Outside the window, trees rolled by — they were a few hours out from Canterlot, now, taking a shortcut through the Whitetail Wood. The delegation to Trottingham had gone as usual, which is to say it was irritating, overlong, and left Rarity completely homesick. All she wanted at that moment was a long soak in the bath and a day without the nattering of nobles, and she would get both on returning home. Better yet, the Grand Galloping Gala would be happening in a day, the dress she'd chosen was gorgeous, and she'd even convinced her personal bodyguard, Twilight Sparkle, to accompany her in a dress, not her armor.
Rare enough were the occasions on which the taciturn mare could be convinced out of her uniform; rarer still were the times she'd suffer a dress, as beautiful as she was in them. But the Gala was special: held once a year, attended by royalty the world across, with an unspoken but strict ban on anything approaching negotiations. All the wonder and intrigue of being royalty with none of the loathsome responsibility. Rarity adored it utterly, and Twilight would tolerate it for her. It would be perfect. And to think she'd nearly missed it, with the delegation in Trottingham going three days more than planned rather than two as was usual. The inconveniences with which a princess had to live...
The coach came to a juddering halt, nearly pitching Rarity onto the floor. Outside, she heard shouts, and then the clang of metal on metal. Then, above it all, Twilight's rallying cry: "Protect the princess!" An ambush. Rarity scrabbled up off the floor onto her seat and tried to peer through the small window. Despite the danger, her mind cast back to that morning, when they'd been looking out over the forest.
"It's for the best that we go around, Your Highness," Twilight had said from her position at Rarity's side. "Whitetail Wood has been rife with brigandage, these past moons. It will add two days to our journey, but your safety is paramount." She had spoke in the stiff formalism she retreated into when the two of them were surrounded by a company of distant rank, and Rarity had only dialed up her petulance in response.
"Two days?! We'd miss the Gala!" she had exclaimed, with mostly mock horror. "Twiliiiiight, if you truly care for my safety, worry about that!" She had relished the little twitch of the corner of Twilight's mouth. For all her skill, she'd never gotten the art of schooling her expressions beyond the Rigor 101 stoicism all guards had trained into them. "We have a full company of skilled soldiers escorting us. Nopony is foolish enough to ambush the royal coach, especially not this close to Canterlot." O wise princess!
Her expression had shifted to pleading, and Rarity should've caved to her then and there. "Princess, I can't advise—"
And maybe it was the Gala approaching, or maybe the distance forced on them by a week abroad in separate quarters, or their bittersweet outing in the streets of Trottingham, but she'd snapped. "No, you cannot." She'd regretted it immediately, and regretted it more for each clang of metal from beyond the coach's plush interior.
Twilight had lowered her head in a nod. "Of course, Your Highness," she had said. There had been no bitterness, no resignation, not even a hint of annoyance at Rarity's demands, but she was certain that Twilight must have felt it now. She closed her eyes, and did all she could do: hoped that the fighting stopped and that the clang of metal did not give way to rending flesh.
But a princess's hope is no more powerful than any other pony's. As if on cue, a scream rang out. Rarity didn't recognize the voice: it could've been one of her guards or one of the brigands. She squeezed her eyes shut, not liking either option. Equestria was a peaceful kingdom. There was war in its history, certainly, as came with the title of kingdom, but it was something her mother's mother had seen, and even then only in youth. Skirmishes at the border were par for the course, but never escalated. There had been the occasional attempt on her life, but Rarity had never seen a pony die, nor did she want to.
The door to the coach swung open, revealing an armored pegasus standing on the step. The metal was a cold blue, her exposed mane and tail vivid emerald. Raising a wingtip to her visor, she flipped it up, revealing ice-blue eyes narrowed in cruelty. "Evening, princess. Lovely weather for a stroll in the woods." Her wings unfolded, ready at her sides, wicked metal spurs catching the light.
Rarity quivered, hooves scrabbling on the luxurious cushions as she pushed herself back into the corner, not bothering with any royal bearing before the brigand. Her captor's cruel eyes crinkled with glee, plainly enjoying the sight of the crown princess of Equestria cowering in fear before her. She placed a hoof upon the soft carpet, intent on entering the coach and flushing out her quarry, or perhaps just ending her right there. The jagged spurs looked like they'd slide through her throat like the mare's wings cut wind. Above Rarity, a mounted saber glowed blue and hesitantly rose, only to fall again into place as her aura cut out. Her fencing instructor would certainly be disappointed in her.
