Twilight Sparkle snuggles up next to Doug, the two reclining against one of the walls on the upstairs of the Golden Oaks Library. ‘Spooning’, Applejack called it, one of the farmpony’s favorite positions, and she is quickly coming to realize why. Her back seems perfectly proportioned to nestle against his chest, his arms wrapping around her and holding her like a tightly bound book.
Both, in fact, have a book opened in front of them, courtesy of Doug’s two hands, allowing Twilight’s horn to remain unlit. The soft light of the candles and fireflies provides all the illumination they need in the quiet night. Whenever she finishes a page on her book she nudges Doug just slightly, and he is fast catching on to how rapidly she reads through the textbook on elementary thaumatics. Every time Doug finishes a page on his book, the latest Daring Do escapade, The Curse of the Jungle Queen, he scratches Twilight’s belly with the binding, propping it up just slightly in order to turn the page more easily.
And every time Twilight giggles a little louder, her eyes darting over to read the newly exposed pages. Her momentary discomfort at the exposed position was quickly mollified by the fact that they are alone in the library - Spike sleeping over at Rarity’s - and that they would be going far further than just ogling each other. That and every time his fingers caress her she can’t help but let loose the basest of moans. A real distraction, especially when she’s reading!
But it’s keeping him interested, and he seems perfectly happy letting her dictate the pace. They seem to be at a pretty good stopping point in the book as well, Daring Do just about to escape the temple with one of the lost rings of Scorchero. And this is, to her near perfect recollection, the only time Daring Do has actually kept her wings intact the entirety of an adventure, so you know something bad is going to happen to them. Especially with a quarter of the book left, Dr. Caballeron hot on her hooves, and still no sight of the aforementioned Jungle Queen aside from a few ambiguous hints in the temple.
“Well,” Twilight says with a content smile on her face as Doug finishes the chapter, “I’d say today turned out just fine, wouldn’t you?” She wriggles her head back and forth, rubbing her horn along his shoulder and neck.
“You call this just fine?” Doug replies with a touch of incredulity, his hands nearly letting the books fall and lose their place. It feels like he slumps behind her, a heavy sigh conveying just how disappointed he is in her. Or, hopefully, just her choice of words.
“I’m sorry,” Twilight says apologetically, carefully twisting her head to stare back at Doug. “I didn’t mean to imply that this was just fine, like it isn’t anything special, because it is, I just thought that with how I started my day, which is to say by saying that I knew today was going to be just fine, that I would cap that off by concluding the day by saying the day was just fine.” Her head meekly bows down just a little.
Twilight gasps as he actually does shut both of the books, hoping that he at least remembers where they are. His hands come up to her withers, pushing on one side and pulling on the other. She reluctantly twists the rest of her body, her hind legs awkwardly splaying behind her while her forehooves rest just inside his arms against his chest.
“Twilight,” Doug says firmly, one hand coming up to stroke her chin as he stares into her eyes, “I think the first thing you’ll need to do when you’re with me is lighten up a little.” He smiles, pulling her slightly confused head towards his own, a light kiss directly on her lips that lingers for a few seconds.
It isn’t their first kiss, by any means; they had snuck in a few after the Iron Pony competition, and then quite the number before and after they ate dinner with the entire herd at the Apple farmhouse. But it is the first one longer than a quick peck to the side of the face now that they are settled in the upstairs room of the library.
Twilight reluctantly kisses back, trying to place the twinkling in his eyes. “Are you sure? Because I really didn’t mean any offense, I was just trying to make a joke, and I realize now that you didn’t really know the backstory of why it would be funny. That you weren’t-” Twilight raises her hooves to make air quotes as Doug raises a finger to her mouth but holds back on actually silencing her “-‘in on it’, as the foals say. If you know what I mean.” Twilight gulps, “But not that, you know, you know what I mean mean.”
Doug’s pleasant smile fails to fade as both hands go to the sides of Twilight’s head, rubbing back and forth and getting her to nod. “Yes, Twilight, I get what you’re saying. You don’t need to apologize, not for that.”
“Oh.” Twilight stares at Doug for a few seconds before her smile returns, “It was a joke!”
“Yes!” Doug says, grinning as he nods once. “You’ll find that happens a lot with me. Especially when it’s just you and me, or any of the mares in the herd.”
“Right. How does that work?” Twilight raises an eyebrow, “I can’t imagine Applejack likes it when you foal around like that.”
“Yeah, before it was fine, she got to know when I was joking and not, but now that she’s the Element of Honesty she just, kinda, knows. There isn’t as much of the, hmm, camaraderie, that sense of knowing the other person well enough to know what they’re thinking, what they really mean when it isn't what they say.”
“Kind of like an in-joke! Like when I say that everything is going to be just fine!” Twilight grins, planting a kiss on Doug’s chest before she spins back around, again spooning in his lap. “I know that big things are going to happen, and it might seem bleak, but everything is going to work out in the end, even if things are different! Especially if things are different!”
“Exactly!” Doug smiles as he picks the two books back up, turning to the pages they were at before. “Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get to the part with the waterfall.”
Twilight’s face scrunches up in confusion, “Waterfall? What waterfall? Why do you think there is a waterfall?” She grabs at the Daring Do book; did she miss something, a piece of foreshadowing? She doesn’t remember anything, but she needs to reread it, just to be sure. “You didn’t read ahead on me, did you?”
