Twilight stared up at the ceiling, her hands folded behind her head. She felt as if she was sinking into the soft cushion of her bed, drowning in the softness, and she was terribly missing the warmth of Rarity beside her. Rarity was away to search for real estate to open a second Boutique in Canterlot, and she’d be away for the next few days. On night one, Twilight was already aching for her. Twilight had considered begging her to stay, but soon realized how petty and selfish that was of her. Twilight let out a sigh, then rolled over to her side in an attempt at sleep.
She then found herself to be nose to nose with Pinkie Pie, who was crouching besides Twilight’s bed.
“Hiya!” said Pinkie. Twilight screamed loudly, lit up her horn, and panickedly teleported downstairs to her living room, accidentally landing in the arms of another mare, Rainbow Dash.
“Sup,” said RD. Twilight leapt out of Rainbow’s grasp and lit up her horn again. Twilight was so confused, she was ready to start launching stun spells in an attempt to subdue the apparent intruder. Then, she noted how casually her “intruder” was dressed, and how unbothered she seemed by being caught. Dash was wearing a red tanktop that left a bit of her midriff exposed, and a pair of cyan boy shorts. Rainbow Dash’s favorite sleepwear. Coupled with the fact that she was sitting lazily in the large crystal throne marked with her Cutie Mark, it was clear to Twilight that she was panicking over nothing.
“What are you doing here?!” demanded Twilight. “I thought you all left hours ago!”
“Not me. I just woke up, actually,” said Dash, scratching her hand through her short, rainbow mane. “What time is it?”
“Three-thirty in the morning!”
“Oh. Well, sorry I spooked ya. I’m bout to head out for a drink, you coming?” asked Dash. The angry glare that Twilight gave her supplied more than enough answer. “Alright, whatever floats your boat. What’re you doing up, anyway?” Twilight calmed herself slightly, finally coming down out of Panic Mode.
“I couldn’t sleep. I know she hasn’t even been gone a day yet, but I really miss Rarity,” sighed Twilight. Twilight walked a few feet to the left and deposited herself into her tall crystal chair. “I feel like I take her for granted. I never knew I’d miss her as much as I did, so quickly.”
“Oooh, I get it!” chuckled Rainbow slyly. “Ah, you’re missing your ‘late night session’ with the Missus, huh?”
Twilight almost never thought about sex, not because she didn’t find Rarity to be attractive or that she didn’t want to, eventually, have sex with her. It’s just that she didn’t find it as important as, say, her dear pervy friend Rainbow Dash. She thought about sex so little that it took her a solid thirty seconds to put together what Rainbow even meant.
“Oh my god, no! Honestly, Rainbow,” said Twilight, a slight blush blooming on her face. “That’s not what I meant at all. I just wished she was in bed with me.” Rainbow snickered. “Both of us wearing clothes, and just hugging, snuggling, and maybe a little kissing. We never… We’re not going to… We plan to… Why am I explaining myself to you? My sex life-”
“Or lack of one.”
“Is none of your business, Rainbow Dash,” said Twilight with a small smile. “Sex isn’t that important in a relationship. Something you’d know if you were ever actually in a serious one.”
“Wow, you’re getting fiery, aren’t ya, your highness?” laughed Rainbow Dash. The Twilight she met five years ago would never say something that could even be interpreted as a friendly jab. It was amazing how much having actual friends could change a person. “Alright, Ms. Relationship Specialist. How serious is your relationship?”
“Serious enough, I think,” said Twilight with a slight air of self-confidence. “Serious enough that I’m pining after a few hours apart.”
“Wanna talk about it?” asked Rainbow Dash. “Maybe you just need to get some stuff off your mind, so you can sleep.”
Twilight was not expecting that. Scorn? Perhaps. Comments on how Twilight took everything too seriously? Likely. An off-color, immature joke about the possible sexual tension between Twilight and Rarity that was in offensively bad taste? Almost definitely. But actually offering an ear to listen, to talk about the issue and actually trying to help? That was a move that was mature to a shocking extent coming from Rainbow Dash.
“Actually, I would,” said Twilight. She really appreciated the offer, and hoped that it would maybe help her sleep. “I just really feel like she doesn’t know how much I appreciate her. I mean, just last week, I completely ignored her for something that wasn’t even her fault.”
“Which is typical girlfriend behavior, by the way,” said Rainbow Dash. Twilight gave her a look that could kill a mare with weak enough spirit, bringing a small grin to Rainbow’s face. “I’m just saying, it’s not weird. I’ve lost many a hot guy to that little move, so it’s probably a good thing that you hate yourself for doing it.” Ignoring that, Twilight decided to move forward.
