The loveliest white feathers lovingly caressed her cheek and Twilight's heart sang with joy.
“You have saved me once again, my faithful student.”
“Yes, my Princess.”
Sweet breath flowed over her coat, tickling her ears and calling forth a fiery blush.
“I think you deserve a reward for your service.”
“A reward?”
“Yes, anything you desire.”
“Anything?”
A white muzzle pressed against hers. Lips parted, moist and hot.
Twilight awoke in the dark. In her library, in her bed, far from the warmth of the Princess of the sun.
The purple unicorn closed her eyes against the longing and remembered. Remembered how it had really happened.
“Twilight...”
“I know that there are circumstances, but I know what I feel, I know what I want.”
“I am sorry, Twilight.”
“Don't you feel it?”
“I am your teacher, your sovereign and your temporary guardian. I cannot in good judgement allow myself to entertain your crush.”
“It isn't a crush!”
The calm smile held firm, but there was a suggestion of a sigh in the alicorn's posture.
“I was afraid of such,” she replied after a moments silence. She turned away from her student to face toward the setting sun.
“No,” the unicorn whispered to herself. Had she spoken aloud at the time? Was it something her memory had added after the fact? As the warmth of the sun turned cold.
“We must distance ourselves from each other for a time. Your quarters will be moved to the east tower, you will no longer be granted unsupervised access to the central tower and your privilege to seek audience is revoked.”
“No!” she had been so angry. Desperate, terrified really. “You can't do this!” And a little stupid. Every inch a young filly in love.
“Remove her.” A white wing gestured to a guard.
Twilight's memory was thankfully hazy after that point. She remembered struggling, her hooves failing to find traction on the floor of the royal chambers. She remembered that she screamed.
Eyes wet with tears she reached her hoof down to her nethers. Sniffling and ashamed she rubbed herself and thought of her Princess.
Majestic and perfect. The epitome of beauty and vigour. The fire in her heart. Her beloved, wonderful Princess.
The Goddess of the Sun smiled down on her warmly. Her billowing mane tickled her softly. She leaned down.
“My faithful student.” A white muzzle pressed against hers. Lips parted, moist and hot.
You know she never would.
Shut up.
She wrapped her hooves around that glorious neck pulling her in, hungry, starving for her.
She would be disappointed if she knew you still longed for her.
Shut up.
She trapped that elegant hoof between her thighs, holding it tight against her eager sex.
The fantasy Celestia pulled back from the kiss. “We need to distance ourselves.”
Twilight buried her face into her pillow as she came.
She sniffed. She knew chewing on old wounds like this wasn't healthy. She just couldn't bring herself to move on. To walk away from that perfect train wreck that was her first and only love.
She felt shame. Shame for her desire and for her weakness.
“You awake, Twilight?” came a voice from the foot of the bed.
“Yeah, Spike.”
“You crying again?”
“Yeah. Sorry if I woke you.”
“Don't worry about it. Good night Twilight.”
Wrapping herself tighter in her blankets the unicorn tried to return to slumber once more. Except she thought of a question. And asking a question would mean she wouldn't be asleep and that she wouldn't dream.
“Spike?” she ventured.
“Yeah?”
“How do you always know when I cry at night?”
“The smell.”
“Oh. Sorry.” It was an old pattern.
“Don't worry about it. It's nice. I mean, it bothers me when you cry. But it's a nice smell.”
“Hmm.” The answer to that question wasn't awkward at all.
“Do you think Rarity smells like that? When she cries at night?”
Clinging to her bed, set adrift in a vast and infinite ocean of awkwardness, Twilight lost sight of land.
“I don't think she cries at night. But I suppose she would smell kind of like that sometimes.”
“Huh,” replied Spike thoughtfully. “I thought that was something that all ponies did.”
“No, just me, Spike.” Of course Spike had only starting living with her after she had been exiled to the east tower. “Where did you sleep before I started taking care of you?”
