rainbow cast her eyes on the manuscript she placed to her right. Unable to hold her curiosity, she asked, “Why don’t you publish your stuff? You write so much, so why not to find an agent and a house so that you can have your books out there in the big wide world? I can offer help, you know? And I know some damn good agent and critic. The best one.”

Derpy cast her eyes down then shifted them back and forth, her right hoof on her nape. “I… well… I write for myself. I… don’t think my stuff is up to snuff to compete with professionals.”

Rainbow tilted her head and pointed with the fork at the manuscript. “Can I read it?”

“If you want to, but don’t cringe too much, okay?”

“Gotcha,” Rainbow said.

She dropped the fork and untied the simple knot with her right forelegs. She shifted the fork to her left hoof, then placed with her right hoof the first page, where the title was only printed, on the middle of the table and dug into the text.

Soon Rainbow abandoned the food, half eaten, and focused on the manuscript only. Pages flew from the stack on her right to the stack in front of her. When they achieved the same height Rainbow stopped, looked up, and said, “This is actually really good!”

Derpy, smiling, frowning, tilted her head. “Oh come on, it’s nothing.”

“No, I mean it,” Rainbow said, her face serious, her eyes pinning Derpy with their strength.

“I’m sorry, but it’s not like you read a lot.”

“But I do,” Rainbow said. With her right foreleg she scratched the back of her neck, shuffling it up and down, her eyes downcast, light blush on her cheeks. “Not many know this and I’m telling it to you because we’re really good friends at this point – we’ve been to bars and spas together and you invited me for dinner – but I really do like reading. I’ve read all of Daring Do, Steephoof King, Dan Bray, Tailcraft’s best works. Trotkien as well. If it has adventure, travel, tense fights and large stakes, I’ll read it.”

Derpy, ashamed, looked down. “I didn’t suspect you read. You’re an athlete, after all.”

Rainbow cocked her head, lifted her right eyebrow. “Really, Dee?”

Derpy’s mouth turned into an O and her eyes widened, then she smiled, embarrassed, cheeks tomato red. “Oops!”

“Somepony as surprising as you being surprised that I read,” Rainbow said as she shook her head and smiled. “Anyway, let’s get back to your book. As I’ve said, I read a lot and I know good writing when I see one. You, Dee, are amazing. You should get published.”

“I… don’t know. Maybe… not right now, okay? I’mmmm… not ready for it.”

Rainbow stared silently at Derpy – who looked splendid even while blushing, being coy, her ears pressed to her head, her right hoof caressing nervously her nape – and she felt an unusual feeling in her chest, a pleasant kind of warmth that spread languidly across her trunk and made her smile in a way like never before: a peaceful kind of smile, full of serenity and bliss. Rainbow wanted to stand up, go around the table, and hug that adorable gray-gold mare that looked so innocent, so cute, while flustered and shocked. She guessed Derpy had rarely received praise before she had met her and decided to work with her and so wasn’t accustomed to it, but Derpy deserved it for all she did: for her flying progress and her writing, for her meal.

Rainbow lifted one corner of her mouth.

“Can I at least take it home? I want to read it till the end.”

Derpy closed her eyes and nodded. “No problem. Just, please, return it.”

Rainbow bent her right foreleg and placed her right hoof to her forehead. “As you say, captain.”

She put the stack of papers in front of her on top of the unread part of the book, then finished her loaf.

Once the dishes became empty Derpy stood up, took them in her hooves, turned around, placed them in the sink. Clink!

She turned around and looked with an expression that Rainbow couldn’t read, her eyes half closed, her mouth half smiling, as if Derpy wanted to do something naughty, something wrong.

“Would you like to check my bedroom?” Derpy asked in low and throaty tone that suggested things private and nocturnal.

For the first time since they had met Rainbow didn’t know what Derpy wanted. Nopony had looked at her with that kinda stare, playful, enigmatic, and alluring. Derpy looked as if she had some interesting surprise in her bedroom, a rare thing that she was proud to have found or bought and wanted Rainbow to see. Rainbow guessed that was it, otherwise it was pointless to spend time in a bedroom. Especially when Derpy’s living room already looked sweet: all the books Rainbow could read and read first, before everypony else, and the view she and only she could admire from the manifold windows of Derpy’s home.

If Derpy wanted to show her the bedroom, then she must accept it. She was a guest here and she didn’t want to upset Derpy.

“Okay! Let’s see,” Rainbow said in her usual cheerful tone.

Derpy nodded, walked left. Rainbow followed her.

Compared to every other part of the house the bedroom was minimal and bare. Four walls, a night stand, and a bed with a large and wide window opposite to it. Rainbow looked right, at the view opening from the window, giving a nice view of the regal mountain of Canterlot, and then she looked left, at the rectangular and plain bed with plain white pillows and a plain grey sheet.

What did Derpy want to show her?

Derpy jumped to the other side of bed then dived on top of it. She lay on it with her four legs spread, her tail raised, a jet of gold going up then curving down and resting between her knees. With expectant eyes Derpy watched Rainbow approach her.

Rainbow still didn’t know what Derpy wanted from her. She turned her head left and right, searching for the surprise that was supposed to be here but wasn’t. One eyebrow lifted, she looked at Derpy with questioning eyes. Derpy looked different now: her eyes burned with newfound vivacity, shone with glee, as if some internal trammels of hers had been removed and energy came bursting to the fore.

“Do you want me to join you on the bed?” Rainbow asked.

Derpy nodded. “I like it here. It’s safe and cosy and away from work. It sets me in the mood.”

“In the mood for what?”

Derpy’s lifted her left eyebrow and stared at Rainbow with wonder. “Don’t you… well… don’t you get it?”

Rainbow shook her head left and right. “Not really. I thought you wanted to show me something. Do you want to have a sleepover?”

Derpy stared silently at Rainbow, her eyes wide, full of shock and disbelief. Rainbow had a hunch that Derpy was disappointed in some way, as if she had expected something else from her. She had to bring bad news to Derpy, however, because no matter how much she wanted to make Derpy happy and stay with her till sunrise she had obligations and duties to perform.

“Sorry, Dee, but I can’t,” Rainbow said, scratching her nape. “I have stuff to do in the morning. School stuff. Twilight will kill me if I don’t show up – I’ve already missed too many classes because of the Wonderbolts. No probs?”

Derpy looked on the pillow in front of her her and sighed. “No problems.”

“Another time, okay?”

Derpy didn’t answer. She simply nodded.

To cheer her up Rainbow smiled and jumped on the bed. She landed on her belly, put her right foreleg around Derpy’s shoulders, enjoyed the fuzzy warmth of Derpy’s coat and the smoothness of her mane.

“We’re still friends, right?”

“Yes, we are still friends, but I hoped for something more.”

“For what?”

Derpy looked at Rainbow, her head tilted, her eyes surprised and disappointed, then looked back at the pillow in front of her.

“Nothing.”

“If you want something, just give me the word and I’ll do it. You can always count on me.”

“I know.”

“So what’s the problem? If you’re down because of the sleepover then let’s do it another time. I’ll be free on the weekend.”

Derpy looked once again at Rainbow but this time she managed a smile. “That’s fine for me.”

Rainbow beamed. “Great! The bed is very nice by the way. Very soft. Softer than mine.”

Derpy’s smiled wider, yet Rainbow couldn’t shake off the feeling that Derpy had expected a different reaction from her. “It’s the cloud fiber. The hybrid material that’s the mix between clouds and cloth. It gives the bed that amazing lightness of a cloud.”

“Heard of it but never tried it myself. Definitely feels like a real cloud,” Rainbow said, then dropped her head on the pillow.

She enjoyed the pillow’s delicate and ethereal smoothness until her nose caught a very private scent that lingered in its fabric. The source of the smell was unmistakable. That bodily, musky and sweet smell, tickling pleasantly the lining of her nose, could only come from that hidden and most intimate place at the junction of Derpy’s trunk and Derpy’s legs, the place between the thick swell of Derpy's thighs where they met and rubbed against each other, the place that by Derpy’s golden tail was veiled from her view.

Two things Rainbow realized after the first intake of that most secret scent: she liked the smell; she was getting wet.

To avoid further swelling of her nethers and the subsequent spilling of the fluids Rainbow slithered left then placed her hindlegs on the floor and pressed her tail against her bloom as inconspicuously as she could.

“Let’s return to living room,” she said, grinning. “It’s kinda boring here.”

Derpy cast a pleading look at Rainbow, her eyes open wide from longing, expecting something that Rainbow couldn’t guess.

Rainbow placed her forelegs on the floor and cocked her head. “Did I do something wrong? Because if I did then I’m sorry and just say anything and I’ll make up for it.”

Derpy sighed, closed her eyes, lowered her head.

The next time she looked at Rainbow her face was relaxed, carefree, in her usual state. The sadness in her eyes, however, didn’t escape Rainbow attention. Rainbow made a step forward to the bed, opened her mouth, then closed it. If Derpy didn’t want to talk then she had her reasons. The sadness, though. Rainbow heart twisted from the sight of it, and she wanted to do anything in her power to take even that residual sadness away so that Derpy could smile like her old self again.

“You’re fine, Rainbow,” Derpy slowly said. “It’s the sleepover. Yeah. I’m a little bit disappointed that you can’t stay with me for the night. That’s all.”

“Really?”

Derpy nodded.

“I get it. I know it sucks – you going all out to have me here and me throwing a wrench in your plans – and I guess I should have warned you in the first place so it’s all my fault – but I promise we can have one the next weekend. I will be free and if some plans will come up I’ll push them away. Is that fine with you?”

Derpy smiled. “That’s fine.”

She slid down the bed till all her four legs rested on floor, then went around the bed towards the door. Rainbow, feeling guilty and uneasy, followed her. As she looked at Derpy’s behind, tail in between, bubbles on the flanks, her thoughts conjured images of what laid behind the swaying stroke of gold. Rainbow shook her head to move her thoughts aside – later, back at home and in the shower, she would give them full reign – but took a mental note to remember Derpy’s most private scent. The gray-gold mare smelled heavenly, both delicate and musky, right in central spot between a deluge of fish and no scent at all.

As she walked past the kitchen into the living room Rainbow looked at the table and saw the manuscript laying there, half read. Her plan for the book sprung back to life in her mind again. She galloped to the table and grasped the book.

“It’s fine if I take it home to read, right?” Rainbow said, her forelegs tightly wrapped around the book.

Derpy turned around and nodded. “Of course. Just don’t tell anypony that it’s from me, okay?”

“But why?” Rainbow, curious, eyebrows lifted, asked. “You’re very good at writing, and you must always show everypony else what you’re really good at.”

Derpy stared at the floor, head bent down. “I… Well, I don’t feel like sharing. I don’t think others will take it as well as you.”

“Why? It’s obvious you really like writing” – Rainbow stretched her right foreleg and swept it across the living room – “and it’s obvious your writing is amazing. Why stay at a post office you don’t like and endure all that crap when you can throw it all into the trashcan and try your hoof at living the dream? The writing dream?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like it. It’s not that good and, well, I don’t think publishing houses would like to deal with me. Look at me. Everyone thinks I’m stupid because of this,” Derpy said and pointed at her eyes, tilted yet so bright. “So... it’s pointless to try.”

Rainbow’s chest constricted from the sight of Derpy being sad, her ears drooped and head bent. She wanted to jump and hug the gray-gold horse who looked so amazing when she smiled, her eyes bright as twin suns, but looked so desperate, alone, when glee left her and complexes and traumas, haunts from childhood crypts, came to the fore. One thing restricted her – how would Derpy react? Would she like it or would she not? Would she push her away or melt in her hug? Feeling embarrassed, feeling like a fool, was one of the things Rainbow didn’t like the most.

No. It was best to wait till the execution of her special plan, a neat method to brighten Derpy’s mood and prove her wrong in her assertions, and then maybe plant a foreleg around her neck. She wished, craved, physical contact, though. That smell she had sniffed in Derpy’s bedroom brought fiery desires that were well hidden to the front of her mind, among them a desire to feel Derpy all over, inhale her breath, her wonderful scent.

Rainbow shook her head to clear it from the sticky tendrils of lust and said, “Most of publishing houses print tawdry stuff that’s so boring you can use it as a sleeping aide. Your stuff is miles better – the prose, the characters, the plot. Everything!”

Derpy lightly smiled. A light blush lightly coloured her cheeks. “Thanks, but no. I don’t want it out there. It’s for me and, well, you. Okay?”

Rainbow nodded. “Okay? Can I look at some other books of yours?”

“Of course.”

Derpy and Rainbow, side to side, went into the living room; and in the living room the rest of the evening the two mares spent, Rainbow reading manuscripts, bristling with excitement from Derpy’s imagination as well as turn of phrase, asking Derpy if she could take the manuscript with her and finish reading it at home, Derpy smiling, blushing, nodding.

