The look on your face was… unreadable. I couldn’t see much else beyond surprise in your eyes. Surprise, I expected, but this long, drawn out silence I wasn’t ready for. It’s killing me inside, slowly, like a poison being drip-fed into an IV. I could feel it pumping through my veins, a burning cold that numbed my hooves. Worries I’d worked so hard to suppress came roaring back ten times stronger, ten times louder - a cacophonous discordant symphony of fear and panic that made my nervousness from before seem almost cute.
You took a step back, away from me. And I knew.
“Twilight, I-”
“It’s okay,” I interjected suddenly. I knew, but I don’t think I’d have been able to keep it together if I actually heard the words from you. “I get it.”
Your eyes softened, and I had to look away before I saw the pity I knew was coming. “I-it’s not you, I just-”
“I know, it’s okay,” I said again, and the tremor in my voice betrayed the emptiness of my words. You reached out as though to touch me, comfort me, but I pulled back before you could. “Don’t,” I snapped reflexively, pinching my eyes shut to hide the tears threatening to reveal my lies. “I’ll be fine.”
Your hoof fell, slowly. “Twilight…” you trailed off, unsure what to say. I hated hearing my name fall from your lips. I found myself missing ‘Egghead’ or ‘Twi’ or any one of the nicknames you assigned to me.
My actual name was always reserved for serious things. And this wasn’t serious. I had just told you something. Something new. I had shared a fact with you, like I’d done countless times before. I always enjoyed sharing the things I learned with you, even if you didn’t always understand. You were always willing to listen. Just like you did when I told you that-
“Twilight please.” Your voice sounded so pleading. “Look at me.” How could I turn you down?
But how could I honour your request? I could feel myself breaking inside, felt the cracks spreading out. I could shatter at any moment, and I never wanted you to see me like that.
I gasped as I felt your hoof touch my cheek. Soft, and warm, and I leaned into it even as it guided my eyes back up to yours. Our gazes met, and I saw the sympathetic look you were giving me. You looked so sad for me, and I just couldn’t take it. The tears came then, unbidden, rolling down my cheeks. I felt bad for getting your hoof wet.
“Don’t cry, Twilight,” you said, sounding so pained to be responsible for my tears. “Please don’t cry. I’m sorry.”
Why did you apologize to me? You had to have known how much it would hurt. I wanted to pull away again, but your hoof felt so nice on my cheek. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I-I can’t stop. Just… just give me some time, I’ll be-”
“I’m only saying ‘no’ for now,” you said urgently, wiping away the tears and frowning as more came. “I’m just not ready right now, okay? It’s just for now.”
“For now?” I echoed, sniffling.
You nodded rapidly. “I’m about to go on a training thing with the ‘Bolts, remember?”
Of course I remembered, it’s the entire reason I told you now, before you left. It was eating me alive inside. I couldn’t hold it back knowing you would be away for so long.
“So, just for now, just give me until I get back, okay? We can talk about it then,” you said.
How cruel you were. It hurt so bad that I had to tell you before you left, and here you were, asking me to wait for a proper answer. The pain of not knowing twisted my guts inside, but I nodded. “Okay,” I said shakily.
You smiled at me, sadly, and let go of my cheeks. I immediately missed them. “I promise, I’ll give you a proper answer as soon as I get back.”
I couldn’t quite convince myself to smile for you. “I’ll wait for you.”
And I did. I waited. Patiently. So very, painfully, patiently. Twelve weeks you were gone. Time passed around me like molasses, slow and thick and clinging to my fur, trying to drag me away with the tide. You sent letters home at least once a week, often times more. But they were never for me. They were always for us. All of the girls. I don’t know what I expected, really. Of course you wouldn’t take extra time to write just to me - we weren’t together. Despite all my hopes, and my best effort, I spent those six weeks without you. Surrounded by friends, I’d never felt so alone.
We all wrote back to you together, as well. Each taking turns dictating a paragraph or two. Updating you on the town, how we were all doing, letting you know Scootaloo missed you. I was always the one given the responsibility of mailing it to you. I would stand there, looking over our letter, so tempted to add a little note of my own, for your eyes only. But I never did - I promised I would wait for you. I told myself, over and over, that you’d be home soon enough, and I just needed to be patient.