“Doctor Bullock took care of me.”
“He was a vet, right?”
“Yeah, he was kinda creepy.”
“Huh.” On the ocean of awkwardness the legs of the drifting bed sunk into what felt like sand.
“Why do you cry Twilight?”
“Oh, reasons... Somepony I like doesn't like me back as much as I would like.”
“Because you like somepony...” Spike was silent for a moment. “You don't suppose... ?”
“What is it Spike?”
“You don't suppose Rarity would every... smell like that? Over me, I mean?”
The bed was torn loose from shore by a sudden shift in the current.
“When you're older.” Twilight flailed at the awkwardness struggling frantically to drive to the shore once more.
“But what if she never loves me the same way? What if nopony does?”
“Maybe you'll find a nice dragon?”
The sound of Spike's careful deliberation filled the room.
“No, I like mares,” Spike declared his sexual preference and deviancy.
“Well, I suppose you were brought up around ponies. That kind of makes sense.”
“What if the mare I fall for, when I am older, is you?”
Twilight clung desperately as a vicious riptide in the awkwardness threatened to capsize the bed.
This was insane. It was wrong. She was Spike's mentor, employer and temporary guardian. It wouldn't be right to entertain his feelings...
The ocean of awkwardness sank rapidly dropping the bed with a wooden clunk on her bedroom floor.
“Spike come here.”
“What for?”
“Just get your tail over here.” She lifted the covers, “Under here.”
She held her dragon for a time. Pressed his rounded spines into her flesh. Nice, familiar and safe.
“What's this about?”
It wasn't the right choice. The right choice was what Celestia would do in the same situation. Twilight knew first hand what that was. She also knew how it felt.
“When you're older, and if you still want to, we'll give it a shot.”
She kissed the dragon on the back of his scaly head and held him close as she drifted off to sleep.
“I love you,” whispered the filly, eyes shinning with adoration and shoulders shaking with uncertainty. She huddled close for warmth and protection
“I know,” Celestia answered.
“I'll always love you. No matter what,” the filly buried her face into her chest in a manner that was as unbecoming as it was pleasant.
Her hoof reached around the filly's shoulders on it's own and pressed her close. The tender mortal life pressed against her. Delicate and soft and loving. So tragically innocent.
So selfish and greedy.
She looked up and saw them standing there. The vast and terrible field of eyes of her beloved subjects. They looked and saw and judged.
“Please,” begged the Princess of the sun.
She felt the weight of those eyes bearing down upon her all the harder.
“Please, don't make me do this.”
“Let me love you, forever,” the filly murmured in bliss.
The ceremonial yoke around the goddess's neck weighed heavily and grew hot. Her obligation, her duty, her responsibility.
“I need you to stop, Twilight. I need you to get over this silly crush,” She forced herself to say. Forced herself to deny this filly and the warming in her cheeks.
“It's not a crush.”
The words resounded with truth. The alicorn's heart swelled with joy.
Yes, yes, love me, love me forever, make me forget for a time the weight of centuries. Let me have your life, let me live life instead of enduring it. Make me whole for whatever short time you have.
The filly's flesh began to fuse into her, their bodies bleeding together.
The eyes weighed upon her. Her yoke crushed down upon her. They reminded her of her duty. To guide by example.
And the example she must guide all of her little ponies by today was simple.
The Princess conjured a simple knife from nothing. It glinted with malicious purpose.
The good of the many must come before the good of the few. She must do this. For the good of Equestria it's self.
The blade slide between the two ponies separating and dividing.
The filly screamed in outrage at the betrayal.
* * *
Celestia awoke alone in the dark. On her bed, in her castle and far far removed from the love of her Student.
She humoured herself with sad sigh before rolling over and trying to get back to sleep. She had a busy day ahead of her. Just like every day.
The Goddess smiled to herself. She could humour herself with more then just a sigh.
