It was four AM, the night after Twilight’s failed second experiment and before her third, which hopefully wouldn’t go the same way as the last one.

Twilight Sparkle was still awake.

She had tried to sleep, but the crushing weight of failure- twice, might she add- prevented her from doing so, so instead, she was thinking.

Specifically, thinking about said failures.

She had hoped that observing Rainbow Dash from afar would have given her conclusive data, perhaps on what Twilight thought of her and how she felt, but the data was contaminated by external circumstances.

And she had hoped that observing her via actually speaking to her would have told her how Rainbow felt so she could act accordingly, but it didn’t give useful enough data.

Tomorrow, there would be another experiment.

But until then?

She had something different in mind.

Namely, finding the formula of love.

Her reasoning was thus: If the point of these experiments is to figure out whether I love… her… then why not also figure out just what love is, scientifically speaking?

Certainly, she could ask Cadence instead.

But that would be the Magic of Love.

Not the scientifical factors of it.

No, she needed something quantifiable.

So, she got to work.

*************************

After researching (read: looking through a large amount of romance books, again) the subject, these were the ingredients of love, non-platonic love, she had so far:

Physical attraction (somewhat optional, as the asexual spectrum was a very real thing),

Mutual attraction (in the case of requited love, that is),

Compatible personalities (self-explanatory),

All six Elements of Harmony (as love began as a friendship),

Time (love at first sight would never work; relationships needed time to blossom),

And… something else.

Something she couldn’t quite figure out.

The heart, so to speak, of love.

It was half of mutual attraction: simply loving someone, without knowing if they love you back.

She knew that feeling, but… what was it?

It wasn’t love, because it was simply part of love.

No, it was pure emotion.

Infatuation, she supposed, would be the correct name for it.

And yet…

Physical attraction was controlled by chemicals such as estrogen and dopamine.

Mutual attraction was an independent variable.

Compatible personalities? Couldn’t be controlled, but lots of ponies had compatible personalities with each other, and unrelatedly, personality was created by the frontal lobes.

Elements of Harmony? Just find a pony you’re friends with!

Time? A variable whether you want it to be or not (unless Twilight stopped time, but…)

So, long story short, the formula of love was estrogen plus dopamine plus a few more chemicals plus frontal lobes plus one friend plus an independent variable.

But what chemicals made up infatuation?

Scouring science books for the answer, Twilight came up empty-handed.

If she was defining unrequited love as not love, then you couldn’t love someone without knowing if they loved you.

But that didn’t make sense.

Your feelings couldn’t change once you knew someone else’s feelings.

Yet, they were different kinds of love…

Oxytocin was related to love, according to a book by Professor Neigh.

But it fell under physical attraction, so did that mean that asexual people could not experience love?

No, it couldn’t mean that, because Twilight knew that they could.

This is absurd! Is infatuation even real?

She looked up from her notes and around the room for more books, but there were none left pertaining to that topic.

Twilight sighed.

Maybe Cadence was right. Love couldn’t be formulated.

Another failure.

Tomorrow? Another chance.

She looked toward the window.

Based on how it looked outside, it had been a bit over an hour and a half since she had last looked out the window.

The sun was slowly rising, turning the sky beautiful, subtle shades of pink and orange and yellow and purple and more, too many colors to count.

There were no clouds in the sky.

Twilight Sparkle sat and watched the sunrise, waiting for tomorrow.

Author's Note

See, I told you there would be a new chapter quickly!
Sure, it's short, because it's an interlude, but it's something, isn't it?
A little palate cleanser before the next course.
Hope you liked it, and as always, there'll be more soon(ish), or my name's not Rain!