“No freaking way,” Rainbow said, hiding her giggles behind a hoof.
“Yes, freaking way.” Twilight sighed and shook her head. “I told him it was a bad idea to try and bench that much. Thank the stars I was ready to catch it with magic, if I was only spotting him with hooves …”
“If you were spotting him with hooves, we’d have to change his name to Broke Biceps.” Rainbow’s giggles got the better of her and she flopped down on her lightning bolt bedspread. “Oh man, I can just see the face he made.” She sat up to look at Twilight, flattened her ears, and put on a sheepish, guilt-filled smile. She even managed to force dots of pink into her cheeks.
Twilight snorted and covered her face. “Yes, that’s exactly it, yeah. Honestly, isn’t he big enough already?” She sat down on the edge of Rainbow’s bed, which sunk down like cotton candy, then sprung back into shape. “Oh, wow.”
“What?”
She lay down across the cloud mattress, which bounced her back up. It had a lot of give to it, molding around her body, but supported her weight with a perfect evenness. “Ohhh …”
“I told you my bed was better.”
“You win. This is amazing.” Her muscles all burned as she moved them, a feeling which she had gotten used to from hitting the gym, but that she hadn’t quite grown to like the same way Rainbow and the other regulars did. The perfect cloud cushioning relieved every little bit of stress in her body. “Can I replace my mattress with one of these? Do they break up if you get them too close to the ground?”
Rainbow sighed wistfully. “Yeah, they do.”
“Mmm, drat. Maybe I can enchant my bed frame somehow.” She rolled over onto her back, ending up with her head resting on Rainbow’s stomach. Her bed might not have been as comfortable, but it was larger. “This was a cruel trick, Rainbow, I’m never going to be able to enjoy my bed the same way again.”
Rainbow patted her head condescendingly, then stroked her mane. “I’m sure you’ll live through it. Or we could just sleep here all the time. I dunno why it took us this long to come up here instead.”
Twilight frowned to herself. “I don’t know why, either,” she said, though she knew that wasn’t true. They hadn’t switched to Rainbow’s house because they’d been operating under the assumption that her nightmares would be a short-term problem. She shuffled her hooves together. “I suppose if I was already taking advantage of your kindness to spend the night with me, I wasn’t exactly pushing to take more advantage of your space.”
“Oh, psh.” Rainbow wriggled to work the blanket out from under them and Twilight sat up. “C’mon, I bet you’re all beat up from the gym and ready to crash.”
“It’s getting easier.” Twilight rubbed her neck, which twinged in anger at her. “I haven’t really noticed any changes from it yet, but it doesn’t hurt as much anymore.”
“Well, you maybe don’t notice, but it’s totally there.” Rainbow slipped under the blanket and poked Twilight in the shoulder. “I could bounce a bit off those delts.”
Twilight giggled and rolled her eyes, then slid into place next to Rainbow. Under the blanket, the mattress felt even better, and she sighed in happiness as she snuggled into Rainbow. “I love your bed.”
“Careful, you’re making my bed blush.” Rainbow settled in and hugged Twilight closer. “Sorry I missed the gym today.”
“Oh, it’s fine.” She reached out with her magic and clicked off the light, sending the room into darkness. “It’s not like you could skip academy training to go. It’ll happen sometimes.”
“Yeah, but …” Rainbow paused for a moment, the shrugged. “I dunno. It just feels like it’s our thing. It’s cool you went without me, I was half thinking you’d ditch it.”
“I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t think about it.” Twilight grinned. “But I knew if I did, next time we went I’d be too sore to move afterwards.”
“See, I knew you’d start liking it.”
“Liking it and tolerating it while getting something tangible in return for my trouble are very different things.” She prodded Rainbow’s stomach, then hugged her again. “Now shut up and go to sleep, you’re probably tired, too.”
Rainbow chuckled and stretched out in Twilight’s embrace. “Yeah, yeah. G’night.”
“Good night.”
Twilight opened her eyes. Sunlight filtered in through the window at a strange angle thanks to how high up in the air they were, casting light beams across the ceiling. Rainbow lay in front of her and rumbled a steady stream of snores. Twilight’s lip trembled and she closed her eyes, feeling tears run down her face and into the pillow.
The snores hitched and Rainbow muttered something, then Twilight felt strength come into the embrace. “Mm, Twi, you okay?”
“It’s the first,” she forced out through her sniffles. “The first time I slept through the night since …” She pulled a hoof away and wiped her face, then beamed at Rainbow. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Rainbow grinned brightly and hugged her close. “Oh, awesome! That’s great!”