Before her aggressor could move another step, she heard Twilight's voice. Not screaming, not shouting, but commanding, cutting straight through the violence. The voice of her savior, the voice of an oath given flesh. "Get away from my princess." To anypony else, that my in place of the could've been excused as a confirmation of faith, for Rarity was the princess of each of her subjects. From Twilight's mouth, to Rarity's ears, it felt different. My princess. Nopony else's.
The pegasus turned.
For a moment, the coach door framed a tableau. An armored brigand, posture still dripping with cocky confidence. A dagger, glimmering with purple aura, plunged to the hilt through an open visor. A plume of blood, cutting a vivid red arc like clouds at sunset. And then, it all fell back into motion as an armored hindleg cannoned into the brigand's chin, snapping her head back at an angle. Her body crumpled and fell off the step.
Years ago, Twilight Sparkle had sworn to put Rarity's life above all else, including her own. She had promised to give hers, or take that of another, if it meant saving her princess. In that gilded hall, it had felt like just another royal formality. Here, among mud and shadows and gore, the oath felt like Rarity's very own skin holding her together.
Despite that, there was no relief or grand flowing of tension from her body as Twilight stepped into view. Her bodyguard's helmet was splashed with fresh blood, rendering those gleaming angles she was nearly as familiar with as her own face instead that of a stranger's. Red splatters adorned the rest of her armor as well, and Rarity realized with a twist of her stomach that the crimson rope hanging from her peytral was once somepony's intestine.
Rarity could have sworn Twilight's eyes were glowing in the darkness beneath her visor. They scanned the interior for other enemies, and then settled on Rarity — not meeting her eyes, but sweeping her coat, looking for wounds. Apparently satisfied, she turned away, casting about what had become a battlefield. Rarity reached out a hoof, like a foal seeking comfort, and Twilight slammed the door shut with a hindleg.
Eventually, silence returned. Birds sang again, ignorant to what had unfolded below. In Rarity's mind, the pegasus fell like a broken puppet, again and again. Twilight opened the door of the coach a crack. "Your Highness, we've subdued the remaining brigands. The rear guard will escort them to the Canterlot dungeons. We'll be underway again once we've regrouped. I'll post a guard at your door in the meantime." Rarity finally summoned enough of herself to step off the seat and walk to the door. "It's safe now, but please... Stay inside until we reach Canterlot." The door closed.
She fell to her haunches and sat there on the floor of the coach. Twilight's request bounced around her mind — she'd be a fool to ignore her again. This whole mess was her fault, and Twilight had every right to be furious with her. But, at the same time... It was her fault, and she didn't even know the casualties. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and pulled the mantle of royalty around herself.
It was no secret that Rarity was reluctant to truly play her role. Certainly, she enjoyed parts of it. The society games, being fawned over, fine foods, her personal bodyguard. These were all parts of being a princess. But the role of a queen required something else entirely.
She stepped from the coach with the same gravity as her father stepping down from the throne to talk to a particularly unruly petitioner face-to-face. The guard posted by the door did his level best, asking her politely to return to the coach. "Where is my personal guard?" Rarity asked, and the guard stepped back at hearing the frost in her voice and the way she ignored his question. Likely none of them knew who was responsible for the route they'd taken.
"... Twilight Sparkle has gone to the river yonder," he said, gesturing toward the trees off the left side of the road. Rarity could see a clearing just beyond, and heard clearly the sound of running water without wheels or wails to cover it now. "But she said—"
"Thank you." The guard was too stunned by her curt demeanor to follow after, which was fine; the river was in sight, so she wouldn't be out of anypony's view. When she arrived, Twilight would be there, and she'd be safe.
She avoided looking at her guards, how some limped, how three were digging a pair of graves at the side of the road. A path through the undergrowth worn by travelers led to the river. The momentary passage through reddened evening shade dragged the veil of royalty from her like she'd been a foal wearing a blanket. She stepped from the trees onto the bank.