Through the evening, however, Rainbow felt that she had somehow let Derpy down and that Derpy’s lugubrious mood had started after she had refused to stay for a sleepover. Rainbow couldn’t shake the feeling that she had missed something vital and that her dismissal of Derpy’s wishes and her inattention to Derpy’s hints had tarnished the rest of the evening, an evening that had been so splendid, enlightening, and smooth. She had promised that she would be free the next weekend. She would make sure of it just for the sake of erasing every single fault between Derpy and her.

By the time the clock struck eleven Rainbow had chosen five books that she planned to read at home. Derpy had found an old satchel, the bags torn, the buckle rusty, the belt cracking, for Rainbow Dash to wear and carefully put it on Rainbow's back. Rainbow’s wish came true as her coat and spine were caressed by Derpy’s hooves, so silky that their touch send shivers through her spine and through her sides. Usually Rainbow didn’t allow anypony to touch her without her permission, especially her sides and everything around her wings, but she wanted to feel Derpy, her silky coat, her velvety hooves. What she didn’t like that much was the tingling and the heat between her haunches, beneath her tail: a sensation best left for home.

When Derpy tightened the belts she asked, “Is this fine for you?”

Rainbow flapped her wings, nodded. “It’s perfect, Dee.”

She took the manuscripts, criss-crossed with thin rope, and placed them in the bags, then she moved to the door.

Once outside, in the freshness of the night air and under the clarity of the night sky, Rainbow turned around and looked at Derpy, standing in the door, her head tilted, her eyes askew but kind and happy, her sandy mane falling haphazardly on her forehead, its tips caressing her cheeks. At that moment Rainbow understood what she really wanted to do but she quickly pulled that stray but pleasant thought aside. That could backfire immensely.

“See you tomorrow, Dee. Same time as always,” Rainbow, smiling, said.

Derpy nodded. “See you tomorrow.”

Rainbow turned around, bent her legs, opened her wings, and with a single powerful flap and spring she was airborne, already a hundred meters up and away from Derpy’s home. With her perked ears, alert, she heard the thud of a door and the turn or a lock. Derpy was secure. She could think of her plan.

Rainbow looked at her bags, swollen from the manuscripts, then smiled. Yes, she promised Derpy to leave this delicate matter between the two of them for fear of Derpy being found out and humiliated; and yes, she will keep the promise despite her cunning plan.

After all, she knew the main mare of the literature guild.

Chapter 6

Twilight turned the last page of the manuscript, text down, blank up, and blinked in total disbelief.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said, breathless. “The plot, the characters, the prose – it’s all so well written. I couldn’t stop reading the moment I turned the first page.”

Rainbow stood with her left side propped against the table, paring her left hoof with her wing. “Told you she’s good.”

Frowning, Twilight put her forelegs down on the crystal rocky floor, turned left, looked at Rainbow.

“I’ve never met such literary talent before. Well, a living literary talent, that is. It’s a shame she wants to remain anonymous.”

Rainbow nodded, her eyes closed. “As invisible as the wind.”

Twilight cast her eyes between the manuscript and Rainbow, her eyebrows knitted, her right hoof lodged underneath her chin. Rainbow observed Twilight’s obvious meditations with total ease. To pass such writing would be foolish. Twilight wasn’t a fool at all.

Twilight shifted her head from the heap of papers to Rainbow for the last time and said, “Okay, I’ll send it to Canter Press immediately. I didn’t spot any plot inconsistencies, spelling, grammar mistakes – and I never miss any – so it’s good to go. That should make you happy, Rainbow, since you insisted for it to be published out as fast as possible.”

Rainbow stood straight and smiled. “That does make me happy. She will appreciate it as well.”

“There’s one tiny problem, though. Did your friend think of a pseudonym?”

“A what?”

“If she doesn’t want to be found she needs to adopt a fake name. I can’t send it without giving the agency a name.”

Rainbow widened her eyes and gulped.

“Did she have any pseudonym in mind?”

Rainbow’s eyes darted around feverishly. She turned her head left and scanned the bookshelves.

“Rainbow?”

Rainbow looked back at Twilight, focused and frowning, then said, “Gaskin Burst. Yeah! That's what she said! Exactly that!”

Twilight relaxed her stare and grinned. “Wow! Not only is she a superb writer but likes equine cestoda and kirin eroto-alchemycal poetry as well! We should definitely meet and have a talk together. I would love to pick her brain and ask he how did she learn to write so well.”

“No! She doesn’t want that! She’s very shy. And kinda insecure.”

“Is it Fluttershy? Being an INFP it’s not surprising that she has such good writing skills – a lot of INFPs have. Might explain the parasitology quirk, too.”

Rainbow shook her head then said, “No, it’s not Fluttershy.”

Pensive, Twilight frowned. “I don’t remember seeing you with any new ponies, Rainbow, so it must somepony out of town.”

“When did you hear about Tree Hugger?”

“Right before the Gal-oh, I get it. Just because we’re always together doesn’t mean there are things that don’t escape my attention. Speaking of which” – Twilight moved closer to Rainbow, so close she could feel Twilight's warm breath caress her forehead and cheeks – “would you like to have lunch with me at Anna Coronet’s restaurant?”

Rainbow scratched the back of her neck. “Sorry. Can’t do. I have a training session with Derpy this afternoon.”

Twilight, her eyes pleading, took a step back. “How about dinner at six?”

“No, can’t do. Me and Derpy are having hayburgers at Ergot’s Inn.”

Twilight dropped her head, looked at the floor, then stared back at Rainbow and said, “Maybe you can come to the castle at nine and we can have a nice cozy dinner together and then read Daring Do together and talk about the lore? I get lonely here. Your presence would liven up this place quite a bit.”

Rainbow bit her lower lip, rolled up her eyes. “Well, about that…. Derpy said she wanted me to try her new hot chocolate recipe at her place. She has the best chocolate in town.”

Twilight’s chin twitched. She closed her eyes and sighed heavily.

“I… well, I didn’t know you two were so close,” she said.

Rainbow perked up her ears and tilted her head. “What do you mean? We’re just friends doing friend stuff.”

“Really?” Twilight asked. She started pace to and fro across the library. “You didn’t spend a single moment with us outside school this month, preferring to train with Derpy instead. Wait! Not only train but go to the spas, the restaurant, the cinema, the fairs. You even spend the evenings with her. Visit Derpy at her job. Even today you're about to spend the rest of the day with Derpy. It’s obvious that you’re more than friends.”

Rainbow closed her eyes and shook her head. “Nu-uh. It’s what friends do.”

Twilight stopped and looked inquisitively at Rainbow Dash. “Do you see me running to Rarity’s Boutique at every possible opportunity?”

“No.”

“Do I spend almost every evening at Fluttershy’s home?”

“No. You’re always here in this boring castle. Alone. You just asked if I could stay with you?”

“What would you say if you learned that Silverstream and Ocellus spent an evening together?”

Rainbow knitted her eyebrows. “I would say they’re obviously into each other and that’s not my business to meddle into their affairs. Don’t like that mushy stuff anyway.”

“But you do all these things with Derpy, Rainbow Dash! Don’t you see?”

Rainbow scoffed, waved her right hoof. “Come on, Twilight. You’re seeing things that are not there. Me and Dee are just close friends and I’m just being a good friend. Dee doesn’t have many, you know?”

“Ugh,” Twilight said and sat from exhaustion on the floor. “You’re incorrigible, Rainbow.”

Smiling, Rainbow walked near Twilight and placed her right hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Look, Twilight, I know you’re kinda out of your element when it comes to romance and all of that but there’s nothing between me and Dee. We’re just friends.”

“I wish I had that nothing between you and me,” Twilight muttered, plaintive.

“But we have that, Twilight. It’s just that Derpy needs my help more than you or Fluttershy or Rarity. A good good friend helps a friend in need, right?”

Unable to formulate any word, Twilight nodded.

“I know I missed a lot of our get togethers, and I’m sorry for that, but Derpy needs me. When she’ll get really good at flying then my job will be done and I’ll come back to all of you, okay?”

Twilight stood on her fours and, returning to her usual busybody self, no sign of sadness on her face, said, “I must say you have quite the teaching talent, judging from your work with the cheerleading team and the Hope’s Hollows’ twins, and I can’t really say that you’re wrong about Derpy – she does indeed fly better than before – so… yeah! Go ahead! Me and the girls understand.”

Rainbow tipped her head and smiled. “I knew you’ll get me. The publishing deal still stands?”

Twilight nodded.

“Good! I’m off.”

Rainbow bent her legs, spread her wings, and was about to lift when Twilight looked at her and said, “It’s Derpy, isn’t it?”

“What’s Derpy?” Rainbow said, straightening, folding her wings.

“The author. Gaskin Burst.”

Rainbows cheeks turned hot and perspiration covered her forehead. She felt rotten all over, like a teenager that had been caught stealing bits out of her mother's purse. What would Derpy say if she knew that her secret – a secret that Rainbow, the embodiment of loyalty, had sworn solemnly to hold – had been discovered so quickly and only because she, Rainbow, had been so careless in her words.

“How did you figure out?” Rainbow asked, her voice feeble, cracking. Weak.

“Simple deduction, Rainbow,” Twilight, head lifted, eyes closed, said. “The only new friend that you have made in the recent weeks is Derpy, therefore this mysterious diffident writer could only be Derpy. It’s improbable that you have a friend so well hidden that none in town have heard of her. If ponies saw you with Derpy and nopony else it means that there are probably no new friends apart from her, ergo Derpy is the writer.”

“Is it so obvious?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes. Don’t worry, I’ll keep the secret. But can you tell at least one thing: where and how did she learn to write?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I dunno. She kinda has a pretty big bookcase – not as big as yours but still pretty big to me – and she writes a lot.”

“Are you sure Derpy doesn’t want to come out?”

“Totally.”

Twilight looked at the floor, sighed, then looked back at Rainbow, nonchalant.

“Why are you doing this, Rainbow? Do you really think that what you’re doing is being friends only?” she asked.

“Well, yes!” Rainbow, beaming, her eyes like stars sparkling, said. “She looks so happy when she smiles. I like seeing Derpy happy. That’s what friends do – make each other happy.”

Twilight stared at Rainbow’s radiant face with a puzzled look, head tilted, one eyebrow lifted. “Are you really that oblivious, Rainbow?”

“Nah, I’m fine. It’s how I show my friendship. Element of loyalty, remember?”

“Why don’t you show that kind of friendship to me?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I dunno. You seem happy. Derpy isn’t. She needs help. But if you need something, you know where to find me.”

With eyes wide from disbelief Twilight observed the element of loyalty, her prismatic friend. Finally she sighed and bent her head.

“Fine, let it be your way,” Twilight, frustrated, said, then added in a murmur to herself. “I wish I had that kind of friendship, though.”

“You said something?” Rainbow, stretching forwards, asked.

Twilight sighed. “No. Nothing. Just thinking aloud. You know me.”

“Yeah! That happens to you a lot. Anyway, I need to to go. It was nice to chat with you and it’s great that you agreed but promise it will stay between you and me. I promised Derpy that I’d keep her secret no matter what”

“My lips are sealed,” Twilight said, then looked at the fat manuscript on the table: a book in potential: a story between eigenstates. “I’ll be dealing with your book. Have a great day!”

“I will. See ya!” Rainbow said, bent her legs, opened her wings, and flapped.

In one single propulsion she was airborne and approaching quickly the opened window, thin and elongated, lancet like in shape, made from stained glass, from bits of pieces coloured purple, green, and blue.

In the vastness of the sky Rainbow felt that usual lightness and exhilaration that came with fluidity and freedom of the flight. By nothing interrupted she could ascend to the highest airs and into the deepest crevices descend, fly in any direction she desired without a single obstacle on her path or allow herself to be carried by the winds. Surrounded by the immensity of the sky, away from the earthly pony life, unhindered by terrestrial worries, games, and frights, Rainbow relaxed and pondered on important matters in total solitude.

Twilight’s words haunted her as she chilled in the chilly high altitude air on her way to meet Derpy, the beautiful mare with slanted eyes that lit up so magically every time she smiled. She and Derpy were only friends; they didn’t do anything that could be considered as sappy, cuddly, mushy. Rainbow helped Derpy and that was it.

Sure, she did have some intimate thoughts – erotic fantasies that emerged to the surface in the times between waking and sleep both in the morning and at night – but they were just that: fantasies, reveries, lubricious dreams. One things is to imagine stuff; the other to perform. But what if she could?

Rainbow shook her head.

No!

Phantoms should remain phantoms. She could indulge them as much as she wanted back in the safety of home where nopony would ever discover this side of hers, hugging pillows, rubbing sheets; but not for a single infinitesimal moment should she consider actually reifying them in the friendship she established with Derpy Hooves. Just thinking about trotting through Ponyville and stopping beneath an awning to hug and kiss – and hug and kiss in front of everypony, locals, visitors from Canterlot, everycreature else – made Rainbow shiver and sweat. She could imagine their faces, eyes wide open, mouths oscillating as the creatures struggled to contain their laughs, and could anticipate the gossip. Have you seen? Yes, I have seen! Did they kiss? Oh, yes! And her hair tail? Went up, too. What a shame. Yes, indeed.

