The Strength of Friendship
Twilight sat huddled under the covers on the side of her bed, listening to its characteristic creak as she shifted around. This time, however, the bed supported a much larger burden than just her physical weight. As she sunk into the soft, familiar sheets, Twilight thought back on the events that had transpired in the past few months, the last week in particular, trying to make sense of everything.
Rainbow Dash meant everything to her. The Pegasus had given her new purpose, providing her with a reason to continue working on her projects, and had been both her inspiration and her best friend. Everything had been fine. Fine, she felt, until she had embarked on the most near-sighted journey of her lifetime.
It all stated several months ago in the grassy practice field just outside Ponyville. The weather had been sunny and warm, but not uncomfortably so, and periodically a light breeze drifted through the trees and through the meadow Twilight was in. She had been helping Rainbow Dash with a new trick similar to a low-flying roll requiring a sharp U-turn at the end. The unicorn was supposed to be taking notes on any faults she had spotted in the routine, but her mind kept wandering from the task at hand. As she looked over the smooth, graceful movement of the Pegasus, she realized how much she enjoyed the time they spent together.
A spark of warmth crept into Twilight’s chest. She had only ever rarely felt it before- it was a feeling she enjoyed, and later deeply cherished. She jotted a brief note about it to herself, and tried to return to the task at hand.
Twilight had no idea how to go about acting on her feelings. For the next few days, she tried to figure out what to do about her new-found emotions. With nothing else to do, Twilight decided her best bet would be to test the water and see if her feelings were mutual or one-sided. Now all she had to do was come up with a way to find out.
Her opportunity came several weeks later after another one of Dash’s practices. Dash had just finished another aerial maneuver and, unlike usual, she did not have any other obligations to attend to. It was now or never. Twilight finally mustered up the courage to move, and slowly made her way over to her friend. Twilight pulled rainbow dash over to the side, and started to speak.
She tried to talk to the Pegasus about her feelings but, as the words began to form at the back of her throat, they got snagged on each other. Rainbow dash looked at Twilight expectantly, unintentionally adding to the stressful situation. Unable to properly convey any of her actual emotions, Twilight began to cry. It was not something she was particularly accustom to doing, but amidst the tears, she manned to choke out a very basic message:
She had a crush on Rainbow Dash. And now Dash knew it.
As Twilight had both expected and feared, the Pegasus did not outwardly share any of Twilight's feelings. It was understandable, as their friendship had existed only a few years, not to mention Rainbow had appeared to be only interested in stallions up to this point. Nevertheless, Twilight’s feelings did not alter in the slightest.
Days went by, and Twilight found herself thinking more and more about her friend. At first, it changed very little about the way she went about her day, but thoughts of her close friend kept creeping into her head, making it hard to concentrate on the other parts of her life. Her letters to princess Celestia on friendship became less detailed and bland, turning into repeats and rewordings of previous letters. eventually, it got to the point where her notes on research proved utterly useless due to their lack of quality, forcing her to rewrite them several times each.
She wanted to try to create a more serious relationship between Dash and herself, and although her initial attempt had been one of the most pathetic attempts to form a relationship she had ever heard of or read about, she thought she stood a chance. The period between October and Hearts and Hooves day would be her first and final shot at showing Rainbow Dash how much she meant to her.
Twilight lit a candle and sat down at her mahogany desk. Before anything could continue, she knew she had to understand the extent of her emotions. She sat, for nearly three hours, thinking about the exact circumstances of her love for her friend.
Her time thinking resulted in nothing but a series of "what ifs", none of which held any power on their own. Feeling defeated, Twilight let out a heavy sigh and peeled her head off of her desk. She grabbed a large piece of parchment paper from the sizable stack to the left of her desk, and drew a single line lengthwise across the page. With a deep breath and shaky hoof, she began to draw up a crude timeline of events she could use to show Rainbow the extent of her love.
The next morning she woke exceptionally early and raised her head as far as the new cramp in her neck would allow. She had once again fallen asleep organizing her idea. She estimated, she had come up with over twenty different ideas for conveying her love. She had never before spent this much time on someone she loved, and hopefully this time it would show. Of all times, this needed to show.
She understood that she would have no way of knowing what would work unless she took the time to make one of every physical gift on the list, or in the case of events, look into them thoroughly. Only then could she analyze whether or not it was a good enough gift.
