Life Is Only Real When You Are Near

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.