No!

One embarrassment – so strong that a sliver of its memory vividly restored the clang of metal against her head, the sudden pitch black darkness of the can as well as it slimy and cold steel, and the overwhelming stench of decomposing leftovers, discarded napkins and putrefying fruits – had been enough. She wouldn’t allow herself to feel that weak and ashamed again. The best best thing for her to do was to keep it cool amidst the crowd and unleash the intimate and sweet longings in the privacy of night.

How sweet these thoughts were…

As Rainbow remembered them her cheeks flushed and tingly warmth spread throughout her limbs. Her groin became warm, swollen, heavy, quickly filling up with wetness, glutinous and thick.

In her most private and intimate thoughts Rainbow imagined herself lying intertwined with Derpy on her bed, strongly hugging and kissing softly. She closed her eyes for a moment and imagined the scene from her sweetest dreams: she and Derpy lying on their sides, their noses bumping into each other, Derpy’s warm breath blowing over nostrils, lips, and cheeks, making her relaxed, tingly. Warm.

As she looked into Derpy’s eyes, goofy but so honest and sincere, shining like nothing else in the word, beaming with simple love, Rainbow pushed her head forward and placed her lips on Derpy’s and kissed her in the gentlest way she knew – she couldn’t imagine, even for a fraction of a second, being aggressive with Derpy, kissing Derpy angrily, with brute force. Her desires brimmed with softness that was incredibly familiar but to other ponies totally unknown: a quality of hers that it if were sniffed out would cause of a lot of trouble. In dreams, however, in dreams she could let it be.

Rainbow opened her eyes and saw the clear sky ahead and the hills and throughs shifting down below, the occasional deep green grooves merely a blur due to the speed of her flight. She returned to her daydreams but this time with her eyes wide open.

She imagined as vividly as she could the feel of Derpy’s lips, their smoothness and their wetness, along with the sharpness of her teeth; and she imagined Derpy’s dazed face after the light and gentle kiss, the gray-gold mare lying on the side, her mane strewn all around her, eyes happy and half closed, her nostrils flaring as a drunken smile spread across her face. Rainbow smiled as her fantasy took her downwards, to her leg placed between Derpy’s flanks and rubbing against that wet warm softness that was Derpy’s crotch, her most intimate space.

In her most private dreams she caressed Derpy’s back and shoulders, paying special attention to the skin beneath her wings, while her thigh moved up and Derpy’s crotch and spread liquid between Derpy’s legs; and as her own hoofing approached release Rainbow imagined that she slid masterfully down, lifted Derpy’s leg, saw Derpy’s flower, which she always imagined as hibiscus red, inhaled the bodily piscine scent and lunged forward and lapped Derpy’s bloom up and down, from the clit to the bottom and from the bottom to the clit. What always brought Rainbow over the edge, made her body involuntarily wave and slither from the tingling shivers of orgasm, was imagining Derpy’s moans which started as whimpers but quickly grew into deep and throaty moans of joy.

Once again Rainbow shook her head.

Just a quick irruption of her longings made her warm all over, tingly between her legs. The pleasant and tingling heaviness and wetness beneath her tail demanded satisfaction. On every other day she could find or create a nice solitary cloud, plunge into its plump fuzzy fluffiness, let her mind unwind the reels that held her erotic reveries and enjoy herself slowly, fully, to the max as she tickled with a warm and soft and fuzzy bump of cloud her heavy, swollen, tingling crotch. Right now, however, Derpy awaited her. Rainbow could see the all so familiar stretch of grass, right next to the menacing green of the Everfree, ahead.

There was one little problem, though, that was common to lascivious thoughts: once you stepped on red path of sensual lust it was difficult to stop. A barrage of memories and kinks flooded Rainbow’s mind as she flew the last miles to the training ground where Derpy, ever punctual, already sat and awaited her. She craved for her pillows once again as memories of pleasant mornings spent with one pillow in her forelegs and one between her hindlegs surfaced like bubbles to the surface of her mind. Rainbow usually got heated up and wet, rubbed one pillow against her inmost hotness, and then brought it to her face while either pulling another between her thighs or catching the bed-sheets and rubbing it against her bloom. As she inhaled the thick heady sea like scent Rainbow imagined it was Derpy’s flanks and Derpy’s flower in front of her and believed it was Derpy’s head between her legs, not her pillow, too familiar ad worn out.

To allow some time for recovering her bearings and stilling up her messy mind Rainbow slowed down her speed and started to descend. Pressing pillows wasn’t the only thing she did as she dreamed about playful dalliances with Derpy. While showering Rainbow bent her forelegs, stretched her hindlegs, lifted her tail, and then brought the shower-head, its water flow light, against her nethers and imagined that the water pouring down her inflamed tingly bloom and tickling pleasantly her ruby was Derpy’s tongue, lightly flicking her clit, gently lapping downwards the inner surface of her folds. To add some change Rainbow sometimes stood on her hindlegs, backed against the wall, grabbed the showerhead with her both hooves and pressed it tight against her bloom, thinking it was Derpy on her knees, feasting languidly and lightly on Rainbow's lower lips.

No! Not now!

Rainbow focused, saw Derpy right ahead, and landed. The moment her hooves touched the hard ground she pressed her rainbow tail against her joy, swollen, tingling. Wet. One look at Derpy, however, showed Rainbow the weakness of her will.

Everything about the gray-gold horse who looked so innocent and youthful turned Rainbow on. Her unruly mane, the tips of the hair sticking haphazardly from the top of her head, the back and the sides of her neck. Her sinuous svelte body, athletic, curvy, thin: perfection of pegasi physique. The shapely curve of her flanks along with that weird mark of hers that nopony could understand but, as Rainbow realized, had zero connection with the post office. Her golden tail, rivers of gold reflecting from its sandy yellow hair, that swished right and left and occasionally went up. Even the shadows on Derpy’s inner thighs, darker around her groin but disappearing into the grayness of her coat around her knees, fanned Rainbow’s fiery want. But most of all Rainbow enjoyed Derpy’s eyes, one looking up, the other down, rarely aligning and becoming straight.

As she looked into Derpy’s eyes, which had a puzzled expression, Rainbow understood that she wanted to wake up to this tilted gaze, to embrace Derpy and kiss her and bring Derpy to supreme bliss as she held Derpy as close as possible to her, her leg rubbing lightly against Derpy’s bloom, feeling its wetness and its heat, and dissolved into those warm beautiful eyes, innocent, sincere, and deep.

At that moment, contemplating Derpy, Rainbow realized that she had been wrong and Twilight had been correct. It was more than friendship at this point.

“Is everything fine?” Derpy asked, her head tilted.

Rainbow returned to the present moment, smiled coyly, rubbed her nape. “Yeah... Everything’s fine. I got lost for a moment. You look good, by the way.”

Derpy simpered and blushed.

“Thanks,” she said, then looked at ground and brushed the ground with her right hoof. “Should we start training?”

“Yeah! Yes! Of course,” Rainbow said in a loud voice that sounded almost like a shout. She was glad the topic shifted. She felt down because a part of her – a very pushy part of her – had wanted to see the original topic of discourse unravel.

“What have you planned for today?”

“Let’s start with some warm up, then we’ll proceed to the loops,” Rainbow said. “If you’ll do well, then we’ll try the simple lucky clover, okay?”

Derpy, smiling, nodded, then spread her wings and flapped.

Rainbow, tail as close as possible to her nethers, followed her.

She flew to Derpy’s left as they did the obligatory warm up exercises, banking right and left, performing rolls. As the intensity of the exercises increased, desire abandoned Rainbow and she felt light and free. Even if she did have feelings for Derpy – tender, sensual, and sweet – it didn’t mean she must let them out. At the surface she and Derpy were friends; deep inside, in the privacy of her heart, she could love Derpy as passionately and delicately as she could without any single worry about either ridicule or shame.

What Rainbow forgot to take into account was that the body and its language always betrays the inner state and that some ponies knew how to read its signs and omens well.

What Rainbow didn’t know was that Derpy belonged to such group.

Chapter 7

The default state of their friendship lasted only till the late afternoon when Rainbow and Derpy, after a strenuous session, decided not to fly but take a walk to Ponyville instead.

The training session had been disappointing.

For reasons Rainbow couldn’t understand Derpy botched the majority of the stunts despite knowing them well. The old problem – the original culprit of Derpy’s plight – had resurfaced. She lost her concentration and control in the middle or the end of the trick. Sure, the wobbles that deformed the curvatures of the stunt were a far cry from the original spinning and zigzagging but to Rainbow’s trained eye, already attentive in the everyday life and laser like when it came to teaching, the waving in what was supposed to be a perfect curve, an immaculate loop, looked aesthetically unpleasant. What confounded Rainbow most was that she knew Derpy could perform the tricks splendidly, making such sinusoid and parables that if if Twilight were to see them she would come right on the spot from their perfection and their tightness.

Still, Derpy’s oscillations notwithstanding, Rainbow had decided to introduce Derpy to the simple lucky clover. The trick itself was simple: an eight loop on a horizontal plane followed by an eight loop on a vertical plane. The thing that made the lucky clover a difficult stunt was the shift from the horizontal to the vertical. The change of perspective at the end of the first eight, when the trainee needed to charge down and quickly regain focus the perform the second loop without a hitch, took a lot of rookies back to square one, to baseline, to zero.

Derpy hadn’t disappointed her. But two problems had remained: the wobbling during the shift; the lack of symmetry in the vertical loop, with the lower circle looking bloated on the right side. The former error Rainbow had expected: it always plagued rookies. The latter left Rainbow wistful. She couldn’t understand what had happened with Derpy who had flown with mathematical precision just the day before. Was something worrying her?

Rainbow stared piercingly at Derpy through the session, her expression stolid, but she discovered no signs of serious distress. As a Wonderbolt and teacher she could scan ponies and creatures for worries and then help them with their needs but right now, with Derpy standing in front of her, waiting for an overview of her flying exercise, Rainbow saw nothing: no distant stare; no dropping ears and sloped shoulders; no avoidance of her gaze; no nervousness, no twitching.

By the end of their session, which ended when the sky darkened and the horizon burst into a blob of crimson red and orange, Rainbow had decided to introduce Derpy to a very simple but very secret Wonderbolt exercise devised to bolster one’s awareness. On the way to Ponyville, as they walked next to Everfree’s border, thick with vegetation, overgrown with shrubs, Rainbow introduced Derpy to this little and neat trick.

“The stop exercise?” Derpy, blinking, asked.

Rainbow nodded. “Yup! It’s quite simple, really. We do it in the Wonderbolts all the time. When I shout stop, you freeze. Whatever you’re doing you stop and freeze till you get the signal to move on.”

“Even if I’m holding a cup of hot cocoa?”

“Even if you’re holding cocoa.”

“And the point?” Derpy, her head cocked, asked.

“To bring you here and now and make you see where you are at any moment inside,” Rainbow said. “To be a good Wonderbolt you need perfect awareness and that means being right here and now because the whole team play relies on that. If you’re sad or angry or whatever you’ll flunk and get expelled. To avoid that you must be here, now, and quiet. That’s what I’ve been teaching you.”

“But I’m present, I think.”

Rainbow stopped and turned left to look straight into Derpy’s confused eyes.

“Today you weren’t,” she said. “That amount of wobbling would’ve gotten me furloughed at best and expelled at worst. Is something bothering you?”

Derpy looked down and pressed her ears to her head. She scratched the light brown road, well rutted from the wagon wheels of merchants and solitary wanderers, with her right hoof.

Rainbow decided not to press heavily on Derpy and let the awkward silence between them hang, her ears perked and aware of the soughing of the leaves, the creakiness of branches, the chirping and ululations of the birds.

Derpy inhaled then exhaled, flaring her nostrils. She lifted her head and, looking straight at Rainbow, said, “Do you you think we are more than friends?”

Rainbow tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“We do almost everything together – we train together, eat together, go to the cinema, the library, the spa together, I visit you and you visit me, you even come at my office any time that you’re free – so I… well, I thought we’re more than friends, you know?”

Rainbow straightened her head. “You think you and me act like special someponies?

Derpy nodded. “Yes!”

Rainbow giggled, then turned away from the Derpy and resumed her walk. She could see the gable roofs of Ponyville, thatched, yellow, peeking from behind the small round hill ahead.

“It’s funny you mention it because Twilight also said that we’re acting like special someponies. I think we’re just best friends, you know?” she said.

Derpy trotted next to Rainbow, then resumed her walk at her usual speed.

“But… but best friends don’t eat together every day and don’t visit each other every evening and they don’t look at each other the way you look at me every time we’re together,” Derpy said. “Like today, for example.”