“No, I was there." Doug huffs as Twilight snorts, her disbelief plain. "Well, um, how about this,” Doug stammers, flipping to the cover. “There!” He points at the picture, a tiny depiction of a waterfall out in the middle of the background jungle. He sighs at how pathetically benign the cascading water looks, saying, “Trust me, it's a lot scarier in person.”
Twilight snorts, pointing a hoof, “Really? You expect me to believe that you’ve been there?” Her sides ache as she tries to contain her laughter, “Next you’ll tell me that you went down that waterfall with Daring Do!” Twilight rolls her eyes, “You realize these are a work of fiction, right?”
Doug merely shrugs, “Sure, sure. And when a zebra shows up as the Jungle Queen, then what?”
“Then it sounds like you read ahead, and are trying to get me with another joke. Or you looked at the cover picture, and recognized that the hooded Jungle Queen looks sort of like a zebra shrouded in shadows.” Twilight nods knowingly, “A valiant effort, certainly. But I’m not falling for it this time.”
“Suit yourself,” Doug says, perhaps a bit more bluntly than she likes. The books come back up, though there is none of the pressure squeezing her sides. Her brow furrows; did she do something wrong, calling him out on one of his jokes, and he’s disappointed that she got it right?
Twilight groans, “This is like the no magic thing, isn’t it? That I should just trust you implicitly, even when you might be joking? Even when it seems like you really are joking?”
Doug sighs, the books coming down again. “I guess I didn’t think I was joking there, or gave any indication that I was joking. So it came off as odd that you took the statement as a joke.”
“Right. I guess I haven’t picked up on all your little quirks yet.” Twilight turns around to kiss him, happy the simple action gets his arms to squeeze her sides again. She turns back around, contentedly spooning in his lap again, “We just need more practice!”
“Heh, I like that a lot more than never joking around with you.” Doug leaves the textbook on the floor as he brings Daring Do back up, but neither seem terribly interested in the pages as his hand comes to scratch her head. “What sort of questions are on your mind?”
Twilight says, “So, I’ll assume for now, no evidence to the contrary besides the inherent absurdity, that you’ve been adventuring in the Everfree Forest.” Twilight gives the slightest frown as Doug tenses underneath her; had he really been through that? Maybe her prior assumptions needed updating. “What sort of adventures are you looking to have with me?”
“Well, I could always join you the next time you go ward off a dragon.” Doug puffs his chest out, one arm miming holding a shield out in front of the two of them as the other wields Daring Do as a sword, slicing back and forth.
“Ah, the Rainbow Dash method of getting everypony burned to a crisp. Classic.” Twilight smirks at Doug’s pout, “Maybe you should leave the dragon relocating to the professionals.”
“Okay, okay,” Doug grins, “I’ll leave that to those with years of experience kowtowing to their every whim.” He bows his head slightly, his hand waving out in front of him as Twilight rolls her eyes. “I guess I’m looking for the same sort of things with you that I have with Applejack and the rest of the herd. Quiet, pleasant nights like this, just relaxing with a good book and better company.”
“Better company than Daring Do books? You set a high bar,” Twilight dips her head down, getting one of his hands to return to her mane. “And you think I qualify for this, hmm?”
“I’d say so,” Doug says, a bit of huskiness in his voice.
“Mmm,” Twilight says, pushing her head into his fingers, twisting so he’s just behind her ears, nudging into the base of her horn. She thinks back to Spike when he first learned of her plan, and how unhappy she was that Trixie could answer the question but she couldn’t. “So, how many foals do you want?”
“One more than however many we have,” comes the glib response, Twilight’s eyes scrunching at the impossibility.
“So, I know you’re joking, because you’d either never be satisfied, and you don’t strike me like that kind of pony,” Twilight smirks at Doug’s nod, continuing, “Or, you’d want to keep having foals until we can’t, which is a lot of foals. And I don’t know if I want that many foals.”
“Got it,” Doug says, rewarding his mare with a hearty ear scratch. “I’m happy with however many foals you want, whenever you would like to start, but I would aim towards two or three instead of the more common single filly.”
“Three foals?” Twilight says, shaking her head a little at the profligacy. “That’s a lot. Way more than the one point three five foals per mare that’s been the country average for a long time. Where would they all go? What would they all do?”
Doug waves his arm towards the window, the rolling hills leading to the Unicorn Range, “Well, there’s lots of undeveloped land. So, found more towns like Ponyville, maybe even ones that grow to cities like Baltimare. The sky’s the limit, and in more ways than one.” The arm returns, resting lower on Twilight’s belly than before.
Twilight smiles at the vision her mind evokes, so she spins around and pushes Doug to the floor, again snuggling into his chest. She lightly kisses him, asking, “Could you see yourself moving out there, into the unknown frontier? Starting a new life away from all those that you knew growing up?”
“Hmm,” Doug says, considering his options for a few seconds as Twilight begins lightly pressing her barrel against him, slowly and rhythmically sliding up and down. “Well, Applejack probably wouldn’t want to move. But maybe; I mean, her grandparents and great grandparents uprooted themselves to come to Ponyville, so maybe she would. I don’t know that I would want to go through that sort of upheaval again, but I probably would.” He rubs into her back, a sly wink, “Especially with you all there. Besides, I think we both have a little experience with leaving everypony we know and going somewhere new.”
Twilight smirks back, “Well, with the good friends we have by our side, I’m sure we could get through it without any trouble at all. I would even go so far to say that everything would be just fine.” She glances towards the bed, grinning a little to herself, “And, speaking of upheaval, I think the sheets could look a little more like the hills outside, don’t you think?”