Finally, after a long week of working overtime for the weather team, Rainbow Dash had managed to get hold of a bag of Skittles before they sold out. The candy was Equestria’s latest trend, and with their catchy slogan – ‘Taste the Rainbow’ – the few times she was out of work before the store closed, they had already sold out. The fact that all her friends and co-workers were talking about how awesome they tasted had done little more than infuriate her to no end.
Today though, luck was on her side. Apart from a few fluffy white clouds here and there, the skies were empty, and the magical storm above the Everfree Forest was subsiding as well. Her work done for the day, she raced to the store that sold them, bought a bag of the stuff, and retreated to her cloud home.
Finally the moment had arrived. Or actually, not yet, because she was just sitting on her bed for now, holding the bag of Skittles close. As much as she wanted to tear it open and gobble them up, she also wanted to try and enjoy the moment, to savor their taste. She still had her reservations about the taste anyway; although she had never tried it personally, that one time when Pinkie had tasted liquid rainbows in the Weather Factory pretty much confirmed that rainbows were hot. Even Pinkie hadn’t been able to handle it, and the party pony could handle just about everything. Like the time Pinkie drank a whole bottle of hot sauce or when she ate a bunch of chili cupcakes or even the one day Pinkie ate chili cupcakes frosted with hot sauce.
Still, the bag was taunting her, begging her to open it and devour its contents. After all, everypony in Equestria was eating these sweets, so if they really tasted like liquid rainbows, it would have to be a toned-down variant of it – and if other ponies could handle the intensity, than Rainbow Dash would have no problem.
At last, she gave in to the temptation, picked up the bag with her hooves, and slowly tore it open with her teeth. She had expected her olfactory sense to be met by something – she didn’t know exactly what – anything more than the faintest whiff of sugar she actually got. Heck, a spontaneous rainbow appearing out of the bag wouldn’t have surprised her.
Having the chance to study the sweets more carefully, the first thing she noticed was that something was off with the colors. There were only five. ‘How can they claim you’re tasting the rainbow, if not even all the colors are there?’ she thought, absentmindedly comparing the sweets with her mane and concluding that blue was missing.
Eventually – after perhaps a second or so – the curious part of her won over the part preoccupied with the manufacturer’s claim, and slowly, she reached out and put a red one in her mouth.
She’d expected any of a wild variety of possible scenarios to become reality. An explosion of taste, or her mouth feeling like it’d been set on fire. None of them matched what she actually got, which was simply nothing. It was like eating cardboard – an incident she’d rather not be reminded of – and she’d consumed apple pies that had a more sugary flavor than this.
It was just such a let-down. She quickly tried the other four colors as well, hoping that maybe it was just the red one that wasn’t nice. She was wrong. The other four tasted exactly the same as the first – she honestly couldn’t see any reason why this candy was so popular. She had waited an entire week for seemingly nothing.
As a last resort, she tried all five colors at the same time, which was an even blander experience than the separate colors. In fact, it was so devoid of any sort of flavor that she promptly flew out of her house, leaving the unfinished bag of Skittles where it was. She had to vent some frustration on anypony willing to listen to her.
***
It was a lovely spring afternoon – the perfect kind of weather, with a light breeze and small fluffy clouds dotting the blue sky here and there – and sunlight was streaming in through the library’s open windows. Twilight was busy doing what she loved most: reading. As much as she liked non-fiction, there was nothing like a good thick romance on days such as this. Despite being only halfway through, from the previous romances she’d read she could already tell how it was going to end. That didn’t stop her from enjoying it though, nor from imagining herself in the protagonist’s place.
It was strange. It didn’t matter whether the grass-green unicorn was alone, hanging out with friends or, worse, in the vicinity of the blue pegasus; wherever she went, she found it incredibly hard to focus her thoughts on anything but the flyer. She knew perfectly well what was happening, but not why. Nor did she have any clue if the pegasus felt the same as she did.
Answers. She wanted answers. They would bring closure. But in order to get those, she would have to take that crucial first step herself. And... she just wasn’t sure she could do that. All this thinking wasn’t doing her sleeping rhythm any good either. After the bustling and busy of another day gone by, she lay awake in her bed for hours on end. In other circumstances, it would have given her the peace and quiet she craved for so long now, but instead all she could hear was her heart pounding hard in her chest. It felt that if it pounded any harder she–
At exactly that moment, Twilight heard the unmistakable sound of knocking. It wasn’t coming from the door, rather, it was coming from upstairs, with the noise being that of things being knocked over. She didn’t even have to look up from her book to guess who her visitor could be.