“And how did I look today,” Rainbow said and once again stopped and turned and looked at Derpy who stood still, her face sullen and frustrated.

Derpy gulped then walked closer to Rainbow, so close to Rainbow their muzzles almost touched.

“You looked as if you wanted to topple me and eat me right there on the spot,” she said, sending warm breath over Rainbow face, her eyes half lidded.

Feeling the warmth and tingling rushing trough her body, relaxing every knot of tension in her muscles – the result of Derpy’s exhalation, intimate and sweet – Rainbow stepped back.

“No, I didn’t,” she obstinately said.

Derpy widened her eyes. “What’s wrong with you, Rainbow?”

“What do you mean? I’m fine. Totally a-okay.”

“Have you ever been with another pony?”

“Of course I have!” Rainbow retorted, her voice loud.

“Then why you act like this?” Derpy, frustrated, asked. “I can’t believe you’re implying we’re only friends when your eyes shine that beautiful crazy way every time we’re together and when you always smile when we’re together and always try to make feel so happy and when you stare so hungrily at me exactly like a mare ready to go down and make me happy the way only a special somepony can make one happy. What’s the deal, Rainbow?”

Derpy hit the nail straight on the head.

Rainbow sighed heavily, looked down on the ground, felt blood rush up to her cheeks. All her buffers faltered as she felt immense shame rush up through her frame: a shame that she had only felt once before and that had been the moment when she had emerged from the dank nauseating darkness of the trashcan into light to the cruelest laughter ponykind could make.

“Am I that obvious?” Rainbow asked in a feeble voice and looked straight at Derpy, expecting to see disappointment but facing only confusion, a fierce desire to understand her state. For a moment Rainbow wondered if that had been the way she had always looked at Derpy during all these months that they had spent together training and chilling afterwards.

Derpy closed her eyes and smiled. “I’m a writer. I can’t make good characters without understanding ponies. Stereotypes, cliches – yes. Good characters – no. So, what’s your problem? I see that you want me – a lot – but what’s stopping you, Rainbow?”

When Derpy placed her hooves on her shoulders and breathed over her face again, Derpy’s breath rustling the tips and bangs of her prismatic mane that jutted over her forehead, Rainbow relaxed and the heat in her cheeks diminished. That ancient but traumatic memory – an authentic shock that had stunted her for so many years, had set her on the road to glory but at what expense – faded into the background of her mind. She wasn’t a filly anymore but a Wonderbolt, and not an ordinary Wonderbolt but the best. And a teacher at the friendship school who could teach with equal skill ponies and nonponies alike. Hell, not just a teacher, but a better teacher than the one who had allowed everypone else to laugh at her mistake back in junior flight school. She even taught Derpy to fly splendidly, better than the majority of pegasi in Cloudsdale.

It was high time she came clean.

Rainbow looked left then right and then above, ascertained no-creature was around, and said, “I… well… I’m not good at this mushy stuff. I don’t like it. It feels weird.”

Derpy batted her eyelids. “Why?”

“It makes me feel weak. And what would all the other ponies say if they discovered me kissing somepony else? It will be the end of me!”

Rainbow dropped her head. She didn’t move away from Derpy, and Derpy used the opportunity. She got closer to Rainbow, so close several strands of her sandy mane brushed against Rainbow’s muzzle, then exhaled warm and heated air on the right side of Rainbow’s neck.

“I think they won’t mind,” she said. “Everypony’s doing it. And I see that you want it.”

The tremendous ball of anxiety, that unpleasant knot of muscles in her belly, weakened its hold as Rainbow relaxed and warmed from the flow of Derpy’s breath. Her mouth flooded with saliva and her lips desired to be places against Derpy’s.

Yes! She would do it! Yes! But on some specific terms.

Rainbow lifted her head and the currents of Derpy’s humid exhalation hit her nose and cheeks. She breathed over Derpy in return, smiled drunkenly, and said, “Yes! I do want to do mushy stuff with you, Dee – I really do – but can we keep it between you and me only? I don’t want anypony else to find out about us.”

Derpy looked deeply in Rainbow’s eyes, her own eyes relaxed, bubbly, and half lidded, then said, “You’re weird, but okay. As long you - “

Rainbow silenced Derpy by kissing Derpy on her lips, her head tilted left, her nose rubbing against Derpy’s, her eyes closed. When Rainbow pushed against Derpy’s muzzle and forcefully jutted her tongue between Derpy’s teeth, driven by desire so sweltering and intense it was almost out of control, Derpy placed her forelegs on Rainbow’s shoulders and moved her away.

With a cocked head and a relaxed smile and happy, content eyes Derpy looked at Rainbow, then said, “You’ve never kissed anypony else before, haven’t you?”

“Is it that obvious?” Rainbow asked, feeling paradoxical, between drunken relaxation and stimulating tingling lust. For some reason she didn’t feel shame at admitting that, yes, she had never been intimate before. The only thing she could do was consume Derpy hungrily with her eyes and smile like the most drunk pony in town and the happiest filly in the world.

Derpy giggled. “Yes. Let me show you how it’s done.”

She moved her head forwards and kissed Rainbow lightly on her lips. Rainbow’s whole face shivered with tingling bliss brought by the brushing of Derpy’s soft warm lips, light as feather, light as breeze. Turned by such a gentle kiss, Rainbow felt her nethers moisten, tingle, and engorge. Her clit especially tingled with fierceness she had never experienced before.

Derpy disengaged, then kissed her again just as lightly, just as soft. And then again. And then again. With her eyes closed and her head tilted Derpy peppered Rainbow’s mouth with the softest pecks.

She pressed another time against Rainbow’s face, lifted Rainbow’s upper lip with her lower one, and slid her tongue into Rainbow’s mouth.

Feeling Derpy’s tongue inspecting her teeth, Rainbow relaxed her jaw and darted her tongue forward. For a while her tongue mingled and played with Derpy’s tongue, all sense of time lost, all previous shame forgotten as the stuff she had dreamed about finally came true.

By light pressure of Derpy’s hooves against her shoulders Rainbow understood it was time to stop. She withdrew her tongue, and the next moment she felt the silky smoothness and pleasant warmth of Derpy’s lips abandon her own. Rainbow opened her eyes and looked drunkenly and dreamily at her gray-gold mare, her marefriend, her Derpy Hooves.

“Don’t be too pushy,” Derpy, smiling, said “The softer you are, the better it is.”

“Gotcha,” Rainbow said and winked with her right eye.

Rainbow giggled, then stretched her head forward and kissed Derpy on her lips. She repeated Derpy’s motions, keeping the touch light and the duration of the pecks short. Derpy was right. It felt better – way better – than her first impetuous attempt, fueled by lust that had felt as if a gust of high altitude wind had overtaken her and carried her in whatever direction it pleased.

She could enjoy the smooth texture of Derpy’s lips better, feel the nuances of their wet surface and the tickling of Derpy’s coat around them. And this enjoyment returned to her, intensified, in the form of electric tingles that spread squid-like trough her face and sent her bloom aflame and made it wink.

Slowly Rainbow moved her lips across Derpy’s mouth, pecking from the left corner of her mouth to the right; but when she finished her journey she decided not to explore the insides of Derpy’s mouth, feel her teeth and play with her tongue, but try a far more intimate thing instead.

She smiled and kissed Derpy lightly, gently, on her nose.

When Derpy giggled, blushing, in return Rainbow smiled wider and shuffled her muzzle against Derpy’s: a gesture she and Scoots had performed in the past but now tinged with a love far stronger and fiercer than mere sisterly affection. She stopped and, still smiling like a filly, enjoyed Derpy’s eyes, their most beautiful sheen.

Derpy exhaled upon her, and Rainbow inhaled and enjoyed the air. Derpy’s warm and humid breath relaxed her, made her feel safe, at home: a sensation Rainbow had rarely felt outside her cloud mansion where she knew nopony would disturb her.

The fiery desire rolling through her, burning the knots of her restraint, wanted to take things to another level and it wanted to do it right here, right now. Upon seeing Derpy Rainbow concluded a little bit of playfulness – just a little bit – wouldn’t hurt; and so she shifted right and brushed her left cheek against Derpy’s neck, enjoying the warm smoothness of Derpy’s coat, its steady pulsing beat.

And the feeling of Derpy’s breath going down her own neck and its quickly vanishing tendrils caressing her shoulders and her nape... Rainbow shivered all over and her hindlegs shuddered from bliss.

Creak!

Rainbow perked her right ear and turned it backwards. The squeaky twitching of branches, the rustling of the leaves, the hoop of lithe creatures reached her. And then came another creak!

Fast as a lightning Rainbow turned her head left and stared at the road vanishing at the top of the nearby hill. When she saw the first glimpse of a pony appearing from above the light brown line Rainbow jumped, turned around and, her tail lifted, presented her behind to Derpy. For a single moment Rainbow imagined Derpy’s eyes widening from the sudden appearance of the sight that she had lusted for so long. A sight that now was a few mere inches away from her, all heavy, wet and swollen, blooming and dripping fluids, emitting her most mesmerizing scent.

No matter how strongly she wanted this private exhibition to continue Rainbow had to take care of the intruder first. If he were to catch them in frangrante delicto her career would be ruined, Derpy’s reputation would be ruined, and all Ponyville and environs would discover her shame.

Reluctantly, Rainbow lowered her tail then said, “Stand next to me!”

“But why?” Derpy asked, her voice a whimper brimming with frustration.

“We have a visitor.”

“But I don’t see a -” Derpy said as she moved forward, then stopped. The interloper, Big Mac, had climbed into full view and was going down the hill, a cart full of apples, crimson red, rolling right behind him.

Derpy reached Rainbow, looked at her, and said: “He won’t tell anypony about us. If you need somepony to talk to, Big Mac is the best. He always keeps secrets. Always.”

“What if he’ll sees us, sees me, and starts giggling and then goes home and Applejack sees him and gets curious and starts pestering him till he blurts it all out? Applejack can be very persuasive.”

Derpy tilted her head, strands of her sandy mane caressing her lips, her muzzle, and her cheeks – goodness, how good she looked, full of verve, full with zest, so attractive in her simplicity that Rainbow wanted to forgot about everything and hug her right here and right now and then move down and make Derpy from pure pleasure writhe and moan and twist as she lathered in kisses Derpy’s bubblegum pink clit and lips.

“Later, okay?” Rainbow, pleading, said. “Pinkie promise.”

“Maybe we should go to my place right now?”

Rainbow smiled and jumped into the air. And in the air she remained, flapping her wings.

“Yeah! Let’s do that! Quick!,” she said.

Derpy went airborne; and then they darted together into the sky, lifting clouds of dust, Rainbow leaving her trademark trail.

Rainbow’s anxiety vanished as she saw Big Mac, treading slowly the path from Ponyville to Appleloosa, turn into a little red spot against the sinuous brown background of the road, the light green of the fields, and the deep green of the Everfree. The thought of somepony – somecreature – discovering her dalliance with Derpy gave Rainbow the fantods, but the panic subsided as she hovered in the sky for it was easier to conceal her excitement among the clouds.

“Whooo,” Rainbow said, flicking her right hoof against her forehead. “That was close.”

Derpy giggled. “He was miles away.”

“Yeah but you know how it happens… You always see things you’re aren’t supposed to see at the worst moment possible.”

Derpy giggled once again.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Rainbow nodded and dashed off.

As she relaxed in the vast expanse of the sky desire again surged over her: a fiery, all consuming crimson flame that burned beneath her navel and melted away the cool lucidity of her mind as it reached her head and banished her self: a powerful tsunami of love that overtook her and propelled her forwards against her will: an unquenchable thirst that could be satisfied by hugging Derpy, kissing Derpy, and loving Derpy in a way only a special somepony, the closest and most intimate friend, could.

This evening she would finally satisfy Derpy’s wish, finally grant Derpy the most supreme bliss.

Chapter 8

After Derpy had closed the door Rainbow darted next to her and hugged her the way she had always wanted to do, the way she dreamed in the morning as she hugged one pillow with her forelegs and another one with her hindlegs.

Standing on her hindlegs, she wrapped Derpy both the softest and the strongest way possible, placing her muzzle on Derpy’s right shoulder, pressing her hooves against Derpy’s wings. While hugging Derpy and enjoying Derpy’s own smooth hooves wrapping around her wings and interlocking on her back Rainbow understood – finally understood – the true strength of her attraction. The feel of Derpy’s heart beat against the right side of her chest – a strong and steady thump, thump, thump – and its echo in Derpy’s neck made Rainbow realize how much she wanted to protect this cute mare, innocent, fragile, who looked so amazing when her eyes sparkled and she smiled.

Rainbow strengthened her hug and moved her hooves up and down Derpy’s spine from the base of her neck to the root of her tail, one hoof ascending, the other descending. She wanted to protect Derpy forever and ever within her arms, keep her away from the world outside where ponies, insensitive and cruel, bullied her, assumed she was dumb. She wanted to be always near Derpy, support at every single step, make her grow and see her smile, even kiss and give her the joy only special someponies are allowed. Even though they had agreed that they would act casual in public, in private Rainbow could be Derpy’s most intimate, most loyal friend.

