Sweeping limbs move in delicate arcs as if they’re tracing the passage of the sun in the sky. The two mares are choreographed to perfection, though none of the bystanders could really imagine this was something they’d done before. Too distant, too much friends of friends, not close enough by half to have practised diligently a dance that necessitated such closeness.
But to the two mares, they are the epicentre of something grand and destructive. Never attention-seeking, but attention drawing nevertheless. The two of them keep moving delicately and fiercely at the same time, as idle conversation slowly dulls while more and more eyes in the room start to fix on them.
The larger of the two mares hooks her foreleg underneath the other’s back, allowing her partner to fall and hang, suspended just above the dancefloor. And then the smaller presses against the ground above which she hovers and flips herself over and they slide over each other.
And, after the spin which follows this move, both mares draw back up, hooves wrapping around a waist and bringing torsos back to knit into one. Eyes meet, purple bleeding into blue as…
Poised, professional, statesmarelike. Any number of adjectives I could use, a tailor needs to know many after all, to describe how it looked like when you came walking up to me to request a moment of my time to dance. And how it must have looked like you were just playing the proper host, grabbing some faceless filly from the wings to swing around and show that you’re willing to touch the members of your public.
I was so afraid they’d all know when I walked up to you, because how could I hold in the depth of feeling I have? How I want nothing more than to lean forward and kiss your neck in the one spot that makes you laugh that wonderful musical laugh that sounds like wind chimes dancing in a light breeze?
Does it make me small? Pathetic? Lesser for relishing their uncomprehending eyes? Those smug socialites who gaze at me as if to tell me to quash my silly filly’s dreams that I could ever be desired by a literal god empress. And how I giggle in return, leaning into their misconceptions and ignorance of the fact that that god empress treats me like a goddess.
I’ll never stop being amazed by how little they understand love. How they think only couples of two can contain it. I could only imagine their scorn if they knew the way my husband and I let it flow like a river. And though he may be my sea from where my rivers flow, my waters carve deeply into this land and you are the greatest among them. I am drunk on you, Rarity, your scent and sensation, the sight of you and being seen by you.
Their glances feel good, the secrecy feels good, but nothing feels better than being pressed against you like this. I can feel every microfibre of our coats intermingling when our chests press against one another and their softness and synchronicity reminds me of warmth’s true meaning. I can smell the perfume you’re wearing, the perfume I picked out for you because the scent of it is divine femininity thrust into the mortal world in borrowed sensation. You still wear it every time we dance.
Your eyes are dilated and I know it’s because of your love for me, your breath has hitched and I am bereft of breath by the notion that I could leave you breathless. I recall stolen glances over picnic tables, at gatherings with friends and iridescent reflections of firework displays dancing more elegantly than the finest waltz in your beautiful, blue eyes. I remember the fear, sweet glorious fear, before leaning in to kiss you for the very first time only to find my lips prematurely warm and my heart prematurely ignited when I opened closed eyes to see you’d kissed me first.
I want to touch your wings. No, I want to bury my face in your wings, softer than the finest pillows like the ones in your bed where we always sleep in and hide from the world. I want to lean in and let our muzzles graze and not even care enough to listen to the gasps of the faceless crowd because I’d be too focused on the sound of your gentle breathing or those wings ruffling in surprise. Or the way my heartbeat quickens when yours does too, and the two find a single rhythm together.
There is some fear of the future tinged in every interaction of ours, sweet thing. I wonder when the day will come that you no longer have time to visit my empire. I wonder whether one of these days these quests that you go on with Twilight will be the death of you. Permanent impermanence is the alicorn’s curse, after all. We are doomed to know merely a few fleeting faces in a great, tumultuous sea. But there are those whose features never dim in my mind. I don’t think I could ever forget your face, even after ten eternities.
You have angel’s wings, that’s how I’ve always felt. You have kind eyes, you dance in the slipstream of boundless love. You are more elegant than I could ever dream of, more beautiful than I could ever make myself. You are more and I am lesser, and though the jealousy of how much you are can feel like flames licking my skin, it is a willing burn.
I know our eyes are about to shift, and no longer will I be looking into yours and you mine. No comforting ocean of blue for me to drown in, no sculpted face or light chewing of the lip or delicate fluted horn for me to fill these precious microseconds gazing at.
Through your duties, endless and pressing and mountainous, there is so little time for just us two. There is so little time for us to just exist that I feel privileged to share this. Even an instant of dance is enough, Cadaence, for me to relish in that love I have for you. Even in this moment, as fleeting as my life next to yours, I feel like I could recount every single part of you that is meaningful to me.
There’s something that twists in your eyes as we begin to part again, some sort of recognition of the reluctance with which I continue our dance, maybe a mirroring of it?
I feel like you know this? Like you might realise how deeply I wish to remain suspended here with you and to let time part on us like rocks on the shore.
And as I begin to sweep you into the next move, the one that will break our eye contact, I feel more understood by you than I can remember ever feeling. Because if this love between you and I is as strong as it feels…
...then I sometimes wonder, Cadance…
...though maybe I’m foolish…
...despite the fact that all us ponies are creatures that can never know another’s mind as we know our own…
...I find my mind drifting more and more, and so much more than ever in this dance…
Are we thinking the exact same thing?
...they meet for the briefest of seconds, before the larger of the two mares swings her partner around for an elegant spin. The smaller mare stops for a second afterwards, and turns to her partner, regarding her quizzically.
It isn’t in keeping with the dance’s usual choreography, and the crowd is still as they regard one another. Both mares seem like they have something to say to one another, something they need to say to one another.
But, then, whatever spell which caused the distractions seems to pass. With smiles, and expressions that imply the two of them might have reached some deeper understanding of one another, each mare begins their delicate sway once again. Then the crowd lightly applauds as the dance continues.