“Good afternoon, Rainbow Dash,” she yelled, but only enough for the mare upstairs to hear her clearly. Over time she had become quite adept at hiding the mildly annoying prospect of having to clean up her bedroom again from her voice.
“Oh! Hey, Twilight. Just give me a *crash* moment and I’ll be *bonk* right down!” the voice shouted back, followed by a mighty rumbling sound. Twilight didn’t even want to think what that last noise was. A moment later, the blue pegasus appeared at the top of the stairs, and Twilight noticed the striking similarities with the pegasus in the book. Sure, that one had the colors in the mane and tail inverted and a slightly different cutie mark, but it might have been Dash just as well. She broke herself out of this thought before Rainbow realized that she was staring at her flank.
“Hello Rainbow,” Twilight deadpanned. “Doors are still too uncool for you to use, I presume?” She made a little joke about it, but it hadn’t been the first time Rainbow used something other than the door as an impromptu entrance – and destroyed half the library in the process. Twilight had pointed this out multiple times to the pegasus, but getting Dash to learn anything that wasn’t a flying trick was hard.
“Heh, uhm yeah, sorry about that, but this is actually really urgent and important!” Well, at least she apologized this time, that was something new for sure. But still...
“Things are always urgent and important with you,” Twilight stated plainly. She wasn’t really mad at Rainbow – the bookshelf in her bedroom needed reorganizing in the near future anyway, might as well do the rest of the room as well while she was at it. Still, the pegasus acknowledging the existence of the phenomenon known as ‘the door’ was something Twilight would like to see one day or another, and made it one of her goals to make that happen. Reminding the pegasus at every possible occasion was just one item on a list of many things she would try to achieve that goal.
“Yes! No! This isn’t like that time with the magic bit thingy where I had infinite money, I swear!”
Twilight sighed,“Okay, let’s hear it then.”
“I don’t like Skittles!”
Upon hearing that, Twilight became very serious. The unicorn loved Skittles as much as everyone else did, and Rainbow was actually the first pony she heard of that didn’t like them. The fact that it was Rainbow of all ponies, who had the matching name and mane for crying out loud, made that all the more unacceptable. “Oh my. Now that is a good reason.”
“Told you so!” said Rainbow, stating her point while hovering over to where Twilight was sitting.
She floated the book away to the side of the table, leaving it lying open where she was, and filled the now freed up space with a quill, paper and a jar of ink. Especially lots of paper.
***
When Rainbow saw the quills and ink and paper floating over, she took up the seat across Twilight. She knew what was coming.
“So, when did you discover you didn’t like Skittles?” began Twilight, utterly serious despite the fact that they were discussing candy.
“Like, a few minutes ago,” answered Rainbow. Twilight frowned at that. “What, you’re not gonna tell me you haven’t seen all those perfectly crafted clouds floating over Ponyville the last week, right?”
“Uhm... I was busy... studying! Yes, studying!”
Uh-huh. If she hadn’t heard that one a thousand times in the past already, she still wouldn’t buy it. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter anyway, there also was this stupid storm over the Everfree which needed constant supervision. I didn’t have much time to go to the stores, and when I did they were already sold out!”
“I’m sorry if I should have looked at the clouds you made.”
“And then I do finally get them, and they’re horrible!”
“Uh, Rainbow? Shall we move on?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah...”
Rainbow knew that now was not the best time to be discussing this. After a week of no naps and no Skittles, and then when she finally got them they tasted horrible, her fuse was a little short to say the least. Nevertheless, Twilight didn’t seem to notice it. Or maybe she did and just didn’t mention it.
Discussing also probably wasn’t the best word in this context, for it was more like an interrogation. Twilight would ask a question, and Rainbow would answer it. Rainbow wasn’t sure if she was to be happy or unhappy about Twilight’s thoroughness. Sure, she knew that if anyone was going to figure this out, it was Twilight, so she didn’t really have much choice in the first place. The unicorn didn’t go off in random tangents and circular arguments like Pinkie always did, but she did want to know everything that might be remotely relevant to the subject. Including the cardboard incident. Rainbow didn’t really like to tell about that one.