White light billowed forth from her horn sliding under the blankets, filling them taking a shape, pressing tight and caressing her regal form just so.
“I love you, Princess,” said the shape as it began to take on a purple hue.
“I know, my faithful student.”
The not-Twilight mounted the solar alicorn forcefully. Magic flowed hot and free fueling the simulacra's growing density.
Angry and triumphant it ground into her nethers. Hungrily it nipped at her chest.
“Love me,” it demanded as it drew a shudder from her.
“I love you, I love you so much. Please...”
Viciously it made love to her. Remorselessly it drove her.
“It isn't a crush!” It looked at her with Twilight's eyes, alive with challenge. Magic was flowing faster now. It was starting to take on the personality template of the mare it was imitating.
“I know, I knew, please...”
“You can't do this,” it whispered to her, it's voice wracked with simulated pain.
“Please...”
“Don't send me away!” It screamed and ended. Dispersed into vapour. Abandoning her, leaving her unfulfilled and empty.
“...forgive me,” she murmured to herself, she let out a soft ragged sob.
Wrapping the blankets tighter she rolled over and sought sleep.
“Thou should know I came to enquire as to your unusual nightmare. Witnessing your erotic fantasy play was wholly an unintentional bonus,” the darkness at the foot of her bed said with an evil smirk unique to smirkers of the sisterly sort.
Celestia placed a pillow over her head.
“I find it a shade melancholy myself,” continued the darkness, as it stepped up onto the bed. “Perhaps thou would like to speak of it?”
“Perhaps I would not,” she replied through her pillow of protection.
“Perhaps I will sit here and listen until thou are finished telling me about it,” the dark princess of the night settled down upon the bed.
Time passed. The sisters patiently waited, each for the other to yield.
A contest of wills, a clash of might, open conflict between the immortal deities of Equestria. Nothing moved and the world held it's breath.
“She loved me,” Celestia finally admitted.
“She loves thee still.”
“I sent her away. Just to the far tower. It was for her own good.”
“This troubles thee, so?”
“Yes.”
“You loved her?”
“Yes.”
“Thou banished her for demanding the love that she deserved?”
Celestia looked at her sister for a time. Considering, comparing and evaluating.
“I did,” she replied at last.
“It is bold, thou should know. To demand love. A pony needs love like they need breath. Of course they deserve it and are entitled to it.”
“Luna, I...”
“But to demand it, to force it, without thought for the consequence, without care, that is the path of the nightmare.”
“But she was just a filly.”
“Is she still?”
Silence echoed between them. The unmentioned suggestion sat with them on the bed.
“I took a young student for a lover once,” started Celestia. “Word soon got out. At first there was some shock. A few angry letters. But soon it subsided. It wasn't really all that bad.”
“But then a respected craftsman took a young apprentice as her husband. Then it spread and became a bit of a fad. Soon most masters of any sort took lovers from their apprentices. It became so muddled for the courts that any sort of sexual misconduct between masters and their apprentices was soon simply ignored or swept under the rug. Even after my student had passed away it continued on as a tradition.”
“That is terrible,” Luna raised an eyebrow in shock.
“It took another two hundred years to stamp it out completely. It just isn't the kind of thing I want my ponies to live with.”
“So thou lead by example. Most virtuous of thee. But is she still?”
“Luna, she will always be my student.”
“She is no longer a child and even now she blossoms into a master without equal.”
“No! You can't do this!” The purple filly behind her yelled in defiance.
“Surely you could take the risk to claim her?”
Tears hot and wet flowed past her regal cheeks. With a wing she gestured to a guard. She couldn't face her dear Twilight like this. She shouldn't have to see her like this.
“Remove her.”
“For loves sake surely...”
The sound of hooves sliding against marble. The scrabbling pitiable defiance. She screamed as her heart was sundered and her trust betrayed.
“No,” Celestia interrupted. “My darling Twilight deserves better.”