It was funny, Rainbow pondered, that she had been fulfilling this role since that fateful meeting at the post office when she had to kick that awful burly pony and bring him to the friendship centre because he had insulted Derpy while being in a deeply drunken haze, and that she had acted the role of the most loyal friend since she had decided to improve Derpy’s self-esteem by teaching her how to fly like a Wonderbolt, purebred. But right now she would make Derpy soar to the highest of bliss, make her feel really loved, totally secure. She hoped her inexperience wouldn’t cause any issues.

Slowly Rainbow released Derpy and planted a deep wet kiss on Derpy’s neck.

Derpy giggled, placed her hooves on Rainbow’s shoulders and, her head tilted, eyes half-lidded, asked, “You’ve never been with a mare before, too?”

Rainbow smile widened. She felt too warm and fuzzy to blush in shame.

Derpy smiled, then nuzzled the left side of Rainbow’s neck and placed a soft, dry, and delicate kiss on the dimple between her tendon and trachea.

A localized charge of bliss detonated through Rainbow’s skin, then spread till her cheeks and the middle of her chest. The quickly fading electric and tingly tendrils disappeared within her belly and warmed her nethers, already swollen, heavy, dripping wet.

“Wet kisses and tongue are only for the lips – for the ones above and the ones below,” Derpy said. “Dry kisses for the rest. Wetness feels good for a while but then it gets cold, and that doesn’t feel that good.”

Rainbow cocked her head, knitted her eyebrows, then smiled. “That does make sense.”

Derpy put her forelegs on the floor. Clop!

“Let’s go into the bedroom,” she said, then turned around and proceeded across the living room towards the open doors of the bedroom.

Once inside the room Rainbow jumped onto the bed with white pillows and blue sheets. To her delight Derpy’s smell was still present on the pillow and it was far stronger than before, almost as if the pillow…

“You like to rub against the pillows, too?” Rainbow asked.

Derpy nodded as she went around the bedroom towards the window.

“Almost every morning,” she said. “Sometimes in the evening if I have trouble sleeping and am thinking about you.”

Derpy stood on her hindlegs, then placed her hooves on the crumpled curtain and moved her tail left, unveiling her private parts.

Rainbow’s bloom tensed from electric desire as she finally examined Derpy’s triangle of love, up turned, red and swollen from arousal, fluids glistening, reflecting the last spark of the day as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon and the sky shifted into darker shades of blue. As Derpy swept the curtain from right to left, a thick strand of transparent liquid dangled from her clit, swollen, prominent, and red. Derpy’s inner lips winked and the drop fell down, sparkling, on the floor.

Rainbow could come from the sight alone: from the wetness overflowing, scintillating, from Derpy's sex, spilling out of that beautiful red well and darkening her thighs; from the delicate red of the inner petals, parted and engorged, emerging from between the outer lips that were also flushed from arousal; from the cute little knob of pleasure that stood so prominently in Derpy's bloom like a gem resting in the middle of a flower, swollen as if to direct her attention to itself so that Rainbow could touch it with her hooves and lick it with her lips; from the sandy yellow tail framing from the left Derpy’s land of love and the well shaped flanks, full, round, pleasantly curved, between which Derpy’s bloom lay hidden.

From all of it Rainbow could come. But most of all from the whole Derpy who looked utterly divine with her gray coat and her rustled sandy hair, with her weird marks on her flanks that always made Rainbow ponder what they meant, with that perfect curve of the spine that looked appetizing and seductive as it reached Derpy’s butt and disappeared into Derpy’s tail, and with her beautiful face adorned by that innocent and youthful smile and those skewed but so magical eyes, always sparkling and sincere.

Most of all Rainbow wanted to have Derpy by her side and stare at those eyes, even drown in them forever and ever, in that shining yellow sea.

Derpy draped the last stripe of the evening sky, turned around, and greeted Rainbow with a wide smile, not the dare devilish one of a somepony about to do something forbidden, but of a filly who’s about to engage into something exciting like jumping in a pool or playing with her friends.

“Do you think about me when you satisfy yourself?” Derpy asked as she went toward the bed.

Rainbow nodded. “All the time.”

Derpy jumped on the bed and laid on her right side, her head propped by her right elbow, her thighs pressed together, hiding her most enticing place.

“I’ve never thought I would end up with you, you know?” Derpy said. “Never imagined that we would lay on a bed together.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Rainbow matter-of-factly said.

Still smiling, her eyes relaxed and half-closed, Derpy stretched her left foreleg, placed it on Rainbow’s right shoulder, then moved it down slowly. Once she reached Rainbow’s hoof she changed her trajectory and went back up.

“Can you explain me one thing, though?” Derpy asked. “Why didn’t you have a special somepony before me.”

Feeling happy, feeling drunk, Rainbow shrugged. “I dunno. Never had the time, I guess. I was always training since junior flight school, you see? Always in the sky, doing stunts and tricks. I remember spending months repeating Wonberbolts’s maneuvers after me and my family went to one of their shows.”

“And you never had a romantic affair? Not even a bit of teenage fooling around?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes, then looked back at Derpy and said, “Well, me and Fluttershy kinda had some sleepovers in middle flight school but I remember just hugging her. She really liked when I hugged her, though. Would press into me the moment we hit the bed, you know? And grab my hooves and bring them beneath her bellybutton for a better locking.”

With eyes wide open Derpy observed Rainbow.

“What?” Rainbow asked.

Derpy giggled. “You’re so... beyond hope, Rainbow. You know what should we do?”

Rainbow shook her head.

Derpy lifted her hoof from Rainbow’s shoulders to Rainbow’s face, pushed wayward strands of Rainbow’s mane behind Rainbow’s perked ear, and said, “How about you just relax and let me do you first? Then you can do me.”

“But what if I won’t be good? Won’t give you the best experience possible? I’ve never done this stuff before and I’m kinda out of my league.”

With calm eyes and a warm smile Derpy moved her hoof across Rainbow’s forehead, then slid it down Rainbow’s muzzle and on the tip of Rainbow’s nose she let it rest.

“You’re not performing here, Rainbow,” she said. “It’s just the two of us sharing and having an awesome time. So... just relax, let me do you, keep in mind what I do to you, and then do that to me. If you’re not sure you can always ask me.”

“What if I’ll… well, do something you don’t like or hurt you?” Rainbow asked.

“I’ll warn you. And remember that we’re both mares. You know how to pleasure yourself, right?”

Rainbow nodded. “Yes.”

“Then you know how to please another mare, too. I know you’ll do fine,” Derpy said, removed her hoof from Rainbow’s face, lunged forward, and kissed her.

When their kiss ended Rainbow smiled and kissed Derpy in return. Once she relaxed her hold to catch a breath Derpy pecked her lightly on her lips but with enough strength to push her back. By the end of the kiss Rainbow pushed Derpy once again. Kissing and giggling Rainbow and Derpy played this little tug’o’war, at times resting to catch breath and stare warmly at each other, at times hugging and rubbing their noses together.

After such a rest Derpy planted a peck on Rainbow’s nose then slid down and nuzzled her head against Rainbow’s neck. Rainbow closed her eyes from the new sensations assaulting her body, from Derpy’s coat tingling her neck, from Derpy’s warm breath streaming right beneath her chin, making her feel warm and fuzzy all over, making her bloom drip.

Rainbow inhaled the scent of Derpy’s mane, redolent of ozone like all the other pegasi but with traces of sweet shampoo, and felt Derpy’s ear bat lightly against her nose. Involuntarily she wrapped her hooves around Derpy’s head and enjoyed the slickness of her mane. Still buried within Derpy’s hair, her neck warmed up by Derpy’s breath, Rainbow sent her right hoof down Derpy’s head and down Derpy's mane and, when it felt the little bony ridges between Derpy’s shoulders, moved it back again. As Derpy breathed on her neck and showered it with kisses, little dots of silky warmth that jumped up and down, from right to left, Rainbow caressed Derpy’s head with the same delicacy and softness that had been the mainstay of her dreams every morning before this day.

Derpy, however, didn’t want to stop at Rainbow’s neck only. She proceeded further down and washed Rainbow’s chest with her breath and stippled it with kisses.

Derpy’s head escaped the grip of Rainbow’s hooves. Instead of stroking Derpy Rainbow settled on holding her hooves on Derpy’s head, ticking the grooves behind Derpy's light and fluffy ears.

As Derpy moved down Rainbow’s nethers swelled and tingled. That pleasant ball of tension right beneath her navel expanded like a balloon and now waited for the moment when Derpy would finally reach her bloom and excite it with her touch. Even though Derpy had yet to caress her most sensitive parts, Rainbow already realized that shared sexual delight was better than solo activity. Far better than hugging pillows, silky soft but lifeless, without the throbbing of a living pulse, the rhythm of a loving heart. Sheets and pillows didn’t breathe, didn’t create explosions of shivers with every single stroke, didn’t make her feel all warm and fuzzy and secure, didn’t hug her in return.

And Derpy did hug Rainbow, her hooves wrapped tight, wrapped light, around Rainbow’s waist as she travelled further south.

When Derpy reached Rainbow’s navel and Rainbow’s whole pelvis tensed from the incoming bliss Derpy stopped her voyage, looked up, and said, “Maybe you should lie on your back? It will make it easier for me?”

Rainbow opened her eyes and frowned. “Can we not?”

Perplexed, Derpy widened her eyes. “Why?”

“I don’t like being pinned down. It makes me feel uneasy.”

“I won’t pin you down, Rainbow,” Derpy said. “I’ll stay between your legs and then crouch next to you, okay?”

Rainbow looked at Derpy’s smiling face and, seeing Derpy’s wide and loving eyes, nodded.

Derpy unwrapped her hooves from Rainbow and wiggled backwards. Free from Derpy, Rainbow allowed herself to fall right, her eyes not seeing Derpy anymore but the milky white ceiling above, decorated by a fan made from long and thin stripes of orange light: the sun’s farewell for today as Celestia, princess of Equestria, made it disappear.

“Can you lift your legs?” Derpy asked. “You can place them on my shoulders if you want.”

Rainbow lifted her hindlegs and flattened her tail. Her nethers were so sensitive that even the lithest current of wind in the room made them tingle and drip as it shuffled against her swollen pulsing lips and her swollen pulsing clit.

The next moment Rainbow felt pressure against the back of her thighs. The pressure, light and fuzzy, moved from the back to the inner surface of her thighs, then gently parted them apart.

Curious, she propped herself on her elbows and looked ahead.

Her legs made an angle of 45 degrees that from her point of view looked like the letter V; and at the apex of the letter she saw Derpy Hooves, smiling. Even poised between her legs, ready to descend onto her bloom, Derpy looked cute with her head cocked right, with her wide and open smile and her warm and open eyes, with the crow’s nest that was her mane. The only thing Rainbow wanted to do right now – even more than having her first taste of things that only special someponies do – was to hug Derpy and kiss Derpy and rub her nose against Derpy and feel Derpy’s breath mingle with hers and to never ever let Derpy go.

“You ready?” Derpy asked.

Rainbow nodded, her pelvis tense from expectation and arousal, her bloom fully lubricated, ripe and swollen to the max.

Derpy cast her head down and exhaled, her nostrils flaring, upon Rainbow’s rose.

Rainbow closed her eyes, threw her head back and lowered her pelvis up from the assault of hitherto unknown pleasure that spread from between her legs into her belly and her chest. It felt way better than doing it on your own. And the breath felt infinitely better than the steam that gathered in the shower stall as she slowly lathered herself and increased step by step her pleasure.

To confirm Rainbow’s thoughts Derpy once again blew air across Rainbow’s flower but this time with her mouth open, making sure that her warm breath reached every nook and cranny of Rainbow’s crotch. Rainbow’s hips went mobile in response, going up and down without her volition because the master of the body had vanished, had submerged into the sea of electric tingling tendrils that spread wave-like through her body from that little throbbing centre of command in the upper regions of her bloom. The only experience that came close to this sensation was cruising near a thundercloud and feeling its might and pressure, its electricity lifting her hair and zapping her coat, but with the caveat that the thundercloud now gathered within her pelvis and then spread not only across her body but also into the air around it, charging it with hidden electricity, moisturizing it with the her private scent of love.

When Rainbow felt the pulsing humid warmth that was Derpy’s tongue press against the bottom of her bloom, right against the entrance to her depths, she understood that the real bliss had yet to come. As slow as a snail Derpy’s tongue moved upwards between Rainbow’s parted lips, its every shift creating ripples of pleasure that resonated through her hips, turning the ball of arousal beneath her navel more concrete.

As Derpy’s tongue reached the end of Rainbow’s valley and was about to cover that little rock made of reified bliss, as Rainbow tensed and hitched her breath, ready for the obvious swell of sensation that would cross her body from hips to head, it moved down instead. As a result Rainbow relaxed, let her hips drops and let her breath go.