Still, things could be worse. She could have gone over to Sugarcube Corner, talk – if it could be called that – with Pinkie for three hours, and be none the wiser. More frustrated as well. While Twilight didn’t have an immediate answer either, the chances of the unicorn coming up with one in maybe a week or so were significantly higher. She also made a mental note to not hang around Twilight too much, or she might start using those words herself as well. Not cool.
***
“I’ll do some research into it, if I find anything I’ll let you know,” said Twilight after about half an hour of discussion. She’d scribbled a couple of pages full during the conversation. She would need to reorganize them into lists and graphs and diagrams, but she first had some general reading into the subject to do.
“Huh? Oh yeah, that sounds great, Twi. Thanks for helping me out on this one, I guess.” The small ‘huh’ at the beginning at the sentence told Twilight that the pegasus had been distracted for a moment. It didn’t take her long to figure out by what.
“Rainbow, were you trying to read the book I was reading upside down?” said Twilight.
“Uhm, maybe?” Rainbow answered sheepishly, trying to hide the fact that the unicorn had caught her.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” smirked Twilight.
“I was just checking if it was about Daring Do, you know?” retorted Rainbow. Since Twilight had caught her anyway, she just stood up to take a better look at it. “It isn’t about Daring Do. What’s it about anyway?”
“It’s about a romance between a unicorn and a pegasus. The pegasus seems to be a lot like you, actually.”
“Really?” Rainbow answered, sounding far too excited, and she quickly corrected herself, “I mean, really?”
“Since when are you not put off when someone mentions ‘romance’ ?” asked Twilight back, completely ignoring Rainbow’s question.
“Hey! Daring Do had plenty of romance in the seventh book, with the whole restaurant date to find out more about the whereabouts of the evil pony and all! I mean, yeah, I don’t like sappy stuff and all that, but that was my favorite part of the whole book.”
“Uhm... that wasn’t really romance...”
“It was!”
“Okay, let me put it this way. The restaurant date with Daring Do was just that: a date, nothing more, right?”
“Duh. But it was still romance!”
“Technically, yes. A date can be seen as romance. However, there’s more to romance than just dates, like, uhm, more dates, and feelings. More kissing as well, I guess...” Twilight trailed off a bit there, remembering how the protagonist was feeling before Rainbow interrupted her reading.
“Wait, you’re reading one of those things Rarity always reads? Seriously Twi?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s not wrong with it, you mean! Still...” Rainbow glanced over to the book once more. “You said it was about me, right?”
“I didn’t say that and you know it, Rainbow. But yeah, the similarities are striking.” The way too interested look on Rainbow’s face told Twilight something she had never expected. “Oh please, you’re not going to tell me you want to borrow it, do you?”
“Of course not. Well, maybe. Uhm... can you not tell Rarity about this? I mean seriously, she bugged me about Daring Do for months – even more than you did.”
Twilight wasn’t sure whether that last bit was meant as a compliment or an insult, but she’d been around Rainbow long enough to know that the pegasus didn’t mean any harm by it. The pegasus usually said whatever came up in her head without thinking much about it, that was all. Besides, Rainbow daring to venture into books beyond Daring Do was a development Twilight wasn’t exactly disapproving of either. “Alright, you can borrow it. It’s a good one so far, and I know how it’s going to end anyway. Plus, I have other things to read the coming days. But only on one condition.”
“Which is?”
“You don’t tell Rarity about this either.”
“Deal.”
***
The next days were quite relaxing for Rainbow. The good weather lasted all week, providing her with lots of free time to catch up on missed practice for flying tricks and naps. And reading. She wasn’t a fast reader by any means, but since it wasn’t a race, she didn’t mind that. Every evening, she found herself engrossed in the tale of the grass-green unicorn mare – who could have been Twilight save for the color of her coat – and her feelings for the blue pegasus. As Twilight had predicted, the pegasus was indeed a lot like Rainbow herself, and more often than not Rainbow imagined herself in the pegasus’ place.