Summer turned to fall while you were away. The leaves changed colours, and started to fall. There was a chill in the air, and I wondered how cold it was up in the clouds where you were. Pegasi were more naturally resistant to cold temperatures, so I had to imagine you were fine. But some nights, when Spike had gone to bed and I was sitting up alone to tend the fire, I liked to imagine you were just as cold as I was. In my mind’s eye we’d huddle together next to the fire, pressed close together to share in each other’s warmth. Sometimes, when I would start to doze off, right at the border of sleep, I would feel your touch, so close to being real it would snap me back, and I would be awake again. Alone.
Truly, you had asked a very cruel thing of me.
It was a cold winter morning, the day you came back. I was the first at the train platform, bundled in a thick wool scarf that barely kept away the worst of the chill. My breath rose in ethereal whisps up into the steel blue-gray sky. Your train wasn’t due for almost an hour, but what if it had come early and I missed you? A risk I couldn’t take. I needed to see you. Talk to you.
Needed to finally hear your answer. The cold was meaningless in the face of that.
Twenty minutes later, I finally saw the smog of the train billowing up over the horizon. It looked to be right on schedule. Suddenly, all the nervousness and fear I’d felt that day came back to me. The unknown of your answer hung thickly over me like the train’s smokey plume, slowly coming closer. Unstoppably so. You would arrive, and I would get an answer, and that inevitability scared me.
I barely noticed as Applejack showed up next to me. She said something to me - I don’t remember what. I don’t even know if I answered her, I was so lost inside my own head.
The rest of our friends gathered quickly after that, and the platform was filled with an unmistakable thrum of anticipatory energy. Excited chattering filled the air, in which I didn’t take part. How could I? If I opened my mouth all my feelings would have come pouring out. Instead I swallowed them down, held them tight. I just needed to last a little longer, keep up the facade a little more.
With a malicious slowness the train pulled into the station. The breaks hissed as it came to a stop, and just like that…
Just like that, you stepped off the train, and were home. As though the past twelve weeks of torment hadn’t happened.
The girls buried you under a group hug. I couldn’t convince my hooves to move - I felt as though if I touched you you’d disappear, just like you did on those nights by the fire. You poked your head out of the pile of bodies, and looked at me, and our eyes met. I saw your happiness melt away in an instant, into apprehension, perhaps a small amount of sadness.
And I knew.
I stepped up to the pile of hugging friends, and I reached forward hesitantly. Felt my hoof touch your shoulder, and you didn’t disappear. Your eyes never left mine.
“Welcome home,” I said, and even I heard the pain in my voice as I gave you a pat on the shoulder, then pulled away.
“Twilight-”
I didn’t get to hear whatever you were about to say, as I teleported myself home before you could finish. You’d already seen me cry once - I didn’t want you to see it again.
How cruel you were, asking me to wait so long only to crush my heart anyway.
I should have known. If you’d really felt the same, you wouldn’t have made me wait in the first place.
I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. You needed time to think, and didn’t want to rush an answer right before such an important time for you. In truth, I was the cruel one, to ask you so abruptly and to expect an answer immediately. I was the one that stoked my own hopes over the long weeks spent without you. I told myself I didn’t know what your answer would be, and I allowed myself to pretend. Pretend that you’d say yes, that you’d ever love me back.
How foolish I was. I knew from the very first moment what you’d say.
Those thoughts didn’t stop the tears that soaked into my pillow. The old wound had its patchwork bandage ripped away, the tenderness once more exposed to the world. But that was a good thing - I knew for sure, now, and I could start to heal properly.
Then I heard the last sound I wanted to hear. A fast, urgent tapping on my bedroom window. I didn’t have to look - there was only ever one pony in Ponyville that would come to my window before my front door.
And so I didn’t look. I stayed in bed, face pressed into my pillow to hide my tears, and ignored you. Pretended I couldn’t hear, maybe. Pretended to be asleep. I should have known you’d follow me. Because you hated making me feel bad, and I hadn’t exactly hidden my emotions from you very well. I never had, truthfully. The only reason you didn’t know before I told you was because you were the most oblivious mare I’d ever met.
Eventually, the tapping stopped, and I thought maybe you’d gotten the message.
I should have known better.
