//------------------------------//
// Tidally Locked 
// Story: Misaligned Stars 
// by Zontan 
//------------------------------//

I awoke to a blinding white light.

I raised a hoof to shield my eyes, and found that my entire body hurt. My vision was blurry, but I could make out white walls and a too-bright light shining down on me. My hearing felt muddled with the pounding of my head, but I could hear the murmur of many indistinct voices.

It took me some time to even struggle partially upright, letting my vision return to me so I could see my surroundings. I was in a hospital room, all sterile whites, with a softly beeping machine next to the bed I lay in. My mouth was dry, and my lips cracked as I opened it and tried to speak; all that came out was a cough.

It was enough to get the attention of the ponies nearby, and suddenly Twilight was there, her hooves wrapped around my torso so tightly it took my breath from me. Her muzzle buried itself in my shoulder, and I could already feel the tears dripping into my fur.

“Glad to see you’re awake, Rares,” a familiar voice said, as Applejack walked up to the foot of my bed at a much more leisurely pace. Behind her, Pinkie waved at me, forcing a smile.

I gestured helplessly to my throat. Applejack gave me a sympathetic look, and then passed me a glass of water, which I did my best to drink in a somewhat dignified manner despite Twilight’s refusal to let go.

“What happened?” I asked, as soon as my voice was working properly again. “I remember… a monster, and then…” Abruptly, I sat up straight in bed, which evoked a whine from Twilight. “Rainbow! Is she alright?”

A pained look flashed across Applejack’s face. Instead of answering, she stepped over to the next bed and pulled back the curtain.

Rainbow lay on it, a complicated affair with a tube over her face, her own monitor beeping slowly and a second tube attached to her foreleg. Fluttershy was curled up on the chair next to her, her sleeping form a testament to how long she must have been standing vigil. 

“The docs don’t know when she’ll wake up,” Applejack said, her voice barely above a whisper. I did not miss the hitch on the word ‘when’, that slight hesitation speaking volumes. “But they thought you would be asleep longer too, so she could be up again any minute.”

I nodded encouragingly. There would be little point in dashing Applejack’s hopes, after all.

Twilight finally raised her head from my coat, her eyes still shining with tears. “I thought I’d lost you,” she breathed. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I shouldn’t have put you in that position—”

“Twilight,” I interrupted. “This is no time to assign blame. We all made it through, did we not?” I paused as a thought occurred to me. “Actually… with myself and Rainbow… indisposed… how did you deal with Tauros?”

“Princess Luna showed up!” Pinkie piped up brightly. “And oh boy was she mad! She showed that big mean monster a thing or two!”

“The starbeasts technically fall under her domain,” Twilight added. “She, uh… encouraged it to leave.” She hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you until then. This was all my fault. If I hadn’t gotten Luna to disturb the stars, this never would have happened.”

“Twilight!” I scolded. “You couldn’t have known what would happen. If even Luna agreed to it, there was no way to know.” I stretched out my legs and waggled my hooves, smiling brightly despite the pain. “See? I am perfectly fine. I will not have you blaming yourself for this.”

Twilight nodded rapidly, and then suddenly leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she repeated. “I’ll make sure you have whatever you need until you’re better. I promise.”

When had our relationship progressed to casual kisses on the cheek? 

I was saved from having to process that by the arrival of Nurse Redheart. “Alright, everypony,” she said. “Visiting hours are over. Please, my patients need rest. You can come back tomorrow.”

I did my best to hide my relief, and tuned out further chatter from those assembled. It was mostly convincing Redheart that Fluttershy wasn’t going to disturb anypony, and leaving her with Rainbow would be easier for all involved, which was a conversation that didn’t require my input.

Recovery was a boring process. The first thing I did was pen a letter to Sassy Saddles, explaining what had happened so she could manage things in my absence. She would be able to smooth things over with my clients who would have their pieces delayed. But once that was done, I had absolutely nothing to do.

Twilight visited every day, of course, bringing flowers and cards from what felt like half the population of Ponyville, and eventually snacks as well once I mentioned my distaste for the hospital food. Fluttershy was also a regular presence, even though she was primarily there for Rainbow Dash. Still, I was a better conversationalist.