The combination of Twilight-the-green-unicorn and Rainbow-the-blue-pegasus should have become very awkward in a lot of passages in the book, but for some reason, it didn’t. Not when she read a very detailed dream the unicorn had about the pegasus. Not on their first dinner date, or when they held hooves the entirety of the subsequent movie. Not even when the ‘kissing’ began. The further the story progressed, the sappier it got as well. Very sappy.
And yet, she didn’t dislike it. She’d expected it to become boring, too sappy for her liking, or at the very least repetitive, but it didn’t. That didn’t mean she suddenly was into romance or anything, but when she finished it, her view on romance and sappy stuff had definitely changed. As much fun as it was pretending to be Daring Do, imagining herself as the target of someone’s affections was a different sort of fun. Not less or more, just different. She could read Daring Do or other, similar adventure novels any day, but this was... different.
That was what she told Twilight when she’d brought back the book a few days later. She left out the part where, after she had finished it, she reread some of the final passages at least half a dozen times, each time getting more and more into character. It was one of the many advantages of a cloudhouse, having very few visitors and the walls muffling pretty much all sounds, so she could read out the dialogues aloud without having to worry about her image. She had already decided to try another one in the future, but not too soon. A new Daring Do novel was coming out in a week, she didn’t want to be in the middle of something when that happened.
***
Twilight was surprised that Rainbow liked the book so much. Sure, it wasn’t poorly written like so many others she’d read, and the fact that one of the characters closely resembled the pegasus probably helped, but she never expected Rainbow to express interest in reading more of them. She had thought it would be a one-time thing, after which Dash would go back to adventure novels.
Rainbow had taken about two weeks to get through it, which meant that if her calculations were correct, she was reading this at a slower rate than she did the Daring Do novels. That was odd, especially since Rainbow mentioned reading quite long every evening, until she remembered that this was a romance. She just knew Rainbow read certain passages over and over, because Twilight did that herself as well. She didn’t really mind that Rainbow had inadvertently spoiled the second half of the story, because it was more or less like she had predicted.
But as much as talking about books and reading was really interesting, especially with someone like Rainbow, that wasn’t the only thing to discuss today.
“I’ve been doing some studying,” Twilight said, pointing to the stacks of books all around the table. “ I had to request a few books from the Canterlot Archives which was why it took me a bit longer, but I’ve come up with a few theories as to why you don’t like Skittles.”
“I what now? Oh yeah, Skittles, got it. What did you find?”
Twilight lifted a couple of notes in front of her with her magic. They were scribbled full with the results of her research. “Let’s see. For starters, a few of the books mentioned that it could be because you’re around rainbows so much, you’ve become indifferent to the taste.”
“Hmmmm. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Let me finish please. While it’s not out of the question, there are plenty of examples where this doesn’t hold. Applejack likes apples very much, and Berry Punch likes berries – and especially punch – also a lot. Besides, unless just being around rainbows makes them ‘taste’ different than actually trying to eat or drink them, we all saw what happened when Pinkie tried that in the Weather Factory. I don’t think anypony can stand something if it already sets Pinkie on fire.”
“Heh, no. Liquid rainbows are strong stuff. But I know enough that they didn’t taste anything like it.”
“Fair enough,” said Twilight, putting a cross in front of that particular line. “Okay, another possibility is...”
This went on for some time, Twilight trying to explain difficult and often far-fetched theories to a more and more confused Rainbow Dash who, when the unicorn rephrased the theory using words that the pegasus actually understood, dismissed most of them. The ones that she didn’t outright reject weren’t very likely either. That is, until Twilight got to the last item on her list.
“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but... I did find one other possible reason, which builds upon you not particularly disliking Skittles, but them simply tasting like nothing – or cardboard, as you put it – to you.”
“Uh-huh. So?”
“Well, uhm,” Twilight hesitated. Of all the theories, this was one of the most likely ones, but because of the nature of it, she had saved it for the very last. She wasn’t sure how to bring this up, if she even wanted to bring it up at all. In the end, seeing Rainbow’s expectant look settled the deal. “It might be because they taste exactly like yourself.”
“What!” Rainbow flew up from her seat, then hovered lower and lower until she was at ground level again, all the while voicing her thoughts aloud. “Wait. No! Huh? I don’t get it...”
Twilight waited patiently until Rainbow’s stream of words slowed down and eventually dried up, before she explained herself in more detail. “Okay, this is going to be a bit of a weird subject, so if you want me to explain it, you’ll have to hear all of it.”
