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// #31 - In awe, the first you realised it 
// Story: Ways to Say "I Love You" 
// by Frost Flower 
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Until that day, Twilight, I can’t recall you ever looking at me quite like that. 

There we sat, you wide-awake, me half-asleep, both of us staring at these complex papers you’d decided to throw all over my kitchen table at stars-knows-what-hour in the morning. Some research for a paper you were supposed to submit in a few weeks, which I’d been reading up on as a way to support you in your endeavors.  

Where was I?

Ah yes. 

So there you were, my darling dearest, staring at me like a deer in the headlights. 

“What did you say?” 

I covered half of a yawn with my hoof. “Mmmm? Said about what, dear?”

“The thing you just said,” you said, slowly. “Right now. Say it again? Please.”

“The thing I—? About your research? Oh.” At your urgent nod, I wiped my eyes and repeated myself. “Have you considered transforming the data into a different domain? Perhaps Lap Lace's or Four Ear's, if you want to extract a recurring pattern, or simply a change in basis if you suspect the phenomenon is more linear to your original view. In science, as in art, a change of perspective is often what you need to push past a block."

A moment passed, and to my alarm, you leaned back, utterly stunned. Staggered even!  

“Darling? What’s wrong?” I asked, expecting you to correct me, or that I had said something incorrect, or gotten the terms wrong even though I was certain I hadn’t. I expected you to say many things, my dear, but not what you actually said a few moments later. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, no!” you said quickly. “That was… No, that was great. I hadn’t thought of that, actually, I… It’s just…” You cut yourself off, grappling with some unspoken thing. “I just… Um…”

“You just what?”  

You looked at me, and my star, you blushed Twilight and said with awe, 

 “I… I love you.”

And now this! This woke me up. 

Woke me up not just because you loving me had absolutely nothing to do with anything of what I’d said, but because that was the first time in the entirety of our romantic relationship that those three words had been uttered in that way. 

“...You… You love me?” I asked, and please, dearest, trust me when I say I was thrilled, but I was also… severely confused?

You nodded, as shocked as I was. 

“I… see,” I said, and I thought about it more, and then I understood and I laughed. Couldn’t stop myself from giggling, and when you looked to me for an answer, I leaned in, delighted. “Darling, dearest, beloved, sweetheart, Twilight Sparkle. Do you mean to tell me that me understanding and communicating in your delightful scientific jargon is what pushed you to realize you loved me?”

And how red you got! Redder than one of Applejack’s apples as you buried your face in your hooves, and my darling dearest, I was in love. 

“Why, Twilight,” I said, completely enraptured, “I love you too.”