Derpy reached the bottom of Rainbow’s flower, her tongue squelching from the overflow of Rainbow’s juice bursting from Rainbow's vestibule and well, and let it rest at the intersection of Rainbow’s lower lips. When Rainbow’s hips became immobile and Rainbow’s breath returned to normal Derpy resumed her journey.

For some time Derpy teased Rainbow in such a pleasant manner. She circled her tongue around Rainbow’s vestibule, savoured the space between Rainbow’s inner and outer lips, probed the entrance into Rainbow’s well, and all without touching that little gem of joy that was just mere centimeters above, swollen and unveiled, shining from emissions, hungry for her touch. The only thing Derpy did when she reached the upper part of Rainbow’s flower was to flare her nostrils and exhale slowly on Rainbow’s clit.

Rainbow always went mobile from the little gust of breath that covered her gem, throwing her head back, moving her hips up and down in effort to diffuse the pleasure. Although Derpy still had to apply the velvety pressure of her tongue upon Rainbow’s nub of bliss, Rainbow already felt utterly divine. Her body was warm and tingling all over and every sensation, like the touches of air against her body, the texture of satin sheets against her back, the sound of Derpy’s tongue licking her thick nectar, was like a little burst of heaven. The stronger waves of pleasure originated from between her legs, from Derpy’s tongue and from Derpy’s breath, all working in tandem to excite her most sensitive flesh; and each swell of pleasure that moved upwards from her pelvis to her head and made her body snake, hips rising, spine curving, head thrown back, then head falling back, spine and hips landing on the bed, submerged Rainbow deeper into the ocean of bliss, electric and erotic.

Derpy’s motions remained tantalizingly slow, her tongue lapping inch by inch Rainbow’s viscid bloom, but Rainbow didn’t want to hurry Derpy. For the first time in her life Rainbow found something she wished to enjoy without haste. Derpy’s game was unbelievable; and even if she craved release, even if her clit cried for the slightest attention, even if the tingling ball deep in her pelvis wanted to explode and send pleasure through her limbs, Rainbow was willing to wait because the sensations she experienced were so good: the tingles and rushes; the pleasant streaming going up and down her spine.

Derpy reached the bottom of Rainbow’s well again, then performed the unexpected. Rainbow felt the familiar pulsing warmth that was the tip of Derpy’s tongue right beneath her well for a moment, then it was replaced by the cool air of the room, and then that wet and throbbing warmth covered her clit. Wholly.

The incoming wave of pleasure – a powerful throbbing that gripped her nethers and spread up towards her head – was beyond anything Rainbow had expected. As Derpy’s tongue pressed against her clit, banked left and right, shuffled up and down, flicked back and forth, and gyrated all around, Rainbow undulated, eyes closed and relaxed, her mouth open and smiling from pure bliss. Each little jerk, each little shuffle, of Derpy’s tongue resulted in waves of pleasant throbbing electricity rippling through her body from her coccyx to her crown; and the more Derpy savoured her gem the stronger Rainbow’s pleasure became.

To defuse the immense goodness drilling through her body, a goodness both too pleasant and intense, Rainbow whimpered and moaned and her body shifted like a wave on a stormy night. Her moaning, however, had a paradoxical effect. She, in fact, felt even more turned on than before as she let out her little moans.

Derpy, meanwhile, changed her game again and gave Rainbow a short retrieve as she brought her tongue down from Rainbow’s clit, still swollen and still pulsing, to the bottom of Rainbow’s slit. The swell of bliss retreated a bit but Rainbow’s nethers still tingled with its fiery heat, longed for the touch that would bring release.

As if reading Rainbow’s thoughts, attuned to Rainbow’s wants, Derpy moved slowly her tongue up. She didn’t ascend in a single straight line, plunging deep within Rainbow’s folds and then ascending in one stroke to Rainbow’s peak, but moved her tongue along Rainbow’s right lip. And then Derpy rolled her tongue over Rainbow’s clit. She pressed it against its sensitive spongy texture and swept it slowly from right to left.

A wave of electric joy rippled through Rainbow’s body from hips to head. As pleasure throbbed through her body Rainbow understood why the whole ponykind was obsessed with mushy stuff. It felt amazing. Great. As good as flying amidst the tingling and the humming of thunderclouds, rain-laden.

As Derpy’s tongue rolled away from her clit and sloped downwards along the left lip of her bloom, Rainbow’s bliss subsided, its last remaining fireworks sparkling in her chest and belly, and focused between her legs, ready to burst once Derpy’s tongue would return to that little part that made her feel so great.

And it did return the next cycle. And the cycle after that.

For a while Derpy rolled her tongue, clockwise and counterclockwise, around Rainbow’s open bloom, rich in transparent, thick and sticky nectar. Sometimes her circles became smaller and she focused on Rainbow’s entrance only, her tongue slurping in the juicy and overflowing vestibule, not deigning a single lick of attention to Rainbow’s expectant clit. Sometimes she reached Rainbow’s gem and jumped to the other lip without touching that humming rock of solidified bliss, that happy bundle of nerves, which made Rainbow feel both dissapointed and relieved. After such a stunt, however, Derpy gave additional attention to that part, sweeping her tongue left and right, flicking its tip up and down.

When Rainbow’s serpentine rhythm sped up and Rainbow’s moans and whimpers increased as the interval between them decreased, Derpy removed her tongue and blew air over Rainbow’s gem, then gently rubbed it with her closed lips.

To Rainbow’s surprise such gentle pressure sharpened her pleasure; and as Derpy rolled her lips against her clit the balloon of excitement condensed in her pelvis and the sharp spark of pleasure that was the herald of release flashed in her groin.

The next moment the spark reached its zenith and the bubble of electric tingling bliss burst and spread throughout her frame and limbs. Such was the assault of pleasure that made her whole skin tingle and throb that Rainbow’s mind went blank and her body moved on its own, waving, thrashing, pelvis going up and down, her head bobbing back and forth, all together looking as if waves passed one after another through it.

Along with every other sensations the orgasm superseded the bliss of solitary release, brought either by the shuffling against pillows or her own hoof. Before it had been a locus of intense ecstasy in her groin, mainly in her gem, but now that same drilling pleasure felt uniform across her body as if she had turned for a few moments into one big erogenous zone.

When the pleasure loosened its grip Derpy’s started licking Rainbow once again, and Rainbow experienced another orgasm, another overall explosion of rapture that was even more intense than the first. Her body kept undulating and her skin kept exploding with drilling and tingling bliss, every centimeter of her coat feeling like a little overcharged clit. To relieve herself of pleasure that felt simultaneously too drilling and to good Rainbow moaned loudly into the air.

And then Rainbow felt another jolt of joy. It was the third and the strongest one, turning her inside and out into a cloud of most pleasurable electricity. As pleasure drilled through every single cell of her body Rainbow waved, her spine curving into an ogee then hitting the bed and rising upwards once again, and moaned without any break on the loudness of her voice – she felt too good to hold anything back, too good for even employing a single sliver of control. She wanted to ride her orgasm untrammeled and free. As pleasure reached new apogees Rainbow ceased to exist, her personality being replaced by pure naked awareness instead, awareness conjoined with bliss.

Only when the wet meaty warmth left her nethers did Rainbow fall down from the formless realms, from the highest heaven, back to earth. The contours of her body reified from the sea of energy, although her skin felt like a brittle and porous membrane between the emptiness without and the emptiness within. Gradually the electricity twisting through her body and spiraling across her limbs disappeared, left a sublime warmth in its place. The impersonal awareness disappeared, too, and the never ending reel of thoughts restarted. Rainbow returned to her usual self.

As she lay on Derpy’s bed, her eyes closed, her forelegs sprawled, Rainbow experienced a pleasant lightness in the body and a fresh clarity in her mind. Even the afterglow felt stronger than after a solo session, and it reminded Rainbow of free-falling from a cloud into the vast expanse of the sky, all muscles relaxed, all control to gravity given, or of gliding along the currents with her wings unfolded but not in motion, of simply floating aloft the rolling hills.

The furry ball that was Derpy’s head disappeared from between Rainbow’s thighs, and Rainbow's hindlegs gently hit the bed. Shuffling noises followed. They ended when Rainbow felt warm breath bathe her face. The breath was already intimate and familiar but now it had an additional scent to it that heightened the privacy and rekindled Rainbow’s dissipating tingle. Rainbow always liked to sniff her own smell, overwhelming and piscine, suggesting with its pungency and texture the mare’s most private and esoteric parts.

Rainbow turned her head left and opened her eyes. She was greeted by Derpy’s radiant eyes, substituting the fading sun with their vibrancy and brightness, and her smiling face, her lips wet and shining from Rainbow’s lubrication. Unable to hold herself, getting drunk on her own scent, Rainbow kissed Derpy lightly on her lips, then circled them with her tongue.

“How was it?” Derpy asked, smiling, eyes half-lidded.

Rainbow giggled. “It was awesome. Does it always feel this good?”

“Only when you are with your special somepony,” Derpy said.

Rianbow turned to the left and propped her head on her left hoof.

“You’re very good, you know that?”

Derpy remained silent, but the red blush on her cheeks betrayed her giddiness.

“Where did you learn this stuff?” Rainbow asked. “How many mares did you have before me?”

Derpy kissed Rainbow, then nuzzled her nose against Rainbow’s neck and said, “Only one. Vinyl Scratch.”

Rainbow eyes went wide open. “Vinyl Scratch? The DJ?”

Derpy nodded.

“But when?”

“Back in high school,” Derpy said. “Remember the share your life project?”

“Yeah! For one summer we had to live with a unicorn and an earth pony to see how they live. We even have something like that in our friendship school.”

“Did you take part in it?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Not really. I was busy flying. Didn’t have that much time for friends, let alone special someponies.”

“You missed so much.”

Rainbow smiled. “Now I understand how much. How was Vinyl?”

She wasn’t idling, however, as she spoke with Derpy. Rainbow’s right hoof caressed Derpy’s foreleg up and down, from the shoulder to the hoof; but all this time it yearned to slip away from Derpy’s leg and shuffle across Derpy’s belly towards her groin where Derpy’s flower, swollen and inflamed, waited patiently for her.

“Awesome,” Derpy said. “Kinda like you.”

“What do you mean kinda like me?” Rainbow asked and let her hoof fall from Derpy’s leg, let it flick Derpy’s belly on the way down.

“Obsessed, driven, but very sweet,” Derpy said, her nose against Rainbow’s, her breath bathing Rainbow’s lips.

She covered Rainbow’s fallen hoof with her own, then glided it down the bed to the place Rainbow longed so much to feel.

“She was always doing music,” Derpy said. “The first thing in the morning for her would be playing beats on her drum machine to get in the right mood but then she would get so lost in the process that you needed to shake her out of trance.”

“Let me guess, you were her anchor?”

Derpy nodded.

She lifted her left foreleg and placed Rainbow’s hoof on the warmth fuzzy surface of her thigh. Rainbow’s mouth flooded with saliva and her nethers swelled, once again turned sticky, wet.

“Yes. I reminded her to eat, to go outside,” Derpy said. “I’m pretty sure that without me she would have spent the whole summer inside making music. I had the feeling that she didn’t have any friends. That I was her first one.”

“Really? How?”

Derpy shrugged. “She was all about the music. All her talks were about music: old and new albums, new gear. It’s like it took the place of ponies for her.”

She moved Rainbow’s hoof upwards, within the cloud of sweltering humid heat radiating from her slit.

“I bet you were a good friend,” Rainbow said.

“She said I was her best friend by the end of it, and although she didn’t show it she was actually distressed that I had to go back – it was before I moved to Ponyville.”

“And how you learned all this stuff?”

Derpy smiled and finally moved Rainbow’s hoof, captive in her grip, on top of her bloom.

Rainbow was taken aback by the manifold new sensation assaulting the supple inner side of her hoof. Although she knew how private parts felt because of her own manipulations, feeling the nethers of another mare was a new sensation altogether. The velvety slickness of the lips, drenched in the sticky essence of Derpy’s bloom; the pulsation of Derpy’s blood echoing through their silky smooth texture; their swampy but intimate heat – all felt both familiar and foreign. And the little rubbery bump that made Derpy’s pelvis go back and forward every time Rainbow brushed it… Rainbow wished she had some way to play with Derpy’s clit only without smashing everything around it with her hoof.

“Vinyl had one bed and she didn’t like seeing me sleeping on the floor,” Derpy said, her voice deep and throaty. “She proposed we share the bed together and then one thing led to another and soon we were loving each other every morning and night. And almost every time we took a shower. Sometimes even outside in the park or someplace like that.”

“Wow!” Rainbow said.

Derpy giggled. “Adolescence. You’re always horny and being with another pony makes you even hornier.”

“I… well, I missed all the fun, then,” Rainbow said.