“She’s always doing such nice things for me. She treats me like a princess,” said Twilight. Before Rainbow could open her mouth, she continued with, “I know that I am actually a princess, but she really pampers me like I am one. She reads with me every night, and she tries really hard to...uh… I don’t want to sound like a jerk…”
“She can keep up with your massive intellect, I get it,” said Rainbow. “That’s really sweet of her. I know as well as anybody that reading you is a pain in the ass.” She saw the angry look on Twilight’s face, which provided her with the amusement she was looking for. “Kidding, kidding. Still, I get why you appreciate that so much. Must be nice to connect with someone over something you obsess over.”
“It’s awesome. Besides just giving me something to talk about, she really makes me feel… pretty,” said Twilight. “Wanted. Some days, she’ll just show up with a new dress or pair of shoes for me, that she made on a whim, just for me. Every time, she shows me the most beautiful piece of clothing I’ve ever seen. I asked her why she did it one time, and she said that she wanted to make something as beautiful as me, but every time she sees me, she swears that she’ll never be able to, because nothing will be able to compare to my beauty.”
“Wow,” said Rainbow Dash, barely choking back her laughter. “That is literally the cheesiest thing I have ever heard in my entire life. No wonder you’re head-over-hooves for her; She’s just as corny as you are.”
“I know it’s corny, but you can’t say that’s not also the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard,” said Twilight, almost defensively. RD couldn’t much argue with that. “I wish I could… I dunno, pay her back. Make her feel as loved as she does to me. Reciprocate.” Rainbow Dash snickered immaturely, which Twilight couldn’t care to try to decypher the reason why.
“Alright, alright, you wanna make your gal feel special?” asked Dash rhetorically. “Here’s what you do. You head down to the liquor store, pick up some booze, and, when she gets back, you send Spike over to have a sleepover with Sweetie Belle someplace, you take Rares upstairs. You two get plastered, lock the doors, and… Ahem… Stay in bed…For a couple of days.”
“I’m not getting her drunk for sex, Rainbow.”
“It wouldn’t be getting her drunk for sex! It’d be getting her drunk and then sex!” explained RD. If looks could kill, Twilight would’ve gone to prison for homicide. “That’s what I’d like from my fella, anyway. Just a suggestion.”
“I have an idea!” said Pinkie loudly. A large amount of screaming and swearing ensued, and Pinkie just barely avoided a hot blast of magic to the face. Pinkie, who was clearly undisturbed by her friends’ shock, had suddenly and inexplicably found her way in between the two thrones, entirely without being detected.
“Christ on a crutch, Pinkie Pie!” shrieked RD, clutching her chest. “You gave me a freaking heart attack!”
“I have an idea for what you can do for Rare-bear!” said Pinkie excitedly. “It’ll be awesome, and it won’t fail to make her appreciate you more than anything in the whole wide universe! Wanna hear?”
“Sure, I’m open to suggestions,” said Twilight.
“Alright, so Rarity is out of town until Monday,” said Pinkie. “An hour before she gets here, we arrange a little accident for you. We’ll say you got run over, and she comes to see you in the hospital, right? Ooh, but we pay off a doctor, and he says to her ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, your girlfriend is in a coma, and she’ll never wake up, probably’ and she’s crying and all like ‘No! Twily, I love you so much, why wasn’t I here to protect you, why?!’, and then we’re all crying with her, except me and Dash, cause we’re in on it!”
“Pinkie?”
“But you’re not actually in a coma, you’re really just pretending, and you pretend for a couple of years, at least a decade!” continued Pinkie. “Then, when you ‘wake up’, and you’ll be all like ‘Oh my god, I don’t remember anything, the accident gave me amnesia, I have to relearn every aspect of my life’, and then you start dating Rarity again, and just before you tell her you love her for the first time, you pretend to remember her, and you tell her that you thought of her all the time when you were asleep, and then it’ll be like you two fell in love all over again, even though it was all made up!”
Silence reigned supreme for several minutes as Twilight and Rainbow silently debated whether or not to have Pinkie Pie admitted to the nearest mental institution. Pinkie just sat with a mad grin on her face, waiting for the inevitable declaration of “You’re a genius, Pinkie Pie!” She’d brush it off, claiming it was no big deal, and then they’d add ‘humble’ and ‘drop-dead gorgeous’ to the list of adjectives.
“You know, in hindsight,” said Rainbow Dash, scratching her head. “It was probably a bad idea to ask me and Pinkie about this sort of thing. Maybe ask the two members of the group who actually have been in a legit relationship.”
“I’m going to bed now,” sighed Twilight. “If you guys are going to stay, help yourselves to the one of the guest rooms. If not, and I do mean this in the most polite way possible, please get out of my house.”