Twilight was there, standing in the river up to her withers, faced downstream with her helmet off. Behind her, the water flowed clear and calm enough to see the clouds above unbroken. Ahead of her, a tapestry of blood sprawled from her armor. The blood was vivid in the light of evening, mingling with the reflected sunset.
Her mane hung, her eyes cast down as if reading, but those orbs which sat in the orbits of her skull were not those of Rarity's personal bodyguard, the mare who hid books beneath the dining room table. Twilight's eyes were always bright, attentive, piercing; they scanned everything with speed and ease, and they met Rarity's when she looked at her, eventually. These were a dull color, did not move, scarcely seemed to see at all. As viscera drifted downriver, not a single path was traced, not a single piece examined. It all flowed past as uncountable as the water it drifted on. It was as if Twilight's eyes had been replaced by two smooth stones from the riverbed.
For all the time Rarity had stood frozen there, the red of the river water had faded none.
"... Twilight?" she asked, a weak, shaky tone, barely carrying across the water's surface. Nonetheless, Twilight's senses were attuned to the sound of her princess's voice, and she whipped her head up, focusing on the source, a moment's life entering her eyes. Then, they faded to stone again.
She stood, making it clear that she had been kneeling in the river to submerge her armor. Water flowed off the metal in tiny streams, still red with blood. She walked to the bank and stepped up, joining Rarity. "Your Highness, I requested that you stay in the coach for your safety."
"But you said it was safe," Rarity countered, already on the defensive against the stern front she was being presented with, even deserved as it was.
"No brigand would be foolish enough to face us after that battle. But these are still untamed woods, outside the castle's walls."
"This is to be my kingdom. I shan't cower in it," Rarity said, with confidence she didn't feel.
Twilight was silent for a breath's span, surely recalling how she had seen Rarity cower not ten minutes ago. A pleading edge bled into her tone. "Your Highness, please return to the coach. We'll be back home in Canterlot soon."
Rarity didn't back down, instead stomping her hoof. The bank was soft and loamy, so it didn't have much effect, but she had to get the energy out somehow. "It is not your duty to nag me, Twilight."
"It's my duty to protect you!" Twilight protested, the flimsy persona of the impersonal guard slipping away as Rarity's emotions began to boil over.
"And you have! But there's nothing here to protect me from, and I'm safest by your side! So what is this?!" Rarity asked, hardly aware that she was losing control of her volume.
Twilight bit her lip, holding something back. Then, her gaze drifted to the side.
Rarity followed to where her gaze wanted to go. She saw the blood, flowing downstream but still staining the river all the way up to where Twilight had knelt. She realized exactly what it was that her guard meant to protect her from: not just the consequences of violence, but the very idea of it. "... You mean it's your duty to shelter me?"
Twilight winced, and Rarity knew she'd hit the mark. "Princess..." Forget all this, her tone asked. Worry about dresses. What will you wear to the Gala, princess? Will Lady Cadance attend, princess? How many ponies will give their lives for yours, princess?
"To shelter me from the consequences of my own actions?" Rarity continued. "To hide the poor filly's eyes from the sight of the injuries she's responsible for?! Silly, naive Rarity, fainting at the sight of blood!" she yelled, voice raised to a mocking register, acting every iota the bratty filly she denied being but unable to care.
"You aren't responsible for any of this," Twilight said, quietly, matching Rarity's boiling emotions with an evacuation of her own. "It's my duty to protect you. How that's accomplished rests on my withers."
"But I... I ignored you! I forced us to take this shortcut! This is—"
"And the moment you did, I supported you fully, because you are the princess." Rarity flinched at that impersonal the and the way Twilight bowed her head. "I can give my opinion, but I cannot advise what course of action is best. As your personal guard, my responsibility is to support you in whatever it is you choose to do."
And there it was, her rebuff of Twilight thrown back in her face, as she deserved. She stood stunned on the bank, and when Twilight raised her head, she searched her eyes for vulnerability, for love, for warmth, and found only slate duty. Rarity's head hung, suddenly unable to bear the weight of the tiara nestled in her mane. "Of course," she gave in, voice hoarse. "If you would escort me back to my coach?"
She'd acquiesced too late for there to be even a trace of a smile on Twilight's face as she nodded, and their trip back to safety was taken in silence.
