Walking with you through the harvest festival, I am struck with how strange everything feels. It’s still the same town, still the same you, and I suppose in a purely literal sense the same me. I had expected to be reminiscing about yesteryear the entire time. I’d be thinking about holding your hand when no one was looking, knowing glances behind the backs of people who didn’t share our secret knowledge.

But I’m not thinking of any of that. Not really.

Mostly I’m not thinking at all. I’ve been plotting and planning my whole life. Whether it was designs, learning the little bit of magic I know, imagining in childish wonder what my wedding would look like… I’ve always been planning.

I don’t have any plans. When you talk about working at the school, for the first time I really think about it. I can actually devote my mind to imagining having any other life than the one that’s collapsed around me. I don’t want that, teaching, but I can imagine trying it. And I can see how happy it makes you. How satisfied you are with it.

We walk hand in hand even when people can see us. We haven’t mentioned it, either to anyone else or to each other. We just… do it. There’s no one to ask permission or to apologize to or even to explain ourselves to—there’s just us. The two of us in the eye of a whirling maelstrom of people laughing and running and talking and playing.

You guide me along, exhaustively keeping to the itinerary in your head. We see each of our friends in turn. Each time, I expect there to be some part of me that darts away, desperate not to expose myself. But I don’t feel that at all. I barely even feel the jittery nervousness one expects from something exciting! As much as I enjoy that feeling, I must confess the only thing I feel is relief.

By the time we see Rainbow Dash, predictably haunting the cider stand, I’m barely even fazed by the obvious delight in her eyes, nor by the I-told-you-so, not that she had, at any point, told us so. Let her have it.

For our part, Twilight, we don’t talk about whats to come until the sun retreats in the sky, and the distant lights of the capitol can be seen in the mountains to the east.

It happens so casually. Amidst talk of dinner and whether or not Fluttershy was going to be free to leave her booth soon, you say, “After we go home, I was thinking of seeing a show at the theater. It’s new, I think you might like it! I was thinking we could catch dinner right before.”

Halfway through excitedly answering that yes, I was very free, I stopped myself. “Twilight… I, ah. We hadn’t… I mean, we haven’t talked yet about…”

You blink at me with a kind of baffled expression that would be adorable if it weren’t for the circumstances. “Oh. Oh! No. We uh, we haven’t.”

“We should,” I say.

“Yeah, we should.” You look around, and hum to yourself. “The nice walking path around the lake starts pretty close to here. I could use a bit of quiet.” You raise an eyebrow at me, as if to suggest we both could, and I nod.

We’re both silent. I’m not afraid of the silence. I expect to be any moment now. But I find I just cannot feel worried. Is it because you’re here? I think so. Its hard to feel worried about what you’ll say when your hand is mine.

The path itself is modest, but the view of the lake is nice, and you were right. It’s quiet here. We spend a few minutes finding one of the benches that dot the shore and sit down. I complain a bit about my tired feet, and you chuckle and offer your condolences and its just so normal as if weren’t intertwined intimately only hours before and that drives me crazy, I think, just a bit.

“I’m not sure what to say,” I begin. “I…”

“Well, I do,” you say. I look over at you. “I think its pretty obvious that I love you, Rarity. I’m sure its been painfully obvious for a very long time.”

My mouth feels dry. “Twilight, I feared you might not. I couldn’t accept it.”

You let out a breath. “Ridiculous. How could I not love you, in this or any other world? If I didn’t have you I’d have to invent you,” you say, and then chuckle to yourself, as if that is some reference. It probably is. You do this sometimes, deflecting away from the moment.

“It is true, regardless. I love you, Twilight. I think that I probably have for a long time. Can you… can you forgive me for being so foolish? It took me so long to say or do anything, I just…”

You reach over and gently touch my leg. “There’s no need. Rarity, breaking through to the other side of something like this… repression is a hell of a thing. It doesn’t just stop happening. You’d think it would! But it doesn’t!” You throw your hands up. I know you’re playing your reaction up to make me laugh. I don’t, but I appreciate the effort. It’s sweet.

“Repression? I’ll have you know that I’m no prude,” I say.

You groan and shake your head. “No, I mean… you know what I mean.”

I smile at you. “I do.”

“Argh, you can’t—Okay, no, you obviously can and did. Moving on! Repression isn’t something that you just shatter and move on past. It’s a part of you. Its something you wash out over time. I wouldn’t expect you to just get over it.”

“All the same.” I take a breath. “So are we…”

“If you want to be,” you say quickly.

“I could be persuaded,” I say, just as quickly, as if I could drag back a bit of the suave dignity I’d spent years cultivating. Perfect, Rarity, just brilliant.

“I would be willing to persuade you.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Normally! I mean,” you falter, and then shoot me a look. “Again, you know what I mean!”

“I do!”

“I’d like to try. If you’re willing. If you want to try.”

I lean in and kiss you, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And it is! Somehow. And you kiss me back, and I realize this can just happen whenever we want now. It hits me all at once. I pull away for air, and say:

“Twilight Sparkle, I would love to try.”

Author's Note

I'd like to thank Monochromatic. You sat in my doc and you were there every step of the way and it was an absolute delight. Thank you. Its harder and harder for me to write these days, and being able to actually finish something means a lot.

Thank you for reading.