Comfort and warmth welcomed Dustin to consciousness again, and she started to stretch and leaned back into the body behind her. The real world seemed elsewhere—not applicable to her present situation—and caring about anything but snuggling with someone else was simply impossible.
Dust floated with happy, foggy thoughts. She was a simple creature, warm, content, and it wasn't for minutes… hours… maybe even years (by her reckoning) that the first part of the new day began to intrude—the "part" was of course a snout. Light gray, soft as silk, and gently probing, it reminded Dustin of who he had been with the previous day.
Twilight Velvet didn't say a word, but she felt Dustin tense in the bed anyway. Relaxing back against the pillow, she gave the other mare every chance to squirm and climb out, but she didn't.
The "spell" of silence would not be broken, and as the moments passed Dust felt the tension relax a little. Little by little, she talked her strange body into calming down, to just enjoy the comfort and warmth again. Her head brought back memories of yawning once too often, of Twilight practically herding her into a bedroom and into bed. For the life of her, though, Dust could not remember Twilight climbing into bed with her.
Trying her luck again, Twilight nuzzled the back of Dust's neck, running her muzzle through the green hair. Again she felt Dust stiffen a little, but slowly relax into the attention. Good girl Twilight thought, not daring to say anything lest it spook her new friend.
A knock on the house's front door startled both mares, the sound echoing up from downstairs. "Blast." Twilight gave Dust's ear a little kiss before pulling back and climbing from the bed.
The kiss was oddly soothing to Dust, a reminder that despite her gender and form being mixed up, that affection was still affection. With the tableau of silence broken, she decided it was time to contact Kiera. "Kay, you there?"
"Of course I am. How was Miss Velvet?" Kiera's tone spoke volumes of what she thought the pair had gotten up to. "Is there another little princess on the way?"
"We are both mares and you know it!" Dust squirmed her way out of bed, got tangled in the covers and landed in a heap on the floor with a thump. "If you ask what that sound was…" The threat was both weak and unenforceable.
"At a guess, and speaking from experience of you waking in girls' bedrooms before, I would say you were in a hurry to climb from the bed and something got tangled in the covers. How hard is the floor?" Kiera's smirk was practically audible.
"You know me better than I do right now…" Dust untangled herself from the covers and looked back at the mess she had made. "Kiera, I need another contact button, this… this is a mess that goes beyond bed sheets."
"Then you want to go and see Belay." Chuckling as she noticed Dust's vitals spike, Kiera watched from Belay's point of view as Dust clopped down the stairs of Twilight Velvet's house.
"Nonsense, she has been a lovely guest." Twilight Velvet's ears twitched and turned to hear Dustin walking up behind her. "But she really needs to be able to talk, you have her little button for her?" She stepped to the side just enough to let Dust beside her at the door, but not enough that her guest didn't have to press against her side to do it.
Dust was past anger at being without her translation, she just wanted to get everything squared away. "Please tell me you didn't lose them on your way here?"
"Here you are. Don't lose this one." Belay used her magic to levitate one of the buttons out of the stylish little saddle bag she wore, floating it over to Dustin. "Kiera tells me—"
"Kiera!" Dust's yell startled Belay, but Twilight just chuckled at the extravagance. Pinning the comms button to her fur, Dust was about to subvocalize, but then stopped. "Kiera, please don't." Her tone had enough reluctant begging in it that she dearly hoped it would let her partner know how annoyed she was at everything. "Thank you, Dust. Now please get me out of here…"
"Oh, you want to leave so quickly?" Twilight finally heard the extra words, the understandable words, come from the little button. "Why don't you both come in and have some tea?"
Dust inhaled deeply. "I need some time." She looked at Twilight Velvet, and could see the comfort and gentle attention in every line. Despite not being the right species, or gender, Dust could appreciate what she had done, and how she had handled the situation.