Lead with the buck while she's looking away, aim for the center of mass, not the head. Bind while she's stunned.
Grab her with magic, throw her off the coach. Bind.
Sweep her legs. Bind.
Twilight was drawn from her battle review by the sound of her own name being called from within the princess's chambers. Obedient, terrified, she stepped from her post and nosed the door open.
She entered Rarity's quarters. First, she checked the bed, not even slightly expecting the lump on it that would mean the white mare had gone to bed on time. The window hung open, a book lying on the sill, and Canterlot glittered in the darkness below. In the light-strung town square, ponies were slow dancing with entwined necks and methodical steps to the slow music which floated up from the dark. Inside the bedroom, the only light apart from the moon's filtered from under the door to the ensuite, and the only sound apart from the square's was the hoofsteps of patrols in the halls.
Twilight stood, waited, wanted. Without mental battle drills to occupy her, she was left wanting selfish things no royal guard should want. She wanted to bury her muzzle in Rarity's mane, to feel their coats brush against each other, to know nothing of the external world but the sensation of her princess against her. She wanted to slow dance in the ballroom. She was a living oath and wanted only for her princess's safety, because if Rarity was safe, she was safe too. So long as Rarity lived and was happy, nothing could hurt Twilight. Her princess was her heart and her armor at the same time.
When she swore her life to the princess, she was meant to sever these parts of herself, to lock away loneliness and lovesickness and want. She had tried, but Rarity had dug them out of her, unearthed her want and exhumed her lovesickness. She had cradled almost all of Twilight in her hooves and accepted it. But now, she had seen far worse, the worst. The parts she didn't bury, but hauled far away. She had seen Twilight splashed with blood, red stenciled on her face by the slits of her visor. She had seen a river of gore with Twilight at its head.
"Twilight?" Rarity called again, her voice emanating from the bathroom as her form dammed the light spilling underneath. Twilight didn't want to cross that threshold and see Rarity. She hadn't seen her since the river, since she'd tried to protect... not Rarity. Herself, she admitted. She had tried to prevent Rarity from seeing the atrocities Twilight would commit in her name. Because she was not a princess like her, beautiful and fair; she was a tool forced into Rarity's mouth. A tool for hurting, so hurt may be prevented. A tool of an exchange that the princess should never be burdened with.
"Yes, Your Highness?" she asked, instead of breaching that threshold. For as much as she could be brave for Rarity, she could only ever be a coward for herself.
"Come in here, please." Damn.
Pushing down trepidation, she crept toward the door, ignoring her body's wish to freeze in place. She had, after all, said in no simple words that it was her duty to support the princess in whatever she asked her to do, including whatever this was. She pressed her muzzle to the door and pushed it open.
The warmth embraced her like a doting mother, and it was only rigor that kept her from collapsing to the heated floor. Steam fogged the sprawling mirror, ornate gold traceries framing the sink and the many beauty products that formed Rarity's oeuvre. The source of the steam sat on the tiled floor near the room's center: a talon-perched porcelain bathtub filled with hot water. Vapor rose from its surface, and the sight of it made all Twilight's joints ache just a bit more. Her eyes darted to the auxiliary door used by maids, and found it closed. Had Rarity drawn a bath for herself?
But the princess wasn't in the bath. Instead, she sat next to it, looking at Twilight expectantly like her guard had any idea what to do in this situation.
"Your Highness," she began, carefully, "your quarters are completely secure. There are no threats within the walls of the castle, let alone in your bathroom. If you'd like, I could stand guard in your bedroom..." In the bedroom, away from the warm steam and Rarity.
"That's not why I called you in here. Darling," she said, that word plucking a string in Twilight's heart, "you look... exhausted. Have you rested at all?"
Twilight cringed. "I, uh... I don't remember walking from debriefing to my post, so I must have squeezed a five minute nap in there," she offered lamely.
"... You've been on your hooves for over a day," Rarity said, tone thick with accusation.
"Stars, I have, haven't I?" Twilight replied, promptly turning to the door, more ready to admit her own folly than stay. "I'll go get a relief guard and head to the barr—" She nearly fell over when Rarity tugged her back by the tail, drawing a piteous yelp out of her.
"Twilight Sparkle." The tone that began as an imitation of her father had begun to take on a life of its own, becoming less a princess's whine and more a queen's command. It scared Twilight. "You're filthy."