“O... kay...” was all Rainbow said in return.
“Ponies don’t often realize this, but every pony has a distinct smell and, to some extent, also a distinct taste. Think of it like a cutie mark: it sets them apart, no, makes them unique compared to other ponies. Kinda like when you can smell a really sweaty pony. You’re following this so far?”
Rainbow nodded.
“Good. Now, it is generally known that a pony is pretty much immune to his or her own smell – or taste. This is especially true for pegasi, because they have to preen their wings. I don’t think you ever realized that, right?”
Rainbow shook her head, for once waiting patiently for Twilight to continue on.
“If another pony were to preen your wings, or, I don’t know, kiss you like they did in that romance novel, the other pony should be able to, uh, taste it.”
“Hold on for a sec, Twi,” interrupted Rainbow. “So, you’re saying I taste like liquid rainbow. How? I mean, I think I would have noticed that when preening.”
“Almost. Except you’re a ‘Rainbow’ too, right? I know that I call you that sometimes.”
“Okay... that... actually doesn’t sound, like, totally impossible like the rest of the stuff you came up with. What are you saying?”
“Well, obviously I’m not entirely sure on this. I mean, I’m not going to suddenly kiss you or anything, even if it were just for science. But a lot of ponies admire you for your flying skills,” and looks, her mind added, “so maybe eating Skittles is just a way for them of being as close to you as they’re ever going to get.”
“What.”
“Especially on the last part I’m really not sure. I, and a lot of other ponies too, just like the Skittles, and have no desire or intention in a romantic relationship with you.”
“Whaaaaat.”
“I lost you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. Go back to where you called me ’Rainbow’.”
“Basically, there are ponies who like Skittles because they just like them, and then there are ponies who think Skittles taste the same as you, and imagine all sorts of, uh, romancy things if they eat them.”
“So Skittles are kinda like that romance book?”
“For some ponies, maybe, yes. I don’t know for sure because, well, we never... kissed in that way, but I won’t force that on you, even in the name of science.”
“Ooohkay... So basically eating Skittles is like... being sappy with me? Only for some ponies, of course. You’re obviously not one of them.”
Twilight did her best to prevent a very deep blush from forming on her face. It was convenient that the very subject had already produced a slight blush on both of them anyway, or Rainbow would have noticed it for sure. She chose to just answer the question and ignore the statement the pegasus made after that. “Essentially, that’s what it is. I even wrote the company that makes them, and they say that it hasn’t got anything to do with you, at least not intentionally. I have their exact response around here somewhere, but they claim they just threw together some ingredients, gave them pretty colors – and forgot blue – and called it Tasting the Rainbow. It might just accidentally be exactly how you taste.”
“Uh-huh, sure. Some ‘accident’ my flank.”
“It actually happened with other companies in the past too, although usually the similarity between the names isn’t so big. I don’t think they’re lying, you know?”
“Okay. Suppose it’s an accident; you still don’t know if Skittles taste like me.”
A variety of wild and even wilder ideas surged through Twilight’s mind as she was reminded yet another time of what it would take to verify her theory. It meant kissing Rainbow. As unlikely as it seemed, even a studious and sometimes oblivious unicorn such as herself had limits on how far she would go in the name of science. This was way beyond it.
Well, unless Rainbow wanted to, of course.
“You’re right. That is the last and crucial part of this whole theory. But as I said, that’s your choice. I... well... you know I would do it – for science, of course. You know I could just grab you in my magic and forcibly kiss you if I wanted to,” she said, pointing to her horn. She didn’t fail to notice the fright of this prospect reflecting in the eyes of the mare sitting across her. “But it doesn’t work that way. You have to be comfortable with the whole idea as well, or whatever it is you taste like will be mixed with too many other things.”
“Mixed with what?”
“Fear, surprise, ‘Twilight-what-are-you-doing-please-stop.’ Stuff like that.”
“Okay. I think... I think I have a lot to think about.”
That was all Rainbow said before she flew up, effectively ending the conversation – or at least putting it on hiatus for now. She made a beeline for the nearest window, but stopped herself in her tracks and used the door. It put a smile on Twilight’s face.