It took three days before the doctors convinced themselves that lying in a hospital bed was no longer necessary for my health and sent me home with some remedies to manage my pain and instructions to get lots of rest. I gave Fluttershy a hug and some positive assurance that Rainbow would surely be waking up and following in my hoofsteps shortly, but otherwise I could not wait to get out the door.

I was itching to get back to work, to have a sewing machine or a sketchbook under my hooves again, but I was brought up short when Twilight met me at the hospital entrance. She had another bundle of flowers with her, and this time they were roses.

“Rarity!” she beamed. “I heard they were discharging you so I came right over. I was hoping… well, since our last date was cut short, perhaps you’d like to come have dinner with me? Make up for lost time?” She held out the bouquet to me, looking very pleased with herself.

I searched for a way to politely turn her down. After finally getting on my hooves again, the last thing I wanted to do was to immediately get off them. Especially since I wasn’t sure what lost time she was talking about, seeing as she had spent the entirety of my visiting hours making sure I was caught up on exactly what was going on in Ponyville. The only time I’d lost had been work, not time spent with her.

But it would have been uncouth to say that, and surely it would be nice to have a proper dinner after days spent picking at less than stellar hospital food. “Of course,” is what I finally said. “Dinner would be lovely.”

I took the roses, and Twilight led me to one of Ponyville’s more upscale restaurants, Chez Ponisse. They seated us as soon as we walked in, right past a half-dozen ponies waiting in their lobby. I did my best not to show my surprise. This wasn’t Canterlot, but if you wanted a table here you still needed to reserve it at least a few days in advance. Had Twilight been planning this for that long? Or was she blissfully ignorant that she had bumped somepony because she was a Princess?

We were brought to a private booth in a corner of the restaurant, dimly lit by covered candles. It was the sort of ambiance where you could barely see your date, let alone the next table over.

“I’m so glad you’re finally out of the hospital,” Twilight said. “I thought it would be nice to celebrate. My treat.”

I nodded, my mind elsewhere. My hooves practically itched when I sat down, crying out to be doing something, anything.

Twilight kept talking, and I even occasionally responded, but I wasn’t paying her any attention. I felt trapped, unable to leave or even say what was bothering me. Twilight didn’t know the itch she was keeping me from scratching, so it wasn’t her fault, was it?

I spent the entire dinner pushing food around my plate instead of eating it. I knew it was good, I’d been here before, but even after days of hospital food I didn’t want any of it. 

Before I knew it, Twilight was being given the check. The waiter looked at my plate, and offered to box it up for me without sounding offended, which I felt was very professional of him. I had almost tuned him out again when “...I’ll take care of this, and I’ll be right back with a box for your marefriend.”

Twilight didn’t correct him, and he left before I could process it. Marefriend. We’d only been on three dates! Two and a half, if one was being technical. “Twilight…” I began, suddenly certain I’d let this go too far. “I think we need to…” I didn’t know how to word it, what to say.

Twilight didn’t let me finish. “Oh, you poor thing,” she jumped in. “Of course, you must still be exhausted. I’m being selfish, keeping you out like this. Let’s get you home and into bed.”

That wasn’t what I—

But Twilight was already ushering me out the door, to-go box forgotten.




 
I finally bade Twilight goodnight and shut my door with an audible sigh of relief. Just to be back in my own home felt heavenly after so long away. I could finally have the catharsis of creating something again.

I flicked the lights on and stepped up to my workbench, but I had to put the flowers down to—

I sighed, and then turned around and went to the kitchen, hunting in my cupboards for a large enough vase. The flowers needed water, and I had to cut the stems and find a proper place for them—

I stopped, staring between the vase I had found that was clearly too small, the flowers, and then back again.

I threw the flowers in the trash, closed the cupboard, and returned to my workroom.

Pens, papers, sketchbooks, patterns, ponnequins and my favorite sewing machine. I took them all out, heedless of where they should go or whether I would even need them. Normally I would be more particular, but now the chaos felt important. It didn’t matter what I made, just that it was.

But once I had pulled everything out of its proper place and actually sat down, my mind felt suddenly… blank. I let myself drift, traveling to that place where all ideas flowed, but it was empty. Nothing came to me.