“On the other hoof, you’ve become the best flier in Equestria,” Derpy said and pressed Rainbow’s hoof against her bloom. “And can teach others how to become one, too.”

“Yeah… I guess you’re right,” Rainbow said. “And I can make up for the lost time right now, right?”

“Of course,” Derpy said, then kissed Rainbow on her lips.

Kiss broken, Rainbow looked down at her hoof disappearing between Derpy’s hindlegs, one lying stretched against the bed, the other lifted at a sharp angle into the air. Seeing her own foreleg right there, in Derpy’s most hidden place, turned Rainbow on. The sudden reappearance of desire a short time after a series of thunderous orgasms impressed Rainbow with its novelty and speed. What impressed Rainbow most was that she ready to continue, to go on, to experience the peaks of bliss so quickly after release.

Rainbow returned her eyes up and said, “It’s okay if I go straight down there? I don’t feel like going slow all over you.”

Derpy closed her eyes and smiled. “No problem.”

She turned left, allowing Rainbow’s hoof to fall back on the bed, and laid on her back with her legs spread. Rainbow turned around, stood on her four legs, opened her wings. She lifted herself into the air, hovered till her face was above Derpy’s crotch, then landed down softly.

Immediately Rainbow’s nose was bombarded by Derpy’s pleasant musk, pungent and piscine, redolent of hidden sweaty places. Her own bloom winked and dripped beads of fluid on the sheet from the onslaught of that wonderful smell that she had tasted for the first time on that fateful first visit of Derpy’s home what seemed like an eternity ago.

Rainbow sat on her haunches, ground her thighs together, enjoying the tingling that rushed through her pelvis and the wetness that trickled down her legs, then placed her hooves on both sides of Derpy’s thighs, occulting Derpy’s marks. She looked down at the downward pointing triangle of bliss, its outer gray lips reddish from arousal, its inner lips swollen and deep red, borderline carmine, drowned in transparent and glutinous arousal, Derpy's hood standing tall and Derpy's clit protruding, attracting her attention with its pleasant pink.

As Rainbow lowered her head towards that blooming flower overflowing with dew, her face was enveloped in a cloud of pleasant pulsing heat that feel a little bit denser than the air in the other parts of the room, that felt as dense as Derpy’s breath when Derpy breathed over her. The smell was so thick that Rainbow was sure she would come from it alone.

Getting ready to plunge right in, to taste another mare’s part for the first time, to make another mare writhe and moan and come, Rainbow repeated in her mind all the actions Derpy had done to her. This time she would mimic Derpy, but she would properly prepare for the following times.

Rainbow lowered her head till her nose bumped into the velvety texture of Derpy’s lips. She closed her eyes and took a big sniff, submerged every single olfactory cell in her nostrils in Derpy’s musk at its strongest. When she exhaled, blowing air on Derpy’s clit, Rainbow shuddered all over and a tingle of bliss escaped from her pelvis and ascended to her head. Rainbow’s right hoof tingled with the desire to leave Derpy’s flank and disappear beneath her own body, go between her own legs.

Once again Rainbow dipped down into Derpy’s bloom, the tip of her nose enjoying Derpy’s heat, getting smeared with Derpy’s sap, and lifted her head up and blew air over Derpy’s petals and her stem. When Derpy’s hips went mobile, moving slowly up and down, Rainbow face cracked into a wide grin. Derpy got excited, which mean that she was doing good. Time to proceed.

Rainbow stretched her tongue and placed it at the bottom of Derpy’s bloom where the petals had parted from arousal and revealed the entrance into Derpy’s well, now flooded with Derpy’s liquid bliss, transparent and sticky, creating tiny arced strings between her lips. The taste – a combination of blandness with tinges of copper and sweetness – only fanned Rainbow’s lust. Rainbow inserted her tongue deeper, enjoying the velvet texture of Derpy’s lips, their swelter and their pulse, then moved it across Derpy's valley. What impressed Rainbow most the liquid smoothness of the petals which made her tongue glide like a slippery eel.

As Rainbow moved up she discovered the only thing that was somewhat hard inside Derpy’s bloom: the little rock that was her clit. Her tongue bumped against the rubbery hardness and Derpy moaned as a result. To intensify Derpy’s wordless bliss Rainbow pressed her tongue gently against Derpy’s clit and moved it upwards in a single flick. When the tip of her tongue met the warm air Rainbow repeated Derpy’s trick. She returned back down and placed her tongue back into the lower dimple that was already spilling transparent and viscous juice out of the valley’s rims.

For a while she continued this routine and for a while she liked the reaction it brought: Derpy’s rhythmic moaning, ascending in strength as she pressed her tongue against Derpy’s gem; Derpy’s rhythmic pelvic swing. Tired of repeating the same motion, Rainbow circled Derpy’s flower with her tongue. She started outside Derpy’s valley, on the flushed surface of her puffy hills. The texture wasn’t as smooth as within Derpy’s flower – a little bit rough from the tiny hair and a little bit bitter from the sweat – but Rainbows still enjoyed it.

Again she began at the bottom, careful to avoid going farther down, and moved upwards counterclockwise by the left side.

When she reached Derpy’s hood Rainbow rolled languidly her tongue over it, enjoying its rubbery hard texture, a welcome counterpart to the overall softness of Derpy’s bloom. After her tongue passed over Derpy’s hood, red and swollen, it slithered back to the bottom, sloshing as it passed through Derpy’s lovely juice.

The next cycle Rainbow caressed Derpy’s inner lips, unbelievably smooth and slick due to Derpy’s viscid sap, and flicked the tip of her tongue up and down Derpy’s prominent clit.

The way Derpy’s hips moved up and down and the way Derpy whimpered and moaned, long high pitched tones that turned into raspiness and then broke, excited Rainbow like nothing else in the world as she worked on Derpy’s clit, teasing it with shorts darts of tongue, circling it with the tip of her tongue, pressing it with the whole surface of her tongue. The sight of Derpy undulating, writhing serpentine, from her manipulations, from her careful caresses and kisses, made Rainbow feel better than the clopping of an audience at the end of a Wonderbolt performance. It was a special feeling of accomplishment, private and esoteric, to drive your special somepony to the upper bounds of pleasure, to know that she trusted you enough to let you access her bloom and to surrender fully to your tongue and hooves.

To avoid disappointing Derpy, to ensure the escalation of Derpy's bliss, Rainbow applied her tongue fervently. She circled her tongue across Derpy’s crotch, both inside the sticky bloom and outside of it as well as in the crannies between the two set of lips, and she paid special attention to Derpy’s clit every time she reached the northern rim of Derpy’s slit. Exactly like Derpy had done before Rainbow returned back to the bottom of Derpy's rose when the swinging of Derpy's pelvis quickened and Derpy's moans became too rhythmic. With her tongue corking Derpy’s well, with her nose pressed lightly against Derpy’s clit and inhaling Derpy’s sweaty fishy smell, Rainbow allowed Derpy to return to Earth and postponed Derpy’s release so that she could stretch her enjoyment of Derpy's private parts.

And Rainbow did enjoy them. Enjoy them very much.

The intense vibrant redness of her aroused inner lips, parted and revealing the heart of her bloom all drenched in her thick juice, viscous and transparent; the bubblegum red of her clit and hood; the reddish grayness of her outer hills, smeared with her juice; the secretions itself, tasting bland and sweet at the same time, giving an attractive sheen to this most pleasant part of Derpy that was usually hidden between her tail and her legs; and the smell, the thick heady scrumptious smell, very physical in it texture, incredibly arousing with its delicate piscine scent – all of it felt beyond incredible to Rainbow.

To stretch her own enjoyment of Derpy Rainbow went out of character for her took and took her sniffing and her licking slow, playing Derpy like an instrument, tuning her but not enough to break. So engrossed Rainbow was with the new sensations brought by another mare’s rose that she barely paid attention to her own arousal that tingled between her legs and dripped her own lovely sweat on Derpy’s sheets that felt silky and smooth enough to place them between her thighs and ride them till another burst of bliss.

Unfortunately, Rainbow needed to end her exploration.

As Rainbow once again rested at the bottom of Derpy’s slit, her tongue enjoying the pulsing beat of Derpy’s inner lips that were pressed against its sides, Derpy lifted her head and said, “I’m ready.”

Rainbow cast her eyes up and smiled. In one single stroke she brought her tongue across Derpy’s flower right on top of Derpy’s clit. Without leaving Derpy’s hood Rainbow stimulated the most sensitive part of Derpy’s body, the little gem that was the source of the best feelings a mare can experience in the world.

Her exertions quickly brought results.

Derpy’s waving increased in speed and her moaning turned into ohs that never seemed to end. Observing Derpy’s state, catching the solidifying electricity of arousal from her, Rainbow flicked her tail and enjoyed how its hair lightly caressed her own lower lips. When her tail was lucky enough to stroke her clit, as gently as the touch of a summer wind, a jolt of tingling gathered beneath her navel, between her legs.

Derpy’s orgasm, however, came unexpected.

Suddenly Derpy's undulating motions increased and her moaning reached a new pitch. A Derpy’s body waved like sea at storm, pelvis up, head back, pelvis down, head forward, Rainbow moved her head away from Derpy’s bloom. Although she wanted to gift Derpy a row of mind shattering and body melting orgasms, Rainbow didn’t know how to approach Derpy in her paroxysm of bliss, with her hips swinging out of her control, her mouth smiling and open, her eyes closed. The motions were too quick and wild for Rainbow to go down and safely satisfy Derpy without Derpy bucking into her with too much strength and giving Rainbow a toothache and her own self one the worst pains imaginable.

Instead of trying to do the impossible Rainbow slid upwards, laid next to Derpy and enjoyed Derpy’s undulating body, Derpy’s blissful face.

Gradually Derpy’s orgasmic storm subsided. The serpentine movements turned into little jerks, then her body reached stillness.

With a smile on her face and explosion in her heart Rainbow, her head perched on her left foreleg, observed Derpy laying on the bed, her hindlegs open, her sandy tail resting fan-wise between them, her forelegs sprawled, her chest rising and falling slow.

When Derpy finally opened her eyes, one looking up, the other down, yet shining bright as if with lightning infused, the last dam that kept Rainbow’s emotions confined crazed, then burst. Smiling and giggling like a filly Rainbow lunged forward and kissed Derpy on the cheek. She placed her right hindleg across Derpy’s belly and pressed her body against Derpy’s side. The moment the pleasant furnace that was her groin came in contact with Derpy’s body Rainbow closed her eyes and let out a barely audible moan. The feel of Derpy’s warm coat against her bloom was heavenly. They should try rubbing against each other next.

“How was I?” Rainbow, smiling, asked.

Derpy giggled, her eyes aglitter. “Good. Even too good.”

Rainbow’s smile widened. She nuzzled her head against Derpy’s neck, velvety and warm, then said, “Sorry I didn’t do the thing you did to me – the thing were you kept eating me out as I was coming. I didn’t know how to do it and I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“No problem,” Derpy said. “You’ll get it with practice. Did you enjoy your first time with another mare?”

“Enjoyed?! It was amazing. I’ve never felt like this before. I kinda regret not doing it before.”

“Look at it the bright way,” Derpy said, lifted her head, looked at Rainbow with a warm loving stare. “You wouldn’t have experienced it in such a way, without all the bumps that teens make as they discover what works and what not. And it makes me proud to be the first mare to lay the Awesome Rainbow Dash. Really proud. I can’t imagine anything better.”

Rainbow brought her right hoof to the back of Derpy’s head and pushed Derpy lightly against her lips.

After the kiss, enjoying Derpy’s warm breath, Rainbow said, “Yeah! I agree. It couldn’t have gone better. I’ve heard the tales in school about mares and their first times – how awkward and painful it felt, especially if a colt was involved. You made it feel very good. You’re the best, Dee.”

Derpy closed her eyes and smiled. “Very happy to hear that! Wanna take a bite?”

Rainbow nodded. “Sure. But let’s hug first. I like how it feels.”

Derpy pecked Rainbow's cheek, then laid her head on Rainbow’s chest. Rainbow wrapped her forelegs around Derpy’s shoulders and hugged her tight. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the ozone smell of Derpy’s mane.

Derpy was amazing. Amazing writer. Amazing lover. Amazing cook. Soon she would be an amazing flier, too. And she would be Derpy’s protector, her shield. She would hug Derpy and protect Derpy’s smile because Derpy looked amazing when she grinned, even with her tilted eyes that seemed to be more emotive and vibrant than the eyes of everypony else. Yes! She would be that!

And to make Derpy happy she would try to be less abrasive and more soft, she would sneak into Twilight’s library and peruse the treatises on the arts of love so that she could give Derpy the pleasure she truly deserved; for seeing Derpy’s relaxed body and relaxed smile and her shining warm eyes, overflowing with happiness and love at its simplest, innocent, and best, was the best thing Rainbow had ever witnessed and she wanted to see more of that total happiness and joy.