The rest of Twilight’s day was very uneventful. Most of it was taken up by reorganizing her bedroom – how Rainbow managed each time to knock over just about everything was still a mystery on par with Pinkie Senses – and reading bits and pieces in the book Rainbow had returned. The last part of their conversation was never far away in her mind, and it made her wonder just how much the pegasus knew. She felt almost the same as the grass-green unicorn did in the book, only Twilight didn’t have a crush on Rainbow. Of course she didn’t. She was absolutely sure of that. Probably absolutely sure.
Soon, the book became nothing more than a guide through a world of her own fantasy, with Twilight herself as the protagonist, and Rainbow the target of her affections. Although she almost loathed herself for thinking about Dash in that way, it was crushed by the fact that it made an already good book a whole lot better. It wasn’t until she saw light coming through her windows that she realized she had pulled an all-nighter – again. Lucky for her, Spike was out at a sleepover with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and she didn’t have any obligations for the day – or at least the morning – so she quickly headed to her bed and closed the curtains. But only after she finished the current chapter, of course.
***
Rainbow lay awake on her bed for a long time that evening. Any thoughts of why she didn’t like Skittles forgotten, the conversation with Twilight just wouldn’t stop replaying in her head. This wasn’t about some candy anymore; it was now about kissing. Not just a quick peck on the cheek, or the kind of Truth or Dare kisses, but the kissing sort of kissing. And with Twilight no less.
And then her mind decided to throw in the recent romance novel for good measure. Already when she was reading it, she had pretty much imagined the grass-green unicorn to be Twilight, and the pegasus was obviously herself. It just hadn’t been super awkward back then because it was all in her imagination.
But Twilight saying that she would kiss her – for science – was no imagination. Truth be told, she had half expected to be suddenly enveloped inside a magical field at that point in the conversation, and it had taken her some effort to override her instinct of getting out of there as fast as possible. The knowledge that Twilight could do that if she wanted it wasn’t what scared her the most though; rather, it was the fact that she hadn’t done it.
You have to be comfortable with the whole idea as well.
For possibly the first time ever, Twilight was going to let the outcome of research depend on someone other than the unicorn herself. Even Twilight couldn’t – Rainbow remembered the incident with the love potion between Cheerilee and Big Macintosh – okay, wouldn’t go and set up a good friend with a whole relationship just for science. At least the unicorn knew a thing or two about morals and ethical standards and other fancy words like that, of which the gist was that it was bad to force a friend into a relationship unwillingly.
Fear, surprise, ‘Twilight-what-are-you-doing-please-stop.’ Stuff like that.
Kissing didn’t count as a relationship for the unicorn, not even in that way, and she plainly stated that the only reason she didn’t just do it was because she really couldn’t do this one alone. ‘She needs me to be okay with it, but... I don’t know if I am...’
Rainbow really didn’t want to think too much about the implications of it, nor the consequences if Rarity ever found out they had been discussing, much less actually doing, this. But torn between feeling guilty for holding back Twilight’s research – even though she knew the unicorn would never hold it against her – and envisioning herself actually kissing another pony, she found herself bewildered and uncertain. The romance novel constantly at the back of her mind wasn’t helping either.
She remembered that... passage in the book, where the pegasus had let the unicorn preen her wings. It wasn’t a particularly interesting scene at the time – the two being together and enjoying kissing was so much easier to imagine – and she honestly didn’t really see the whole point of it being so long as it was. Being a pegasus, she’d known that letting somepony else preen their wings was usually reserved for romantic occasions, but that was about it. She hadn’t thought about smell or taste at all when she read it. Now though, she began to understand the point of that scene being so long. Any two ponies could kiss each other, but only pegasi had wings. And they were sensitive. Very sensitive. In fact, just the thought of Twilight preening them was enough to make them start to flare out, her mind starting to spiral.
‘Okay, bad idea. My wings shouldn’t be doing this by just thinking about it,’ she thought. ‘Heck, I’m not even trying hard to imagine it!’ That last one was an even worse idea, because with the wings scene still fresh in her mind, and generally any other passage from the book as well, her imagination naturally started to run wild, and her wings flared out further in response.