Twilight nodded and hugged Rainbow back. “Is … do you think it’s over?”
“Uh …” Rainbow leaned back with a grimace on her face, then slowly sat up. “Maybe? You, uh … might still get ‘em for a while, just not every night.” She looked away. “Trust me.”
Twilight wiped her eyes again and nodded, dragging herself up to sitting. “Still, I haven’t made it all the way to morning for …” She let out a breath and shook her head. “It’s at least almost over, thank Celestia.”
Rainbow nodded and wrapped a hoof around her shoulders. “This is totally great!” She lowered her voice and gilded her tone with a mocking edge of admonishment. “And before you even say anything, I’m not going anywhere until we know they’re gone for good. And you’re not asking, I’m telling. Got it?”
Twilight smiled and nuzzled into Rainbow’s neck. “Got it. I won’t dare to argue.”
“Damn straight. Now lemme go make some coffee.”
“Please tell me you have tea.”
Twilight frowned and crossed her legs over her chest. “Surely that’s against the rules.”
“For new sign-ups, maybe,” Rainbow groaned. She crossed Twilight’s bedroom with ginger hoofsteps. Her wings were half open and droopy, as if she didn’t want to close them all the way, which was probably true. Her mane looked frazzled and she had bags under her eyes. “I guess it’s something the ‘bolts do every year, or something.”
“What, try to kill themselves?”
Rainbow gave Twilight a pained smile and stepped over to the bed. “No pain, no gain, Twi.” She planted a hoof on the frame, just above one of the deep scorch-marks left by a backfired spell, and carefully hauled herself onto the mattress. “Ugh, I get why they call it Tartarus Week.”
Twilight’s look of outrage softened to concern, and she climbed in on her side, feeling the cloud mattress spring into shape under her weight. “Here, lie down.”
Rainbow blinked with dopey confusion and settled her head on her foreleg, still sprawled half on her side.
“No, Rainbow, on your stomach.” Twilight grabbed Rainbow’s shoulder and guided her down, then settled on Rainbow’s lower back. “Sit still, jeeze.”
“What’re y—ohhhh …” Rainbow’s face sunk into the pillow as Twilight pressed her hooves into the mass of sore, mistreated muscles that used to be shoulders. “Oh man, that’s amazing.”
“Let me know if I’m pressing too hard.” She slid up Rainbow’s neck and worked her way back down in little circles. “You’re going to be in a lot of pain tomorrow if I do this wrong.”
“Mmf, you’re perfect.”
Twilight smiled and rolled her eyes. “So other than your commanding officers trying to kill you, how’d training go?”
Rainbow lifted her head and repositioned herself on the pillow, so her mouth wasn’t blocked. “Good. There’s some new fish. This guy named Comet Tail looks pretty promising, but they’re all pretty rough, gonna take a while for everypony to figure everything out. Oh, yeah, right there, ah, Celestia …”
Twilight shifted and paid special attention to the knotted up ball under rainbow’s shoulder blade. “Well, you have a whole week to get them into shape.”
“If I live through Spitfire’s training, anyway.”
A pang of guilt made Twilight wince. “I imagine it would be easier on you if you were staying at the academy, instead of coming back every day. I’m still surprised they’re letting you do that.”
“They probably wouldn’t if I wasn’t a lead pony.” She let out a long sigh and straightened her wing out the whole way as Twilight worked her right side. “If I’d known how hard it’d be, I would’ve thought twice about not staying there.” Her eyes shot open, and she flinched. “Um, I mean—”
Twilight sighed and nodded. “No, I know, it’s okay. You staying with me was a lot to ask when you were here the whole time.”
“It’s cool, Twi, I swear. I don’t mind.” Twilight touched her wing and she flinched, sucking in a breath of air, then relaxed again. “Okay, I kinda mind, but this is still more important.”
Twilight used her magic to carefully straighten and preen Rainbow’s feathers as she massaged the muscles underneath. “I’m through arguing with you about whether or not you should be staying here, you always yell at me when I do.” Rainbow chuckled. “The dreams are less common now, though, so it’s okay if you want to go finish out the week on the academy grounds, I can manage until then regardless of how things go.”
“Yeah, I know you can,” Rainbow admitted grudgingly. “I’ll think about it tomorrow. I’m already here tonight, though.”
“That you are.” Twilight giggled and switched to Rainbow’s other wing. “I can tell by that tone that you’re probably gonna keep coming here regardless of what I say, so I’ll just promise you more massages like this if that’s what you decide.”