Rainbow Dash decided to recline in her chair and fall asleep right there, while Pinkie seemingly vanished. Twilight was beyond tired by this point, and she decided that she wanted nothing more right now than to collapse into her bed so that, in the morning, she could ask her older, wiser friends for advice.
Of course. It was so obvious, Twilight was a little upset that it took her asking Applejack to come to this solution. Rarity was the type of mare to put out an outer shell of elegance and grace, but still had certain desires and sensibilities that were more down-to-earth. One of these sensibilities was a love of food.
“Tha way ta any man’s heart is through their stomach,” Applejack had said. “Yer lady is tha same way, believe it or not.”
Since Twilight had undergone her alicorn transformation, Rarity was easily the thinnest of the six. Unlike Applejack and Rainbow Dash, Rarity was thin rather than toned, and relatively short (the shortest of the group, though most of them were taller than average). Rarity had never worked out a day in her life, unless you counted the two days she decided to try Zumba. In short, Rarity was a tiny mare by all accounts.
But, if she somehow wasn’t worried about making a fool of herself in front of others, she could out-eat Big Macintosh. When she had first started sleeping in the castle, and Spike had begun dabbling in the kitchen, he was alarmed and a bit impressed by the way that she was able to suck down the various plates her put in front of her.
Spicy food, savory food, sweet, crispy, chewy, Asian, Italian, Spanish, Greek, anything that went on a plate, dish, bowl, and the occasional skewer, Rarity just loved. Even, and often especially, food that wasn’t necessarily good for her, she devoured it all.
Twilight had thought up a list of all of Rarity’s favorite dishes, gathered Spike’s cookbooks, and set off to prepare the most amazing, perfect, beautiful dinner for the most amazing, perfect, beautiful mare that Twilight had ever seen. Twilight looked over her recipes one more time, then set off to work.
Rarity reached into the front pouch of her suitcase and pulled out her keys. She was tired, disappointed, and starving, among other things, and couldn’t wait to see her girlfriend before popping out for a bite to eat. Rarity fumbled with her keys for a second, then pushed open the grand doors of the Crystal Castle that she occasionally called “home”.
Rarity dragged her suitcase down the glistening halls, trying and failing to stifle a yawn. She made her way to the kitchen, where she thought she smelled something cooking. A small smile spread on her face; Twilight must’ve tried her hand in the kitchen. It was a sweet gesture, one that was not lost on Rarity. She was curious as to who had helped Twilight, because, to her knowledge, Twilight’s culinary prowess started and ended with heating up a microwave pizza. The closer she got to the kitchen, however, to more Rarity thought that Twilight had probably tried to teach herself; The smell of smoke was heavy in the air, stinging Rarity’s nose slightly. Still, she was curious as to see what Twilight had attempted at. It was the thought that counts, right?
Rarity parked her suitcase just outside the kitchen before stepping into the warzone that the normally neat and tidy room had become. The sink was filled with about every single pot or pan that was in the castle. Those vessels that weren’t dirty were currently boiling over on the stove, which was a fiasco in of itself. Sauces, grease drippings, scorch marks, anything you could imagine in a dirty kitchen. Twilight herself was a flustered, frazzled mess, her mane tangled, her apron covered in flour, grease, and some sort of meat blood. She ran around the kitchen like a headless chicken, trying to salvage her mess.
“I just can’t leave you alone, can I?” said Rarity, grinning slightly. Twilight stopped in her tracks, turned to see Rarity, and stared for a few seconds. Then, she ran over and scooped her up in a massive hug, pecking her face with kisses as she did.
“Oh my god, I missed you so much!” squealed Twilight. “I felt like you’d never come back, oh, I’ve missed you so, so, so much!”
“I’ve missed you, too, darling. It’s great to be back home,” laughed Rarity, looking around at the mess. “Someone made a mess, eh?” Twilight blushed in slight embarrassment and lowered Rarity back to the floor.
“I tried to cook you dinner,” she said sheepishly. “I wanted to give you the best meal I could possibly give you without Spike’s help. It took me a few tries, but I finally got something.” Rarity was equal parts amused and curious. Twilight really was cute, especially when she wasn’t trying to be.
“Alright, love. Show me what you’ve got.”
Twilight reached into her pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and handed it to Rarity, who peered at it in confusion.. The note had a series of digits on it, which appeared to be three different phone numbers.
“I can’t cook, but I can order take-out,” said Twilight with a nervous smile. Rarity smiled in kind and draped her arms around Twilight’s neck. She didn’t care what she ate, so long as she did so with Twilight. There was one thing that was bothering her, though.
“You’re a genius. How can you not know how to cook?”