Ways to Say "I Love You"

by Frost Flower

Rating: everyone
Tags: Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance
Length: 1997

Throughout the course of their relationship, Rarity and Twilight realize there's more than one way to say "I love you".

Through the course of their relationship, Rarity and Twilight realize there's more than one way to say "I love you".

Series of vignettes based off prompts that followers sent me on Tumblr about different ways/scenarios to say "I Love You".

Published 2020-01-07 20:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-01-07 20:50:01 UTC

#31 - In awe, the first you realised it

Until that day, Twilight, I can’t recall you ever looking at me quite like that.

There we sat, you wide-awake, me half-asleep, both of us staring at these complex papers you’d decided to throw all over my kitchen table at stars-knows-what-hour in the morning. Some research for a paper you were supposed to submit in a few weeks, which I’d been reading up on as a way to support you in your endeavors.

Where was I?

Ah yes.

So there you were, my darling dearest, staring at me like a deer in the headlights.

“What did you say?”

I covered half of a yawn with my hoof. “Mmmm? Said about what, dear?”

“The thing you just said,” you said, slowly. “Right now. Say it again? Please.”

“The thing I—? About your research? Oh.” At your urgent nod, I wiped my eyes and repeated myself. “Have you considered transforming the data into a different domain? Perhaps Lap Lace's or Four Ear's, if you want to extract a recurring pattern, or simply a change in basis if you suspect the phenomenon is more linear to your original view. In science, as in art, a change of perspective is often what you need to push past a block."

A moment passed, and to my alarm, you leaned back, utterly stunned. Staggered even!

“Darling? What’s wrong?” I asked, expecting you to correct me, or that I had said something incorrect, or gotten the terms wrong even though I was certain I hadn’t. I expected you to say many things, my dear, but not what you actually said a few moments later. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, no!” you said quickly. “That was… No, that was great. I hadn’t thought of that, actually, I… It’s just…” You cut yourself off, grappling with some unspoken thing. “I just… Um…”

“You just what?”

You looked at me, and my star, you blushed Twilight and said with awe,

“I… I love you.”

And now this! This woke me up.

Woke me up not just because you loving me had absolutely nothing to do with anything of what I’d said, but because that was the first time in the entirety of our romantic relationship that those three words had been uttered in that way.

“...You… You love me?” I asked, and please, dearest, trust me when I say I was thrilled, but I was also… severely confused?

You nodded, as shocked as I was.

“I… see,” I said, and I thought about it more, and then I understood and I laughed. Couldn’t stop myself from giggling, and when you looked to me for an answer, I leaned in, delighted. “Darling, dearest, beloved, sweetheart, Twilight Sparkle. Do you mean to tell me that me understanding and communicating in your delightful scientific jargon is what pushed you to realize you loved me?”

And how red you got! Redder than one of Applejack’s apples as you buried your face in your hooves, and my darling dearest, I was in love.

“Why, Twilight,” I said, completely enraptured, “I love you too.”

#16 - Over and over again, till it’s nothing but a senseless babble

To be completely fair, no pony expected a fairly diplomatic and peaceful international meeting to be interrupted by least three dozen different types of magical attacks. Furthermore, no pony really expected Her Majesty, Ruler of Equestria, Twilight Sparkle to teleport herself in front of the visiting Saddle Arabian royals and take in their place an attack that would have killed any normal pony three times over.

And finally, no pony expected her to not only not die, but to be strong enough to retaliate and subdue the attackers before passing out.

No pony expected a great deal of things, it seemed, but the pony who really hadn’t expected any of this was Twilight herself; mostly because, as she lay in her hospital bed, hooked up to all kinds of different medical devices, she couldn’t remember any of it.

All she remembered was having breakfast with her wife--who was sitting by the corner, looking very very somber--and then waking up at the hospital to Rainbow Dash telling her that yes, Twilight, for the fiftieth time, Saddle Arabia isn’t declaring war against us for this.

“So,” she said, “Just to get things straight. We got attacked by the magic nomadic Arimaspi tribe, they tried to kill the Saddle Arabian prince and princess, I jumped in the way, and almost got killed, and then I—”

“Kicked their butt!” exclaimed the Wonderbolts Captain. “It was aaaaawesome!”

“Awesome?!” Rarity snapped, her first words in a while. “For star’s sake, Twilight nearly died, Rainbow!”

“Yeah, but she didn’t!” Rainbow insisted.

“She’s right, though. I didn’t,” Twilight added, and at her wife’s murderous glare, she decided to move along before that killed her instead. “Right! Not important. Moving on!” She cleared her throat. “Rainbow, can you please find Spike and have him come see me in about ten minutes?”

“Sure thing!”

A heavy silence filled the room, oppressive and sickening, the poor ruler forlornly watching as her wife quietly got up to frown at her charts. She stared at them for a minute, put them back down, and then returned to her spot in the corner.

“So,” Twilight said, deciding it would be better to just get it over with. “You’re angry at me.”

There was a pause, and Rarity pointedly did not look at her.

“So that’s a yes.”

“No,” Rarity quickly replied, though she still failed to look at her. “It’s not a yes.”

“But it’s not a ‘no’, either,” Twilight finished, and Rarity’s facade cracked. With a sigh, she tried to sit back up. “So, wha—Agh!”