‘Okay, really really bad idea.’ As bad as the idea might have been though, it gave her the answer she was searching for, namely that subconsciously, she wasn’t against the idea of kissing Twilight for real. It wasn’t like she had any romantic feelings for Twilight at all, and she was absolutely sure it would just be one kiss. It didn’t mean anything. She would just have to look past the fact that it was one of her best friends. That almost made it sound like a challenge. ‘Oh no.’
She had thought of it as a challenge – even if it really wasn’t. It didn’t matter. Once she thought of something as a challenge, she would go for it with everything she got. ‘That’s going to be interesting tomorrow...’
Having made up her mind had an advantage though. Rainbow didn’t have to feel bad anymore about fantasizing about the unicorn just before she fell asleep. Better fantasize about ‘the perfect kissing scene’ – the one she’d read over half a dozen times – one more time, before she would actually do it tomorrow, or at least something that might lead to it, and be disappointed forever. Assuming Twilight’s theory was correct, she wondered what the unicorn tasted like...
***
Twilight was rudely awakened that morning – although early afternoon would be more correct – by the sound of someone knocking at the door. It took her a moment to realize that since Spike wouldn’t come back until the evening, she would have to get it herself, and then another that if it was Spike he would have just used the key in the first place.
The implications of all of those thoughts together took her a while to process, and it wasn’t until whoever it was knocked a second time that she actually rose from her bed and headed downstairs.
To her surprise, she found Rainbow waiting for her on the other side of the door. It wasn’t the fact that it was Rainbow that surprised her – she had known the pegasus long enough to expect her back the following day – but that she actually used the door for once, and all the not-privacy-invading things that came with it. Though monitoring the progress on Project Rainbow Door was not exactly at the forefront of her mind right now.
“Oh, good morning, Rainbow,” she said, squinting her still sleepy eyes against the sun that was surprisingly high in the sky.
“Hey Twi. And, uh, by the way, it’s afternoon.”
“Oh.” Twilight blinked. Somewhere in her brain, the position of the sun caught up with her, overtook her, and then left her again. She really wasn’t awake yet. “Oh, how rude of me. Come in!”
Once inside, the conversation turned towards where the two had left off the previous day pretty much instantly, except that they were now in the kitchen because Twilight needed to make some ‘breakfast.’
“So...” Rainbow began, with Twilight busy making a salad and tomato sandwich. “You remember me saying yesterday that I had to think about... stuff, right?”
“Uh-huh,” Twilight said absentmindedly, having noticed by now that Rainbow Dash was for some reason intently following her every move. “Coffee. First. Talk. Later.”
She found her path to the machine that produced the magical – in a different way from unicorn magic – substance suddenly blocked by the blue pegasus hovering directly in front of her.
“No Twilight. Talk first, coffee later.”
“Whatever. At least let me get some food and move to the library?”
“No.”
“Why? What are you, trying to annoy me or something?!” It took a moment for Twilight to catch herself, finally starting to awaken by her own outburst. “Sorry Rainbow. I had a bit of a long night. You see, I was reading that romance you returned and, uh...”
“You stayed up all night again.”
“Yeah...” That was pretty much all she could say to that. “So, why are you here again?”
“Yesterday? Remember when I flew off because I needed to think?”
“I think so. It was about that theory of mine, right?”
“Yeah... You could say so...”
Twilight had by now awakened enough to function somewhat normally, and it didn’t take long before she remembered everything she needed to know about the conversation that took place yesterday. “Oh I remember it now! You left because you, you know, needed to think whether you were okay with it, right?”
“Yeah...”
Rainbow seemed nervous, yet Twilight’s excitement far overpowered any concern she might or should have had for her friend at that moment. She didn’t even notice her own eyes growing bigger and going into sparkle-mode. Science did that to her. “And?”
***
‘Oh Celestia, she’s staring at me with those huge eyes! Those big... violet... beautiful– Come on! Snap yourself out of it, Rainbow! It’s just Twilight. It’s just Twilight. It’s just Twilight.’
“I’ll do it.”
It was the silence that followed that made her realize just how hard her heart was drumming in her chest. In fact, it was so hard, that if she weren’t waiting for Twilight to make the next move, she would have asked if Twilight could hear it too.
“Say what now?”
“I’ll do it,” she repeated, before she threw any and all subtlety out of the window completely. “Oh for the love of Celestia just kiss me already!”