And there was the surprise that should turn Derpy’s life like for the best, finally set Derpy on the path that her marks implied.

Chapter 9

Rainbow didn’t like the expression on Derpy’s face as her special somepony observed the commotion in the store.

With frowned brows and frightened eyes and drooped ears Derpy observed the ponies gathered in the bookshop, holding her book in their hooves, reading random pages, sharing agitated opinions about the text. She darted her eyes right and left, her mouth open but her teeth clenched tight, and jumped if somepony brushed her.

As Rainbow observed Derpy’s jittery behaviour she wondered if standing to the side of the main table was a good idea. Thankfully, Twilight on the side opposite to theirs dealt with the crowd, smiling, nodding, giving the book to the eager customers, receiving bits in return. The chair on the author’s side of the table, standing beneath a wide and colourful banner showcasing a mountainous landscape with the name of the book printed on the sky, was empty.

Some of the more curious ponies asked Twilight about the author and Twilight, shrugging, said that nopony really knew who she were and that she could be anypony. While Twilight explained the matter of the absent author ponies gathered round the table, took a copy from the tall stacks towering on it, opened at random pages and read. Most of them closed the book, pressed it against their chest with one hoof as they searched for bits with the other, then went to Twilight.

The piles of books quickly disappeared and the empty spots were filled quickly by new copies brought from the storage room by the workers, jittery and tense, foreheads wrinkled and covered with sweat, unprepared for such an unusual assault of clientele.

Smiling, her head cocked, Rainbow nudged Derpy and wiggled her eyebrows. Derpy, however, remained tense, loaded as a spring, looking feverishly left and right, her wings lifted from her body, ready for a sudden flight.

Rainbow’s left foreleg itched from the desire to be placed around Derpy’s neck and her mouth tingled from the desire to breathe across Derpy’s muzzle in an effort to calm Derpy down. If it weren't for the herd... As Twilight had explained, during one of the few breaks she had managed to get, the bookstore hadn’t planned a big marketing campaign yet, somehow, the word had gotten quickly round and now the whole Ponyville seemed to seep into the shop to buy the book written by Derpy Hooves.

Rainbow cast a glance at Derpy, still shivering, still chattering, then looked at the crowd. Nopony observed. She could do her deed.

Casually Rainbow stretched her wings and placed the left wing over Derpy’s back. Lightly she caressed Derpy’s back and left side up and down.

Derpy looked at her with questioning eyes, her eyebrows lifted.

“Saw some flies on you,” Rainbow said, then folded her wings.

Judging by Derpy’s smile, the first one since they had entered the store, her little trick worked. Rainbow smiled and winked.

Derpy nodded, moved one step closer to her, close enough for Rainbow to feel the touch of Derpy’s mane against her neck: light prickles that sent shivers through her skin.

Rainbow closed her eyes and enjoyed the din, unusual for a book store.

“I must say the romance is quite exquisite. I wonder if Lady Jeanette will succumb to Rogue’s charms or not.”

“I really really liked Ashvanatha. It’s not easy to calm an elephant, you know?”

“Well, I personally enjoyed the main character – down to earth and know what’s right and wrong. Didn’t like the other one, the artist fella, though.”

“Ashvanatha is, like, my main dude. His energy is making me sway.”

“Doesn’t anypony care about the style? Anypony? The phrases grow and burst and explode like sugar candy and when you’re finished with them you need to catch a breath because they’re so long. And the vocabulary? Top noootch!”

“I think this is the first book headmaster Twilight has assigned that is actually fun to read, unlike the other boring pony stuff.”

“Ashvanatha is a pretty good superhero, and I know my superheros well. When Ashvanatha saved Moohendra from the plantain enchantresses – now that’s some pretty epic stuff!”

She opened her eyes again, looked at Derpy and nodded, satisfied and smug.

Derpy jerked her head toward the door.

Rainbow nodded and went ahead.

With total ease Rainbow sliced through the crowd and created a clear path for Derpy to follow. Every time somepony bumped or merely brushed against her Derpy jumped up and moved in the opposite direction, her eyes wide open, ears drooped, pressed tightly against her head. The way Derpy jerked away from the inattentive clients reminded Rainbow of the evening when both of them had the unfortunate occurrence of meeting Ponyville’s whoremonger, diseased: a buff stallion with a dark brown mane and white ears and hooves who stumbled and shook and talked like a lunatic, eyes red and swollen and his coat mangy, covered in sores: a victim of dourine.

Only when they exited the shop, overcrowded, did Derpy finally relax. She lifted her head and let her shoulders droop.

She looked at Rainbow with annoyed eyes and said, “Did you really have to do it? I asked you to keep it between us?”

Rainbow smiled. “But everything’s fine. Nopony knows it’s you. Twilight will give your cut-”

“Twilight!” Derpy almost shouted. “How many ponies know about it?”

Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck.

“Me, Twilight, and nopony else. I swear.”

“Why did you let Twilight in?”

“I didn’t. She figured it out on her own. You know Twilight. It’s impossible to keep something from her once she has a few pieces of the puzzle. But she promised to keep it quiet and, believe me, Twilight can be trusted.”

“Still, you didn’t have to do it,” Derpy said, turned right, and trotted down the road, her eyes downcast.

Rainbow followed her. “But why? I don’t get it why you have to keep it all secret. You saw the crowd back there. They would listen to your every single word as if you were Celestia herself. Can’t have it better than that.”

Derpy closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t deserve it. I’m dumb and I don’t write that well. There are better writers than me who are starving right now because they don’t have friends who are friends with princess of friendship herself.”

Rainbow hurtled ahead and stopped in front of Derpy. She put her hooves on Derpy’s shoulders and said, “That’s crazy talk. You’re good – very good – and you deserve all that attention – all of it. There’s no reason for you to keep working in a post office you don’t like and keep up with the insults of your clients and coworkers. You have a chance to prove that you’re not dumb. That you’re better than them.”

Her ears drooped, Derpy shifted her eyes between Rainbow and the ground. She shook her head.

“Okay! Even if you don’t want to be seen then how about I give Twilight the other books of yours that I have? The profit would be enough for you to buy a private home in Canterlot and live the rest of your life doing absolutely nothing. Not even writing if you want that.”

“But I don’t want that,” Derpy said. “And if I quit and won’t work anywhere ponies will start asking questions. You know how Ponyville’s like. It’s a small town. And if I decided to go to Canterlot… well, goodbye friends.”

“Then let’s not settle in Canterlot. Las Pegasus? Silver Shoals? Somewhere south?”

Derpy exhaled then looked, questioning, at Rainbow.

“Why are you so eager about me living the good life?”

Rainbow sighed and stepped closer to Derpy.

“Because you have the chance to live the good life. You have the talent. You have the money. You can live the dream, prove to everypony that you’re not a retard, that you’re intelligent and smart. Even Twilight was impressed by your writing when I showed it to her. Why play small?”

Derpy took a step closer to Rainbow and breathed over Rainbow’s muzzle. She pushed her muzzle forward but Rainbow jerked her head back.

“I… well, I kinda like how I live right now,” Derpy said. “It’s not ideal but I have friends. I have stable relationships. If I were to come out, it will change a lot of friendships. I’ll lose many because, friends or not, ponies are still ponies and they get jealous. I don’t want to lose them.”

Rainbow looked down, at the light brown dirt road of Ponyville, her forehead wrinkled. Then her forehead cleared and she looked back at Derpy, her eyes soft.

“I understand that. Kinda,” she said. “My life too changed when I became I Wonderbolt. I don’t know about your friends but mine accepted me. But, yeah, not all are like that. What will you do with the writing?”

Derpy resumed her walk. Rainbow moved aside, then walked next to her.

“We’ll keep the way it is right now,” Derpy said. “I’ll write. Twilight will publish. But the pseudonym must remain. Okay?”

Rainbow jumped, her wings flapping, into the air. “Awesome!”

When Rainbow landed on the ground Derpy turned her head right and looked at Rainbow with a playful smirk. “But I want something from you in return, for not being quite honest with me.”

Rainbow lifted her eyebrows. “Really? What? I hope it’s not very embarrassing.”

“I don’t think so. Remember your cheerleader squad? Their skirts, especially?”

Rainbow’s eyes widened. She jumped into the air and crossed her forelegs around her chest.

“No way!” she said.

Derpy sighed. “For me, at least? In private?”

Rainbow lifted one eyebrow. “What do you have in mind?”

“What do you think I have in mind?”

Rainbow landed in front of Derpy, looked left and right, saw nopony around, then said, “To make me we wear that for a day or something.”

Derpy, giggling, shook her head. “No! Nothing of that kind! Do you know the reason why I was the last to leave the tribune at the show?”

“Because you were waiting for me?”

“That, too. But I could’ve come earlier if that were the only reason.”

Rainbow looked on the ground then back at Derpy and said, “Yeah! You’re right! It was weird why it actually took you so long to go down.”

“Well,” Derpy, smiling lustfully, said. “I imagined you wearing that violet and bright mint skirt when the cheer-leading team came to the stage and, well, I got very wet and bothered. So wet that I was afraid to stand up lest somepony notice the wet spot under me.”

“That kinda fits. You were really awesome in the bathroom that day when you went down on me and rubbed your nose against my parts before the shower.”

“I told you I was really bothered,” Derpy said. “Sooo… how about you wear it for me, once, in private?”

Rainbow moved to the right. Derpy resumed her walk.

“Will you tell others about it, like me about your book?”

“Of course not!” Derpy, surprised, said. “By the way, did Twilight come by that name?”

Rainbow shook her head. Prismatic strands, glinting gold, tapped against her cheeks. “No! Me.”

“I never thought you were into kirin eroto-alchemical poetry. Might explain why you like to go so slow.”

“Nah! Twilight asked about the fake name thing and I improvised. I checked her books and that was the thing that stood out. Do you know about this eroto-alchemical stuff?”

“Yeah! It’s cool, and I want to try it with you, but can we do the skirt thing first?”

Rainbow, her eyes downcast, sighed. “I don’t know. What if somepony finds out about it somehow?”

Derpy nudged Rainbow with her trunk. “Nopony will see us. You look gorgeous but I think with the skirt you’ll look even better. Even sexier. At least one time, please?”

Her forehead creased, Rainbow looked at Derpy, then looked ahead, closed her eyes, and sighed. “Okay.”

Derpy beamed. She veered closer to Rainbow. Before she could brush her cheek against Rainbow’s face Rainbow moved to the right.

Derpy moved her head away and giggled in response. “You’re so weird, Rainbow, you know that? You’re the first pony I’ve met that’s afraid of cuddling.”

“Not afraid of cuddling but afraid of doing it in public,” Rainbow said. “I don’t want ponies to gossip. It doesn’t feel good.”

“That’s why you’re the hero of my next story.”

Rainbow stopped and lifted her eyebrows. “What?!”

“I’ve started writing a detective story, kinda, with the main heroine based on you,” Derpy said. “Don’t worry. Nopony will figure it out it’s you. It’s just that the nature of the crime is the same.”

“And what crime is that?”

“Fillyfooling in Canterlot Park and getting caught.”

“But that’s not a crime,” Rainbow said, confused.

“Well, the book is about the guilt and the gossip that follows. How ponies start rumours that grow out of proportion and bully the family of the heroines.”

“So... it’s kinda like school? When you look at the wrong pony and everyone starts assuming things.”

“Exactly. But it will be bigger. Would you like to read the little I’ve jotted down?”

“Right now?” Rainbow asked.

Derpy nodded. “Yes. And then we’ll do the skirt thing. Only once. I promise.”

“Okay, then,” Rainbow said. “Let’s see what I have inspired.”

Derpy smiled, her eyes glistening from the liquid gold reflected in them, liquid gold atop the golden pulp of her irises, then hovered.

“Catch me if you can,” she, giggling, said and then dashed off into clear midday sky, pristine.

As Rainbow observed the quickly diminishing gray dot in the sky, she smiled. Her chest swelled with pride at what she had accomplished.

She had breathed new life into Derpy, turned her from a somepony who hadn’t know how to fly into a superior flier who could put the lazier members of the Wonderbolts to shame. She made a published author out of Derpy who had written before for her own self only and kept the troves of stories with engaging plot and luxuriant prose hidden from everypony else: an author that was rising in critical acclaim right at this moment as more and more ponies read her book and spread the good words about her work.

But what mattered to Rainbow most – more than writing, more than flight, more than fame– was Derpy’s smile.

She had made Derpy smile more.

That was enough to make her feel good.

With a powerful beat of her wings Rainbow was airborne. With another beat she propelled herself ahead. With wind whistling in her ears and flattening her coat Rainbow, smiling, approached her special somepony, her friend. Rainbow saw Derpy’s smile and saw he eyes shine and understood that everything was good.

Together, side to side, Rainbow and Derpy travelled the remaining distance to Derpy’s home where they would close the doors, drape the windows, forget the world and engage in a special kind of fun, private and alone.