At what point does a relationship go from being friends to lovers?
Rainbow Dash pondered this question silently. The idea of it pestered her, keeping her up. She was relaxed, and certainly in a good mood, but the words in her head seemed to prevent the curtains of sleep from fully closing.
The problem, she figured, was just how much friends already love each other. She had learned that first hoof of course, along with all her closest friends over the last few years. Friendship was its own form of love, its own expression on the concept. To call somepony a friend was to love them.
But then where did the line exist between friend and lover? Hooves held? Secrets shared? Embraces that were longer and tighter than you expected?
Her brows furrowed over closed eyes. That wasn’t right. She had done all of that with the others, and nothing felt like this.
Was it intimacy, that most personal way to truly know another pony? The act of sharing not only the entirety of your body but of your soul, laying bare all there could be of who you are?
She gently shook her head, smooshing her cheek into the cloud pillow. That wasn’t right either. You had to get there first.
Rainbow Dash opened her eyes and focused in the dark room on the orange muzzle resting so close to hers, almost touching, every breath from it tickling her chin ever-so-slightly.
Was it a kiss?
That certainly seemed like it could be the right answer. There were other plausible solutions that came to mind. Answers like how nervous she felt when she asked if Applejack wanted to spend time together, and how her heart soared along next to her in the sky when the mare said yes. Maybe it was those intense emotions that came for some and not others; but again, it didn’t seem right. Some ponies might be closer to her, sure, but they were still just friends.
Just friends, she thought. She breathed in deep, catching a scent normally unfamiliar to her room, and closed her eyes while she relished in the hint of earth that gave body to the normally damp cloud room.
Just friends, she thought again, emphasising the word even more.
Was it when you place one particular pony on a higher tier than all the rest? But even that wasn’t exactly the answer she had been looking for. Like intimacy, this one felt like it lay on the other side of the line she sought to define. For her to consider any pony to be worth more than others, she must already consider them to be more special.
Her philosophising was interrupted by a grunt from Applejack, and Rainbow Dash opened her eyes again to watch the earth pony shift gently on the bed. Applejack inhaled deeply, and then stretched a forehoof out with a concurrent yawn. The leg dropped gently until it found itself on Rainbow Dash’s withers, and then settled in there, her hoof nestling somewhere between the top of Dash’s wing and her back. There was a single snore, and then Applejack was silent again, save for that rhythmic breathing that still tickled the pegasus’s chin.
Maybe it was the lengths to which a pony would go for another, Rainbow Dash considered, glancing at the cloud the two were both suspended on. Applejack had suggested—after agreeing to go out with Rainbow Dash—that they spend some time together at Dash’s house. Rainbow had questioned this, wondering how they would even accomplish it; but Applejack insisted, and true to her word she had shown up earlier in the afternoon, freshly enchanted with a cloudwalk spell that Twilight had assured her would last a full twenty-four hours.
Dash’s eyes glistened at this memory. It wasn’t so much that Applejack was willing to go to an extra step to spend some quality time with her, but that she had let Twilight cast a spell on her in the first place. Applejack normally despised magic being cast on herself, but clearly, Rainbow Dash had been more important this time.
Rainbow Dash thought back to kissing, and back to the kiss. She blushed, moved her head forward just the slightest bit, and gently nuzzled her nose against Applejack’s. Applejack smiled in her sleep, and Dash’s blush roared alive, making her cheeks feel uncomfortably hot. She closed her eyes, calling to mind everything she could remember about the hour before.
They had been up here, in Dash’s room, chatting about life and their adventures. Sharing stories, making fun of each other, hyping each other up, volleying between playful insults and timid flirtations, doing really nothing at all but feeling as if it was the most important thing they had ever done. With each new line of conversation they would get more excited, involved, and closer.
Physically closer.
Nose to nose.
Lips to lips—
Applejack’s foreleg squeezed Rainbow’s back, and Dash slowly brought her own hoof up around Applejack’s shoulders and hugged back, settling the mare.
Where was she?
Right. The kiss.
As far as Rainbow Dash knew, Applejack had never kissed anypony before. If she did, she certainly never told; but that didn’t seem to matter, anyways. Rainbow Dash didn’t have much experience with them either, but it didn’t stop the two of them. Who had moved their mouth forward first? Was it her? It was fast, that’s for sure—the start, at least. Not the rest of it.
Hooves found comfortable places on each other’s body to squeeze and caress, tails flicked and flipped in passion, and heads moved back and forth in turn, sharing the lead on the display of love, but their muzzles did not part.
Rainbow Dash thought of the feeling of Applejack’s tongue inside her mouth, hesitant, inquisitive, as if it were walking through an open door and unsure if it was allowed. Yes, Rainbow Dash had answered with her own, bringing hers forward to invite Applejack’s in fully.
It was not enough to say that Applejack had tasted like apples. Of course she tasted like apples; she lived and breathed and ate them daily. But there was more, more than Rainbow Dash had initially expected; the buttery hint of pie pastry, the spice of cinnamon and cloves, the sweet lingering sharpness of molasses. It was like kissing a bakery, like kissing the memory of home on Hearth’s Warming Eve, like kissing the embodiment of comfort itself.
It didn't take long for them to forget their hesitance. Soon the two were rolling about on the bed, lost entirely in the muzzle of the other. No longer bound by doubt, Applejack’s inherent strength had unlocked and she made out with Rainbow Dash with an intense passion that still made Dash’s feathers tingle. How long they both must have wanted to kiss!
Rainbow Dash had never thought of it until now, laying in the dark next to her friend, her lover. She had wanted to kiss Applejack for some time now, but once their lips met she realized it must have been far, far longer than when her stomach started to flip when Applejack brushed against her; and far, far before the blushes forced their way onto her cheek when she heard new countryisms from the earth pony.
Perhaps the kiss was not so much a line, differentiating friends from lovers. It was the mark of an evolution, a slow and progressive thing, an undefined gradient between those you loved and those you loved.
Rainbow Dash felt something wet against her nose, and she realized her eyes had been open but she was seeing nothing, lost a thousand yards away, her vision taken up by memories instead of the present. She blinked, and found the most gorgeous green irises before her, shining in the dark like emeralds in a mine.
Applejack chuckled quietly, and her hoof moved from Dash’s back to her mane, stroking it.
“Somethin’ on your mind, sugarcube?”
Sugarcube. Such a common thing for Applejack to say, but now, somehow, so much more important than any word Rainbow Dash had ever heard. Rainbow smiled wide, cherishing the term, wearing it proud.
There was something on her mind, of course. How could she phrase it? She started to open her mouth, but paused. Was the middle of the night the best time to put forward the problem of how to define who or what they were? As Applejack brought her hoof down Rainbow Dash’s mane again, it suddenly felt like such a ridiculously insignificant question to even be thinking about. But Dash didn’t want to lie; how could she, to Applejack especially?
“Hmm?” Applejack pressed, adding a quick nuzzle.
The answer came to Rainbow Dash as Applejack’s nose touched hers. It was simple, really. It wasn’t the twisting of a stomach, or the extra lengths one would go to. It wasn’t the treatment of one pony as better than others. It wasn’t even the kiss.
It was a truth. It was a statement, a declaration, the only thing that could truly separate friends from lovers.
Rainbow Dash leaned her head forward, turning the nuzzle into a kiss. She didn’t focus too hard on this one, nor did she let it carry on as long as she could for fear it would never happen again. There would be more after this, and she was sure of it. After a moment, they broke, and Rainbow Dash hugged Applejack as hard as she could manage, and then finally gave her answer.
“I love you, Applejack.”