A moment later the cold wind of winter blew across me as you let yourself in through the balcony door I’d forgotten to lock in my rush to come greet you. I heard it click shut a moment later, then your hooves on the floor, coming closer to my bed, but stopping a few paces away. As though wary of getting too close to me.
“Twilight,” you said, your voice soaked in pain and pity. “I’m sorry, Twilight.”
“Yeah,” I whispered into my bed, my voice hardly there at all. “I know.”
You stepped closer. “No, you don’t. I… I got promoted, Twilight. I’m not just a reserve anymore - I’m on the team.”
I turned my head, just barely enough to see you through one puffy, blurry eye. I opened my mouth, moved my lips as though to congratulate you, but no sound came out.
You scratched the back of your neck again, the way you always do when you’re uncomfortable. “Starting next year, I’ll be basically living at the base for a few months, then I’ll be out touring with the team. I don’t know how often I’ll be home yet, but…
“I don’t want to put you through that,” you said, as though it was your choice.
Who were you to decide that? Who were you to tell me that I couldn’t handle a few months without you in exchange for being allowed to love you. As though I wouldn’t be able to survive on just the knowledge that where you were, you loved me back.
I didn’t say any of that, though. I wish I had, maybe things would have been different. But I didn’t have the strength left to expose my heart to you again. Instead, I barely managed the strength to sit upright in bed, and look at you properly. I looked at you as though it would be the last time I saw you. In a way, it was. It would be the last time you were Rainbow Dash, the mare that might love me back. From now on, you would be Rainbow Dash, the mare I love unrequitedly.
I wonder, would it have been selfish of me to ask you for just one date? One chance to pretend, such that I would have a fond memory to always look back on? Maybe I could have convinced you to at least try. We wouldn’t be the first to maintain a relationship through letters and short, brief moments of togetherness. But maybe that is my cruelty talking. Because what you really meant, when you said that you didn’t want to put me through that, was that you didn’t want to go through that. You didn’t want to feel how I felt for those twelve weeks without you.
I always loved you despite your selfishness.
But I’d been looking at you too long, and you were becoming uncomfortable with the intensity of my gaze. I relented, looking away from you - not wanting to see the thing you’d become to me. “Congratulations,” I said, amazed I even managed to find my own voice. “Your dream is finally coming true.”
“Yeah, it is,” you said, and I didn’t hear a single trace of joy in it. “Twilight-”
“It’s okay,” I said, sharper than I’d meant to. “I’ll be okay. I just need some time.”
You hesitated, and chuckled, weakly. “I know you will be. You’re stronger than I am. And hey-” your voice brightened, suddenly, “Maybe, if you’re still available when I’m done touring, we could give it a shot. But you’ll probably find someone just as awesome as I am by then.”
There it was again. How you could be so horribly cruel to me with the purest intentions was a mystery. You should have known what saying that would do to me, even if you had meant it as a joke.
“Yeah,” was all I could say.
“So, listen, I um, I-I’m gonna go,” you said, as your patience for the seriousness of the atmosphere finally grew thin. To be honest, I was impressed you lasted that long. “I’m really sorry, Twilight. You’ll always be my best friend, okay?”
You had to know how much that statement hurt me, because you didn’t even stick around long enough to see it on my face. Didn’t stay long enough to shut the door behind you, letting in the cold. I shivered, the hairs of my coat standing on end.
The chill didn’t leave me even as I closed the balcony door.
I looked out and saw you on the horizon, flying away.
“I’ll wait for you,” I said, whispered, to myself. A private thought that I would never share with another. Because despite what you said, there would be room for no one but you in my heart, and I knew that.
It was a week before I saw you again. The girls dragged me out for a gettogether after realizing I’d been cooped up since you got back. I lied, and told them I’d been working on something. You knew the truth, of course, and I saw the regret in your eyes everytime you looked at me and my mask slipped. But my paper mache smile was convincing enough for everyone else.
Two weeks after that, I almost felt normal again. My smile came easier, my laugh more natural. I didn’t feel the need to avoid you as strongly as before, and you seemed relieved. Oh, my heart still burned for you. Smouldered in my chest like I’d been forced to swallow a hot coal. But I kept it wrapped up deep inside, because I was supposed to be moving on.