I had never experienced that before. Now, I am not so vain as to claim that I have never had trouble creating, but it had never manifested like this. Usually, my problem was a too-harsh inner critic, when it took over my mind and convinced me that all my ideas, no matter how promising, were objectively awful. But to have no ideas at all, not even bad ones? That was a first.

I opened my eyes and grabbed a pen, stubbornly sketching the outline of a dress, a shape I had traced a million times before, just to have something down at all. But when I moved to fill it—a pattern, a texture, even just random lines—my pen faltered. It shook in my hoof, just above the page, and I didn’t know what to do with it.

Finally, I bit my lip and forced the pen down, scratching harsh lines in the paper, scribbling the design out in a mess of ugly black, pressing harder and harder until suddenly the page tore open, a gash splitting the mess of scribbles and the pen falling from my hoof.

I tore the page out and crumpled it into a ball, throwing it at the wall as hard as I could. Suddenly the supplies I had pulled out felt wrong, their chaos a reflection of my inability to derive order from my thoughts.

I ran.

I left the room in disarray, fleeing to my bedroom. Tomorrow will be better.

Tomorrow I will be better. 

I repeated that mantra over and over until exhaustion claimed me.





When I came down the stairs the next morning, my workroom was spotless. Sitting in the middle of my workbench, in the position normally reserved for my sewing machine, was the bouquet of flowers I clearly remembered throwing out last night.

As I stared at them in horror, I heard the sound of hoofsteps. Before I could decide whether to look for a weapon or just scream, Twilight stepped out of my kitchen.

“Oh, Rarity! You’re up!” she exclaimed, like her presence was perfectly reasonable.

“Twilight, what are you doing here?” I practically hissed, trying to soothe my racing heart. “You scared me half to death!”

“Oh,” Twilight mused. “I didn’t mean to. I brought you a potion from Zecora that I thought might help with your pain a bit better than what the hospital gave you. And it seemed like your place needed a little tidying, so I thought I could help with that.”

“Twilight,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth. “How did you get into my house?” As out of sorts as I had been last night, I was still sure I had locked my door, and Twilight did not have a key.

Twilight blinked, and then gestured to her horn, as if the answer was obvious. I suppose in a way it was.

“Just because you don’t need a key to get in doesn’t mean it isn’t rude to—”

“Am I not welcome here?” Twilight pouted, her head drooping. “I would have thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“Did you not like the flowers?” Twilight interrupted again, now sounding truly morose. “I thought you loved roses, but I found them… well. You know where I found them. If you didn’t want them, why didn’t you say anything?”

I tried to respond, but my brain supplied no words. I didn’t know how to explain how overwhelming the simple task of putting the flowers in a vase had felt at the time. Even having been there, it felt a little petty.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, Rarity,” Twilight kept going. “You asked for more romance, so I gave you romance! Flowers, nice dinners, wine—I moved the stars for you! What more do you want?”

Her wings were half spread now, and she took an aggressive step forward, gesticulating wildly with one hoof. I shrank back, instinctively. “No, that’s not what happened,” I quailed. “It’s not about… I like the things you did! I mean, theoretically.”

As soon as the words left my mouth I knew they were the wrong ones.

“Theoretically?” Twilight exploded. “I did exactly what you asked for! I was perfect! I even—” she faltered suddenly. “I’ve done so much for you, and what have you done? You threw the expression of my love right in the trash!” Her voice broke, and for a moment she looked away, hiding the shimmer in her eyes.

“I’m sorry!” I yelled, retreating until I was backed against a wall. “I know I’ve been ungrateful. I never meant to hurt you, Twilight, I swear it. Please don’t cry.”

Twilight stepped forward again, and there was nowhere else I could run to. But then she pulled me into a hug, wrapping both her forelimbs and wings around me. It was supposed to be comforting, I was sure, but I just felt smothered.

“I’m sorry too,” Twilight whispered. “I just care about you so much. I can’t lose you. I can’t. So just… tell me what you need from me. I’ll do anything, anything at all, to make this work.”

Anything except leave.

I patted the back of her head soothingly, but that was all I could manage. I was too afraid to break her heart.