Twilight shrunk back, accusation-freed tail flicking to encircle her hooves, and tried to make herself invisible. She was filthy. She could still smell the blood in her nostrils, not having washed properly besides the dip in the river. Red rivulets ran through her mind as she tried to think of an excuse to vacate the princess's presence. Duty kept her frozen, but decorum tried to tear her away and keep her dirty hooves from tainting the moon-white coat of royalty.
Duty won out when Rarity's face softened, as if she'd only just realized the hardened mien it had fallen into. "You've been on the road for days, Twilight. Cold showers in the barracks aren't enough to wash the dust out of your coat, and you deserve a little relaxation." Her voice had fallen to a soft, pleading register, and Twilight made a note that, if she ever ended up a teacher of guards, resisting royal beseechment would be a mandatory lesson.
Unfortunately, her own mentors had not had such experience, so she was left defenseless. Cautiously, as if the tub might come to life and run off on its talons, she stepped into the water. Her caution fled in degrees as the warmth leeched into her, calling her to join that foreleg with the other, and then to slump gracelessly in, a little water splashing over the tub's lip. She smirked at Rarity yelping despite not a drop landing on her.
The water was perfect, just near of boiling. Rarity must have remembered what she'd told her of the few baths she took a year when she had time off. After laying there in silence for a moment, she remembered the purpose of such things and opened her eyes. Casting about, she spotted a glass bottle on the vanity and pulled it towards her, only for her raspberry aura to be joined by Rarity's cool blue. Rarity couldn't actually overpower Twilight's magic in a contest, but just the feel of their auras mingling was enough for Twilight to jump and lose her touch. Rarity floated the bottle back to the counter. "That's perfume, darling," she chastised in a wry tone.
Twilight flushed and allowed Rarity to carefully select one of the twenty or so bottles lined up there. Once she'd floated it over, she nodded and took it in her own magic gratefully — but Rarity didn't yield. She just looked unimpressed at Twilight, a fetching blush betraying her as their auras entwined. Twilight released again, unsure, and Rarity smiled. She reached a hoof up and gently pushed Twilight's head to face forward, leaving nothing but the sprawling, fogged mirror ahead of her. She couldn't see much but a vague purple blur with a white blur behind it. Even as two vague shapes, the sight was comforting.
She felt sudsy hooves on her neck and tensed up, realizing Rarity was lathering the shampoo into her mane. "Relax, Twilight," the white blur coaxed, letting her hooves convince the purple blur in ways her words couldn't. Slowly, Twilight's shoulders slumped, and Rarity began to hum. The tune was nostalgic, familiar, simple, unplaceable, and it flowed into Twilight's twitching ears like honey, its sticky warmth settling in her mind.
Eventually the absurdity faded. A while after that, some tension left her, and her focus narrowed to the feeling of Rarity's hooves in her mane. The princess kept humming the same tune, and it didn't grow grating like it would from anypony else. In time, Rarity moved to her tail, and a little after that, as well, she stopped humming. Twilight had only a moment to miss the sound before she spoke.
"Was this... your first time?" Killing somepony, she didn't need to add.
"... No. Second." Twilight didn't elaborate. Rarity didn't push her.
The silence wasn't uncomfortable or accusatory or awkward. It simply was, and for a moment Rarity and Twilight simply were as well. Finishing the lather on her tail, Rarity gently applied pressure to Twilight's croup, and she sat, suds rinsing away. She ducked her head under as well, enjoying the sense of her mane floating away from her neck weightlessly. Then, when she rose, Rarity pulled the chain on the plug and the water drained away. The room had warmed and the bath had cooled enough that Twilight scarcely noticed, but she got to her hooves anyway. Slowly, ponderously, she rose from the tub, hooves sounding on the tiles and turned to face Rarity, who smiled at her.
"It... wasn't any easier than the first time. I thought it would be."
Rarity gave a sad nod. "Perhaps it's best that it isn't."
Her mane and tail were treated with drying spells to remove most of the water, and towels as fluffy and white as Rarity's coat were levitated from a gold rail to encompass Twilight. She sighed as a little more tension left her, just standing there and allowing Rarity to towel her off, there in the bathroom out of sight of anypony else. But they were also out of earshot of anypony else, so the princess asked something she shouldn't have.
