I remember the saying, dance with a woman and she's half way yours, dance well with a woman… Well, let's just say that Equestrian mares certainly fall in with human women in that respect. And I can totally dance as a pony. That was awesome! We stumble out from the club. She is kissing me as we stumble down the street. My ears rotate back as I hear the door lock click at the club. It must be late. But the drinks I've consumed really don't allow me to care. All I care about is the mare that is trying her best to walk in a straight line along with me. It won't take long to make it to the hotel, but it feels daunting. I wave to a passing taxi, and the pony pulling it ignores me. I take a deep breath, and discover something. Pegasi not only have better hearing than most ponies, but they have louder voices. Twilight rubs her ear after I holler at the rude taxi mare. She goes on her merry way as though I never existed.
"Not so loud, Nick," she whines for a moment. Then she places her hoof on the ground, "I think we can walk the rest of the way."
"C'mon Twilight, it's been a long day. I want to lay down."
"Well, I can take care of that," she says. Her horn glows and magenta magic envelopes both of us. I feel as though I'm being squeezed through a very hot toothpaste tube, and then we are in the hotel room. I feel hot. I look at myself, I'm smoking, and not in the good way. I yelp and run to the bathroom, jumping in the shower I turn the water on to full cold. In moments I'm soaked, but the smoldering embers are out. As I'm getting out of the shower, the door opens, and Twilight steps in, her eyes wide.
"I'm so sorry, I just thought it would be faster."
I smiled at her, "Twilight, I'm glad you wanted us back to the room faster, but I think it's not a good idea for us to do magic while we are drunk.
She looks down, "I know, I shouldn't have."
I reached out with a wing and brought her face up, "Twilight, I'm singed, that's it. Everything will be fine."
She sighed. "Let's get to bed."
I follow her out of the bathroom, she automatically heads to the bedroom. I smile as I head over to the couch. I curl up on it, not even bothering with a blanket. The couch at this hotel is actually very comfortable. I feel myself drifting off to sleep, only to wake up rather rudely, I feel pressure all over my body. I open my eyes and see I'm floating through the door into the bedroom. I yelp as I struggle in her magical grasp.
"Nice try buster, but I told you I'm sleeping on the couch. You take the bed."
What exactly can I do in this situation? I wanted her to be comfortable. I'm unceremoniously dropped onto the bed. I look back at her, she nods her head sharply and closes the door. Well, if I press the point, she can bring out her magic trump card once again, I'd rather not antagonize her tonight. I snuggle into the pillows. Perhaps this isn't half bad. In moments I'm in a deep sleep.
***
Why were the drapes left open? I'll admit, the windows face west, ocean view and all that, so the rising sun isn't blasting into the room, but the light level is way too high, way too early. I squeeze my eyes closed. Five more minutes, I think to myself as I shift around in the bed. Then I freeze. There is someone else in the bed with me! What the hell?
I open my eyes, well, I see the open curtains, and a bright, cheery day outside. I slowly turn over, I can feel the pressure of more than the comforter on my body, I see a lavender face as I finish turning over. Oh, I let out the breath I was holding. I move my head back to take in the alicorn princess asleep on the bed next to me. Her wing is draped over me, she's sleeping on top of the covers. Looking down the bed, I notice another set of covers were crumpled at the end of the bed. So the story forms in my head. She fell asleep on the couch and then, for some reason, she decided to come in here. She was covered but in the night she had kicked the covers off. I smiled at the adorkable form in front of me. Well, it's time for some payback. She thinks she can use magic on me to get her way, I'll show her.
I place my hoof on her cheek.
"Good morning Twilight."
Her eyes slowly flutter open, then get wide as she notices me. She rotates her head around and takes in her surroundings. Good, she wasn't aware of moving beds. This is perfect.
I kissed her, "You were amazing last night."
It took about three seconds for her to catch the implications of my words. Her eyes went wide and tears started to form. She bolts from the room, oh crap. I crawl out of the bed and steady myself on four legs. I silently thank God that I don't get hangovers, my head is clear. I trot out the door and see Twilight sitting on the couch. She's sobbing. I go and sit next to her, draping a wing over her, these things are good for more than just flying you know.
"I'm so sorry," she sobs at me. I open my mouth to respond, only to have a purple hoof placed over my lips. "I don't know what came over me last night, Nick. I took advantage of you being drunk. Just because I was drunk myself is no excuse." She hangs her head, "I'll understand if you never want to talk to me again."
I chuckle, earning me a sharp look from her. "Twilight, I'm sorry."
She cuts me off, "No, I'm the one who needs to be sorry."
I have to override her before this gets out of hand, "Twilight, nothing happened last night, I was just teasing you."
Her pupils shrink to pinpricks, uh oh, I made her mad.
"W-what?"
"I was perfectly comfortable on the couch when you used your magic to take me into the bed."
"It was the right thing to do, I've got to take care of my stallion."
I sigh, "You are fighting twenty eight years of social indoctrination on my part, Twilight. I was raised to take care of women, to be the provider, to be the protector. I'm a fish out of water here. And when you trumped me with your magic, I had to do something about it. Though I never expected you to react this way. I'm sorry Twilight."
She looked at me, the hurt evident on her face, "And what did you expect, Nick?"
"To get mad at me for taking advantage of you. But I thought you would realize I was messing with you pretty quickly."
"How did I end up in the bed with you? The last thing I remember was falling asleep on the couch, I found a spare blanket, I was nice and comfortable."
"I don't think you were that comfortable. That bead should be called a slice of heaven, it made the couch seem lumpy. I can see why you joined me. But I was asleep when you did, I woke up to you having your wing over me. It was a nice feeling, by the way," I said, watching her look away as she blushed.