"It was delightful having you here, Dustin y Neil. I do hope you will come back, I owe you that cup of tea." Twilight knew her eyes twinkled, it was practically a specialty of her family. "I hope you slept well?"
Blushing a little, Dust remembered how wonderfully warm and cuddly it had been, and how slow Twilight had taken what little advances she had used on Dust in the morning. "Yeah, I slept well, and woke wonderfully." A smile pulled her mouth up. "But I need to work out some things."
"Perfectly alright dear." Twilight leaned toward Dust and before her target could object, she kissed Dust on her smiling lips. There was no insisting any further, Twilight just let their mouth's touch in a soft demonstration of affection.
The world slowed down for Dust. She closed her eyes and let the soft touch of lips to lips continue. Nothing could contend with the simple thought This is nice. At last, she felt Twilight's muzzle pull back from her own, and Dust stared at Twilight Velvet.
"Dust?" Belay could have reached out to grab his shipmate as Dust beat a hasty retreat. "He isn't normally like this… she isn't…" She gave an ever-suffering sigh at Twilight's chuckle. "This is complicated. I will talk to her for you."
"No, please." Twilight's tongue crept out to taste what was left of Dust's lips on her own. "Talk to her for her own good, not mine. Excuse me." She started to close the door, leaving Belay to back up and leave her official guide.
"Kiera, tell Dustin to stop… and tell me where she ran off to." Belay turned from the door of Twilight's house and looked into the street. In one direction, all the ponies seemed to be acting normal. Swinging his head to look the other way, Belay could see Dust round the corner at the end of the street, ponies scattering from her way.
"She seems really worked up. Was the kiss really that good?" Kiera had two threads of conversation going, but the second one was rather one-sided. "Dustin y Neil, stop this!" She grabbed the data-compressed version of the same words, converted them to raw sound and blasted the noise at her brawn directly though Dust's implant.
"Shut up Kiera!" Dust didn't subvocalize, she wanted to run and run forever. She wanted to hide and never have to think about cute mares and their soft lips ever again. Screwing her eyes closed, Dust trusted the ponies on the street to keep getting out of her way, which of course meant that she plowed right into one that didn't.
"Dustin! Stop…" Belay trailed off his shout when he saw that Dust had collided with a very large stallion with close-cropped blue mane. "Uh… excuse me sir…"
Red Rope looked down at the unicorn stallion who was running after the mare at his hooves. He looked down further to the mare. "Is he a problem for you?"
"Who?" Dust turned and looked at Belay and sighed. "No, he's not the problem at all. It's a mare…"
Belay started to move towards Dust, but the big earth pony stallion moved a lot faster, and imposed himself between Belay and Dust. "She's a friend. If you could—"
"Calm down." Red turned his head only half around to look at Dust, and kept Belay in his peripheral vision. "Are you sure he is your friend? Just say the word and I will take you somewhere safe."
Dust finally started to realize what was going on, and couldn't help but smile a little ruefully up at Red Rope. "He is a friend, he wasn't chasing me to hurt me." She got her shaky legs under herself and, standing up, realized just how huge the stallion she had run into really was.
Red narrowed his eyes and looked back at Belay. "Next time you chase a mare, make certain she wants to be caught, okay?" He gave a grunt, turned, and walked out from between the two ponies, back into the crowded street.
"You are quite fast on those hooves." Belay used his magic to reach out and straighten Dust's mane. "And the last time I saw you run nearly that fast from a kiss, you had the girl's brothers chasing you."
"If Kiera hadn't distracted me I would still be running." Dustin gave a huff and shook herself off. "What is up with this place, Bel? I don't think I even tried to get Twilight's attention. She just—"
"She found you attractive, and smart, and liked both of them in one package." Walking slowly with Dustin at his side, Belay's thoughts flashed to the previous night. The mare Belay had found hadn't been the smartest little thing he had ever met, but she was very affectionate. "Is it really hard to believe someone found you attractive enough to want to chase? Surely you had girls seek you out before this?"