She didn’t mean to almost shout it like she did, but the result was the same. For the shortest moment, they just stood there, staring the other in the eye, mentally preparing for what was going to come next. The next, they lunged towards each other, their lips meeting, arms embracing the other’s neck, and the battle for dominance over the other’s tongue began.
Any last reservations Rainbow might have had about the awkwardness of kissing Twilight melted the moment she felt her tongue intertwining with Twilight’s. From then on, an onlooker would have had a really hard time believing that this was really the first kiss for either of the two mares. Rainbow didn’t care about onlookers at that moment, only about ravaging the other’s tongue with her own. Her eyes had drifted closed at some point, but her senses were so overwhelmed with the ferocity of the kiss that she couldn’t even think to open them.
How long it lasted, she didn’t know. It could have been seconds, or minutes. She didn’t care. The only thing she cared about was how immensely good it felt; the only thing she wondered was why they hadn’t done this earlier. But now the kiss was over, confirming or rejecting Twilight’s theory, and they wouldn’t do it again. That Daring Do novel could wait a bit though.
“Wow...” muttered Twilight as she calmed her breath.
“That... was...” added Rainbow, only now opening her eyes, slowly, to see Twilight’s were still closed.
“Amazing...” Twilight’s eyes drifted open as well now, the blue orbs locking with Rainbow’s own magentas once more.
“Yeah...” Rainbow paused a moment, waiting for her own heartbeat to stop racing, before she pressed the issue. “So... Did I taste like Skittles?”
“Oh yeah, we’re still doing that,” Twilight panted.
“Don’t make me do this another time,” warned Rainbow, though if she were honest, she wouldn’t even mind if she had to.
“I definitely tasted something, I know that much. And whatever it was, it didn’t taste anything like Skittles either.”
“Oh... So, I guess I just don’t like them?”
“I guess so.”
“...”
“...”
“You said you did taste something though?”
“Yeah... and I don’t know what it was, but it was at least a million times better than Skittles.”
“It was, huh?”
“Yes. I’m sorry if it wasn’t the answer you were looking for. I... want to ask you though, did I taste like something too?”
Rainbow noticed the quite prominent blush that Twilight had developed, but if her cheeks weren’t betraying her, she was doing the exact same thing herself. Even being the total dork at romance that she was, Rainbow had a pretty good idea of where this was going. And frankly, she didn’t mind it in the slightest, and played along. “Well... I think I noticed something, but I can’t tell for sure. I know of a way to find out, but only if, you know, you want it too. It doesn’t work if I force it on you.”
Twilight laughed a bit at this, then without a single word, leaned in for another kiss. It was exactly the same as the first one, only much better, until Twilight decided to get creative and started caressing a wing she didn’t even realize had extended. Rainbow let out an involuntary moan before she suddenly broke the kiss, having forgotten the need to breathe the moment Twilight started fiddling with her wing.
“Twilight...” she panted, still trying to get more oxygen into her lungs.
“Oh no! I’m sorry, Rainbow. I didn’t mean to do that! I read in a book that pegasus wings are sensitive and... I guess I got a bit carried away.” Twilight didn’t dare to look Rainbow in the eye as she finished her sentence, instead cowering and finding the wooden floor to be of much more interest. Rainbow lifted up her chin to make the unicorn meet her gaze before she answered,
“Twilight, don’t be sorry. That was... that was quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever felt; so good that I forgot to breathe. Just... just warn me the next time, okay?”
“Oh... I was really worried there for a moment...”
“And you’re right. You do taste like something, but I don’t know what.”
“I do? Huh, makes me wonder if that rumor about the Apple family tasting like, well, apples is true or not.”
“To be honest I don’t really care about that right now,” said Rainbow, her voice practically dripping with lust. It was all she could do to not launch herself at the unicorn another time.
Thankfully, Twilight was a smart mare, and understood Rainbow’s intention. “Bedroom?”
“Heck yeah! Last one there is a–”
“A what?”
Twilight’s voice suddenly came from above. Rainbow turned her head towards the source of the sound, and found Twilight already standing there. She mentally facehoofed herself for thinking she could actually be faster than a teleporting unicorn in the library. “Nevermind...”
She flew up the stairs, picking up Twilight with something between a hug and a tackle, and dumped the two of them unceremoniously on the bed. Neither of them would ever forget that afternoon...