“See? Flying back’ll be totally worth it.”
A pleasant lull settled in as Twilight worked the kinks out of Rainbow’s wing and kneaded her back until she lay fully relaxed. Twilight clambered off and Rainbow rolled onto her side, the discomfort drained from her expression. “Feeling better?”
“So much.” Rainbow yawned and rubbed her face. “Ugh, this week’s gonna kill me. At least you got a good bed.”
Twilight chuckled and turned out the light before sliding into Rainbow’s hooves. “The old bed was good, too. This one’s just better.”
“Mm-hmm,” Rainbow muttered, resting her chin in Twilight’s mane. Her breaths evened out and turned to snores in a matter of seconds.
Twilight closed her eyes and snuggled in close to Rainbow’s chest. Another pang of guilt made her frown even as she enjoyed the sense of familiarity and comfort she always felt from Rainbow’s presence. While she had gotten good at dealing with the worries that she was taking advantage of Rainbow’s generosity, she wasn’t used to feeling like she was being a true burden. The Wonderbolt Academy wasn’t that far away from Ponyville, but it was certainly much further than Rainbow’s house, and leaving academy grounds at all was a stretching of the rules. The situation had progressed beyond generosity into Rainbow bending over backwards for her benefit. She didn’t like feeling like somepony’s burden to bear, regardless of whether they took it in stride, and she especially didn’t want to be Rainbow’s burden. Rainbow had enough on her plate already.
She sighed and hugged Rainbow’s sleeping body with gratitude, then tried to clear the jumble of thoughts from her mind, waiting for sleep.
“It appears we are at an impasse. How about a trade, Princess Twilight? Their release for all the Alicorn magic in Equestria. What’s it going to be, Princess?”
Twilight flexed her jaw as she looked around at the floating bubbles filled with her friends. She had so much power coursing through her body, but in the end it didn’t matter. Rainbow Dash hammered on her prison and yelled out, “Don’t do it, Twilight!” but she knew the answer deep down, before anypony had the chance to object.
“We aren’t worth it!” Fluttershy insisted. Twilight’s mouth set more firmly. Of course they were worth it. Nopony in Equestria could convince her they weren’t.
Discord slumped in his bubble. “Oh, but you are, Fluttershy. You're the pony that taught me that friendship is magic. I had magic and friendship, and now I don't have either.”
“Enough!” Tirek roared, “I want an answer, and I want it now!”
Twilight grimaced and turned her eyes from one pony to the next. There wasn’t anything to debate. The answer was inevitable. “I will give you my magic in exchange for my friends.”
“As you wish.”
He snapped his fingers and five ponies, the best friends in Equestria, settled on the ground. She glared back up defiantly. “All of my friends.”
Tirek grinned and leered at Discord. “After the way he has betrayed you, you still call him a friend?”
“Release him!”
“If that's what you want.”
Discord landed next to them, subdued and defeated. “Thank you, Twilight.” He turned to Fluttershy and whispered, “I'm sorry.”
“I know.”
Tirek looked at Twilight. “Your turn.”
The winds ripped at her magic, grabbed her very essence, and pulled. She gritted her teeth, screwed her eyes shut, and trembled against the force. She hadn’t held all that magic for very long, but she’d had enough time to really feel it, understand it. Celestia’s magic was the first that pulled free. It felt powerful and wild, as if filled with limitless potential. As soon as she’d held it, she understood how easy it was for Celestia to lift the sun every day. The sun and Celestia’s magic were both born from the same source. Using one to lift the other carried no effort at all. It tore away, leaving Twilight feeling cold.
Rather than wild and bouncy, Luna’s magic was ordered and calm. If Celestia’s was a summer fire, all strength and energy, Luna’s was an underground lake, vast, deep, obstinate. Luna’s magic wasn’t a twin of the moon, but they both understood each other’s logic and austerity, as if the moon only permitted Luna to move it thanks to carefully applied physics and geometry. As much as Twilight appreciated how easy it was for Celestia to move the sun, she couldn’t imagine the strain of moving the moon with that magic for a thousand years. Twilight felt an innate affinity for Luna’s magic, which clung to her more tightly before being shredded away, leaving the world feeling like it made a little less sense than it did before.