"Yeah, but I just… I keep feeling like I shouldn't be enjoying this. Like it is work." Dust waved a hoof up to the heavens, not even sure how she kept her walking pace. "We are shirking our duty. This system's amazing, and we're stuck dirt-side."
"I sent a probe closer to the magnetar, but there are even stranger things going on." Kiera's voice carried the inquisitiveness that she felt for the system's sun. "A planet managing to maintain life after its sun goes supernova is unheard of."
"Right, there should be so much radio energy coming off it to cook a planet even way out here." Dust loved the distraction Kiera provided. "Have you worked out what that is?" She pointed up at the "sun" in the sky. I don't care how powerful their magic is, they couldn't move the star here, and—"
"It's not the sun." Kiera had to shoot Dust with some static to derail her. "Could some… pony… who read my latest debriefing please comment?" There was only silence from Dustin and Belay. "Well, allow me to enlighten you. The planet is, as we thought, tidally locked to the magnetar. The grip the star has on it is immense, even this far out."
Both brawns were spellbound at the description, and both knew better than to interrupt Kiera while she was lecturing.
"Whatever radiation the star is giving out, nothing I have seems sensitive enough to pick it up, even though it blasted the opposite side of this planet to a wasteland. The 'sun' Princess Celestia raises is actually a very large asteroid, old too. The moon is similar, but a different composition. Something is making each glow in different ways, and I am still unsure how they are actually moving such large objects." Kiera's sigh was heartfelt. "And I know you are going to tell me it is magic."
"It is." Belay grinned to Dust, and got a wide grin back. "This radiation, could that be magic itself?"
"That is a concept I have already started to investigate, and the moment Princess Twilight Sparkle is done with your little fix, I will be begging her assistance in working out a way to measure it. This could be the find of the millennium." Kiera giggled into her empty main cabin, and had to shut down her engines and slow the ventilation system—sometimes her systems followed her moods, and she was really excited.
"There are other princesses remember. Maybe you could ask one of them?" Dustin felt her spirits buoyed up by the excitement Kiera was expressing. "Princess Luna seemed quite interested in space, we could ask her to visit if you like?"
"I am sure she is entirely too busy…" Kiera trailed off a little, a habit she only showed when nervous. "Do you think she might?"
~~~~~+++++~~~~~
Dust and Belay had secured the meeting with Princess Luna, and had run through Kiera's request in short order. It was fortunate that one of Kiera's basic AI systems could handle translation, because the shellperson herself was busy preparing the notes she had built up, and translating them to Equish.
"Would we like to come and talk with Kiera more?" Princess Luna had risen early in the afternoon, and was extremely glad she had. "Nothing would please us more." Memories of starfields flashed back in her mind.
Dustin's mood was riding on an air of smugness like a hovercraft, but she remembered the etiquette, even if Princess Celestia had said to dispense with it. Bowing, she stole a glance at Belay. "Kiera will have things ready for your visit at your leisure, Your Highness."
Luna still enjoyed "the royal treatment" from her ponies, even if her sister had been trying for a long time to reduce it. "That is much agreeable to us. If you will please take your leave, we will be with her shortly." Butterflies danced in Luna's belly while she spread her wings and walked to the balcony window of the room.
"You heard what Princess Luna said?" Belay reached up and tapped her mastoid (where her implant was situated. "You were quiet…"
"She is busy. If it was anything but spacial anomalies she would be making all kinds of comments. But you know how she gets when there is a puzzle box in the dark." Dustin watched Princess Luna demonstrate that her wings made her perfectly capable of flight. "Uh… so what do we do now?"
"We talk." Belay found a small pile of cushions in the room, and arranged them into a comfortable nest. "So talk, what has you so messed up over this?"
"About Twilight Velvet?" Dust didn't really have to ask, but thought it better to clarify. Belay nodded to her. "Well…"