The new year came, and you departed again to begin training. Winter Wrap Up was difficult without you, but the weather team managed with the aid of my planning. The whole town felt your absence though. Pinkie pulled a few less pranks than normal, Fluttershy was a little jumpier than usual, and Applejack lost some of her competitive edge. Rarity seemed entirely unphased, but her next fashion line had a very distinct rainbow motif.
Your first official show was in Manehattan, and we weren’t able to attend. The news reports all said that ‘the newest Wonderbolt’ had done an outstanding job. We were all so proud of you. We celebrated for you all night at Sugarcube corner. Applejack made sure to pour out a cider for you. We promised ourselves that we’d go see you perform at the earliest possibility.
I just wanted to see you again.
We did manage to see you perform up in Canterlot. And you were nothing short of breathtaking. And I know it wasn’t just me that felt like that - all the girls were left speechless by the end of the show. We managed to meet you backstage - given special permission because of who we were. I feel bad throwing my name around like that, but I don’t think there was a force in Equestria that could have stopped me from seeing you again. If I had ever had any doubt about my feelings, they were laid to rest just as I laid my eyes on you. Disheveled, sweaty, and tired from your show, you took my breath away all over again. The flickering flame in my chest grew once more into a raging inferno - larger than before. It’s true what they say about distance making the heart grow fonder.
But, if nothing else, I am a patient mare. I would wait for you.
And so it went for four long years. You, on tour, us back in Ponyville. You made it home regularly, sometimes for a few months at a time between tours, sometimes just weeks between nearby shows. We’d go and see you everytime it was possible - I’d even go on my own if it was farther away and the rest of the girls couldn’t make it. Those shows stick out the most - it almost felt like you were performing just for me.
I’d meet you backstage, and my heart would thunder and ache in my chest, and I’d hide it all behind a well-practiced facade of unshakable iron, and you were none the wiser. I was still waiting for you.
Soarin came in while we were talking, the last time I was there. He asked if he could talk to you, and I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I didn’t know why, at the time, or rather I didn’t want to know why.
But now there are rumors in the tabloids. A love affair between Wonderbolts was too juicy a topic for the gossip rags to resist. Pictures of you and him together circulate like wildfire, and I am forced to recognize the feeling of dread I had when he wanted to talk to you. I saw the nervous energy bleeding off him, and recognized the way his eyes shifted. He was just like me, all those years ago.
He’d come to confess his feelings for you.
I knew the second I saw him, but refused to acknowledge it. I couldn’t stand the thought that there would ever be another to steal you away from me.
I really am an idiot.
I was waiting for you this whole time, but you never said that you’d wait for me.
In truth, I don’t even know why I’m writing this letter. There’s nothing new in here, and I already know what you’ll say. Maybe I just need some kind of closure, finally, after these past few years of waiting. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to love another the way I love you, but at the very least, I can stop waiting.
So please; write me back, and tell me that you and him are together. Tell me that you’re happy with him, and that I can finally, finally stop waiting for you. Don’t you dare apologize, either; part of loving you, is that I want nothing more than for you to be happy. If that ends up being with someone who isn’t me, so be it. I’ll be okay, I promise. I just need to know. And to say, one last time,
I love you, Rainbow Dash.
Twilight Sparkle sat at her desk, chewing the end of a quill distractedly as she tried to focus on the book in front of her. It was an engrossing treatise on thaumic metacrystals, a type of matter upon which research was still active. But it couldn’t hold her interest, because there was only one thing she wanted to read, and the letter had not yet arrived.
The letter that would set her free.
It had been just shy of a week since she’d sent hers. Pegasus mail delivery was fast, but it first had to be routed through Wonderbolts Headquarters before making it to the active stunt team, so there was no telling when Rainbow Dash would actually receive it. Then the time to send a reply…
Well, she’d already waited four years. What was another few weeks?
Agony. But she’d survive, just like always.
Twilight’s thoughts were derailed as she felt her room shake slightly, bottles of ink clanking together in a cabinet as a low, rumbling explosion washed over the town. Alarmed, Twilight ran out onto her balcony, scanning the surroundings for signs of danger, or the remnants of the blast that had just happened.
Her eyes were drawn upwards in short order. In the mid-afternoon summer sky, a rainbow-hued ring was exploding outward, from the center of which a rainbow contrail arched out, towards Ponyville - towards her. Twilight’s eyes barely had time to widen before the rainbow smashed into her balcony, sending another earthquake-like shudder through the building. The dust settled, and there stood Rainbow Dash, panting raggedly and drenched in sweat.
