The Mare of Her Dreams

"Rainbow Dash!"

"Oh, Hey Twi!" Rainbow replied, stretching. Hovering just above the cloud upon which she had just completed her nap, she looked around, slightly uncertain. "How'd you find me?"

"Oh... Just a lucky guess..." Twilight answered nervously. To be completely honest, she wasn't sure how she had located Rainbow. The interplay between love and magic is quite complex, and Twilight's focus of study had been friendship, a related, but not identical, phenomenon.

"That's cool... So... What's up?"

"Oh, I just wanted to tell you... I uh... How are you today?"

Dash raised an eyebrow. "You wanted to tell me how I am today?"

"Yes! ... I mean, no. I mean, do you want to have dinner?"

"Dinner?" Rainbow asked with a giddy look on her face, reclining into a backstroke position. "But it's lunchtime!"

"But... I didn't mean lunch... I meant..."

"Oh... Right. Dinner..." Rainbow commented with a sly smirk. "I get what you're sayin'. Sure Twi!"

"Yeah, I mean... later. I was thinking we could... Be together?"

"Be together?" Rainbow Dash asked, smiling curiously.

"Yeah... together... to— To eat food!" Twilight explained, with a painful forced smile etched across her face. Why was this so hard?

"Oh... just to eat food?"

She looks disappointed... Why does she look like that? Does she not even want to have dinner with me? Oh, what's wrong with me?!

"I mean, we don't have to if you don't want to..." Twi added, twiddling her hooves together.

"No, I do, I really do!" Rainbow protested.

She's just being nice, Twilight. She doesn't want to go. She's probably got so many things she'd rather do than go to dinner with you.

"Actually... I just... I just remembered I need to re-shelf the library again tonight."

"Can I—" Rainbow paused for a moment, clearly uncertain of why she would ever offer such a thing, but she carried on anyway. "Can I help?"

She's so nice! You don't even deserve her, Twilight. Turn her down. Turn her down!

"No... I... I was going to try and think of a new organizational system tonight. You... You'd just be in the way..."

NO TWILIGHT, NO! THAT WAS WRONG. SO VERY WRONG! HOW CAN YOU BE SO SMART AND SO STUPID AT THE SAME TIME?!

"Oh..." Rainbow remarked, crestfallen, "Sorry... I..." She paused to think, then cheered up a bit. "I guess I'll see you on Thursday then?"

"Right... Flying lessons... I... Maybe I shouldn't keep doing those..."

Rainbow looked crushed. "Wha— What'd I do, Twi?"

TWILIGHT! WHAT IN THE NAME OF EVERLOVING FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?! THIS IS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU SET OUT TO DO! YOU ARE DESTROYING YOUR FRIENDSHIP!

"I just... I don't... I'm..."

"Are we still... Are we still gonna keep writing, at least?"

Twilight, this is your last chance to fix this, don't you dare fuck this up.

"I..." Twilight brought her hoof to her chest, took a deep breath, and pushed it away with a long exhale. She took another deep breath, and opened her mouth to speak, but she found it almost impossible to push air past her vocal chords. She breathed out hard, took another deep breath, and finally forced the words to come to her lips. "I want you, Rainbow!"

Rainbow squinted her eyes, then smiled radiantly. "You want... Me?"

Twilight rested her head in her hooves and sighed in frustration. That wasn't quite what she had intended to say. "I just... I'll see you on Thursday..." she muttered quickly as she flew off into the distance.

Rainbow called out after the fleeing alicorn, "So does that mean we're still on for flying lessons?!"

The purple pinprick on the horizon offered no response, so Rainbow gave chase, rapidly closing the gap between them. Twilight jumped in surprise as the sky-blue blur came up alongside her.

"Same time as last week? ...Twi?" Rainbow asked, before waving her hoof before the alicorn's eyes. "You okay in there?"

Twilight was just barely able to pull her gaze away from Rainbow's incredibly powerful wings, only to find herself lost in the pegasus' beautiful magenta eyes.

"Twiiiiiiiiii..."

Twilight shook her head back and forth rapidly. "Yeah, yeah... We're still doing the lessons... Sorry, I'm... I'm just distracted today. I shouldn't have come to see you."

Rainbow smiled, satisfied with the answer. "And you're sure you don't wanna go to dinner?" She chuckled. "I'll pay, even!"

"I... Uh... Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure. That was a stupid idea. Sorry for bringing it up."

"It wasn't stupid! I totally wanna have dinner with you!"

Twilight stopped abruptly, holding her hooves to her head. "I... You... No you don't! Stop being so nice!"

"Yeah I d—"

Bam. Twilight teleported off again, leaving a sad and confused Rainbow Dash hanging over Sugarcube Corner.