"Can't we just..." Twilight silently begged her not to say it. "... Run away?"
Twilight sighed and whisked her tail as if she could shoo the idea away. "You know we can't."
Rarity continued rubbing at her purple coat, and it wasn't the white-on-purple Twilight wanted, but it was close. "I don't. I've been told it, of course, time and time again by you. But aren't you the mare that won't believe anything without evidence? The one who says the peak of Caelum is bare? So why do you take this on faith?"
"Your Highness, you can't just abdicate the throne. And we can't spend our lives on the run." Twilight said, a well-practiced defense which was entirely untested outside of Rarity's bouts of drama. Here, in a conversation shrouded in steam but bare of pretense, it felt hollow even to Twilight. The fond, exasperated smile that usually found its way to her face on this conversation didn't show.
"But wouldn't it be romantic?" Rarity asked, another well-trodden line.
"It's just not practical, princess." And Rarity would say, "don't you ever get tired of being practical," and she'd say "it's in my job description," and scene.
"... Don't call me that." That was not her line. Twilight closed her eyes, desperate to steer this back into familiar territory. "Not now, Twilight. Not when I'm telling you outright that I would give up all of it, forfeit all my titles if it meant closing the gap between us along with them."
Something that must've been her heart squeezed in Twilight's chest, and the pressure threatened to push tears out from under her eyelids. "That's a very dangerous thing to say, Your Highness..."
"Twilight," her princess, her princess, breathed. "Please." She felt her delicate muzzle press to her neck.
"Rarity, I..." she whimpered brokenly, because she was broken. Her armor alone had held her together, and her body had finally realized its absence, and now her resolve was crumbling, all the drills and training falling away, leaving nothing but a shivering promise. "I'm scared."
"I know, darling," Rarity replied, and kissed her ear so tenderly. Twilight had heard that word, darling, at its most poisonous many times when Rarity took apart a noble with wit and their own buffoonery. She'd heard the spectrum between as well, in tantrums and jokes and eleven-o'-clock good mornings. But she'd never heard this, the opposite extreme to the poisoned tip of court. It closed around Twilight like a bloom in reverse, layer on layer of thin, delicate petals surrounding her. My most precious. My little pony.
She couldn't hold the tears back any longer. There, cradled in steam and hidden from all but her princess, the royal bodyguard was finally stripped of her final armor, the armor that protected her from who she was meant to protect. Her denial of self: her desires, her fear, her very equinity. Naked, Twilight Sparkle finally admitted her deepest secret, one that no guard should hold.
She didn't want to protect the princess.
She wanted to protect Rarity.
And through it all, through the sobs that threatened to shake her apart, through her confession of weakness and want, Rarity was there. Within the white-furred chest she was pressed against, Twilight knew the first flame of queenhood had lit. The filly she'd known for so long, who shirked duties and acted petulant, who knew the weight of what awaited her but postponed it as much as she could, had run out of time. Finally, finally, royalty was becoming her. And Twilight quavered, because while a princess may survive a dalliance with her guard, a queen must choose between composure and changing her kingdom. A queen cannot be touched by any but her consort.
Then, as the towels lifted from her, it all mercifully withdrew like the steam, fading away until its only signs were the fog on the mirror. Her shame, her guilt, the great and terrible illusion of a queen standing above her all faded. In its place sat two tired ponies on cooling bathroom tile.
Twilight's body betrayed her with a little shiver. Rarity took the cue and stood, and she found the strength to follow, as she always would. They walked together to the bedroom, and Rarity flicked the bathroom light off behind them. She didn't turn the lights in the bedroom on. A slow waltz floated in from the window on the moonlight, and Twilight wished she had the energy to ask Rarity to dance, because it would be horribly cliché, and Rarity loved horrible clichés. Instead, she simply leaned into Rarity. They swayed there, hooves unmoving on the carpet; Rarity supporting Twilight, Twilight supporting Rarity, alternating. It wasn't a waltz, but it wasn't exhaustion alone, either.