“Um-”
“Twilight!” Rainbow cried, poking her head into the open door and finding the room empty.
Twilight blinked, then reached out and tapped the mare on the shoulder.
Rainbow whirled around, eyes almost manic. “Twilight!” She shouted, voice hoarse around her gasps for air.
“Rainbow? What-”
Twilight tried to say more. She really did. But she found it difficult to speak with a pair of lips pressed firmly against her own. It took her far longer than she’d like to admit to realize that she was being kissed. Kissed by Rainbow Dash, no less. But once she did, she wasted no time in returning it. Parts of her disparately wondered if this was some kind of dream, hallucination, or cruel prank. But the feeling of her lips, soft and warm, was far too real. The scent of sweat mixed with an afternoon shower was too accurate. The cerise eyes that stared back at her were too desperate to be fake.
Forced to accept that she was, in fact, being kissed by Rainbow Dash, Twilight leaned into it, almost too aggressively, as Rainbow was caught off guard by the sudden force and stumbled back before catching herself and meeting Twilight with equal force of her own. Their kiss deepened, and Twilight felt Rainbow’s hooves and wings wrap around her. Holding her tightly. As though afraid she might escape if given the chance.
She never would, of course. If she had a say in it, she’d never move from this spot, even as her lungs burned and screamed for air. Even as tears threatened to fall - happiness, maybe. Shock more likely.
But even beautiful, stubborn cyan pegasi needed to breathe, and it was Rainbow Dash that ended their kiss, pulling away just barely far enough to gasp in a lungful of air, but her hooves never released Twilight’s neck, and she pressed their foreheads together. “You… idiot,” she muttered between heaving breaths.
“Rainbow…” Twilight breathed, still unsure of her own eyes, her own feelings. How could this be real?
“I’m not dating Soarin,” Rainbow said, as her breathing slowly came under control. “He asked me out, but I turned him down. You should have told me you were still going to wait for me.”
Twilight’s jaw gaped open as she struggled to find the words. “But… you said-”
“I’m an idiot!” Rainbow shouted, pressing their heads together harder as she pinched her eyes shut. “I’m a damn idiot, Twilight. You’re supposed to know that. Before I got that promotion, I was going to say yes. But I… I really thought my touring would hurt you more than me turning you down. I-I didn’t know how you felt.
“When I got your letter I realized how badly I screwed up. And I…” she trailed off, swallowing thickly, and it occurred to her that now she knew how Twilight felt, that first time. “Reading your letter, I realized how much I missed you, and… and how much I-I… I love you, Twilight.”
Twilight felt something akin to an electric shock hit her chest, as though some doctor was trying to restart her heart. She’d almost prefer to stay dead if that was the case, but everything in front of her told her this was real.
“I’m so sorry, Twilight,” Rainbow said, searching her eyes for forgiveness. “I know I made you wait too long, but… is there a chance we could… y’know.” Her words seemed to catch up to her, as her face suddenly grew several shades redder than their usual hue, and she seemed unable to finish the question.
Reminded all over again of the reasons she fell for this silly, stupid mare in the first place, Twilight found herself smiling, as she leaned forward just enough to plant a short, delicate kiss on the tip of her nose. The way her muzzle scrunched and twitched was adorable. “Yes, Rainbow,” Twilight giggled. “I’ll be your girlfriend.”
“Awesome,” Rainbow breathed, along with a sigh of relief. She seemed to be in no rush to end their embrace. Frankly, Twilight wasn’t either. “So, um, I kinda panicked and took an emergency leave from the team, so…” she trailed off, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “I don’t have to go back for two weeks.”
“What you’re saying,” Twilight started, a mischievous lilt to her voice, “Is that I have you all to myself for the next two weeks, because no one else knows you’re here.”
Rainbow’s blush came back in full force. “Yeah.”
Instead of answering, Twilight pressed their lips together again, stealing yet another of the kisses she was sure she’d never know. Now that she’d tasted one, she wanted more. Making up for lost time, maybe.
And as she pulled back only when the need to breathe made the tips of her hooves go numb - or maybe that was her racing heart - she smiled. “I love you, Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow had to look away, but still managed a quiet, “Love ya too, Twi.”