I continued, "Can you forgive me Twilight?"
She leaned over to me and kissed me, yup, she's forgiven me. She pulls back from the kiss, then she punches me in the jaw, hard, with her hoof, "And that's for messing with me."
I pick myself up off the floor where I had fallen to. "Wow, what a right hook you've got there." I work my jaw around to make sure nothing is broken, "I know, I deserved that, Twilight."
She smiles like the sun at me, "Yes, you did. And I didn't turn you into a cactus, did I?"
I just grin at her as I head towards the bathroom, "Twilight, just so you know, I don't do that on the first date." I close the bathroom door and turn on the shower. In moments I'm inundated with hot water. My shower goes pretty quickly, and I've found the best way to get most of the water off is to shake. Yes, just like a dog, to get most of the water off. But make sure the shower curtain is closed when you do, otherwise you'll have a mess to clean up.
Shortly I'm back in the bedroom, struggling to preen my wings. Rainbow Dash impressed upon me very seriously how important it was to preen your wings. The natural oils produced in pegasi saliva is best for the wings. I'm lying on the bed, grumbling as I work on a particularly stubborn primary. It was itching like crazy because a new feather was growing underneath, but the old one wasn't ready to let go. I notice Twilight taking her turn in the shower. I focus on the work, even with a few months of practice, it usually takes more than an hour a day for me to preen. Rainbow said she does it in about fifteen to twenty minutes, but she has years of practice. I'm working on the tertiary feathers towards the front of my right wing as Twilight emerges from the bathroom, smelling of lilac. I inhale deeply, have I mentioned how strong pony senses are compared to my old human ones? Well, it's amazing.
I'm grumbling as I'm trying to finish up my right wing when I feel my left wing being gently extended. I turn my head and I see Twilight working on that wing. She stops for a second and looks at me, "Nick, we'll never get out of here if you are going to take forever, let me help." I nod and go back to finishing up my right wing. Shortly I'm done while Twilight has rapidly finished the primaries and was straightening a secondary feather. I lay my head down and feel what she's doing. It feels heavenly. I've had my wings done at the spa in Ponyville, but this time, it's a lot different. I notice something, this is a very intimate thing. I feel myself blush and I look over at Twilight, she's blushing as well. Soon she is done, she's had months more experience at this than I have, but it feels wonderful to have the feathers in place and aligned. As she finished I ruffled my feathers a bit and they all were perfect. My blush keeps growing.
"Twilight."
"Yes, Nick."
"That's not very common for pegasi to preen other pegasi is it?"
Her face gets even more red, "Usually parents preen their children, until they can do it themselves. But otherwise, it's mainly done by herdmates, specifically lovers, usually."
I sigh quietly, "Twilight. Why me?"
She looks up sharply, "Huh?"
"I can see you feel for me like I feel for you, I know why I've fallen head over heels for you. But that doesn't help me understand, you remember when I said I've been bitten?"
She nods.
"Well, Twilight, what I was saying is I was bitten by the love bug, it's a human expression. I can see you've been bitten as well, but I need to know, how have you fallen for me?"
I only thought her face was red before, now it's really red. I don't think it's possible for a pony to blush more thoroughly than Twilight is doing so right now. Her mouth opens, and closes. She tries to talk a second time, same results. Her face scrunches in thought. How adorable! After several seconds of me not so patiently waiting, she finally speaks, "Well, Nick. I've never really been in love before. So I really don't understand it. I've read about mating habits of ponies. I've read quite a few romance novels. I've read as much as I can get my hooves on about this. But nothing prepared me for this. You are different. You are smart, you connect with me in ways that no pony has ever before. And you fill a void that I never knew I had before."
"But why me? There are plenty of eligible bachelors in Ponyville, why did you find you had those feelings for me?"
She sighed, "I wish I knew. But from the moment I met you, a little voice said that I wanted you around me. That's why I was so hurt when you decided you wanted your own place away from me."
I open my mouth to explain, only to receive a lavender hoof gently touching my lips to keep my quiet.
"I know why now. Rainbow Dash explained it to me. Your culture, your previous life, it's ingrained upon you to be independent, to take care of yourself and those around you. You are unused to being taken care of. But I find I want to take care of you. I want to make your life as fulfilling as your very existence does for me. Plus," she smiles coquettishly at me, "you aren't exactly hard on the eyes there, Nick." Eliciting a blush from me.
I think about her words. Everything Luna had told me had really fallen to the background. I have genuinely fallen for this mare. Everything she had said to me, I found a desire to make her happy in my heart. I've had one night stands, I've had girlfriends for a short time while shore side. But what I feel for her transcends everything else. I want Twilight to be happy. I reach my head forward to kiss her, she meets me eagerly. As we kiss I start to feel a tightness in my wings, I break away and look at them, they are stiff as a board and tilted slightly forward, so, a pegasi does express emotion with their wings. I glance over at Twilight, and find her wings in the same predicament as mine. I giggle. I never giggle, but it fits how I feel.
Twilight giggles as well, "Well, I can see how you feel, and you can see how I feel. What do you want to do about it?"
Uhhh, was she just proposing something to me? I'm caught completely unsure of what to do. I think about it for a second. "Twilight, I would love to do anything you want to do. But most of all, I want to let this develop naturally. Why don't we head to the beach and have fun in the water today?"
For a moment she looks disappointed, then she brightens. "You know what? That sounds wonderful. Let's go have some fun." She moves forward and kisses me. As her lips meet mine everything else fades from my senses, it's just her and me. So, this is love. I wish I had found it much sooner in my life. But something tells me I had to go through what I've just gone through to be able to truly understand this feeling.