The song ended, and applause rose from the town. A new song didn't follow, so they finally separated, and Twilight saw the tears in Rarity's eyes and knew it was past time to return to her post beyond the door. To become princess and guard once again, so the hurt would at least be soundless, and they could both pretend it wasn't there. Separated by a threshold both physical and emotional which it was Twilight's duty to guard.
The princess stepped toward her bed, called by the soft white duvet. Her guard stepped toward the door, called by the cold marble floor.
"... Twilight?" the princess asked, and Twilight realized she couldn't push the door open.
"Yes," and again, she was too slow, too slow for her heart, "Rarity?"
"... Would you stay with me tonight?"
Twilight gaze wouldn't leave the door. It couldn't.
"To protect against nightmares," Rarity said, as clarification. Unbidden, images of red water flashed in Twilight's mind, and she understood. For all the bravery she'd shown, Rarity was unused to the sight of blood. Of course she would fear what sleep may bring.
Her guard looked away from the door. Rarity lay on the duvet, legs tucked under, forming a small indentation in the too-large bed. She looked fragile as porcelain, as eggshell, as moonlight, and her pupils were filled with the same warm dark as the sleepward-slipping town below. Twilight nodded once. "... To protect against nightmares," she agreed.
Twilight stepped up onto the bed like it was a cloud, both because it felt like one and because she felt she didn't belong there. Rarity stood and walked to the head of the bed, taking the edge of the sheets in her teeth and pulling them up. She nestled down under them and Twilight followed her shortly. For a moment she felt an irrational urge to go in headfirst and make herself a little horn-lit fort under the sheets for reading like she was a filly again.
Instead, she rolled over to face Rarity. She was smiling, and Twilight found herself returning it. Both their eyes were still wet. Rarity's closed, and for a fluttering moment of hope and fear Twilight wondered whether she would go straight to sleep without a scrap of gossip. Instead, Rarity leaned forward and pressed her lips to Twilight's in a single chaste kiss. She barely had time to close her eyes and reciprocate before Rarity pulled back, still with a smile on her lips.
"Good night, darling," she whispered.
Twilight smiled back. "Good night, Rarity." And that word, that name, held just as much weight and sweetness, because she had thought it a thousand more times than she had said it.
They shuffled closer, legs entangling, and Twilight reveled in the scent of Rarity, on the bed and on the other mare and on herself, too. She found herself struggling against the weight of sleep, for she wanted to be conscious for every moment of coat-to-coat contact and every breath of perfume. But it was a fight she was fated to lose, because never before had she been so warm, so safe, so complete.
She slipped into sleep like she'd slipped into Rarity's bedroom so many nights before: tired, grateful, fully in love.
And, when she woke in the night, gasping for air as her consciousness broke the surface of a river rife with blood and blade, eyes wide and hunted, Rarity kept her word and protected her. She held Twilight, and stroked her mane, and murmured wordless comforts. Finally, against her chest, the river water ran clear. And her guard swore, in fragile little breaths, that same oath she had on the day her service began.
"My... My life is yours."
And there, in Equestria's safest bedroom, her princess could accept it for the first time, in the only way she'd ever wanted to: "And mine yours."
Author's Note
ohhhh i love raritwi so much theyre sooooo precious *puts them in the orb of suffering* *puts them in the orb of suffering* *puts them in the orb of suffering* *puts the
guard twilight is hard for me to write. i think a lot of folks would sum twilight up as 'the nerd one' but her defining factor to me is her faith, and her arc in the canon material is about slowly making blind onesided faith into something earned and shared with herself, so i found myself focusing more on that aspect without 'scholar' at my disposal, perhaps a bit too much. but of course i can write her having a breakdown because that's a universal factor of twilights
princess rarity, on the other hand, presents all the same difficulties of original flavor rarity, so i love writing her. i also like the added dimension that the weight of her inescapable responsibility gives (as you can probably tell). whenever i write rarity i have to wave around a geiger counter but for darlings and it's always shrieking. so i guess this was a story about restraint for twilight, rarity, AND me.
thanks again mono for the nutritious raritwi soil to spread my evil roots in. sorry it's angst again.
also hey can you tell i'm finding it difficult to make cover art from my more serious stories from official material? if you have any fav artists that have explicitly made their art free for use in fanfic covers i'd love to hear about 'em!
also i promise i'll wrap romance curriculum next. i'll be good. you can trust me