Cadence’s magic bonded so tightly, Twilight didn’t know where it ended and her own began. She hadn’t fully comprehended love’s domain in comparison to friendship before, thinking of it as something further along and more extreme than what friendship could be. She’d discovered that she was wrong. Friendship began and ended inside of love. Love flowed out far and wide, encompassing everypony, every creature in Equestria and beyond in a firm, benevolent glow that didn’t need bonds or even awareness to shine. Everypony everywhere earned love without condition, and that love could only grow in the presence of bonds. Twilight’s magic was built upon those bonds. Love also extended beyond friendship, growing to something newer and brighter, something that had the power to expel all the changelings out of Canterlot, once those bonds became unbreakable. Cadence’s magic was her magic, and her magic was Cadence’s, not twins, not separate entities that understood each other, they were simply the same thing looked at through different eyes. They both ripped away from her together, too enmeshed to ever be separated.
Twilight fell to the ground on shaky legs.
“Yes!” roared Tirek, growing larger, stronger, turning into something they couldn’t hope to face. “I am now complete.”
A bubble of magic formed over them, knocking them all to the grass.
“I suppose I could let you go,” Tirek mused. “A deal is a deal, after all. And you hardly pose a threat to me anymore. There’s no reason for me to not let you go.”
The force increased, and Twilight felt herself crushing against the earth. She couldn’t open her eyelids from the weight, couldn’t get breath in her lungs. Somewhere around her she could hear strangled screaming.
“But then again, I don’t suppose I need a reason to have fun.”
Twilight could hear her own bones breaking.
Twilight took in a breath and sat up in the darkness of her room. She blinked a few times in confusion, then knit her brow and rubbed her forehead. “Ugh,” she grumbled.
The images had been so fresh and terrible in her mind just a moment before. She could still feel her heartbeat in her ears from it. As she frowned and massaged at her headache, whatever it was that had hit her so hard turned confused and diffuse in her brain. She’d seen … something. Something bad. Discord had been there, she remembered that. And her friends. And … Tirek. She felt a few puzzle-pieces click in her head, and she turned to look at the rest of the bed.
Rainbow was there. She had rolled over in her sleep to face the wall and lay sprawled across the rest of the mattress with one hoof pinning the pillow to her face. That explained why she hadn’t woken up wrapped up in hooves at least. Rainbow snorted out a half snore, mumbled something, and buried her face in the pillow.
Twilight smiled and shook her head. She settled back down and snuggled into Rainbow’s back. She never had the chance to be the big spoon. Rainbow muttered something again and pressed into the embrace. It felt nice and natural, and plus, when they woke up in the morning and Rainbow discovered she was the little spoon, Rainbow would hate it. That made it even more worthwhile.
Twilight chuckled to herself, pulled the covers up around them both, and fell back asleep.
Rainbow stretched out her back against Twilight, then rolled over. Twilight grimaced in annoyance as she was dragged into wakefulness, then lifted her head for Rainbow’s foreleg, settling back down against Rainbow’s shoulder.
“Mmm,” Rainbow muttered.
Twilight slipped a hoof around Rainbow’s middle. “Do you need to get going?”
“Nah, I got a bit.”
“Mm, good.” She slid her hoof over Rainbow’s wing, which sprung open for her, and she stroked the feathers. She felt Rainbow’s foreleg curve around to cup her head and lightly touch the tip of her ear. She focused on keeping her ear still and not flicking at Rainbow’s hoof and giving Rainbow the satisfaction.
Rainbow yawned and stretched against her again. “’Nother good night, huh? That’s, like, four in a row now, right?”
Twilight opened her eyes and frowned. Her ear flicked at Rainbow’s hoof without her thinking about it. “Actually … I did have a dream.”
“Eh?” Rainbow moved away from tickling her and slid the hoof down her back. “Why didn’t you wake me up? Tartarus Week isn’t beating me up that bad.”
Her frown deepened as she tried to piece together the bits of her dream that were still left in her memory. What she remembered from the middle of the night had grown hazy, too. “I … didn’t wake you up, because I didn’t need to.” She lifted her head and looked Rainbow in the eye. “The dream woke me up, but I was more … annoyed by it than scared or upset. I just went back to sleep after.”
Rainbow raised her brows, then grinned. “Twi, that’s great!” She hugged Twilight close and nuzzled the top of her head. “What changed? What was the dream about?”
“I’m … not sure.” It felt like trying to hold onto sand when she thought about the dream, with confused images, sounds, and smells running over her hooves in a cascade. “It started the same, I think. And he had us. He was … crushing everypony.” She knit her brow. It hadn’t been as bad for a long while, but her Tirek dreams usually stayed so fresh in her mind and recounting them always upset her. She could still remember Tirek looming over them, pinning them to the ground with pure force, but it felt disconnected, unreal. “It just didn’t bother me that much. I think …” She pulled back from the hug to look at Rainbow again. “I think it’s over.”