A sharp pang interrupted her sentence, and before she’d even doubled over in pain, Rarity was already at her side, steadying her. It took her a moment--mostly of her feeling like she wanted to die--before the pain went away, but eventually she was lying back down again, feeling helpless and forlorn and regretful in front of her tearful, scared, and potentially-maybe-perhaps still angered wife.

“Everything turned out fine, Rarity. Mostly,” she said, not wanting to sound like a broken record, but it was true.

“You nearly died, Twilight,” Rarity didn’t hiss, but almost. Again, tears wet her eyes, and the next she hissed, not at Twilight really, but at the situation itself. “In my arms, Twilight Sparkle. Bleeding in my sun-forsaken arms.”

Twilight swallowed, horrified at the image, not having known that detail until then. Unfortunately for her, it was when she was nervous and upset that the sovereign ruler lost some of her intelligence as she tried nervously grinned and said,

“Well! That would have been a dramatic death for one of your novels, huh?” she said, and at Rarity’s expression, she quickly remembered humor and comedy were not her forté. “Wa-Wait, sorry! Wait. I didn’t mean that.”

“I damn well hope not, your highness.”

So, Twilight turned to logic and rationale and facts which is what she knew.

“Rarity,” she said with careful conviction, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I… I’m sorry that had to happen, but you need to understand that I couldn’t let the king and queen of Saddle Arabia die. I had to step in. Please understand.”

Another silence filled the room, and Twilight remained confronted with Rarity’s hard stare until the latter softened.

“I know,” Rarity whispered, and as more tears spilled anew, she turned away, going into a ramble. “I know, Twilight! I know! I know you had to do that! Of course you can’t let them die! And I shouldn’t be mad about it, but you nearly died, and you—!” She cut herself off and steadied herself before turning back to Twilight. “I… I suppose I hadn’t realized this is something I’d signed up to, as well.”

“I… I’m sorry,” Twilight said, unsure of what else to do. “I don’t know what to say to make you feel better or fix this.”

“Well,” Rarity said carefully, “I suppose I could spare myself going through this again by separating, but admittedly, I’d have to wait a few months as I imagine the optics of doing it now would be frightful.”

Twilight froze, panicked. “Separate?” she blurted out, nearly sitting up again if her body hadn’t protested. “Wa… Wait, Rarity, wait! But—! I mean—!” she blabbered, her mind crashing to a halt when suddenly Rarity smiled.

“That was a joke, dear.”

“A joke?” Twilight gasped, horrified and upset. “Well, it wasn’t a funny one!”

Rarity shrugged. “Well, darling,” she said, lifting a hoof and brushing Twilight’s hair off her face, “I rather think it’s fair that I’m allowed to nearly give you a heart attack after you actually gave me one.”

And to that, Twilight couldn’t help a relieved laugh.

“I guess that’s fair,” she conceded, and then, relieved to be alive, and safe, and to still have her wife, she said sincerely, “I am sorry, Rarity.”

“Are you?” Rarity said. “And, pray tell, why should I forgive you?”

Twilight hummed. “Well! Beyond what I said about having to do it so we don’t go to war with Saddle Arabia, I also can’t remember any of it, so until I unsuppress those memories at three in the morning in a month, my emotional trauma should be minor, but more importantly—” She donned her wife's trademark smile. “Because you love me?”

Rarity laughed, wiping away tears.

“You do realize you can’t use that as an apology for everything, don’t you?”

“But it’s true, though.”

Though she sighed theatrically, eventually Rarity agreed.

“Yes, Twilight, I love you,” she said affectionately, and yet as soon as she’d done so, she teared up anew. “Stars, Twilight, I do love you.” And then, ignoring Twilight’s pained yelp, she threw herself on her wife, practically sobbing as she held her close. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

She repeated the three words, over and over and over, until they meshed together and became almost nonsense. But this was fine for Twilight. She was more than happy to hold her and listen, knowing that though unfortunately this probably wouldn’t be the last time she’d nearly die trying to save someone, she had least had Rarity to be there with her through it all.

Author's Note

Partially based of my own near death experience where I drowned after my house flooded, and woke up in the hospital with no goddamn memory of anything, just me at my computer then me at the hospital. Everyone was like "YOU ALMOST DIED!!!" and I was sitting there all "man, really? That kinda sucks! Good thing I don't remember LOL"

anyway i'll probably add more because people sent me a bunch of prompts on tumblr and i told them i’d do them so be excited for that???

#29 - Slowly, the words dripping from your tongue like honey

It was the end of the day when she said it, both wrapped in each other and the covers. The end of a particularly difficult day for Rarity, having to deal with more rude customers than she’d like, and more redesigns than she cared to design.

“Why?” she asked the world, the universe, Twilight too.

“Why what?” Twilight asked, a hint of amusement in her tone, snuggling up against her beloved, content in ways Rarity wasn’t.

“Why should I put up with another day of living in this terrible world?” Rarity asked, and she didn’t mean to be dramatic--well, she did--but really, she meant it. Why?

There was a pause, long as the world itself until finally Princess Twilight Sparkle spoke, and every word was weighted, every word was sincere, every word dripped from her tongue like honey sweetening the bitter tea of Rarity’s life.

“Because I love you.”

And there was another pause, and Rarity whined, helpless to refuse.

“Fine. Fine! Fine, fine, fine, but that’s cheating! Cheating!”