Just a little less than a month passed. Twilight had prepared many different gifts for the following few months, taking the time to confide in two of her other friends, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, her feelings for Dash.
The understanding her friends showed reassured her that a relationship could be possible, but eventually Twilight’s uncertainty got to her. Her carefully planned cards and gifts were never anything she was completely satisfied with, and she didn’t want to risk possible insulting the Pegasus with anything that had the potential of being of a low quality- the typical downfall of hoof-made gifts.
Twilight decided she had an inability to create anything that was good enough for Rainbow, and it began to irritate her. She became prone to low periods during her daily life in which she reflected on every lost opportunity or failure, no matter how small, in her day to day activities. The only person who could cheer her up was Dash, so Twilight had to play a risky game- talking to her crush about her feelings caused by failing to create anything that would impress the Pegasus while being vague enough that Dash could not figure out exactly what was going on.
Very few gifts ever managed to make it to her crush, most of them being destroyed before they even left Twilight’s house. Only a Christmas card and a get well card ever made it to their destination, and she was not particularly happy with her work as it was.
The perpetual cycle of creation and destruction occurred until late January. Twilight realized she was running out of time, and needed to come up with a plan for Hearts and Hooves day. As with when she drew up her original timeline, twilight sat down once again at her mahogany desk, now covered in shredded cards and crumpled notes she had never worked up the courage to give to the Cyan Pegasus she loved.
Long into the night, she wrote up an exact description of what she wanted to accomplish in the coming weeks, drifting in and out of sleep.
Everything came down to hearts and hooves day. Since her last planning session, Twilight had been working on a gift she was truly proud of. It was a letter with a simple drawing of them together, coupled with some modest text. In it she had taken the time to carefully acquire two feathers which she represented both of them with. The way in which she had written the letter would only hold meaning on this one day, so timing was crucial.
She knew she would be having lunch with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, so she planned to give it to Rainbow Dash on the way out. That way, she would not have to be around when Rainbow Dash read it.
When the time came, Twilight handed her the gift out of sight of everyone else. After mumbling something about hearts and hooves day, the unicorn made a point of ducking out to the right into a crowd of ponies to avoid being around her when she read it.
For the next few hours, Twilight could not do anything. All she could think of was the different ways in which the Cyan Pegasus could respond.
Her answer came mid-afternoon when the cyan Pegasus found her sitting on the ground behind a tree outside of the park. With a flick of her wing, Dash tossed Twilight a response scroll. If she said anything, Twilight didn’t notice. All she could do was look at the scroll that had been given to her. Dash left her alone to read what it said.
The tone of the letter was both apologetic and calm. Rainbow Dash stated she did not share the same feelings, and never would. She did not mind how Twilight felt about her, and she still considered twilight a great friend.
Nothing had changed.
Twilight was relentless on herself. Perhaps if she had planned better, things would not have turned out as they did. But that was the problem- the truth of the situation had been there the entire time. She had known that Rainbow didn’t like other mares, but had tried to change something that she should have known would not change.
And then it hit her. She had wasted almost half a year nurturing a dead dream. Twilight physically staggered backwards. She wanted to collapse at her own failure to see the obvious and just cry. Except this time she couldn’t cry. She felt she deserved no self-pity, as it had been her stupid mistake to even try.
The rest of a day turned into a blur. Although Twilight spent the rest of the day with Dash to finish gathering data from the aerial maneuver the Pegasus was practicing, Twilight hesitated with every action she had to make. That night, her bed seemed particularly inviting, and she all but collapsed under the mental burden of her self-proclaimed failure.
Twilight’s thoughts caught up to her present self, still huddled in the warm bed sheets. She knew there was no reason to be reacting in this way- besides, Rainbow had been very polite in conveying her stance on the matter, and Twilight figured the last thing she could do to show her love was to respect the way the Pegasus felt. Eventually, the exhausted lavender unicorn dragged herself off of her bed, the light in her eyes that had been present for the last five months missing.
It was time, once again, for everyone’s annual get-together at the spa. When she arrived, Twilight systematically surveyed the room, taking note of everyone in their usual locations. Rather uncharacteristically, Twilight had arrived late. Her friends were already there, waiting, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. They were all talking, having a wonderful time catching up on the events of the last week. Twilight sat down and joined in the conversation. As her eyes drifted over Rainbow Dash, she felt a familiar tingling sensation creep into her chest.
Except this time, it only caused her pain.