Rainbow’s smile grew wider and she got pulled into an even stronger hug. “Oh man, this is awesome! I knew you’d get through it!”
Twilight giggled with relief and relaxed into the embrace. “I’m glad you knew, I was afraid I’d be stuck with it forever.”
“No way,” Rainbow said, relaxing back against the pillow. They settled into the positions they were in before, with Rainbow on her back and Twilight resting against her shoulder, though far more awake and bathed in a glow of happiness and relief.
As the glow settled in, Twilight felt her smile loosen. The relief was heartfelt, but there was something else buried underneath it, a sense of loss and emptiness that ate away at her mood. She suddenly felt less like she lay in pleasant silence and more like she was clinging to Rainbow for dear life. “… I don’t want to stop. Is that bad?”
“Huh?”
“I don’t …” She hugged Rainbow tighter. “I don’t want to let this go. I don’t want it to end.” She felt selfish and demanding, and embarrassment warmed up her cheeks, but she knew it was the truth, staring boldly and undeniably in her face. She felt Rainbow’s hoof on her chin, gently directing her up. She steeled herself to meet Rainbow’s gaze, not knowing whether to expect anger, annoyance, or pity, and not sure which would be worse.
Rainbow was smiling. “Me neither.” She leaned forward until their lips met.
Twilight closed her eyes and returned the kiss, and everything changed at once, yet everything stayed exactly the same. The empty pit in her stomach filled and her relief redoubled in force. It all felt natural, familiar, warm and comforting. Hooves around her back, the feel of Rainbow beneath her, the touch, the smell, it was all part of her life in such a fundamental, expected way. Nothing about that changed. Everything about it changed. It was the same thing as it always was, looked at with fresh eyes.
Rainbow pulled back and nuzzled Twilight’s cheek. Twilight returned the nuzzle. The same nuzzle as always, and yet not. “Yeah?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
She snuggled in, lying across Rainbow’s chest. “I didn’t know if it was just me.”
“Me too. It didn’t start out that way, it’s just, like, at some point it started making sense.” She stroked Twilight’s mane. “First I got used to you being there. Then I started expecting you to be there. Then I liked having you there. Then I wanted you there, and I wanted to be there with you. Know what I mean?”
“I do.”
“I wasn’t gonna say anything until …” She fidgeted. “I didn’t want it to be just me, and make stuff all weird while you still needed help, y’know?”
“Yeah. I was afraid to change anything, too. Part of me was afraid the dreams were never going to stop. I didn’t know what changing things would do.”
Rainbow chuckled and shook her head. “I knew for sure you’d make it, at least with, like, Tirek, though maybe not …” she trailed off, then fidgeted in discomfort.
“What?”
Rainbow grunted, then shrugged. “It didn’t happen, so it’s not jinxing anything, right? I’ve just … I remember you talking about worrying about the next pony, or monster or whatever who comes along and comes after us, y’know?”
Twilight nodded. “… I am still worried about that, I guess. There are a lot of things that the six of us can do together, and somepony wouldn’t need to think about it for that long to come to the conclusion that the best way to face us would be by getting rid of that together part. And they wouldn’t even need to try and kill any of us necessarily. We’re sort of talking about what Discord tried to do the first time. Somepony else could do that again and maybe try and make it like we were never friends in the first place.”
Rainbow’s hoof in her mane tightened for a moment, then she sighed. “Jeeze. That is scary to think about.”
“It won’t happen that way, though. They might try, but it won’t work. I know it won’t.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She kissed Rainbow’s neck. “Some bonds can’t be broken.” Rainbow relaxed and stroked her mane. Twilight chuckled suddenly. “I suppose this makes the rest of your week easier, huh, not needing to come back to Ponyville every night to help me.”
Rainbow laughed. “I dunno, might still be way too worth it, especially if those massages are still on the table.”
“Always.” Her smile widened. “So … see you again tonight?”
“You know it.”
Twilight settled further into the embrace, feeling warm, safe, and happy. The way she always felt with Rainbow. The same, but different. “Speaking of the academy, you probably need to get going soon, huh?”
“Nah, I still got a bit.”
“Mm, good.”
Twilight pressed into Rainbow’s neck and closed her eyes. Rainbow would need to leave eventually, but she had her for the moment, and in Rainbow’s hooves, she drifted back to sleep.